Appreciation and Gratitude

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." - Meister Eckhardt

I'm going to pick up where I left off last time with my observation that so many friends and family are expecting babies. I mentioned in closing that there were probably others that I don't know about. Then on Thanksgiving, I get the wonderful news that my cousin Adam is also going to have a baby. I'm very excited for him and his wife. To make matters better, today I find out that my cousin Vanessa is going to have a little girl. These are a lot of kids. I guess people found out that the recession had been dated and decided to start and expand their families. This time next year there are going to be a lot of new babies in my extended world. These are a lot of "congratulations babies."

For Thanksgiving, my family came up to Austin to visit. My dad brought up my dog Chloe, who was so much bigger now. She is now less of a puppy and more of a dog. I thought she was high energy before and now she has increased that in proportion to her size. I am really going to put to the test whether a high energy dog and a moderate energy (being kind) owner can really work great together. So far, I have yet to figure out a way to burn all her energy.

Wednesday night, we all went shopping at HEB for our meal sides. It was a good experience. I don't know how we can buy so much for just one meal and a day later feel like we didn't buy anything. I had just bought a nice dining table that day for $40 on craigslist that we planned to use. I'm a fan of good deals. Thanksgiving morning, I slept in as everyone prepared the great meal. I didn't even supervise to claim that credit. Rick came over and so did Abram's girlfriend Ashley. We had a good meal and it is nice to spend the holiday with family. I enjoyed myself.

As per usual Thanksgiving tradition, there was the Cowboy game and then the UT game. Ana, Rick, Abram, Ashley and my dad went to the UT & A&M game and I stayed home with my mom. A cold front came in and they were very cold, but had a great time. It was a great game to watch from the comfort of my bed.

On Friday, my family headed back home and I did some black Friday shopping with my sister Ana. I got a cheap pair of slippers, but not much else. I've never seen a black Friday deal that I ever thought was that impressive, or worth going out late at night or early in the morning. Now, cyber Monday, that is more my type of thing. I'm big about trying to find the best bargains online. I buy way too much online.

Considering that my new table didn't come with chairs, I found another nice round dining table with chairs at an estate sale this weekend, so I picked it up on Sunday as a replacement. It is a great table, but something feels weird about getting your table because a person died. A good deal is a good deal. That same day, I decided to get a set of quick-dry towels from JCPenney that my sister recommended. I will say, so far they have been a disappointment, but maybe they will be more absorbent after a second wash. At least all my towels match.

On Cyber-Monday, I searched the internet for deals. I found a gps for a friend, a Sprint EVO for my brother for $68 (regularly $200) and a Sprint Epic for my sister for $149 (regularly $249). I decided it was their early Christmas presents. I was proud of my good work. I even picked up some random things for myself like a pair of sunglasses for 30% off.

I don't like talking about things I might be soon to quit, but I recently finished the book Born to Run. It was a great book about ultra barefoot/minimalist marathoners and it actually got me interested in running again. Usually, actual running gets me very uninterested quickly, but I also don't know why I try so hard to fight it. I've been running each day with my VFF shoes (ones with toes) and my legs are going through the growing pains of adjusting. Chloe has been keeping me company on my short runs. I've been trying to learn better technique and moving from heel striking to forefoot striking isn't as easy as I thought. We will see how this goes. Oh, and today I get some wheatgrass in, something Oscar and Christina have told me about, so I'm hoping I like it. I'm always trying something new and sometimes re-trying something old.

November is over and my favorite month of December is about to start. You know, June and July are more exciting months, but December always feels like a relaxing month where you take it easy before gearing up for a new year. Christmas and my birthday also make the month one I look forward to. It is also a good month to take stock of the year, the last 5 and even sometimes your life in general. I have a lot of observations, but what matters is how those observations change the next 5 years.

I'm happy for you, let's just leave it at that.

Engaging Times

"Love is a game that two can play and both win." -Eva Gabor

Last week, I found out that my cousin Rino became engaged to his girlfriend Jessica. They are both very happy and I am happy for their great news. I have yet to get the exact story on how he did it, but the end result is what is important. Rino and Jess have been dating for a few years and for the entire time I have lived in Austin. I've gotten to know Jess pretty well in that time and Rino a lot better since we lived together for a while. It feels different from someone you hardly see, and I'm so used to them being together a lot doesn't feel like it has changed. I wish them both all the happiness in the world and selfishly hope they have an open bar at the wedding. What was neat about their engagement was how the news spread. As most news, mainly, through Facebook. That is how I found out. These are new times we live in I tell you. I asked my mom if she heard and she said my aunt told her. You know, good old word of mouth, but then she finished with, "after she saw it in facebook." News travels fast. I should probably check with Jess on the rules for Rino's bachelor party. I'm a fan of loopholes. (j/k Jess) The family keeps growing and growing it seems.


