I started off the day with an hour on the road bike, did some serious house cleaning, enjoyed some TV and relaxing, and just got back from a quick Potomac River kayak lap around Roosevelt Island with Kristin.  I took a few pictures while we were out there, if you can believe that…

On Tuesday, I found out my newlywed cousin was in town on a short business trip with her husband. We met up for dinner in DC and walked down to the Capital so they could check it out at night. All my relatives live in Florida, Georgia, California, and Chicago for the most part, (Chicago is a separate entity from Illinois, in my mind) so I don’t see any of them too often. We took a cheesy cellphone pic to commemorate the occasion.

I also ordered my iPhone 4 on Tuesday!

On Thursday, Mike, Geordie and I made wine at Carafe Wine Makers in Alexandria.  The making part should be loosely interpreted. We dumped a few prepackaged ingredients into a big white 5 gallon plastic bucket. The kind you get when you buy paint in bulk. The best part was filling a sock-like fabric pouch with wood chips and shavings to simulate that taste of wine actually aged in a wood barrel. In 6 weeks, we go back and bottle the wine. We’ll end up with 10 bottles each of what is likely to be some pretty shady “Brunello style” red wine.  I’m sure 9 out of 10 Italians couldn’t tell the difference… Here all all my pictures of this adventure.

On Friday, I took Mike over to the VW dealership so that he could work his bargaining magic and attempt to drive off in a new GTI. He was successful and is now enjoying the upgrade from his early 90′s Civic with absurdly stiff suspension, racing seats, and no AC. Mike also made a new BFF in the process. Here they are together with the new vehicle.

Today, I went on a nice 30 mile bike ride out the W&OD and then hit the Arlington hill loop on the way back. Patrick and Mike joined in. A ridiculous guy on a Cervelo carbon tri bike road off the left side of the paved trail trying to pass a group of walkers and had his bike come out from under him as he unskillfully ignored the low shoulder trying to swerve back on. The walkers felt bad. I found it hard to as I passed him laying motionless in the middle of the trail and saying “I’m not going to be able to make it back”. You tipped over going 8 MPH buddy. You’re gonna bounce back. I promise. Maybe you should get a stationary bike? I’m such a nice guy.

Today, Kwabena is having his annual Rum Punch Party so that’s the agenda for the afternoon and early evening.  I think tomorrow morning might have to include another bike ride.  I might even clean the house after that.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

Yesterday, I got up nice and early and met my friend Patrick to go mountain biking at Wakefield Park. First mountain biking of the year, sadly. There’s nowhere to go close to home and it can be hard to get motivated to pack up the car and drive around northern VA just to bike. After returning from Wakefield, I walked over to watch some of the Clarendon Cup bike race festivities. The lower category races and women’s race were already over, so first up was the kids races, then the pro race. Here are the pictures I put up on Picasa. I also took a bunch of HD video that I’m going to play with soon and put up.

Today, I went on a nice road ride up the Capital Crescent Trail and through Rock Creek Park with Mike. I’ve got a fairly busy week ahead of me. I’m making wine on Thursday so I’ll get back to you on how that goes. Also, don’t forget to pre-order your iPhone 4 on Tuesday.

When we got there, we realized there was a trail running race going on.  It was unusual because it was only around 200 people and they were doing loooong distances.  Some were doing marathons and 50 milers.  They let random park visitors share the trails, since it was pretty low volume and few were in a giant hurry with 35 miles under them and 15 left to go!

We ended up walking to the far end of the park on the back trails and then taking the river trail on the return.  It was hot and humid but great to get out there.  I took a few pictures as usual.  Here they are on Picasa.

April 11th – My good friends Jon and Meredith were married in Murrells Inlet, SC.  Kristin and I drove down on a Friday, leaving at the crack of dawn to make it to the rehersal by early afternoon.  I was a groomsman, which was a first for me.  It was a beautiful weekend and a great setting.  Got to love hanging out on a beach and a wedding in botanical gardens.  All the pictures from the weekend are here.

