Washington DC Vacation

We just got back from a trip to Washington DC and I thought that I would share some of the highlights from the trip.

Day 0 (Sunday) - We left Illinois and drove around 500 miles to Mars, Pennsylvania (just north of Pittsburgh). Nothing real memorable about this day other than we made one of our stops at a McDonald's in South Bend Indiana. Lots of Notre Dame memorabilia.

Day 1 (Monday) - We had some extra time on this day so we drove to Hershey, Pennsylvania and stopped at the Hershey's Chocolate World. It was a fun stop especially for my younger daughter and the chocolate was very good. Our next stop was Gettysburg, PA where we visited the large cemetery (site of the Gettysburg Address) which contained a number of civil war memorials.

We then drove to Chantilly, Virgina where we would stay for the next 5 nights for our visit to DC. Our hotel wasn't real close to the downtown area but we had gotten a nice deal so it was our base of operations. We had decided that we didn't want to drive in DC so we instead drove to the Metro station (about 15 min from our hotel) each morning and then took a 45 minute train/subway ride into the heart of Washington DC. We had purchased 7-day tickets for each of us so that we could use the Metro as much as we needed during our stay.

Day 2 (Tuesday) - This was our first day in Washington DC itself. We visited a number of the memorials including the Lincoln Memorial, World War II Memorial, Korean War Memorial and Vietnam War Memorial. We purchased tickets for Trolley rides (Old Town Trolley Tours) so that we were able to get off and on the trolley's as much as we wanted. The trolley was convenient in getting around the Mall area and also took us on a tour of the city (including Embassy Row and parts of Georgetown). Food highlight from this day was lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in DC.

Day 3 (Wednesday) - We had planned to spend this day in DC but when we woke up my younger daughter had a 101 temperature so we skipped the sightseeing on this day and just rested so that she could try to recover. She had been feeling bad the previous two days but with the fever we wanted to see if a down day would help. It did and she was much better the next day. We missed out on a tour of the capitol that we had setup in advance but everything else that we had planned for this day was made up later in the week. Food highlight from this day was dinner at a local restaurant in Chantilly (Backyard Grill). I had a seafood pasta dish for dinner that was so good. The fresh crab meat, shrimp, and scallops in a lobster sauce were excellent and probably my best meal of the week.

Day 4 (Thursday) - We were back in DC early in the morning and the first thing that we did was to grab tickets for the Washington Monument and to a tour of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (one of two locations where the nation's money is printed). These tickets were both for the afternoon so we spent the morning at the Museum of American History (one of the Smithsonian Institute museums). The museum was a lot of fun and we were able to see a number of pop culture items including Dorothy's ruby slippers, Archie and Edith Bunker's chairs, and Fonzie's leather jacket. Later in the day we went to the top of the Washington Monument where we had a nice view of the mall area as well as the White House and Capitol building. One thing that we learned while in the Washington Monument is that the inside of the monument contains many commemorative stones from different states and countries. These were visible from the elevator on the way down and were pretty neat (www.nps.gov/wamo/photosmultimedia/index.htm). The tour of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was also interesting as we saw actual money being printed (on large sheets and then cut). There are new $100 bills that are coming on in 2011 and these were some of the bills that we were able to watch being printed. The amount of security features in the printing of the money to prevent counterfeiting is pretty amazing. While we were doing this tour it started raining outside. We were without umbrellas so we decided to head to the subway station as soon as the rain let up. There was a larger storm in DC that evening but we were already back at our hotel by that time.

Day 5 (Friday) - For our last day in DC we started off with a trip to the National Zoo so that we could check out the pandas. The zoo opens very early (around 6) but many of the buildings inside the zoo don't open until 10. We were able to see the Giant Pandas from a distance a little before 10:00 and then we wandered around and saw the Red Pandas (a smaller mammal in the raccoon family). (The term "panda" means "bamboo eater" so these two animals share this name but are actually very different animals.) Shortly after this the building was opened near this and the Giant Pandas were taken indoors where they were fed. We were able to go in the building and get very close to them and take pictures. The pandas were being fed some type of biscuits that were buried in some burlap bags that they had to tear into to get to the treats.

We didn't see a lot more at the zoo but on the way out we saw a zebra chasing a couple of others and making a lot of noise. My girls were amused. Our next stop was a tour of the National Archives where we were able to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights. We then went to the Museum of Natural History. This museum had lots of stuffed animals (including a very large elephant) and a number of dinosaur skeletons including a large T-Rex. Another highlight from this museum is the Hope Diamond (world's largest diamond). To be honest it didn't seem as big as any of us had expected. Our final stop was to the Air and Space Museum. We were able to see the Wright Brother's plane from Kitty Hawk as well as number of space vehicles from Apollo missions. Another food highlight was at the "Bonefish Grill" restaurant this night in Chantilly. I again had some really good seafood including some grilled Maryland crab cakes for our appetizer and shrimp and scallops for my meal. The entree was very good but the crab cakes were excellent. Service was also very good that night with the waiter bringing us a free desert after we told him that it was our first time to the restaurant. It was a pretty good size hot brownie with ice cream and whipped cream on top along with some raspberry sauce that we all shared.

