The Internet was all akimbo yesterday so I couldn't log into my FTP server for an update. Probably just another worm eating away at everything.

I got back from my sister's wedding on Sunday morning. It was an upper crust affair at the Barboursville Winery and Ruins, complete with a chocolate fountain you could dip your cake in and underwater flowers as centerpieces. With the addition of the Binder family, I think the family tree just quintupled in size.

The ceremony was a brief Jewish affair and around a hundred people showed up. The sky looked threatening all afternoon, and it started to rain right at 5:30 when the wedding began, but only momentarily. The string trio was able to take their instruments back out for the exeunt and no one's finery was too ruined.

There was also a little black stray cat living in the ruins that tried to get into all the wedding shots. It showed up mid ceremony too and plopped down in the aisle (everyone noticed it because the little flower girl pointed at it).

I have some more pictures on my camera but haven't gotten around to uploading them yet -- these from my dad will have to do (see the Photos page).

Music scholars say that repetition is the key to Western music. Nowadays, repetition is the bane of popular music. Pop and rock songs get longer and longer, mainly because the artists or producers decided to repeat a chorus one too many times. The Stereophonic's Dakota is good, for the first three minutes. Edie Brickell doesn't need to be nattering on about what she is for five minutes, and Finger Eleven should have cut its One Thing song down to the core fifteen seconds. No one gave a rat's ass about what would've happened if he traded it all, so why would they care the ninth or tenth time they regurgitate the question?

It's not even that hard to disguise your repetition. Change a couple notes here and there. Pull an Avril Lavigne and turn a duple phrase into a triplet phrase in the last chorus. I think the reason I could never be a successful pop music composer is that I just can't see the sense in having an exact musical mimeograph played more than once or twice in a row.

UPOP on XM regularly touts their uncut version of U2's Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, which runs over five minutes long, as a coup, since "the regular radio stations forced them to edit it down to three minutes". That's not artist oppression, that's just good editing. Unless you're writing an 80s rock overture for Kansas, Queen, or Guns n' Roses, all your pop music should be under the five minute mark. (Honestly though, U2 could have saved everyone some time and money by just not recording the song, and playing With or Without You and Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For in different keys instead. Would anyone really know the difference?)

Vacation Memories

Happy Birthday Brianne!

Friday Fragments

ending the week with all the style of a hillbilly clown in a tuxedo

♣ The end of June has quite a few overlapping birthdays which means that a lot of parents were "doin' the dirty" at the end of September. On the birthday menu today are Rebecca and Brianne -- happy birthday! For a gift, they each get a fake party hat Photoshopped onto their stolen pictures.

♣ Photoshopping stolen pictures is the best. If I don't get 100% participation in yesterday's census, Chompy is going to be completely shaved, greased up, and pushed down a Slip N' Slide.

♣ I never owned a Slip N' Slide when I was a kid, since we did the more traditional (read: cheaper) "jump through the sprinkler while Dad waters the grass" entertainment available. Then again, water sports were never my favourite -- I was the guy on the Roman Rapids ride who tried to switch seats to avoid waterfalls. I hated walking around in wet clothes -- it really put a damper on my theme park enjoyment.

♣ I haven't been to a theme park since we all took a trip to Cedar Point in 2003. I always liked Busch Gardens more than King's Dominion, and not just because Phil reads this site -- it felt less trashy and least-common-denominator even if it had fewer rides. Plus, I always liked the show with the magician and the cauldron in Britain.

♣ One rule of thumb for boys in theme parks is that no matter how cool the rides are, they will always be drawn to the video arcade. It doesn't matter if the games cost four dollars and are exactly the same as the arcade back home -- they will want to play at least once before they leave.

♣ As a kid, I went on a weeklong RV camping trip with James and his parents and brought along my Super Nintendo. We spent a good three of the days playing Zelda until his step-mom got pissed off and kicked us out of the RV to experience nature. The picture on the right has nothing to do with this fragment, but Photoshop is Phun.

♣ It wasn't the cool kind of RV that you could ride in though -- it was a collapsible trailer that hitched onto the back of a truck which meant that we spent most of the trip cramped in the mini-cab seats littered with empty beer cans. (They don't teach kids that this is a warning sign until at least the ninth grade so we were oblivious to drinking and driving, but thankfully he didn't drink on this trip).

♣ The weekend is, once again, pretty booked up. This evening will include festivities for Rebecca's birthday in Arlington at another Mexican restaurant (we ate at one last night too, for Chris' birthday). Tomorrow, Jack and Kristy are getting married at Holy Trinity in DC followed by a reception at a country club in Great Falls. It will probably be pretty high class since you aren't even allowed to drive into Great Falls unless your median income exceeds a certain level. I'm hoping for an open shrimp bar like the one at Phil's wedding. On Sunday, my Dad and I will be finishing off work in the bathroom. Sunday is also Nikki (Giraldi) Homoroc's birthday. Happy Birthday!

♣ Have a great weekend!

Weekend Wrapup

On Friday night, we went to the mecca of Green consumerism that is Reston Town Center and had tasty burgers at an outdoor table at American Tap Room. The restaurant was nearly empty inside, mainly because their air conditioning was set at Nipplify, and they also had their entire front facade opened up in order to cool down the outside street. We also walked around the Town Center a bit as a digestive aid and pondered the presence of M&S Grill right across the street from McCormick & Schmick's. Apparently M&S is the un-yuppy version of McCormick and Schmick's (because when you're poor, you can't afford to buy as many letters, especially vowels).

