I'm not lying

There is snow outside my window! In Virginia! In November!

It's kind of hard to see at first, and isn't enough to actually do anything other than make me happy, but it really is snowing.

update:

It actually got going up to an official flurry, but by the time I got downstairs and outside it was gone :(

Wolf Parade

I took a quick little trip up to New Jersey and New York this weekend. One of my favorite bands, Wolf Parade, only had two shows on the east coast before they were heading off to tour Europe, so of course I had to go. I was lucky enough to actually convince some other people to go with me- Marci and Alan (happy birthday Marci!), and we had a great time.

The show was awesome- especially when some of the cieling fell down on Spencer Krug, one of the leads and the crowd just cheered and said "What do you expect? You're in New Jersey!

After the show we saw a White Castle, so we stopped to get Marci and I our first White Castle burger, mmm tasty?

We went into the city on Saturday and packed in as much as we could. My new favorite thing that I think I will have to do every time I go to New York now is go to Rice to Riches and eat yummy rice pudding and get cool bowls that I can use as fun tupperware.

This is a clip from "I'll believe in anything." The guy singing is Spencer Krug, I have a crush on him. The opening band, Listening Party, came out and sang with them, as well as a "tricerasquatch"- I don't know what to say about that, except that they're Canadian.

Tonight

Tonight we played nertz, and ate cinnamon rolls, and I may have danced with/chased Kelly skipping and twirling around the kitchen island. Maybe the cinnamon rolls had a little too much sugar in them.

It's not the dump we all thought it was

I was in Pittsburgh for most of last week, and I actually quite liked the city. Coming in from the airport you kind of wonder where you are going because cities usually have some taller buildings, and then you go through this tunnel and voila, on the other side you're crossing a bridge and there is the city laid out in front of you. My hotel was right on the point park where the two rivers meet, so I had a great view of the bridges and the ridge and the park. When I woke up on Wednesday there was fog all over the river and it looked really cool.

The conference was pretty good, I met lots of great people and learned some very interesting things. I learned which secondary school systems have courses that can be evaluated as transfer credit, and about the changes in the French educational system over the last ten years, and how Bollywood can help foster cultural understanding on college campuses.

One of the highlights however, was going out to dinner with some others from the conference to the Church Brew works. It is an old catholic church that was renovated and turned into a brewery. It was pretty amazing inside, it's still a huge building, and a lot of the seats are still pews (even in the bathroom). I had a rattlesnake and cactus pirogi (a traditional Pittsburgh/Polish food- except for the rattlesnake part, that wasn't very traditional)

Verizon Day

Comcast got fired yesterday. I am usually a patient person and am mostly willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, but Comcast just pushed me too far. I've been trying to pinpoint the root of all my problems with them, and I think it comes down to the fact that they made me sign up for a phone line.

I have a cell phone, all my roommates have cell phones and none of us even have a phone that we could hook up to a landline. But Comcast "bundled" it all together and it ends up being cheaper just to get it even though we never used it. They, however, think that the phone number they assigned to me is the phone number that I use- seriously, how many people who have not had a land line already for years are going to bother learning a new phone number. I only know three phone numbers, it is a lost skill in my generation.

So, every time that I had to call Comcast because there was a problem, which happened pretty frequently, I would have to figure out a new way to maneuver through the whole phone tree because they would never recognize the phone number that I used to set up my account. So I was already pretty put out by the time that I ever talked to a person, and they would either tell me that they had fixed the phone number problem or that they couldn't, but it never got fixed, ever.

The last straw came when one of the customer service people actually hung up on me, and that was when I decided to fire them and hire Verizon.

So, yesterday I took a Verizon day off of work becuase they were coming "between 8 am and 5pm". I didn't even mind having to take a day off work to wait around for the cable guy- this is how badly I wanted to be rid of Comcast.

Cable guy showed up, nice young man, probably early 20's, and worked outside for a while. Then he came in to start setting up the boxes, and asked if he could use the restroom- sure no problem. After a while he came back out, and was working some more. He then stood up but was still kind of hunched over and in a slightly pained and surprised manner said "Oh man... not feeling so good. Oh... oh... yeah I musta eaten sumpin bad last night..."

At this point the smell from the bathroom started to waft out towards me; I'm at a loss for words and I just don't know what to do. I continued to crochet my mittens and let him continue working and I guess he started to feel better because he brought in his leftover noodles and asked if he could heat them up in our microwave.

And I still think the whole thing was entirely worth it to be done with Comcast.

And I've Never Been to Boston in the Fall

Well, actually I have, last weekend. And it was great! I went to visit my friend from college, Miss Jen Gruz, and we had a fabulous time!!!



First I got up at 4:30 to drive out to Dulles and catch a 7am flight, and then the weekend just kept going and so much happened and so much of it was so random, I'm going to have to reduce it to bullet points.

• Ninja pack running down the street- led by hippie ninja with a beard







• Coneheads running over the bridge and along the river (you know, the cone shaped birthday hats, all different colors, and there had to be at least 50 of them)







• The Boston Regatta







• The lumber-jacks in the Boston Regatta







• The group of guys cheering on the one guy doing sit-ups







• Realization that we both look great in tiaras







• Mexicans making our sushi and talking about us in Spanish- sure wish I paid better attention in high school







• Saw a red high heeled shoe driving down the street, yes you did read that correctly







• Pumkin tower, maze, bowling, etc.







• Got our faces painted, Jen got a jack-o-lantern, mine was a 6 legged spider, otherwise known as an ant







• bought produce at Haymarket, if you go late enough in the day they give you free avocados and nectarines and you can buy a whole box of orange peppers for $3







• a seven year old kid will ask you if he can take a picture of you and your box of peppers







• you will then ask a man dressed as a revolutionary soldier in the T if you can take a picture with him, he will kindly oblige







• Lovely dinner of orange peppers and some hummus







• Stop at the Boston Temple to take pictures, not allowed to tell the missionaries that Jen is not actually Mormon







• Waited in line for an hour for a 3D haunted something, Jen let me hold her hand







• Haunted hay-ride, again Jen let me hold on to her







• Thai left overs at 1:30am- great idea







• Watching Balls of Fury- not such a great idea, just in case you were wondering, Will Ferrell is not in that movie







• Nachos and Mangos for breakfast, and finishing Balls of Fury







• Drive out to the countryside for the best corn maze ever







• Cross all 11 bridges in the maze and get out with a whole 15 minutes to spare







• Saw crazy dread-locks guy walking down the street strumming his lute







• Get super star street parking right in front of the theater







• See Rachel Getting Married and am glad my family is functional







• Tasty butternut squash soup for dinner and early to bed







• Another horribly early flight and then strait to work

Wow, no wonder I'm still tired.

Battlefields

So I spent last Saturday with a group of Westminster alumni touring the 1st and 2nd Manassas battlefields. It was very interesting, but made me realize that I don't really know enough about the civil war. Most of the time when they guy was explaining what had happened he was using specific people's names, and unless he said Lee or Jackson or Grant, I had no idea which side we were talking about.

Later on we were back at his house and I ended up taking a quiz about the battle with three other people. Jen, whom I adore and had organized the whole thing, and Westminster's provost and his wife. I'd like to report that I got 10 out of 13 on my quiz and the provost got 9 out 13 (two of his missed answers where however, contested). I just thought it was fun scoring higher than the provost.

As I was getting ready to leave, Steve (the tour guide and very gracious host and test giver) asked why I wasn't staying to take the quiz on the 2nd battle. I kindly let him know that I reserve the right to only take one test on a Saturday night.