Day 6 (Saturday) - We drove back the full way from Chantilly to Aurora. It was a long day but nice to get home.

One other food highlight of the trip was a Milwaukee Custard shop that we found in Chantilly that had excellent vanilla custard (very smooth ice cream). After enjoying the place early in the week we went back a second time before the trip was over. Good stuff.

Photos from Hershey, Gettysburg, Lincoln Memorial and the National Zoo (click pictures for larger images):

Wedding, Family Reunion and more books

Just got back from a weekend in Iowa for a wedding and family reunion. My niece Rachel and her fiancee Matt were married on Saturday. My girls were the candle lighters for the wedding. The ceremony and reception were both very nice. Big props to all the helpers with the reception as they all did a great job!

Today was a family reunion for my wife's cousins on her father's side. It is a good sized family and this is an annual reunion. This year it was again held in Parkersburg, Iowa which was the site of an F5 tornado two years ago that took away half the town. Everything has since been rebuilt and the town park is very nice with lots of new equipment from the aid that came in following the tornado. This may have been a record for the attendance for the reunion with a very large turnout. Everyone brings a couple of dishes to the reunion so with the large turnout there was also a big selection of food. It was all good. One of my wife's cousins is really into genealogy and he shares information on the family at these reunions. We had heard in the past that there was Scandinavian royalty in the family tree and today I learned that one of the other branches of the family tree went back to Ghanghis Khan. I guess this is the black sheep of the family. :)

Reading - One very positive benefit from long drives is the opportunity to get some reading in. After recently reading and enjoying the Young Adult book "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow I decided to read one of his adult books. I read "Makers" over a couple day period late last week and really enjoyed this book. The story is science fiction though the time frame starts off in pretty current time and continues for 20 or so years. The book is about a couple of inventors (the title characters) and a journalist who documents their work. The characters were great but my favorite part of the book was the actual inventions and the creative ideas throughout the book. I think that in general this (creative ideas) is probably my favorite part of reading science fiction. I love to read about things that are not possible yet but that will maybe be possible sometime later in my lifetime. Devices similar to current day PDAs and smart phones were described in science fiction 40-50 years ago. It is interesting when reading old science fiction to see those ideas that did later come true and other ideas that either were not forward thinking enough or are still way out there. I enjoy authors who include these types of ideas in their stories (in addition to writing a great story). "Makers" is this kind of book and a great read.

The other book that I finished over the weekend was "Replay" by Ken Grimwood. This is a book from 1986 and is a classic. The premise of the story is that a man dies in 1988 at the age of 43 and suddenly his consciousness is back in 1963 in his 18 year old body. He is young again but remembers everything that happened to him in his previous life. He "replays" his life and then at the same moment in his life at age 43 he dies again and repeats the cycle. The book contains quite a number of the replays though over time he doesn't jump back as far so the replays get shorter and shorter. Each of the replays is very different but in all of them he is financially secure as he knows where to initially bet money (on certain sporting events) and later invest money (e.g. Apple, Atari, ...). The story is interesting as you see how the main characters (there is also a woman going through the same cycles) pursue a different goal in life each replay (e.g. acquire as much wealth as possible, eat-drink-and-be-merry, arts, travel, family, ...) and how these different quests turn out. They jump into different circumstances each time as they go back to a different point of their original life which also impacts the goals of that replay. Very nice story telling in this one in addition to the fantasy aspect of reliving your life. The story has a similar premise to the movie "Groundhog Day" (which came out 7 years later in 1993) but this story is much more poignant as the main characters see that there is an end coming to their replays as they get shorter and shorter each iteration.

I really enjoyed both "Makers" and "Replay".

Summer time...

Well it has been almost 6 months since my last blog so I thought that I would put down some random thoughts.

Travel - I just got back from a trip to Oklahoma and spending time with my family down there. It was very enjoyable seeing everyone and the food was great (especially the fajitas at Abuelita's in Shawnee). Earlier this summer I spent a week in St. Louis for work. We were field testing a new software release. It was good experience for me though I was pretty tired by the end of the week with a number of midnight to 3am shifts. Some of our activities needed to be in the late night to avoid disrupting the cellular network during the day.

