It's been 3 or 4 weeks since Kelly and I have had a free weekend, but we planned to have a quiet, relaxing one today. I stayed in bed until 8:30 or 9 AM, I think. Kelly was already up when I finally pulled my way out of bed. The weather was warm--the first really warm morning of the year. We decided to take advantage of it. We grabbed the basketball and headed over the local park to shoot some hoops. I was terrible at first, but slowly managed to get my game back. Kelly was very good, but as she pointed out, she had a hoop in her driveway growing up.

After, Kelly went to the gym and I did some reading and worked on the computer. Around 12:30, we headed to lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. We'd invited A.J. and Denisse. A.J. was off playing tennis and our lunchtime was too early for Denisse. I had a good chicken salad sandwich, but it was way too much food for me.

We walked back to Kelly's, collected her laundry and then headed up to my house. At 4 PM, we took Zeke to his regularly scheduled vet appointment. He got his shots, and impressed Kelly (and the vet) by his strength when he tried to keep himself in his carrier once at the vet. Everything is good, but he needs to lose some weight. He weights about 16.5 lbs and should be around 13 lbs. Much of the weight gain is due to his special diet. Beginning this afternoon, therefore, I started him on "meals" rather than leaving his dry food out for him. He gets 2/3rds of a cup in the morning, and 2/3rds in the evening.

We were supposed to stick around from 5-8 PM to wait for the cable guy to "cap the line". We spent some of that time reading parts of The Last Lecture to one another. Sometime around 4:30, I noticed a cable truck across the street, but no one ever stopped by. By 6 PM, I was a little impatient. I checked the cable, and wouldn't you know it!--they had capped the line--and I now only get the local channels, as I requested. I was annoyed enough, however, to call Comcast and ask them why I had to stick around if no one had to come in the house. They didn't have an answer for that, of course.

We celebrated by driving up the lake and taking a walk around it. Usually, we walk around twice, but there were dark clouds looming close by so we kept it at a single loop. From there we headed to the grocery store to do the shopping.

At home this evening, I made french bread pizza, which turned out okay. We watched last night's The Office and we both agree that the show is going downhill. It's depressing.

I wanted to take the telescope out tonight. Saturn is visible and it would be great to get a look at it, but it was still cloudy when I last checked.

We got to sleep in this morning, which was nice. Kelly's friends picked us up around 10 AM and we drove to a quaint little place for brunch where I tried to wreak havoc on the strawberry pancakes and failed. It was really nice meeting Kelly's friends and I had a good time at brunch. I also had a good time on the walk back to the hotel. Kelly and I decided to take the long walk back. We passed through sections of Santa Monica with which I was completely unfamiliar, until we got to the park above the beach, and then walked the length of the park and finally back to the hotel. It took us well over an hour, but we walked at a leisurely pace. The weather was perfect. I think that walk was the best time I had all week.

We packed up the remainder of our things at the hotel and then got a cab to the airport. There were no lines of any kind and we were through security before we knew it. We spent nearly 2 hours in the Red Carpet club, before heading next door to our gate to board the plane. We didn't have seats together, but we made the best of it. The flight went by surprisingly fast, actually. I spent about 3 hours reading, getting through more than 100 pages of In Joy Still Felt. We finally touched down at Dulles shortly after midnight and headed back to Kelly's.

We met Kelly's friend in the morning for brunch and shopping. Mostly shopping. It was nice though. The weather was warm and we wandered about the Third Street Promenade. Kelly decided that she needed a skirt because she hadn't really packed for warm weather. She ended up getting a poofy white skirt and a nice dark blue tank top at the last store we visited, which was Banana Republic, of course. We had brunch at California Pizza Kitchen and then Kelly and I walked back to the hotel.

We napped for a while and then got ready for Mom and Dad's visit. They arrived shortly after 2 PM, and met us at the hotel room. It was the first time Kelly met them, although she'd spoken to Dad briefly on the phone a while back. I think it went well. After sitting around chatting for a while, we walked over to the Santa Monica pier, walked it's length, talked browsed, took pictures, and got a little too much sun. I was very thirsty and suggested we head back to the hotel, which has a lounge and bar. Wouldn't you know it--the bar was closed and wasn't scheduled to open until 5:30! I ran over to the local AM/PM to get sodas for everyone--and managed to get the wrong one for Mom. But we sat around some more, chatting, and then finally headed over to Ocean Avenue Seafood for dinner.

