and so it begins...

so, i just woke up at 6:30 and am prepping to leave the house before 7 am for the first day in a long long line of days where this'll be my life... snoogens...

LAST DAY

ah, my last day of freedom. don't get me wrong, the official first of of school doesn't happen till the first week in september but i start orientation on monday and my weekend is booked moving my lovely soon-to-be-sister-in-law. did you get my sarcasm on the lovely part? no? alright, whatever. i actually don't mind spending the weekend doing heavy lifting and being bossed around by my pseudo-sister, but she lives in baltimore and man, it smells kinda funky up there. at least she can't hassle me about never being mentioned in my blog anymore...

in any case, for what it's worth, this is my final free weekday of the summer. today i'm focusing on working out a good cd situation for my upcoming commute. i got two albums this morning: miles davis's the birth of the cool, and frampton comes alive! by peter frampton. i was looking for purchases that like, you couldn't argue with, and i think i succeeded. plus, birth of the cool falls into the "acceptable for playing in class" category which makes it double-clutch. frampton is probably a little out there for my second graders, but i think it'll soften to blow of my ass-long commute. currently i'm working on the sweet first day of school mix. i'm having some issues though... hmmmm......

later on i'm going on a lengthy bike ride which will start out with visiting caroline at work for lunch. from there: who knows. i do know it's probably one of my last chances this season to just take off on the bike and not come back for a couple of hours. ah, fleeting freedom.

so batista is shedding for the second time this summer which is incredible because he's never shed this frequently before: his last shed was like two months ago. it's a good sign, it means he's growing fast. here is a photo of his current shed, i know last time i kinda ripped y'all off:


now there's one handsome lizard

outside of my sitting in front of batista's tank staring at and contemplating the process of reptilian shedding yesterday i also created my first ever facebook album just because i found some embarassing photos of my cousins and i at a younger age, and i mean, damn, isn't that what facebook is all about? in any case, it's an addictive activity and i soon found myself obsessivly scanning in prom photos from high school and posting them. urge to post fading... fading... RISING... gone...

finally, yesterday was the 30 year anniversary of elvis's death. not a lot of people how big an elvis fan i am, but yea, the elvis 30 #1 hits album got me through my student teaching. i busted it out yesterday and got all nostalgic. all hail the king.


awesome

mega zombie coffee

so, possibly one of my biggest problems this summer was my inability to fully relax. through most of the summer i scrambled to make sure i was making the most of my time and eliminated activities that could be deemed a waste of time. so, in honor of my last week of summer vacation, i'm indulging myself. yesterday, for instance, i spent all morning listening to white zombie, playing the original mega man, and drinking cup after cup of coffee (it makes you better at mega man... really....). my original goal was to beat the game in the time it takes to listen to astro creep 2000, but, as i learned, the cd clocks in at only 40 minutes and that is just not enough time. ultimately i get to enjoy the original game soundtrack (so classic) before becoming stuck at that orange cyclops thing on the last stage and calling it quits. overall, this experience helped me realize how truly wicked it would be to have sons named mega man and zombie. here is a graphic commemorating my morning of robots and zombies:


somebody call capcom, mega man battles white zombie at starbucks

afterwards i biked down to georgetown and kayaked on the potomac which probably marks the last of my great kayak trips for the summer. going out in style however, i saw a family of ducks, an incredible heron, and was buzzed by one of the lowest flying helicopters i've never witnessed (still my favorite thing about dc: low flying helicopters). also i brought out a falafel from quik pita. mmmm quik pita falafel.

to top off the day, caroline and i finally beat god of war which we started played earlier in the summer. great game, if you're still holding onto your ps2 and haven't played this game, get it! currently i'm going around and playing classic games for the ps2 and gamecube to dely my purchase of a next generation system. i mean, god of war was only 20 bucks! next on my list is resident evil 4, not that i've played any of the other resident evil games, but recently i've noticed that it keeps topping off lists of must play games for the gamecube and ps2...


farewell, kratos

biking/peaches

so, my trip to philly was full of surprizes, most of them happening during my transit. on the way back flash flooding in nyc delayed my train an hour, THEN a bomb/terrorist/spooky package alert shut down the dupont, and surrounding, metro stations, so i had to walk ten blocks to catch my bus. the biggest surprize of the visit though is that somehow i managed to schedule my wedding on the the weekend of the cali bar exam. alex absent from the wedding? up till now, only grim fiction...

