The criteria for keeping it has to follow certain guidelines:

• Could it contain private information?
• Does this serve a purpose with the current technology trend?
• Is it working in a state that I would use it on a daily basis?

If any one of these questions were answered ‘yes’, then I kept it. If not… well… it saw the dump.

Here are some interesting things that I found that were thrown away:

1. 2 IBM ThinkPad A20p Laptops
2. 1 IBM ThinkPad R51 Laptop
3. 1 Dell Dimension Laptop
4. 3 Broken Alarm Clocks
5. 1 Motherboard (Abit IT7-Max2) with P4 1.16ghz CPU (No RAM or Heatsink)
6. 2 80mm Case Fans
7. At least 100+ feet worth of Coax cable. (Don’t ask. )
8. EVGA 7600 GTS
9. ASUS v9950 Ultra (I remember I got this right after UVLAN 5)
10. 3.25″ drive cover for current desktop rig (Who uses floppy disks anymore?)
11. 2 Netgear Routers

Things that I did fine, but I need to keep them as they still have a use:

Curry Spring Dance 2005: Jon & Tricia and Lauren & Me

1. Old Sound blaster 4.1 Speaker System (It was still wrapped up in the plastic bags from when I came up from VA. I still only have two speakers from the 7.1 Creative system I got with the new rig.)
2. Police/Fire Scanner
3. Sirius Radio System (Won it was a door prize at the Superbowl Party for Fairfax County Police and Fire)
4. Picture’s from Curry College 2005 Spring Dance
5. My old LG Cell Phone (2 phones ago. Still works!)
6. My old LG Evny Cell Phone (1 phones ago. Still works!)

That’s about it. Everything else that I sorted through between DVDs, papers, and pictures these are just some of the funny things I found I still had. In total I had about 2 large boxes of trash of computer equipment which was a huge portion of the junk in my closet that I traveled with from MA to VA and then back to NY. There were some things that were just so odd and unique though that I couldn’t throw away, but that was to be expected. In any case, later this morning (since this is being posted just after 12) I will be able to pack it all up and bring it back home. I did a quick assessment from looking on how many boxes it will be, and I will just have enough room in my car to bring everything back with my clothes being in there already.

My movie collection, furniture, bed (with sheets), kitchen equipment, and bathroom (with towels) will all that will be left. If I come back to stay here for a night or two I will be sure to have to pack a travel suitcase.

More posts coming soon! I promise!

MSP Airport at 14,000 Feet

Yep. You guessed it. This is the airport. Now if you look at the bigger picture you will see a white building that has the “target” symbol on it in the upper part on the left hand side of the airport grounds. Not sure what type of building it is, however our plane came in from that side landing on that runway going up to down (in this photo) directly inline with the little lake in the upper portion of the airport. When landing I witnessed another plane taking off on the right way running “diagonal” to our runway that is on the left hand (of this photo side) of the runway we landed on.

Best Buy HQ - Battleship Looking Buildings

Best Buy is located directly in the middle of this picture. If you look at the buildings that seem like 4 battleships, that is where I am! The building would be the 2nd from the far right building. Altitude is still close to 14,000 feet because we had just past the airport that would be to the right of Best Buy.

All shot on cell phone (without the phone part on).

After a nice 5am wake up call and a half hour to “get ready” (I put that loosely) I awaited my ride to the airport. My pickup was right on time. He went to building 12 first — woke up them up — called me and asked me where I was. I told him he was off my one apartment and that he should just keep driving down a little ways.

After that we drove to JFK via Highway 27, we found the highway was closed about a quarter miles from the on ramp from where we entered the highway due to a Jeep hitting a bridge. Not a very big deal for us, but the Monday morning commute might have had a hard time in the area though. We got to the Delta terminal an hour later at 6:30am.

6:30am – I checked in my one bag (for $15) last night before I left today so I didn’t have to pay at the gate. They didn’t even weigh my bag. Nice! I went through security, which was very quick since no flights were really taking off at that time. I got the new gate with 2 hours to spare — yes — I was the first one to arrive. I saw a few Best Buy

8:40am – I was in row 23F on the Boeing 757 so that put me in the last zone for boarding. I was not able put my carry on bag above my seat, but I did put it up above row 28 D-E-F seats. this was a problem getting off the plane since everyone wanted to leave and I needed to head back.

10:01am – Wheels up! We climbed super quick to 10,000 feet banking right for a direct route to Salt Lake City. Not much for me to do on the plane. I didn’t want to pay for the WiFi they offered — tempting — to short of a flight for WiFi including I forgot to charge my laptop battery. I forgot my headphones for the small tv that they do provide free live/on air programing. There was even a trivia section in which you can play other seatmates on the plane. I tired this for the last hour. I was bad.

Expect there not to be much WordPress stuff going on while I am skiing except for something that will be coming out while I am in Utah.

That’s about it! Cya all in Utah very soon!

