Two brothers I was friends with in Junior High School managed to find me via searching on the Internet: Jim and Steve Dean. I've moved several times, but this is a special case - we were in Frankfurt, (West) Germany attending Frankfurt American Junior High School! I hadn't seen either of them in about 25 years, so I was looking forward to meeting up again.
I drove down to Stafford, VA to meet Jim, and we drove onto Mechanicsville, VA (outside Richmond) to visit Steve. I brought one of my yearbooks, and Steve had his collection out as well. It was fun catching up on the years, and meeting Steve's wife and kids.
Jim mentioned he and Steve had picked up geocaching, an outdoors hobby I was into when I lived in WA but let slide in FL. That's because I couldn't imagine poking around bushes and going off trail (a little) in FL where there are snakes and spiders and so on. :) So we planned to look for a few while I was there - we found four, putting me at 99 finds total!
One spot had two caches nearby - the Pole Green Church. It is an interesting story, but what caught my eye was the church itself - there isn't anything left but the brick floor (and I'm not even sure that is original). To help people visualize the church, what is there is the outline of the structure, windows and doors. It looks odd, like a floating mirage, at least to me.
We had a good time finding the caches, spending a few hours walking around trails in nearby parks.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Cherry Blossoms
I went into the DC looking for cherry blossoms, and this is what I found. I guess I was a week or so too late!
Fortunately, a few cherry blossoms were around in suburban Maryland. :)
The purpose of my trip was to pick up my packet for the Cherry Blossom run tomorrow. I've always heard about this event and wanted to run it, and now that I live near DC I can! After getting my info, I wandered around a bit and caught a bit of the festival, occurring along the Mall at various stages.
Fortunately, a few cherry blossoms were around in suburban Maryland. :)
The purpose of my trip was to pick up my packet for the Cherry Blossom run tomorrow. I've always heard about this event and wanted to run it, and now that I live near DC I can! After getting my info, I wandered around a bit and caught a bit of the festival, occurring along the Mall at various stages.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Snow Enjoyment
Here's another one:
moar funny pictures
And with that, I'm venturing out to see how much shoveling I need to do.
moar funny pictures
And with that, I'm venturing out to see how much shoveling I need to do.
Triathlons
I'm on my fourth day off work, due to the mid-Atlantic snowstorm (thank goodness these are all paid days off!), and I fiddled around with the chart creator from Graph Jam.
moar funny pictures
Eventually the snow will melt, spring will arrive, and training can start!
moar funny pictures
Eventually the snow will melt, spring will arrive, and training can start!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Snow Storm
The weather forecast for this weekend included a severe storm warning which predicted 6" to 12" of snow! It started falling Friday night, and by the morning we had a nice blanket of snow, with more still falling.
Blanket of snow
Conditions were terrible, but I wanted to explore and see if any stores in my nearby shopping center were open. So I dug out some snow gear from my days in Seattle, and hiked over to the plaza. I found empty parking lots, with a few other hardy souls out, plus a few trucks plowing the parking lot. Most stores were closed except for one grocery store, and I got the feeling they were going to close early.
After returning home, I lazed out and watched TV and played computer games.
Today was bright and sunny - the snow stopped falling. I went outside to survey my car, and found it covered with a foot-and-a-half of snow. The road inside the apartment complex was slushy, and some trucks were driving around spreading salt. I got my snow shovel, another piece of equipment from my days in Seattle (I guess the stuff I had to buy for the Mountaineers courses on snowshoe and scrambling came in handy!), and dug out my car, so I won't have to do it tomorrow morning.
Once again I decided to walk over to the nearby plaza, since the neighborhood roads were still snow-covered and slushy. This time, the plaza was jammed since the storm stopped and the major roads were plowed. I ate a nice salad at Panera, had a delicious cafe mocha, and walked home.
One day after the snowstorm.
No more snow is in the forecast, so the roads should be fine. I wasn't able to run this weekend (I skipped out on a 5 miler in Baltimore on Saturday, due to the conditions) but I at least got two snowy walks in. :)
Blanket of snow
Conditions were terrible, but I wanted to explore and see if any stores in my nearby shopping center were open. So I dug out some snow gear from my days in Seattle, and hiked over to the plaza. I found empty parking lots, with a few other hardy souls out, plus a few trucks plowing the parking lot. Most stores were closed except for one grocery store, and I got the feeling they were going to close early.
After returning home, I lazed out and watched TV and played computer games.
Today was bright and sunny - the snow stopped falling. I went outside to survey my car, and found it covered with a foot-and-a-half of snow. The road inside the apartment complex was slushy, and some trucks were driving around spreading salt. I got my snow shovel, another piece of equipment from my days in Seattle (I guess the stuff I had to buy for the Mountaineers courses on snowshoe and scrambling came in handy!), and dug out my car, so I won't have to do it tomorrow morning.
