It's been a while!

So much has been going on that I haven't had time to post lately! What could possibly keep me from posting? Let's see, since my last post we went to a Depeche Mode concert, bought a car (we won't actually take possession of it until late June...and it won't be delivered to MD until August), we got a new concrete front walk and back patio (pictures soon), Zach & his dad redid the crown molding in our living room, and I went to Texas for a weekend to take care of all of my Matron of Honor duties for Stacey's wedding.

The Depeche Mode concert was pretty good, but cold. I was happy that they played all the stuff I wanted to hear: "Precious", "Personal Jesus", "I Feel You", and they ended their main set and encore with my two faves "Enjoy the Silence" and "Never Let Me Down Again". It could have been longer though, I think it lasted just over an hour.

Stacey's shower turned out well. There's a link to the pictures below. I didn't get any pictures of the Bouquet Toss Practice we held, but Stacey learned a great wind-up technique from Shelley's mom and now I think Stacey has a really good throwing form for the big day. The "Frosty Grape Martinis" I made for the shower were so good that we mixed up a bottle full and brought it with us to the Hotel ZaZa to drink while we got ready for the Bachelorette Party. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Stacey's Bachelorette Party debauchery--strip clubs don't like you to take pictures! Besides, what happens in Dallas stays in Dallas. Stacey's fiance doesn't really want to know how many men's asses she grabbed, and frankly I don't want to tell you what one of the male strippers did with my glasses.

Pictures are worth a thousand words (1015 if you actually read my captions), so here's what I have:
Depeche Mode
Stacey's Bridal Shower

Boston

I went to Boston last weekend for my friend Jennifer's graduation from Boston University Medical School. Jennifer is my oldest friend--we've known each other since I lived in California, during 5th and 6th grade. Now Jen is heading back to the left coast to do her residency in Pathology at UCLA. I'm so proud of her!

It was great to finally go to Boston; I've been meaning to for about 3 years now, and the fact that Jen is actually leaving is the only thing that finally spurred me into action! Jen got a little lost after picking me up at the airport, but that was cool because I got to see the world's widest asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge--TWICE! Unfortunately, I was there for the rain that produced all that flooding you've probably seen on the news. It didn't flood in Boston proper, but it rained continuously the entire time I was there. Consequently, I didn't take many pictures of the city itself--it's hard to hold an umbrella and take a picture. Saturday afternoon I walked around in the rain with Jen and her family. We went to Quincy Market where I ate some real New England Clam Chowder (and a fabulous canolli)and bought a really cute purse made out of chinese-looking fabric for only $14. Jen talked me into the purse, and I'm glad she did. Then we walked around in the rain some more and saw some other sights like Paul Revere's grave and the Holocaust Memorial. Riding the T actually made me appreciate the Washington Metro so much more. The T feels more like an underground bus than a rail system. The trains are only 2 or 3 cars long, and at some stations you have to pay as you enter the train--I couldn't deal with that every morning! I'm the person on the Metro who gets mad at people who don't walk fast enough.

We went to Jen's Alumni Association banquet on Saturday night. The food was...okay (scallops masquerading as potatoes, chicken that tasted a lot like lamb), but chocolatey-liquid-crack desert redeemed it. At one point I accidently sucked a piece of food into the back of my throat and experienced the momentary OMG-I'm-Choking feeling. After I avoided actually choking, I realized that if I had, one of the 150 doctors in the room probably could have helped me out. Afterwards, we saw some guys wearing crazy patriotic hats and a really tall chick in a patriotic-type dress (I initially mistook her for a drag queen)--turns out they were there for some heart association thing featuring Bill Clinton. Unfortunately (?) we didn't see him!

Pictures here.

Thoughts on Thinking

I came across this quote today:

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
-Aristotle

It reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend the other day wherein I said I'd rather read a book I disagreed with than a book where I thought "By golly you're right!" every other sentence. Something I strive for is to question everything I read, even if it has the happy coincidence of agreeing with my opinion on the subject. This is something we should all be in the habit of doing, since journalism is as much about what you report as it is about what you choose to omit (whether to create a desired affect, or just because of space/time constraints). What are some ways to actually do this?

Go to Google News and read at least 3 articles (that are not all from Reuters!) on your chosen topic is one idea. I rarely find that reading just one (if I'm particularly interested in the topic) satisfies all my curiosity anyway. What new information do you get after reading something from the Sacramento Bee, The Christian Science Monitor, and the Washington Post? How different is it when reported by FOX News and CNN?

I also like FactCheck.org. Their banner says it best:

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.
-Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan

See right there how fair-n-balanced I am? I went and quoted an elected Democrat on my blog! I've been looking in on this website since 2002, and I find they give pretty equal treatment to both sides.

...And there's always Wikipedia, which has articles on most anything you can think up, well except for my little test search where I typed in the full name of a Japanese band I'd heard of enough times to be curious about (Urban Dictionary has it though). Wikipedia makes a decent jumping-off point for understanding many things, as long as you keep in mind that anyone with some sense of personal authority on the topic can edit it...which brings me back to questioning everything you read and ends my essay with a nice little pink bow, so I'll just stop here.

The Usual

It was a banner week at work for me:
1) My pointy-haired boss sorta reprimanded me for taking iniative--something for which a normal person would have said "Oh, that's nice. Good job". At least I have a roomful of witnesses who were equally puzzled.
2) A coworker and I accidently crashed a private party at the bar where our young professionals networking happy hour was being held.
3) Once at the correct happy hour, I pleased the crowd with my Richard Nixon shadow puppet. Seriously, they had been drinking.
4) I accidently flushed my pen down a toilet in the ladies room.

Doors Closing

After a lot of fuss and fanfare, the DC Metro's new "Doors Closing" voice is...a letdown. They hyped the "tryouts" so much (YOU can be the voice of the Metro!!1!!111!), it was bound to be. I was really hoping it would be Pierce Brosnan saying, "Hello Marge....Doors Closing" (If you didn't get that, you missed that episode of The Simpsons) or an angry dude yelling "Get out the way!". Instead, it's another ordinary woman, but they've beefed up her script. She now goes into an overly-verbose (for a door chime) monologue on moving out of the way and heading to the center of the car. And what used to be a two-tone chime now sounds like an impatient person ringing your doorbell twice and leaving a bag of flaming dog poop on your porch. I think they should have given up the voice altogether and done what they do in Paris and Milan (maybe the rest of Europe too, but I haven't been to the rest of Europe)--a loud, obnoxious buzzer/horn that says "your arm will get crushed if you don't move"! Even someone who doesn't speak the language knows what that means! Add some cartoons on the doors showing bunnies getting their fingers pinched, and you've got some tourist-friendly public transportation.