The Perils of Humidity

Life in these parts has lately focused on coping with the heat, and admiring new furniture and flowers.

With regard to the first phenomenon, Ben developed a statistically insignificant scientific hypothesis to explain the relationship between Southern summer weather and the higher incidence of Southern voting tendencies and weight gain and retention. If this week was any true example of the summer weather we're in for, it's amazing Southerners even get to work on a regular basis, let alone the gym or the library. The glowering humidity at 8am was enough to challenge our conceptions of eco-friendly air conditioning usage, and our evenings were wasted in a supine slump watching DVRed television and struggling to blink amidst the sweat on our brows.

Last weekend, prior to said television stupor, Ben braved the heat and built our happy new dresser. It took a few days to figure out where it should live and then a few more days to fill up, but now it's a staple fixture.

And here's my spreadsheet workspace on our new dining room furniture, which Ben didn't assemble but is still new, shiny, and displaying flowers amidst the papers.



We've had our share of hazy days lately, hazy enough that the Blue Ridge mountains are totally obscured, so this sunset was exceptionally vibrant. Too bad didn't bring very pleasant weather with it the next day, though it was stunning while it lasted.

Also, and unrelated, on Friday we passed a cool bike parked in an alley downtown as we moseyed in slow motion toward the car, hoping for a stray breeze.

If the owner was nearby, we would have asked him if he's taken it off any sweet jumps lately. Vrooom!

That seems to be the extent of our combined brain power on this lazy Sunday. Getting the groceries in from the car last night tested my stamina for the weekend alone. Good thing we lead lives largely of the mind, because these bodies are becoming soft under the withering Virginia sun. ;-) Hope it's cooler and more pleasant where you are.

Spoke Too Soon

Our hometown hero, Samdev Devvarman, lost in the first round of doubles at Wimbledon yesterday. Now we're back to cheering for Sonchat and Sonchai, a brother doubles team from Thailand who have the coolest names of the competition.

Great!

Just as I was seriously considering buying adorable picnic-themed ant salt and pepper shakers, I read in the local news that southeastern Virginia is under a quarantine because of FIRE ANTS. Luckily, we don't actually live in southeastern Virginia, but we're pretty darn close, and the lifelong scars on my legs prove that me and the fire ants are not exactly allies. Scram, ants! But when you flee, please consider moving east-ward into the Atlantic, instead of south into my beloved North Carolina, or west toward ME.

Recent C'ville Happenings

With all this celebrating and working lately, we haven't properly updated everyone on the quirky happenings about town.

1) A prime example of quirk was our trip on Saturday night to North Garden, VA, home of Dr. Ho's Humble Pie.

Local foodies claim this is the best pizza in the area and, while we'd agree that the decor is the best, we've spent too much time in NJ to agree about the 'za. Interesting, yes. Alternative, definitely. When was the last time you had a root beer float under a stealie? The feta, cheddar, and mozzarella mix on the pies? Well, it was a trip...

2) Later that night, parked in front of Talbot's, we saw this terrific vehicle/bumper sticker combo, which must have been made in J heaven. Cheap personalized plates are least one reason to appreciate time in Virginia.

3) Here's the sunset over Albermarle County on the longest day of the year, taken just before 9pm. We've passed the gateway to summer, and the weather is apparently cooperating -- our week's forecast, with highs over 90 for at least the next, has us panting and sweltering. I know most of our readership is in the Northeast, drowning under all that rain, but I'll gladly take some of it if it'll cool back down.

4) Our favorite local newscaster, Somdev Devvarman, is forgoing his Saturday morning local sports roundup to play at Wimbledon. Awesome!

5) Two employees at the local hospital have H1N1... I'll be pushing the Purrell and walking around with a mask from here on out. Remember, WHO declared it an epidemic!

6) My new work project got a nice NY Times plug last week.

7) And, finally, the C'villains have spoken. About the dissolution of Jon & Kate's marriage. Thanks, local news!

There's your round-up of quirk from centrally isolated Charlottesville, VA. Rest assured, we'll keep you posted on any breaking quirk news. ;-)

Happy Birthday, Karen!

Mamacita, here's your official blogosphere birthday shout-out:

Happy, happy birthday!
May your day be filled with presents galore, smiling faces, healthy plants and lots of little lemons! May all your wildest dreams come true! And may your Birthday Month (tm) celebrations continue as long as you'd like!

Hope you have a relaxing, exciting week at the shore! ;-) Summer's officially here.

Love you. <3

Sunday Dad Shout-Outs!

Happy Father's Day, Dads of the World!
In particular, today we're celebrating two of our very own zany padres.

#1:
Hey Don/Dad, hope you spent the day enjoying the sites and flavors of picturesque Staunton, VA (thanks for the tip-off, BD!). Flies of the world should hereby take note that Don has a serious case of the Obama fly-killing instinct.

