East coast recap (for real this time)

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

After a very restful last night, I think I've successfully made the change back to normal working people time.

I'm just trying not to fall asleep during work.

So today's return to work was mildly painful. Stuff just piles up. And it was only one day!

Anyway, so let's see. here's what happened over the weekend...

Saturday morning started hella early. I woke up around 4 a.m.-ish and was on the road by 5. Traffic kicked ass - if only it were like this all the time.

Anyway, major props to Spirit Airlines. They are a worthy airline in my book. My maiden voyage (and the return trips) were very good. The people were nice, the pilots made announcements over the speaker clearly, and both times got me to my destination quickly - like 30 minutes early.

Can't beat that.

I also have to give major props to parents that travel with kids. I slept through one screaming child tantrum that took place in the row up front, and then the younger kid who sat in the window seat andnkept asking his dad the same questions over and over.

I think I admire dad the most.

He kept his patience during the entire line of questioning. All at the same time while he was reading the paper...

Must be an acquired skill.

Something to note on the flight into DCA - We saw the Washington monument on the left right before we landed. Kinda neat.

JDO came and picked me up at the airport and we drove the scenic route back to his house in Maryland.

I can really see why people love living on the east coast. There's definitely a different feel to the surroundings. I'm used to suburbia in the midwest, but suburbia on the east side is definitely different.

I was diggin the super smooth roads and the tree lined parkways. These trees were huge too - to the point where the branches converged high up in the sky and created a canopy blocking out quite a bit of sunlight in the denser regions.

You could have filmed car commercials on these roads.

The neighborhoods were very green with vegetation and had lots of character - Not so cookie cutter that you see around my hood.

And not as much concrete :)

After getting settled in, we took a break and headed off to the nation's capital to see the famous Mall.

to this day, I still think of the Mall as a shopping mall. Not the grassy area that the buildings surround.

So I could get the full experience, we took the Metro (view map) into D.C. to the Smithsonian stop.

I can't remember the last time I was in D.C. - I was pretty young. But one thing's for sure, everything was much more spread out than I rememer. The Metro stop was in the middle between the Capitol building and the Washington Monument.

We did some walking around (of course I had to snap some pictures) and ended up at the Hirshorn Museum. I've recently been on this modern art kick so it was on my very short "list" of stuff to see.

The exhibits were both kind of neat and kooky - And some stuff was just weird. My favorite exhibit was the big huge stick of unwrapped butter that was on the floor.

Afterwards we headed to the National Air and Space Museum.

For lunch, of course.

We got to witness a model of efficiency at the McDonald's food court area. I was impressed. 3 stations - Order, pay, and pickup. Plus, the whole system was scalable.

Sweet.

This trip was kind of a bummer for the soft drink industry though. Of the two places where we went and there were self-serve fountain drinks, the choices were severely limited - Either out of syrup or the machine was broken.

For instance, at the musem, you could have any of the 10 or so fountain drinks offered as long as it was Coke and Sprite. Everything else came out as syrup. At Ikea (on Sunday), you could have anything as long as it was Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew, or water).

Anyway, after lunch we poked around the museum and caught an IMAX movie - Space Station 3D. I've never seen a 3D IMAX movie before, so it was a new experience. Definitely cool. I recommend it to anyone - Even if you think space sucks.

Which it does, theoretically.

Anyway, by this time it was getting kind of late so we headed back home on the Metro.

(to be continued - I'm tired)

-Kirk