Day 87/365 - At the DC Neujahrskonzert

The Neujahrskonzert, or New Year's Concert, is a traditional Viennese performance of the music of the Strauss family and other Austrian composers held annually on January first. DC's version of this tradition is part of a series of coordinated concerts across North America called Salute to Vienna and it's held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts a few days after New Year's. This year it was held tonight and I went.

I'd never been to this before, but I'd been wanting to for a while. It's not just a classical music concert, it's a sort of performing arts sampler platter. In addition to the philharmonic part (btw, if your last name is Harmonic then I think you should be required to name your child either Phillip or Phyllis), there are arias from Austrian operettas and excerpts from ballets. The Kennedy Center used to stage a similar 'survey class' each year as part of the Kirov Festival, but they haven't done that the last few years. Bummer.

Tonight's performance was held in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall and featured the Strauss Symphony of America, ebullient guest conductor Sascha Gotzel, the Budapest Ballet, and a pair of ballroom dancers. As you can see from the photo, my seat was in one of the stage boxes. I'd never sat up here before but it's very cool and I'm definitely going to keep this in mind the next time I attend something at the Concert Hall. It's kind of like a home plate seat at a baseball game, minus the annoying netting. You're right on top of the orchestra and you can't see much of the rest of the crowd, so it's like they're performing just for you. Plus from that vantage point you can really see musicians' technique and the conductor's facial expressions (*cough* not to mention having a great view of the soprano's cleavage and the dancers' legs *cough*).

I really enjoyed this concert. It was light and joyous and lively and it had a great mix of performance pieces. The part where the conductor conducts the audience's applause during the 'Blue Danube' encore might seem a bit cheesy or contrived, but it's actually quite fun. The New Year's Concert/Salute to Vienna is certainly worth keeping in mind when next January rolls around, especially if you can luck into getting a seat in Box 60 like I did. Then it's just pure awesomeness.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 86/365 - Break Out

I think my 365 Project has been good for me in a couple of ways. First, it's gotten me to play around with my cameras and try some experimental shots that I might not have considered otherwise. Second, it's motivated me to 'get up, get out and do something' on days when I might otherwise have just been content to stay at home. Like today, for instance.

After getting sucked into the 'Bones' marathon yesterday, I nearly got trapped by the 'I Love Lucy' marathon today. I swear, sometimes I think couches were invented by television manufacturers, broadcasters, and snack food companies in order to snare us into consuming more of their products. Or maybe that's just me. I didn't want to shoot another photo of something laying around my apartment today, though, so I decided to go hit a museum and grab some grub. I did stick around on the couch long enough to laugh myself silly at the 'Vitameatavegamin' episode of Lucy, though. That one is one of my all-time faves.

I was debating between checking out either the Newseum or the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, and I finally decided to go with the cops and robbers. I love old gangster and g-man movies. That was one of the reasons I rented a tommy gun when my brother and I went to a shooting range in Las Vegas last winter. Man, those things are heavy.

It costs $19 to go to the C&P Museum. I think $13-14 would be a more appropriate entry fee, but the place was pretty full so I'm guessing they aren't feeling any pressure to cut their rates. The museum was pretty interesting. It covers the history and tools of crime and punishment from medieval torture implements up to modern computer crime. A lot of the museum's display objects are replicas, but they do also have some nice original artifacts, such as guns used by various members of the James Gang, the State of Tennessee's former electric chair Old Smokey (creepy, btw), and one of John Dillinger's getaway cars.

That's it above, a 1933 Essex Terraplane. It's weird how you used to be able to open up the windshield in order to get a breeze while you drove. I remember once watching a documentary on Depression-era bandits that explained why they were almost always able to outrun pursuing lawmen -- they spent their ill-gotten gains on high-power, high-performance automobiles like this one and most local police departments made do with rattletrap old beaters. Ford Motor Co. even took advantage of Dillinger's use of their vehicles as a sales pitch by stating that the police would only catch him once he stopped driving their V-8s. Maybe they were right, because this Terraplane is one of the last cars he drove.