when i got back, caroline and i saw the simpsons movie. it was alright, about half way through i was like "damn i'm definitely going to see this movie in the theaters again!" but by the end i had changed to "eh, netflix." i understand why they took the movie outside of springfield and the established simpsons universe, but i just wish some of the secondary characters had gotten a little more play. i mean, i watch the simpsons to see moe, krusty, monty burns, principal skinner and the rest just as much as i watch it to see homer, marge, lisa, bart, and maggie. sure, many of these characters got their one liners but somehow i felt a little short-changed by their general absence from speaking roles. i also would have loved to have seen some references aimed specifically at long time viewers and diehard fans, like a visit from the ghost of bleeding gums murphy. at the end of the day, however, the twins reference alone justified the price of MY ticket. it was overall, a hilarious movie.


"only their mother and tell them apart"... hilarious

on friday i went on a crazy bike ride. i had been brainstorming alternate routes for my impending morning commute because my school just so happens to lie smack dab in the middle of a notorious traffic corridor in the dc metro area. sometime i came up with the idea "hey, why not bike it?" of course, most people would probably answer, "well, because it's fifteen miles and are you really gonna bike fifteen miles at 7 am AND THEN teach a full day of school?" i agree, it's not really a feasable commuting option, but i wanted to do it once, just to see what it was like. in any case, i went out with no map and didn't stop once to ask directions. NO SLEEP TILL OAKTON! was my motto. it ended up taking me two and a half hours, but i probably could have shaven off at least 45 minutes if not for getting lost and taking an overall, crazy route in a failed attempt to find a short cut. here is a map with my route:


i've also put a pink star where my old school is (notice the drastic change in commute) and a green star where caroline works.

on saturday caroline and i went out to homestead farm. to do some blackberry picking. we used to only go out to homestead farm once a year for apple picking and the corn maze but since we got our own wheels, caroline has gradually been increasing the frequency of our visits. when i visited caroline at work today i noticed that she had the harvest schedule posted in her cubicle. yes, the lady is obsessed. peaches are also currently in season so we got a ton of those as well which i have benifited from in pie form. of course, i really only get the spillover after pies have been distributed around pbs. prioritization of pbs peach pies? "preposterous," i pronounce! (sorry, just gearing up for life in second grade)

so, today starts my final week of freedom. i'll be closing out this blog at the end of next to avoid students/parents googling me and discovering my secret identity. hopefully i will include three or four more posts chronicaling the build up to next school year. for those of you who are interested (yes, i'm assuming people are reading and taking interest...) i'm keeping up the blogging in e-mail form because my first few months of teaching will definitely produce some totally hysterical stories. if you'd like to be IN THE LOOP, shoot me an e-mail, goehrke@gmail.com.

chocolate rain

so today i'm visiting alex on account of his annual, but brief, pilgrimage to his motherland. i can't remember the last time i took the train anywhere but i'm feeling nostalgic about my days of bus and train trips between dc, ny, and philly already. before i go i'd like to give you the gift of tay zonday and his amazing song, chocolate rain.

**I move away from the blog to breathe in

enjoy...

dance, magic, dance

so, last night we went and saw the labyrinth on the BIG SCREEN at the landmark e street cinema which was my first time ever going to the theater. it was pretty cool, although the experience was enhanced by the entertainment of sitting between nate and caroline, who both apparently know the entire movie by heart and had a difficult time stifling themselves throughout. also, we drank foster's oil cans during the movie, those are some damn big beers! of course in recent days i've found it impossible for me to view the film without imagining, what would have happened if joe pops was cast as the goblin king instead of david bowie?

in other weekend news, caroline and i went out to the bethesda second story books (used book store), which is currently going out of business. i highly suggest taking advantage of their 65% off sale going on until the 16. i got a least 25 children's books for like 8 bucks, my most notable aquisitions being several choose your own adventure books. i've been exploring star challenge: the exploding suns which is turning out to be a lot more trippy than i ever could have imagined. my first time through i teamed up with an evil alien hive mind to navigate an avatar made up of stellar energy into an alternate dimension of light and darkness. of course, i died over there and later discovered that you're supposed to kill the evil alien hive mind, not cooperate with them, i guess hence the evil part. i still have yet to achieve the rank of "space ace" or battle the huge blue space eel on the cover:

phew

so, yea, i'm a bum, and i wimped out of blogging for a while, but i'm figuring that i'll give it one last shot before the summer is over and i close up the blog to avoid my kids' parents coming up to me and being like "uh, i saw a picture of you slobbering on a big piece of ham and holding a beer on your blog, is this what you're teaching the children?" you know, something like that.