On a hopefully unrelated note, a lot of people I know are having babies what feels like all of a sudden. I know people have been having babies since I was in high school, but for some reason, a lot of my close friends all seemed to put it off until the past few years. My friend Adriana started it I'd say and then we have my friend Jorge whose daughter is adorable (and I don't say that generally about babies). I got the news recently that my friend Jon, my friend Iris, my cousin Isra, my cousin Mario and I'm sure others I don't know about are all expecting. Those are a lot of exciting changes. I'm ok with being an old dad, but sometimes I wonder if I'd be ok with not being a dad at all.


Friday night, I went to see Louis CK perform stand up here in Austin. He is one of my favorite comedians because he has a gift for putting the things you think into a funny scenerio type joke that also pushes the limits. I was a big fan of his HBO show, Lucky Louie and like his new show Louie on FX. I would describe him as a cautionary tale of how I don't want to be when I'm 43. Then again, to be that rich and successful would be nice. I had a great time. After, I went to watch a band perform and was reminded how much I miss the college life.


Saturday, Abram, Ashley, my cousin Rino and I all went to the UT football game. I know the season has been a let down, but I was excited to be going. Football is football and I'm a UT fan. It was Rino's first game. The seats Rick got us were awesome and much closer to the field than I have ever been. We cheered as Texas ran up the score on a pretty weak team. I was happy that McCoy got to play (for like 2 seconds), but it sucked they didn't let him pass. Now I'm looking forward to the game next week against A&M. From the looks of it, A&M should destory UT, but every one steps it up for this game.
After the game we got some Mexican food at this place I have been wanting to try out for years. You know, I really built the place up in my head and it wasn't as magical as I expected. The food was good though and I'd go back, but I need to learn to stop idealizing things because it just sets you up for an inevitable let down.

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. My family is coming into town and we will be celebrating it at my place in Austin. We seem to alternate between Austin and the Valley now. Right now, I'm working on getting a dining table since the one we have is too small. Let's hope that works out. My family does most of the cooking, and I like it that way. This is a holiday I have spent alone many times, and I must say I prefer spending it with family. There are a lot of things to be thankful for. (Except for the history of Thanksgiving.) I'm looking forward to it.

que disappointment

Maddie - Not a Laser Cat

“There is nothing like returning to a place that reminds unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” - Nelson Mandela

I had a good weekend, but the most interesting development was that my cat Maddie moved back in with me. I got Maddie as a baby kitten; she was meowing outside of my front door and I took her in. Having two cats already, my good friend Christina adopted her and raised her from a kitten to a small cat (the best time to have a pet if you ask me.) Due to landlord issues and whatnot she had to deal with, Maddie moved back in with me this weekend. I hadn't seen Maddie since I dropped her off and she seemed so huge now, yet is still small compared to my cats. I will probably give her to my older sister, but I would be lying if I didn't say I didn't consider keeping her and passing my cat Mia on to someone.

(Maddie enjoys laying on my laptop.)

I have had Mia since she was about 8 weeks old and since she is a rescue cat, she is very skittish and untrusting of people. I always viewed her as a loved pet, but also as an obligation. I vowed to take care of her, and I always have. I have tried to break her down with my love, and even though the gains are impressive, she is not very personable and won't let strangers touch her. She is well taken care of and eats too much. My first cat Koki, 6 years later, still can't stand being around her. So, am I wrong to want to trade her in? The inconvenient answer is yes. I can't imagine anyone else taking better care of Mia than me, so it would be unfair to give her up. It sucks because Maddie is such a fun kitten, more along the lines of Koki when she was younger. I keep thinking about this and even as I read what I write, there is no way to swap cats without feeling terrible about myself. And if you know me, I'd rather pick unhappiness over being unloyal or breaking my word. The whole issue is moot because I don't have anyone I could give Mia to and just thinking about it makes me feel guilty. You know, like when you think about how there might not be a God and what that would mean for your world view. Maddie has taken over my bedroom and Koki and Mia and self banished to the den for the time being. I don't have much faith that they will get along in the near future, but my sister will be up for Thanksgiving to take her to her new home.