It's a bit odd that I broke out of the soft prison of my apartment just to go and browse a museum dealing with the penal system, but it wasn't a bad day out. Plus it gave me a chance to swing by Matchbox for a late lunch/early dinner. Yum! That's definitely not prison food.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 85/365 - Brand New Year, Same Old Me

The new year got off to a very lazy start in my kingdom of one. I spent the entire day on the couch watching tv and taking naps, plural. Ahh, it's good to be the king.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 84/365 - New Year's Wii

I've never really liked big parties or crowds of strangers, so my New Year's Eve celebrations tend to just involve hanging out with family or close friends. Last year my friends Chris, Desiree and I ordered Thai food, played Yahtzee, listened to music, and watched the ball drop on tv. This year, we played Lego Batman on their Wii, Des made some yummy Venezuelan food for us, and we watched the ball drop on tv.

It bears little resemblance to the definition of "New Year's Eve fun" as put forth by movies and television, but I love it. Why spend the passing of the old year and the arrival of the new with a bunch of random strangers in a ballroom somewhere when you can be in a cozy living room with people you care about and who care about you? That's the way to start the new year off right.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 83/365 - Next to Normal

Next to Normal is a musical with a bit of a convoluted development history. It opened in New York off-Broadway to reviews that were generally positive, albeit with some reservations. It was because of those reservations that the play migrated south for the winter to be retooled and restaged. It's currently being produced by Arena Stage at the Crystal City performance space that was pressed into service to tide them over until renovations are completed on their home theatre on DC's Southwest Waterfront.

I went to see it tonight even though I had misgivings about going. The play is about a dysfunctional family dealing with mental illness, so unlike most fare offered by theatres around the holidays, it's not exactly cheery and uplifting. Generally I'm opposed to paying to be depressed for two hours, but the reviews of the reworked show have been uniformly glowing and Ticketplace had half-price seats available and the theatre is literally a block from my apartment. So, I went.

As far as musicals about mental illness go, I think it's about as good as you're going to get. I don't know whether I could recommend it or not, but it definitely wasn't a waste of time or money. Despite the fact that I was predisposed to not liking it, I found the story very poignant, gripping, and compelling. The songs were serviceable but, with the exception of one that's refrain was 'I Miss the Mountains,' largely unremarkable (judging by the program none of the songs appear to have actual titles, which should be a tip-off as to how memorable they are). The performers were strong actors, but middling singers with thin, easily frayed voices. The orchestra was quite good. Arena's Crystal City performance space isn't terrible, but given that the seating area is pitched at a very shallow angle and the stage is rather low, you spend a good portion of the play watching the back of the person's head in front of you rather than the actors.

So, much like the critics who reviewed the play's first run in New York (who, unlike me, actually know what the hell they're talking about), I'd have to say that Next to Normal is good, with some reservations.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 82/365 - Tourorists

Tourorist (toor-or-ist) noun - a particularly annoying tourist.

It was fairly warm out again today and given that hardly anyone was in the office (and especially given that I really didn't feel like doing any work), I went for a walk on the National Mall. Normally when I do that I just do a loop from the American Indian Museum down to the American History Museum. Today though I went all the way down to the Lincoln Memorial and back. Yep, not a whole lot of work got done today. Well, not by me anyhow.

There were loads of tourists out on the Mall. For the most part the tourists that come to Washington aren't too bad. Generally I only find them annoying when they're getting in the way -- such as when they stand on the left of the Metro escalators or when they come to a sudden stop at the top/bottom of escalator in order to get their bearings, meanwhile the escalator keeps moving and people start piling up behind them. I really hate that. That and when they let their obstreperous offspring treat the poles inside the Metro cars like jungle gyms.

I frequently wonder if the locals find me annoying when I go somewhere on a trip. I try to remember to avoid doing the sorts of things that would aggravate me, but I'm sure I slip sometimes and cause them to shake their heads and mutter under their breath about me like I do about our tourists.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo(s) - Special Guest Host

The subject of this week's photo from my archives is Chewie, my friends' miniature Australian shepherd, as he looked last February at their Super Bowl party. And, as a special added bonus for this week's Twice on Sunday feature, we have a photo journal chronicling a day in the life of my friend Desiree -- Chewie's 'mom' and a lawyer turned professional dog walker. Take it away, Des!