I get the couch. I am not much of a blogger about my travel’s, but if I get my hands on some instant photography from sister’s camera and/or video posts of my skiing and/or just being funny, I’ll post them up here! You can follow my sister’s current “tour” of Park City, Utah on her blog. Check it out!

Update: Not the 25th, but the 22nd. Oops.

I did not do any editing of the pictures, so they are in there original form and size, which is huge. Most of them are 1.5mb to 2mb in size. All of them were taking with my Canon D-60 Camera.

Enjoy!

Day started off like any other where I left via the Metro station to the Smithsonian Metro stop. Got off and walked a 5 minutes to the hotel. This time I took 12th street the entire way instead of having to turn off 14th to D (?) and then back on 12th. After another fabulous breakfast at the hotel (I had Egg Benedict’s, French Toast, and Protein Smoothie) it was off to the International Spy Museum.

Without giving to much away on the “Operation Spy”, I must say I was quite impressed with the operation. Anyone that is coming down to the D.C. area should make this a spot to go. It is really fun. The museum itself was fascinating. It started with modern spying and the trade craft in the years of WWII and even up to 1999. (That was the latest date of information/equipment that I saw or heard about.) Next sections were dedicated to the history of spying with the different projects that happened during WWII. They even had a section on the OSS Celebrity files that had just been declassified this past month. They had a section of Robert Hanson which I found pretty amazing.

The was basically the only thing we did today. We did drive by the FBI building on our way back to the hotel. Then I headed off for the metro station, back to my apartment.

So… lets recap the places we went and the overall grade.

• Mandarin Oriental Hotel – This hotel gets two grades. A- for the location. It was very quiet area of D.C.. Not near the major tourist spots where lots of foot/car traffic went by. The only reason it’s not an A+ is that there are zero shops in the area for food. C+ for the quality of service. At one point while we were in the down time before leaving for the game we wanted to get room service so they didn’t end up eating at the park. (I love eating at parks) Anyway, it took 3 phones calls to the front desk and a walk down the the front desk to have the menu show up and the person who brought it up had the audacity to ask for a tip. *roll eyes*
• “The Mall” – Was a great place, but they really do need to step up with the beautification and restoration. It’s in shambles. D- for the overall, A+ for going on top of the Washington Monument.
• ESPN Zone DC – STAY AWAY! F-
• US Holocaust Museum – Hands down, A+.
• Air and Space Museum – Hands down, A+.
• Yankee v. Baltimore – I was surprised we won since we are not doing good this season. B+ for the game, A+ for the host. Camdum Yards was beautifully maintained.
• Spy Museum – Hands down, A+++.

So overall in the 4 days, B-. D.C. is a great place to visit, but be prepared to spend $$$ as you can not really stay in D.C. for cheaply and there are really no stores. So it’s lots of walking, which is very good.

Our primary museum stop yesterday was the Air and Space museum. We were there for about 3 hours looking at all the exhibits and going to the IMAX theater (which we rescheduled to 3:15pm showing) to see the “To Fly” film. It was really neat to see the history of flight. This museum is the only one that I know of that allows flash photography inside the museum so I took a number of shots of all different types of exhibits. We ended the tour by myself and mom’s boyfriend doing an interactive flight simulation where one person “pilots” the craft and the other shoots it down. This thing can do loops, so it was really fun. We shot down 7 simulated aircraft and I only made us do a full circle only twice.

After we left, we went back to the hotel to get ready for the big event for the evening. We had baseball tickets to the Baltimore vs. New York Yankees game in Baltimore. We got seats in Field Level, Section 46, Row QQ, and Seats 4 through 6. For the first part of the game it was warm, but my the time the game ended it was very chilly, but not cold. I had dinner at the stadium: Two Bratwurst Dogs with Onions and a Soda. I thought the Yankees were going to loose, but in the end the Yankees won, 5 to 3 over the Birds. I got a bunch of pictures of the players. If I would have known that the stadium allows telephoto zoom lens, I would have bought mine, but we were pretty close to the players it didn’t really matter.

And that was that entire day. Today (or this morning) we head to the last bit of activity doing only one stop: The International Spy Museum. There is no photography allowed, so I won’t be taking any more pictures for this day.

After taking the metro from West Falls Church Metro Station to Smithsonian Metro Station. Easy ride. Took along some nice clothes for dinner and my laptop to plug into the net when we spend out downtime in the hotel which we only did once, but it me to keep check of things going on.

Arriving at the hotel we then headed to the hotel restaurant to have breakfast/lunch. I had a protein shake and french toast with bacon. Very good, if I do say so myself. After an extended breakfast/lunch we then started our busy day.

First stop: The US Holocaust Museum. This was my 4^th trip to the museum, my mom’s 2^nd, and her boyfriend’s first visit. With the tourist season we were able to go through the exhibits without having to miss or rush through to get away from the crowds. We spent about 2 hours, 20 minutes going through the permanent exhibit and spent a quick 10-15 minutes going through a secondary exhibit called Daniel’s Story, which is the same thing as the permanent exhibit, but at a elementary school level.