And #2:

Hey J/Dad, nice smile in this photo! Hope you're enjoying some Wii-Fitting and some Ed-Trending and some McCarter-Theatering. Even if Mom did give you anti-squirrel bird seed for father's day (and what the heck kind of present is that?!), I hope you remain kind to our furry friends. Remember, not much separates the Sciurus Carolinensis from the 'Cescos and the Parkers ...

In summary, Happy Father's Day to our two favorite dads. ;-)

Blog Slag

We're slagging on blogging this week because we've been too boringly busy to photography our surroundings and formulate pithy anecdotes. Is this what happens when you work too much? You just become boring?

(Here's a recycled photo, a Chincoteague thistle to bring back vacation memories)

The major news from the Be'gan household:

1) Ben's busy with usual work, in addition to tech supporting and networking computers, his true genius.

2) I spent the week at my second-ever contract position in a renovated barn; I've been at Headquarters Madisonian, learning database software in order to solve the profound question: What were Mr. Madison's furnishings during his retirement period? Fascinating stuff.

3) We're also on deadline for our monthly news round-up, and I can assure you that a) the children are still obese and resistant to daily physical activity, and b) schools continue to struggle toward implementing 21st century skills and technology. Job security for EdTrends, I guess?

4) Koala had his first very exciting shower in the Avemore car care center. He is scrubbed, waxed, and shiny. Unfortunately, his "check engine" light also came on this week... Poor Koala.

5) All week, Ben's been crooning for Biscuitville, so we might be in store for a weekend fun'venture south to the land of sweet tea and grits.


6) I am continuing in my one-man quest to remind Charlottesvillians to correctly interpret yield signs. Apparently, I'm not the only one.

And finally, 7) Just in time for her birthday weekend, someone accidentally busted her crackberry on her very last day as an employee at the great DJ South Brunswick campus -- by dropping it in the toilet! What a fitting end!

I dialed 520-5980 for the last time yesterday evening. Here's to brand new phone numbers and brand new adventures, K-dawg!

Went to the well but the water was dry
Dipped my bucket in the clear blue sky
Looked in the bottom and what did I see?
The whole damned world looking back at me

(This is the last pre-WSJ photo of you I have, Mom. Hopefully someone will take a relief shot of you today for a proper before-and-after timeline. ;-) What a long, strange trip!)

Happy weekend, all.

Sunday Mom Shout-Outs!

#1:

Hey Karen/Mom, thanks for our lovely matching shirts, which we wore yesterday in the spirit of Rehoboth Beach vacation. ;-) We're very much looking forward to an awkward family photo involving all six of us wearing J. Crew, staring sternly into the camera, and stifling smiles. (On that note, we need to get Luke a matching J. Crew collar!)


#2:
Hey Susan/Mom, thanks for joining us for a Saturday afternoon matinee of Up! in 3D (note, of course, our awesome 3D glasses). The movie-goer who took our photo neglected to include the big sign we're all pointing "Up" toward, so this truly is an awkward family photo. But we know we had our own good time with Milk Duds, Cherry Coke, and wonderful Pixar. (Side note: what does it say about us that two of the three films we've seen in a Charlottesville theatre were G-rated Disney matinees??)

Thanks, Moms! This concludes your Sunday afternoon Mom Shout-Out.

Happy Birthday, Matty Joe!

May your day be filled with delicious memories of fries and drawn butter at your new favorite crab shack. ;-) And filled with every other goodness, too.

Happy day, Lou!

(I'm debating entitling this photo: 1) Nice Watch, Matt. 2) Kids Who Will Need Braces. And 3) Another Afternoon, Another Subaru Trunk. I'm also accepting alternative suggestions.)

Delmarva's Triumphant Return

Odd fact about our new apartment #19: The ice cubes made in the freezer here form no stalagmites, unlike our previous apartment and, when fully frozen, don't pop as they hit hot tea. Not that we know anyone who puts ice cubes in hot tea every morning or anything...

Anyway, we're very late in updating our most recent photos and travelogues. This might have to do with the chaos of moving, then four days later leaving for an extended weekend. It might also have to do with the post-vacay letdown we're experiencing. I'm taking solace in early morning saltwater taffy rations, but the sting of the grindstone overpowers memories of the shore.

Nearly a week ago, we set out on a cloudy Charlottesville morning toward Newport News and Virginia Beach, and had the exciting pleasure of driving over the way-cool 23 mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

After many miles of potato and peanut farms, smoked ham shacks, saltwater marshes, and highway-side tag sales, we found ourselves among family and wild ponies on Chincoteague Island.

What could be better? ;-)

For Ben, the answer is to live out a tiny fraction of his boyhood astronaut dreams. If you can't go to space camp, you can at least visit the NASA Wallops Island Flight Facility and try on a space suit.