"A Day in the Life of Desiree" Slideshow

(P.S. -- If you still haven't gotten your fill of doggie cuteness, the The Littlest Wookie link on the sidebar will take you to Chewie's blog)

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 81/365 - Endangered Species

It's December 28th.

It's 70 degrees.

I'm wearing shorts.

I'll enjoy spring weather when it's actually spring. Right now, I want winter back.

Global warming sucks.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 80/365 - Arty Smarty

The Phillips Collection is by far my favorite art museum in DC. It's one of the few museums or galleries I've been to that has it's own palpable personality, which probably comes from the fact that it's largely just one really rich guy's personal art collection that he turned into a museum. Plus it's housed in his former home (and the townhomes of his former neighbors). As the collection expanded, they bought the adjacent buildings, connected them all, and turned it into one really cool art salon. The Phillips Collection pre-dates both the National Gallery of Art in DC and the MOMA in NYC and focuses on the field of Modern Art as that term has varyingly been defined since the late 1800s.

The Phillips' most famous objet d'art is Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party, which now always makes me think of the movie 'Amelie.' My favorite works in the Phillips Collection though are Matisse's Studio, Quai St. Michel and Marjorie Phillips' Night Baseball. The Phillips has also hosted my favorite exhibit since I've been in DC, namely the Modigliani retrospective they did a few years back (although I also really like the National Gallery of Art's Edward Hopper exhibit and the Corcoran Gallery of Art's Modernism show).

So anyway, the reason the photo above is of me in front of a sign for the Phillips Collection is that I went there today. I'm a member now so I get in for free (well, not counting the membership dues that is). I really love going to art museums. It's always one of the factors I take into account when planning a vacation. Going to an art museum or gallery gives me a similar feeling to sitting beside the sea -- both settings provide me with a sense of peace, grace, majesty, mystery, and the presence of something bigger than myself. Plus contemplating art is a bit like Pop Rocks for the soul -- it wakes you up and lets you know there is more to life than just an endless string of mental factory-work.

My taste in art has certainly changed over time. Initially I didn't have any appreciation or understanding of art that was even remotely abstract. If it didn't look like it was supposed to look then I didn't like it. As I've gotten older though I've begun to appreciate art that doesn't just look like a form of photograph. I suppose it has something to do with coming to realize that few things are as they seem to be and that much of life is ambiguous and unclear. Despite that, though, I still really like 'calendar' artists such as Gustav Klimt and Norman Rockwell. I guess a bit of reassurance is always a welcome thing.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 79/365 - Jour de Luxe

Today was a pretty self-indulgent day (so not that different really from all my other days). I hadn't done a photo walk in a while and it wasn't too terribly cold out today, so I decided to make a little outing to Bethesda, Maryland. I ambled about for a bit taking pictures of various things (including a mural that I really love and keep meaning to have my portrait taken in front of) and then I wandered over to Cafe Deluxe for lunch.

It's not really all that 'luxe', but it is pretty good. I sat in a booth and read a back-issue of Conde Nast Traveler while I ate a salad of mixed greens and goat cheese with a cup of roasted tomato soup, followed by a crab cake entree with a corn and asparagus medley on the side and washed down with three cups of coffee. After lunch, I headed to the arthouse movie theater at Bethesda Row to catch a showing of 'Slumdog Millionaire.'

It's an excellent movie and I loved it. It's very dramatic and romantic and powerful, and I came close to getting a bit 'misty' at the ending. It's been talked up for an Oscar and it's certainly deserving of that honor, unlike a lot of movie industry hype. It's directed by Danny Boyle, the same guy who made the movie 'Millions,' and it shares a lot of common thematic elements with that earlier film. Both films focused on a pair of brothers confronted by a threat from the criminal world and dealt with the idea that great money equals great success and great happiness.

I'm not sure whether that precept is true or not, but I wouldn't mind having the opportunity to find out for myself. Given that I was feeling particularly self-indulgent today, after the movie I swung by La Madeleine, a little bakery and cafe, and treated myself to a sacher torte and an Orangina. The torte wasn't quite as good as the ones they serve at the Hotel Sacher in Vienna, but it was still pretty darn good. It had been a while since I'd had an Orangina. I love the little beaker shaped bottles they come in. Drinking one always makes me feel a bit like a mad scientist quaffing some experimental potion.

