So we went to the jewelery store today to have the ring resized. The “ring designer” at the store said that my fiancee officially has the “smallest finger ever of anyone to come in this store.”
What size you ask? 2.75
Compare that to my fat fingers 
Ooooohhh -- isn't it sparkly?
One Ring to rule them all, One ring to find them
One Ring to bring them all and in marriage bind them
One Ring to bring two interesting people together — to become one boring couple
P.S. — She said yes!
Once again realized how great of a team that I work with. Tonight was my “Good luck in Washington DC Dinner” — I’m heading out there in July.
They gave me some really thoughtful gifts to put up in my new office in DC to remember where I came from.
Clearly alot of thought and time went in to putting this collection of items together, and I most appreciate it! The most important thing about work is really the people you work with — going to miss you all!
Can o Coolness
Group Photo
The Blue Swan
In April I took a week long trip to New York City. The sights in the video include the Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, Times Square, Lombardis Pizza, Grimaldis Pizza, Katz Deli, Nathans Hot Dog, and Coney Island. The video concludes with me hooking up with Lady Liberty.
By popular demand — videos of me playing Dance Dance Revolution! Video was taken back in 2004 when I was actually good
In early April I took a business trip to Norfolk, VA and stayed 2 nights at the Renaissance Portsmouth Hotel & Waterfront Conference Center in Portsmouth, VA. The Renaissance Portsmouth is located on the Elizabeth River, directly across from downtown Norfolk.
For those people that are going to downtown Norfolk for business or pleasure, there is a ferry that leaves adjacent to the hotel every 30 minutes, and will take you to downtown Norfolk for $1.50. Pretty convienent, and a nice ride — much better than trying to drive over the bridges or through the tunnels of Norfolk during rush hour.
The hotel itself would appear to be relatively new, has 16 stories, 244 rooms, and a fairly large conference center.
Arriving at the hotel is a somewhat odd experience, because the valet and parking garage is on the “land” side of the hotel, while the lobby and check-in desk is on the “water” side of the hotel, which means you have to walk down a pretty lengthy hallway before arriving in the lobby to check-in. Although once arriving in the lobby it is pretty nice. The lobby is decorated in a modern style, lot’s of intriguing sofa’s and lounge chairs, and a long table with 6 free computers (running Windows Vista interestingly enough). Adjacent to the lobby is also the hotel’s restaurant and bar. The bar was pretty packed both nights that I was there, but the restaurant was mostly empty.
I was given room 1415 — which seemed to be a normal room. As a platinum member I would have expected to be at least on the Concierge floors (15, and 16) but I guess 14 is close. The room itself was small, but functional and well appointed. There was a king-size bed with soft white sheets. A flat screen television with the Marriott video inputs. A desk, and a psyhiatrists office style sofa near the window. The view out of the window was quite nice with views of downtown Norfolk and the Elizabeth river. Based on the positioning and design of the hotel a majority of the rooms have a view of the river.
A nice touch from the housekeeping staff was a note that the write when coming in for the evening turn-down service that said “Please continue to enjoy your stay” and had 2 chocolates placed next to the note.
The concierge lounge was open weekdays for breakfast 6am-10am, and for evening snacks and desert from 5pm-10pm. The breakfast was pretty good, they had one or two hot items each morning. The first morning there were breakfast sandwiches with egg and bacon on a crossaint, and the second morning there was scrambled eggs with cheese. For the dinner snack there was one hot item, it was mini pizza slices the evening I was there. They also had asparagus spears, and assorted cheeses. The evening desert seemed to be cookies and brownies — and although the cookies were baked in the lounge, still would have been nice to have something a little more.
Last week I was out in Washington DC to see the Cherry Blossoms once again. I’ve been in DC for the cherry blossoms the past three years in a row and it’s always cool to see.
This time I was there to see the Cherry Blossoms pre-peak-bloom and then again at peak-bloom time. Pretty cool to see the transformation. Take a look at the video and see yourself.
In early March I visited Amsterdam. The trip was fun, with the exception of the fact that I must’ve eaten something not so kosher the first day, and I ended up with the dutch version of “Montezuma’s revenge” (throwing up in to the hotel toilet for two days — good times).
But once I got better, I was able to go check out some of the sights in Amsterdam.
Highlights of the video include the Canals, a three story bicycle garage, the narrowest house in Amsterdam, the “Smart District” with the Marijuana selling Coffee Shops, and the Red Light District.
In early March I stayed at the Amsterdam Marriott on a business trip.
I arrived in Amsterdam on an early flight at 7:30 am. I took a taxi to the hotel which cost 30 euros and arrived at the hotel at 8:30am. I had called ahead to ask for an early check-in, and indeed my room was ready. As a platinum member, I was upgraded to one of the hotels “Corner Executive Suites” room 423 — overlooking the Leidseplein. The staff at the front desk was very pleasant, they asked if this was my first time in Amsterdam, when I said yes, they pulled out a map, and circled a bunch of interesting touristy places that I might want to visit including the Ann Frank House, and the Van Gogh Museum.
