4/15/2010 17:38, DC Metro Green Line to Greenbelt, Washington DC, USA

So the train trip from Paris to Amsterdam was uneventful. I rode first-class on the Thalys again. No meal service, just snacks since it was the middle of the afternoon. I used the time to edit and upload part of my pictures. I got through the end of the Netherlands part of my trip and part of my trip to the Louvre before I had to pack it up. I thought it was funny that in the first-class car, I was the only person there not dressed in business attire. Way to make it obvious that I was a tourist, but screw running around in work clothing when this is the pleasure part of my trip.

4/13/2010 13:11, Gare du Nord Train Station, Paris, France

Got up this morning, had breakfast, came back to the room, packed up my things and got checked out before stowing my bags in the luggage room. Since I had a few hours to kill before I had to board the train back to Amsterdam, I decided I'd make an attempt to go to the Musee d' Orsay.

4/12/2010 22:21 Metro Line 8, Paris, France

Okay, twice tonight I have hit the wrong train; I blame the wine.  I didn't do this on all of my other trips until now.  I'm on the correct platform now and the train is arriving.

4/12/2010 22:00, Champ de Mars "Peace Monument" Paris, France

Silly moment of today, asking a traffic cop where the street that the wine cellar sits on is at, and it turns out I was right at the intersection.

I'm sitting here watching the tower sparkle again, likely the final time I'll see it this trip.  It is much like the Washington Monument back home, in that it is a vantage point for people to find.  I find that comforting.

4/12/2010 20:28, Cafe du Marche, Ecole Miltarie

Got up at 9:30 this morning, had breakfast and headed out to the Pere LaChaise Cemetary.  I knew I was curious to see the Oscar Wilde grave, but also Jim Morrison.  Luckily the metro line was the number 2 line, which is the one that my hostel is on, making the ride easy.  I got to the street and saw a nearby news stand offered maps of the cemetary for 2,50 Euro.  It would be an invaluable guide as it had a list of everyone famous who was buried there and where they were located.  After reviewing, the list for me to see was Chopin, Morrison, and Wilde.

4/12/2010 14:40 Metro Line 1 to La Defense, Paris, France

I got to the Eiffel Tower around 12:30 and proceeded to the base.  I got some food at one of the snack bars and came away with ham on a warm buttered baguette and a water for only 5,50 Euro.  Once again I got accosted by one of the gypsies while I'm sitting there having my lunch, asking if I spoke English.  I decided to try a different approach with her:

4/12/2010, 12:39, Notre Dame Tour Line, Paris, France

Yesterday I woke up at 9:30 and headed down for breakfast before heading off to Notre Dame.  I got there without an issue and started to get some pictures in.  I asked one of the people down there if she could get a picture of me standing at Notre Dame, and she did, once we found the right spot.

4/11/2010 2:53, Le Regent Hostel, Paris, France

Oh, my, God.  Taking that Paris night tour was one of the most worthwhile things I have done so far.  I am going to be singing praises of Fat Tire Bike Tours for weeks now.  Their staff was really nice and I liked our tour guide, BC.  He was not hard on the eyes at all when I first saw him holding the sign for the meet up spot.  I got into the first group of folks and so we took our walk over to the place to get our bikes.

New Pictures

Since I'm still stuck at home, it gave me a chance to go through my pictures and get them uploaded to my flickr site. You can start here to view all of the latest acquisitions, or click on any of the pics below for what you're interested in:

Capitals Games




Exploring DC


Baltimore Ravens Spring Football Fest


Baseball Games

Picture Catchup

I've finally processed and posted pictures from the last few weeks to my Flickr Account. This series includes:

Ice Storms:


Capitals Games:


FIRST Robotics Competition in DC:


Snowstorms:


My trip to help move some stuff for a friend of TB:


Visiting Havre de Grace:

Shea Stadium Pictures

Shea Stadium, originally uploaded by theblackdog2071.

The pictures are up on Flickr from watching the Mets play at Shea Stadium on September 13.

Cedar Point Trip Pictures

Cedar Point Coasters, originally uploaded by theblackdog2071.

The pictures are up on Flickr from my trip to Cedar Point and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month.

Muppets!

JH and I went down to check out Jim Henson's Fantastic World at the Smithsonian. It was a nice exhibit, though as usual, no photography allowed, so there will be no pictures from it.