My older sister Ana and Rick came into town for the UT game this past weekend and my nephew JoMichael came to visit. You would think we would have lots of cool uncle stuff for him to do, but it was cold and instead we hung out and watched movies and football. We did have a BBQ and ran the fireplace. I had a good time visiting and hopefully he did too. I was kind of disappointed that he had quit jr. high football near the end of the season, but I'm sure there were a host of legitimate reasons. He said he will play next year when he goes to high school which made me feel better. My concern of course is the important lesson of learning not to quit. That is what I loved about football, you learned that no matter how tired you are, or how much pain you are in, you keep on going and don't give up. Quiting is addictive and easy and having resolve and determination is something I want to instill in the younger members of my family. Now of course, there is a difference between quiting something you no longer want to do or to free up time for another endeavor, but because you didn't get the results you expected quick enough isn't a good one. Football is always more than about football.


Now I'm thinking about the idea of quitting and my own life. I have probably quit my fair share of things, but I can think of a few select times where not quiting was the wrong choice. Baseball for example. As a kid, I was a terrible baseball player, I couldn't see, was slow and kept getting hit by the ball. Yet, each year, contrary to my Dad's advice, I signed up to play again even though I would get very little play time because I was on a winning team and I liked being on that team. It was a mistake, I should have quit once I knew that I was no longer improving. See the failure was that I never got better, I wasn't sticking to it and working harder and getting better, but just staying about the same level of sucking. So, either work harder or move on I guess. You know, I can probably say that about some of my relationships, I wasn't willing to work harder, nor willing to quit, which meant I was just wasting my time.


Now, you know where I didn't quit? In my dream to become a lawyer. After college, I was told that my grades were not good enough to get into a great law school and I didn't even try to apply once I graduated. But I purposefully picked a legal job so that the only way to move up would be to go to law school. I just worked harder and finally got into the school I wanted. Little did I know that the challenge was just beginning, but in the end I finally got to where I wanted to be. And just like achieving any goal, your first thought is joy and the second is, I should have aimed higher. What higher goal do I want to aim for now?


Monday night, I went out to play laser tag. I was planning to play pool but I decided to give the game a try. I totally forgot how much fun laser tag is. There were two teams, my team which consisted of me and a bunch of middle-age women and the other team consisted of a bunch of small junior high kids. Needless to say we got destroyed, but I got the highest score on my team by at least double. Nobody stayed back to protect our base, so I took that responsibility upon myself. Imagine me and like three little kids all shooting at me and our base target as I try to shoo them away with my awesome laser skills. All I could think about was how cool it would be to have a laser cat at that moment who shoots lasers out of its eyes. It was a lot more physically demanding than I anticipated. One of these days I should devote an entire evening/night to just playing laser tag for hours on end. It is a lot of fun.

Saturday was the boxing fight between Pacquiao and Margarito. I usually cheer for the Mexican, but in this case I cheered for Pacquiao because I don't think cheaters should be rewarded. It was a good fight and nice to see a smaller guy beat up on a bigger guy who, I will admit, fought his heart out, but came up short. I think that it is cool that the only state the fight was legal in was Texas. We have no shame.

I've had occasion to think about feeling of rejection in life. It never feels good and it feels worse when it just reinforces what you were already expecting, meaning that you clearly went in with the wrong mindset. I think about stuff like applying to college, the law school I wanted, jobs applied for, and being picked last for something. But nothing quite burns like romantic rejection. It is part of life and for the most part you learn to take it in stride, but there are times, especially after long relationships that it is harder to cope with. That said, I am aware of how rarely I think about my rejection of others and when I realize that this is how much others are thinking of me, which makes any self-pity feel inconsequential. Sometimes when faced with a string of rejections, you start to think, part of me wants to not give up and keep trying and the other part wants to re-tool and evaluate my approach since something might be wrong. The problem is that the excuse of re-tooling, is just the pretext for giving up and not truly making any real changes. Just talking about the topic is hard because it implies that I'm a person who is rejected. That is the last thing you want to identify with and not a way I look at myself.