Space Bear, who wears a similar suit, says, "Roger that, Houston." The geek-faction of the group even saw an exhibit on Sam the space monkey (featured very recently on PaidinSunshine!) and learned about telemetry receivers, rocket launch sites, uninhabited aircraft, and aeronautical balloon flights.

The worst part about Wallops was, of course, the mosquito population, lurking and vicious. I'm still scratching at their mean bites. The best part: watching nerds in their fully space glory discuss lunar samples and Apollo Missions. Missing were the pocket protectors, though I witnessed both of them sliding glasses up their noses for emphasis.

After all that learnin', we needed a sleaze fix, so we headed to Ocean City, Maryland, where we were appropriately sleezed out by the outrageous tans, fast cars, and animal print bikinis, and continued up the coast to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, which is much more to my (slow, plodding) speed.

Sunset board walkin'

Skee ballin'

Bird watchin'

And (absolutely delicious) Dogfish Headin'.

After MAshley headed back to rescue Luke from the sleeping hammocks and cleansing baths of the doggie spa, the rest of us headed west on the peninsula over to St. Michaels for the true Eastern Shore experience (and for a little ultimately unsuccessful Dick Cheney spotting).



In Easton, MD, we visited the nation's oldest continuously operative church, the lovely Third Haven Friends Meeting, with its welcoming wooden benches and still, calming quality during a Tuesday morning rainstorm.

Since we were nearly there anyway, we also walked around Annapolis as the clouds gave way to a steamy afternoon. We leave-delayed it up with lunch and a multi-mile, sunscreen-dripping walk to Canoe U.

At the Naval Academy visitor's center, by the way, we saw more exhibits about astronauts. All this is a precursor to what will be an awesome visit to the Goddard Space Flight Center, where we'll stop next time we head to NJ. In Annapolis, we also saw beautiful views, Soviet architecture, plebes, and plenty of starched uniforms before our sad goodbyes (and my inadvertent thefting of J's iPod).

After a steamy ride back to the western-most border of the Chesapeake Bay watershed in the glaring sun, fifteen feet off the exit ramp into Charlottesville we were caught in a flood-producing downpour, complete with hail and lightning.

The bags sat in the car until the skies cleared while we caught up on some DVRing, just to extend vacation a few seconds longer. Wish we were going again this weekend.

We're back

We're freshly back from the Delmarva peninsula with a touch of sun, dirty clothes, cotton candy, and plenty of whininess now that vacation is over...

More details to come. ;-)

Happy Clams in Staunton

Two of our most favorite people, Jenna and Kelsey, met us for dinner off Rt. 81 on their way south to Atlanta last night. They brought with them tales of the mythic Pioneer Valley, smiles, laughs, and faulty contact lenses.

Least anyone wonder why Jenna got pink eye this winter...

We had a most wonderful visit at the now infamous Baja Bean Co., and tried the Split Banana Company ice cream parlor for gelato afterward. The staff kindly indulged our long conversations about theology, blogging, Western Mass, and 90s music, and seemed to ignore any flagrant violations of sanitary code. We also tried a variety of intense and exciting ice cream flavors (raspberry chipotle, cocoa ancho, Virginia maple, sweet cream) to cool down after our spicy, salty dinner. It was so, so nice to be around friends again, even if it was raining and our feet were wet.

Let's all meet back along the Rt. 91 corridor with some graduate degrees in a few years, okay guys?

;-)

One Small Step for Simian...

Soon, we will know much more about our tax dollars at work (in outer space).

Stay tuned...

P.S. If you can't wait, click here!

We're late, we're late

with a very important Blog Update:

This is a commonly spotted license plate in Ben's new work parking lot. Let's just say that Koala is quite pleased it was already taken when we went to the DMV. I was busting a gut to show this to Matt especially, before I completely forgot about it. Imagine my joyous surprise when I transferred photos from the camera. Remember, dear readers, that my name is pronounced MEG-in, whatever Matt, J, or Ford mule cars have to say about it.

Back to reality, no one warned me that getting a DVR would mean never having time to blog again (and let's be honest -- never having time to do anything productive again). There's not much exciting to report either way, and playing delicious television while we unpack seems pretty thrilling. We'll try to regain our lives outside of the DVR-sphere soon. In the meantime, here's a roundup of the week's events:

With about fifteen minutes left in our lease, we locked ourselves out of a well-cleaned and emptied apartment.

Bye, JPA!

Bye, gunshots and limited square footage.

Hello, new place!

Hello, mountain views and sunsets!

Pretty soon, we'll have it all prettied up, and you're all welcome for a visit. Just no touching Ben's column or ganking any of my many bathroom drawers. ;-)