So today we went to the National Museum of Natural History, you know, where they have the dinosaurs, the Hope Diamond, the Tiffany Diamond and like every single mineral and/or crystal known to man. Let me just say it was freakin' AWESOME! 300+ dinosaurs, about eleventy gajillion other fossils... it RULED. We kept on saying that Logan and Vince (two of Eli's best friends from the old neighborhood) would have LOVED being there. Heck, I loved being there. Here is a picture from the second floor looking down on one of the main dino exhibits. So cool that all of the museums here, which are mostly parts of the Smithsonian, are all totally free. I think we spent a whopping $8.75 for all of us to ride the Metro (another D.C. thing that rocks the hizzy) there and back. Great afternoon was had by all.

Several of you have written asking what in the world is a day in the life like here for Holly, me, and the kids. Well you asked for it, here it is:

6:30 a.m. Drag rear end out of bed, make coffee (after thanking God for coffee--REAL coffee--not that crap that used to masquerade as coffee at Robert Half--I'm still in therapy after that sludge) try to stealthfully shower to not wake up the kids. Realize that the kids have been up for about 45 minutes prior to our alarm going off.

7:00 a.m. Get tired of the dog staring at me...glancing at the door, stare back at me. Put on enough clothes so that if encounter the neighbors they don't freak. Take the dog out (that is going to be a whole other blog entry so I'll leave the joys of Pablo for another time). Holly and kids are up. Kids are attempting to eat breakfast.

7:05 a.m. Remind kids for the 15th time to EAT YOUR BREAKFAST!

7:30 a.m. Holly and Eli leave for the day--Holly drops him off at the YMCA for a swim camp which he digs, then she's off to work.

7:45 a.m. After checking online what gourmet delight the refectory will have prepared for lunch for that day, Bip and I are off to the seminary. She goes to the Butterfly House which is conveniently on the seminary's campus. In the car on the way over we debate such topics as: "Do Care Bears cry when they get their hair cut" and/or, "will we park the car near the chapel and walk to the Butterfly House, OR will we park near the Butterfly House so we don't have to walk so far" and/or, "do we think that squirrels like living in trees with leaves or trees with needles more" and/or "the economic impact of The Trinity on non-Christian countries in the Middle East who have more than half their GNP coming from the production and/or refinement of petrol and petroleum related products." OK so I made one of those up. Seriously, I am curious though on Bella's thoughts about the preference squirrels have on where they live. I bet she has a couple of stellar thoughts on the subject.

8:10 a.m. Morning Prayer. On Wednesday and other feast days we have Eucharist and a sermon. Been astonished at how great the preaching is here from the faculty. So, that's good.

9:15--11:45 a.m. Greek. Taught by a guy that had his GOEs (Graduate Ordination Exams for all of us that don't know what the heck those are all about) with my dad way back in the day on Long Island. Actually, the guy is pretty cool. His passion is Greek and it shows. We had our first REAL quiz on Wednesday so I'm anxious to find out how I did...personally, I think I made that quiz my bee-otch, but we'll know more tomorrow (Monday at around 9:20 a.m.)

11:45--12:45 p.m. Lunch. The whole community gets together once a day for a shared meal in the refectory. EVERYONE is there...from the Dean down to the maintenance crews. Great time to meet new people (the mode we're all in now since, well, just about everyone IS new to us) complain about Greek class to everyone that's taking Hebrew (and listen to the Hebrew students complain about Hebrew to us), and chill for a while. The food is pretty good. Of course if you ask the "on-hill" people (those who live in the dorms on campus) they say that the food is pretty average. I guess since I only have to eat ONE meal a day there I'm not quite so jaded to the whole thing. But there is usually some variety and they ALWAYS have a nice salad bar as an option.

1:00--2:30 p.m. LTG1 which is code for Oral Interpretation of Scripture. Which is affectionately known as "Read and Bleed". Basically we go learn how to read The Word more effectively. That takes the form of us saying Morning Prayer again in a group of 4 students with an instructor. We've taken turns with one person leading and reading the Psalm appointed for the day, one person reading the OT, one the Epistle and one the Gospel. After we read through once we are evaluated both by our peers and the instructor then have to get up and read the whole reading again. Lovely. Hence: Read and Bleed.

2:30--4:30 p.m. I'm in the Library, in one of the common lounges or somewhere doing Greek homework, reading my lesson for Read and Bleed, or just chillin' with my homies. You know how I roll.

4:30 p.m Retrieve Bella from the Butterfly House then go get Mr. Man from YMCA camp, go home and start dinner. Pour myself a nice G&T (substitute beer, wine, anything alcoholic) and try to follow a recipe from "Anyone Can Cook This!" or some such book. Usually it is some dish that involves doing more than one thing at a time...and we all know how THAT goes.