I decided to do a google search on the topic and ran into this article on this blog that was pretty insightful and really covered the topic in depth. How Rejection Can Make You More Successful at Everything. What I thought was cool was that it references another article on The Benefits of Rejection, attributing the lack of female entrepreneurship to less experience with sexual rejection and says: “Why are there still so few female entrepreneurs? According to one MIT researcher, the answer is simple: it all comes down to sexual rejection. Chizoba Nnaemeka, of the MIT Entrepreneurship Review, says women aren’t as practised as men at being turned down. As such, she says, they don’t learn some of the skills required to strike out on their own in business, such as “confidence and optimism, sales and marketing, resilience, and trace amounts of desperation.” To pursue romantic relationships, after all, is to risk repeated rejection, much like trying to raise significant amounts of capital to finance a start-up.”

I never would have thought of that. I guess you just get caught up in your own world view. I'm sure there are people that would disagree with those theories, but it is an interesting take. I will say that I think this quote sums it up by a life coach who explains why some people seem able to brush off rejection so easily: “A confident person realizes that rejection is simply a part of the risk of living and that, in order to grow spiritually, we all have to take the occasional risk and step outside of our comfort zone."


The world is how you look at it. It isn't always easy to look at it through rose colored glasses.


Speaking of rejection, Eva Longoria & Tony Parker: The Tattoos They Got For Love (PHOTOS) I don't know how I feel about "love" ring tattoos. Part of it seems romantic since you are getting married forever and in another way it seems totally naive considering your odds of divorce. I guess it depends on where the technology is for removing tattoos.

Finally, this weekend is going to be a fun one. I have a lot of things lined up. I have Louis CK tickets for Friday night and UT football tickets for Saturday. I invited my cousin Rino to come with me since he has never been to a UT game. I want to see John Oliver's stand up on Saturday night, but I already have so much going on. I guess we will see.

next week

Elephant in the Room

Q. Why do elephants paint the soles of their feet yellow?
A. So they can hide upside-down in the custard.

Q: Did you ever find an elephant in your custard?
A: No? Well, it must work.

The month of November always feels like a blank between Halloween and Thanksgiving. A void which I rarely remember. I'm all settled in back from my Halloween east coast trip and am back to business as usual. That doesn't mean I can't keep reminiscing. While I was in DC, we entertained ourselves with silly one-liner jokes from when we were small. There were some very good ones shared. Mark had one I liked about elephants that I decided to share today as my quote above. I tend to say, "See, it works!" as my punchline. A quick search revealed that there are a lot more elephant jokes than I would have thought.

The elephant theme works out great, because I feel like in many situations there is an elephant in the room that goes ignored in my life, be it when I'm alone and mostly when with others. I do a great job of ignoring those elephants. This picture I thought was a great representation of it. (Hope that is photoshop Peta). (I also imagine that elephant hiding in custard.)

The big question is, what is my elephant in the room? I probably have lots and even now I don't want to think about them. Some are just lies I say to myself. There are a lot of things I don't talk about, especially on my blog. It is weird that I consider myself such a private person, yet have kept writing here for over 10 years. I guess I like things on my terms. There are actually a lot of thoughts about a lot of things and even people that I don't say a word about. Maybe at times in a passive aggressive vague way, but never anything detailed, but mostly nothing. It is probably for the best though. So that is my lesson, I need to start identifying my elephants and not just calling them out for the sake of being self aware, but dealing with them.

The other day I wrote an entry entitled The Diploma Frame. It was pretty much the story about why it took over 8 years for me to finally get my Cornell Frame for my college diploma. Well, the frame came in Monday and I moved my still unpaid for (student loans) diploma from its cheap frame to its new classy frame.

Here is the box. It was a good size, but I was glad to see that it was packaged well. It makes the frame look bigger than it actually is.

Below is a photo of my diploma in the $8 frame on my office wall. The frame has served me well and I wonder what I'm going to use for now. Maybe pictures of some sort. You know, I have never had a picture of anyone in my office, at least in this office. I digress.

After some work, I was able to get my new frame opened and up on my wall. It looks so much nicer I must say. Check out the setup below:
So I will say, Thank you Vero for the gift. Sorry it took so long. You were right. Oh, and you do know that you are also getting me (and getting credit for) my law school diploma frame in the future, but let's give it some time since these things cost a lot.