Once again I decided to walk over to the nearby plaza, since the neighborhood roads were still snow-covered and slushy. This time, the plaza was jammed since the storm stopped and the major roads were plowed. I ate a nice salad at Panera, had a delicious cafe mocha, and walked home.
One day after the snowstorm.
No more snow is in the forecast, so the roads should be fine. I wasn't able to run this weekend (I skipped out on a 5 miler in Baltimore on Saturday, due to the conditions) but I at least got two snowy walks in. :)
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Board Games
I found a local board games group, and attended a meeting.
The group meets at a local mall, Savage Mill, a historic building. The Mall consists of several connected building, originally part of an old saw mill. The stores inside are all local-owned and unique, and several teach classes.
One that caught my eye is Terrapin Adventures, because they have a zip-line obstacle course setup outside! It reminds me of the Sanford Zoo's course, and I will check it out when the weather is warmer.
Anyway, only two other people made today's board game meet, and we settled on playing Dominion, a card game. The game worked similar to a collectible card game, where you try to build a deck to play with, except it thankfully doesn't involved buying/collecting cards - all the ones you need come with the game. Each turn you use a set of your cards to get new ones, which grant more abilities or victory points. I liked the game enough to buy a copy right afterwards!
The group meets at a local mall, Savage Mill, a historic building. The Mall consists of several connected building, originally part of an old saw mill. The stores inside are all local-owned and unique, and several teach classes.
One that caught my eye is Terrapin Adventures, because they have a zip-line obstacle course setup outside! It reminds me of the Sanford Zoo's course, and I will check it out when the weather is warmer.
Anyway, only two other people made today's board game meet, and we settled on playing Dominion, a card game. The game worked similar to a collectible card game, where you try to build a deck to play with, except it thankfully doesn't involved buying/collecting cards - all the ones you need come with the game. Each turn you use a set of your cards to get new ones, which grant more abilities or victory points. I liked the game enough to buy a copy right afterwards!
Saturday, December 05, 2009
OUC half marathon weekend
I return to Orlando for the OUC half marathon, and to also visit friends. I knew the weekend would be as busy as I wanted it to be, because the Orlando Running Club would be having events for the exchange runners! So I planned ahead and flew in Thursday evening.
Friday, I went to lunch with a group from the Seminole Cyclists - they were coincidentally having the monthly lunch gathering when I would be able to make it. So we had a nice lunch at Fuji sushi in Lake Mary. Friday evening I went to dinner in Winter Park with the running club, and got to see several friends there.
It rained pretty heavy all Friday, so there was concern the race would be in fairly lousy conditions. It was sprinkling lightly Saturday morning, and the forecast called for a break so we hoped that would hold true. Charles took this picture of Beth, me, and Mai before we loaded up and drove to Lake Eola. Charles and Mai had run the Space Coast Marathon the week before (!), and in order to rest, Charles wasn't running. But Mai did in order to support Beth, who had been training for this event for months - her first half-marathon.
Beth, me, Mai
We were lucky and it didn't rain during the race, except for some very light sprinkles for a few minutes. Since my training has been rather lackluster, I was quite happy with coming in under 2 hours!
The ORC holiday party was that evening, and I had a fun time talking with running club friends. Before leaving on Sunday I was able to have lunch with Paul and Allison (whose wedding I attended last month) and heard about their nice honeymoon in Hawaii.
Overall it was a really good weekend!
Friday, I went to lunch with a group from the Seminole Cyclists - they were coincidentally having the monthly lunch gathering when I would be able to make it. So we had a nice lunch at Fuji sushi in Lake Mary. Friday evening I went to dinner in Winter Park with the running club, and got to see several friends there.
It rained pretty heavy all Friday, so there was concern the race would be in fairly lousy conditions. It was sprinkling lightly Saturday morning, and the forecast called for a break so we hoped that would hold true. Charles took this picture of Beth, me, and Mai before we loaded up and drove to Lake Eola. Charles and Mai had run the Space Coast Marathon the week before (!), and in order to rest, Charles wasn't running. But Mai did in order to support Beth, who had been training for this event for months - her first half-marathon.
Beth, me, Mai
We were lucky and it didn't rain during the race, except for some very light sprinkles for a few minutes. Since my training has been rather lackluster, I was quite happy with coming in under 2 hours!
The ORC holiday party was that evening, and I had a fun time talking with running club friends. Before leaving on Sunday I was able to have lunch with Paul and Allison (whose wedding I attended last month) and heard about their nice honeymoon in Hawaii.
Overall it was a really good weekend!
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