Far as I know though I didn't turn invisible or morph into Mr. Hyde after drinking it.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 78/365 - Merry Christmas!

Here's this year's Christmas haul of gifts and cards from my family and friends basking in the glow of the tv Yule Log. My parents and my brother got me Starbucks gift cards (yay, more chai and gingersnap lattes for me!) and one of my sisters got me a set of funky martini glasses, margarita salt, and a cool bartending guide (yay, 1000 drink recipes to try out!). My present from my other sister will probably come next week. She's usually a little behind the curve in getting stuff ordered, but she always gets me cool stuff from my Amazon.com wish list.

I think my favorite Christmas present I've ever gotten was the Star Wars Death Star playset I got when I was a kid. It was awesome! It had a trash compactor with foam 'trash' that actually compacted (and that I later turned into spiked death trap for my Indiana Jones action figures), a moving elevator, and a blaster cannon that you could make blow up to simulate a hit from an attacking X-Wing fighter. It kicked ass.

I was always the first one up on Christmas day. One year I got up around 2:00 in the morning and was playing with the toys Santa left for me by flashlight so as to be sneaky and not wake anyone up. Didn't work. My parents heard me having fun and sent me back to bed and told me not to get up again until daylight. Spoilsports.

Merry Christmas to everyone, everywhere "and on Earth, peace -- goodwill toward men [and women]." I still think Linus says it better than anyone:

Day 77/365 - 'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

...and I was nestled all snug in my bed, but it wasn't visions of sugarplums I saw -- it was the Christmas Story marathon on TBS instead!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 76/365 - Tag, I'm It

For this week's self-portrait I decided to get in the Christmas spirit and shoot my reflection in one of the ornaments on the tree in the lobby of my apartment complex. Also, because I was tagged on Flickr by Picture Prefect, it's now my turn to reveal sixteen random facts about myself and this seemed like a good occasion to do so.

And so here they are:

1. I was once hoisted up into a helicopter that was hovering fifty feet above the deck of a ship at sea.
2. I used to have two earrings and a body piercing, but I quit wearing them about a year ago.
3. I took fencing and bowling classes for PE credit in college and sucked at both.
4. I love musicals.
5. I once had dinner at a restaurant one table over from Condoleeza Rice and totally eavesdropped on her conversations.
6. I've been through the Panama Canal.
7. My driver's license expired about eight years ago and I never bothered to get it renewed (obviously I don't drive).
8. I once chewed the same piece of blueberry Hubba Bubba bubblegum for three days straight (it turned white eventually).
9. I've skydived and bungee jumped, but social situations scare the hell outta me.
10. Until I was halfway through college, I thought the word 'pseudo' was pronounced 'puh-sway-do'
11. I sat three rows in front of Colin Powell for opening night of 'Mamma Mia' at the National Theatre and didn't realize it until I got up to leave at the end.
12. I'm terrified of dancing but secretly wish I knew how.
13. I used to write short stories for fun in high school and college but stopped (I still think up ideas for stories but never actually do anything with them).
14. I'm really good at building a fire (both fireplace and camp fire).
15. I once stepped on the end of a hoe and the handle swung up and whacked me in the face just like in cartoons and Three Stooges shorts and I wound up having to get stitches in my eyebrow.
16. I'm ridiculously over-organized (you have no idea how much time I put into compiling and revising this list).

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 75/365 - Lunch at Central

I met my friend Verónica at Michel Richard's Central for lunch today. Both of us had been wanting to try out the food there for a while. It had been some time since we'd gotten together. She had been away at a really prestigious fellowship program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, but now she's back in DC. We'd been trying to meet up for lunch for a couple weeks now but kept running into scheduling issues until today.

