Only two weeks late - July 4th in DC
So our grandoise plan for bringing lots of Oliners into DC for the 4th didn't really pan out too well (at least in terms of numbers). We lured Simone from Boston, Kim from Houston and Joelle from Charlottesville, VA and Mikell lured Jon from Boston. But it was still a lot of fun. All the fliers arrived at various times on Friday night/early Saturday morning.
Saturday:
So in general we got a pretty late start on Saturday. Joelle arrived in the early afternoon. Kim, Jon, and Mikell wandered the mall for a while on their own though I joined them for (what I thought was) good Spanish food. Then Kim and I met up with Sarah, Simone, Joelle and Joelle's cousin Nathan and did the late-night walk around the monuments thing. Unfortunately the lates were out at the FDR, so it was...a bit disconcerting.
Sunday:
As mentioned by both me and Sarah, we found a pretty cool "urban ruin" relatively close to our place of residence. Kim and I took an early morning trek out there on Sunday, but her camera battery died as soon as we got there, so this is the extent of the recent photos that were obtained before we turned around:
As mentioned in Joelle's entry about the trip, I was captured on film roaring at the 5 charming Olin ladies that I was with:
The things you'll let people talk you into...
So we went to this "Deep Impact" thing at University of Maryland late Sunday night/early Monday morning. Basically the idea of the NASA mission
was to slam a probe into the comet Temple 1 and see what happens. Mikell got all of us tickets to the "special" impact activities that were happening for the NASA interns at Goddard. Turns out it wasn't so special and due to technology failures and other things we ended up seeing a few (mostly bad) presentations and watching NASA TV on a big projector...the raw and unpretty nature of the images didn't help things. So we left reasonably early and got back home around 2:30/3ish.
Monday:
We managed to crawl out of bed around 2pm on the 4th.
Sarah faithfully recorded a record of the post-flame BBQ (or at least the pictures that occurred in the immediate future). However I feel it is necessary to record the experience myself...So We get up around 2 (in theory when Mikell and Jon are supposed to arrive) and I realize I should probably get moving on this grill thing. (background note: the last time I "used" a charcoal grill it was probably more than 10 years ago and I wasn't really managing the charcoal much at that point) So we were using Matchlight charcoal so I knew that I didn't need to add any lighter fluid, however my lack of intelligence probably was a bad thing nonetheless. So I light the charcoal and decide that some of the pieces are too far from the center, but the flames are currently too prevalent for me to move them with our lack of BBQing equipment. So I hit upon the brilliant idea to temporarily smother the flames with the lid of the grill (whose airslots were open - I'm not a complete moron). Apparently those airslots do basically nothing. So anyhow, I open the lid again a few moments later and as soon as I raise it a little, flames shoot out from all sides nicely singeing my left arm. After some ice-packs (see Sarah's entry for pics) and a bunch of Aloe, the burning sensation was gone and there wasn't even much in the way of a burn on the skin by later that day - of course my hair was definitely noticeably burned and singed, but what're you going to do. Anyhow, I have now learned valuable lessons and will not be so stupid in the future.
Pictures from our time on the Mall:
(Mikell is dancing to silly Numa Numa music in her head - the video on that page is hilarious b)
Joelle's cousin Nathan hung out with us for a couple of the evenings and joined us for the 4th. Here's a pic of him and Joelle:
My verdict on the fireworks? Well I wasn't honestly that impressed. Maybe we weren't close enough (though we were only a few hundred yards from the Washington Monument), but I definitely think that Boston's fireworks the past few years have been more impressive. Guess I know where I'll be next year...
After the fireworks we headed for the Metro...and found a rather large crowd waiting for us.
Joelle and Nathan got swept ahead and we didn't meet up until we got back to the house.
We did some small-scale fireworks action once we got back and then hit the hay. Joelle decided to drive back home that evening and Kim and Simone both had early flights out the next day.