The focus on this exhibit is the original sketches and artwork that Jim Henson would create while he was coming up with his ideas. Also explained were the origins of some of the muppets he came up with. I had no idea that Cookie Monster was actually based on a monster Henson had used years ago for a commercial. There's also an explanation of how Big Bird is controlled (yes there's someone in there!), original items from The Dark Crystal, and clips from some of Henson's commercials and short films. Of course some of the muppets are also on display.

It's a good exhibit, but not huge, so make it part of a day out at the National Mall rather than the only thing you plan to go see. It's only here until October 5, so you'd better see it now. Of course, I expect Kermit will be returned to the American History Museum when it opens back up (November 21!).

Hershey Park

Originally JH and I had planned to go to Kings Dominion for our Monday off, but on a whim changed our plans and went up to Hershey Park instead.

It turned out to be a gorgeous day at the park, especially since there were moments where it was overcast, so it stayed cool, though it did become a disadvantage at one point.

We started off by riding Great Bear, which is one of my top rides for the day. We moved onward to Storm Runner, which was designed by the same folks who designed Kingda Ka, and it uses a similar launch system and cars. If Kingda Ka is anything like what I experienced today with Storm Runner, I'm in trouble next week at Great Adventure. The shoulder restraints sat up too high for me so I ended up banging them into the restraints, and it made me sore.

It was starting to get warm by the time we finished those two rides, so it was over to the Roller Soaker, which as it's name implies is a coaster where you will get wet. JH and I don't know if people are just inexperienced or the park is trying to save on energy costs, but their way of loading and unloading cars was very inefficient today. Imagine three cars being loaded up, then sent to the bottom of the first hill, where each one goes one at a time, and the next one doesn't go until the first one finishes...and each ride is about 1.5-2mins long. During that time the next batch of cars have been loaded, and they're waiting for the first batch to finish before they get sent to the bottom of the hill. JH said that they didn't used to do it this way, they pretty much kept the cars continuously moving as much as possible. Who knows...

After that it was a trip to the Wildcat, which was a fun wooden coaster. A ride on their Wild Mouse ride was in order before heading to the Lightning Racer, which had to be one of my favorite coasters. It's a dueling coaster, so two cars are loaded and sent out at the same time to race one another. We ended up losing when we rode Thunder, but won when we rode Lightning. It's hard to say which side I like better, Thunder has a thrilling first drop, but on Lightning you get much more air time in your seat. I guess it will depend on what kind of mood I'm in ;-)

After those rides we were going past Fahrenheit (their newest coaster) and it had been closed earlier, but the repair folks were out working on it, so JH and I stopped to watch. We couldn't have timed it better because they were finishing up their work (fixing one of the tires that moves the coaster along after the brakes are applied at the end) and after an initial test, they moved their ladder out of the way, and brought a third car onto the track. We were immediately nearby the entrance, and about 20 mins later when they cycled through the cars, they reopened Fahrenheit, so we were able to get a very front seat rather quickly :-D The ride itself was fun, though JH hated the completely vertical first hill that we had to climb.

We hit Sidewinder, which is yet another boomerang style coaster of the same design as Two-Face in Six Flags America and Flashback in Six Flags New England, but this one uses standard sit down cars rather than inverted cars. I needed the credit for my coaster count profile, so I rode it yet again.

Next was Trailblazer, which to me is the type of coaster you bring your younger kids on to introduce them to a rollercoaster. We were thinking about hitting Comet and calling it a day, but then we saw that the Sooper Dooper Looper was finally opened up (it was closed earlier in the day) so we hopped on that once since there wasn't much of a line.

Overall it was a great day at Hershey Park, and since we now possess 2-day tickets, at some point JH and I will have to make another trip up there :-D

Baltimore Pride

This past weekend JH and I were up in Baltimore to celebrate Baltimore Pride. Thankfully it was as spectators and not as planners and/or volunteer staff.

Friday night was spent in Baltimore after we both got done with our respective jobs and headed to the hotel we would be staying at. We headed out to dinner at My Thai, which I will recommend going for their sushi and sashimi. JH tried their "Maryland Maki" which had crabmeat in it, but clearly it was imitation crabmeat so avoid that. You're better off sticking with their other rolls such as tuna, salmon, and shrimp. I highly recommend getting the red snapper, especially if you're not hugely into sushi. I found that eating the snapper was like eating a tender piece of beef, and JH agreed with me.

