I finally put my Portland pictures up. You can see my adventures driving along the Pacific coast, hiking around waterfalls, and visiting the Rose and Japanese Gardens.

Friday night, I saw Carbon Leaf and Great Big Sea at Wolf Trap with ell. We had a great time despite the rain because we had actual seats inside. Both bands put on really good shows. Carbon Leaf's bassist was especially entertaining when he played his stand up bass because the body of the bass came up almost to his collar bone. He is very tiny. Great Big Sea had guitar/bass/mandolin/bohdran changes after almost every song. They know how to put on a very entertaining show. They did get sidetracked a few times with an ongoing discussion about whether or not the lead singer was Santa Claus which usually segued into part of a Christmas song. I did not expect to be swaying to "Do They Know It's Christmas Time?" while attending a Celtic rock concert, but it was totally hilarious. I would definitely go see them in concert again.

Saturday, I got to sit field side for the DC United match against the LA Galaxy and David Beckham. It was a good game, but we only managed a tie. David Beckham was very nice to look at and has many intriguing tattoos.

Last weekend I wasn't going to do anything but sleep. This plan was shot to hell when I found out that the Kennedy Center had an open house Saturday. Free mini-shows! Jim came with me. We saw the National Symphony Orchestra and Blue Sky 5, a swing band, before Jim left to watch football. Then I saw the Suzanne Ferrell Ballet company, the US Navy Country Singers, and Ben Kweller. The ballet company did excerpts from their upcoming November performance. They were very good, but I could tell the real performance wasn't for a while. They still had some timing issues to work out. I do think I want to see the show. Apparently this Ben Kweller guy has a following already. There were kids with his concert t-shirts. Many people in the audience were singing along with his songs, and I heard several people mention how amazing it was that they got to see him for free. I'd never heard of him. He was listed as an indie rock/alt country act. He sang one country song in the whole set. It was good, but I wouldn't classify him as a country artist. I liked enough of his songs to buy one of his cds off iTunes. He's a bit weak lyrically on some of his songs, but I like all the music. He seems pretty talented and really dorky. He wrote all the songs himself, and he plays guitar, piano, and harmonica. After the concert I went home and caught the end of Notre Dame's loss to Penn State. Yay. Then I watched LSU's crushing defeat of Virginia Tech. Big YAY.

Sunday bakanaonna and I finally saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I enjoyed it. The cast got exponentially hotter. It was a bit jarring to see Daniel Radcliffe looking ~21 when his character's 15, but I got over it. Imelda Staunton did an amazing job playing Umbridge. I do question the sudden multicultural explosion at Hogwarts. Where did all these non-white kids come from? Did they simultaneously transfer in a quarter of the student body from other schools?

Last night I went to the DC United - Real Salt Lake match with Stewart. United won, but they didn't play as well as they should have. It didn't help that the ref was calling everything on United and nothing on Salt Lake. 6 yellow cards were issued. Three of United's best players will have to sit out the next game because they have too many yellows. Boo. Luckily DC's already secured a spot in the playoffs, so a loss won't hurt them too badly.

This weekend I'm planning on going to Mt. Vernon for their craft fair. There will also be demonstrations of some period handwork. Brooke is definitely not going as she developed a childhood aversion to craft fairs. I'll probably go by myself early Saturday to avoid more of the crowd. I get in for free since I got an annual pass last time I went. Unfortunately there are no football games of great interest to me this weekend. I might watch the Michigan-Notre Dame suckfest, but I won't be upset if I miss it.

In other awesome news, I'm going to visit my friend Jenn over Columbus Day weekend. Woot! I'll get to see her new apartment and hang out in Raleigh, NC. I've only been to Raleigh for about a day to visit NC State to see if I wanted to go to grad school there, so I really have no idea what the city looks like.

Also I put all my Labor Day weekend pictures up on my flickr gallery. I finally finished captioning all my Florence pics and uploaded all my World Cup ones. Next step is to caption the 400+ World Cup photos.

Apparently Stewart, my gay commuter buddy, is actually my straight commuter buddy. Despite what he says, I still think he's gay due to his mannerisms and the way he talks about women vs. the way he talks about men. However, I will respect his beliefs and not argue with him or try to convert him to the gayness.

Thursday I did get a haircut. It ended up being shorter than I wanted, but that just means I can go longer without getting my hair cut again. I think it's ok now, but it will be really cute in a couple of weeks.

Friday's Work Happy Hour was fun. I ended up getting more drunk than I had intended because Jimmy, a coworker from Louisiana and a friend of my dad, decided he owed me a drink after I had decided to stop drinking. That just meant I was kinda drunk (instead of only a little drunk) when I met Jim for dinner. We went and got ice cream at Coldstone after. I wish they had a size smaller than their small or that their small was smaller. It's just too much ice cream some times. Afterward we went back to the apartment and watched several episodes of Animaniacs with bakanaonna. I bought the first volume of Animaniacs a few weeks ago and will probably buy the next volume in August so as to spread out the joy.

Saturday a group of us went to Transformers. It was completely awesome. Robots turn into things, and shit blows up. You should totally go see it. That evening Stewart and I went to the DC United vs FC Dallas match. They tied 3-3. I seem to attend the high scoring matches. It was fun, but it would have been nice if we'd won.

Also, bakanaonna got a job! She already had her first day of work today. Yay for her!

In an unexpected bout of motivation, I actually made an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow. I'm thinking about cutting off 3-4 inches and adding more layers. Your thoughts?

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Friday there is a Happy Hour for work. The reasons: it's Friday the 13th, June Area Survey is over, it's someone's 40th birthday, it's someone else's mumblemuble-th birthday, it's Friday. Since I worked on the June Area Survey, and I'm in favor of Friday the 13th, I'm probably going to go to this one. Saturday afternoon, I'm going to see Transformers with Jim, Brooke, and some people from work. Saturday evening, I'm going to another DC United game with Stewart. Sunday I plan to sleep a lot to recover from the rest of the weekend.

Feel free to tell me about your exciting plans for the weekend in the comments.

Thursday after work, I went to the DC United match with Stewart. Pictures here. He has VIP season tickets which come with awesome perks. Special parking lot right next to the stadium entrance, dinner buffet before the match, free posters, seats on the field, free snacks and drinks during the match, reserved seats in a covered section of the stadium in the event of rain, visits from Talon the mascot, feeling so much cooler than anyone seated in the stands, etc. I also got a free t-shirt from the guys who were tossing them to the crowd. There was a lightening delay for a while, but it wasn't too bad. DC United beat Colorado 4-1. They had a slow first half, but they really improved the second half. When I got home, I was tired but really jittery from the caffeine I consumed at the game. This lead to a rather poor night's sleep.

Friday I went to the Farmers' Market again and got more corn and some new potatoes. Brooke and I will make inroads on them later today. After work I met with Jim for dinner at this really good pizza place in Chinatown. We didn't hang out after dinner because I was really tired. I went to sleep at 7 and woke up at 7 Saturday morning.

I spent a very soothing hour watching a rerun of "The Joy of Painting" with Bob Ross Saturday morning. He has such a calming voice and always paints in very muted colors. Later I did my part of apartment cleaning and played on the internet a lot. Saturday evening was Video Games Live with bakanaonna. Pictures here. ( Cut for length ) If you ever have the chance to see Video Games Live, I highly recommend you go.