We were seated in the patio area and I think we had a very nice dinner. I had the salmon, and Kelly had the Mahi-mahi. For some reason, I couldn't eat very much. I'm not sure why. But dinner was great, Mom and Dad were great, and we couldn't have asked for better weather. They dropped us back off at the hotel sometime around 8 PM, and I think we were both pretty tired, although we did stay up long enough to watch a Harry Potter movie on network television.

I left the office at 4 PM yesterday, after a busy day, and headed over to Kelly's, enjoying the walk from the metro station, down the hill to her house, because the air is finally getting warming around here. Eventually, we headed back up the hill for dinner, going to a place called Mexicali, which we thought was Mexican but might have been Salvadorian. Kelly had fish tacos and I had two shredded beef tacos and 1 chicken taco. It wasn't bad. The guacamole wasn't particularly good, but I'll be in Southern California next week and plan on dining on good Mexican food a couple of times while I was there. On the other hand, they had $2 drafts, which was nice.

Earlier in the day, I picked up a copy of Juno on DVD as a little surprise for Kelly. I gave it to her yesterday when she got home from work, and then we watched the movie before going to bed. We'd both seen it before together when it was in theaters. Kelly saw it another time with a friend. Even on a second viewing, it was a great movie, with a great soundtrack.

I had a dream last night that I was having a bad allergic reaction to something and was breaking out in hives. I'm pretty sure I know what that dream was all about.

Got to sleep in this morning, which was nice. Two full nights of sleep in a row. It was warm already when we left for work. It's supposed to be up in the 70s today and into the 80s tomorrow. Tomorrow, we're planning to attend our first "outdoor" happy hour of the year.

548 pages through In Memory Yet Green. No writing yesterday.

Busy day at work today, I'll be in meetings from 11 AM - 4 PM. Which means I won't have time to get a whole lot done.

Kelly's flight was delayed 2 hours yesterday, but I picked her up from Dulles at 7 PM and we headed back to her place. I think she was glad to be home because it had been a long trip for her.

We slept in this morning and then made pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast, Kelly went to the gym while I lazily read more of In Memory Yet Green. Then we packed up stuff into our cars (including my new telescope) and headed over to my house.

I was in a cleaning mood. I cleaned up the kitchen, and took piles of books from the living room and put them in the office. I mopped the floors. I emptied trash. While Kelly did her taxes, I went grocery shopping. I had to stop and get litter for Zeke and found that it was on a rather incredible sale. I got 2-14 lbs boxes of litter for $3 each. They normally cost $15.99 each. Crazy! I also got us stuff to make dinner. Later in the evening, we had a 3-course meal: salad with sliced tomatoes and broccoli; ravioli and pasta sauce; and apple pie for dessert. Meanwhile, I put my telescope together while Kelly did laundry. I took it outside to get it aligned. It was so cool. I managed to lose a small screw and spent about 20 minutes searching for it but to no avail. I gave up when I realized I could find an exact match at Home Depot for less than a dollar. Unfortunately, it was overcast out so I couldn't use the telescope to look at stars tonight.

I gassed up my car today (over $30!), and then, gassed up Kelly's car before she left this evening so that she could drive straight home. She left at about 8:20. I'm heading off to bed in order to get a good night's sleep.

Saturday began early for I was anxious to see everyone and wanted to get an early start. Kelly and I had gone to bed around midnight and I was up at 6:40 AM. I showered and then headed downstairs to sit on the couch and read until everyone else woke up. Kelly was up early too, and so we waited for vickyandnorm (Norm and Vicky) and kruppenheimer (Lisa) to awaken and get ready. It didn't take too long but it seemed as though it took forever. However, we were ready to go by 9 AM, which is what I was hoping for, and at that point, we hit the road.

( How's this for a great day... )

To be continued...