I worked the entire day on Saturday, front-loading my billable hours like a high-tech washing machine so I can possibly start my vacation a day early at the end of this week. Around 7, Rebecca and I went to Shakir's to catch the tail end of an Indian food night, and then walked a mile in our own shoes to Jay's Saloon in Clarendon for beer and pool in un-Clarendon-like settings. Pool was fun, except that we kept getting our balls stuck in the table. That's the worst.

On Sunday, we celebrated Rebecca's pre-birthday with made-from-Betty-Crocker-scratch brownies and gifts, and then a bike ride with her parents through the wilds of Falls Church to one of several Starbuck's on Little River Turnpike. We also had cake and looked at pictures from their California vacation, and then sat on the porch enjoying the 5% of the week when it wasn't raining.

This morning, I got up to discover my windshield completely coated in bird droppings (it was like the anti-Rainex), although the rest of the car was completely clean. I then arrived at work around 6:50 and wrote this last paragraph, after being attacked by the eight thousand upcoming birthdays in the sidebar (and if I ever get a motorcycle, the sidecar will have a sidebar so the passenger can better enjoy the ride with mixed drinks). Happy Birthday to Rebecca and Brianne!

Caption Contest Day

We had a surprisingly successful turnout for this month's Caption Contest -- so much so that I cut a few "second" entries that were too similar to others. Vote for your favourite using the Poll in the sidebar of this site by Sunday, June 27, at 6 PM.

The winners will be announced on the following Monday, and all of the entrants will be given proper credit for their entries. Should there be a tie for first place, I will cast the deciding vote. Ties for the other places will just result in extra prizes! Hooray!

Memory Day: Snapshots

This snapshot was taken in 1983 in our backyard, in front a pine tree which has never looked so lush ever since. The guy in the back was named Tony, and he lived in the cul-de-sac at the bottom of our street. Eventually, he was no longer welcome around our house, but I can't remember if it was because he stole things, or he broke things, or a combination of the two.

Happy birthday to my wife! And Brianne, of course.

Warning Day

What do these images on my Dell toner cartridge warn you about?

To me, they say "Do not use toner to print scary masks, as startled people may have heart attacks." and "Do not allow your baby to become a beekeeper."

Also today is the birthay of a Brian, a Brianne, and a Brian's wife (all different people, I assure you). Happy Birthday to all!

Weekend Wrap-up

After a day of humid shed building, we met up with friends at the annual Taste of Reston festival, including Kathy, Carolyn, and Carolyn's fiance, Luke. The food was as good as usual, although there wasn't quite as much variety this year -- especially in the seafood category (crab doesn't count because crab is dumb). It did rain as tradition requires, and there was a Dave Matthews cover band headlining, which must have matched perfectly against the average age of the festival goers.

On Saturday, Rebecca hiked some 16 miles on the AT while my dad and I created a shed door. In the evening, Rebecca and I met up for an early birthday evening in Leesburg, for a trip to Crooked Run Brewery. We ate dinner at a little place called Cajun Experience, which felt much like walking onto a set of Treme, right down to the power going out briefly during the crazy monsoons. We ordered various Cajun seafoody dishes which tasted amazing, but the progression of our enjoyment followed this timeline:

On Sunday, we took a DC trip and met up with Sam, Kristen, Returned Mike, and Annie at District Commons for brunch. Then, 4 of 6 of us went to the Kennedy Center to see Book of Mormon. It was an enjoyable diversion and worth the trip (full review coming at a later date). A half hour Metro ride later, and we were back home eating tacos and washing months of sweat off of Rebecca's hiking pack (as well as cat puke off the bedspread).

Happy Birthday Rebecca (and Brianne!)

Memory Day: Snapshots

This picture was taken in June, 2008.

At the time, Rebecca was working for the nonprofit, Books for America, and was tricked into making her own birthday cake by her work buddies. Billed as a going away party, she arrived at Shakir's apartment to find a surprise birthday party instead.

Happy Birthday, Rebecca!

Rebecca Day

Happy 35th Birthday to the awesome Rebecca Uri! She is kicking ass as Mother of Maia and Licensed Physical Therapy Assistant Extraordinaire (LPTAE). Today, she is going to the 11:30 yoga class and then getting a special birthday dinner prepared by Chef BU.

Weekend Wrap-up

For Rebecca's birthday weekend, we went back to Weather Lea Farm in Lovettsville, VA.

Very little had changed since our last visit, and we were greeted by Mimi the dog and Castor the cat (the latter of which walked into our cottage like a boss).

It was supposed to thunderstorm all weekend long, but we somehow managed to avoid every single one and had a cloudy, pleasant weekend wandering the grounds, feeding horses, sheep, and llamas.

During one of the almost-storms, Rebecca and Maia went down to the pond to watch it sprinkle while the sun shined. Maia insisted on bringing her umbrella everywhere, just in case.

We got curbside pickup from Market Table Bistro one night, and made our own food for the rest of the meals.

We returned home on Saturday afternoon and had a Wegmans sushi dinner on the back porch.

On Sunday, we stayed home for lawn mowing and Rebecca's various Zoom social visits, then had steaks for dinner on the porch.

Today is Rebecca's birthday! Happy birthday! (and to Brianne as well!)

Birth Day

Happy Birthday to Rebecca!