I'd been to Michel Richard's Citronelle once before and loved it, so I was really looking forward to dining at Central. Michel Richard is the top chef in DC and he's famous for his culinary masquerades. He'll make a dish that looks like it's one thing, and then you taste it and find out it's something else entirely. My favorite example of this is the lobster cole slaw at Citronelle. It looks just like regular cole slaw, but it's actually made with shredded lobster meat rather than shredded cabbage and it's ludicrously delicious.

Central is the casual counterpart to the more upscale Citronelle. It's a rather smallish space, but it doesn't feel cramped or crowded. It's well-appointed and has the perfect level of noisiness so you can talk without having to raise your voice, but still you don't feel as though the people at the table next to you are going to hear everything you say. And the food is like diamonds from heaven.

For my appetizer today I went with the mushroom risotto, only it wasn't really risotto. It was actually made with pasta pearls as opposed to arborio rice. It tasted like cheesy mushroom tapioca and it was heavenly, absolutely perfect on a cold day like today. Then for my entree I had the fried chicken, which actually was fried chicken. It wasn't like the standard conception of fried chicken, however. This was the fried chicken of the gods. The breading was very light and crisp and it was served over mashed potatoes with a mustard cream sauce and a small mixed green salad on the side. This was comfort food as Michelangelo would have made it had he been a chef rather than a painter.

Verónica opted for the French onion soup as a starter. They brought it out in a little pot and it was bubbling like a vat of magma. It was good, but extremely hot and somewhat difficult to eat. For her entree she ordered the lobster burger, which came with fries on the side. It was very yummy and the fries were perfectly done.

We were both too stuffed for dessert, but that's okay. Now I have an excuse to go back just for dessert and coffee.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Twice on Sunday Bonus Photo - Merry Christmas

This week's bonus photo from my archives is a shot of a Christmas tree in the waiting room of the 30th Street train station in Philadelphia. I took this picture when I went up to Philly for the Army-Navy game in 2004. Merry Christmas!

(Taken with my old Canon PowerShot S400)

Day 74/365 - Nicholas, Patron Saint of Shopping Malls

It's kind of odd when you think about it that we erect shrines to a saint in shopping malls across the country once a year, yet it's done for almost entirely secular reasons. Poor Saint Nicholas -- stuck with cheesy temporary shrines and crying, snot-nosed, greedy little pilgrims. He definitely got the fuzzy end of the lollipop when it comes to the saint business.

I hadn't really thought of it much, but I do miss the excitement of going to the mall and sitting on Santa's lap and telling him what I want for Christmas. That was always a lot of fun as a kid. I'd pester my mom by asking her when we were going to see Santa and then I'd try to figure out what I wanted to ask for and then hope I didn't forget it when he asked me.

This is the atrium at the Pentagon City shopping mall in Arlington, VA. All my Christmas shopping has been done for a while now (gift cards as usual), but today I swung by the mall to grab lunch at Johnny Rockets and pick up an arm band for my iPod in the hopes that maybe that will motivate me to pry my slovenly butt up off the couch and go to the gym in my apartment complex. We'll see.

BTW, I really hate the way the Apple stores are set up. I hate the whole 'no check out line' and roving sales staff thing. When I go there it's just to grab an accessory. All I want to do is pay for it and go, but I'm stuck trolling about the store trying to find someone to take my money. Usually they are all chatting with an endless parade of clueless customers and I wind up ping ponging around trying to find one that is almost done answering questions.

I guess it's great if you actually do have questions, but when I just want to buy an armband or a case I don't need to ask any questions or get any explanations. 'Here's what I want, here's my money, bye'! I wish they had one sales person who was always in the same corner of the store instead of floating about and who was just there to ring things up and not to answer any questions. That would make me happy. It shouldn't be that hard to give someone your money. Bah, humbug!

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 73/365 - At the EagleBank Bowl

I'd never been to a college football bowl game before today. This morning, the Inaugural EagleBank Bowl was played at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC between Wake Forest and the U.S. Naval Academy. I bought my ticket for the game just as soon as Navy accepted the invitation to play.

I'd also never seen a football game at RFK and I hadn't been back to that stadium since the final home game of the Nationals' 2007 season. It hadn't changed much. As soon as you exited the Metro you still had to battle your way through the pushy hordes of ticket scalpers and hucksters selling knock-off hats and t-shirts that were crowding the sidewalk. That's definitely one thing I don't miss now that the Nats have moved to their new digs. The concession stands also ran out of hot dog buns at half-time, just like they always used to do during baseball games. That's another thing I don't miss.