6:30 p.m. Holly comes home and "fixes" whatever I've tried to make for dinner. We all eat together, kids are "reminded" to eat their dinner--or some horrible thing will befall them like "no treats for the rest of the time we're in seminary, I MEAN IT." or "if you don't eat everything on your plate now you won't get to watch TV until you are 19, do you understand me?" You get the idea.

7:15 p.m. Kids get a bath. THAT'S another whole other blog entry. Ugh. After they are dried off and dressed I head back over to VTS until around 8:45 to finish Greek homework.

Yeah, so that's that. Here's another picture from the museum...
T-Rex was a pretty big bad ass if you ask me. Andy Gruber, this one's for you man.

So, that's about it for this week. I have another couple of thoughts but I'll save them for their own special unique entries into the blog. Here's a teaser though--I've got a solid rant brewing about why driving in this freaking town is some of the worst I've ever been exposed to in my life. Seriously, they all drive worse than ME here. Be afraid, be very VERY afraid!

Peace!

P.S. If you see my dad, please remind him that he is now really, REALLY old. Happy Birthday Dad! Look, 60 isn't that old...if you're Scotch....or dirt....or a moon rock.

Backpacks, Grills and Greek

So, this weekend we went to our local Target to get a couple of things (read: we had a list of 6 things and bought 23 things....like normal). A special note of interest about our Target is that is CHARGES FOR PARKING in their parking lot if you stay more than 2 hours. Never seen that before.

One of the things that, after a week of carrying around my briefcase and hating life, I needed to get was a backpack. Just a regular old, nothing fancy, hold my books and a pencil, backpack--preferably black. Holy Cow (said Harry Carry-tone. See this site for some more special Harry Carry noises: http://www.powermaxconsulting.com/HarrySounds.htm) Anyway, I was surprised at how backpacks have changed since last I had one--back in 1992. There are things like cell phone pouches, mesh pockets for water bottles, and on my new backpack a "media pocket" that is specifically designed to fit either an ipod or CD player. Neat. Also, backpacks have become hella expensive! BUT, that is a topic for another rant in another posting.

The other thing that we purchased that we truly needed was a small charcoal grill. Our wonderful apartment complex doesn't allow propane on premise anywhere. What the propane industry did to the owners of our apartment complex to warrant such a total ban is beyond me. Personally, I think that propane is a wonderful cooking fuel, acceptable substitute for diesel in city buses, fuel for forklifts, etc. BUT....I digress. (and I couldn't think of any more common uses for propane. Peep this website for some additional uses that I couldn't think of http://www.npga.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=817 The National Propane Gas Association or NPGA for short I guess)

OK, back to the action... Now when I say small, I mean 14" across small. The good news about that is that it is really portable and doesn't use much charcoal. The bad news is that is USES CHARCOAL. Having had a monstrosity of a gas grill at our house in Cincinnati (which rocked by the way), it was a step back in grilling evolution to go to briquettes. It was like picking up a piece of paper, a pen, finding a stamp and envelope and actually WRITING someone a LETTER *gasp!*

At Target they have the regular charcoal, not the matchlight kind. I remember from a previous decade (the last time I had a charcoal grill) that lighter fluid infused charcoal was a modern miracle....a modern miracle that Target didn't have. So I looked around and found these new inventions from Kingsford (the same people that brought us matchlight charcoal mind you) that replace traditional lighter fluid. "Sweet!" I thought. Fast forward--yeah, those don't work. At all. BUT the grill does. I will say this: even though it is a pain in the rear end to get the charcoal up and running it DOES taste better than cooking on a propane gas grill.

So to answer a couple of questions that I know are just about to burst from everyone reading this blog: 1) YES, I still have my eyebrows. 2) NO, nothing else at our apartment complex has caught on fire from my grilling (emphasis on "from my grilling") 3) YES, I have lit other things on fire in the grill aside from charcoal and meat.

Sub-plot-story: I made the statement at one of our tables in the Refectory at lunch on Wednesday that charcoal grilling tasted better than gas-grilled meat and started world war three amongst about 5 of my fellow seminarians. Much the same way you can start a brawl at just about any gathering of strangers by blurting out, "Skyline Chili is HORRIBLE!"

OK so the second part of this entry is about Greek. I decided to take Greek after much deliberation, thought, prayer, and flipping of coins. One of the powerful arguments to take Hebrew (my other choice in biblical languages I could take) came from a fellow seminarian who is a year ahead of me. She said, "Matthew, you have to take Hebrew, it is the language in which God first spoke to God's creation." OK, that was something I hadn't thought of.

