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These pictures are from last year but I never posted them. My brother-in-law’s friend came down for the weekend from Vermont and somehow he and Ed and I wound up at Mt. Vernon…George Washington’s residence in Alexandria, VA, on the Potomac river, in case you wanted to know. George’s dead so we didn’t see him.
Somehow, someone decided that the way to get to Mt. Vernon was down Rt. 95 south from Washington, DC. After a wonderful tour of 95 and Rt. 1, which we eventually ended up on, someone, I won’t say who, figured we probably were not going to get to Mt. Vernon the way we were headed. So we turned around and revisited the beauty of Rt. 1 with all it’s car dealerships and sundry, sordid businesses out to take a serviceperson’s money. With Fort Belvoir and the Marine base, Quantico, in the area there was plenty of money to be made from the naive and unsuspecting serviceperson.
Anyhow, the whole reason for this post was to note that I had posted pictures from Mt. Vernon taken nearly a year ago. Follow this link or the links under my Photography section on the right side menu bar.
It was in the high 70′s today in Northern Virginia…March 13. Give me a break. If these temperatures continue into the summer we are in for a scorcher. I for one am not looking forward to it. I just got home at 2230 and it is 80 in my apartment. I have only had the heat on for two days out of the whole winter. I should have my AC on!
Speaking of getting home from work…. It was another day at the mercy of the customer who is heedless of the support staff’s personal obligations and lifestyle. Accordingly, my day went from a predictable 8 hours to 11.5. I just love leaving the office at 2130 w/o having had dinner or a significant break all day. I guess that is the price I pay for having a job in a society where the top 1% beats the rest of us into the ground and tells us we should be happy.
To cap it off, we fight hideous traffic in our commute. If you try to work a bit of flex time, you have to fight the highway construction in the area. Flex time in this area means leaving for work no earlier than 0900 and going home before 2230 or after 1930. But no matter how many lanes the state adds to the highway, there is always some bottleneck that makes all the expansion basically worthless.
To make things even worse, most of the highway work around here is for new toll roads along side the normal byways. As such, the 1% can pay their way away from the madding crowd and theoretically avoid the traffic jams. Meanwhile Juan, the landscape engineer and his household maintenance technician wife. Juanita, along with the rest of us can fight the traffic jams.
Well, it is after 2300 and time for me to finish my after work beer and get some dinner! Midnight snacks were never this good!
I have been out to Lost Rhino twice in the last three days with great results. They have seven beers on tap but are selling no food yet so you can only buy a sampler and/or take a tour. The sampler option is great…you get six tasters for five bucks. The beers are awesome. They have an IPA, an Imperial IPA, a Pilsner, a Belgian Dubbel, an unfiltered Dunkel, a Christmas beer that still tastes good and a Belgian Gold that finishes like a Saison.
They will soon begin construction to create a brew pub environment in which they will sell a limited selection of food and be able to sell beer by the glass. Right now the seating environment is a bit weird. NTL, they were doing a booming business this afternoon w/ tastings and tours going on.
I highly recommend their beers. The brewers came from Dominion Brewery which got raped by Budweiser and a brewery from Maryland whose name, maybe Fordham, escapes me. The owners sold out. I have read that one of the owners regrets doing so. Some of the beers that Dominion brewed and sold are now brewed at other breweries under the their original names from Dominion.
Growler prices are quite reasonable particularly if you have your own growlers. Lost Rhino sells the good growlers (not the screw tops) for $20 each. You can find the same ones cheaper on the Internet. NTL, for their mainline products, the IPA, Pils, and New River, you can get your growler filled for $8. For the seasonals, expect to pay about $12 for a fill up. You can also buy some of the beers in large bottles such as 22 ouncers. They also have a great selection of shirts on sale including long and short sleeved T’s, hoodies, golf shirts, and button downs.
Unfortunately, Lost Rhino’s website needs some work. They don’t post the beers on tap for the day nor do they post their expansion plans.
I started my new position 3 weeks ago so I am now in my fourth week. I am not thrilled. We spend too much time in meetings and I am now having to commute for three months to a location that is far enough away that it sucks at least 1 more hour out of my personal time than it does to commute to the location that I signed up for.
Without going into the details for the sake of keeping my job, I got a promotion. I lost the differential time I got for working nights when I could actually get some work done. I now spend at least 1/2 my working week in meetings. Therefore I and those of whom I attend the meetings with are probably in the same boat getting 1/2 the work done they’d like to get done.
Pulling in to my apartment complex tonight I got blocked by a van in front of me. The driver got the front wheels over the first speed bump but seemed to have a problem getting the back wheels over it. Now take into consideration that we had a wintery mix going for about 30 minutes w/ an accumulation of perhaps 0.2 inches. It was a moderately sized speed bump so of course I wasn’t surprised that the dumb ass had to stop before he tried to take his rear wheels over that Mont Blanc of an obstacle.
I figured he was going to get out and put on the snow chains but he was wise to that realizing that putting them on the rear tires of a front wheel drive van would have been pointless. Accordingly, he put his vehicle in reverse probably figuring to return back over the speed bump, put the chains on his front tires, and then motor his way over the speed bump using his chained front tires to pull both front and rear wheels over it like Hannibal crossing the Alps.
Dumb ass…I passed on the left and pulled into my parking spot. I was a bit breathless from the high altitude when I got out of my car and had to wade soul deep through the “wintery mix” to get to my lofty, snow graced apartment but after a strenuous 30 seconds was able to successfully make my way to warmth and safety. Thankfully, I did not get stranded in a “wintery mix” drift and have to chew my arm off and drink my urine to survive.
Wasn’t there a movie?
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Mt. Vernon Pictures Posted
These pictures are from last year but I never posted them. My brother-in-law’s friend came down for the weekend from Vermont and somehow he and Ed and I wound up at Mt. Vernon…George Washington’s residence in Alexandria, VA, on the Potomac river, in case you wanted to know. George’s dead so we didn’t see him.
Somehow, someone decided that the way to get to Mt. Vernon was down Rt. 95 south from Washington, DC. After a wonderful tour of 95 and Rt. 1, which we eventually ended up on, someone, I won’t say who, figured we probably were not going to get to Mt. Vernon the way we were headed. So we turned around and revisited the beauty of Rt. 1 with all it’s car dealerships and sundry, sordid businesses out to take a serviceperson’s money. With Fort Belvoir and the Marine base, Quantico, in the area there was plenty of money to be made from the naive and unsuspecting serviceperson.
Anyhow, the whole reason for this post was to note that I had posted pictures from Mt. Vernon taken nearly a year ago. Follow this link or the links under my Photography section on the right side menu bar.