|
|
Back to gerritt.net SUMMER DREAMS January 31, 2005. 8:48 PM Ah, January is finally over. The days are getting longer, and there's just one more short month to struggle through before spring starts to show its face. In Baltimore baseball news, Sammy Sosa has agreed to leave the Cubs and head for the only team in baseball still looking for an aging free-agent slugger: The Orioles. If the deal is approved, it could mean a pretty wicked lineup for the O's, plus the possibility of selling out a game or two next summer. Now they just need a pitcher or two. Daryl and I are taking a vacation to London and Paris in three weeks. Those of you who have been to these cities, what do you recommend that we see given three days in each city? -G * Email Gerritt TALES FROM THE SEA January 28, 2005. 12:25 PM Stories like this one are why I became a Naval Architect. A fifty-foot wave!!?? That is SO AWESOME!! The ship and everyone on board survived, due entirely to someone like me doing their job. How about this news clip about a guy who got left behind after a SCUBA diving trip, then rescued five hours later by none other than the Sea Scouts (although the press would have you believe it was the Boy Scouts). Now the stranded diver is back in the news trying to sue the pants off of the dive charter company because he developed skin cancer, says they lied about his location, and other punitive damages. If you haven't seen the movie Open Water, it reflects a similar situation in which a couple gets stranded at sea after a dive trip. Not a feel-good movie, as there is practically no humor to hungry sharks. I've been diving a bunch of times and getting stranded is definitely a realistic fear, but like most things in life, diving is still dramatically safer than driving on the beltway. -G * Email Gerritt TRAIN WRECK ALERT January 26, 2005. 11:48 PM Tragedy on the rails once again. Early this morning, a commuter train smashed through an SUV that was parked across the tracks by a man attempting suicide. The man jumped from the vehicle at the last minute, as two trains wrecked at high speeds, killing at least ten people and injuring hundreds. Train wrecks have long been the colloquialism we Americans use to describe a complete disaster, and the more pictures I see of twisted, flaming railcar wreckage the more I think it seems an appropriate expression (even if it is a bit gloomy). Also, this most recent train wreck spawned interest in the media to the point of the AP releasing this bizzare list of recent deadly train crashes in the US. Check out the first two entries: unrelated train crashes in the same town within two months of one another. Talk about bad luck. -G * Email Gerritt A FINE DAY FOR A SAIL January 23, 2005. 10:48 PM 
-G * Email Gerritt INAUGURA-THON REVIEW January 21, 2005. 11:58 PM I had the chance to see the second inauguration of President Bush on TV yesterday, and watched as he was sworn in by a feeble yet inspiring Chief Justice. The President looked like he had rehearsed, maybe even in front of a mirror, and knew his lines so swiftly he barely allowed his prompter to finish before he started his phrase. He was firm, official, crisp, and repeated his 40-word oath perfectly. Dick Cheney, in the extended remix 70-word VP oath of office, did some ad-lib on the fly, changing words like "I" to "we", and stumbling through as if he'd forgotten what comes next. It seems like just yesterday that Bush was the stuttering one, but lately all that has changed. Bush's speech used the words "liberty" and "freedom" about 70 times, and I watched John Stewart run a tally of each during his re-cap on The Daily Show. During the swearing-in ceremony, I watched coverage on CNN, complete with frequent camera cuts to the Clintons to show their reaction. Al Gore, who you might remember from a recent narrowly-decided election, was nowhere to be found, and for some odd reason they seated John Kerry behind a man in a GIANT COWBOY HAT. So giant, in fact, that his face was rarely seen on camera during the whole inauguration, and all of America wondered if that guy was put there on purpose just to annoy Kerry by blocking his view of the jumbo-tron. We may never know. And now, the quote of the evening last night: "The Presidential balls are really swinging!" -G * Email Gerritt AS WRECKLESS WINTER MADE ITS WAY January 19, 2005. 10:24 PM Its so funny how the dynamics of a real job can change so drastically from small things. Last week I worked late night shifts for twelve hours, five days straight. My job is a bit mind-numbing at times, so I bring a book to pass the time and keep myself awake. Last week I was engrossed in A Tale of Two Cities, a Charles Dickens (aka Chuck D) novel that takes place during the blood-stained French Revolution of the late 1700s. It made me moody and cynical. This week I work the day shift, and I've hit on the opposite end of the fictional spectrum by reading the new novel by Jimmy Buffett, A Salty Piece of Land. It makes me curious and silly. It snowed today, which for once left all of us with a constant conversation starter, and made us all a bit giddy, mocking Marylanders' absurd overreactions to an inch of snow. Tomorrow the President will be swearing to uphold for another four years; I'll be watching it on TV in my warm apartment. I've had Fountains of Wayne's "Valley Winter Song" stuck in my head ever since the snow started coming down. If anyone can write music like they do and are looking for someone to perform it, I'll split the profits with you. -G * Email Gerritt FON-DONE January 16, 2005. 