Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Flickr
Am in the process of getting all my photos transferred over. I like Flickr thus far, sucks to have to pay 25 bucks a year for the necessary storage, upload, and access levels. I really think the mapping tool is neat and i can't wait to go through all my old albums and organize and mark up the map (should keep me busy for a couple weeks :-D). My new photo link is http://www.flickr.com/photos/studentlohn/.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Battle Cry!
Can't believe if forgot to share our OBX wakeup-call-cum-battle-cry. Especially stirring when played at high volume through the full house speaker system to the point where it was echoing back from neighboring houses intimidating our water balloon fight foes. It somehow only became mildly annoying, even though we were constantly playing or imitating it...
R.I.P. Yahoo! Photos
The writing is on the wall, Yahoo! Photos is soon to be no more. My account is currently in transition to Flickr, once the transition is complete, I'll have the new link provided and be able to post some pics to my last couple blog entries. My trusty Yahoo photo account will be missed, but hopefully the added functionality of Flickr will be worth the hassle of setting up a new site. I'll let you all know how the transition goes. Too bad i couldn't switch to Picasa albums through google, but i just have way too many photos going back through the years...
OBX!!
OBX, or the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the uninitiated, week has come and gone again this year.
This year our house was a little farther north, in Corolla, NC (here is the satellite image), and getting there is quite a pain. It was a little worse than anticipated due to a late departure of 10 am, instead of 7 as planned. This resulted in traffic for most of the drive (almost 2 hours just to get to Richmond), causing an optimally 5 1/2 hour drive to take 8 1/2 hours (the return trip only took 6 hours). The house was amazing and large, which is good since we did have 14 people staying there, there were enough beds/air mattresses to go around, but two of the rooms did sleep 4 each and the inevitable snoring and bathroom breaks ensured none of these folks got the best nights sleep. We were much closer to the beach this year. I made it out to the beach on 3 of the days, one better than last year. I managed to successfully limit my midday exposure and return relatively sunburn free. The weather was beautiful (coolest day was 80, warmest was mid 90s) and it only rained on Wednesday, which gave everyone's skin a mid week break from the sun.
We ate pretty well, i steered clear of the fresh crabs on Sunday, but the seemed to go down well with the crab eaters of the group. And of course my meatloaf went down well as always (had to make three this year)! It is funny that the only time i cook is when I'm on vacation...
My new SingStar karaoke games got quite the workout with two full evenings of singing. The only game more popular was the "13 cards" or "beach" card game, which was played for much of the week. This card game is of Vietnamese origin, and the girls didn't even know what you would call it in English (hence the made up name). It is a very enjoyable and addictive 4 player card game (with some similarities to Asshole and Hearts, but rules all its own).
The pool was a popular place as always and the seemingly endless hours of pool volleyball were fun. Even with my possibly broken nose, and other peoples likely sun poisoning it was still my favorite place to hang. I can't get enough of swimming, too bad the week gave me swimmers ear, so no pool for a little while.
A new aspect this year was the three-man water balloon slingshot. We got in a fun-filled, two day, three house water balloon fight that consumed 500 balloons from our
house alone. We first launched at the "hilljacks", a name we borrowed from the house's log, which seems to be synonymous with hillbilly or redneck as shown by the Urban Dictionary definition that is linked. The "Hill-jack" house was a bunch of drunken kids that had just graduated high school and spent their first couple days yelling constantly, it was very satisfying to land a few water balloons on their deck. After witnessing our raging battle, a third house off to the side launched an attack at both of our houses. The third house was a family with a bunch of kids that kept taunting us, making it all the more fulfilling when we hit a few of their people.
Overall it was a fun week of sun, sand, pool, and water balloons, accented by frozen daiquiris and chilled Coronas. Can't wait for next year.
This year our house was a little farther north, in Corolla, NC (here is the satellite image), and getting there is quite a pain. It was a little worse than anticipated due to a late departure of 10 am, instead of 7 as planned. This resulted in traffic for most of the drive (almost 2 hours just to get to Richmond), causing an optimally 5 1/2 hour drive to take 8 1/2 hours (the return trip only took 6 hours). The house was amazing and large, which is good since we did have 14 people staying there, there were enough beds/air mattresses to go around, but two of the rooms did sleep 4 each and the inevitable snoring and bathroom breaks ensured none of these folks got the best nights sleep. We were much closer to the beach this year. I made it out to the beach on 3 of the days, one better than last year. I managed to successfully limit my midday exposure and return relatively sunburn free. The weather was beautiful (coolest day was 80, warmest was mid 90s) and it only rained on Wednesday, which gave everyone's skin a mid week break from the sun.
We ate pretty well, i steered clear of the fresh crabs on Sunday, but the seemed to go down well with the crab eaters of the group. And of course my meatloaf went down well as always (had to make three this year)! It is funny that the only time i cook is when I'm on vacation...
