2010 In Review, Part II: April - August

April was mostly a blur of schoolwork, with the end slowly coming into sight for me. I'm sure the end had been in sight for Kirst (and Teddy and Chris) for a while. On my birthday, I came home to a chocolate cake Kirst made for me, complete with "Happy 25 Birthday." I didn't get two steps in the door before I pointed out, to Teddy and Chris's amusement and Kirst's horror, "I'm not 25." Like Teddy and Chris, I thought it was pretty funny, but I think Kirst still feels a little bad about it (It's ok, hon).

The story went that while decorating the cake, Kirst noted that there were 24 candles in a pack and told Teddy that next year would be annoying because she'd have to buy a second pack for one candle. She apparently said this while writing on the cake and so, put 25 instead of 24. Makes sense to me, and still pretty funny.

Toward the end of the month Mom heard about a listing for Corgi puppies for sale. With Lily's impending departure to Charlottesville in August, she needed a new pup to keep her company. Of course, the listing included at least two puppies, and we had to go meet with them too and help pick out my mom's puppy. The decision to drive up to Winchester that Saturday to meet the woman with the puppies was made early in the week, and it was clear well before we left Blacksburg that we would most likely be returning with the second puppy. We couldn't leave him by himself now could we?

We arrived and met with two little reddish-brown fuzzballs. The woman told us about them and the litter, telling us that they'd been born without tails, that the little one was the runt of the litter, but also the Alpha without a doubt. I was duly appointed with choosing which pup would be mine and which would go home with my mom. I ended up choosing the runt, partly because he had already shown himself to be a bit devilish and I didn't want poor aging Mally to deal with him. I had just about made my decision known when, after shopping at Petco with him in my arms, I was heading for grass to set him down and he peed all over me. Little chet.

I cleaned myself and then declared that the little one was Crash, and he was coming with me, despite the peeing incident. We actually then headed to Fairfax to spend some time with each other before Kirst and I finally headed back down to Blacksburg. We went to Stonegate first so Cory could meet Crash. We were all sitting with Crash in the kitchen and talking for about twenty minutes before I realized I hadn't seen Zubie in a while. I looked around the apartment and quickly found him, sitting in the corner of the living room, ears down, and an ultimately pathetic look on his face. I called to him and he was very excited to find out we weren't replacing him and that we still liked him.

After a while, we headed over to Windsor Hills and got ready to go to bed. We put crash in his crate and he promptly began crying pitifully, regardless of anything we said. The only way we got him to shut up was Kirsten laid on the floor with her fingers through the door of the crate. If, after he fell asleep, she got up to come to bed, he would wake and begin crying almost instantly. So she slept on the floor the first night, I the next, and so on. It didn't take long before we gave up and let him sleep in the bed with us so that we could actually sleep too.

Eventually Crash got over his whining thing (mostly, he still does it in the mornings if we put him in the crate for the night, usually because he refuses to go to sleep). And just a couple weeks later, the semester was over and Kirsten, Teddy, Chris, Katie, and Dylan were all putting on their long, flowing, black robes and getting ready to graduate.

The large ceremony on Friday night was threatened by thundershowers and delayed for a while. Eventually they set up a some-what shortened ceremony in Lane Stadium. The rather more meaningful ceremony took place the next day, with the individual college graduations. While Kirst had wanted to go to as many of our friends' graduations, after hanging out at Katie's the night before for a party and generally the exhaustion (plus amount of traffic), we bailed on the others and just went to the English department's graduation ceremony where Kirst got her well deserved diploma.


I'm sure I'll leave things out, but the summer seemed to be a bit of a whirlwind of activity. We moved out of Windsor Hills and all my stuff managed to clutter up the Stonegate apartment for a while. We also repainted all the walls from their various colors back to white. It was a bit of a rushed job, to the point where the primer we were using was cracking as it dried. However, they renovated the place after we moved out so they didn't charge us a cent, despite the bad paint and the hole in the carpet courtesy of Zubie. A little over a week after I moved all my stuff into Stonegate, we helped Cory move out into his new place.

In June we had our wedding shower, which I was originally advised to avoid, then told to make an appearance where I was promptly wrapped in a toilet paper wedding dress. A few days later, for Kirst's birthday, we went up to Baltimore and took a tour of the park before going to the game against the Nats. During BP before the game, I caught a ball courtesy of one of the coaches. It was the first time I'd ever caught a ball at a game, so I was smiling like a little kid for most of the night.

At the beginning of July we moved out of Stonegate and into our new place. My mom was a saint and drove down for the weekend to help us pack and move everything. Well, to step back, the first day we painted the whole place. Then the next day we had a 14ft Uhaul reserved. We show up at the place and this guy looks at me blankly and tells me they don't have any trucks. I spent the next half-hour or so on the phone with Uhaul, seething, pacing back and forth behind this building. Apparently the guy was a moron and didn't inform Uhaul that they needed to assign the reservation to another franchise. Eventually I got to someone helpful and she managed to find a much smaller truck for 6 hours and gave me $50 off for the inconvenience, which Mollified me a bit.