1:24 PM We had to try it. A restaurant recently called the Melting Pot recently moved into Columbia, in The Shoppes at Wilde Lake Village Centre (extra e's at no additional charge). The Melting Pot, of course, specializes in fondue, the age-old tradition of dipping your food into a community pot of hot oil, cheese, or chocolate. This restaurant has a few options, all of which involve using a stove-top burner and steel pot in the middle of the table to heat some sort of dip. We chose the three-course "fondue-for-two" (times two since there were four of us, plus we added a dessert at the end). The oh-so-attentive waiter/fondue-master first made us a pot of melted cheese with bread and stuff to dip, then a salad, and then a tray of raw meat, two types of batter, and a big pot of boiling oil. Once we'd sufficiently made a giant mess with that, the meal was finished with a flaming pot of milk chocolate and marshmallow cream, along with some stuff to put on the forks and dip into it. The food was good, if you like meat boiled in oil, but since we got to cook it ourselves there were some problems with what tasted good together, plus it was really hard to count all the way to two minutes and forty-five seconds while you wait for a tiny piece of chicken to cook. It took almost three hours by the time we finished the chocolate, and we left thoughroughly sated. It was pricey, but the experience was much more than a meal. Next time I go, however, I'll just skip the oily stage of the meal and fill up on cheese and chocolate. Mmmm. Cheese and chocolate. -G * Email Gerritt UN MOMENTO DEL SILENCIO PARA UNA ESTACION DE RADIO MUERTA January 13, 2005. 12:26 PM It is with a heavy heart that I announce to you the loss of a local legend, an institution in the Baltimore-Washington area for thirty-six years: WHFS. As a teenager in suburban Maryland, you were totally not rad if you didn't listen to, talk about, or at least act excited about the playlist on 99.1 HFS. And for good reason, back then their music was progressive and free-form, playing any tracks they wanted and talking about the music and inspiration behind each song. They threw the best parties too, hosting a huge annual stadium concert called HFStival. I stayed up all night in a Hecht's parking lot on more than one occasion for HFStival tickets. The next day at school everyone wanted to know who had gotten tickets and who hadn't, which surprise bands were going to show up, and whose Dad was cool enough to be seen with at the concert. Recently HFS developed into what they called "the real alternative" music, slowly phasing out their DJs with musical knowledge and intelligent commentary and diverting away from progressive music. The music they played under the guise of "alternative" music was simply mainstream hard rock. For every good song they played, they played three others that sounded like a middle school shouting match. Yesterday, however, that all changed. At noon yesterday the station's owners gave HFS and its declining list of listeners a shock when it suddenly switched over to- you guessed it- Latino music!! Arriba!! Good night sweet HFS, and may you forever live in our fond memories. If you grew up in the DC area listening to HFS, you might remember a DJ from a while back named Weasel. He left the station, along with an absurd amount of rock knowledge, and now spins for the classic rock station 94.7 the Arrow on weekdays 7 PM - midnight. Worth a listen if you like classic rock. From the desk of Team Sugar Bowl: Bret and Tom have put together a great road journal of their misadventures from Blacksburg to New Orleans, which looks a lot like my 2002 Gator Bowl journal only better. My pictures from the Sugar Bowl trip are now online!! -G * Email Gerritt A PICTURE IS WORTH. . . January 11, 2005. 1:26 PM Pictures from the Sugar Bowl trip are now online!! -G * Email Gerritt THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE January 6, 2005. 8:06 PM New Orleans was fun. The Hokies lost, but showed up late in the game to lose by only three points. The 'old people' crew, as Tom and Bret dubbed the eight of us traveling from DC to the Big Easy, stuck together and came through without leaving anyone behind or missing out on anything we hoped to do. Mainly we ate a lot, rested, did the touristy thing, and partook in the misadventures that are Bourbon Street. Plus there was that football game that we each paid an arm and a leg to go see, despite the slightly undesirable outcome. Five days was enough time in New O, but not quite enough vacation for me, being used to the three weeks of winter break we got in college. But for now its back to work. Pictures from Sugar Bowl land coming soon. -G * Email Gerritt |