The weather wasn't too bad at kick-off, but by half-time the temperature had dropped noticeably. The stadium was only about one-fourth full. There seemed to be fewer Wake Forest fans there, but they definitely went home happier than we Navy fans did. Navy lead 13-0 at one point, but the offense just never could get going all day and eventually the defense wore down and got picked apart by Wake Forest's passing game. The final score ended up being 29-19 in favor of Wake Forest.

Oh well, at least they beat Army this season. Go Navy!

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 72/365 - Bright Lights, Big Screen

My favorite movie of all time is the Frank Capra Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life. I've seen it about a zillion times before, but always on tv. I'd never seen it on the big screen in an actual movie theater until tonight. Just across the DC border in Silver Spring, Maryland is the AFI Silver Theatre -- an old art deco movie palace restored and operated by the American Film Institute. It's a lovely old structure with a gorgeous main auditorium and is an outstanding place to see a movie.

I met up with Erin M. in the theatre lobby. She planned this trip to the movies as an outing for the DC Social Group on Flickr, but through the process of attrition it wound up just being me and her there tonight. That was fine. We had a great time anyhow. She thinks it's the best movie ever made as well, so since it was just the two of us we didn't have to deal with any non-believing cinematic heathens pooh-poohing our adoration.

It was very cool to see it on the big screen. The lighting and shading seemed better and I noticed a lot of little details in many of the scenes that I had never noticed before when I watched it on tv -- like the skull and crossbones patches on all the boys stocking caps at the beginning, the little skull carving that was on Mr. Potter's desk, and the way Ernie the cop shot out one of the lights in the 'Potterville' sign when he was shooting at George during the 'alternate history' sequence.

Yes, it's maudlin; yes, it's simplistic; yes, it's far-fetched and full of logic holes -- but it makes me laugh a lot and cry a little and for that I love it. I love it.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 71/365 - A Capitol Christmas

This is the Christmas tree that stands in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC as mirrored in the waters of the reflecting pool. I set the self-timer on my camera and put it on the edge of the reflecting pool basin and let it do its thing in order to avoid winding up with a shaky, blurry shot. Wish I'd bothered first to make sure I had the camera straight. There were some people there with a tripod though and I was getting in the way of their shot so I tried to be quick about it.

Even though there's only one week left until Christmas Day I still haven't been able to muster up a lot of holiday spirit yet. Once you become an adult you kind of lose Christmas a little and I don't think you fully get it back again until you have kids. You can recapture a bit of it by going home for the holidays, but during those years where you don't go back and spend the day with your family, Christmas just winds up sort of empty feeling.

Tomorrow night though I'm going to see It's a Wonderful Life at the AFI Silver, a really cool art deco movie palace in Silver Spring, and I'm hoping that will help jump start my Christmas spirit. It's my favorite movie ever and I've never seen it in an actual theater before, so I'm pretty excited.

Remember, every time a bell rings an angel gets his (or her) wings.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 70/365 - Lawyers on the Loose

Today was my office's holiday party. We had lunch at Tuscana West and then 'neglected' to go back to the office. Whoops! My six person section decided to go to the restaurant a bit early for a 'meeting' and a few aperitifs. That's how we roll.

It turned out to be a pretty good party. Because we work for the public rather than the private sector, we have to pay for our holiday parties ourselves. This one only cost us $27 each and the food was quite good. You have to get to these parties fairly early so that you can avoid being stuck sitting next to people you don't really want to spend two hours with. Made that mistake once.

Organizing these things is always a bit of a struggle. The tightwad old fuddy-duddy segment of our office never wants to pay much and won't go anywhere remotely non-mainstream. They were appalled the year we went to a Moroccan place and had to eat with our hands. Thankfully my boss finally stopped volunteering me for the party planning committee. Even when these parties are kind of lame they're still worth attending, though. I always just look at it as though I'm buying myself a half-day off. That makes it a bargain at just about any price.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)