Ice Hockey Game: Capitals vs Thrashers

My parents are in town visiting from the UK, and to show them some excitement in DC, we took them to see an Ice Hockey game in the Verizon Centre last week.

The game was my first live ice hockey game; although Sarah used to go when she was younger to see the (now-not-a-team-any-more-although-we-don't-say-this-very-loud-around-Sarah) Hartford Whalers. The Stadium slowly filled up for the pre-game:

Once the game started, it really got busy - a sell out game. The action was frantic and great fun. Although the Caps started off behind (and suffered from a disallowed goal), they came back and eventually were in the lead....

At this point, even my parent's were getting excited.

However, the Thrasher's scored with less than 30 seconds on the clock. It was only a goal in overtime that gave the Caps the win. A very good first game to go to.

Finally, a picture of my parents on the mall in front of the National Monument:

More pictures of the visit soon.

New Game: Carcassone

Sarah and I played Carcassone, a medieval town board game, and Sarah won by a nose due to my over deployment of farms!

Connecticut Photos

Last weekend, we were in Connecticut in one of the first weekends of Fall (Autumn). Here is our car by a beautiful church near Sarah's parents. We parked here to have breakfast last weekend.

We also went to see some of the leaves (although we were early this year). To get a good view, we went Apple picking at a local orchard. Here's a view from the orchard, on top of a hill. It also shows the proliferation of pumpkins, which are having a very good year this year.

Here is me with our haul of apples:

This weekend has been quieter. We went to the Gaithersburg Oktoberfest (which was more child-orientated and less Beer-orientated than the one in Munich, I feel). We also did some house-hunting stuff; and took a walk around some nearby lakes in the area we are looking:

Driving to Connecticut

Drove to Connecticut yesterday too see Sarah's parents. 400+ miles, took 8 hours, one if which was having dinner! America is a beautiful country to drive through, wonderful scenery on the way.

Here is a pic of me at a Roadside Friendly's diner:



More pics of CT soon. We might be a little early for the really good Fall leaves....

National Book Festival

This weekend, Sarah and I headed into DC for the 10th National Book Festival. The event had tents up on the National Mall, full of room for Authors to give talks and book stands.

The views of the Mall on a hot (very hot for Sept) day were spectacular:






The event was crammed with people, and the heat was a little overwhelming, especially as we weren't expecting it! It was great to see so many people turn up, and there were some great kids events. A really good thing, I feel.

One issue I had was the line up of authors and books was too high-brow. There were no Sci-Fi authors for me :( or even any less literary popular writers (like John Grisham, or Steven King). My feeling is, to encourage reading by everyone, a broader range of books should have been represented. Reading anything is a good thing, be it comic books, pulp sci fi, lady and the vamp romances, mystery, travel books, cult fiction, thrillers, crime, history, self help, etc etc.

It was a fun day still, and good to see so many people! Sarah went to get a book signed and we headed home....

Revenge of the Penguins 10 mile Run

Yesterday, I ran the Revenge of the Penguins 10 mile run along the C&O canal.

It was a beautiful day for it, and I coerced Sarah into getting up early to head down to the race...Here is a pic of me, pre-run, enjoying the early morning sun:







The run itself was along the canal, turning twice. It was a good, flat run and a beautiful cool day for it. I managed a 8.5 min mile pace, and finished under 1.30 hours. The race was a little longer than 10 miles a number of runners noted, and am proud of my time. My iPhone has a record of the run below:






Today, ached a bit. Need to rest for another day or so I feel!

PS race results available at http://mc-coop.org/results/20100918a.html

Our New Painting

Here's a picture of our new painting we bought over the weekend at the DC art fair:



The painting is a 3D type picture of row houses, like the ones we have around our Neighourhood. Slowly we're filling our walls up!