May 4th – Kristin, Mike, Molly, and I headed up to NYC for the second annual installment of the Five Boro Bike Tour.  Unlike last year, it was basically rain free and we completed the whole thing.  We arrived, checked into our crazy nice, upgraded and comped due to reservation snafu, $1000/night hotel rooms, grabbed dinner and then woke up way too early to ride 42 miles of NY streets with 30,000 people.  It was fun but with a lot of stop and go that made it pretty frustrating.  Kristin and I got split from Mike and Molly early on and didn’t reunite with them until back at the hotel.  It was a whirlwind 36 hour trip and probably our last go at the Five Boros.  Next year we’re going to look for an adventure that requires dealing with less people who don’t know how to ride bikes, in such a confined space…  :-)  All the NYC pictures are here.

May 10th – I spent the weekend in Richmond helping my parents pack their house.  They just moved down to Greenville, SC and are officially retired!  I took a run through the neighborhood and snapped a few pictures for old time’s sake.  We also visited Alex and Matt to see their baby goats, which were awesome.  Richmond pics are here.

May 29th – I drove down to Charlottesville on Saturday for the Blue Ridge Mountain Rescue Group 35th anniversary hike and cookout.  I ended up hiking solo at Sugar Hollow.  I found out later that others showed up late and very late but we all never crossed paths.  Then it was on to Mint Springs Park for some grilling and hanging out.  We ended up with around 25 people over the course of the day and I got to catch up with a number of old friends I haven’t seen in as much as 10 years.  We closed the place down and departed with grand plans to do something again sooner than 10 years from now.  I hope we can follow through!  All my pictures are here.

Those are the highlights.  As usual, work has been really busy and will be especially nuts through June.  My next real trip is scheduled for the first week of July.  Jared and I are both flying into Greenville, SC to visit the parents and see their new house.  Then, it’s back up to Charlottesville the following weekend for Dan and Bru’s wedding!    I’m hoping to get out to Seattle to hang out with Jared toward the end of the summer too.

Happy Memorial Day!  I’ll check back in a few months…  ;-)

All that lovely plant-life out there is awakening and, while fun to look at, kicked off my spring allergies about two weeks ago. It’s a steady diet of Claritin and Sudafed for the next few weeks and then hopefully I’ll feel normal again.

On the work front, I’ve moved into a new role doing product management vs. the project management I was doing previously. The difference being that I work on figuring out what software features and products we should be working on, instead of managing the process of getting them actually implemented. It going to keep me busy but it’s new learning and a challenge and I’m excited about it.

For the last month, I’ve been on a steady routine of biking, running, and swimming, about two times a week each. I feel like I’m finally shaking off the winter hibernation attitude and am not sure what I want to do this year for races or challenges, but I’m cautiously hoping the ankles stay strong and I can do an adventure race or two.  I am planning to do the Five Boros Bike Tour again at the beginning of May.  Hoping for no rain and good temps this year!  We booked a hotel in Manhattan instead of New Jersey so that should be a lot more fun and reduce the transportation hassles.

Finally, I just posted some pics from last week’s walk into DC to check out the cherry blossoms.  We’ve been having some ridiculously nice weather for a week now.  It’s been getting up to around 80 the last two days.  Very motivating when it comes to outdoor activities.  I’ve already got a mild sunburn.  Time to start with the sunscreen…

Ok, back my UPS iPad delivery watch!

Click here to check out the cherry blossom pictures.

So here’s the after picture of the car unburied. A crew with a snowblower cleaned out the rest of the lot today, but the pile of snow in the pic is about 90% mine.

Instead, I took the opportunity to ski in town! The route ended up being Rosslyn, Iwo Jima, Arlington Cemetery, Memorial Bridge, and back. All in all, probably three miles so not too crazy. Thankfully, there were tracks from people walking that I was able to stay in most of the time. XC skiing through two feet of untracked fresh snow is only slightly easier than walking through it.

After getting a decent skiing workout, I topped it off with an hour or two of shoveling my car out. For the December snow, I was parallel parked on the street. I’m parked just off the street in a little parking lot this time, which has it’s advantages and disadvantages. While I won’t get as massively plowed in, I had to shovel out a path to the road as well. The end result was a giant snow berm that’s probably 6 feet tall and 12 feet long. That baby won’t melt until April. I’ll take a picture tomorrow. Here’s the before picture and click here for the rest of my pictures from today.