But, in the end I chose Greek and it has gone, for at least the first week, VERY well. This is due in part to our professor who is both challenging and gentle with us as we all learn this new language. We had a quiz on Friday and I think I did very well. One thing that makes me laugh is that our TA, Mitch, is the largest human being I have ever met. Seriously. Andrew Parlin looks like a little girl next to this guy. Yes, that is a big statement for any of you that know Andrew Parlin, but it is a true statement. 6'11" 325 pounds. And, much like Mr. Parlin, one of the nicest people I've had the blessing to know.

OK, I'm off to the grocery store. Holly has trusted me to do the shopping this week. We're trying to find a grocery store we like--so far, nothing great. But I remain hopeful that TODAY is the day we find the store we'll go to for the next 3 years. It will also be one of the last times Holly lets me go to the grocery store unsupervised. Like Lowe's and Home Depot before it, I'm confident that Giant Grocery Stores will be on the "Needs Parental Supervision" list for me.

More about THAT later. Our love to you all.

Some Episcopal Church Trivia

So, I was thinking the other day, I wonder what does all the stuff on the Episcopal Church's flag and shield mean--these are the types of questions that randomly pop into my head as a budding seminarian. Other questions like, wouldn't it be uber sweet to jump into a vat of the filling that they use for the Maple and Brown Sugar Pop Tarts? also occur, but I'll get into those on a separate posting I'm sure. Much the way my brother Ben goes on a diatribe about the sweetness of Big Wheels on his blog. Which, by the way, Ben, are hella sweet. No denying the truth.

So, through the modern miracle of the Internet (you know, the one that Al Gore created), I was able to find out a whole ton of stuff. Mostly that the flag has its roots in the Diocese of Long Island. Apparently there was this guy, one William Baldwin, who decided that the church should have a flag--this was in like 1918-ish. He realized that there was no flag for the church when he was on some committee to help the Diocese celebrate its 50th anniversary. The committee he was on was tasked with having some big whoop-dee-doo of a procession with lots of flags--ones for the archdeconries (yes that is a real word, go look it up), the various cathedral ministries, etc. Well, old Billy Baldwin noticed that there wasn't a flag for The Church....

S0000, fast forward to the General Convention of 1940--in Kansas City, BTW for those of you scoring at home, he presented a mock up and it was accepted along with oh, the Prayer Book. Pretty good amount of stuff at that General Convention got decided.

Here's what everything stands for, in good ole Billy Bob's words: "The red cross is the oldest Christian symbol dating back to the third century. The white represents purity and the red the blood of the martyrs. The blue is ecclesiastical blue, light in color, and used in the clothing of the Blessed Virgin Mary and on this flag represents the human nature of our Lord which He got from His virgin mother. The nine cross-crosslets or Jerusalem crosses represent the nine dioceses that convened in Philadelphia in 1789 when the Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church was adopted with its House of Bishops and House of Clerical and Lay Deputies and the Book of Common Prayer. The nine cross-crosslets are set in the form of a St. Andrew's cross in memory of the fact that, to avoid swearing allegiance to the British Crown, Bishop-elect Samuel Seabury of Connecticut had to go to Scotland to be consecrated by Scottish bishops."

The original version is hanging the the undercroft of the Cathedral on Long Island, a copy of the original one, presented at the General Convention in Kansas City is at the Washington National Cathedral right here in The District--you know that's what people who live in D.C. call it, because we are so cool-like-that. Oh wait, good thing we live in Alexandria so we don't have to sound all, well, like that.

So, now whenever someone comes up to you on the street and says, "For 500 pesos, tell me what do all the components of The Episcopal Church's flag mean." You can answer with glee and pride in your heart, and collect your $45.45. Don't say I never gave ya nothin'.

If you want the whole story--in a lot better detail than what I've got above, peep this web page:
http://www.allstates-flag.com/fotw/flags/rel-epis.html#stgeorge

So there.

Yeah, so we went to "the races"

OK, for those of you who have never lived in the Chesapeake Bay area, what I am about to reveal might come as a surprise. Heck, it did me... BUT, apparently, what people here do to "race" involves boats--motor boats. Now, I'm thinking that NASCAR just didn't get this far north so people needed an outlet for all that "Hey, Y'all, watch me do THIS!" and an excuse to crack open a couple dozen cold ones to the smell of something burning and/or excessive amounts of exhaust fumes.

