http://www.youtube.com/gcarreraiii

The New Years video has somebody swearing in it towards the end so maybe turn off the volume at the end or send the kids away or accept the sounds as typical to the dirty streets of the city.  Please also enjoy our snow video and appreciate the snowiest winter in 130 years in DC.

Recently, we have been running a lot.  Michelle has achieved 4.5 miles and I will be running the half marathon in a month.  It will be great as the route goes right through our neighborhood twice.  Hopefully, Michelle can tape me going by while she is cheering me on.  We got Michelle a new bike yesterday as hers was stolen last Friday.  Now we will be ready for the spring and getting back to our normal routine of riding all over.

I guess the pollen here gets really bad, to the point of cars being coated in yellow by the end of each day.  As an allergy magnet, I have been told to buy local honey and eat it every day to build up a sort of immunity to the pollen which helps create it.

I feel like not much else has been happening.  Talk to you soon!

George and Michelle the Too Lazy to Update the Blog Because We Just Have to Watch The Bachelor Every Week (Go Vienna!)

But people here can’t deal with it!  They were freaking out as if the Yeti was chasing them.  Last night, people were at Walmart buying bread and milk so they could lock themselves in their houses.  The streets were and still are unplowed.  On the news, the anchors were going ballistic.  One said, “This isn’t a storm, this isn’t a snowstorm, this is a natural disaster”.  I understand that people aren’t used to it, but are you kidding me?  The issue is that they don’t have enough plows and the area really doesn’t know how to use them most effectively.  Plus, people can’t drive in snow (or in dry and well lit conditions for that matter).  As a result, the whole district shut down.  The schools, churches, airports, and even the Smithsonian closed.  We had to cancel our youth group outing to the National Zoo and our church is cancelled for tomorrow as well.  Obama was right, this place needs to calm down over some snow.

Anyway, we enjoyed taking a walk down to the Capitol and taking in what we miss about home.  Unfortuanately, Michelle left her boots at home so she had to improvise to keep her feet dry with garbage bags on our 2.5 mile trek through the snow.   It was great to get out with the whole city a mess.  People were in the streets with their dogs and skis.  We had a great day between going out and staying in watching movies all day.

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

-George and Michelle the Eskimos

Enjoy our video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1BxNasm3ss

-George and Michelle the Busy

http://www.youtube.com/user/gcarreraiii

-George and Michelle the Bikers

First:  The first weekend here we took a walk over to the Mall in an attempt to check out the health care reform protest.  We were too late to see the likes of Sean Hannity and Mark Levin, but boy did I find exactly what I was looking for.  My intent was to find “Real Americans” who had a message to spread!  The representative we found was the perfect person.  She had a van decked out in window paint and signs like cheerleaders going to the homecoming game.  I walked up and proceeded to talk with her about the events of the day and she lit up like a big bottle rocket on Independance Day!  Saying excitedly, “We’ve been out here since 8 am… and… and protesters walked past our van for three hours straight… right here… and they had signs… and we had signs… look at this one (caricatures of Pelosi and Reid)… and I kept screaming ‘baaah Obama, baah’… and people loved it… and they… and it was great… and this health care thing is crazy… and…” on and on and on.   She was absolutely great.  And I just stood there listening and dying inside.  I asked her to take a picture and she obliged, she even gave me a shirt.  Michelle was so embarrassed that I was acting so interested.  Alright, so maybe it was a little mean on my part, but I did mostly agree with her on the issue.  I say, good for Americans who try to get things done.  Anyway, the picture is below, clearly it’s one of those pictures that will come back if I ever ran for political office, which I never would.

After walking around the aftermath of protest, we ended up walking 4 more miles and grabbing a bad dinner in Chinatown.

Second: Michelle’s supervisor over the summer, Brad, from Shriners gave us a gift certificate to go kayaking on the Potomac.  We went to Jack’s Boathouse after having lunch with Becky from church and cast off into Washington’s river on a beautiful afternoon.  For two hours we relaxed and kayaked towards Virginia and enjoyed a very nice time.  I highly recommend doing this sometime Jack’s is only $10 per hour and even has a patio area to grill on.

