It snowed like 8 inches last night. It's not supposed to get out of the teens today.

Here's a quick shot of the backyard.

This weekend we joined Lynn, Jeff and family for their wedding in Washington, DC. Thanks, Lynn, Jeff, Dot, Tom and Jessica for including us! Here's a slew of pics from the wedding, youtube video coming soon.

Last weekend John, Devon and Madeline came to town. Here are a few pics from their visit.

I don't play the guitar. I'd really like to learn. Maybe the banjo, though. Anyhow, when I do learn, I want to play the following songs:

1. This Land is Your Land -- Woodie Guthrie
2. Creep -- Radiohead
3. Creep -- Stone Temple Pilots
4. Jaime -- Weezer
5. No Scrubs -- TLC
6. Deportees -- Woodie Guthrie
7. The Leaving of Liverpool -- Traditional
8. Whiskey in a Jar -- Traditional
9. Stop the Train -- Bob Marley/Peter Tosh
10. Hotel Song -- Josh Ritter

This wekeend I finished the Tour de Pee Vee (Prescott Valley, AZ) 112th out of 112 runners.

Here are the results.

I say I'm proud to have finished last because my sister LAURA finished 111th, just ahead of me, to complete her first half marathon in 2:41:06. She has now joined the elite group of Genuardi runners ever to finish a race at such a distance. Way to go, Laura!!!

This letter was submitted online to Comcast after a quite frustrating experience trying to pay my bill online with their NEW online bill pay tool.

Dear Comcast - This has to be the worst online account management service I have ever used. I tried enrolling in automatic withdrawl last month. Then I get an email that my bill is ready to be paid. I try to log on to pay it and it won't display the bill anywhere. THEN I get a call that my payment's late!!!

The best - and I mean the BEST - effing part is that I tried to log on this morning to access the bill and pay it and I see comcast has rolled out a pretty, new UI for account management...and it's completely unusable.

Hey folks, we made it to Colorado safe and sound. We've been here a few weeks (maybe a month?) and are absolutely loving it. We've managed to hike a bunch of mountains, observe some extraordinary wildlife, and find a house to buy.

Anyhow, here are a few pics from the first few weeks out here. Talk to y'all soon.

The Boulder Cafe

A Fountain for Kids (and BIG Kids) on the Mall

After six years and change, I'm leaving the District of Columbia.

The things I'll miss in priority order are:

1. My closest pals
2. St. Aloysius Church
3. Tryst Coffee House
4. Rock Creek Park
5. Lucky Bar Wings
6. Eastern Market Lunch Counter

This weekend we're hitting the road and headed out to new pastures in Colorado. I'll post more as we make our way across the country.

Where else on Earth could you have the experience I had this past Saturday? Nowhere but inside the beltway, in my front yard.

So this weekend the annual White House Press Corps Dinner was hosted at the Washington Hilton. The president made some remarks and then Stephen Colbert delivered a terrific, satirical address that lampooned (no, there is no better word for this) the administration's positions and statements by suggesting that he was in passionate agreement with them. I have to hand it to the guy, he did a terrific job. After the party, 500 A-listers (out of the 3,400 people in attendance) mosied on up to the after party right next to my apartment for merriment, dancing, and gift bags.

This week on Weekend Edition Saturday, I heard a solid interview with New Yorker staff writer, Malcolm Gladwell. As summarized by the NPR site:

New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell tells Scott Simon the homeless problem could be solved -- with a net savings of public funds -- if assistance were provided to a small number of permanently homeless people.

Gladwell makes the case in this interview and a recent article that a very small number of the chronically homeless folks cost a disproportionate amount of public health resources. So we currently pay tons of money for Chronically-Homelesss-Joe with his alcohol addiction and mental illness who falls down three times a year drunk, gets complicated pneumonia and needs to go to the hospital never multiple times...never to pay his bill of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Gladwell suggests that we could avoid having to pay for this recurring emergency room cost if we would just proactively invest in Chronically-Homelesss-Joe by paying for supportive housing and personal assistance to ensure he's got his meds straight, addiction in check, and a place to sleep. We're going to pay something as a result of Joe's circumstance - why not just pay the lesser of the two bills?