A quick trip to Washington and Baltimore
It was been a little while since I blogged last and I wanted to capture my thoughts on a recent adventure. Last week, I was at the SAS Global Forum conference in National Harbor/Oxon Hill, Maryland. The conference was held at the new Gaylord conference centre which offered an amazing very of the Potomac River. The conference talks were good and I learned about many of the new software products that will be released later this year. I opted to stay in Oxon Hill giving me ready access to Safeway and Starbucks but at the expense of brief commute to the conference centre in the morning. I enjoyed the twice daily walks and was happy to see a flocks of deer, geese on the pond, and bamboo trees growing next to the road. I was able to find a couple of geocaches hidden along a bike path which I did a workout on a couple of days later. The bus trip to Georgetown took us by many famous sites and I would like to vacation in Washington, DC in the future.
On Wednesday, I started my journey north to Baltimore a little earlier than expected. The airport shuttle was suppose to pick me up at 7:15 am but met me at 6:30 am. I was packed by this point but skipped breakfast to save some time. Jason and I had arranged to meet at 10:00 am and I was at the airport for 7:30 am. Ouch! What to do? I had often wondered what it was like to take the light rail from the airport. For $1.60 the light rail will take you from the airport to downtown. I got off at the convention center where they were having an Emergency Medical Technician conference and they had a van whose side was a flat screen display running commercials for the a LifePak 15 debrillator and heart rate monitor. Jason met me and we headed back to the Daily Grind in Fells Point. The jolt of coffee felt good. We headed back to Jason’s place for lunch. It was the first time I had seen his place finished and he and Emily have down an awesome job. It looked really good. It was bright and warm. After lunch Jason gave me some help with my Macbook which was really great. He pointed out some vulnerability which scared me but we were able to fix them quickly. One of things I really liked is he showed me how to link iCal to Google Calendar to the calendar in my iPhone. This rocked. Thanks Jason. Jason, Emily and I head north to the Druid Hill park area for a dinner at restaurant that looked like a converted warehouse. The location and the meal were great. I can’t remember the name of the place but I would highly recommend it.
On Thursday, we headed north to a REI where I bought a smaller version of the REI Muir Wood jacket. I had bought the XL earlier this year but found it too large but it would better fit my father. We spent much of afternoon hiking along the Gunpowder in area west of where we have hiked before. We did a circular loop with help of a GPS and Google maps in the iPhone. Afterwards we headed up to EarthTreks for some bouldering. Before heading out to dinner we stopped by the Teavana store and I loaded up on some new teas. We had dinner at PF Chang’s before heading back down to Canton. On Friday morning, I headed back to Ottawa. Thanks, Jason for this brief adventure and I hope we can do a couple of more adventures this year.
Arizona 2009 — part 1
A little while ago I came back from my annual Arizona adventure and so it is time to blog the adventures. Early Friday morning, I caught my flight from Ottawa to Chicago and finally to Phoenix. JB and Raeanne met me at the airport and we headed to the race expo to pickup my race packet. I would be running in the first corral which was a intimidating and the same time exhilirating. We next heading over to a href=”http://www.rei.com/”REI /ato pickup some clothing that I had shipped to the Tempe store. I really like my new Muir Woods polar fleece jacket fitted. We headed across town, to the Bitlmore plaza home of Teavana and the Apple Store. It was my first time visiting Teavana and I had a fun experience. I bought some Early Grey and Dragon Pearl tea. To my regret I would have to wait until I was home before trying the teas. We went to the nearby a href=”http://apple.com/”Apple /astore and I checked my email and checked out the Time Capsule backup drives. We ate dinner at PF Changs which is a traditionally place where we have our pre-race dinner.br /I was up early on Saturday by Arizona time and had a hearty breakfast at the Hampton Inn. Mid-morning JB picked me up and we headed over to the gun range to meet Pete. He is a former private investigator and has in excess of 300 firearms in his house. Canada has strict rule on firearms making it very difficult for me to check out handguns. For a long time I have wondered what it was like to shot a handgun. I also wanted to have a better understanding of the second amendment to the US constitution. Here was my opportunity to explore both and have some fun. Pete brought four guns of varying caliber including a 9mm and 45 calibre “John Wayne” gun. We bought $200 worth of bullets. After putting on eyeshield and ear protection we headed into our range slot. Pete and his son loaded up the gun cartridges while JB mounted the paper target. Pete gave me some firearms training and I emptyed my first cartridge consistently hitting around the same area. As Pete put as long as you are hitting “body matter” that is all that is important. During the experience I had sweay palms. I don’t know whether it was my body reacting to the warmer conditions or the experience of firing a gun. Over the next two hours, the four of us cycled through successfully more powerful guns. Even with a double hand grip of a 45 calibre handgun, I found it had quite a kickf. Firing off these various guns will be a memorable experience for quite some time.br /br /We stopped in a Qdoba’s for lunch and watched Obama’s Baltimore speech. It was a good speech and one which I think he wrote himself. We headed north of Phoenix to Lake Pleasant which is a source of drinking water for the Tempe-Phoenix-Scottsdale area. JB had done a triathlon in the area and the cycling hill looked brutal.Our next stop would be Glendale, where the last SuperBowl was played. JB, his parents and I had a pasta dinner at a Italian restaurant.
Shoes
On Friday, I was looking at my shoes with a smile. There is a little problem with my Keen slip-ons. It is a fatal problem. There is a hole that makes me happy as it is in my forefoot. Hmm, why would this make me happy? A hole in this location means that I have been doing my swing dancing correctly by dancing on my forefoot. The shoes are a year old and have taken me through a challenging winter. When a href=”http://www.rei.com”REI /ahad a fall closeout sale I bought a replacement pair at a fire sale price. This pair is currently getting daily service at the office as I change into them at the start of each work day. When there is a hint of better weather it will be time to retire my well trodden Keen and embrace the new ones.
Squishy bowl
While shopping at a href=”http://www.rei.com/”REI /alast week, I found a new cool and fun gizmo, the a href=”http://www.guyotdesigns.com/site/htm/home.html”Guyot Squishy bowl /aand cup. They are made out of food grade silicon and are incredibly flexible and light. As well they are fun to play with as you can squeeze and squish them and they quickly returns to it normal shape. The cup fits inside the bowl so the storage footprint is minimal. I’ll try them out of my next outdoor trip and see how they operate under winter conditions.