After getting back we were graced with the first $50 gift from DC parking enforcement.  I kid you not, this was absolutely ridiculous.  AND it was a Sunday afternoon.  The person gave tickets to about ten cars in a row who all interpreted the parking sign instructions the same.  DC is insane with parking tickets.  Did I tell you about my $100 parking ticket for literally two minutes of parking?  I was picking up a bike from my coworker’s place and we ran in and back out to assure I didn’t get nabbed, but this guy was quick.  As we came out he was speeding away as I yelled to stop him.  If you have ever watched Parking Wars, you can imagine how DC parking enforcement operates.  But hey, I fought the tickets and actually got out of the $50 one, so take that!

Third:  The Capitols is the hockey team here.  What an obnoxius team.  No history or pride combined with fans who actually think that the Caps are all that.  Are they good?  Yes.  But please, make no mistake, they are not nor will they be a real hockey team for the long haul.  Anyway, the Hawks were only scheduled for a preseason game in DC, so per Michelle and my agreement that we would attend sporting events anytime a Chicago team is in town, we obtained tickets.  We got them from Crosstown Tickets online for only $9.  This broker was great and his operation runs out of a place on Milwaukee just up the street from Northwest.

I was happy to go because I believe it is very important to support the boys at every opportunity, but the game was terrible.  The hoopla of Verizon Center was terrible and annoying, of course when a team doesn’t have any rich history they must resort to over the top shenanigans to get the fans geared up.  Worse than that, the punk Ovechiken (or however you spell his name) made the net look as large as the Redskins endzone.  I don’t know why people here like that idiot, nobody else in hockey world does .  He is classless and verbose.  I take a quality leader like Johnny or Sid the Kid any day over some jerk like him, I don’t care how many points he scores.  It is funny how blind people in DC are about hockey, they are clueless, non-invested fans.  The Caps and Ovechkin are a match made in heaven.  Original 6 will always be the king’s court.

At the end of three periods, Hawks got killed 1-5, but as a result of the Hawks gift, we got 20 free wings from a restaurant here.  Great promotion and because it was pre-season I didn’t feel bad about cashing in.

Currently, the Hawks are losing 0-3 against the Coyotes.  Not typical against that pathetic team.  We’re still in first in any case.

Fourth:  Michelle and I went back to Illinois for a weekend to see Jimmy and Lindsay get married in Springfield.  That was a good time.  We got to see many cool people and Jimmy gave me a hunting knife.  Awesome.  Dancing at the reception was a blast.  When we arrived at O’Hare at 11:00pm, we went straight to TBK for a Mexican fill before driving down state that night.  Much needed for our four hour drive.

Fifth:  Pittsburgh was my territory for all of two months so I made some trips up there to meet with customers (my territoy will be changing to somewhere closer).  It’s about a four hour drive.  Michelle came with me to see the leaves changing in mid October becasue it can be a beautiful drive.

In Pitt, we got to spend the evening visiting with most of the Musgrove clan.  Amy and Ella were in town and it was great.  Ella gave us a good greeting and kept giving me and her grandpa coasters for no apparent reason.  We even got a to hear a good Napolean Dynamite impression from Amy’s brother in law Zach.

On the way back to Washington, I kept taking the scenic routes, which Michelle got tired of quickly.  Driving through Eighty Four, Pennsylvania was interesting.  I felt like I was seeing down home America.

We’ll, gets us closer to the present.  I am tired and need to go to bed.  Hope you are having a good week.  Enjoy the weekend!

-George and Michelle the Place Goers

Michelle was the cleaning fiend.  She is very good disinfecting and scrubbing a place to make it squeeky clean.  I on the other hand am talented in organizing things functionally and efficiently.  Thus, we have done a really great job in assembling our apartment.

After arriving here we discovered that we had a ton of stuff and lacked a ton of needs.  So we decided to go through and get rid of the things that we clearly had no need for, which was relatively easy.  A little bit harder was to decide what we actually needed to feel like we could function.  This included a desk, a mattress, shelves, a cabinet, and what ever else IKEA sucked us into buying.  We have already made three trips to the Swedish superstore and will probably make many more in the next few years.  You see, IKEA does one of two things when you make a trip there.  Either you walk out with nothing feeling as though you have nothing, or you walk out with everything and feel that you have even less than when you walked in because most of what you buy is useless.  The tough part is mastering the art of separating wants and needs, which almost nobody can do.  The point is that on each visit, you always lose and they always win.  It’s a retail casino!  What a genius business!