I left work at 4 PM yesterday and headed to Kelly's. She'd just had two wisdom teeth removed and I told her I'd come over on Tuesday (instead of Wednesday when I usually go over there) to stay with her and make sure she was okay. The procedure went smoothly. She was home when I got there and except for the fact that she was still numb, she was fine. As the numbness wore off, the pain started to bother her a bit. Fortunately, she'd been given a prescription for some painkillers. We took it to the pharmacy to get filled. Unfortunately, the doctor forgot to sign the prescription, so we had to wait while the doctor was contacted. Eventually, I headed back to the pharmacy to pick up the filled prescription. I stopped in at the grocery store and got Kelly some soup so that she wouldn't have to take the medication on an empty stomach. When I got back to her place, I made her soup and afterward, she took her medicine and lay in bed watching a movie.

By the time I finally went to bed, she was feeling better and the pain medicine had started working. She was wide awake and had lots of energy. I, on the other hand, was tired, having been up since 4:20 AM. Besides it was passed my bedtime. Kelly was eager to try out the new toy she'd gotten me--ear/nose hair clippers. (Yes, it is to my utter humiliation to report this, but it is only fair that I balance out this journal now and then with things that are equally uninteresting, and yet humiliating.) And so we passed a frightening (for me) five minutes testing the clippers out. Kelly may have her own perspective on this, but all I can say is that my nose feels bald.

Needless to say, I didn't manage to get any work on the novel outline done last night, but that's okay because I can work on it tonight, and besides, I wanted to make sure Kelly was okay. It was a tough balance. I kept wanting to go into her room and ask her if she was feeling okay (which I must have done half a dozen times), but I also didn't want to "bug" her unnecessarily every 5 minutes and drive her nuts. I hope I struck the right balance.

And in other news, I saw that the Yanks won their first game of the season last night. Their second game is being televised on ESPN2 tonight and I may try and catch a portion of it.

We slept in until 9 AM, which was the beginning of the lazy day we had today. We seemed to linger about until nearly 1 PM before actually doing anything. (That's not quite true. Kelly did a lot of laundry and wrote a letter of recommendation. I did a little reading.) At around 1 PM we headed out to grab a bite to eat, and then went up to Greenbelt to walk around the lake. It was cool, but pleasant. It was nearly 4 PM by the time we got back and an hour later, Kelly headed home.

I did some reading. It was my plan to work on my application to Viable Paradise, but I never got to it today. I rented The Usual Suspects from the iTunes store and watched that. This was the third time I've seen the movie, but the first time in quite a while. I also downloaded some music from the iTunes store, something I haven't done much of lately.

Yesterday, I got the coolest poster in the mail, a birthday gift from kevnyc. It's a kind of visual history of the "Race to the Moon", an almost ideal poster for a science fiction writer, and one that will look great in my office, once it's suitably framed. Thanks, Kevin!

Got a phone call from Michelle tonight. First time I'd talked to her in a long time. We spoke for nearly an hour and it was good to hear from her.

It's late. I'm heading off to bed only to get up in less than 6 hours and get started on my day. I've got a lot of little things to do tomorrow. I guess getting a good night's sleep is not among them.

Kelly and I decided to brave the cool (but clear) weather and the potential crowds downtown today to check out the annual blooming of the cherry blossoms in D.C. As it turned out, more than the cherry blossom festival was going on. The National Marathon took place today. There was a kite festival on the Mall. And indeed, the Orange line train heading into downtown was pretty crowded. In fact, the whole mall area seemed jam packed with people and cars and buses. It was a good thing we took the train in and decided to walk. The roads were a mess.

We got off the train one stop before Smithsonian to avoid the major crowds. We then took a leisurely walk down to the Mall, past the Washington Monument where the kite festival was taking place. Kites of all kinds filled the skies there. We continued on past the first few cherry blossoms, and then made our way down toward the basin, which was surrounded by blooming trees. (And crowded with people.) We walked passed the Jefferson Memorial and then over to the other side of the basin, following the path around to the FDR memorial. Kelly had never been to the FDR memorial, so we wandered through that. I'd been there before, but this was the first time I'd learned that the memorial was divided into 4 sections, each one representing a term of FDR's presidency.