So we read online that they are going to have hydroplane races at this place named Kent Island at the Kent Island Yacht Club. "SWWWWEEEET" you are thinking--much as I did, and Eli said out loud when I asked him if he wanted to go. Naturally, Holly agreed to go--albeit grudgingly. Kent Island sits between Annapolis (the home of sailing, in this continent at least) and the rest of Maryland. About 45 minutes away. So, we load up the kids and head out...everything was fine until we hit construction before we get onto the main road out of D.C.--US50. That sucked. Who the hell does construction work during the day on a SATURDAY?!

Fast forward to getting there...eventually. It was about 167 degrees in the sun, 152 degrees in the shade--with 80% humidity. So, we park the car--the directions were accurate enough from the website which explained that we parked "under the bridge" and reminded us on every page of the site in bold all caps "NO COOLERS ALLOWED". These should have been signs for me right then, but I was too hopped up on the thought of seeing some boats going 120 MPH into a crowd of on lookers that I totally ignored those two little details.

Park the car...good so far. Get on the waiting yellow school bus (getting more shady by the minute). You know things are going to get interesting when people getting onto the bus have one or more of the following items: camo folding camp chairs with the words "Deer Slayer" embroidered on the holding pouch....hats with collections of pins some of which have things like the confederate flag crossed with the black MIA flag, in combination with enameled frogs, hogs, foxes wearing neck ties, fireworks exploding, beer steins clanking, and "I'd rather be working" x'd out....buzz cuts on all children in the family...young men proudly wearing their "clean 'beater" on account of it being a special occasion...you get the idea.

Now all of that ran head-long into the other and vastly opposing camp--the people that actually belong to the Kent Island Yacht Club...who, were also present in droves. We rode out with a guy and his grandson. The guy had on faded red khaki shorts with embroidered Maryland Blue Crabs on them and some sort of "sailing sunglasses". I think his grandson's name was Trent, or Chip, or something like that.

So, two worlds that do not ever intentionally join forces collided with as much civility and politeness each side could muster. Things did get a little tense now and again, but for the most part everyone looked at everyone else and thought, "Glad I'm not wearing THAT."

We sat in the stands to watch the first preliminary qualifying heat and by the time that was over with I was pretty much drenched. The kids looked like they had just been on a 3 mile sprint--red cheeked and sweating like mad. These were the smaller, older boats...the ones that only went 90 MPH.














So I liked the fact that they made the guys at least wear safety helmets. This boat came in last place, and was the local favorite. I think Holly liked it because it was "pretty". Either way, um...they still lost. But they didn't give up without a fight. I was impressed at the way the boats looked like they were just about to wipe out...
So the day progressed and we left all sunburned, full of bad food, sweaty and tired. But we saw a boat race, damnit. And it was fun. (repeat until believed!).










Here is another couple of pictures from the day...there were many kinds of hydroplane boats...who knew.



Some, like this boat had fancy-schmancy sponsors like Penzoil, and Rock Star Energy Drink...This yellow boat lost too. I guess being pretty and winning are mutually exclusive in the world of semi-professional powerboat racing.

Notes on the Move from The Nati to Alexan-drizzle

So as my first post, I figured I should let you all know how the heck we really got here in the first place. Below are some of my musings on the move out, and the first couple of days.

Notes from Move to Alexandria, VA

Rained the entire 3+ hours it took me to pack both of the vehicles. Only to find out that we had about four suitcases too many that could physically fit into both cars. Sooo...sent Holly out to Wal-Mart at 11:30 in the pouring rain to find a solution (see next point below).

· Spending $60 on a water proof luggage rack is annoying, especially when it refuses to rain, the entire trip.

· The top speed of a fully loaded Land Rover is inversely proportionate to the distance between it and the front bumper of an 18-wheeler going up a steep hill.

· Pab lo can sleep in the car in at least 5 states…and can manage to whine just about all the way through 3 of them.

· We left Cincinnati at 6:47 AM and arrived in Alexandria at 4:50 PM

· Lunch was provided by our fantastic ex-neighbors whom we miss a ton already. Holly REEEAALLLY liked it.

· Somewhere in central Maryland, I hit something that left a 7 3/8 inch impact smear on the windshield. I think I hit a bat.

· Around 9:50 AM I hit a sparrow crossing I-71N. Felt badly about it, but it was the third bird I’d hit in as many days. Like who the hell hits birds with the car? EVER. Is that a bad omen?

· See if you can guess which of the three vehicles displayed the following bumper sticker: “A bad day at the Dog Show is better than the best day at the office.” Was it: A) Subaru Forrester, B) Audi Station wagon, or C) Beat down, rust colored full-sized conversion van…from ARKANSAS? If you answered anything but C, please hit yourself with a brick.

