193: WAKA Wednesday, with special guest

Katie drove up to have kickball Family Dinner and to support us in our Wednesday kickball game. We did not win (we actually lost pretty badly....again...) but it was still fun. I feel lucky to have my best friend within driving distance so we can see each other regularly. :-)

Better luck next week, Jagernauts!

Important Addendum to Photo 192

My mother sent me the following regarding my post from last night:


"Was the Prince Wm. park passport stamp from the time when your father put the string cheese in his nose and then ate it??????"

192: Stamps

Well, here I am again watching Ken Burns and wishing I were heading out west tomorrow instead of heading across the street to work.

I looked through my National Parks Passport this evening. It's neat to think back to when I got the stamp...like on March 21, 1998 at Arlington House (in Arlington Cemetery) when I was on the best field trip of my public school career with Mrs. Dye (AP History), three other students and our bus driver or on June 21, 2005 at Cape Cod National Seashore when Eddie and I took our first trip up to the cape together. The photo of the day is of the first stamp I got in the Passport with my parents...

191: For the benefit and enjoyment of the people...

Tonight was the second installment of the Ken Burns documentary about the National Parks. I have been looking forward to this since I knew it was coming out because Ken Burns is amazing (and my secret hero) and I love the National Parks. Watching even just two nights of the documentary have me itching to pack up our car and head west.

It's been really neat to watch the documentary because I come from a family where getting stamps in our National Parks Passport was a family pastime and have been to many of the parks. (Okay, don't cry, Mom) Some of my favorite family memories have taken place in National Parks, ranging from my dad singing God Bless the USA while standing on top of the men's bathroom at Mount Rushmore on the 4th of July while sporting a Kenny Rogers beard (not kidding) to hiking desolate landscapes out to Anasazi ruins and enjoying a few sips of an ice cold beer upon returning to our car.

I pulled out my Pin Hat tonight from the other room while the documentary was on. I got this hat the summer my parents and I spent a few amazing weeks out west hiking and visiting what seemed like a million national parks/monuments. Since then the hat has become too laden with pins to wear comfortably so it's a decoration. I thought it would make a neat subject for my photo of the day today.

188, 189, 190: Weekend

188: El Potrillo

I drove down to my parents' house on Friday after work to spend some time with them and to also put me closer to the marching band competition I was going to on Saturday. We went out to the local Mexican Restaurant, El Potrillo. My parents are regulars there. We had a tasty dinner and then headed home to watch a couple hours of YouTube videos. The internet is amazing!

189: Hannah Grace

I met up with the Tallwood High School Marching Band (Tim's band, with Katie and Laura on staff) at Hickory HS for their competition. Amanda and Hannah came over and so I had two buddies in the stands for part of the evening! Hannah is getting to be such a little lady already, it's hard to believe. This is a shot of her watching her daddy's band.

190: G-Unit softball back in action....kind of

We all gathered for our 3:00 intramural softball game only to find out that we had already won. The other team had to forfeit for some reason. This puts G-Unit Softball with a 2-0 record, having NEVER played a game. We were able to get some of the 2:00 game players to stay so we could at least scrimmage a little to get some practice in. Hopefully we'll be able to actually play next week!



Here's a shot of Jocie taking some batting practice:

187: Happy Birthday, Norris!

Tonight our mighty trivia team (featuring only Eddie, Matt and I during Round One and then just Matt and I for two and three) tied for first! I battled it out (with emotional support from Matt) with an intellectual bout of Rock, Paper, Scissors to win first. Tonight, the pub acknowledged the birthday of Guinness, which is today, as well as the birthday of pub owner and ninja warrior Norris, which is tomorrow. Matt helped me shoot a secret shot of Norris as he was standing up front between rounds.

Happy Birthday, Norris!

186: Just another WAKA Wednesday

Yet another fun kickball evening....we lost pretty badly tonight but I still had fun. I'm enjoying my newfound "jock confidence" since getting to play so much on Saturday. (I'm hoping it carries over to softball on Sunday!) I only took a few photos at the game tonight and liked this one best. I like the blurry background of JC, who is an incredible pitcher....he has a curve you wouldn't even believe. If there was a National Kickball League, he'd be in it.