in any case, i'd like to update you with some notable things i've done since my last post:

we threw caroline's hawaiian themed birthday party which featured a double barreled diet coke/mentos volcano, decorated while drinking beers directly before explosion. and yes, there was fire, nothing but the best for my caroline.



i completed my sullivan's reunion tour which was a week where i went back to the old art counter and peddled pencils and paper all day. thankfully the spirit of nostalga negated the day to day monotony that can be sullivan's during the summer (our slowest time of the year).

i secretly learned sweet caroline for my truimphant return to the world of karoke (for pauly's birthday), only to be cock blocked by the dj who played it for someone else. dammit.

caroline's maid of honor and bf stayed with us and they acted mildly amused by my propensity for acting like a cheesy tour guide with out of towners. "did you know that fort reno is the highest geographical spot in all of dc?" we also played horsehoes and drank champagne.

i finally finished reading one hundred years of solitude!! it sufficiently satisfied my need for non-teaching books, now i'm onto teacher man by frank mccourt.

girl talk changed my life.

caroline and i celebrated our -1 anniversary, yes, we're less than one year away. we celebrated by going to a caterer's tasting. mmmm free food in name of wedding, sweet.

i dragged a bunch of the "the boys" up to our wonderful hometown of armonk where we hung out with a bunch of my relatives and watched planet earth on my father's unusually large hd tv. it was good times, a little metrosexual, but good times.

we went to a vegan bastille day party.

i rearranged my living room and set up some speakers connected to my computer down the hall. huzzah for radio shack.

in the garden, our peppers prospered while our cucumber, zuccini, and squash were defeated by a leaf fungus. i generally force visitors to taste a sampling of different flavored leaves from the garden because i find the strong taste of certain leafy plants amazing. my favorites this year have been the citrus flavored geranium and the, now deceased, arugala. rip tiny arugalas, you were so oddly irresistable. also, we got a fig tree.

i talked endlessly about the whole chris benoit thing. what was the deal with that?

caroline and i went on week vaca, three days in kiawah island, south carolina with the in-laws, three days in miami for george and carly's wedding, and two days in mertyl beach for the goehrke family reunion. photographic documentation of our week of beaches can be found here

and of course, i've thought a lot about my the now, rapidly approaching, FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL. wow, it's really actually hard to imagine. i have already seen my classroom and i've been taking a course on reading education at the school, but since i don't have keys yet, i'm forced to shove my face against the glass and drool in anticipation every time i pass it. it has a lot of chalk board space, i'm going to need a lot of colored chalk...

so, what else is in store for the rest of my lazy-ass summer? well, alex kargher, of kargher chocolate fame, is coming to the east coast, and aside from a visit i'm planning on biking biking, kayaking kayaking, repeat repeat.
who's up for a labor day cook-out?

when the two hits the six

so this weekend it was my pleasure to see not one, but two live music acts, a pleasure indeed because i so rarely get out to do that nowadays. on friday night i saw DivideD HeaveN at the modern times coffee house. you know they're cool because i don't throw caps in my blog for just anyone! then, on sunday i got to see the deftones at the 9:30 which was awesome and weird because i haven't been to the 9:30 club in such a long time, especially for a sold out show. of course, this begs the comparison:



alright, let's get down to it:

• the deftones played to a bunch of metalheads with elevated levels of alcohol in their viens, DivideD HeaveN played to a bunch 20 somethings with elevated levels caffiene pumping through their viens.
  
• a cup of bud light cost 5 bucks at the 9:30 club, you could get a comparitily massive cup of coffee at modern times for about half that.
  
• berman and murullo both played acoustic for the first time in front of an audience, for the first time i've seen, the deftones played with an army on synths on stage.
  
• the deftones played with an awful electronica/metal trio, DivideD HeaveN played with a bunch of old bluegrass guys with a washtub bass.
  
• chino had a mini-podium on stage to sing on, berman and murullo frequently looked awkward perched on stools.
  
• DivideD HeaveN covered bad religion and tom petty, the deftones flawlessly worked in 1975 gary wright classic, dream weaver into their set.
  
• chino's pants were classically way too big, meaning the audience frequently got to see his tidy whity clad butt, berman's pants, well, i have no idea how he squeezes in and out of those things
  
• deftones bassist chi cheng had 8 basses ready in waiting offstage and made a total of 9 bass changes over the course of the show, murullo had to stop and thank girlfriend for lending him an acoustic guitar
  
• berman spoke briefly about politics, love, and friendship between songs, on the few occations chino spoke between songs, it normally had something to do with booze or the inadequate level of crowd frenzy.
  
