2016 Memorial Day Hike
May 30, 2016
This year’s Memorial Day hike is in the bag! It was the tenth one, and our first venture into Pennsylvania. After having to travel over six hours down to Damascus last year, the two hour trip was a refreshing change of pace. The company was great, with Vapor (Firestarter?), Trout, Compass, Dreamer, and myself in attendance. Factor was notably absent for the first year in ten, but for good reason: he recently welcomed a little Factor into the world!
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Thoughts on The Mistborn Trilogy
Mar 05, 2016
Having just finished the third book of Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy, I must admit I’m surprised. What I thought to be a quick and easy read went much deeper than expected. Looking back on them all I have to commend Sanderson on his well formulated plot arc. By the end all of the pieces fit together nicely, but in a way you couldn’t exactly see coming.
The intro blurbs are always interesting, but almost never revealing.
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2015: The Year In Music
Jan 03, 2016
Another year of music is in the bag. 2015 was a good one! Once again we crack open summarizr to see what we have…
Which artists did we listen to the most? Nine Inch Nails (261) Frank Turner (246) Tame Impala (227) deadmau5 (225) Awolnation (158) Coldplay (156) Metallica (146) Pink Floyd (142) Less Than Jake (136) The War on Drugs (129) The stats this year are a bit skewed because I replaced my Revo 3700 (a full-sized computer) with a Raspberry Pi 2 (a credit card sized computer) to save a bit on power.
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Hiking Maryland South to North - Day 3
Oct 17, 2015
The third morning began with me glancing down at my watch, which was silent and distinctly NOT beeping. I’d amazingly woken up just before my watch alarm went off. Even more amazing, I’d gotten a full 8 to 9 hours of sleep on the trail despite the chilly temperature! I’ll chalk that up to securing my rain fly much lower than the night before, which kept out any drafts and reflected a bit more of my own heat back at me.
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Hiking Maryland South to North - Day 2
Oct 13, 2015
I awoke the second day of the hike with some cold spots in my hammock. The temperature had dropped significantly in the night and was most likely down in the low 40s. I responded in kind by putting on my beanie, wool socks, and down-filled vest to help fight the urge to get up super early. Eventually 7AM rolled around, and with it the came came alive. I quickly packed up all my stuff and waited for Jerry and Chris to venture out.
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Hiking Maryland South to North - Day 1
Oct 12, 2015
I got an invite to go out hiking once more before the year was over, so I jumped at the opportunity. It was hiking Maryland, which I’d done before, but not in this direction (heading north). Two years back I had done 33 miles out of the 41 in a miserable, grueling attempt at completing the four state challenge. This time we’d be doing the journey over three days.
Jerry picked me up bright and early on the first day, and we made our way up to Pen Mar Park on the Maryland - Pennsylvania border.
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Stand up or sit down?
Aug 23, 2015
I’m not sure if this guy can make up his mind. Stand up? Sit down? Eh, might as well go with the sit-down, stand-up paddle board! It’s definitely not a kayak, but it also is not a SUP board. Either way it is pretty cool for bay cruising.
Cruising
Maine Vacation - Day 1
Aug 15, 2015
Following quickly on the tail of our Rehoboth weekend, we chose to do our “real” vacation in Maine this summer. As usual it was in early August, but unlike usual we were able to drop the kids off with our parents so we could take a (mostly) worry-free trip. While this is all fine and well, it did mean that we had to travel down to Hampton Roads to drop off the kids at “grandma camp” first.
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Rehoboth
Jul 27, 2015
We just got back from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. It was just a weekend trip, with each of us taking Friday off to make the four hour trip worthwhile. It was also planned last minute, as I got an email from my manager with my “use it or lose it” tally of vacation days I’d yet to use!
We stayed at the Crosswinds Motel, which was technically three blocks away from the beach.
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The Nest in RTC
Jun 29, 2015
For a few months now I’ve been able to view this nest-like art installation in Reston Town Center. It’s pretty neat from the inside. On my daily walks I actually came across the artist and his crew setting it up for the first time. I didn’t have a clue at how big the thing would eventually become. Nowadays it is a crowd-pleaser for all the parents who frequent the area. Being in a convenient and relatively contained area, the nest provides a lot of fun for the kids.
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