( More pictures of the Cherry Blossom festival... )

After stopping briefly in the gift shop, we walked toward the reflecting pool, and past rows and rows of soccer games. We passed the Lincoln memorial and then made our way up 21st street to H street, and finally to the Foggy Bottom metro station, where we caught a much less crowded train back to Kelly's. We stopped in at Hard Times Cafe for chili, which really hit the spot after our long, walk.

Later in the afternoon, we headed over to Kelly's friend Sarah's in order to take her dog, Oliver, our for a walk. We drove him over to the Congressional Cemetery and walked him there. Apparently, for an annual fee, people can take their dogs into the this old cemetery and allow them to roam, leash free, among the ancient gravestones. We probably spent about an hour there, and Oliver seemed to have a lot of fun. There were quite a few people out with their dogs. The temperature was cool but the sky was bright and clear.

Finally, after returning Oliver home, we headed up to my place. Later in the evening, I made us dinner: ravioli and spaghetti sauce, and before going to bed, we watched a portion of the movie, Enchanted, which Kelly had rented through Blockbuster.

Yesterday, Kelly told me that my "big" birthday present was schedule to arrive today. "Big" was not an exaggeration. When we got back from a fun happy hour at Sine, the big package had arrived and was sitting in Kelly's apartment, waiting for me to open it.

It wasn't wrapped, it was simply too big to be wrapped, so I had no choice but to open the box and see what was inside.

( When I opened the box, I couldn't believe what was inside... )

Did I say this birthday present was out of this world?

Kelly and I met up after work yesterday and drove into Old Town Alexandria. The skies were overcast, but the weather was springlike, and we spent 45 minutes or so wandering about the streets of Old Town, popping in and out of little shops (including a cute little Irish shop) before heading over the the restaurant for dinner.

We had reservations at the Chart House Restaurant. Kelly managed to wrangle us a window by the water, and we spent much of our time commenting on the behavior of the 12 and 13 years old pooling around outside, waiting to board a boat for a dinner cruise.

It was a very good dinner. We started with an appetizer called a Crab, Avocado and Mango Stack
Jumbo, which was essentially lump crab meat tossed in remoulade over layers of fresh avocado and mango. I also had some clam chowder, and we both ordered fish dinners which were excellent. They have a famous lava cake dessert there, which must be ordered 30 minutes in advance, but we had dessert waiting at home. In fact, Kelly had made 36 chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting (how well she knows me!) They were moist and delicious. I have four of them with me here at work today.

And to top it all off, Kelly got her hair cut and I love the new length and style. I couldn't stop looking at it throughout the evening.

She got me a book that I've been wanting, as well as an excellent Dr. Seuss birthday card. She got me something else, too, which is supposed to arrive via UPS today. I guess I'll find out what it is later this evening.

I received phone calls from vickyandnorm and A.J. and Denisse, and stubiebrother last night. I also had a birthday voice-mail message from mabfan.

It was a wonderful evening, and a very happy birthday.

Yesterday afternoon began late yesterday morning. After Kelly cleaned off her desk and I finished my book, we headed out for a day full of errands and fun. First we went to the post office so that I could mail all of my tax papers to my accountant. With that out of the way, we headed a short distance down the street to the Silver Diner, where I had my first-ever egg salad sandwich. (How it it I've missed egg salad sandwiches? The same way, I supposed, I have missed many other types of foods: there's so much out there it takes a while, but eventually, you get around to it.) I enjoyed it. The atmosphere at the diner was fun too. We stopped at the vet to pick up some cat food for Kelly's cat, Simon, and then we headed down to Potomac Yards.

We met Kelly's friend Sarah there and proceeded to do a bunch of shopping. There was shoe shopping (or browsing). We went into PetSmart and Target. We dashed in and out of shops. Kelly and I even bought a basketball because she's had the urge to play now that the weather is starting to get nice again. (This has nothing to do with March Madness, I can assure you.)

Next we headed over to the movie theater and the three of us caught a 2:15 PM showing of Under the Same Moon, which turned out to be a pretty good movie. I found that, for the most part, I could understand the Spanish without the English subtitles.