• after the DivideD HeaveN show, everyone strolled outside and loitered in the parking lot, on one of the best summer nights yet, after the deftones show, it took 20 minutes to shuffle out, only to be greeted with rain showers, and consequentially, the odor of wet metalhead.
  

all joking aside, berman/murullo acoustic was good and they had a pretty good audience. the deftones, well, i never would have thought that they could sell out two nights in a row (a sunday and a monday to boot) at the 9:30 in 2007. i guess i was worried they wouldn't still have it, but i was wrong. they pretty much played everything you'd want them to play. to my chagrin, they didn't play knife party, but they did close with 7 words, which is good enough for me.

in addition we hit up glover park day on saturday. i bought some children's books for mere quarters, including most notably follow the drinking gourd, and caroline got a halloween candle holder, because, you know she loves that stuff. aside from that, we guessed how many nuts, screws, and bolts were in a large tub, won a free week membership at the local gym (gime? what's a gime?), viewed a little league game, ate bratwurst, and watched berman totally get his ass kicked by martha in balloon inflation contest, here's the pictorial evidence:


yea, those ladies in the background are checking out his buns

officially employed

so i officially have a job for next year, pending a whole slew of bureaucratic nonsense regarding lincensure etc. i'll be teaching 2nd grade at this school which is exciting because i really wanted to teach 2nd grade seeing as i already have a lot of experience with that grade level. plus i just dodge the standardized testing bullet seeing as virginia only starts such sillyness in 3rd. it's a beautiful school, the building must be 50+ years old but still in good condition, and the staff i've met are friendly. plus one of my classmates from g dubs has also been hired there so we're like, taking over the school in the name of george washington. sweet. of course, the one downside is the intense commute which should take somewhere between 30-45 minutes, but i'll survive.

in other news, bastista has begun to shed away his tail skin. this is a momentous occation because he has shed his head and body twice now without shedding his tail (little known fact, many lizards don't shed all at once like a snake). we were a little worried that his tail growth was stunted and that batista would develop a tail complex, but then again, he never sees other uromastyxes, so for all he knows, he's the most well hung lizard around. in any case, it's been apparent for the last week or so that he was going to shed his tail and i've been anxiously awaiting this moment so i could post some wicked shedding pictures here, but the whole process was lack luster this time, so here are some pictures of batista shedding from a couple of months ago, we can just pretend:





the totally gross part about all this is that he instinctually eats his skin after he sheds it. in the wild this would prevent him from leaving behind any clues that say "hey, this way to a tasty morsel" to predators, but in captivity there's just an "oh my God, he's eating his own skin!" factor.

in addition, i'd like to post this yahoo news article just because i think it's hilarious. oh, are you wondering about that rhino picture up there? i dunno, i just thought it was cool.

memorial day

i'd have to say my memorial day weekend officially started when i got in my car to pick caroline up from the metro friday afternoon. it was one of those moments when you start up the car and the radio kicks in just as a kick ass stong is starting, and the kick ass song that started out memorial day: banditos, by the refreshments, a song i don't think i've heard since LAST summer. what's more exciting is that this was the beginning of dc101's top 500 "modern rock" songs memorial day countdown and damn, i'm a total sucker for big radio countdowns. in any case, i guess the songs were all voted upon through the website for the last two weeks, so you know it's accurate. i think anyone could guess what number one was because it was the perrenial topper of any "modern rock" list, yes, the trophy went to smells like teen spirit. actually, nirvana made it to the top 5 not once, but twice! totally wack, especially since neither green day nor g&r made it to the top 10 once, i never liked come as you are much anyways. of course, you have to wonder about the criterion for qualifying for the countdown, i mean, bob marley vs. finger eleven? what type of comparison is that? the cranberries vs. crazy town, U2 vs. the hives. sheesh. in any case the fun is all over now, at least until veteran's day i'm sure. anyone crazy like me can check out dc101's definition of awesome "modern rock" can go here. i'm just glad the toadies made it to the top 50.

of course, i actually spent very little time listening to the radio this weekend, dispite how much i managaed to rant about it. caroline and i hiked around the potomac, hung out on a sail boat, and consumed half a dozen crabs as well! we also finally got a chance to see pirates of the carribean 3. we saw it at the uptown and i highly suggest viewing it there. it was preceded by the transformers preview which was also incredible to see on that screen. perhaps the most exciting part about the transformers preview is that i heard the old school transforming sound from the cartoon which is like totally cluch for the success of the movie. as for pirates, i mean, they shot a zombie monkey out of a cannon, how could i diss on a movie like that? i was pretty impressed with the way the movie opted for the bittersweet ending to the love story as opposed to the uber-happy disney ending, as could have been expected, y'know, disney produced the movie. i suggest it, i mean, if you enjoyed the other two that is...