This summer I heard the following letter read at my friend's wedding which I thought was very moving. It is an excerpt of a letter from Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain) to his wife Olivia Langdon five months before their wedding:

"This 4th of February will be the mightiest day in the history of our lives, the holiest, & the most generous toward us both -- for it makes of two fractional lives a whole; it gives to two purposeless lives a work, & doubles the strength of each whereby to perform it; it gives to two questioning natures a reason for living, & something to live for; it will give a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, a new mystery to life; & Livy it will give a new revelation to love, a new depth to sorrow, a new impulse to worship. In that day the scales will fall from our eyes & we shall look upon a new world. Speed it!"

Other than the impressive use of the semi-colon, it was something that when I heard for the first time made quite the impression. Talk about something to aspire to. Mark Twain was such a great writer. My first book was Tom Sawyer, that I got for Christmas from my Aunt/Tia Mati. I was upset at first, since what kid wants a book, but I read it and the reading thing caught on.

Saturday night, I went to see Joe Rogan's stand up comedy. I think I have gone to see him 3 times over as many years in Austin. I always enjoy it. The year that has past since I last saw him went by pretty quickly. Funny way to measure time. I went with my friend Megan and I don't think I could have prepared her for amount of vulgarity, but she was a good sport. The opening acts were more vulgar, though still funny. When Rogan performed, I felt like I had heard some of the jokes before, but the majority of it was new. My favorite part is when, at the end, he just let's the audience pick topics. I always forget that, and next year I'm going to be more prepared to yell out things so that the drunk guys yelling UFC stuff can be ignored for my cool topics.

After getting lasik this summer, I've started to forget that I don't wear glasses anymore. It has just become so normal. I thought it would take longer to not be reaching for my glasses. I will still say it was some of the best money I have spent. So bear with me, but I have for years brushed my teeth in the shower (great idea, you should try it), but now that I can see in the shower, I just recently added shaving to that list. I purchased a sweet fog-less mirror and gave it a try. It is awesome, and since I spent way too much time just standing under the hot water drifting off, now I can be more productive and can shave more often. I'm getting to the point where I should probably shave every day, but I still save every two days. I have a shower radio I never use, always thought I would use it more often.

Here are some more thoughts on the Rally to Restore Sanity. I was watching the Daily Show this week where Jon Stewart Responds To The 'False Equivalency' Critique Of The Rally To Restore Sanity (VIDEO) "See, it turns out that a lot of people are all in a twist over what they saw as a "false equivalency" between what left-leaning media types do every day and what right-leaning media types do every day."

I'm a huge fan of Jon Stewart and thought the Rally was great for many reasons. It was a bunch of reasonable liberals dressed up like moderates. (You know, since the definition of moderate moves more to the right as the far right pulls farther. ) It was also a grand sign making party. Facts and distortions are not differences of opinions, but the Rally meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people, which I thought was a fair response by Stewart. Whatever it was, there wasn't an alternative Rally to attend.

patience can be an excuse to let life pass by

Sanity Restored

"Dear Lord, Protect me from your followers." - Unknown

This weekend I went to Washington, DC to attend the Daily Show's Rally to Restore Sanity and to visit some good friends. It was an epic weekend of moderate drinking, reasonable behavior and copious amounts of fun. This is my recap. I heard the rally referred to as "the biggest inside-joke walk-a-thon in American History" and a "mock-in." It was legendary and everything I imagined it to be.


I flew in on Friday morning and arrived at Reagan Airport about noon. It had been three and a half years since I had been in DC, years which have gone by very quickly. Mark was busy working, so I hopped on to the Metro and went to meet my friend Bob for lunch. I still had my old smart pass with money on it, and it was nice to see it still worked. I had to transfer at Rosslyn, the first place I ever lived when I first moved there after college. To think, each day I would wake up and walk to that metro station and now it was just another stop along the way on a visit to this town. I met up with Bob and it was great catching up. I appreciated that he took the time to come and hang out with me. I miss hanging out with Bob and Angie.


After, I headed into downtown DC on the metro to kill some time. There was one museum I always wanted to go to, The Spy Museum. It was near my work and I never made it out in all the years I lived there. I promised myself I would go before I left, but the timing didn't work out. So this time I was intent on going and finally made it. That took a long time to check off my to do list, but it was worth it. Spy stuff is cool, I would like to be a spy, which probably makes me a bad spy. Oh, that and a blog.


When I was done learning how to take secret pictures and mark mail boxes with codes, I went to meet up with Sam aka Dr. Cook at an Irish pub. It has been a while and it was nice to see him. He is getting married next year and I'm looking forward to his wedding in San Diego. We had a few drinks and caught up. It is always great talking about old times. It is good when friends make an effort to keep in touch.