After the movie, we stopped at the grocery store, loaded up the cars, and finally headed into D.C. where we went to a Mexican restaurant just south of the Capital South metro for dinner. They had pretty good Margaritas, but remarkably, they were all out of avocados, so there was no guacamole to be had with any of our meals. Still, it was a good meal, and a good afternoon.

I drove us back to my place after dinner and Kelly started in on something like 5 loads of laundry. Tivo had recorded What About Bob? and so we watched that, but we were tired and headed off to bed at 10 PM, as soon as it was over.

It rained quite a bit yesterday and neither Kelly nor I felt much like going our for food after work. We'd already planned to make Rice Krispy Treats, but we also decided to make dinner too. We kept it simple this time: whole wheat pasta, pasta sauce, and sliced up carrots. After that we made the Rice Krispy Treats. They were pretty easy to do, although I don't think we used enough butter. I thought my arm was going to fall off from all of the mixing, but they turned out pretty darn good. I even ended up having a few this morning.

I got a little more work done on the revisions to "The Golden Watch" while waiting for Kelly to get home from work yesterday. I'm halfway through the manuscript. I should get the rest done in the next couple of days. Then I need to read through it and make sure the changes I'm making work.

I'm about 85 pages through Up the Line. I'm going to push hard to finish that up tonight or tomorrow. I'd like to squeeze in 2 Rob Sawyer books before April begins and I start my annual re-reading of Isaac Asimov's autobiographies. (I'm really looking forward to that, as I always do.)

Today was Magic Kingdom day.  We were up at around 7:30 AM and met for breakfast just after 8 AM.  One of the cool things Norm did was get us a 50% discount on all hotel food, so our meals were cheap.  So we ate a cheap, but yummy breakfast and then headed out to where the shuttle buses were to pick up a bus to the Magic Kingdom.  After some brief line confusion (but others, not us) we hopped on a bus and made it to the Magic Kingdom just in time to catch the end of the opening ceremonies.

The first thing we did was head over to Space Mountain.  Kelly and Vicky shopped while Norm and I waited in line to ride.  It was fun, but I was spoiled after riding the Rockin' Roller Coaster yesterday.  After the ride, we met up with the ladies and then headed to Buzz Lightyear, which is an interactive ride, and quite possibly one of Norm and Vicky's favorites.  After that, it was on to the Haunted Mansion, one of Kelly's favorite rides.  She could barely contain herself, walking over there.  There was really no line to speak of and we got right on the ride without a delay.  My favorite part of that ride is the singing statues.  Long time readers of this blog will recall that I suspected one of those statues followed me to an Orioles game back in the summer of 2006.

From the Haunted Mansion we made our way over to It's A Small World.  I can't remember the last time I'd been on that ride.  I spent most of the time taking pictures.  (Norm and Vicky were constantly talking about how they weren't taking enough pictures, so I was trying to make up for it.

Kelly wanted to go on the Snow White ride, and while we waited in line for that, Norm and Vicky went looking for hats.  Specifically, they were looking for the hand-embroidered mouse-ear hats.  Alas, as they found out, they stopped hand-embroidering the hats a month ago.  Norm seemed particularly annoyed by this.

We stayed in Fantasyland for a while, riding the Winnie the Pooh ride, and then took in Mickey's Philharmagic 3-D show, which was a good one.  I'd seen it once before last year.  While on that ride, I took what I thought was my funniest picture.  I attempted to take a picture of me being frightened by all of the scenery.  Norm, observing my attempt at a self-portrait, decided to interject himself into the pictures, with what I think is hilarious results 

Vicky needed some water after that ride, so we stopped briefly for some water and then used our Fast Passes for Peter Pan.  We were all getting pretty hungry and so we stopped to get some funnel cake after Peter Pan.  Kelly did a little bit of shopping.  I attempted to feed a friendly duck some funnel cake and got "yelled at" by a Disney employee.  (Norm says I got yelled at; I claim that he simply suggested that I didn't feed the duck.)  After a quick bathroom break, we headed over to Pirates.