in any case, i'll leave you with a memorial day mix that caroline put together. i thought it was pretty sweet, except, of course, for paul simon, ew.

long live rock-the who
everybody wants some-van halen
rock n' roll aint noise pollution-AC/DC
rock and roll band-boston
its a long way to the top-AC/DC
ride it, my pony-genuwine
come monday-jimmy buffet
nobody told me-john lennon
we're not gonna take it-twisted sister
when the deal goes down-bob dylan
aqualung-jethro tull
sweet judy blue eyes-crosby stills nash young
highway song-blackfoot
jet airliner-steve miller band
slip sliding away-paul simon

the date

so, it's closing in on the year anniversary of when i proposed to caroline, and luckily, she accepted. back on that wonderful august day last year i thought i had it all planned out: a two year engagement! i figured this would be a decent delay of the inevitable reality that is the insanity of actually planning a wedding. but my peace has come to an end, yes, this is the beginning of the end of our engagement: we've set a date. to occur on the 19th day of july 2008, caroline and i finally will be married, and guess where it's all going down! MFing TENLEYTOWN. how freakin' sweet is that? maybe just to me. we are doing the actual ceremony in an episcopalian church in tenley then doing the reception at a mansion currently operated by the adubon society called woodend. heh, wood - end - get it? fun fact: the guy who designed the mansion also designed the jefferson memorial. and i'm sorry, you're bound to hear me repeat that fact ad nauseum until about a year after the wedding.

at least this gives me an excuse to create a corny countdown clock:

photographic evidence

so i sifted through the 200 pictures from caroline, my sister, and my mother's cameras and narrowed them down to four "blog worthy" snapshots. i did, however, post some additional ones on my myspace, creating my first ever myspace picture album... weird... let's go to the photos:


on the mall, take note of the baby blue hood


the family and i, love posing with that faux diploma


george and martha visiting graduation


wooooo

so yea, i've never done the whole writing something on your mortar board before, so i figured with what's probably my last chance, i'd represent ric flair.

in other news i read to the 2nd graders i student taught with yesterday. we started a chapter book called toad rage. a quote from a review on the back of the book reads "it's like the odyssey, but with toads." i'm not sure about that but it certainly was tongue in cheek for second graders. i also hung around and helped them find information for these research papers they're doing about endangered animals. have you ever looked at a close up picture of a california condor? intense.

reading

so, one of the beauties of my time off during the summer is that i actually get to read for fun again. i had intended to get down to some reading over winter break, and even though i did get a chance to read a pretty entertaining unpublished manuscript written by an uncle, i didn't feel like i had really fufilled my literary goals. it was over the winter that my father recommended one hundred years of solitude to me and it's been since then that i've been running around declaring my intentions of reading "one million years of solitude" or "ten thousand years of solitude" or some other similar iteration to anyone who inquired about my summer plans. this book was preempted in my summer reading queue, however, by another, the water is wide which is a memoir of a young twenty-something in the 70's, Pat Conroy, who teaches a year on a small island off the coast south carolina whose population of poor black folk, time has seemingly forgot. it's one of those, teacher goes in and does good for under privledged kids stories, but i have to say, it's better than most. if you're into memoirs or literature about teaching, i'd totally recommend it. it preempted solitude because i received a signed copy of it from my future mother-in-law and hey, signed books get priority in reading for me. does that make sense?
the real point here is that yea, last week i finally got around to starting one hundred years of solitude and i've really been enjoying it! not only because it's a great book (although i was initially weary - this is first time i've ever read a book that's part of oprah's book club) but it's just nice to relearn the joy of reading. i haven't read a book that's not about education in so long, i almost forgot what it's like! oddly enough, though, most of the books in my summer reading queue are about education, at the top of the list are the montessori method (because i have a masters in education and i was never required to read it, wtf) and growing minds on becoming a teacher (because it's demanding a reread from me, and kohl is one of my personal heroes). the top non-education book is the talisman, by stephen king and petter straub, recommended to me by alex kargher like three years ago but i've been hesitant of because of the massive time commitment a 6,000+ page book requires. i recently had the opportunity to buy it for a buck fifty though, so it looks like i'll be soon taking the dive.

