Fun in the Sun

Today [so I totally forgot to post this Saturday; this is what we did on 27 June] was a busy, fun, warm, fun, humid, fun, clandestine, -- and did I say, fun? -- day.

To start off the morning, I spent about an hour helping load a truck at someone's move.

After that (and a quick shower), Jill and I drove into the city to meet some friends for some counter-terrorism (CT) activities.

We completed an outdoor, interactive, GPS-guided, IR-enhanced, and location-aware mission that is part of the Spy Museum's "Spy in the City" program.

We walked around part of the District, saw some memorials/sites we hadn't gone by before (Navy Memorial, Newseum, fountains by the Federal Trade Commission buillding, Ford's Theater, etc.), got messages from our Special Security Division (SSD) "handlers," and foiled a mock attempt to set off an electromagnetic device in the District. We "used" optical scanners, chemical signature detectors, radio receivers, and other "spy gear" to crack cyphers, identify the bad guys, and disarm the "bomb".

Needless to say, we had a blast.

Then, we walked over to the Safeway BBQ Battle that was going on, taking up several blocks of Pennsylvania Ave. Our friend, Clint, with whom we've had other adventures (Tacqueria Poblano), got our entrance tickets, and we wandered around with him and his friend, Megan (a very nice Georgetown law student).

We tried to rope the steer to win a prize, but they were cheating and trying to make us do it with a heeling rope. We took pictures with 3-foot long, plastic Oscar Meyer Weiner dogs in front of the Weinermobile. We sampled Italian ice, different juices (one was like an orange creamsicle in a bottle!), watermelon (served by the Misses Alabama and South Carolina Watermelon Princess), bbq chicken and pork, and steak -- all while standing in the huge, long line for the Safeway tasting booth, which had chicken, brats, hamburger, chips and salsa, juice, pineapple, this spicy tomato drink, and more.

Unfortunately, the sample line took so long--and we had parked in metered parking--that we had to run as soon as we got our fill.

In any event- we had a great day!
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TV Lies

I was watching the first season of Veronica Mars with Jill this past week or so, and there was a scene where Veronica and her mother were making dinner. In the scene, they were chopping onions with metal spoons in their mouths - a comment was made that it kept the tears away.




Jill is making me tacos (yum!) tonight for Husband's Day, and decided to try out this tear-less onion trick.

Partway through the chopping, I hear a muted groan and then some words (spoken around the spoon still in her mouth), "It doesn't work...". Bummer.

[[Aside: She wanted me to point out here that she doesn't try things from Burn Notice, another show we watch. I, on the other hand, have watched some of the "Ask a Spy" tutorials and thought, "Hmmmmm....".]]

I guess we really should see if the onion goggles are up to the challenge.







And this was just random - found it when I searched for tacos:

Awesome.

The Orange Monster?

One of my Twitter peeps shared this link to an article about a NC student who stole a few of those orange traffic barrels, cut them up, and made this "sculpture" on the side of the road:
Cool, but probably a little dumb. The police didn't think it was so cool, and they arrested him. Supporters are clamoring for the charges to be dropped. I must say, that's a far better sight to see than what some hackers have done to the road signs on local Virginia roads...

Memorial Day 2009

better late than never...
We watched the National Memorial Day parade from our perch on the corner of 17th St NW and Constitution Avenue.
Here are some photos from the camera:


I'll update this page with photos from my Twitter-stream.

Too Much Excitement in our town

Stopped by a local drug store (which shall remain unnamed) on the way home from work today. Jill ran in to get some missing ingredients for a dinner she had planned, and I (lazily) stayed in the car to wait and play on my Blackberry.

I looked out the window and saw an SUV sitting in a parking space behind us (about 30 feet away) in the parking lot, and then a marked XXXX county police car with lights flashing. The officer got out of the car, gun drawn, and moved swiftly towards the driver's sided door of the SUV. I was a little shocked--and tried to figure out what I was seeing. I noticed an Altima-looking car parked between the police car and the SUV at a strange angle. The officer was yelling--gun still drawn--and someone was trying to get out of the SUV. While this was happening, another Altima-type 4-door vehicle pulled up on the far side of the SUV. (So the layout was squad car, 4-door #1, SUV, 4-door #2.)

Two (?) guys in plain clothes jumped out of the second sedan and I thought to myself, "Great - this guy in the SUV has friends nearby, and they're going to go jump the police officer while he's trying to get the driver out of the SUV." They started moving towards the SUV, and even cautiously opened the SUV's tailgate a crack. I lost sight of the uniformed officer while I was watching these other men converge on the scene - but saw him again walking an individual towards the squad car, while the other men were poking around the SUV.

In the meantime, I headed into the drug store to see where Jill was - making sure she wasn't going to walk out into some gunfight or something. She was almost next in line, we checked out, then I led us back out of the store, looking to see what was happening outside. I explained briefly that something was going down and we should get out of there.

I tried to snap this picture as we quickly walked back to the car, but the other vehicle got in the way:

(click to enlarge)

We got in the car and started driving out the other side of the parking lot. The view on the drive out looked something like this:


It turns out those guys who unloaded from the sedans were plainclothes officers. Jill thought she saw one of the officers flipping through/counting a stack of money that likely was confiscated from the suspect(s).

It must have been a planned sting or something, because the unmarked sedans were right there - and, thinking back, pulled up pretty nicely to block of the chance for the SUV to drive away if it tried to do so after the uniformed officer left his car. I have no idea how they got into the parking lot - I don't remember a siren, so it's probably not likely the SUV was pulled over for a moving violation and pulled into the parking lot (right off a main street).

Anyway - from the little that I caught (and the rest I deduced) - it looked like the bust went pretty smoothly, although test.