Pirates of the Caribbean is one of Kelly's favorite rides.  I don't think the ride takes Fast Pass, but it wasn't very crowded at all.  We managed to zip through the extremely long queue that they have set up for it in no time.  I snapped a few more photos while we waited in the line.  I have to say, however, that I liked Pirates better before they modified it to better match the Johnny Depp movies.  It's still a fun ride, but it's just not quite the same.  Also, the Magic Kingdom version of the ride is somewhat different than the Disneyland version and I like the latter better.  But it was still fun.

After Pirates, we made our way over toward Big Thunder Mountain to get some Fast Passes for later.  We wandered around the park for a while, at some lunch, and took pictures in front of the castle.  Then Vicky and Kelly decided to do some more shopping while Norm and I went on Big Thunder Mountain.  It started raining on the way over there.  Big Thunder Mountain was, for some reason, probably the longest line we waited in.  The standby line was 70 minutes and the Fast Pass line probably took 10-15 minutes.  It was a fun, relaxing, and fortunately, most of the rain had stopped by the time the ride was over.  We wandered back through crowds of people, half of whom were caught out in the rain and had shuffled into various shops looking for Disney ponchos.  We met up with Kelly and Vicky and headed back to Tomorrowland. 

We needed a break so we rode the People Mover, which was relaxing.  Then we went to the Carousel of Progress.  I'd been on it last year and I took the opportunity to nap.  And nap I did, through the whole thing.

Norm had been prodding us for silly one-liners for the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor show.  Kelly and I had no one-liners, but we went to the show anyway.  Actually, it was pretty funny and pretty impressive how they make the animated hosts and comedians interact with the audience.  At one point they ask you to text jokes to a number.  Norm texted one on behalf of Vicky and hers was the first joke read by the comedian.  "This one is from Vicky from New York," he said.  The four of us were visibly pleased.

As the day wore on we rode the Jungle Cruise.  We also walked by an area near the castle where crowds had gathered to watch the Osmond's (all of them, I think) being filmed for something.  There they were, just a few yards away from us.  The park closed at 7 PM today because of a special event this evening, so sometime around 5 PM we started making our way out of the park.  We went through several shops and I got some chocolate fudge in one of them.  Then we left the park and caught the bus back to the hotel.  Norm had made reservations at a restaurant that I'd been too once before and really enjoyed--a buffet.  We decided to rest for a few hours before heading off to dinner.

Rest we did.  Kelly and I fell asleep almost at once, and when I woke up an hour or so later, I felt sick--nauseous.  I lay in bed shivering, certain I was going to be ill.  We told Norm and Vicky that we'd have to skip out on dinner (I felt terribly guilty for that).  More than likely, I was just dehydrated.  I drank a lot of water and the shivers passed and before I knew it, I felt completely better.  Eventually, I ate a hot dog and some fries (Kelly had eaten a bit earlier) and we invited Norm and Vicky to come to our room to hang out when they got back from dinner.  Norm brought beer with him and he and I drank through the six-pack while sitting around talking.  Vicky went to bed and we continued talking until about 1:30 AM.  We decided to meet for breakfast at 8:15 tomorrow morning.  The plan is to spend the day at Epcot.  Sickness aside, today was a really fun-filled day.

As it turned out, all travel arrangements worked out perfectly yesterday. Kelly and I got to Dulles, were through security in two minutes, and made our way to the Red Carpet Club. We had a couple of drinks there before catching our 9:35 PM flight to Orlando. Our flight was on time and arrived 5 minutes early. We met vickyandnorm almost as soon as we got off the tram to the main terminal. Norm went to the rental car desk to get the car and we headed out. We ended up with a bright blue car, roomy, but it sure stands out. We spent last night at a time-share property, a condo that was really nice. Full kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, dining room, living room, balcony. Our bedroom had a whirlpool tub in the room. But were were only there for a few hours. We went to bed sometime after 1:30 AM and were up at 7:30 this morning. We had a quick breakfast, checked out, and then headed to Disney's Animal Kingdom park.