also, i graduated

so, there was an original series star trek marathon on today and i just dragged myself away from what could have been the sum total of my activity for the day. i have to say, i got to catch a pretty sweet episode. the crew of the enterprise are on a mission to investigate a lost colony in deep space. once there, they find that there's only one survivor, a brilliant scientist. of course, he's gone mad and is trying to create a perfect society of androids to live in a maze-like network of underground tunnels! in any case, kirk saves the day by playing mind games with the androids, including a scene where a passionate kiss from him drives a female android crazy! bad things always happen when adroids experience love.

before my trek indulgence for the day i got caught up playing civilization III, a game that took up momentus amounts of my time like last summer. it was fun to revisit, but it also lead to me getting bullied by the freakin' iroquois at ten in the morning...


i ended up paying him off, he chastised me for my "craven acts."

but i suppose the real story here is that i graduated this weekend. i twin ceremonies on saturday and sunday morning. saturday was a "recognition ceremony" where i got to do the ol' name called, walk across stage, shake hands with strangers and smile with just my school of 500 graduate students. sunday was the actual graduation which took place on the national mall and involved all 5,000 people graduating from GW this year. it was a pretty impressive scene, although, it took 45 minutes just to get us all seated. the speeches were good and wolf blitzer got an honorary degree. at one point two people dressed like george and martha washington sauntered onto the stage and gave us their blessing. apparently this happens every year... pictures are to come...

my chicken little story

so, the aforementioned rat that lives in my walls/ceiling has taken it's ruckus to a new level. as you can read in my previous post, my primary worry was that the ceiling tiles may not hold up under the weight of what seems to be a sizable rodent. today, my worst fears came true when i heard a large crash and found one of my ceiling tiles on the floor in the living room. i'm sorry, rat, this means war. among the crimes this menace is guilty of:


busting our trippy lighting structure


attempted assassination of our resident tiki guy and squirrel

of course, this drove me to explore above the ceiling tiles. to my disappointment, i didn't catch of glimpse of a rat while i was up there, but then again, i have no idea what i would have done if i had. i took some pictures, of course, and put together this little montage. for anyone who's ever been in our apartment, have you ever wondered what's above those tiles? well, check out what one of our walls would look like WITHOUT THE CEILING TILES!!!

zack attack

so, as caroline's leaving the apartment this morning, she turns to me and says "dude, the clue episode of saved by the bell is on, start taping it." so, i fired up the vcr, thinking i would watch only a few minutes and save the rest to watch with caroline later, but who was i kidding? in this episode, lisa turtle has won a murder mystery themed weekend vacation in an old mansion and has taken the gang along. the game turns into a real life mystery and of course, there's only one man who can solve it, that's right, good old zack morris.
now, you didn't think there would only be one episode of saved by the bell on every morning at 8, did you? no, there's definitely a full hour. i didn't really intend on watching the second one until i heard two words "zack attack." oh yea, mockumentary/fantasy episode about the gang forming the cheesiest freaking pop group ever. for those of you who need a memory jog on the zack attack and their hit song "friends forever", let's go to the video:



i highly suggest those of you with netflix throw these on your queue, i've done the research, these episodes are on the fourth disc of the seasons 3&4 collection. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO ADD IT, SO JUST DO IT!

i also got practical things accomplished today, including but not limited to getting my bike tuned up. now that thing can stop on a dime. totally sweet. i found out, however, that my favorite bike mechanic/hardware store (the one in dupont by second story books) is moving soon because the building is to be renovated. it seems like this is happening all over dc and it freaks me out when places i love are replaced with big snazzy condo buildings. but i digress. i also unlocked dr. mario in super smash brothers melee, which means another summer goal gets checked off the list.

mother's day

so, as many of you know, AU has a tradition of holding commencement ceremonies on mother's day. the common belief is that this tradition was started by ben ladner himself (supposedly someone once wrote him a sweet speech linking mother's day and graduation and he insisted they be forever joined just so he could sound good and endear himself to mothers in the audience year after year). the tradition is still going strong, even though we've long ago said good riddance to the old bastard.
so, in any case, caroline and i could not resist the call of FREE FOOD and au seemed like the prime place to find it today. seeing as we never moved more than a mile away, it was a short trip to crash graduation. but hey, after all the tuition, i deserve to get a free chicken salad sandwich and mini-quiche every now and then. we actually randomly showed up right on time for the SOC reception. for those of you out of the loop, both caroline and i happen to be graduates of SOC. it was fun visiting AU (i actually don't remember the last time i was in the mary graydon center) but also weird because i expect to see a lot of people i know and that doesn't happen as much anymore. all the same, it's funny to overhear people bitch about the same old things we used to when we were there.
campus is pretty much the same, except the market place has a panini place (wtf is a panini anyways?) and there's a huge carved wooden eagle on the quad, in front of the library. i didn't have a camera, but it is crazy and ostentatious and i'll post a picture soon...