We then headed to the Ronald Regan building to have a bite to eat in the largest food court I ever seen in Washington D.C.. I got a turkey, cheese, and lettuce on wheat bread sandwich. After that, it was time to start walking to memorials and buildings. Below are some flowers that were along our route to the building.

Our first stop was the White House, South Lawn. After a moment of taking pictures, we headed for the main point of this day’s trip, which was the Vietniam Memorial. Just a quick hop, skip, and jump away we headed to go see Honest Abe. We even got some good shots of the Washington Monument reflecting in the water. Our next stop was the FDR memorial. Mom’s legs ere getting tired so we took a quick cab ride there. At the memorial, we ran into an old friend — the Park Ranger that we meet from our trip up the Washington Monument. He was giving a school summer camp group from the Falls Church area a tour of the sites and we just happen to run into the tour at the same time. We basically stayed pace with the group for a few stops during the FDR memorial and then we took off for the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. On our way we took a slight detour to the George Mason statue.

At the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, there was a fund raiser going on put on by the American Cancer Society. People were giving their stories on the microphone. You could donate $5 to get a bag with candle that you put your loved ones on. My mom being a survivor of breast cancer, we got a bag free of charge and got two bags and put all our friends from our home town on NY who have died or have cancer. Once we were done filling the two bags with names, we put the bags next to the river. Heading up to the Jefferson Memorial we we took some pictures and once again ran into the Park Ranger. During sunset we watched them light the bags on the river. I got this really neat shot of all the bags lined up and lite. After that we headed for the hotel to take showers, and then have dinner.

I figured we walked a good 4 miles including walking inside the holocaust museum and again the weather was perfect. Day 2 wrapped up! Today (Saturday) we are heading to the Air and Space Museum for an IMAX showing and the surrounding museums before we head up to a Baltimore vs. Yankees game in Baltimore. We got tickets right behind the Yankee dugout near the on-deck circle. I realized when I got back tonight that I can not park at the metro station since it will be close to 3am when we get back to D.C. So I’ll be taking a taxi in the morning to D.C. to meet up with my mom.

We did some shopping in the “morning” (11am-ish to about 2pm). Had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen. After a light lunch, we went go get my hair cut. My mom can not stand my hair long at all. Even though I think it is very short. After meeting up with mom’s boyfriend in the mall, we headed back to my place to drop off my car (which was stupid since we should have left it at the subway station) and headed to their hotel, the Mandarin Oriental.

This being my first time in this hotel I was very impressed with it’s beauty. We had a very small snack in the very exclusive Tai Pan Club. After they both changed into walking around cloths, we ventured outside, waking to our primary event of the day, the Washington Monument.

Now, my mom’s boyfriend, has not been to D.C. for a very long time so we plan on doing lots of memorial touring. It will be nice nice weather and combine that with not that many tourists it’s going to be a great way to view the sights.

WWII Memorial

We had tickets to go up the Monument for the 7:30, so we had about an hour to kill. We first headed to visit the WWII memorial on the mall, between the Monument and Abraham Lincoln memorial. This being my second time seeing the memorial it was less crowded the first time I went in last year. I got some shots of the memorial itself and mom and her boyfriend. We relaxed there for about 30 minutes. It was very cool there with the water flowing out of the main pool of the memorial. We then took a stroll to the Monument through the mall stopping along the way to watch some of the softball and kickball games along the way. We even stopped by a tree and took some pictures with the Monument behind us.

We got the Washington Monument just in time for our time to enter. The US Park Ranger who was on duty today was very funny as we waited to go through security. After that, a quick ride up 500 feet, we were up the top taking in the sights. For the sun was going to set around 8pm, we had some good shots of the 4 directions during this phase. I got great shots of the Sun, honest Abe, Jefferson, National Airport, US Capital, and the White House. I got some of the shots of my favorite buildings as well. I will be sure to point those out as well! One thing we noticed is that with the money being directed towards the war effort, the budget to keep the grounds beautiful was non-exist and the Washington Mall was in complete disgust. I realized that they were not watering the grass (except around the White House), but I didn’t know really how bad it was until I got to the top of the Monument and looked around. Decided for yourself when I post the pictures up. I posted up some pictures of the view from atop. After watching the sun completely set, we headed down and we got even some more great shots of the sunset skyline.

After that we hailed a cab that was nearby and headed for ESPN Zone in Washington D.C. to watch some of the Olympics and baseball games. Now I been to ESPN Zone with a few friends in New York City, and if the staff of this ESPN Zone was part of the NYC restaurant, the ESPN Zone would go out of business. The waitress we had was just bad. She never attended us when our drinks were low and the chicken in our food was crap. After that we headed down to play some arcade games. The games were fun, but they were so outdated compared to the ones in NYC that it was like boring. The best game was the Daytona 500 VR racer and maybe table hockey. If you are planing on visiting this ESPN Zone — avoid it like the plauge!

And that was it. Took a taxi from their hotel back to my apartment in Virgina. It was a good day. Tommorrow we go back out and I plan on having another day of fun!