We hauled ass to get everything packed in the limited time we had. In the end we didn't get everything, but all the big stuff and big boxes. Over the next week we would pick up the rest. The following weekend mom and Kirst's mom came down and helped with the finishing touches and the like. After living in our new place for all of a week and change, we headed up to Northern Virginia to be around for the last minute wedding prep and bachelor/bachelorette parties.

For the bachelor party, Sweede arranged a trip to Atlantic City for two nights. The guys were incredibly kind (thank you all again) and donated money for me to gamble with since I couldn't afford any of my own (which I managed to mostly lose). It was a great time hanging out with the guys for a few days. We concluded the trip with an O's game with terrific seats down the third base line.

A few days later was the big day. It also happened to be the hottest day of the year. I woke up before the sun as near as I can recall, and then sat around not doing much until around noon, when I had the longest, most painstaking shave of my life. A little after two, Nick and I drove over to the Ritz Carlton where Kirst and I would be staying and checked in. We then got over to Meadowlark around 3:00 and made some last minute adjustments for the DJ table and the like, and then sat around some more.

The whole event is a bit of a blur. We had an absolute blast seeing everyone and then dancing like crazy all night. By the end it was just immediate family and best friends, which was a lot of fun. I'm not doing the night justice at all, but then I could spend an entire post on just the wedding and not do it justice (and maybe I'll try at some point).

Someone managed to find out where we were staying and have a baby crib placed in the room for when we got there. The scarier part was that the door wasn't closed all the way when we arrived. I'm still not sure who did it. The little baby-proofing bag came in handy when Kirst cut herself shaving the next morning. She got to wear a dino-band-aid.

A few days after the wedding we were off for the honeymoon in Europe. Once again, it deserves a post of its own, complete with pictures. For now I'll skip over it and just say that Santorini is probably the most beautiful spot on Earth, at least as far as I've seen, and that I want to go back both on a cruise and back to Italy and Greece.

A few days after we got back from Europe, we headed back to Blacksburg and I geared up for my final year of grad school.

This post is long enough as it is, so I will hold off on the last four months of the year for my next post, which I will try to make sooner rather than later.

All the best to you and yours,

-TES

2010 In Review, Part I: January - March

I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning. The end of 2009 saw Kirsten temporarily stranded in Blacksburg by the first of a couple massive snowfalls. Dylan had moved out of my apartment in Windsor Hills and Teddy was readying to move in (once he returned to the states from Hong Kong). I was preparing for my second semester of grad school, taking one required course in theory, and two electives, Creative Non Fiction and Business and Technical Writing. Kirsten, along with my roommates Teddy and Chris, was preparing to graduate. At the time she was considering grad school for the fall, namely Tech and Radford. In an attempt to bolster her resume, she joined an internship program to tutor at Blacksburg High School.

Honestly, the one definably "January" moment I can remember is recieving our electric bill at the end of the month for the period where no one was there. The bill was for over twice our previous highest bill, and unfortunately there was no mistake. However, a fonder memory is the week or so before classes began in which Teddy, Kirsten and I were able to spend some time together, mostly relaxing and catching up, hearing all about Hong Kong and Teddy's excursions to other parts of Asia. On one of his forrays to China, he bought himself a nice (cheap) suit, and very kindly, got one for me too. So of course, we had to wear them at the first opportunity, which happened to be initiation for brothers neither of us knew very well yet.


February seemed to primarily a blur of lots of snow. We had several sledding adventures on the hill with Zubie either in our laps or chasing us down the hill, barking the whole way and getting a face full of snow for his trouble. I got out of class with decent regularity. In one of my nights off, we decided to drive downtown to get some food. This trip should have been unremarkable if it weren't for the fact that Teddy locked his keys in his car, with it running. Fortunately, one door was only partially closed, and after much finagling, we were able to get a wire hanger in and pull the door handle from the inside. Of course, this event lead to a running joke every time we went anywhere, to make sure not to leave keys in the car.

In March, I began the month by visiting New York City during spring break for a few days with Kirsten, Anna, and some of Anna's friends, and we met Teddy there as well, who, along with his cousin, once again served as my guides through NYC. Our trip was only two days, but we did almost everything I had done on my first visit, which was four days. We took a Chinatown bus from DC to NYC Midtown (it drops you off by MSG). Going in, our goals were primarily gastronomic; Anna wanted to try to find the Best Burger in New York (courtesy of HIMYM), I insisted we had to try Katz and a Pizza too, and Teddy suggested we find a good Bagel place (something we'd failed to do in our first visit). We also located the bar that inspired MacClaren's from HIMYM, McGee's Pub, but ended up not stopping in.