The best value is the Sushi and Sashimi combo (sushi, sashimi, and spicy tuna rolls) because you do get a variety of both for a good price, it is chefs choice, but it's definitely a good way to try out a variety of items. I never would have found out about the red snapper otherwise.

Saturday I was on my own for the morning while Joe was at work. I had breakfast at the City Cafe before I walked down to the inner harbor. I stopped into the local sports store and picked up an Orioles visor to wear. I'll be honest, I like baseball caps, but on hot days they don't vent fast enough to keep me cool, so I end up taking them off while I'm outside. A visor is a better compromise for me. I wandered around the inner harbor and got a few pictures. I also ended up stopping by the van that was selling Perfect Cupcakes and picked up a yellow cake cupcake with dark chocolate frosting. It was very good, the perfect balance of frosting and cupcake, and the cake itself was dense and moist, the way I like it. JH, for future reference the van was sitting at the inner harbor over by Pier 5, so you could stop by after making a round ;-)

I headed back up to the hotel and laid down for a nap before JH got back in. We had a late lunch and headed down to watch the Baltimore Pride parade, in all of it's 4 block glory. I didn't mind it though, we were having a good time. I was in my Nasty Pig vest and shorts, and he was in his harness, which definitely made us stand out from the usual crowd.

Right after the parade was the block party, which was my first one in Baltimore, and it was a total blast. I am so doing this again. Basically we walked around chatting with various people throughout the evening. JH and I did shots from an ice luge, and then one of the girls from the booth so liked his nipples that she ran up and did a chest bump, complete with a jump into his arms. I have photographic evidence that will soon be developed and posted ;-)

The fun thing about being at Baltimore was that people were actually coming up to talk to us while in our fetish gear. That wouldn't have happened in DC (MAL excluded). JH said that "We felt like celebrities" which is pretty much the truth. A number of people wanted pictures with us and we were getting compliments all around. Is it any wonder why I like Baltimore better than DC at times? I'll have to see if a picture of us ends up in any of the newspapers this week.

Eventually we ran into one of my friends and proceeded to get cheap strong drinks at a local bar, which was good because the drinks that the vendors were selling at pride were weak. Then it was back to the party site and socializing with more folks. If we had not been worn out we probably would have hit up Baltimore Eagle as well.

Sunday I went to the festival while JH was at work. The festival was alright, pretty standard for Baltimore. JH said to me that a lot of lesbians go to the festival, and he's right about that, there were a lot of lesbians there, along with their vendors. I stayed for about 2 hrs before taking off for Greenbelt.

Later on that night I met JH for dinner, which he surprised me with going out for steamed crabs. Hint to mom, come visit at some point and we'll take you out for fresh steamed crabs.

So that wrapped up yet another great weekend with JH. I am so visiting Baltimore Pride again next year.

New England

Continuing my series of trips to various amusement parks to hit roller coasters, JH and I went to Six Flags New England. We flew into Hartford via Southwest, which worked out well for a short flight. It's great for once to not have to take a plane flight alone :-)

We got into Hartford, and then got our rental car, we decided to spring for the GPS since we were both in very unfamiliar territory, and the previously printed Google maps were just not making sense at the moment. JH and I were pleasantly surprised at how close Six Flags was from the airport; about 10 miles via a back road.

We got to the park and the first thing we did was go over a purchase a Flash Pass. The Flash Pass is an item you can buy so that you're not standing around waiting in line. You set the pass for a ride, and it provides a reservation time. When it's your time, you go to the Flash Pass line, and they let you in. The limitation is that you can only do this for one ride at a time. If you get the basic Flash Pass, you'll have a reservation time that is far enough ahead of time as if you were waiting in line. If you spend the extra cash and get the Gold Flash Pass, your reservation waiting time is much much shorter. Neither of us had used the new Flash Pass system, but we decided to spring for a gold one. The biggest reason for that was because for Superman: Ride of Steel, the trip reports from other visitors had been that they were only running one train at a time. Considering it's one of the most popular coasters, why put ourselves through waiting for 2-3 hours?