thursday

so today concluded my trilogy of school interviews this week with one out in vienna. it was surprizingly an ok commute and a really pretty school. i felt saturated by the spirit of spring this morning, so i broke out the old robin egg blue blazer and planned the rest of the outfit accordingly. check it out, i think the thumbs up makes the outfit:



who wouldn't hire this guy

special thanks to richie, one of the perks of him staying with us is the ability to raid his tie collection.

afterwards i congratulated myself by fufilling my first summer goal: circumnavigating Roosevelt Island by kayak. my next kayaking goal: Snake Island. sounds a lot more exciting, ne? actually, Roosevelt Island is plenty exciting, it was a beautiful loop and i got to meet a totally awesome baby red eared slider turtle just chillen on a rock.

finally, seriously, i vow not to go off on tangents about the wwe or lost, but holy bananas, batman, last night's episode of LOST was awesome. definitely the best in a while. really, i feel like even though they created a lot more questions, i was satiated with what they revealed about the dharma initiative. totally sweet.

pests

so, the single oldest denizen of our graden has gone the way of the buffalo. our beloved kale plant, the last of an original four kale plants, had to be executed (by uprooting) because of a wicked aphid infestation. the plant was one year old. it was just too much... here are some pictures.



yea, every one of those little bumps is an aphid



just so we are straight on this, we're talking about a LARGE plant covered in aphids



the intensity that is my arm covered in aphids

some other plants in the lettuce patch have been infected, but we believe to have spotted aphid parasites and are considering buying some ladybugs... but then what happens when we have a ladybug infestation...

in, non-aphid news, i interviewed at two schools today and have another interview tomorrow morning... i actually wore two different ties today... madness...

alright, it's about time

phew, so, that final stretch between spring break and the end of grad school was INTENSE. but i'm done now, and i'm dedicated to chronicling my summer RIGHT HERE on blogger, starting TODAY!

so, with school out, the cinco de mayo party cleaned (thanks again to everyone who attended, great party!), and wedding plans FINALLY coming together, there's still one thing i'm scared about. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT NOISE IN MY CEILING?

as many of you may know, i have a fake ceiling, y'know like the type you had in grade school with the square tiles. so yea, its not really a big hassle but there's something alive up there, and it's like having a party nightly. right now my best guess is that it's a rat. this rat spends a lot of time around and above our bathroom and is SUPER NOISY, especially at around 10 pm. i've thought about giving it a name, but caroline is ready to go to war, and i don't want to have too much sympathy for the enemy. i've also contemplated moving one of the ceiling tiles and going after it. the real danger is that one of my ceiling tiles is perpetually soggy because there's a leak somewhere above. i'm not sure it could hold the wait of a rat and it would suck to be covered in moist ceiling tile with a rat at your feet.

here is an artist's rendering of what we believe this rat to look like:



have a nice day...

big head, tiny arms

saw "meet the robinsons" today. it was alright, if you're inclined to watch kids' movies. it was in just plain 3-D which was a step down from the 4-D shows we'd recently seen at busch gardens. watching 3-D for a whole movie just makes my head hurt though... it's like not natural and a tiring experience to endure. they threw in a classic chip and dale cartoon in 3-D which was almost more entertaining than the feature itself. there should have been more of t-rex vs. cycloptic octopus and less boo hoo i'm an orphan stuff. plus they make you pay extra just to get the glasses. lame.

vaca

sometime while i was at williamsburg i realized that the last time i had been there must have been some eight years ago when we went there on a BAND FIELD TRIP in high school. first, i remembered those good times eight years ago then i though, holy crap, eight years ago, that's a long f-ing time ago. year 25 makes me feel old yet again...
for those of you who were with me eight years ago and are keeping count, i did, in fact, ride on the aplengiest, loch ness monster, big bag wolf, AND apollo's chariot at busch gardens and not a single time did any park employee threaten to kick us out for flipping the bird at a coaster camera. not that we engaged in such infantile shenanigans last time anyways....
we embarked on a number of 4-D adventures while at the park as well. confused about what that fourth D stands for? it stands for "Dude, check that out, four dimensions!"

