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1. Wednesday, April 24, 2024:
   Time-lapsed Blogography Day: Thirty-Four Years Ago Today  Thirty-four years ago today, on  April 24, 1990 , I was a 10-year-old sixth grader on my first overnight field trip.     Since our city had a junior high school instead of a middle school, sixth grade was the highest grade in elementary school. Someone at Polk School decided it would be a good idea to trust the sixth grade class with a stay at Hemlock Overlook Regional Park. A surprising number of students from the 3 classes attended, although I believe there were still few enough people to fit in a large whitewashed double-roomed cabin (boys and girls separated).   We did the usual assortment of nature activities, like 300 reminders about what poison ivy looked like and what kind of tracks ...
2. Wednesday, April 17, 2024:
   Memory Day: Snapshots  This picture was taken 25 years ago today, on  April 17, 1999 .     I was at Busch Gardens with my band friends: Rosie & Jason (not pictured), Doug & Becky, Jen, and myself. This picture was taken with one of the very first Canon Powershot digital cameras, which my dad had given me the day before.   1999 was the final year in my 20th century style: 1/4" buzzcut, glasses too big for my face, a Members Only jacket, and a Casio wristwatch. 
3. Wednesday, April 03, 2024:
   Memory Day: Snapshots  This picture was taken 10 years ago today, on  April 3, 2014 .     I received a $1000 gift certificate to the Greenbrier Resort for my 10th work anniversary and we finally used it 9 months later. This picture was taken in our room, while I was trying to blend in with the scenery.   We did not fit in at all at this place, which had an air of "used to be fancy but isn't so much anymore". I wore my 14-year-old pair of khakis and a button-up shirt whenever I was outside of our hotel room. 
4. Wednesday, March 06, 2024:
   Memory Day: Snapshots  This picture was taken 9 years ago today, on  March 6, 2015 .     Fresh off an extended weekend spent working overnight to analyze Weblogic memory crashes, and nonstop studying for my very first AWS cloud certification, Rebecca and I headed out of town for the weekend to Hopkins Ordinary B&B in Sperryville. We stayed in the smallest room ("Oregano") and enjoyed complimentary beers from the basement brewery. The next day, we hiked White Oak Canyon because recent snow had made an Old Rag hike untenable.   We enjoyed our experience so much that we went back 3 more times in the next 10 months, and then twice more in the coming years (once with Maia during the very first weeks of the pandemic).&n...
5. Wednesday, February 14, 2024:
   House Day  Celebrating 20 years as a Sterling resident!     People who have lived in this house since I bought it:     Me (2004 - 2024)   Anna A. (2004 - 2005)   Eric B. (2004 - 2005)   Ben A. (2005)   Kathy S. (2005)   Rebecca U. (2009 - 2024)   Abby W. (2013 - 2014)   Maia U. (2017 - 2024)   Ian U. (2021 - 2024)     Animals who have stayed in this house since I bought it:     Booty   Kitty   Amber   Sydney   Leia   Oliver   Titan   Lake   Abby   
6. Wednesday, February 07, 2024:
   Memory Day: Snapshots  This picture was taken 14 years ago today, on  February 7, 2010 .     It was the day after a massive snowstorm that dropped 23" of wet snow on us, the shoveling of which destroying my back and gave me a cold that caused me to miss two simultaneous Super Bowl parties. Between our own shoveling and the industrial tractor that drove down our street, we had a bulwark 4 feet high along our curb, protecting us from infidels and common decency.   Rebecca still worked for a T-shirt company at the time, and was always wearing cast-off returns or clothes with printing errors on them. This storm was big enough that the company had to embrace telework for a couple days and Rebecca got to sit at home wit...
7. Wednesday, January 17, 2024:
   Time-lapsed Blogography Day: Twenty Years Ago Today   Twenty years ago today, on  January 17, 2004 , I was traveling across the region in search of a new house. I had picked out 4 houses to view with my realtor, Marion White, in the coming week and on the 17th, I drove around by myself to get a feel for the neighbourhoods.   The first house (shown on the left) was in south Reston, which has since become "the Green Line of living in Reston", with all of the high Reston Association fees and none of the lack of crime you'd get from living north of the toll road. I liked this house although I had always been negative about ground-level basement windows ever since someone tried to break my childhood home in the 80s.   The second house was in a nice ne...
8. Wednesday, January 10, 2024:
   Math Teacher Day  My high school calculus teacher, Lou Kokonis, recently  passed away at 91  after 64 years of teaching in the Alexandria City Public School system.     Mr. Kokonis was not the most personable teacher -- he would quietly slip into the school with his head down and make his way to the classroom where he'd immediately begin writing the day's formulas on the chalkboard. His hands and glasses were perpetually caked in chalk dust. He had trouble remembering people's names so when someone was acting up in class, we'd hear, "Uh, Nate, I mean, John, I mean Derek, please stop talking when I'm teaching".   I think his dedication to math was stronger than his dedication to being a teacher, as he didn...
9. Wednesday, November 22, 2023:
   Thanksgiving Retrospective   pictures from Thanksgivings past          Since we apparently vanished from 2017 - 2020, here is a bonus picture.   
10. Wednesday, October 18, 2023:
    Memory Day: Snapshots  This picture was taken 9 years ago today, on  October 18, 2014 .     It was our first night in Seattle. The host of our B&B (11th Avenue B&B in Capitol Hill) welcomed us by giving us a map with all of the neighbourhoods that "got wild at night" circled. We ended up having dinner at Elysian Brewery amongst the hippies and hipsters and Rebecca got an entree that was at least 108% cous-cous.   After dinner and beer flights, we started walking back to our B&B when, just as prophesized, it got wild at night! These bottles of beer ran up to Rebecca danced around her for several minutes, then disappeared down the street. 