So we ended up with less people than we were planning on, but I'd definitely say the weekend went really well (much better than I was expecting). Almost sufficient to convince me that the days surrounding the 4th are not cursed for me.
Saturday:
So in general we got a pretty late start on Saturday. Joelle arrived in the early afternoon. Kim, Jon, and Mikell wandered the mall for a while on their own though I joined them for (what I thought was) good Spanish food. Then Kim and I met up with Sarah, Simone, Joelle and Joelle's cousin Nathan and did the late-night walk around the monuments thing. Unfortunately the lates were out at the FDR, so it was...a bit disconcerting.
Sunday:
As mentioned by both me and Sarah, we found a pretty cool "urban ruin" relatively close to our place of residence. Kim and I took an early morning trek out there on Sunday, but her camera battery died as soon as we got there, so this is the extent of the recent photos that were obtained before we turned around:
As mentioned in Joelle's entry about the trip, I was captured on film roaring at the 5 charming Olin ladies that I was with:
The things you'll let people talk you into...
So we went to this "Deep Impact" thing at University of Maryland late Sunday night/early Monday morning. Basically the idea of the NASA mission
was to slam a probe into the comet Temple 1 and see what happens. Mikell got all of us tickets to the "special" impact activities that were happening for the NASA interns at Goddard. Turns out it wasn't so special and due to technology failures and other things we ended up seeing a few (mostly bad) presentations and watching NASA TV on a big projector...the raw and unpretty nature of the images didn't help things. So we left reasonably early and got back home around 2:30/3ish.
Monday:
We managed to crawl out of bed around 2pm on the 4th.
Sarah faithfully recorded a record of the post-flame BBQ (or at least the pictures that occurred in the immediate future). However I feel it is necessary to record the experience myself...So We get up around 2 (in theory when Mikell and Jon are supposed to arrive) and I realize I should probably get moving on this grill thing. (background note: the last time I "used" a charcoal grill it was probably more than 10 years ago and I wasn't really managing the charcoal much at that point) So we were using Matchlight charcoal so I knew that I didn't need to add any lighter fluid, however my lack of intelligence probably was a bad thing nonetheless. So I light the charcoal and decide that some of the pieces are too far from the center, but the flames are currently too prevalent for me to move them with our lack of BBQing equipment. So I hit upon the brilliant idea to temporarily smother the flames with the lid of the grill (whose airslots were open - I'm not a complete moron). Apparently those airslots do basically nothing. So anyhow, I open the lid again a few moments later and as soon as I raise it a little, flames shoot out from all sides nicely singeing my left arm. After some ice-packs (see Sarah's entry for pics) and a bunch of Aloe, the burning sensation was gone and there wasn't even much in the way of a burn on the skin by later that day - of course my hair was definitely noticeably burned and singed, but what're you going to do. Anyhow, I have now learned valuable lessons and will not be so stupid in the future.
Pictures from our time on the Mall:
(Mikell is dancing to silly Numa Numa music in her head - the video on that page is hilarious b)
Joelle's cousin Nathan hung out with us for a couple of the evenings and joined us for the 4th. Here's a pic of him and Joelle:
My verdict on the fireworks? Well I wasn't honestly that impressed. Maybe we weren't close enough (though we were only a few hundred yards from the Washington Monument), but I definitely think that Boston's fireworks the past few years have been more impressive. Guess I know where I'll be next year...
After the fireworks we headed for the Metro...and found a rather large crowd waiting for us.
Joelle and Nathan got swept ahead and we didn't meet up until we got back to the house.
We did some small-scale fireworks action once we got back and then hit the hay. Joelle decided to drive back home that evening and Kim and Simone both had early flights out the next day.
So we ended up with less people than we were planning on, but I'd definitely say the weekend went really well (much better than I was expecting). Almost sufficient to convince me that the days surrounding the 4th are not cursed for me.
posted by Will at 9:34 PM
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