Toilet

It sucks when your truck breaks as you are on the way to buy a toilet. Then, when you get the truck to the shop and get back on your way, you end up having to un-box said toilet in the Lowe's parking lot to fit it in your sedan. And look ridiculous with a toilet seat-belted into your backseat.


PS--The whole point of this blog's existing to update family & friends of my travel? Not so much for now. My new boss, while better than my old boss (at least he speaks English), is not allowing travel for a while. So prepare for infrequent posting and posts on enthralling topics like buying toilets.

Yankees

To the men on the Red Line headed into the city this morning:
When I got on the train there were at least 5 of you. You pretended not to notice me from your aisle seats, a few feet away, looking able-bodied and wearing comfortable shoes. You kept your eyes averted for a full half hour so as not to see me standing there, carrying two bags and wearing heels. Just FYI, even independent-minded women like it when a man is a gentleman and offers his seat. Further proof that regardless of the location of the Mason-Dixon Line, Maryland is NOT the south!

Pictorial Evidence, as Promised

See how we even coordinated our outfits?

TMI?

I recently realized that my attention span isn't always long enough to finish fastening my pants. What I mean is, I've noticed that my mind will wander off to other things and I'll step out of the bathroom with my zipper down if more than three steps are required. I've caught myself routinely doing this with one pair of pants, and deduced that it's because that pair has an interior button, and TWO exterior buttons. By the time I'm done with all that, I'm already bored and forget the zipper! I noticed it the other day too when I wore a belt (I so rarely wear a belt with dress pants). The same thing happened--I did up the buttons, fastened the belt, and forgot the zipper. One of these days it's going to get pretty embarrassing. The only explanation I come up with is that I'm too cerebral to be bothered with the minutiae of maintaining my modesty….that, or I'm a huge airhead. I'll go with cerebral.

WTF M-NCPPC*?

I run enough on the Rock Creek Trail that I've learned the location of many public porta-potties. Sure, they're unpleasant, but far more pleasant than the alternative, which is peeing in the woods and risking getting poison oak or poison ivy in places you really don't want it. Besides, I'm pretty sure I can't identify either species. So I wasn't too worried on Sunday morning when I went for a run and, as I was parking, noted that my body felt it was time to be rid of all that coffee. I knew there was a porta-potty about a quarter of a mile from where I parked. As I ran up, I saw it wasn't there anymore. No matter, there would be another one about a mile away. When I arrived, that one wasn't there either. Hmmm. Well, that sucked, but there is another one about one more mile after that. Also not there. I'm smart enough that I started to see the pattern, so I can't say I exactly expected the next one to be there either. It wasn't. But, that particular porta-potty had been next to a community clubhouse/sports facility, so I figured I'd just use whatever facilities they had at the clubhouse. As I ran up, I was relieved to see there were bathrooms on the outside of the building. Finally! Success! Except when I tried the handle, the door was locked and there was a sign that said "These facilities for use by permit only. Use porta-johns provided by M-NCPPC." Arrrgghh!! By this time I was almost halfway through my 7 miles, so I just continued on to my turnaround point and finished my run. I contemplated going in the woods, but the trees don't have leaves yet, so there was no hiding from the hundreds of people frolicking outside on the first nice weekend in months. The silver lining to all this is that I stayed motivated throughout the run to keep my pace up!

*Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission

Great White North (okay, not quite)

I'm in training this week in a non-Metro-accessible location. So, it figures that on the first day in 3 years that I actually needed to drive to work to accomplish my job, we'd have a horrible snowfall. It also figures that work wouldn't be canceled, and there had been no communication from my training coordinator what to do in such an event. So, I just left myself an extra half hour to get there. I still ended up being 30 minutes late, because my commute took two hours! For comparison, I left for home after training at 4:15, and with the combination of clear roads and light traffic, I made it home in 35 minutes. With as much advance warning as we had of the snowpocalypse, I would have hoped some of the more major roadways (ahem...the Beltway maybe!) would have at least had some attempt at clearing prior to 7:30. That's asking too much I guess.

I did my good deed for the day when I was stopped at a traffic signal and noticed a pair of gloves laying on the trunk of the car in front of me. Figuring I had enough time before the light changed, I hopped out of my car, grabbed the gloves, and knocked on the driver's window. It took me two or three attempts to get the driver to stop talking on her cell phone and look at me. I ended up being kinda curt with her, shoving the gloves in the window as I shouted "Your gloves! Your gloves were on the trunk!" Not the benevolent, good-samaritain-thing I was going for!

Freetown Pictures

I finally got around to culling through the thousands (literally) of pictures my teammates and I took from our trip back in October. They're mostly from our leisure time in the evenings/on our weekend. There was some actual work accomplished too, but those pictures are really really boring.
Click Here.