let's go to the photos:

i'll never be satisfied with an amusement park without an aviary ever again


ah, beer, turkey leg, noon


this one is for our mothers

of course, we also spent a day and did the colonial/shopping thing. we met a saddle maker and ate spoonbread. mmmm, spoonbread.

spring break

well, seeing as i'm on spring break right now, we're getting out of town. headed toward williamsburg to do the busch gardens/colonial thing. fear not, i will be back on thursday hopefully with some good stories.

yesterday after posting, caroline and i went to the garden store and started our spring planting. you'd think that mother nature would turn a kind eye to me after spending a day of gardening, but unfortunately she has wraught horrible vengence upon me in the form of rediculous allergies. horrible.

here is a picture of the garden before we did any planting, notice the tiny multicolored easter eggs scattered around, caroline loves to decorate:



and, in my final post about wrestlemania, here is a video of a totally insane move jeff hardy did to edge that you have to see to believe. we all thought they were crippled afterward but they did both show up in action the very next night on RAW:

suddenly, seymour

so, the morning after wrestlemania you'd think it'd be nice to sleep in to a sensible time like 10 or 11. unfortunately, this morning i awoke bright and early at 8 and could not, for the life of me, fall back asleep. so this is how i ended up blaring the little shop of horrors soundtrack, my cd of the moment, at 8:30 am. this lead me to a youtube search and i found this insane alternate ending to the movie. audrey ii ends up eating seymour and actually taking over the world. its crazy because it looks like it was pretty expensive just to discard. in any case, if you are a fan of the movie, you HAVE TO WATCH IT! its twenty minutes, all b&w, and pure awesomeness. Here it is on youtube. I also found a pretty interesting article about it.

now, to verify my wrestlemania predictions:
well, i was wrong with mvp vs benoit and ashley vs. melina. kennedy ended up winning the money in the bank match and the ecw originals beat the "new breed" with really very little blood at all. kane didn't use that crazy hood think to draw blood, but he did deliver quite a low blow to kali with the chain.
i was a little more upset that i thought i would be when batista lost the belt. now the debate on whether or not we should strip our lizard batista of his toy belt. i mean, if batista looses the belt then batista should loose his belt too, right? caroline just doesn't have it in her to disappoint the little guy... not that i think he has any idea about what's going on anyways...

kite festival etc.

so yesterday, caroline and i went to the kite festival on the mall. for the last three years i've wanted to go but instead was cooped up in sullivan's selling kites to people who actually were going. but now that my weekends have been liberated i was free to go. it was fun but i've never flown a kite in such a stressful environment, first off the wind was inconsistant and if your kite took a nose dive, it's likely to take out a picnicing family. secondly, every passing ten year old who had caught an upward draft felt it was their job to give you advice on how to fly a kite. "hey kid, i suppose you're too young to understand the word immasculation." my kite eventually became tangled with a cinderella kite and i had to spend some time making sure this young girl wouldn't remember this day as the kite festival where some dirty long haired guy destroyed her kite. our camera died early on, but here's a taste of the scene:





the pictures don't really do the festival justice - if you've never been i highly suggest you go next year.

later on we also went to martha's b-day party at the big hunt. we pregamed in adam's morgan. i had an awkward moment at asylum when i realized that i recognized the bartender from a miserable fifteen minutes i spent waiting for caroline in the fitting room at filene's basement last week. in any case, she made it pretty apparent that she'd bite off my head if the words "filene's basement" came out of my mouth. i mean, but come on, isn't that a crazy coincidence?


so tonight is WRESTLEMANIA, even though i don't intend on boring everyone with my wrestling opinions, wrestlemania is an exception, here are some predictions:

kane vs. great kali - kali will win, i just hope kane cuts him open with that hook

mvp vs. benoit - mvp will take the belt

ecw originals vs. new breed - new breed - probably will be one of the better matches - again i'm hoping for a lot of blood

money in the band ladder match - this one is very hard to call will it be edge, orton, or kennedy? i can't decide... its going to be the show stealer though

ashley vs. melina - a lumberjill match? obviously ashley is winning...

mcmahon and umaga vs. trump and lashley - lashley's going to win and mcmahon will get his head shaved - i'm actually really curious to find out what he looks like bald

hbk vs. cena - cena will retain the belt by hook or by crook

batista vs. taker - ah yes, the main event - even though this is batista's first time defending the belt at a wrestlemania i don't think he'll break taker's undefeated streak - i mean he's 13 and 0!