I have got to say that overall by the end of the day, the Gold Flash Pass was worth every penny because it meant we were able to ride every single rollercoaster at least once on Saturday. As soon as we would get into the waiting station to get on the ride, JH would reserve the next ride, and the wait time would be approximately 10 minutes away, so by the time we finished our current coaster ride and walked to the one we had reserved, it was already our reservation time. Also, if certain rides happen to be delayed or closed that day, you'll know on the screen. If you had a reservation and they have temporarily closed the ride, it will push your time back until the ride opens up again.

Getting back to the park, once again we managed to show up on a weekend where there was a cheerleading competition! Third park, third competition; WTF is up with that? Next year I'm checking the calendar of a park before we a trip to it during the spring. So we got to deal with cheerleaders running all over the place, there was no stage mom drama to report this time around. However, there was that moment where some of the more naive girls rode on the raging rapids ride, and they had not even performed yet, so they were freaking out about getting wet and of course they got wet. Girls, this is why you don't listen to your little brother when he tells you that you won't get wet. Littler brothers like to mess with you, haven't you figured that out yet?

So the first ride was on Superman: Ride of Steel. This coaster has been voted as the number 1 coaster in the world so we went into it expecting great things. The ride elements were good and the coaster was fast, but it didn't give the airtime that I was expecting. It wasn't until we rode in the very front later that weekend that the ride got good, so my recommendation is to wait for the very front of the coaster.

Next ride was on the Mind Eraser, which is the same layout as the Mind Eraser at Six Flags America. It was a pretty standard hanging ride, nothing too wild to report there. At first I didn't recognize it because this one still has its original color scheme of teal and red, whereas the one at America has orange and yellow.

Moving onward to Batman: The Ride, this one is different in that it is a floorless coaster rather than an inverted coaster. I have to admit it can be hard to keep all of these coasters straight when they use the same name. Thank god when I was setting up my credits list, I could locate pictures of coasters to figure out if I ever rode them. The ride was better than other Batman coasters in that it didn't feel like I was gypped on the length of the ride.

Thunderbolt is a wooden coaster that's based on a design from the 1939 World's Fair, it has the feel of the Cyclone at Coney Island, but in this case, I didn't end up breaking my ass while riding! Flashback was the next ride, and this one I like because you basically are pulled back up the hill, you fly back down, go through a cobra roll and loop, come up the other hill where you stop...and then go back through the loop and the cobra roll backwards! This was my second time riding one as I did take one ride on Two-Face at SFA last year before it was basically broken for the rest of the summer.

Pandemonium introduces a newer concept to roller coasters that I would like to see on a bigger scale and in a closer park. Not only are you going up and down hills and around bends on the track, the car is able to spin freely as you're doing so. It makes for a fun experience as you basically change positions. We rode that one three or four times that weekend and no two rides were exactly the same. That one would be a good one to take kids on since it's not too scary for them.

After that it was over to Houdini's House. How this ride works is that while you're strapped down to these benches, you feel like you're being raised up while the room is spinning around. JH explained to me that they pull you back and forth at only a 15 degree angle, but because you're surrounded by what is essentially a spinning cylinder, it disorients you and makes you think you're being raised up much more. Next was Tomahawk, which is what is known as a frisbee ride. This one spins while swinging back and forth. I must be gaining a tolerance for these kinds of rides because I didn't feel sick like I used to in the past.

We moved on to ride Cyclone, which was this big wooden coaster in the park. That one was a blast, especially because of the amazing amount of airtime we got on while riding. After the ride, they closed the ride for a few minutes so they could load a second car onto the track. Neither one of us had ever witnessed this being done, so we stood at the exit ramp and watched. Basically they unlock a section of the track, slide it over in front of the garage, roll the new train onto the track, then slide the track back into place. Once it's secured, the car then rolls to the first lift hill and goes through the coaster. It was pretty neat to watch.

After a few more rides, we decided to head out of the park and go to our hotel. This hotel was pretty nice and comfortable. We headed out to dinner at an Italian place that I cannot for the life of me remember the name of. We watched some TV and then crashed.