Anywho, starting at the beginning, we took the Metro into Chinatown early in the morning and waited at our sketchy "bus stop" which was a sign over the door of an abandoned house's door. The bus, all black, eventually showed up, and we were on our way. We arrived in New York around 1:00 and made our way the half-dozen or so blocks from MSG to Madison Square Park, where our first (and only) Burger stop was: The Shake Shack. It's a little nicer than a shack, but it was a small building in the middle of a park. And we waited over an hour in line for our food. In addition to an amazing, heart-attack-inducing burger, we also got just as unhealthy cheese fries and something called a concrete. Our particular concrete was chocolate ice cream with brownie chunks, and probably some other chocolate items in the mix, with a consistency much like its name.


After our insanely delicious, and worth the wait meal, we took the subway to our hotel to put our stuff down and take a brief break. We then headed out and walked to Times Square. First stop was the Hershey's Store, which smelled deliciously of chocolate. I bought a Reese's shirt, and really hoped that it retained the smell of that store forever. Then we crossed the street and amused ourselves in the M&M's store for quite some time. It was much bigger than Hershey's (what with 3 floors), and was generally a little more ridiculous in the random things you could get with the M&M's logo on it. From there we headed into Times Square proper and looked into seeing a show, but even the cheapest tickets were a good bit more than we were looking to spend, and so we declined. Moving on down Times Square, we headed into the Toys R Us there and enjoyed the myriad displays and various toys themes, the Lego section, the Dinosaur section, and, of course, the Toy Story section. If you've never been, there's a Ferris Wheel inside the store. Truly a playland.

After Times Square, I think it was actually about dinner time, and with Teddy and I enthusiastically leading the way, we headed to Katz's Delicatessen. Kirsten followed Teddy and I's lead and ordered a pastrami Ruben (we probably should have shared). It wasn't quite as good as the first time, but that's like saying winning the lottery a second time wasn't as exciting as the first, it's that good. Anna wasn't nearly as pleased with her Philly Cheesesteak. Unfortunate, but we are in NY, not Philly. After our very filling dinner, we headed to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked half-way across it. We had a heck of a view from there, even if I did keep looking at the ground and water hundreds of feet below through the planks.

Our next stop was Rockefeller Center. One of my driving goals in the visit was to take Kirsten ice-skating at Rockefeller, so we did. While we skated, Anna and the others were entertained by an older Asian man doing interpretive ice-dance. He was so into it and enthusiastic you couldn't help but admire him. After our brief skate, we walked over to Rockefeller center and went to the "Top of the Rock," which is cheaper and much easier than going to the top of the Empire State Building. The view was incredible, nearly indescribable.

The relatively dark spot is Central Park. After we descended from those heights, we parted ways from our guides and I insisted on returning to Times Square, since it is a different place at night. Compared to my previous visit, it was relatively quiet. By that I mean we didn't see any party buses or Lamborghinis. Regardless, it's still an explosion of light and sound. Once we were done taking in all the sights and sounds, we walked our way back to the hotel and gratefully removed our shoes and quickly slipped into unconsciousness.

On day two, we took the subway uptown to Teddy's cousin's apartment to meet up with them, and from there, went to a bagel place for breakfast/brunch. From there we walked a ways and walked by Tom's Restaurant (of Seinfeld fame). Cam, Anna's roommate, wanted to see Strawberry Fields, so we obliged, and went to Central Park, entering by Strawberry fields and then walking through the park to Columbus Circle. We walked by McGee's Pub, then took the subway downtown to see Ground Zero, then walked to the Liberty Island Ferry. We walked briefly around the island, taking the obligatory photos with Lady Liberty, then headed back to the ferry. For the second time in as many trips, rather than get off at Ellis Island, I was in a group that was too tired and too short on time to bother, and so we stayed on board. From there we went to Lombardi's in Little Italy for Pizza.


This was my favorite of the three pizzas: Meatball, green pepper, and sliced tomato. Having tried NY and Chicago pizza, I can't say they compare. They are two completely different things, and both of them are, quite simply, awesome. After dinner, we quickly made our way to Insomnia Cookies, which was just a few blocks away, where Anna got a box of delicious and (at the time) warm cookies. We then bolted for the subway to get us back to MSG to catch our bus. We were cutting it close, and our nerves were not helped by a delay on the line that had us waiting nearly fifteen minutes for the next train, which then stopped a few times in between stations. Getting off the train and in a hurry, we managed to go the wrong way for a couple blocks before realizing our mistake and then I ran ahead to hold the bus if need be. Fortunately, the bus itself had been running late and so we made it. Not by much, but we made it.

I could continue on in March by describing how I got a ticket for a right on red, and then continue on to April and beyond, but this post, due to my love for writing about trips, is already quite long enough, so I will conclude it here for now.

All the best to you and yours,

-TES