Homeless World Cup Soccer June 30th, 2008

   
Here’s the photo set from yesterday’s Homeless World Cup finals in DC.
   

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Tags: DC, People, sports
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Festa Italiana: Gelato Amore June 29th, 2008

   

It was a busy and productive Sunday for us, most of it revolving around food and European cultures, two very great and wonderful things to revolve a Sunday around in my opinion. We checked out the Festa Italiano this morning at the Italian Cultural Society on 3rd and F St. It was small, but the food options were awesome. I had some coconut gelato and some of the most delicious pizza I’ve ever had in DC… deliciously salty dough and globs of mozzarella cheese. Matt also went for an Italian sausage and mango gelato while we watched some Italian men play– and teach — some onlookers how to play Bocci ball. Check the rest of the photo set on Flickr.
   
Next stop was the National Building Museum to check out the Eero Saarinen exhibit. I had been meaning to get over to this for awhile now because of my involvement on one of the the plaster models that is on display there. Awhile ago my company was contacted to create a 3-D computer model of the TWA Terminal, which is one of Saarinen’s works. I was part of a team of 3-D artists that created the model of the terminal. We sent it to another company that creates plaster-printed scale models of buildings. So that was cool to see a small part of my work on display.
   
Third stop was the Green Turtle in Chinatown to watch the Euro Cup finals. I was surprised at the number of both Spain and Germany soccer fans that were there, and it made for an exciting atmosphere in which to eat wings and watch the game.
   
This was not enough to satisfy our soccer quota for the day, so we went to watch the Homeless World Cup… more on that in the next posting…

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Tags: DC, Exteriors, Food, People
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fields of green June 28th, 2008

     
While this photo is from my Uncle’s farm in Iowa we saw some beautiful and similar scenery this morning on our TNT bike ride a mere 20-25 minutes outside of Beltway in scenic Poolesville, MD. Who knew it got so country so fast when you get out of the city.
     
We drove out to Rileys Lock to meet up with the team. Our ride took us along some pretty remote rural roads, I think we covered a little more than 30 miles all in. One of our teammates took a pretty rough spill on some gravel on a turn at the base of large hill. He picked up a fair bit of road rash on his shoulder and had a decent gash on his elbow full of gravel, dirt, and crud. Nothing that a few stitches can’t fix!
     
I recently (yesterday) got some new pedals and biking shoes (the type where you lock your foot on to the pedal) and I’m still getting used to the motion of getting my feet in and out of the pedals. When I slipped a gear near the beginning of the ride I was so focused on what was happening with my chain/gears that I forgot I was still locked into my pedals. I coasted to a stop then just fell over on to my side (fortunately I landed on the grass on the side of the road) with the bike still attached. Yeah, that was embarrassing and inevitable….
     
Great ride and very nice to get out of urbanization for a little while. My handy dandy new on bike computer told me that I maxed out at 38mph during this ride….woooohooo! Go TEAM!
     
Also…I’d like to report that the bike rack did not fail us and no incidents or damage were reported to the bikes, the rack, or the car.

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ahh the Fort Reno concert days of summer… June 26th, 2008

 

   

After work today I rode the one-wheel-newly-replaced and the other-wheel-newly-realigned bicycle over to Fort Reno Park in Tenleytown for one in a series of outdoor concerts… Why is the bike wheel new you might ask? Well that would be because the bikes crashed to the ground this morning while attached to our now-broken bike rack as we careened over a poorly marked speed bump on Gallatin Road NW. Let me present all the facts, fair and honest, and we’ll let our readers decide where to place the blame for my $80 spent at Silver Cycles repair shop today.
 
 
 

Throwing blame around is mostly healthy, so… is the offender: me (Lori)? is it Matt? the bike rack company? the DC government/road surfacing department? the early morning hour?
 
fact #1. Matt was driving. Lori was navigating. (For the record, this is already quite a backwards situation.)
 
fact #2. The speed bump is not painted. It is the same color as the road. The road is wider that most DC side streets. There is small sign indicating speed bump, it is on the side of the road. It is difficult to see the sign (this is unbiased).
 
fact #3. I have previously careened over the speed bump in question on a prior trip to the pool.
 
fact #4. It was 6 am. We were *almost* at the pool.
 
fact #5. Lori and Matt attached the trunk-mounted bike rack together this morning.
 
fact #6. Lori and Matt first trial-installed the bike rack 2 nights ago, while Lori read the instructions for doing so. Today it was discovered that Lori did not read aloud (this is important) the very last step, which involved tying off the straps, BUT
 
fact #7. the Straps had previously been tied off by Matt on a successful bike trip yesterday in which no bikes were spilled onto the road.
 
fact #8. Straps were not tied down this morning when the bikes flew off.
 
fact #9. Lori’s bike wheel got mangled.
 
fact #10. Matt’s seat, previously wobbly, got miraculously re-tightened during the flying-off of the bike rack and bikes!! Thank goodness for a silver lining.
 
fact #11. The bike rack is missing two pieces of plastic tie-downs. Actually, they’re broken, they’re not missing… because they are resting on the side of Gallatin Road where I flung them this morning.
   
So it’s up to our loyal readers to decide in the comments who is to blame here. Do remember, Matt was driving.
    
Ok, fine, I will say that, after writing out the facts, I think I am to blame. SAD FACE. If there was a moral or an end to this story, and there is, it would be this: it’s better to sleep in past 5:30 am like a normal human being instead of trying to bike *and* swim before working a 10 hour day.
   
I also just noticed that this post started out with the title of “ahh the Fort Reno concert days of summer…” and I didn’t even get to that part. In summation of the concert, there was a lot of mostly crappy acoustic singing, and lots of teenagers, so we went and got Thai food. Goodnight!

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Tags: DC, Exteriors, People, Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim, bands, music, parks
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birds & squirrels & biking June 25th, 2008

   
Just returned from riding our bikes around Hains Point this morning (luckily with a few more parts than the bike in the picture…) and it was a successful ride. I did notice, however, that there were a LOT of critters all over the place rooting around in the trash cans and scurrying across the road. I wonder why the park service doesn’t empty the trash every evening? Lots of them were overflowing, and then I rode right underneath a gross bird struggling to lift a corncob (I think thats what it was?) out of the garbage can I wondered how long it would be until I got hit with a falling piece of trash. And would it knock me off my bike? I hope not. Maybe this isn’t a regular case, I guess I’ll have to drag myself out of bed again to see.

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Tags: DC, animals, bicycle, nature, parks, triathlon
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