185: Goooooooooooooal

Since last week's soccer photo was of a cute baby I figured I should try to get a decent shot of some actual soccer going on. Here is a shot of Eddie throwing the ball back into play. There was another player in the shot but I photoshopped her out...mwaaahaaahaaa (that's my evil photoshop laugh).

184: Makes me think of the good old days...

In honor of Brett's birthday I bring you one of my favorite photos from Shana's wedding last December. I miss Brett a lot, especially our late nights watching British Brass Band DVDs or crying while watching Memorial Day concerts after having too much red wine. Really I miss everyone in this picture but it's Brett's day so he gets the main shout out. :-) Happy Birthday, friend!

183: K-K-Psi as we go...

Today I had the pleasure of attending the First Degree of the Alpha Class of the Mu Nu Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi. I am thankful to have the opportunity to be a support to the brothers and to watch them guide their first membership class to brotherhood. It is really neat to watch them grow and begin their own traditions. On a personal level, I like being involved because I am always reminded of why I became a brother and of the important foundations of service and brotherhood.

So, congrats go out to the brothers of the Mu Nu Chapter and their new Alpha Membership Class! AEA!

182: In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs

Today was a really good day. We played in a charity kickball tournament in Hampton. Our team only had 8 people on it (usually have 11 in the field) so we were really pleased with how we played....and we even won a game! I am really enjoying playing kickball. Today's games gave me good practice in the field (even made two catches in the outfield for outs) and at the plate (got on base twice). I am looking forward to playing again on Wednesday.

After the tournament finished we headed back to Newport News where Katie B met up with us for Moe's dinner. Dan, Eddie, Katie and I headed over to the Ferg for the Fab Faux concert. It was AWESOME! They are a Beatles tribute band that also have two string players and a horn section (featuring Bones Malone!). They were really quite outstanding. They played my favorite Beatles song (A Day In The Life) but I think my favorite song of the evening was Penny Lane. The piccolo trumpet player was ridiculously awesome.

181: Whew!

Today was the Study Abroad Fair on campus. It was very well attended and ran smoothly. Everyone involved seemed happy and those attending seemed to get a lot of good information out of it. I feel like a new woman now that it's done and it was successul! Eddie was nice enough to bring my camera over so I could take some photos. I shot this from the third floor "bridge" overlooking part of the fair.

Thank you to all of you out there that helped me in big ways and little ways this week and during the fair today. It is really nice to know that I have such great support out there!

180: I think I can...

This week has been very busy, stressful, tiring, challenging, etc. and I will be very thankful when it is 6:00 tomorrow so I can take some time to relax and recharge after all of it. Tonight I am thankful for Thursday Night Trivia. It is my favorite time of the week because I can really just relax and enjoy great people and get some good brain exercise. Tonight we came in third.

This photo is of Jacqui taking a photo. The red circles come from the pre-flash red light of her camera. I liked the effect.

179: Just another day on Warwick Blvd.

So on my way back to work after lunch I was stopped at a light next to this....really not all that uncommon these days given all of the construction. The big vehicle on the left was, indeed, driving down the street. Aye aye aye.

178: PLPFC Go Team!

Eddie is playing goalie for an intramural soccer team this fall with a few of our coworkers and students from the President's Leadership Program (PLP). Tonight Jill and Luke Fox came to visit to watch Chris (Jill's husband and Luke's dad) play with the team. Luke was the star of Photo of the Day #40 and though I thought I would have a photo of soccer players today Luke wins again! While it's not the best photo of him that I took tonight I like that it looks like he is looking back towards his dad.

177: Sign of Fall

When I came home from kickball practice my husband had cooked dinner and had brought me a six-pack of Pumpkin Ale instead of flowers. He had a bottle set out next to a vase...it was amazing! The beer is quite tasty and made me feel like fall is almost here.

176: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Well, it's official...football season is here. Fantasy Football is, again, giving me some motivation to be actively interested in what's going on. It's not that I don't like pro-football it's just that I prefer college football and don't really have much invested other than rooting for the Redskins. (I even dug out my Jay Schroeder jersey to wear today...original from the 80s!)

Each year my team has a theme...this year all of my players have even jersey numbers. (Team name: Even Stevens) So far I'm doing okay against my first opponent, Hannah-Balecters (Amanda's Team...great name!). She still has a QB and a RB to play tonight so we'll see. I'm going to need Jay Cutler to stop passing to the Green Bay defense and to start passing to my man, Matt Forte!