My new SingStar karaoke games got quite the workout with two full evenings of singing. The only game more popular was the "13 cards" or "beach" card game, which was played for much of the week. This card game is of Vietnamese origin, and the girls didn't even know what you would call it in English (hence the made up name). It is a very enjoyable and addictive 4 player card game (with some similarities to Asshole and Hearts, but rules all its own).The pool was a popular place as always and the seemingly endless hours of pool volleyball were fun. Even with my possibly broken nose, and other peoples likely sun poisoning it was still my favorite place to hang. I can't get enough of swimming, too bad the week gave me swimmers ear, so no pool for a little while.
A new aspect this year was the three-man water balloon slingshot. We got in a fun-filled, two day, three house water balloon fight that consumed 500 balloons from our
house alone. We first launched at the "hilljacks", a name we borrowed from the house's log, which seems to be synonymous with hillbilly or redneck as shown by the Urban Dictionary definition that is linked. The "Hill-jack" house was a bunch of drunken kids that had just graduated high school and spent their first couple days yelling constantly, it was very satisfying to land a few water balloons on their deck. After witnessing our raging battle, a third house off to the side launched an attack at both of our houses. The third house was a family with a bunch of kids that kept taunting us, making it all the more fulfilling when we hit a few of their people.Overall it was a fun week of sun, sand, pool, and water balloons, accented by frozen daiquiris and chilled Coronas. Can't wait for next year.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Loss and Love of the last month
I must say, the last month has been pretty eventful. No bored moments to be filled by blogging.
My grandfather passed this past month. He had a great 98 years and for that the family is greatful, but it never is really enough is it...
It was good to see the whole family, since this only seems to happen at weddings and funerals, and with me being the only unmarried one, doesn't look like there will be many wedding get togethers anytime soon. I'm glad to see that my neice and nephew are still adorable at ages 3 and 1 respectively, and so are all my cousins kids. After spending so many days around young ones it took me a while to get comfortable droping F-bombs in causual conversation around friends. I guess that means I'm safe to be around children, and won't warp their minds too much.
In between trying to get caught up with work and caught up on sleep, i've still managed to make some new friends and hang out with the old ones. I've caught the awsome Mr. Greenjeans twice at the Clarendon Ballroom in the last month. And done several happy hours. This past week involved a wonderful, as usual, trip to Ellas, where the best bartender in the city hooked us up as always with some fantastic Sangria and pizza, after that my night devolved into a blur of Oya, Zenga, Dan's Cafe, Chief Ikes Momba Room, and Rocket (i spent so much time walking and metroing that i didn't even have time to drink that much). My one wish for this particular night was that the metro hadn't been delayed close to 30 minutes for the last night of the train, getting home at 4am stinks.
Finally, the best event of the last few weeks would definately be the Wedding of Merrick and Gerald this past weekend. She is one of the most genuinely sweet people I know and I'm glad she had an unending smile on her face the entire day. The wedding was nice, the reception better, and the loacation and the band awsome. Loved the mansion in Rockville and any band that can pull of a sing-along-able cover of any Journey song :-) (my only minor complaint on the wedding would be the stampede of flower girls, couldn't we have shown a little grace and patience ladies). It was like old times, with most of the old Smithsonian intern crowd hanging out. Makes me miss those crazy times at Rock bottom ;-). Well enough :-) ing and ;-) ing, i've got some work to get done so i can go to the beach all next week! OBX I CAN'T WAIT!
My grandfather passed this past month. He had a great 98 years and for that the family is greatful, but it never is really enough is it...
It was good to see the whole family, since this only seems to happen at weddings and funerals, and with me being the only unmarried one, doesn't look like there will be many wedding get togethers anytime soon. I'm glad to see that my neice and nephew are still adorable at ages 3 and 1 respectively, and so are all my cousins kids. After spending so many days around young ones it took me a while to get comfortable droping F-bombs in causual conversation around friends. I guess that means I'm safe to be around children, and won't warp their minds too much.
In between trying to get caught up with work and caught up on sleep, i've still managed to make some new friends and hang out with the old ones. I've caught the awsome Mr. Greenjeans twice at the Clarendon Ballroom in the last month. And done several happy hours. This past week involved a wonderful, as usual, trip to Ellas, where the best bartender in the city hooked us up as always with some fantastic Sangria and pizza, after that my night devolved into a blur of Oya, Zenga, Dan's Cafe, Chief Ikes Momba Room, and Rocket (i spent so much time walking and metroing that i didn't even have time to drink that much). My one wish for this particular night was that the metro hadn't been delayed close to 30 minutes for the last night of the train, getting home at 4am stinks.
Finally, the best event of the last few weeks would definately be the Wedding of Merrick and Gerald this past weekend. She is one of the most genuinely sweet people I know and I'm glad she had an unending smile on her face the entire day. The wedding was nice, the reception better, and the loacation and the band awsome. Loved the mansion in Rockville and any band that can pull of a sing-along-able cover of any Journey song :-) (my only minor complaint on the wedding would be the stampede of flower girls, couldn't we have shown a little grace and patience ladies). It was like old times, with most of the old Smithsonian intern crowd hanging out. Makes me miss those crazy times at Rock bottom ;-). Well enough :-) ing and ;-) ing, i've got some work to get done so i can go to the beach all next week! OBX I CAN'T WAIT!
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