Memorial Day Weekend

The Memorial Day Weekend snuck up on us. It is freakin’ June already? I’m going to wake up tomorrow and be 40 and my life will be almost over (just kiddin’ Mom & Dad).

I’ve got a lot of things lined up in June so this long weekend was a good chance to relax. On Friday Teri and I took a long lunch and went to Mad Fox Brewery. I took a growler of their new Elixer to work for my weekly PMO status meeting with the client on Friday afternoons. The Elixer is a great German lager. The description:

The Elixer (6.5% ABV)

A deep golden-colored, light bodied seasonal lager. Pilsner, Vienna and Dark Munich malts balanced by Tettnanger hops gives this beer it’s toasty nose, smooth yet crisp character and late dry finish. Notes of light honey and Hazelnut.

Thankfully the client canceled so I brought in Teri and Lewis to join Robie, Woody, and I to swill the growler. Everyone thought it was pretty tasty.

On Saturday I watched a quick version of Formula One qualifying. Teri had a PMP class so I waited for her to watch it all in detail. I took off to Arlington Cemetery for something to do outside on the Memorial Day weekend. I’ve only been there about two times previously because you are not allowed to ride your bike through. It was packed of course being probably the busiest day of the year for the Cemetery. I walked the loop in the heat. Saw the Kennedy’s and the Arlington House. The Arlington House has a great view up on the hill. I’m sure it was quite the property a few hundred years ago. I walked up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier right when the changing of the guards was taking place. They also did an official wrath ceremony which I left in the middle of. The Tomb of the Unknown Solider looks out over quite a view. They really lined up the landscaping and the area that projects out towards the river and DC. I found myself actually in the center of this view and everyone at the wrath laying ceremony when I continued my walk down the hill during the ceremony. The road wraps around and past the area that projects out from the tomb. I felt the urge to distract everyone and divert their attention but that would have been most disrespectful.

Teri and I headed out to Mark and Michelle’s for some grillin’ and swillin’ that evening. We stopped by Mad Fox to bring a growler of that Elixer. Again everyone enjoyed it. Mark grilled up burgers, hot dogs, and steaks for four couples. Teri and I kicked some butt in corn hole.

One Sunday we watched all of Formula One qualifying and the race. Monaco is always an interesting race. There was also the Indy 500. I almost missed that thinking it was Monday. I did watch the second half. Boring like all oval races until the end. And this one had an exciting last lap. Bummer for the newbie.

After dinner Teri and decided to bike down to the Capitol and check out the free concert. We ended up arriving about when it was ending. I got a flat and fixed that real quick. Teri was swapping out her CaBi bike at each station as we cruised around.

Monday was a day of relaxing and getting stuff done at home. This is a big week of beer events leading up to SAVOR. The summer starts now for me and it’s going to go quick.

BikeDC

When I first heard about BikeDC a few years ago I thought it was a little crazy to pay $35 to wake up early and ride in the streets of DC as I do on a daily basis. I emailed the organization because I was curious about the entry fee. Most of it goes to the permit they need to shut down the major roads and highways of DC for a few hours. Last year I was thinking about doing it but it rained. This year there was a perfect weather forecast so I registered the night before. It was an intereting course starting at the Capitol building, going past the White House, past the Kennedy Center, across the river and up the GW Parkway, then around the Marine Corps Memorial to the Air Force Memorial, before heading back across the river and finishing in DC.

As I was riding across the river in to DC to the start I saw the first riders going up the GW Parkway. I showed up at end of the allotted start time but people were still arriving and lots of people still milling around the start. I took what I thought was a very nice picture of the Capitol building with many bikers in front. Later I realized I was missing my memory card. Along the ride I saw people of all ages and types including a lot of kids and kid carriers. The most interesting was a tandem bike with mom up front, son on back, and the younger sister on the kid-bike-attachment as the third person. Everyone was having a good time riding in the open streets of DC.

There was a little bottle neck at the VA side of the bridge because the exit ramp was split with riders going in both directions. The GW Parkway was nice. Longer than I expected when looking at the route. Lots of hills that some people had trouble on. The experienced bikers in the group were held up a lot by the more casual and slower people. We'd form small lines on the left and slip by when we could between the packed lane on our right and the on-coming traffic of riders on the left separated by a traffic cone on occasion.