Truly, we do love their stuff and I couldn’t be more pleased with my new cork coasters and potholders.  So, we would like to show you our place so that you know what to expect when you come to visit.

Below are some pictures, but even cooler than that, for the first time in our blog’s history, video!  Michelle didn’t want to be the host so no complaning that you have to watch me.  She insisted on not giving the tour.  It’s at YouTube at the link below. In addition, our outtake is also available.  Enjoy!

The Rowhouse Tour

Outtakes

-George and Michelle the Washingtonians

“We’re from Lincoln, mighty might Lincoln

Where ever we go, the people want to know

Who we are, so we tell them

We’re from Lincoln, mighty mighty Lincoln!”

Growing up in the state of Illinois, Michelle and I know everything about Lincoln.  Every Illini took at least three trips to Springfield during grammar school.  I had many classes in Lincoln Hall at UofI and rubbed the nose of Lincoln’s bust before tests in the auditorium of that great living monument.  All of our history classes focused on Lincoln’s politics and policies.  And just last year my family took a trip to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield just for fun.  The point is that when we arrived in DC, I couldn’t help but feel a pride and connection to our 16th President.

The first Friday night that we had here, we decided to take a walk down around the Washington Monument.  It was a beautiful evening and the tall stone structure towered prominently over The Mall.  Even though I had been to DC twice before, I never had walked up to the monument.  It is beautiful when lit in the middle of the night.  The juxtaposition of the luminous white stone and Stars and Stripes is superb.  It is hard to believe that the tower was started before the Civil War (You will notice the different shade of stone about 1/3 of the way up the structure due to a halt in building during the war).  Grabbing an idea from tourists, we found that standing up against it and looking up is kind of neat to do.

After appreciating that monument, Michelle and I decided to walk west towards our self made man.  On the way, we stopped to stand between the White House and Jefferson’s monument.  Story has it that after FDR built it, First Lady Eleanor said, “I want to see Thomas” and the President authorized all of the trees between their house and the monument be cut down.  I’ve always enjoyed that little story.

Moving further west, we came upon the WWII monument.  The water was beautiful and you really can hardly believe the simplicity and intricacy involved in the design.  One aspect I love is that when you look from east to west, the pool is clearly an oval, yet when looking from north to south, it looks a perfect circle.  I seem to recall the designer doing this to emulate how the war was fought across the world in the Atlantic and the Pacific, but when looking from the perspective from one location of the war, the other battlefield across the world was integrally important.  It’s hard to explain, but when viewing the monument with one’s own eyes it all seems to make sense.  The most astounding part of the place is the Field of Stars representing 400,000 lives lost.  It’s just unbelievable.

Later on, we kept walking west to Abraham.  We walked along the Reflecting Pool and talked about how amazing it must have been to see all of the people around when Dr. King made his speech on the steps at the end of the Mall.  It is a far walk and I remember not feeling like we made any progress every time I looked back to get some perspective.  Finally, we arrived at Lincoln.

How cool to see the sculpture up close.  You can actually see it all the way from the other end of the Mall from the steps of the Capitol pretty clearly.  I just recently discovered that the sculptor, Daniel Chestor French, was also the sculptor of the World’s Columbian Exposition’s Republic.  Lincoln seems so “Lincoln” in the piece.  Every characteristic he has ever been described is emulated in the statue.  I was so proud to stand in the memorial and felt like we deserved to stand there.  We put in our time committing Lincoln’s legacy to memory.  He is what Milton would have described as the “one just man” of his time and he is OUR guy, from Illinois.  Michelle and I both read the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural Address on the side walls.  I read every line twice.  There is something about reading them in that place, it makes the words more real.  The words were simply beautiful and God honoring.  I guess I’m oozing over this experience because I didn’t hype myself up for it, I just really felt that good old American pride while we were standing there.