The next morning we tried to figure out what we wanted to do, we could go to the park, but I was more in the mood to go exploring the area and see what we could find. We figured we'd head north on the highway towards Vermont and would see where that would take us. Our Sunday drive took us up to Vermont, over to New Hampshire, and then back down to Springfield. It was a good way to see the sights, and hey, it meant more states that we got to visit! We did go back to the park, and since there was no competition going on and it was cloudy, there was very little crowding, so we were able to get some rides in without a problem. As the day came to an end, we returned to Hartford to fly back to Baltimore.

The trip was a great one, I would do it again in a heartbeat...or at least when another $49 fare from Southwest comes along :-)

New Jersey and New York

Friday while I was in Atlanta, JH texted me about going over to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey since I had never been there before. An opportunity to travel to a new place, you bet I was going! It doesn't hurt being a season pass holder either.

Saturday Morning we drove up to New Jersey and got there soon after the park opened. We started out by riding Blackbeard's Treasure Train because I need the coaster credits, and JH wanted to start with smaller rollercoasters just to make sure the g-forces weren't going to bother his nose. It's a nice coaster for the kids and their parents.

Next was Skull Mountain, which was alright, especially for an inside coaster. We moved onward to Nitro, which I ended up enjoying the ride. Afterwards was Batman The Ride, which is a clone of the Batman The Ride at Magic Mountain. I last rode that one eight years ago, and it was just like I remembered it, which is that the ride is too freaking short. You get into some good turns and thrills and then bang! It's over.

Onward to Medusa, which freaking rocked, we would ride the coaster once more over the weekend. I love it when the coasters go fast and space their elements so that you're not being thrown all over the place. Definitely one of the best steel coasters I have ever been on.

We got over to El Toro, which was finally when we hit the point where lines took a while. I had gotten used to waiting 10-15 mins at the most to get on, but in this case it would take almost 2 hours. Did I mention that there was a cheerleading competition at the park, so it was basically overrun with the kids and their stage parents? At one point they tried to bring on a second train to handle the crowd, but it was taken off, so I think it had flunked a safety check. Yeah, I got bitchy about that, which was over the line for me, oh well.

Afterwards we tried to get food, and that was another line from hell thanks to the larger than normal crowds for the weekend and lack of staff. I should have just jumped to another restaurant, but I was foolish enough not to; lesson learned for next time.

By the time lunch was over, it was actually late in the afternoon, so we headed over to our hotel to rest for a while. JH got in touch with some family in the area, and we visited them for dinner. I like his cousin, she's raunchy, and can dish it out as well as take it, much like JH.

JH at one point made a spontaneous suggestion to go up to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone since I had never been there. I got in touch with a friend of mine in the area, KS. The story about KS and I is that she saw that I belonged to a fan group for Sirius Radio on MySpace, and we had gone to college in the same area (She went to NMSU in Las Cruces, I went to WNMU in Silver City) so we started E-mailing back and forth and cultivated a friendship. She happened to move to NYC from LA for her career so it was just perfect timing that we could finally meet. JH and I drove into the city and met near Times Square before walking over to a local cafe for brunch. It went well, we had fun, and as JH joked, he now has a lesbian friend!

After brunch JH and I headed towards Coney Island, and the Google Maps directions did not make sense, but we were able to find an alternate route that got us over to where we needed to be. After parking it was off to hit Coney Island and the Cyclone.

At the Cyclone, I ended up in the back car, which was fine. JH warned me the ride was going to be rough, but what happened next was unexpected. While the seats were padded, there was a weak spot in my seat that I paid the price for. There was a bar below the padding, and after we went over the hill and I came up and back down into the seat (a lap bar can only hold you so well) my tailbone smacked right into the bar. I ended up doing that again on the next hill, so I spent the rest of the ride scooting as far forward as possible so I wouldn't land on it again. I basically broke my ass on that ride. When we pulled into the station, they offered to let us go again for a discount price, there was no way in hell I was doing it right then. Hell, I'm still not completely healed from it, but that could be because I aggravated it the next weekend at SFNE. The next time I ever ride that, I'm not sitting in the very back car.

JH and I got chili cheese dogs at Nathan's because then we could say we had them at the original place. Afterwards it was time to head out of the city and head back to SFGA for another go-round of the rollercoasters.