The park opened at 9 AM and were there just a few minutes after it opened. The air was a little cool, but it warmed up quickly. We managed to pack in quite a bit. The first thing we did was the safari, which Kelly had never done before. Then we headed over to the Everest roller coaster ride, and Norm and I went on that while Kelly and Vicky waited. They actually saw us on the ride twice. It's a pretty cool roller coaster. It goes backwards, there's one good big drop, and some turns that probably reach 2-gees. We did more wandering and snacking and shopping. We caught a few shows. We had lunch. Eventually, we made our way back to Everest, and Norm and I rode it again, this time sitting in the front. Once again, the line was not long (we used Fast Pass). It was even more fun the second time around.

After that, we got some soft serve ice cream and headed for the park exit. Kelly lost her camera case, but it was a cheap one and no one was really upset by it. From the Animal Kingdom, we headed over to Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM) park. I'd never been there before. We got a wheelchair for Vicky (who is 5 months pregnant with twins) and who had done a great job on her feet for the first 4-5 hours of the day. Once we had that, I ran over to Star Tours to get FastPass tickets and then met up with everyone else. Vicky and Kelly decided to shop, while Norm and I hit the two big rides: Tower of Terror and the Rockin' Roller Coaster. The Tower of Terror was fun, kind of like Free Fall, but more random and more dropping. I estimated about 1/2-1 second of true free-fall. But the Rockin' Roller Coaster: Whoa!

The Rockin' Roller Coaster is touted as the fastest, wildest ride of all of the Disney Parks and it lived up to it's reputation. The ride "features" Aerosmith. When Norm and I got to the line, there was a 45 minute wait. We opted for the "singles" line and managed to get on the ride and get in the same car in 10 minutes. The ride itself was amazing, beginning with the initial 0-to-60 MPH boost in 2.8 seconds. There were loops and whirls and you name it--all in the dark like Space Mountain--only much faster. It was awesome! And best of all, they play Aerosmith while you zoom through the ride. strausmouse would love it!

After that we needed a rest and went to two shows. I slept through both. The first was only a few minutes long. The second was The Little Mermaid show. It was 17 minutes long and I slept soundly through the entire thing. By that time, it was dinner time. We had reservations at The Hollywood Brown Derby. The food there was excellent. We luxuriated through dinner, taking our time, talking, and really enjoying ourselves. Vicky and I had fillet mignon, Norm had duck and venison, and Kelly had salmon. It was terrific.

Finally, dinner was over and we made our way over to the "Hollywood Hills Amphitheater" for Fantasmic. This time, Vicky's wheelchair managed to get us good seats. We arrived about 30 minutes early, but it was already packed and so the good seats helped. The show itself was great, although much-changed since I last saw it at Disneyland back in the 90s. Once the show was over, it was 9 PM and we made our way out of the park and to the Dolphin resort, where we checked in. Norm and Vicky's room is right across the hall from ours, both facing east into the resort. Our rooms each have two balconies, very, very nice. The plan tomorrow is to hit the Magic Kingdom. It opens at 9 AM. We are meeting for breakfast just before 8 AM, so we should all sleep well tonight.

There were a number of amusing things that happened throughout the day, but I'm beat now. It was all I could do to write this all up before crashing. I'm getting in the shower and then heading off to bed. More tomorrow.

Yesterday morning, Kelly and I headed over to Tyson's Corner at 10 AM in order to shop. Kelly wanted to get a dress for the upcoming Rainbow Room birthday dinner. After getting to Tyson's, parking, and briefly wandering through Banana Republic, we made our way to the dress section of Lord & Taylor's. Less than 30 minutes after arriving at Tyson's, Kelly found the perfect dress. A black "Laundry" dress that looks just amazing! Since she found the dress so fast, it gave us plenty more time for us to shop, and I decided to document some of our shopping. The following is a short series of photos of me shopping with Kelly:


Me shopping at Lord & Taylor's


Me shopping in the "intimates" section at Macy's


Me shopping at Brook's Brothers

We were at Tyson's for 3+ hours, had lunch there, and actually did a pretty good job before it got crowded. Shortly after lunch, Kelly felt shopped out. We headed back to her place, collected her laundry and prepared to head back to my house. I called Doug and spoke to Carson, wishing him a Happy Birthday (2 years old!). I also spoke to vickyandnorm, finalizing arrangements for our trip to Disney World later this week. And I called FedEx to have them hold the Oriole's tickets for me. I'll go pick them up on Wednesday.