On our walk back east to the car, we made a stop to the Vietnam Wall.  It just makes you awestruck.  It is so subdued in every way and it is very easy to not think twice about it even when looking directly at all of the names.  The exact opposite of the WWII memorial.  That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

Fast forwarding to the following weekend.  Michelle found an ad in the Washington Examiner (my favorite local paper with a Newt Gingrich article every Friday) for Walking Town DC.  Twice a year, the city offers free walking tours all over the city to take advantage of.  Keeping in stride with Mr. Lincoln, we took a tour with Ms. Elizabeth Keckley, well an actress who played her.  She was a friend and seamstress of Mary Todd Lincoln.  Before setting up her own clothing business where she made dresses for many prominent Northern and Southern politicians and their wives, she was a slave.  She married and was able to buy her freedom.  Her life was fascinating and she wrote a book called Behind the Scenes describing her time around the White House.  Michelle is reading the book now which, oddly enough, my grandma bought for me last year at the Lincoln Museum in Springfield.  The actress who played the role was phenomenal, probably the best tour we could have picked.

Later that same afternoon, we took another tour to Barracks Row which is on 8th Street along the famous and long standing Marine Barracks.  This was the place to be throughout DC’s history.  Just to put into perspective the significance of this place, every President except Nixon visited the barracks at one point in their Presidency, including Obama and 30 day term Harrison.   This tour was good, but not as good as the first.  We learned about the architecture, significance in city planning, and general history of the street.  When walking back to our place, we saw Jesse Jackson Jr. having lunch at Matchbox (a pizza place I will review).  That was amusing.

So, you can see that we are taking advantage of what the city has to offer.  We have much further to go and will keep on trucking until it has all been seen!

-George and Michelle the Lincoln Learned

Friends, this is our first DC restaurant review!   We stumbled upon this place one night while looking for a Baskin Robbins after walking the Mall.  Luckily for us, 31 Flavors was closed and right next door was our new favorite place for a quick date.  Mr. Yogato is a frozen yogurt place that is all about simplicity and fun.  They have only four flavors at a time and many toppings.  Imagine the heavy substance carried in typical ice cream and the sweet fluffiness of a typical Yoplait.  Now think of the perfect medium.  There you have Mr. Yogato’s product.  PLUS!  It is one of these healthy, possibly “organic”, places so the calories are really low.  Don’t worry about a hippie complex, Mr. Yogato does not have one.

What’s neat about this little dessert place is that it maintains a fun environment with good music, funny rules, weekly activities (like Seinfeld trivia night), board games, Nintendo NES, and great ways to save money.  My favorite way is to save is to get my forehead stamped to get 10% off.  You can bet when you visit that we are making a stop here.

Check out the site http://www.mryogato.com/

Rating: 10

Price: $$

-George and Michelle the Yogatos

“I didn’t know they had one”.

“Oh yes, it is the greatest blog ever.  You should really check it out.  I’ll send you the link asap”!

Let’s make this really grassroots.  Here we go:

Goodbye Chicago.  But not goodbye forever.  Just long enough so we can more objectively affirm your superiority to the rest of the country’s second and third rate offerings.

Let’s start from the very beginning, September 4th, 2009.  The very best place to start.  The Kennedy.  It was 4:30 am.  Dad ran out of the house after Michelle and I got up to prepare for what would be one of the longest days of our life.  After we were finally ready to jump in the Uhaul, my father had a smorgasbord of Dunkin’ Donuts laying out on the counter.  A dozen donuts, a box of munchkins, 2 everything bagels, and a full pot of coffee.  The bagels were the only thing we requested after the insistance of a run to DD.  It was a kind gesture.

We woke Jack up to say goodbye, hugged my parents and jumped onto the road.  I drove the 14′ Uhaul and Michelle drove the non-air conditioned, radioless Lumina.  I had packed the Uhaul the previous day as we said goodbye to all of Michelle’s family at her parents house during another huge eating festival.   As we drove in the early morning on my favorite roadway in the country, I stared at the best view of the skyline in the dark fog of the morning.  I remembered having the same feeling as the previous summer when we drove to New York.   At the merge, the city rises up next to the El which lines the left of the periphial.  I later looked at the mural to the right and was  sad that I wouldn’t see the annual marathon painting finshed.  As I passed Ogden I was hit with sadness that I wouldn’t be exiting the ramp this season to park at Big Top parking on Paulina to walk down Madison Avenue on a cold and windy Blackhawks night while wearing my shiny red jacket and screaming about how warm it is.  The tears hit while crossing under Jackson and looking at the always and forever Sears Tower.  What a city.

