Richmond is Beautiful

Sep 14, 2010

We spent time in Richmond the last two days, exploring that town as a possible place to settle.  It's close to Lindsay's side of the family, which is important to us.

Aunt Janet put us up for the night, and showed us how lively and peaceful the town is.  Colonial-style houses abound, and I hear there are even some Class 4 rapids nearby for kyaking!

Hoos there in Charlottesville?

Sep 8, 2010

Lindsay's always wanted me to see Charlottesville, VA, so we visited there for a few days. I got to see her college town, and spent a lot of time admiring the work of Thomas Jefferson from several angles. His design of the University of Virginia lawn still stands today, and he's very highly regarded by the student population as well. I liked Monticello even more than UVA's campus. Jefferson boasted it was a place for the experimentation of all things, which mainly meant agricultural, mechanical things at that time. One of his relatives spoke of Jefferson going to many ends to create comfort, which I don't fault him for.  The man wrote 19,000 letters during his life time, in addition to the wealth of other things he created. That's an average of almost one letter written a day for seventy years. I'll say a little comfort is called for.

We also hiked in the Blue Ridge Mountains a little.  We met up with James from Ireland, who's 65 and has had a dream to travel across the U.S. by train over the next two weeks. He left his wife at home, who's more into playing bridge at home then traveling. He figures he might as well make a go of living out his dream while he has the time now!, Spending time with him felt just like a part of “The World's Fastest Indian”, one of my favorite movies. Jasper, a young talented Dutchman, joined us as well for a short hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains. They were beautiful. He's traveling down the eastern U.S. In his fast car, and definitely made the conversations more interesting.

Appendix 1:

Thomas Jefferson's Iphone.  Jefferson used these ivory slips to record notes during the day (including detailed daily weather records daily for decades) then he had a process to back the notes up in a more permanent paper notebook before erasing the slip and starting over. 

Appendix 2:  Jefferson's recipe for Vanilla Ice Cream.  Also, the typewritten version of the recipe.    It sounds from the type that the ice cream came out a little hard when it was finished: "to withdraw it, immerse the mould in warm water, turning it well till it will come out & turn it into a plate."

Appendix 3:
Jefferson was a big fan of Sir Francis Bacon's organization of human knowledge.  Jefferson's library collections in both the Library of Congress display in D.C. and at Monticello in Charlottesville are organized in this fashion.  It's an interesting way to organize things.  It certainly gives it street credibility that one of the country's most well read men found it useful.  I may try it with my own books once they're back on a proper shelf:

An Asia update:

We'd planned the third third of our year to be spent in China, possibly India, and perhaps the Philippines. I'd wanted to see China before its influence grew much further.  Now, there are two major developments of note: a birth of a baby on Lindsay's side of the family that we'd like to attend, and my brother David's wedding that we're both in. David's marrying a rock-star in Amy, by the way...

We're postponing that last part of our trip now to attend to the business of rejoining regular life.

I'm starting a job search again. If you know of any good work for a dedicated worker doing programmer tech lead work in any number of technologies, especially involving data analysis, let me know and I'll send you a resume!

Home again, home again, jiggity, jig.

Aug 30, 2010

We made it to Lindsay's parents house in Williamsburg for Labor Day. Everyone was there. Brad, Amy and Ashton are staying there for a time while their new house is fixed up, so there were seven of us at most meals. Matt and Denise came in for the holiday weekend as well, and we made a big time of it.. Home cooked meals were popular, as were naps.  We slept in the same bed for nine days in a row – the first time we'd done that since June, and in June it was without air conditioning in Texas.  We'd looked forward to this many a time on the long treks east across the nation.  We were finally at our semi-final destination.

If George could see this place now...

Aug 26, 2010

Lindsay and I picked up the pace again in Washington D.C. We were welcomed by the smell of fresh bread inside the empty house of our friend Molly's house. She came expectantly home from work, and whipped up a quick meal including fresh bread and a plum tart with rosemary crust! She pulled out all the stops for dinner, and we had a great meal.

We spent time at the Smithsonian in the Museum of American History. We watched a woman give a demonstration on how to stage a peaceful protest successfully. I read a lot about efforts to create an automated driving machine. Lindsay and I looked at Julia Child's kitchen, and admired the lightheartedness that burst from her presentation style.

We spent time with Joey and Grace at their new home. They took us out to see Annapolis and have some of the world's best crab cakes at a restaurant there. 

We checked out a private home with elevator, just for fun.

Leslie let us go to church with her,then she took us to a tiny Latin American restaurant attached to the front of a motel. It was small, tasty, and quite friendly. We loved it.

Josh and Becca had us over, among a host of other activities they had going on, and we talked about new marriages, kids, and homes over thai food. It was one of our most fun conversations all year, and we hope to 

do it again.

Appendix A:

We went by the rally titled "Restoring Honor" on Saturday as well.  I listened to Glenn Beck speak briefly, while 10's of thousands of middle-class Americans from a wide range of states listened on. It was my first time to see a huge gathering on the National Mall – pictures below.

Appendix B:

Annapolis Ice Cream. Perhaps my favorite ice cream store in the entire world. It's a small, clean, creative, family run place in the middle of town. They whip up 55 flavors that are inventive, interesting, and very well made. If I ever open an ice cream store, it will be like this one...