The first coaster we hit was The Great American Scream Machine (AKA Greta), which for being an older steel coaster, was still fun to ride, especially because it had one of my favorite elements from Viper at Magic Mountain, which was a butterfly turn. As I would recently learn, Viper is actually the sister coaster of Greta, which explained why the ride reminded me so much of being on Viper. Next was Superman: Ultimate Flight, which was one of the best flying coasters I have been on to date. I liked it better because instead of laying flat on your back, you were laying as if you were flying like Superman.

Next was Kingda Ka, which is billed as the world's tallest and fastest coaster. Unfortunately I would not get to ride it because right as we were 2 people away from riding, it broke down. Normally I can deal with things breaking down, but the workers there hit on a pet peeve of mine so I basically ended up bailing after 20 mins of waiting. Despite what JH may have said, he was ready to bail as well. Here's the thing, stuff breaks down, it happens, whatever, but if I see two ride operators and two maintenance workers standing at the control booth and it looks like they're just screwing around rather than doing their jobs (they looked like they were laughing and joking around) then I'm just going to get really pissed off.

We bailed and headed over to El Toro, which had a quicker wait. I have to say that riding in the front was so much better than riding in the back, definitely go for the front if you can. It has to be the best wooden roller coaster I have ridden at this point.

We rode Medusa again and then headed towards Greta because I wanted another ride. Along the way JH and I saw a Porky Pig character, and JH said "MMMMMMM! Bacon!" to which the person inside the costume proceeded to give us the middle finger. We laughed at it, though JH wanted to report him for unprofessionalism later. I gotta admit that sometimes you do forget where you are and will throw up the middle finger without thinking about it when you should really put it away. At my old job in college, I was in a training with all of my co-workers and bosses, and one of my co-workers said something mildly insulting to me, and I gave him the finger, which basically shocked everyone in the room. I basically did it without thinking about it, my bad.

So we rode Greta again, along with Nitro, Batman, and Skull Mountain before we did some shopping and drove allllllll the way back to Maryland. That was a great trip, and there should be a few more.

Once again, if you managed to make it this far, click the picture at the top to see the pictures from the trip.

Atlanta

About a month ago, I was sent to Atlanta by my employer to do a field observation for Consumer Expenditures Quarterly, and to observe training for the new Survey of Construction. So for three days, I got to go to a completely new place and see just what it is that goes on in the field.

The plane flight to Atlanta was fine. I had never flown AirTran before but JH said it was the airline he uses to get to Ft. Lauderdale and they're pretty good. I liked being able to listen to complimentary satellite radio (even if it was XM) in the armrest. I did have one issue with it though. I own a pair of earbuds and so I would have the volume at a good level that wasn't going to destroy my hearing. However, any time there was an announcement made over the cabin it would come through my headphones and it was set at a much higher volume, to the point that I had to take my earbuds out to be able to listen to announcements.

Got into Atlanta and was picked up by the field rep to go do the observation for CEQ. The first respondent wasn't home, however, his mother was, and since this FR has been trying to contact him for a few days, she left a business card with her. As I would predict, he would call back later and set up an appointment to do an interview because we all know that good boys listen to their mother. The second place we visited was someone who the FR had been unable to get in touch with by phone lately, so she made a personal visit and set up another appointment.

The third person we talked to was one who had made an appointment, so I got to observe the interview. The interview itself went fine, though it ran so long due to all the questions that we were unable to finish in the time given. The FR made the point that some questions take way too long to read and it drags out the interview. She mentioned she has a number of respondents who get to the 4th or 5th interview (they're interviewed every 3 months) and they just refuse to do it anymore. Perhaps some data analysis needs to be done to see if that is a trend, or just isolated to a few people.

I was dropped off at the hotel I was staying at, which was the Omni Hotel at CNN Center. I gotta say it was a very nice hotel, and at a very nice price thanks to the federal discount. I had a room that faced into the CNN Center, unfortunately I could not use the balcony at the time because they were still fixing storm damage from the tornado that struck downtown Atlanta in March. Still, free usage of a fitness center, free wireless (if I had a laptop) and other little perks along the way, I have no complaints. I do hope they fixed the leaking toilet though, especially since Atlanta is in a drought (yes I did tell the front desk).

I unpacked and then headed out to walk around and get to know the streets of Atlanta a little bit. The office I needed to be at for the training observation was 1/2 a block from the hotel so that was going to be a really easy walk in the mornings. I walked down to Underground Atlanta and located the visitors center, so I picked up a few adverts and magazines on things to do. I kept on walking around, saw some places that looked interesting for meals later on, and made sure I also knew how to get to MARTA later.