The Skyway is the most disgusting “way” in the whole country.  I was happy to exit the ugly route as we neared Michigan City heading for the amazing and crazy Bill Carrera family labor day celebration at 6:30am.  Tim being the guest of honor there gave us the opportunity to surprise him with a goodbye before we left.  When driving up to the house with too many Carrera’s to count under one roof, I saw Tim sleeping in a hammock on the poarch with a smile on his face.  Rach walked out and I parked the loud truck  and walked up to Tim with an annoying dolphin keychain that squeeked to wake him up.  Ha!  He knew pretty quickly who it was when he opened his eyes.  I later gave the keychain to Tyler, just to add fun to the house.  I don’t know how quickly it was taken away.  We stayed for around an hour to see the house gear up to full swing.  What a sight to see.  It would have been nice to stay later.  Thanks to Liz for encouraging us to stop by.

After saying goodbye, we drove to Norte Dame so I could get cash for the drive.  Luckily, we got out of there before the game that Saturday.  By 11:00 am, Michelle already wanted to stop and call it a day.  That was not the plan.  No, we were driving the whole way.  At one rest stop we pulled off and took a nap because the last thing I wanted was a car wreck just as we started our new life (Michelle – “Actually, I made him stop”).  I like driving through Ohio because they have the best rest stops and the terrain is still flat.  Once you hit the Turnpike the tolls and hills annoy you.  Our problem was that Michelle was not happy about driving at this point.  So the rest of the trip was a struggle to keep going.  She would call, I would say we’re not stopping, she would get frustrated, I would agree to stop, she would agree to keep going, and then we would keep driving.  An hour late the cycle would start again.  My goal was at least to get through Pennsylvania.  At that point there was no more fighting and when we hit 70-S I thought we would stop for sure,  we were two hours out.  To my great surprise, Michelle said she could endure it.  The only issue was that we were not making good time and we needed to get there before 10:30pm to get the keys from our neghbor before he left for the night shift.  So we raced and made one quick stop at Subway on 270-S before hitting the Beltway.  Once we hit the Beltway, Michelle couldn’t take it anymore.  She would call every five minutes and test to see if my time framing was a lie, not that it mattered, no time would be quick enough.  (Michelle – “I was crabby”).

Finally, we exited  on East Capitol to see RFK rise above the street  much like the city does between Montrose and Irving.  I’ll take a picture of it one day on my drive back from work.  We drove around the stadium to C St. and followed it to our neighborhood, Capitol Hill.  We live 1 mile from the Capitol building.  Luckily our neighbor was still home at 10:15pm and we entered into our new home.  We brought in the stuff from Lumina so we could leave it on the street as we decided to stay in a hotel for the night.  We drove over to Virginia and stopped at the Iwo Jima monument before finding a room.  I love the statue because it looks over the Mall beautifully.  I wanted to show Michelle our new city from a good perspective as a welcome for us.

After that we drove near the Pentagon to a Radisson.  We got an amazing rate and were upgraded to a suite because I was a former employee.  We were tired as it was almost midnight.  What a day.  Then I hear the toilet flush; and Michelle say “Geeeooorge”!  “What?” I stated frantically.  “Your phone just  flushed down the toilet”, Michelle said while laughing hysterically (Michelle – “I couldn’t help it…it just fell out of my pocket and was sucked right down, I couldn’t believe it…I was just so amazed I had to laugh”).  This is when I freaked out.  My phone was in her pocket and as she flushed the toilet and as she got up, the phone fell out and jumped into the toilet.  It went straight down the tubes.  I wasn’t that angry about the phone.  Sure, losing the numbers stunk, but I was far more irritated with Michelle’s lack of concern and face of laughter.  I didn’t know what to do so my outburst of frusteration was to throw the pillows off the bed in a very childish manner.  After that, Michelle and I were angry with each other until we cooled off and laughed about how long the day really was.  We never would have made it without each other.

The next day we unpacked our truck by ourselves, which took about four hours.  She was a great help.  After the unpacking, we looked at our disaster and realized how much stuff we had.  We knew the next weeks would be rough.

Finally, we were in our new home.  We had waited for that day for a very long time.  I could feel immediately that this was exactly where God wanted us to be.

-George and Michelle the Drivers

If you have been trying to call me, now you know why I haven’t answered.  We will now be using Michelle’s phone for the both of us.  Please email me for the new number and address.  gcarreraiii@gmail.com.