« February 2006 | Main | April 2006 »
March 27, 2006
Requeim for a Brewer, A Basketball School
As I write this, I am drinking from what may be my final 6-pack of Foggy Bottom Lager Beer. There was recently a lot of attention brought to the fact that the Heurich House managed to be saved by a foundation, which was where the original brewer of the Foggy brews once resided. But what's more important is that at least one of the old Heurich brews was resurrected for a time - Senate and Old Georgetown Beers are still lost to the ages. But alas, now so is Foggy. Even though it hasn't been brewed in Washington for quite some time (the brewery was where the Kennedy Center stands now) there was still something decidedly Washington about it. So Mr. Heurich, a toast to you and your tasty local brew that I've preferred for the last few years. Perhaps I'll go back to Teeter tomorrow and buy out the rest of the stock.
----------------------------
I come from a ridiculously well-educated family. My father? MIT. My oldest sister? Princeton undergrad, Harvard grad. Second old sister? Penn, 2 Masters from Simmons. Younger Sister? Northwestern. Me? Well - I went to Full Sail. But now, I am at George Mason. A few weeks ago, it was just "That commuter school with cheap tuition in Northern Virginia." But I wore my sweatshirt proudly - after years of Roadie-ing and Campaigning I was finally back in college. We had an office pool for the NCAA tournament - I was the only one to carry GMU all way to the Championship game. But I didn't bet on it - why? "Because I don't know a goddamn thing about College Basketball." Now all of a sudden people stop me on the street at the sight of my Mason sweatshirt! And the office pool? A lousy $5 would've netted me $50. Grrr...
Posted by MikeSager at 8:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 25, 2006
Apartment Pics
As promised, I'm finally going to post some pics from my new apartment.
The vast majority of my time is spent either at this desk, or on this couch. And for an Ikea couch - it's quite comfy. It has definite sleep-on potential. Between the digital cable & Playstation, I'm not quite sure why I'd want to leave the house.
Admittedly the bookshelf is a bit sparse at the moment, but it is very large. And I figured it'd be fun to intersperse the liquor amongst the books. At some point perhaps I'll even use some of my liquor to make a drink (gasp!).
Cute little kitchen. I've already made a lot of use of it. And I'm not quite sure how I ever subsisted without a Foreman grill. Now the next thing is to learn how to better control the gas level. It seems to always be either "REALLY HOT" or "OFF".
One of the best things about the apartment is the view. I can read the paper, look out the window and see the Lincoln, and the Pentagon. And if I want to wedge myself into the corner I can see the edge of the Kennedy Center. Pretty sweet.
A little zoomed in. All in all, not a bad view at all.
Posted by MikeSager at 3:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 24, 2006
Boston Trip, Truck Driving, Occam's Razor
I resisted the temptation to measure the bridge in Sagers. Also, a certain friend of mine claims that her father was involved in the original paintings of the Smoot marks. While I have yet to verify the veracity of this claim, he is the right age for it.
Anyways, I suppose I should start from the top. I made my one of my semi-regular excursions to Boston. As always, I visited my wonderful sister whom I hope to convince to start blogging (or at least get an IM name!) at some point. Work sent me up to drive a truck full of furniture back (and I will discuss the truck later on in this post). I figured - excuse to go to Boston, not that I ever really need an excuse to go to Boston.
One thing I've done recently is reconnect with my old friend Alexis (or Lexy now as she is known). She and I went to 2nd and 3rd grade together, after which she moved. We stayed friends for a while, writing in the pre-internet era. But as we became teenagers we fell out of touch. Well - behold the power of myspace. On a whim, I looked her up - found her and popped an e-mail. A quick trade of IM names and now we talk a fair bit again. When I was up, this was the first time I saw her in almost 15 years...
We spent Saturday night catching up, which was great. Talked about a lot, and discovered that no matter how much time and distance had separated us, we were remarkably similar people. I stayed on her sofa bed on Saturday night (I expected a couch with a pillow and instead I got a full-fledged bed with Kitty friends purring around me). In the morning we went to this great diner in Watertown, where I ate a very non-Kosher skillet. Perfect pre-drive food.
After the hearty breakfast, Lexy drove me over to the Penske dealer where I picked up my truck. Having been a roadie in my past life, I know a thing or two about truck quality and insisted upon them. And up they pull with a bigger truck than ordered (for the same price) with but a scant thousand miles on the odometer. A quick set of the mirrors and I was on my way. Or so I thought. The passenger side mirror started flaling wildly in the wind. "Odd" I thought, so I pulled over at a gas station in Dedham and reset it, taping it with scotch tape in the process. Well - the tape held through up to Providence where I picked up the gear. On my departure, I stopped at a truck stop and bought more tape in an effort to resecure the mirror with a slightly better angle. Big mistake. The tape did not hold this time. I finally pulled into a truckstop in Connecticut and asked them to take a look. They locked that sucker down, and I thought "Yes! Resolved!" But it was not to be - sure enough, but a few miles down the road the mirror started swining wildly again. I finally stopped at a gas station in Fairmont, and waited for a Penske road service person to come. Well - as I was waiting, a very McGuyver-esque gas station attendant came over and wrapped the mirror with 40 wraps of packaging tape. It held the rest of the trip, but I still lost a cumulative of 2 hours. I should've just gone back to Waltham when I stopped in Dedham - but I followed in my parents footsteps who also stopped near Dedham when they were moving from Boston to Houston, and didn't turn around when they had car trouble. All in all, though, I still love Penske.
I have the weekend to relax now, which is lovely. My younger sister is in town so we'll go hang out in DC tomorrow night. I had planned to spend a night on my couch with Potato chips and the BBC's Creature Comforts & Little Britain - but one of my friend's has had a rough week and I feel it's my duty to ensure she's thoroughly intoxicated.