Anyways...here's my view from the couch....live Fantasy Football Stat tracker and the TV with the game.

175: Charlotte?

Eddie and I headed to Newport News Park this morning to play disc golf. Unfortunately there was a high school cross country meet right through the course so we walked on one of the nature trails. It was a really nice morning and it felt good to be out in the fresh air. Along the way we saw quite a few nice spider webs. This one had a spider in it so it was the best candidate for photo of the day.

173 & 174

173: Trivia Thursday

Nothing real special of this photo other than Jacqui's nice nails. :-) Just a shot of our answer sheet before we turned it in. We didn't place this week, which is sad, but I love getting to spend time with the people that come.

174: Never forget...

Each year on this day I take the time to read the monologue that Jon Stewart gave when The Daily Show returned to air after September 11th. I am moved everytime that I read it and it is a good way to remember how we all felt and what that day did to our country. I won't copy the whole monologue here but will include my favorite paragraph. (You can watch the monologue in its entirety online on this webpage. )

"The view from my apartment was the World Trade Center... And now it's gone. And they attacked it. This symbol of... of American ingenuity and strength... and labor and imagination and commerce and it's gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the south of Manhattan is the Statue of Liberty. You can’t beat that. " -Jon Stewart

This photo is from the flag display that was put out on the Great Lawn on campus. It is a CNU tradition and it's always a good reminder for the students (some of which were only 10 when 9-11 happened), staff and faculty.

172: Kickball fun!

We had another fun week of kickball. Though we were not successful as a team I felt good about my performance. (I really wish we were going to be playing intramural kickball and not softball....) Amazingly we weren't caught in a downpour, given the crazy dark clouds that had gathered.

After the game, Eddie and Dan reffed a game while Katie and I hung out and watched. After that game we hit up Azzurri for some delightful pizza and beer. It was a good way to end the day. I love that place.

171: Project

While visiting Sarah at Music and Arts this weekend a piano arrangement of Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland caught my eye. It is my favorite piece of music for many reasons and so I couldn't pass up taking a copy home. While I am a little unsure of how one could possibly boil that piece down to just a piano part I remember that Pictures at an Exhibition was once a piece of piano music too...

I am looking forward to working on learning it. I hope to be able to really take the time to sit down and to learn it.

170: Lazy Labor Day

It was a rainy and gray day today, which made it easy to have a lazy day. We used Trici's code (Thanks!) to get a free Red Box movie rental and watched "I Love You, Man." It was a pretty funny movie and we both enjoyed it. Here is a picture of Eddie on the couch with a laptop:

168 & 169: Weekend

168: Big Purple Chair

I went with my friend Jacqui and her nephew, Will, to the Portsmouth Children's Museum. It was an enjoyable field trip and I think Jacqui and I had as much fun (if not more) as Will at the museum. This is my favorite picture from the museum:

169: 13.1 Miles

Congrats to Eddie, Kathleen, Amie and Doug for running the Rock And Roll Half Marathon today in Virginia Beach. Amanda and I enjoyed the nice weather and cheered them on.

167: Sunset Pine, II

I realized this is the second sunset with pines from this week. Eddie, Heather (visiting from Richmond!) and I hit up the Lion's Bridge after a delicious dinner at Asian Grill. (Where we learned that the Chinese words for "I have a fever" are strangely similar to Fo' Sho'!) The sunset was really nice so I snapped this:

166: Wheel O' Beer

The Weekend Pub where we go for trivia has a new promo called the Wheel of Beer. During the weekdays from 5-9 they spin the wheel every half hour and whatever beer it lands on becomes the special. It's a fun concept, especially since one of the slots says "Robbie Buys". I'm not sure who Robbie is or if he would actually buy but it amused me.

Tonight we had a small team but we managed to come in third, though technically second. (Two teams tied for first and then we were next.) We pulled out some great correct answers, which is always fun.

165: Sunset Pine

I snapped this on the way to the first Photography Club meeting of the semester. I just had my pocket digital with me and so it had to be photoshopped to make it more than a kind of blurry shot of a pine tree with clouds in the background.

164: Pasta

It was another "Oh crap, I'm about to go to bed and I don't have a photo yet!" I saw a box of pasta that we had gotten this week and thought it was decent enough subject for the photo today. I photoshopped a little to add some more interest.