The bell-boy showed me to my room and brought my luggage up. The room itself is quite large, with a king size bed. The room has a desk that faces the window so you can see the view while working on your laptop. The window opens so that you can get some fresh dutch air in the room. The desk also has Europoean 220V plugs and a US 120V outlet which is a nice touch. The US outlet is behind a plastic cover, so it took me a little while to find it. There was also an arm chair, and a small table.
The room has two closets that have lights inside when the doors are opened. There is also a well stocked mini-bar refrigerator that also has some room for your own beverages. I don’t typically partake of the mini-bar, but I do like space to store my own beverages so that they stay cool. Above the mini-bar was a pretty neat electric tea-kettle that would heat a cup of water in what seemed like an astonishing 15 seconds.
The bathroom is one of those “two room” bathrooms that has a room with the sink, and a separate room with the toilet and bathtub/shower. The bathtub’s water faucet is one of those that you’ll typically see in European hotels that has separate controls for the temperature and the water flow which is nice so that once you set your temperature, you can just turn the water on and off without fiddling with the temperature. The sink in the bathroom had two light switches, one for the main light, and another for a dim light underneath the sink which makes for a good night light.
The concierge lounge in the hotel is open 6am-midnight every day, with breakfast being served Mon-Fri 6:30am-10:30am, Hourderves Sun-Thurs 5:30pm-7:30pm and Desert Sun-Thurs 7:30pm-9:30pm. When meals aren’t being served, the lounge is open for “snacks” and beverages. In snacks were oranges, apples, kiwis, pretzels, and cookies. The beverages are a fairly wide selection of soft-drinks and coffee/tea.
The breakfast served was fairly good, although no hot items. Mainly pastries, breads, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, cold breakfast meats, cheeses, and fruit.
The dinner Hourderves were quite good, with a different selection every night. One night I had a pretty tasty beef stew with potatoes. Other nights included shrimp cocktails, chicken wings, and meatballs. Desert was typically Dutch apple pie and another pie or cake selection depending upon the day.
On a recent business trip to the Washington DC area I spent one night at the Marriott Crystal Gateway hotel. The Marriott Crystal Gateway is located in Arlington, VA — in the neighborhood known as Crystal City. The hotel itself has a great location as it is connected to the Crystal City underground tunnels and only about a 3 minute walk to the Crystal City metro station. The hotel is also located about 1 mile from the Reagan National Airport to which the hotel provides complimentary shuttle service to and from the airport. Note: There are 2 Marriott’s in Crystal City — the “Crystal City Marriott” — and this one, the “Marriott Crystal Gateway.” They are located directly across the highway from each other — and they share the same airport shuttle, so make sure you get off the shuttle at the right hotel.
I flew in to Dulles, so I was driving in to the city. Parking at the hotel for self parking is $22 — there is also a valet parking option.
Upon checking in to the hotel I was given the usual spiel about “The gym is here.. the restaurants are there…”. I then inquired about the Concierge Lounge — the front desk attendant looked down at his computer, and said “I see your Marriott Rewards number is on file, but it doesn’t say what level you are”. When I told him that I was a platinum, he then said “Well in that case, I’ll upgrade you to a suite on the concierge level.”. I’m not really sure what the malfunction was that my rewards level wasn’t shown in their system, but I was pleased with the resulting suite upgrade.
The suite that I was given was room 1101 on the concierge level. The suite is made up of three rooms, a living room, a bedroom, and of course a bathroom. The room is on the side of the hotel, and as such as excellent views from the living room with windows facing to the west, and the bedroom with windows facing to the east. The Crystal Gateway Marriott recently renovated their rooms at the end of 2008, and it shows. The living had a sofa for two, an armchair with footrest, flat panel television, and a coffee machine.
The bedroom had a king size bed, that had a robe laid out on it. Also upon the bed was a bag of white chocolate covered pretzels, and two chocolate chip cookies — nice touch. The bed had the new Marriott LED reading lights. The alarm-clock on the nightstand had an ipod jack. The bedroom also had another armchair like in the living room, along with the desk, and another flat-panel television. The television in bedroom had the audio/video inputs, while the living room television did not.
The final room, the bathroom, was rather spacious and had the standard Marriott amenities.
The concierge lounge is located on the 11th floor, and is open Mon-Thurs 6:30am – 10:00pm, Fri 6:30am – 12:00pm, and Sunday 5:30pm – 10:00pm. The evening snack options during my visit were pretty poor — apples, bananas, and cookies. No hot snack or real deserts. The lounge cutbacks have obviously struck at the Crystal Gateway. Breakfast was a little better as they did have one hot item, scrambled eggs.
Around the rest of the hotel, there are 3 restaurants, a Starbucks in the lobby, a business center, a jungle themed indoor swimming pool (see the video), and a smallish fitness center overlooking the pool.