Che Sera Sera....

Rome/Florence 2005

I've been eager to plan a trip but I'm not sure where I want to go. I started looking through pictures from past adventures and came across photos from a 2005 trip to Rome and Florence. I think Rome is an amazing city and returned in 2008 only to fall more in love with the lifestyle and cultural landscape. Enjoy the slideshow...(techno music and all!)

Halloween 2009

I haven't dressed up for Halloween in years so I was very excited to find out that my company doesn't mess around and expects everyone to dress up for the annual Halloween Party. But picking out a costume is not easy!

At first I wanted to be Joan Collins during the Dynasty era but believe it or not, I could not find an outfit I felt worthy of representing THE Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan.

Then, after being accused of wearing a joutfit to work last year (how rude..) I thought it would be funny to show up in one.

Joutfit

Noun. An outfit created of multiple pieces of denim clothing; pieces of clothing in the joutfit may include a jirt, jhorts, jhoes, or a juit.

Ex: "I totally saw a lady wearing a joutfit on the Metro this morning, complete with a jirt and japris."

A friend then suggested I should be a "Joutfit Bandit" which would require me to find a denim mask. Not such an easy task so I abandoned that idea as well.

I racked my brain a little more and decided I needed to go 80's (aka as the best decade EVER.) My next thought was 80's Jazzercise complete with neon spandex, leggings, sweatbands, and thong leotard. Then, I came to my senses and realized that I would probably end up looking like this:

Finally, it came to me....80's JERSEY ROCK GROUPIE! Worked out well considering KISS showed up! Voila!

Can't wait for next year!

Say it loud
Say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear...
It's too late when we die
To admit we don't see eye to eye

So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It's the bitterness that lasts

-The Living Years

Chair - 1 Adam - 0

Pulling Planes and Taking Names...

On Saturday I participated in the 17th annual Dulles Plane Pull to benefit the Special Olympics of Virginia. Yes, the girl that is petrified of flying spent her day pulling a plane for fun. Craaazy. Anyways, our team did well and pulled a 164,000lb Fedex Airbus 12 feet in 9 seconds.

 Plane Pull Team

K 2 Gun Show!

The winning team (aka humongous dudes)

I should probably start training now for next year!

Mes amis sont ma richesse

                                        - My friends are my wealth...

                              

I don't know what's right and what's real anymore
I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear

Cause I'm being taken over by The Fear

Take a Look...It's in a Book....

This is quite possibly the funniest/most traumatizing article I have read in quite some time. I grew up watching Reading Rainbow. Turns out it was all a lie. A bold faced LIE. Oh well, I'll get over it. Read the article below featured in The Onion....it'll make you laugh.

My Living Nightmare Of Encouraging Kids To Read Is Over
By LeVar Burton
September 24, 2009

Thank god.

After 26 long years, I can finally rest easy. Twenty-six years I spent standing in front of a camera, gritting my teeth, and shilling the latest works of every hack children's book author imaginable. For 26 years, I've told kids they could open a magical door to another world just by reading a book, when the only door it ever opened for me led to a soul-sucking career in the horrifying abyss of public television.

But now, at last, it is over. I don't have to lie anymore. I don't have to live that nightmare.

When the news came that Reading Rainbow would be canceled due to a lack of funding, I felt—well, to use a cliché like you'd find in one of the hundreds of books I pimped endlessly—like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Every day I went to work hoping that maybe the studio had burned down, that maybe the program had been cut, that maybe PBS would finally stop squeezing the life from me drop by drop. Now that it's over, I feel the relief a bruised and broken soldier must feel when he is rescued after rotting away for decades in some dank, forgotten POW camp.

May that godforsaken show burn in hell.

At long last, I can pick up a book and read for pleasure! Haven't read one in ages. You know what I was reading during those 26 insufferable years? Scripts. Scripts for roles that went to actors who weren't stigmatized by their association with a TV show occupying the time slot right after Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

I happen to be an accomplished actor. I starred in Roots, which was the most-watched show in American television history. My stirring portrayal of Kunta Kinte got me an Emmy nomination. But you know what? At 25 years old, when the opportunity to earn a regular paycheck working on a children's show came along, it seemed like a pretty damn good idea.

I was dead, dead wrong.

Little did I know the next quarter century of my life would be an unrelenting blur of excruciating trips to some of the most boring places on earth. Apiaries, steam trains, old mills—every week they sent me to a fresh hellhole, and every week I had to interview the dullest people imaginable.

And those humiliating books. Maebelle's Suitcase and The Jolly Postman. These were not the classics. Anyone who could glue paper between two pieces of cardboard and hire a publicist could get a book on that show. And there I was, in sheer agony, trying to keep a smile on my face while talking up Germs Make Me Sick!

Before long, people began recognizing me on the street, and inevitably they'd come over and start singing this awful, cloying tune. When I finally asked somebody what the hell it was, I was sickened to learn that it was the show's theme. I'd never heard it. They didn't play it on the set, and Lord knows I never saw one episode of that garbage when it aired.

Hoping to escape Reading Rainbow's clutches, I started taking any role I could get. I'm proud of some of them: I played Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Martin Luther King in Ali. But you know what the most challenging role of my career was? Hosting Reading Rainbow and acting like I gave a shit about getting kids interested in books.

Fact is, I couldn't care less whether kids learn to read. There, I said it.

Look, Reading Rainbow was a television program. That should tell you something right there. What I should have done is hosted a show that taught children how to watch more television. I bet they would have come up with the funding to renew that show.

All I've done for 26 years is drive to work, clock in, read my lines, clock out, go home, and cry myself to sleep. Now I'm much older, a broken man, but I've reached the end of my terrifying journey. And do you know what's at the end? Do you what's at the end of the "Reading Rainbow"? A giant crock of shit, that's what.

But you don't have to take my word for it.

Summer Wrapup

My Summer in Pictures

Hanging out by the pool...

Mmmm..Seafood..

Beautiful sunset..

Gloucetser, MA

Kayaking on the Potomac

Wearing sunglasses at night always makes sense at the time..

 

San Diego

Watching Fireworks on the Esplanade with Christina

Festival at National Harbor with Katherine

 

Baltimore!

------------------------------------------

Possibly the most bizzare experience of the summer was when I attended the Loudoun county fair. Some of my friends entered the annual Outhouse Race (I'm not joking) and I went to show my support. Needless to say, I was a little out of my element given that I've never attended a country fair before. This was noticed by my co-workers when I:

1) Showed up in a skirt, sweater and heels

2) Asked what elephant ears were

3)  Nearly passed out when I found out I had to use a Portable Bathroom 

That being said, please enjoy the following pictures. Oh, and did I mention that I'm afraid of rides?

In case you were wondering, that is the look of fear mixed with feeling like I was going to pee myself

 

I'm not really sure what I was thinking when I got on this ride but I look retarded

 

Wait for it....

 

Priceless!

The end.

Quote of the week

"If you deliberately stick out your foot and trip someone, that’s rude. If you stick out your foot and trip someone who’s running away with your purse, that’s kung fu."

                                -Robin Abrahams, columnist for the Boston Globe