It was my first time at the Air Force Memorial. It has a decent view of DC. People must have wondered what was going on with about 5000 bikers showing up. The Memorial was designated as one of the few rest stops with food, water, and bathrooms. It was a pretty nice event. The turnout was big and the weather was almost perfect. I only saw one crash or actually the crash aftermath. I saw a couple Capital Bikeshare bikes which would have been expensive and difficult to take up the hills. I'd love to do the event again next year and start at the beginning of the line.

GPS route info

Google Music

After Google Music was announced last week, actually before it was announced and just a few hours after the site went live, I requested an invite. It is Google's new music service. Basically you can upload all your music and stream it from the cloud anywhere with any browser. There is an Android app for my phone and I can listen to my music library basically anywhere. Of course I can also listen to whatever is stored on my phone when I'm not connected to the internet. It's an interesting service. They give you some free music to start. It basically forces you to upload your whole library because when you specify your music folder it uploads it all. Thankfully I signed up on my laptop which has a fraction of my whole library. It still took days to upload in the background. Looking forward to trying the service out more. It will be nice to listen to any song I want whenever I want even if I don't want to stream my music from the cloud on a regular basis. It is currently available only via invite. Click the link above to request an invite.

Bike to Work Day

Bike to Work Day turned out to be a nice day. Lots of people turned up at the pit stops for free food and goodies. They had a stunt rider this year to entertain the crowd. I got my shirt this time unlike last year because I didn't register.

Since my client was on vacation and I didn't have my normal Friday afternoon meeting I took off the last few hours of the day and did my normal loop around Arlington. There was some water that closed the trail near the river but people were riding around it. You could also see that Four Mile Run flooded the trail and left debris. Not a ton of people out because of the threatening weather. I did get a few drops on me but it turned out to be a nice ride.

GPS of loop ride

Sonos setup

I got a Sonos set-up and am quite happy with it. First I got the bridge and the portable S5 to verify I wouldn't have any wireless issues in my dense RF environment. It worked well so next I hooked up my bedroom and living room as well. It is nice having access not only to my whole music library but I've also been exploring the hundreds of internet radio stations. I've found some good ones. I can use my phone as a remote control. The downside is I now have my phone's wi-fi on all the time and have been recharging my battery a lot more. That is not an issue though. Although I'd like to have the ability to set the timer with my phone and I can't do that yet. I should have set this all up a few years ago.

Charlie Hunter

photo by person_64

Charlie was hanging out on the front porch of the venue when we arrived. The show turned out to be rather empty. They had seats out unlike last time and we were able to sit in the front row. It was just Charlie and the drummer as it has been lately. It might have been different drummer than last time but they obviously were familiar with each other's playing. They played some of the good tunes from his last album. He would ask for recommendations from the crowd but would ask which key we'd like to hear... "D Major or D minor?" he asked, "Augmented!" I replied and Charlie chuckled. He said we were requesting old songs and he doesn't remember anything more than three years old. Someone requested Pursuit Package and since he couldn't remember how to play it he told the story of how it got its name. He explained that he bought some Pontiac or Plymouth or something for $1000 and the selling point was that it had the pursuit package. During the set break he hung out with folks outside again. During the encore he played some crazy song that was almost exclusively harmonics. It appeared as if it was something he has been messing with recently. It was pretty interesting.

Infamous Stringdusters

It was a double concert weekend and the Infamous Stringdusters were the first up at the State Theatre. Teri and I had dinner at the Mad Fox brewpub as has become a habit. We heard Orange Whip IPA was going back on tap and I had to get my growler filled with that lovely citrus hop brew.

Apparently it was the last show of the tour for the Stringdusters although there were not a ton of people there. The show opened with the Two Man Gentleman Band. They were an interesting Smothers Brothers look-alike that had a funny unexpected risqué routine.

Once the Stringdusters came on you could tell they were going to have a good time. They mentioned it was their last show of the tour and they were recording it. There was a video camera on the side of the stage and the banjo player had a Flip camera on his banjo head. I've seen that before on his banjo and didn't realize it was a video camera. They threw down two great sets. I love how they always surround whoever is soloing. They can pick. Just like last time they came down in the audience for the encore and played acoustic. It was fun. They had a good time and the crowd had a good time. Till next tour.

pics and video

rainbow over DC

I captured this pic from my office window...

Later I saw this on my twitter feed by @WeatherBugMedia:

Nearly full rainbow across the Washington DC sky... from our @WeatherBug camera at WJLA studios around 5:30pm http://twitpic.com/4tffsi