Gaming - My favorite platform for video games is the PC and more specifically my Gateway laptop. I have played lots of different genres of PC games over the past 25 years but I have only recently started playing racing games. Two of the racing games that I picked up on sale in the past 6 months have been DiRT 2 and Burnout Paradise. The games are very different with DiRT 2 being an off-road racer and Burnout being a street racer but I have really enjoyed both games a great deal. They have been a welcome change from the strategy and shooter games that I typically play.

Reading - I used to be a very heavy reader but for some reason the past 3 or 4 years I have really stopped. My favorite genres are science fiction and spy/thriller books though my overall favorite author is John Grisham. This past week I grabbed a book called "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow as I was looking at Young Adult books for my daughter in the bookstore. I had read some short stories by him in the past and the back of the book for "Little Brother" sounded interesting. The reading was easy though the book was close to 400 pages long. I read the book in a couple days and really enjoyed it. The title of the book is a play on the theme of "1984" and Big Brother. The book takes place immediately after a terrorist attack on San Francisco that kills thousands of people. The story is about how quickly we can become a police state when security is a higher priority than personal freedom. The book also contains a lot of interesting technology that appears to be pretty realistic. I thought that it was a fun read and as a computer geek I enjoyed the many ideas in the book including thoughts on encryption and security systems. Two thumbs up!

Health - My health has been good this year. After my hernia surgery things have been going very well. I continue to take medicine each day for my hives and for my irregular heartbeat but the medicine is working well and both have been very well controlled. I am still considering a procedure to correct the irregular heartbeat (AFib) but for now I haven't made up my mind either way. I have two cardiologists that I see and it seems that one thinks it is a good idea and the other thinks that I should wait until the medicine stops controlling it before I do any procedures. They both make sense so for now I am just waiting and seeing how it goes.

Sports - I have been digging the World Cup which just completed as well as the Tour de France which has just started. For the World Cup I was rooting for the United States and Germany. Neither won but they both had a pretty good run with Germany taking 3rd place. For the Tour de France I guess I have been rooting for Lance Armstrong but it appears that he has already put himself in position where he can't win with problems on Sunday. I am now cheering for Andy Schleck from Luxembourg. I enjoyed watching him and his brother in last year's Tour. Unfortunately his brother Frank is out of the Tour after breaking some bones in an accident during the first few days but Andy looks very strong and should be a top contender along with Alberto Contador. After all the drama from last year's Tour between Contador and Armstrong I am hoping Schleck wins this year.

Well that about covers my random thoughts for now. Thanks for stopping by!

Long Time No See

Sorry that I have abandoned updating this blog. Life got busy and this blog fell off my priority list. I am not sure that I will pick this up again but for some reason I am in the mood to blog tonight so here it is.

So much of my previous entries have been about my health. The latest update on that is that my liver has completely grown back and appears to be completely healthy. My gall bladder is gone and for the most part I don't think that my body misses it though my stomach at times might disagree. However, life would be too simple if I ended there. I had a 7 inch incision on my abdomen from the liver surgery and sometime last summer I discovered that I had developed a hernia in my abdomen. This showed up when I stood up and my stomach had a small bulge that didn't match the rest of my profile. Also when sitting up from a laying position this bulge sticks out quite a bit. Well I am finally going to have surgery to correct this next Tuesday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. I figured that it was best to have my liver surgeon repair this since I was already seeing her for periodic checkups. Hopefully this will prove to be a good decision.

The other health issue that I have learned about is a heart irregularity called "Atrial Fibrillation" that I was diagnosed with last fall. It took some time to get the right medications to control this but as of right now this seems to be under control. For whatever reason my body has been experiencing one strange thing after another for the past 3 years. I am hoping that this will soon be in the past. It isn't that I hate hospitals but I am just starting to get tired of spending so much time in them. As always I am super thankful for medical insurance.

One of my very first blog entries a couple of years ago was about my trips to Oklahoma to watch the state high school basketball tournament. This is a long drive (750 miles) but one that I make each year by myself for an event that I really love. This year however, this will be happening 2 weeks after my hernia surgery. Because of this (and due to a generous offer from my sister to let me use her car while I am in town) I am going to fly down for the tournament and avoid the 12 hour car drive. It has been awhile since I have flown anywhere but it should make this fun trip even more enjoyable without the long drive. If I did the math right the cost to get there will be $300 instead of $150 in gas (not to mention wear/tear on the car).

One other thing that has happened in my life recently was the tragic loss of my brother-in-law in a fatal oil field accident last month. Richard had been part of our family for 32 years so he was much more a "brother" than an "in-law". The entire thing continues to be surreal but unfortunately it is very real. Rest in Peace Richard.