· What is up with grandparents on motorcycles? Seriously, we saw no fewer than 6 separate packs of them…all with their custom gold accented motorcycles towing some sort of small trailer on the back, the riders (man in the front driving, woman riding in back smiling at cars) all had those big headset things on so they could talk to one another. I thought one of the reasons people got motorcycles was to NOT have to talk to people on long distance trips. Old people on motorcycles. Who knew?

· Coke Zero. WHO KNEW? (speaking of who knew?)

It It cost $5.49 for a 12 pack of Diet Coke here in Alexandria. At the supermarket.

· Total cost for gas for the trip: Land Rover $149.51 (missed it by THAT much). For the Audi: $123.

· It can take a grown man, who has done it before, over 10 minutes to put together a two-screen DVD player for the car—which on ly required plugging in two cords. Made especially annoying by the fact I had to pee like a race horse at the time.

· Packed my belts in boxes the movers took on Friday…remembered that on Sunday morning before going to church. Grrrreeeaat.

· Found a great little Chinese food place that is better than First Wok but not as good as China Gourmet--$60 for four people, but we did have enough left overs for lunch the next day so it all evens out.

· What is more fun than moving your whole family to Alexandria?! MOVING WITH PINK EYE! Yup, I said it. PINK EYE.

NOTES FROM DAY 2: Sunday, July 29

· Discovered that we have nothing for heating up Chinese food from night before for lunch today. Shocker. Didn’t even think about things like that when we packed everything up…again, shocker.

· Have gone to “Giant” food store, which could fit inside the meat department of the Anderson Township Kroger. It is the largest food store in the immediate area, so we’ll make do. We keep on thinking that there is a better place, but we haven’t found it yet. Yes, we are food snobs. Have you SEEN ME lately. Sheesh.

· Went to church today at Christ Church in Alexandria, the home parish of people like Robert E. Lee and George Washington…managed not to color on the kneelers. There was a baptism. One of the kids was named Beck. All I could think about when they said his name was “two turntables and a microphone”. Oh well. Poor kid. I hope his hair is permanently a mess like his namesake.

· Kate and Ramsey—saw something as we parked the car outside the church that made us miss you guys so much….but was funny as hell:

· Pablo has gone damned near 72 hours without peeing on carpeting. I’m so proud.

· Oh yeah, went to church today sans belt. It is the type of place where people would notice that you didn’t have the proper blazer buttons. Spotted a dude with the name tag “Pepper” and a guy with a pink sear sucker suit with a bright pink striped tie. I can’t make this shit up. I think it was Chris Fait’s “grandpa” or something.

· What, in an emergency drinking situation, will open a wine bottle if you have no opener? How ‘bout a 4” long lag screw and some pliers. Yup. 60% of the time it works every time.

· Speaking of other things we forgot…on our second trip to Giant we remembered that we didn’t have anything for dinner, or a way to heat up the leftovers for lunch from the Chinese place. After returning home I thought of about 4 other things we should have bought. They are going to get to know us in a hurry there.

· Oh yeah…speaking of the Giant. Pulled up on trip number one and in the parking space in front of us was a black Toyota Camry with a Cincinnati Bengals license plate holder. There was also a gay equality sign on the back bumper. Who knew that Fait had cousins out in D.C.?

· We are all getting used to sitting on the floor with no furniture. So far no one has spilled anything, even me with a plastic red cup full of red wine. Tempting fate? You betcha.

· OK, so I can now say I’ve driven in another major city. Turns out we are no more than 7 minutes from the National Monument. That would be an obelisk for those of you scoring at Robert Half. So I got a bit confused a couple of times and we kept on passing the Lincoln Memorial—like 6 times. Reference “look kids! Big Ben, Parliament…!” Yeah, it was JUST like that.

· Washington D.C. is laid out very logically, there are cross streets—ALLEGEDLY—that are in alphabetical order, criss-crossed by streets that are either numbers or States. There is a system there apparently but my Indiana University education did not prepare me for that. We got lost. A lot.

· People at our local Blockbuster are very into strange hairstyles. I want to get a picture with the store manager, Debbie, who took a liking to us. She has the best Female Wrestler (circa 1987) She-Mullet I have ever seen. Her lovely assistant, Mary, has next to no hair—buzzcut. Bergmann, you’d dig her except she isn’t in her 60’s.

· Holly was very proud of herself—she was able to get to the store and back all without getting lost. Now mind you she’s been in the car the previous four times we’ve gone…and it is only .25 miles away—you can practically SEE IT from our apartment. Right, a subtle swerve and right into the shopping center. I am ordering her a medal once we get our Internet hooked up tomorrow.