BBQ

We had our first BBQ the other day. We did it charcoal style, no propane for us. My burps still tasted like the mesquite flavored wood chips we used well into the night. It was quite delicious. The countdown is down to 8 days left before I have to go to work full time. We went down and checked out the area. It seems to be a reputable area of business and commerce. Speaking of Commerce, we went to the Washington, D.C. Aquarium, which happens to be in the bottom of the building of Commerce, paid five bucks to walk around and look at about 10 fish tanks full of somewhat interesting fish. We had gone on the recommendation of a friend, but I don't think this friend had been. They even tried to throw you off by saying that the shark feeding was at 2, but really the only sharks they had were 2 leopard sharks that were about the size of my left arm. So, when you people come to visit, I don't think we'll be going there. We went to the National Air and Space Museum afterwards which was interesting, but also packed. I think we'll have to postpone our tourist activities until after Memorial Day weekend.
We went and saw the Da Vinci Code, after scoping out one of the cheaper theaters. It was rather entertaining, and would've been even better if I hadn't read the book, but was still worth the watch. They had a couple of things that were different than in the book, but I won't spoil anything for the rest of you. Other upcoming attractions include the new Superman movie, which will be playing in IMAX theaters. I think it will be quite the show.
Oh, the picture is there because I need a picture to put on my profile. I hope all of you have seen the slideshows I've put up on google. If you haven't let me know, and I'll give you the link.

Dodgers Stadium

I'm using the Blog This button you can find in Picasa2 from google to create this blog. I thought you'd all be impressed.
I thought I'd also incorporate Tina's policy of always having a picture on your blog. I imagine that makes it easier to read. This is us at Dodgers Stadium in LA. The Dodgers creamed the Brewers. It was a beautiful day, and there's not much better than watching a baseball game and eating a Dodger Dog.
We went to the National Zoo the other day. In the invertebrate section they have a display of spiders, and they forgot to put the glass up, I think, because the spiders can just crawl out and around it they wanted to. That creeped me out, so we left. The lion and tiger were both just sitting there staring. There was a guy that threw a big hunk of meat at him, so he went and got it and went back to staring.
I'll be starting my new job a week from Monday. It'll be my first full time employment, so I guess that's something. 

Clicking for Pennies

I'm glad to see Tina joined up and got back on the blogging bandwagon. I think it's a good way for people to keep up on other people without having to call everyone. My brother Steve is a fan of that, but it takes a good portion of your nights to do that, and I don't think I want to spend my nights that way...I have to think for two.

We watched American Idol last night. Yes, I watch that. I think Taylor Hicks will win. He was better. I got sucked in to watching House as well, which turned out to be a let down. It seemed like this weird illness, but it turned out just to be hallucinations.

Since I have virtually no responsibilities until I start work, I'd like to sleep in until around 11, but our bedroom window gets the sun in the morning. So, I get up at around 7 every day. I think I'll go drive around tomorrow at about this time, just to get a feel for the 'real' traffic. We've done a pretty good job until now of avoiding all the traffic by leaving the house at odd times. I thought it'd be good to figure out what time I should leave. I have a friend who has nightmares of showing up at work the first day late. I agree it probably would be bad, but I don't have nightmares.

I've put an ad at the top of my blog, and encourage people to click on it, regardless of what it is. It won't put spyware onto your computer, or flood your emailbox with SPAM, I will be paid per click, though. If you do some of the clicking and come out to see us in DC, perhaps I'll buy you something nice with the proceeds.

Virginia

We've finally made it out to Fairfax, Virginia. It was quite the drive. Longer than I've done in a while. We ended up going with a Penske truck, which was a lot nicer than I was expecting. Just a couple of days before we left, they called and undercut Uhaul on their price. I have very little brand loyalty, so I decided to switch. Phil and Jimmy came and helped bring all of our stuff down on Monday morning, then dropped me off to pick up the truck. I was counting on Seth to come help out with the rest, as the event "has been on his calendar for months," but it turned out he had taken a bike ride. Jen and I took care of it ourselves. Most of the hassle was organizing everything in the truck anyway. Another person would've been in the way. Then we closed the door on our first apartment together and left for Centerville to continue the packing. We had quite a bit of stuff up there, but in all the excitement, we forgot to pack our BBQ. So we'll have to decide what to do about that.
I had prepared several books on tape to listen to, but we only managed to listen to Ender's Shadow, which was rather lengthy. I began to tire of the intense thought processes that Bean went through in everything that happened to him. At the end, Orson Scott Card offered an afterword, commenting that lots of people have said that they want to see a movie of Ender's Game, but he's not sure that will work out.
After arriving here, we got our apartment. A guy came and offered to help move us in, and it turned out he had come from Utah just a year or two ago. They offered to give us dinner that night so we wouldn't have to have another fast food meal.
Yesterday, we decided to go up into the city and we went to several landmarks. We started at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, which I thought was rather interesting. We saw the flag they flew at the pentagon on September 12, after the attacks. They had the first national flag as well that they were restoring. There was also one of the suns from the Nauvoo temple. Then we went to the GW Monument, swung by the White House and finished at the Lincoln Memorial. All very exciting. I guess that's all for today. Look for updates in the future.

Disneyland

I've recently returned from a trip to southern California. The weather was quite overcast and chilly, which I thought was surprising. The first day we spend split between Disneyland and California Adventures, going on such rides as Space Mountain, the Matterhorn, Tower of Terror, and other such infamous rides. I decided the best ride was a mixture of drops and very fast speeding up. I suppose in this day we're more accustomed to going fast, so that's not as much a thrill any more, but the excessive acceleration is quite a thrill. Almost like driving a Porsche. We ate lunch at Club 33, an exclusive restaurant on the Disneyland Campus. I ate lamb chops for the first time. It's sad that they killed a lamb for that, but it sure was good. Perhaps the lamb died of natural causes.

The next day was spent at Universal Studios. I met Spiderman, Captain America (who seemed quite pretentious), and King Kong. We also took the tour, and drove past the area that was filmed as the Back to the Future courthouse. That was something. Then we went on the Jurassic Park ride, which features an excellent drop at the end. We were actually one of the last cars to go, and the kid next to me wanted to hold my hand. That was weird.

We attended church at a local ward on Sunday. One of the little kids tried to get out of going by pooping in his pants right as we got there, but emergency actions were taken, and everyone returned in time for the meeting.

Monday we were back at Disneyland for a few more rides, then back to Utah. We had a little bit of a booking problem at the airport, but it looks to be straightened out shortly.

All said and done, it was a fine trip. Fun was had, memories made, relationships strengthened.

In a contemporary note, on the show "24", why didn't Chloe just blog what was on the memory key before she did anything with it. At least making a copy of it would've been smart.

Graduation

It turns out I graduated the other day. I will soon be making my way into the office as one of the many corporate graduates in the Washington, D.C. area. I'll be moving out on May 15th, in case anybody wants to come help me move my stuff into our Uhaul we rented. Turned out we got a 17 foot truck for the 14 foot price. I guess we got lucky.

Anyway, I guess before that we'll be heading out to Disneyland to enjoy some of the last west coast attractions we'll see for a while. Who knows where we'll end up in later years, though.
I guess that's all for now.