Centennial Olympic Park is across the street from the hotel, and on Wednesday nights they feature live music from local bands, so I wandered over and got to hear some Jazz playing for a while before the band took a break. I snapped pictures of buildings in the area that clearly had felt the wrath of the tornado, including my hotel. I walked the entire park looking at everything that was available to look at. One thing I noticed was that there were a lot of folks out who were picnicking; that would be something fun to do around here hint hint.

Dropped in at some nearby Mexican food place, it was your standard fare, too bad there wasn't any dishes featuring green chile, god I miss that stuff. I took a bath, watched some TV, and crashed out.

I woke up Thursday morning and grabbed a breakfast burrito at a place downstairs. There was also a national competition for robotics going on, so the CNN center was full of high school kids running around in their team shirts and various funky hairdos or accessories to set them apart from other teams. Breakfast was good, so I suggest stopping at Great Wraps if you happen to be in the area.

Went over to the regional office and met with the folks conducting the training. We got upstairs and I sat back and basically took notes and provided assistance when needed. All of the FRs who were attending were FRs who are experienced in using SOC, but also in using the Blaise software, so that meant training progressed quickly since they knew their way around the laptops and such. The comments were good, they liked that they were finally getting this new version of the survey and that it offered more flexibility than in the past. There were a few concerns about if some of their old data was being brought forward into the new survey, which it is, so that became a non-issue for them. Lunch was awesome thanks to befriending the locals, as I went with some folks over to Mae's Soul Food and enjoyed fried chicken, mac and cheese, and greens. By the end of the afternoon, they were through all of the listing operations and were starting to work on the interviewing side of things. So far everything looked great, and I also got a tour of the regional office and met some of the staff as well. They like seeing different folks drop in every once in a while.

I need to not basically dare the FR's to try and break the survey because they will find a way. One person purposely entered an incorrect zip code in the builder table, and instead of it behaving like it did in the past, which was to prompt the FR that they needed to enter 5 digits, it threw a few other errors that should not have happened. I called back to HQ and let them know what had happened so they could start taking a look. My co-worker asked me to E-mail him the details and what they did. I tried doing it from the regional office, but as it figures, the freaking server goes down so no one can log-on to their computer. Remember how I mentioned the wireless was free at the hotel if you had a laptop? Well if you need to use their business center and one of their computers to surf the Internet, it's $7 per 15 minutes, though you can print airline boarding passes for most major airlines for free. So I think I might have a record for most expensive E-mail sent thanks to that stupid charge.

We ended early enough that I got back to the hotel and after dealing with the E-mail I went over to get a ticket to take a tour of CNN. Unfortunately I have no pictures from that tour as photographs are not allowed. It was an hour well spent and I would recommend it, especially for the price ($12 for an adult). You get to see where they tape the CNN Newsroom and CNN Headline News as well, along with a demonstration of how they display the weather maps, some videos of the anchors talking about working for CNN, and pointing out studios like CNN radio.

I grabbed dinner at Golden Buddha Chinese which was right down the street, great food and not outrageously priced. I didn't have to break the bank to be able to eat good ;-) Later I hit the fitness center at the hotel and took a sauna as well, which was nice and relaxing before heading to bed.

The next morning started out with me being woken up to a text message from JH asking if I was interested in going to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. Do you think I was really going to turn that down? The rest of the morning went by quickly as the FR's finished up the interviewing training and then used some free time to do what they wanted with the survey. Thankfully no one broke anything else, so I felt pretty confident that things were going to work well out in the field. It was about 10:30 when it was all over, and my flight wasn't until 7 PM, so I decided to hit the Georgia Aquarium. I was considering going over to the World of Coke, but apparently that's a rip-off unless you like looking at 50 years of Coke advertising.

Hate to say it Baltimore, but you could take a lesson from Georgia on what should be in an aquarium. They have it divided into five parts, and each one has a different theme. There's the local rivers, the coral reefs, the deep sea, the cold water ocean, and the Amazon. There were lots of tanks and lots of different fish and animals to look at. There's also a number of touching pools; I was able to touch stingrays, sharks, sea anemones, horseshoe crabs, starfish, and shrimp. I spent a good three hours looking through the place and taking plenty of pictures.