Oh - my vanity license plates have arrived. What do they say?
"OCCM RZR"
The simplest car is the best car.
Posted by MikeSager at 5:30 PM | Comments (1)
March 15, 2006
Thoughts on the Stadium
Alright...I've taken some time to digest the new park. And the more I look at it, the more I think I actually like it. But I do have a few complaints.
One - my usual seats are going to suck. But this was to be expected.
Two - The absence of a tall right field wall & weird jut-out angle ala Griffith Stadium. I know the wall thing probably didn't happen because that feature was included in Camden Yards, but it still would've been very cool to take that nod back to old Washington. And supposedly the dimensions have been at least somewhat inspired by Griffith, so I suppose it's really alright.
Three - Parking Garages in the Outfield?? Come on! Let's get SOMETHING worthwhile instead of car storage. Besides, how many Jaguar windows can we really smash?
Four - Would it REALLY have been that difficult to change the orientation a little more to get a view of the Dome behind the outfield? Nothing would be better than having the shot of the pitcher winding up with the majesty of the Capitol behind him.
Five - Is that outfield cylinder restaurant really necessary? Please at least keep it from rotating.
Now some positive thoughts.
One - it's not derivative. I actually think the architectural direction is unique for a baseball stadium, and very Washington. The building itself is the right outside appearance.
Two - Lots of lower bowl seats, even if they're likely unaffordable.
Three - The concourses are the perfect antidote to RFK.
Four - Making the bleachers shake-able is great so long as they can keep it structurally sound.
And now some suggestions:
One - It'd be a nice RFK tribute if the curvy roof could be incorporated at all. A little nod to Washington sports facilities.
Two - The bathroom count seemed low. MORE BATHROOMS! FOR THE LOVE OF G-D MORE BATHROOMS!!!
Three Words - Ben's Chili Bowl.
Posted by MikeSager at 11:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Grover Cleveland on Currency?
So in my morning Fark surfing, I happened onto this article about a man who counterfeited $1 Billion bills. Fairly par for the course... for Fark. Until I read at the end of the article that the bills were yellowed, had the year 1934 on them and had the picture of...GROVER CLEVELAND!!
The single greatest non-consecutive term President we've had! On money! I propose, for an encore, that the next fake bill be John Quincy Adams on the Trillion. And how about John Foster Dulles on the $7? The possibilities are endless.
Posted by MikeSager at 8:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 9, 2006
New Digs, The Voice of Metro, Baseball is almost upon us
Well...now I'm finally in my new place in Pentagon City. I can see the Lincoln Memorial out my window. More details (and pictures) soon.
----------------------------
When I was coming back from the Clap Your Hands show @ 9:30 last night, I rode on a train that had the new Metro voice programmed (5000 series CAF for the truly pathetic amongst us). Anyways - the new voice was fairly patronizing, and the worst part is they changed the chime! No more "DING DONG!" It was this weird futursticy sound, and I don't likes it! The woman's voice is fine, but what she's saying is just plain irritating. Perhaps I'll go to one of their customer service sessions to complain about this... It is, after all, at McPherson.
----------------------------
April is just around the corner... And we have a stadium deal! W00T!
At some point soon I will post more than just fragmented half-sentences, and some of these postings may actually be political or topical in nature. Soon...
Posted by MikeSager at 10:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 2, 2006
Game On, Some Stadium Proposals, Yes I'm a Train Nerd, News at 11
Spring Training has begun. And while the Nats have already lost a pitcher (not to mention blew the chance to land Jeff Weaver...), and we're probably going to suck this year - there's still nothing better than a baseball game. It's a little more than a month to the home opener, which regretably I won't be attending for the second year in a row. But perhaps the second game of the season....
----------------------------
As I dined at Ben's Chili Bowl last weekend, a thought occured to me. You know what would be perfect at the new stadium? That's right - a satellite location of Ben's. Think about dining on a real Half Smoke while watchin' the Nats. Fantastic I tell you, fantastic.
What else do we need? How about a Five Guys.
And for the snootier dining? Clydes.
Beer? Cap City Brewery.
Let's give this park some Washington Flavor. And by flavor, I mean delicious flavor.
Mmm...Half Smoke.
----------------------------
If there's one thing I enjoy not quite as much as baseball but still quite a lot - it's trains. And this is an exciting time to be a train nerd in Washington. The 6000 series Alstom cars are debuting soon - featuring a slightly altered seat layout, and an external physical appearance closer to the Rohr 1000 Series and the Refurbished Bread 2000 and 3000 Series Metrorail cars. The new trains will add back the Yellow and Red Lights on the side of trains that indicate slowing and stopping - I'm not clear on how useful this actually is, but it's there. They also will still have the kick ass LED signage externally, and they're adding a new set of LED station announce signs inside the car - bringing the total to four per car. Now if they could make those work.
Speaking of train nerdiness, there's an unofficial map of the Metro featuring the Silver Line that looks like it came out of WMATA. While I continue to be disappointed that the new developments haven't lead to us seeing a Georgetown connection via Key Bridge that then dives under M Street and runs through Logan & Thomas Circle, this is still a promising development. Next...we need a Downtown Circle Line, The Beltway Purple Line, and new branches on Columbia Pike & to Ft. Belvoir.
Must. Play. Sim. City.
----------------------------
Alright - I will post a political entry shortly. But what do I really have to say? Just more incompetence from the White House, and the right is runnin' scared. It's like the rest of the country has finally figured out what 49% of us have been saying for 5 years.
Posted by MikeSager at 5:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack