Okay, four days of waiting... Let me make it up to ya.

I woke up this morning and weighed in. Today was kind of a big day- A day I'd hoped for. Today, I might possibly hit my 10% mark and even reach a big round number for total weight loss. I stepped up and smiled.

Yep. Another check confirmed: I've lost 30 pounds.

Who wants to touch me?

I said,
Who wants to fuckin' touch me!?

Hehe. Sorry. Couldn't resist. (that was from South Park, if you missed the reference.) Seriously though, I'm really psyched. Now comes the part where I shower myself with gifts for making this not-major-but-still-significant goal. One thing I picked up to go with the stainless steel/aluminum look of my kitchen is the Mickey paper towel holder. It should be a good balance between classy and Mickey in my future kitchen. I'm looking forward to this.

Another 12 hour day. A full work week of 11 hour days, and a weekend all to myself to unwind. I come back to work at 8:30 on a monday, completely sure that this would be the day... this would be my first 9-5 kind of day in three years. Free of the Dev shackles, I could work from 8:30 to 5:30 and go home with the 3/4ths of the Herndon office.

But no, once again, it didn't work. I got called into a 5pm meeting that ran into 5:45, then Flinton pulled me aside to get a rush job done for him. The good side is that Mike Rothman introduced me to the crowd and everyone seemed to be happy to officially have me over in Marketing. When they jokingly yelled "speech!!" I said "It's great to be here. It's great to still be here, and it's great to be here."

..................

A lot has happened this weekend, so I'll try and sum it all up.

I met up with Tiago at Silver Diner on Saturday to get a big breakfast before going to D.C. and walking all day. There was a line going out the door so we decided to move on and try soemthing different. La Madeline was open, so we went there. Thinking it was a breakfast place too, Tiago ordered the strawberry crepe. That looked good, but it looked... well, it looked like a dessert. That's because it was. Fortunately for me, lunch was also being served, so I bypassed the omelette and went straight for the Tomato bisque. Mmm.

We dropped Tiago's car at my place and then hopped on the Metro at West Falls Church. This would be the easiest way into and around the city on a parade day.

A bunch of stops later, we were at the Smithsonian station and came up to the misty, overcast surface. The "tour guide bums" were there again, but I was able to bypass them. Tiago got one with a right hook and I nabbed the other guy with a left jab. They never saw it coming.

We went over to the Washington Monument. I hadn't really every gotten too close to the thing before, so I wanted to check it out up close. Pretty neat. It really is a remarkable monument. It's so.. well, so plain. Off in the distance, you could see the Lincoln Memorial and a construction site. We walked towards the memorial to get a better look at things. As it turns out, the construction was for the upcoming National WWII memorial. Lots of schools had rugby games going on out there. I saw Virginia Tech, JMU and a slew of others. Tiago got to see rugby up close and personal. Women's rugby too, which I'm sure introduced him to women who are anything but cute and cuddly.

On our way to the Lincoln memorial, we decided to check out the war memorials first. There was a Sikh festival going on in front of the reflective pool, which was blaring on the huge loudspeakers. (I got a closer look and got some video if you're interested.) We walked through the POW/MIA stands which are probably a lot more active now that we have more recent POWs and MIA's. :( And then we came to the Vietnam Memorial. I looked up the name of my uncle that I never met. He was a Navy pilot, shot down in 'Nam. I went over to find his name on the wall and then we moved on.

We came at the Lincoln Memorial at an angle, which made for some really cool perspective shots of the beautiful building. As we got closer, the road had been noticably closed off, but there were a slew of police cars. We walked to the stairs and noticed that a man (I'd guess in his late 50's or so) had suffered a heart attack... or something. When I walked by, he was laid out on the ground, shirt torn open by first aid people and they were administering CPR on his pale, flushed body. His face was white as a sheet. It didn't look good. I walked on and got a shot of the site so I'd remember this poor fella, but obviously didn't want to get too close out of respect for what may have just been my first dead body. We stood there, watching the EMTs, agreed that it was a real shame, then continued on.

Ol' Abe was doing well, just chilling out in the overcast weather. People ignored the "please be quiet and respect this temple" signs and were making all kinds of noise. I loved the pose the sculptor put this man into. This is so Athenian. So... Zeus like. He's so regal up there. Very impressive.

When we came out of the memorial, an ambulance was finally at the scene. They slowly got out of the car, and walked over to the scene. No rush, no sense of hurry. I don't think the poor fella made it. :( They got him on a stretcher and slowly wheeled it to the truck and drove off with just the lights on. No sense of speed or urgency. :(

We walked to the Korean memorial. The soldiers were looking very creepy in the overcast weather with the fog. Lots of people were there, so I only got a few shots of the memorial. We walked over towards the tidal basin to see what all the cherry blossoms were all about.