I grabbed a late lunch and then decided to take a tour of the city via MARTA since I had a few hours left before I had to be at the airport. I learned that if you want to do such a thing, use their East-West line rather than the North-South line. Also, I am surprised that subway service in the city stops after 9 PM, including weekends. I would think that's when you would want the subway the most, or like when there's a game at Philips Arena. I did get to see a good portion of Atlanta by train before finally heading back to the airport.

While at the airport I ran into what has to be one of the crazier guests I have ever heard on Howard Stern. The former pro-wrestler The Iron Sheik was at the same security area I was in, and he rode the same train that I was riding to get to the terminal. He was in a wheelchair due to having a broken leg, so he was talking to and joking with the guy who was assisting him since the guy had grown up watching The Iron Sheik on TV. I secretly snapped a few pics with my cell phone for proof ;-)

Got to the terminal, got on the flight and listened to the Orioles game on the way back to Baltimore, where I was picked up by JH to get to bed before heading to New Jersey the next day.

If you made it all the way to the end of this entry, you get a bonus! Click the picture at the top to go look at all the pictures I took in Atlanta :-)

After This Weekend...

I have now visited 30 states in the US



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.


I have also ridden 56 rollercoasters in the world overall. I have some work to do this Summer as JH is about 3x ahead of me.

There will be blog entries about it, in the next few days, there will be reports about my trip to Atlanta, Six Flags Great Adventure, New York City, Coney Island, and now Six Flags New England.

Yeah, I've been well traveled for the past month.

National Cherry Blossom Festival, 2008

National Cherry Blossom Festival, 2008, originally uploaded by theblackdog2071.

This past Saturday I was down at the National Cherry Blossom Festival with Rob and Dan. It was the predicted time that the blossoms would be at their peak, so I figured I would go this past weekend just so I could finally see them at the right time for once. Rob and Dan had plans in DC anyway, so it was only logical that we might as well meet up.

First of all, I'm glad I am a regular Metro rider and carry a SmartTrip card. The lines at the farecard machines in Greenbelt were a total clusterfuck. I think all of them had at least 10 people waiting to get farecards or to refill their Smartrip cards. As expected, the train was full, which was no big deal thanks to having good headphones and my Stiletto.

Getting to L'enfant Plaza, the platform for the Orange and Blue lines were crowded, and whan a train going our way arrived the first time, everyone and their mother tried to crowd on the train, which meant there were multiple tries before they could finally close the doors. By the time all was said and done, the people were packed in like sardines. What fools, if some of the people cramming in there at the last moments had just had the patience to wait another two minutes, they would have boarded a much less crowded train.

So I get to the tidal basin and listen to a performance of the Japanese Choral Society of DC before Rob and Dan arrive. We take our time wandering around the Tidal Basin looking at the trees, taking pictures, and dodging some of the crowds that were there. It would be an understatement to say that there were a lot of people there. I just pulled up Metro's subway ridership numbers for Saturday, March 29, 580,751. On the very same date last year it was 464,981.

Anyway, despite the crowds, it was good to be out, and it was a beautiful day. Eventually we wandered over towards the National Mall, where the Smithsonian Kite Festival was going on as well, so we got to see all sorts of kites. I had plans for the evening or I probably would have flown a kite as well. There are pictures of the various kites that were in the sky. There was one club that made a really good effort to make a dragon kite fly, but we think they needed more room to be able to move and get it going, instead of the small space they had in the "arena" that a competition was being held in.

Eventually we headed back towards Metro so I could board, but we got to the one Smithsonian Station entrance that was supposed to be the entrance, and they had made it an exit only, so we went over to the other entrance, and that was gated off, with a big crowd standing around it, so no one was getting in. Who the hell knows what was happening then, but it definitely left me wondering how the hell Metro was going to handle Nationals games if they can't seem to handle the festivals.

Rob and Dan were kind enough to take me over to the Archives/Navy Memorial Station, so I hopped back on the train to head back to Greenbelt before heading to Baltimore that evening.

Great day, I suggest if you're in the DC/MD/NoVA area within the next week or two to go over and see the blossoms. Perhaps the pictures I took will entice you to go ;-)