Back at my house, Kelly started laundry. We waited out a passing storm and then headed over to Target to do a little more shopping.

In the evening, we watched a movie I'd never seen before. You can read all about that in the next post.

Kelly and I headed over to Denisse and AJ's last night where we gathered with some of their other friends for a Peruvian dinner that Denisse prepared. I can't remember the name of the dish, but it was terrific! Lots of mojitos and beer, as well as snacks and desserts. Good company, too. We got there a little after 6 PM and finally headed back to Kelly's around 11 PM.

After a good night's sleep, I left Kelly's at around 10 AM this morning. I got home remarkably quickly. My first task was cleaning up the place a bit. That took about an hour. Then I had work to do. I agreed to write some documentation for a beta-test we are conducting beginning this week, and I spent much of the afternoon on that, taking a break for lunch, and a bit of reading.

All told, I managed to write about 15 pages of documentation (a tad under 4,000 words) and I completed enough to be ready for tomorrow. But the day is done now, and it's already 7:30 which means it's nearly time for me to go to bed. I'm going to eat some dinner, make my lunch for tomorrow, and then hit the sack.

Happy March!

Last night I prepared the most complex meal I've ever done so far. It was not complex in terms of ingredients or anything light that. I made ravioli with pasta sauce, and steamed broccoli, which I suppose is fairly simple. But I had three burners on the stove going at the same time, and managed to plan it well enough so that all three finished cooking at about the same time. (And while doing this, I was also checking some work email.) It was the perfect amount of ravioli, enough for a bowl full for me and for Kelly. And the sauce was a spicy sauce with just a bit of a kick to it. It was very good, and I was pleased with my ability to juggle multiple tasks in the kitchen.

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For the second time in a couple of weeks, I accidentally texted he11o_sunshine in response to a text from someone at work. I'm not exactly sure how I manage to do this. I can only suppose that so much of my concentration is taken up by other things that I simply don't pay attention to what I'm doing. Fortunately, Jen has been through this before and takes it patiently and with good humor.

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We watched The Martian Child on DVD last night. The movie (starring John Cusack) is based on David Gerrold's Hugo and Nebula award-winning novelette of the same title. We both enjoyed it, despite it being sad at times.

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This evening we are heading over to A.J. and Denisse's for a Peruvian dinner, which should be fun. We'll probably end up playing some games too. Denisse asked me to bring Apples to Apples with me for that very purpose.

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I have to work tomorrow. Since I am a fast writer, I agreed to write a significant portion of the user documentation for an application that we've been developing for a while and is close to a beta release. It will probably take me several hours tomorrow afternoon, but at least I can do it from home.

The last two days at work have been really busy. In fact, I took work home with me this evening again, and just finished up (having spent 2 hours straight trying to get SQL server to talk to Oracle via linked servers. Stupid TNSNAMES!)

I was at Kelly's last night. We had planned on making chicken parmesan but both of us got out of work late and in the end, we decided to order in a pizza from Papa Johns (who, by the way, had an incredibly fast delivery time--something like 15 minutes after placing the order).

My plan this evening is to sneak in a little bit of writing, get back on the saddle as far as that goes. After all, you can't submit if you don't write.

I'm about 180 pages into Jack McDevitt's Odyssey, and so far, it's what I expected based on the other books I've read by him. He keeps you interested and entertained, but it's not a mind-blowing story... yet. One thing he does do that annoys me: he uses third person omniscient, which is fine, but rather than switching view points between scenes, he does it between paragraphs and sometimes even sentences. It makes things a little confusing.

Oh, and if you haven't already heard, mabfan has sold his first book, a collection of his Hugo and Nebula award-nominated short fiction, which will be called I Remember the Future, published by Apex publications. More information here. Congrats, mabfan!

Tonight, Kelly and I took a big step forward in our relationship.

( Find out how... )

Yes, it's a big step forward and we are both excited and nervous by the prospect of this new-found level our relationship has taken us.