Wow. Very cool. A flowery stub, when repeated about a thousand times on each tree, with hundreds of trees makes for some really pretty scenery. (who would have thought?) People were out on the water in paddleboats, and hundreds of people were around the tidal basin area. I don't remember ever walking around this before, so it was all new to me. It was an amazing site. Tiago and I took a bunch of shots, then walked over to the FDR memorial. This (if you recall) is the outdoor memorial. Very well-done. Very cool. There he sat, proudly welcoming visitors into the shrine. Quite a striking difference between this is and the Lincoln memorial pose, but hey, that's what a hundred years can do to a man's reputation. The thing I like about the FDR is the waterfalls. They did such a nice job making this monument look nice. The statues all have a distinct, surreal look to them.

We walked on the tidal basin some more and were finally in sight of the Jefferson Memorial. This (as it turned out) is where the Cherry Blossom festival officially kicked off. People were everywhere. Lined up on the steps, performing on stage, on the water nearby... it was neat. There stood George Jefferson, enjoying the Philipino music with Wheezie by his side. (I wonder if he could count to 8 in Tagalog too.) : ) This, to me, is the least impressive of monuments. I was getting ready to head home since my legs were burning at this point. We did an awful lot of walking.

We started walking back to the mall to get to the Smithsonian Metro station. I got a call from Mike about this coming weekend's camping trip. We talked as I walked, and I praised the inventor of the cell phone. I love being able to catch up with people while I'm in the Nation's Capital. How cool is that. :) I think this cell phone thing will catch on. Mark my words.

Tiago and I caught the train over to the Arlington National Cemetary. We stopped into the lobby to learn some cool factoids about the place and started our walk. The sun had broken through the clouds at this point and we began regretting that the sun wasn't out earlier when going for the Cherry Blossom photos. Oh well.

The gravestones were perfectly aligned along the path to JFK's memorial. We saw the eternal flame and turned around for a spectacular view of the Washington Monument. We decided not to walk over to the tomb of the unknown soldier. We were too tired of walking. And most of the trip would be uphill, which didn't help. So, we walked back to the Metro stop and took the train back to Falls Church.

All in all, it was a good trip. I'm glad I went. My full gallery of the trip is online here, and you can also check out Tiago's photos. We had a quick bite at Taco Bell and headed home. I gassed up the car and Tiago went home. I threw a BUNCH of photos (and new albums) online for my gallery page, so if you haven't been there in a while, be sure to check those out.

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After throwing the photos online and propping my poor, beaten legs up for some relaxation, I called the gang to find out what was going to happen for Paul's birthday. Apparently, nothing big was in the works. Tiago wrote that he was going to take a nap, so he was out unless we were going to a late dinner. He emphasized the word late, so I'm guessing he meant like 9:30ish, 10ish. Paul called shortly after that and picked Big Bowl as his birthday dinner spot. Sounded fine to me. I hopped in the car and made my way to Reston Town Center to meet him there.

The waitress recognized me from when I was there earlier in the week. She was cute... probably 5-10 with short, reddish hair. Very friendly. I got my old favorite - the Blazing Flat Noodles. (mmm) and I'm pretty sure Paul dove into his Pad Thai. That's good stuff. Not so good with my points system, but oh man, I long for the day I can eat Pad Thai again. That'll be a fun day, lemme tell ya.

We went and shot some pool at the old pool place that Paul and I used to frequent. Robbie (the manager) was still there, looking just like he always did. I got a non-smoking table and started losing right away. I wasn't hitting anything. Paul wasn't either, but he was hitting more in than me. It was a sad state of affairs. We had fun though. I'll get you next time, Paul. Damned pool shark.

Sunday I got up and forgot that the clock had changed. I hurredly called Chris Hollomon.

"Chris, it's Brian."
"yea?"
"It's 1pm isn't it."
"yep."
"the clocks changed last night, didn't they?"
"yep."
"Shit. Do you still need me? I'll be right over."
"Yea, take your time. the truck hasn't arrived yet."
"whew. Okay. Shit. Sorry man. I'll be there as fast as I can."

I hung up and got a quick shower before racing up Rt. 7 to Chris' apartment. Today was moving day. Chris (single no more) is moving into Karen's place down in Warrenton. I got there pretty quickly and walked upstairs. They were working on disassembling some stuff. Pretty soon, everyone was there. Even Andy (of ancient 'Heather and Andy' fame) was there. We loaded up the truck. I was impressed not only at how little stuff there was, but how much Chris thought he had. This was nothing. Maybe I was comparing it to Eric's truck, or Mike and Lauren's truck, or the stuff I have packed and ready in my basement, but this really was... almost nothing. A bed and some small furniture? Three or four big boxes? Puh-lease. :)

We drove to McDonald's to scarf some food down, then caught Rt. 66 to Karen's place. It's a lovely townhouse in a really nice neighborhood, just off Rt. 29. Not too far away from the hustle and bustle of the NoVA craziness, but far enough away to forget you were out there. Karen had the place designed really well. I hope everyone gets a chance to see what she's done with the upstairs room. Very classy.

I had to come home so we finished unloading the truck. He was moved in pretty swiftly. It's nice to have friends. :)

More coming....