11. Wednesday, October 11, 2023:
    Memory Day: Snapshots  This picture was taken 14 years ago today, on  October 11, 2009 .     This is a view of the sunrise off the eastern shore of Kauai, as seen from our cozy second-story Kapaa Sands condo. It was day 7 of 14 on our Hawaii honeymoon and I was 4 days free of the strep throat that someone had given me at our wedding.   We stayed close to the condo this day, visiting tide pools and stray cats. We visited a sea geyser, Spouting Horn, which was underwhelming at low tide, and had a delicious dinner at the Beach House restaurant on the North Shore. 
12. Wednesday, October 04, 2023:
    Memory Day: Snapshots  This picture was taken 9 years ago today, on  October 4, 2014 .     We were on the Shenandoah River next to Harper's Ferry following a day of vigorous hiking and eating a giant pork chop at Dish, a Charles Town farm-to-table restaurant that existed before every restaurant tried to do the same thing (sadly, it is now out of business). After taking this picture, we walked into Harpers Ferry for ice cream at scoops.   I took over 30,000 steps on this day, according to my defunct FitBit account. I lost my brand new FitBit within 10 minutes of taking this picture, just 19 days after having received it for my birthday. I interpreted this as a sign that my path in life should not involve any sort o...
13. Wednesday, September 06, 2023:
    Memory Day: Snapshots  This picture was taken 32 years ago, in the summer of 1991.     We had finally relegated the trundle bed under my main bed to the trash bin, opening up a vast expanse for storage in my tiny childhood bedroom. I positioned crates full of Lego sets along the outer edge of the bed and draped the quilt over them, leaving a small BU-sized hole to crawl into. Under the bed became my secret area where I hung out when I didn't want to be bothered by my sister. I would chew two pieces of grape Bubble Yum, play the Dances with Wolves soundtrack on my boom box, and read the novel, Dances With Wolves next to a small reading light. (When the soundtrack ended, I would flip the tape over to Handel's Water Music).   Th...
14. Wednesday, August 23, 2023:
    Memory Day: Bedroom Painting  This is the E. Near painting that hung over my parents' bed since the late 1970s. With direct lighting, it actually looks moderately vibrant, but on the wall, it's a murk of faded, gloomy colors.     My parents gave me this painting (and other similar ones) as "starter art" when I first moved into my house in Sterling back in 2004. Over the years, they've gradually been replaced with art I actually like. This one was replaced with  Sitting Tree  last June and has been boxed up in the closet ever since. No one in the family seemed to want it for nostalgia's sake but Evil Mike snapped it up when I posted about it on Facebook so he is the proud new owner.   Here's a picture of the family under the ...
15. Wednesday, August 16, 2023:
    Memory Day: Twenty-Two Years Ago Today  Twenty-two years ago today, on  August 16, 2001 , I arrived in Florida to become a music grad student at Florida State.   Fresh off the Amtrak auto-train in Sanford, FL, I first had another 280 miles to drive before reaching Tallahassee. The road trip was about as boring as I-81 to Virginia Tech, although I greatly enjoyed discovering I-10 where speed limits were never enforced and the slowest cars were going 85.   I arrived at Parkwood Apartments (now rebranded with imaginary class as  The Edge @ 401 ) around 2 PM, a quiet cinderblock building that was comparably clean and less damp than other apartments nearby. It was across from a cemetary and just three blocks from the music buildings,...
16. Wednesday, July 05, 2023:
    Memory Day: Snapshots  This picture was taken 31 years ago, on  July 4, 1992 .     Could I be any more entertained? 
17. Wednesday, June 21, 2023:
    Memory Day: Snapshots  This picture was taken 30 years ago, on  June 4, 1993 , and was recently unearthed at my parents' house.     This was taken at my junior high Freshman Prom (called the "Freshman Banquet" for some reason that did not involve cannibalism) and shows the pack of friends that mostly stayed together throughout the night. From left to right: Zulfan, myself, Rachel, Beza, Jennie, Michelle, Cheryl, Geoffrey, and Michelle's date from another school. 
18. Wednesday, May 24, 2023:
    Memory Day: Snapshots  This picture was taken 10 years ago today, on  May 24, 2013 .     We were at the Veramar Vineyard in Berryville, VA, on the way to a bed & breakfast in downtown Winchester to celebrate Rebecca's recent graduation from her physical therapy program at NOVA. These were the halcyon days full of free time where we could just dump a bunch of cat food in a bowl and take off for the weekend on the spur of the moment. 
19. Wednesday, May 03, 2023:
    Memory Day: 20 Years Ago Today  Twenty years ago today, on  May 3, 2003 , I made my final trip home from Tallahassee, detached forever from the potential academic composition career I might have pursued. The 900 mile trip took about 13 hours total, and I was sharing the road with my parents who came down with the big truck for my largest items of furniture (mostly a massive CRT monitor that weighed fifty pounds). After an overnight stay in a cheap motel, Booty and I did the last six hours of the trip in my 2001 Honda Accord. I let her out of the cat carrier because worrying that she might squeeze under the brake pedal and cause an accident was less of a concern than having to listen to her caterwauling the entire length of I-95. (She just explored the car ...
20. Wednesday, March 15, 2023:
    Memory Day: Snapshots  These pictures were taken 21 years ago today, on  March 15, 2002 .     The weather in Tallahassee was such that an afternoon in mid-March had the exact same temperature as one in November or June. As first-year grad students with nothing useful to do, we took a mid-morning trip to Wakulla Springs. The trip was forgettable, other than a plethora of wildlife to observe on the tour boat. Mike (of Mike and Chompy) had a brief obsession with posing in pictures as if he were an alligator around this time. 

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