Once Mark got out of a late day of work, he picked us up at the Metro, and we went to his place where his wife Ashley was making cookies. We had a few drinks and then headed to my friend Sarah's Halloween party. It was only a quick cameo, but it was nice to see my friend from 7th and 8th grade summer smart camp. Sarah is one of those really happy good spirited people and I was happy that she was just like I remembered her.


When we got back to the apartment, we drank with Ashley's friend Ashley2 and her boyfriend's father. It was nice to finally get to hang out with Ashley and get to know her as a person and not just Mark's fiance/wife. Then Ashley's Kentucky friends arrived. They were such nice people and though I wasn't the most social person, I enjoyed my chats with them. I learned you can use a hairdryer to fill an inflatable bed and a great way to make a road trip more interesting.


Saturday morning, Mark was so kind to go out and get everyone breakfast. After eating and getting ready, we all walked out to the Metro to head to the Rally. It was finally time. It came with a lot of anticipation. Rick got there well before us, which was such a smart idea. We stopped by the nearby CVS and I got 3 blank paper signs and a black marker. The metro was so backed up, we walked over 4.5 miles from Virginia to DC for the Rally. It was fun, but tiring because my shoes sucked. There were a lot of people walking.


Here is a video of Sam doing a commentary as we crossed the bridge into DC: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyadus/5134440253/


Mark had a sign that carried the whole way that said, "Anchor babies are Adorable" and on the back there was a picture of philosorapter and it said, "Anchor babies are Delicious." [fn An anchor baby is an anti-immigrant myth of babies that are born to undocumented women.] Sam made a sign that said, "We want our Country Forward" (with Back marked out) and I made on that said, "I wish all these people Voted." Here are the flickr pictures and videos of the event and all our posters.


When we arrived, the Rally was extremely packed. We couldn't even get close enough to the speakers that we could hear clearly what was going on. The Rally was a gathering of like minded individuals who were ok with not agreeing about everything. It was like a very witty joke and over 200,000 people were in on it. Sign after sign made me laugh. People were connecting, being kind and considerate. Nobody was filled with hate or anger, and there are things to be angry about. Here I am holding up my sign:


I had many friends attend the rally, but due to the size, it was impossible to meet up them. We had a blast, meeting new people, taking photos and hanging out. I think that was what the experience was really about. We even met two old ladies who came on the Huff Post bus who were so sweet and kind. They drank with us as Sam mixed them some drinks. I later had to watch the actual Rally on TV to clearly hear all the jokes and see what was going on, and that was great too. The crowd was very impressive.

A quick internet search came up with: 55 Funniest Signs. There is also the Best 100 signs. There are lots of these sites and I saw some way funnier ones, but some are great. They are a great way to kill time, but if you have time, really check out my photos of the event.

Reading this article about the rally burned, but it really makes me look at the Rally in a different way. It is very long, but one part that really made me think was, "Let’s gather together in an ironic, self-aware way, and celebrate how we’re not really rallying or laying anything on the line–not even now, not even when the whole fucking country is collapsing. What’s our prize, Don?" I do stand for something, but I don't think it is exclusive with having a good time and trying to restore some sanity.

After the Rally was over, we hung out on the mall for a few hours. We had a pretty comfortable camp set up.
My friend Rick came to join us and we then treked into the city to find food. Everywhere was packed and after much much walking, we finally found something. All that walking injured my knee, which was a sad testament to how much I don't usually use it. It hurt to walk, but I toughed it out and was disappointed with myself for getting to a point where this could happen.

Exhausted, we finally arrived back at Mark and Ashley's home at night and rested for a bit. There was no energy to go out to a bar, so we drank and had some great conversations. That is something I a big fan of. It is part of the trip that I really enjoyed. We told silly jokes and one liners, talked about math and probability and about the amazing experience we had that day.


Sunday morning, Sam, Mark and I had breakfast and then I headed to the airport home to Austin. I was very thankful to Mark and Ashley to opening up their home to us and for being such wonderful hosts. Sunday was also the day of the Marine Corps Marathon, which had a lot of runners on my train. We did steal a photo at the podium the day before. Even in our imagination, I still get 2nd place.


In the end, I must say it was an experience I'll never forget. What a perfect way to go back and visit DC. I plan on getting back more.

ghosts around every corner