My friend and social media expert at The Motley Fool, Katrina, showed me an page on the White House site where you could submit your request for an invitation to a day of tweeting at The White House. There ... [ more ]]]> I was at The White House this week for their holiday Tweetup.

My friend and social media expert at The Motley Fool, Katrina, showed me an page on the White House site where you could submit your request for an invitation to a day of tweeting at The White House. There was a series of speakers in the morning who’s roles covered a huge spectrum from the National Economic Counsel advisor discussing policy topics such as jobs to the official White House Pastry Chef revealing how long it takes to make the official White House gingerbread house (3 months). It was a full morning and really interesting to get all these perspectives of people who work so close to the President and his staff. (It made me want to re-watch The West Wing).

Only one real hiccup with the White House Tweetup, was that the conference room was in the basement of the EEOB next to the White House and there was no Wi-Fi signal in there so no one was able to get onto Twitter. The irony was not lost on the positive and upbeat organizers of the event from the White House Digital Strategy department.

After a lunch (on our own), we were able to tour the White House. it was the same self-guided tour that Selena and I had taken a few years ago, only this time, being that they had just decorated everything for Christmas they welcomed taking photos.

I got whole lot of pictures, including finding the hidden Bo (the dog) that was hand-crafted each room – one was paper-mache, one was made of candies, one was made of buttons – that are displayed below and in the Flickr set here.

The morning briefings

The first of 73 White House Christmas Trees

George says "Check out this tree."

Decorative ornaments at the White House

Greg in the Blue Room of the White House

Bo made of Buttons

Lincoln thinking about Christmas

The White House Gingerbread replica

A choir in the lobby singing carols

Greg at the White House

It never occurred to me there ... [ more ]]]> I purchased a boat cruise up the Potomac. The description made it sound like a luxury trip sitting at a table, sipping wine and enjoying delicious tapas while looking out at the monuments lighting up the evening sky. Sounded like a great date night.

It never occurred to me there was reason to by skeptic about the deals on Groupon. Here’s the actual luxury Potomac tour experience:

• There were no tables, just inline seating along the sides of the boat. About 15 seats for about 25 people.
• The wine included was just two small plastic cups of whatever they were pouring. All other drinks, including water, cost extra.
• The tapas were a small buffet of tin trays that included wings, macaroni and eggrolls as well as a side tray of fruit.
• There were no monuments, when we got upriver from our starting point at National Harbor, we veered right up the Anacostia instead of keeping on the Potomac. So we did see the new ballpark and the destroyer at the Navy Yard but no Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials and Washington Monument.

This is what I had envisioned we'd see. Not so much.

• The serenity of the upriver trip was challenged by a very loud audio track of the captain providing trivia about what was in view. The prelude to this taped monologue was the actual captain saying “I’m going to play this recording now and I don’t remember what I recorded so don’t ask me about it.”
• It didn’t occur to me to question safety when signing up, but the rest of the captain’s crew gave me the vibe that they could just have easily have been pirates.
• On the return trip downriver, the trivia track was turned off, the lights were turned down and they cranked up the club music.

Not my vision of what I was purchasing, but we didn’t let that deter two new parents who needed a good night out without the kid and pup. Once we reset our expectations from luxury cruise to pirate cruise, we had a great time and it made for quite a memorable evening.

Now that's a flat tire

Selena is not allowed out of the house for one month, so says Confucius.

Okay, maybe it’s not a decree specifically from the ancient Chinese philosopher specifically but somewhere between his time and the beginning of the Lo Dynasty (two weeks ago) the Chinese rules for ... [ more ]]]>

Confucius say "You're grounded, Selena."

Selena is not allowed out of the house for one month, so says Confucius.

Okay, maybe it’s not a decree specifically from the ancient Chinese philosopher specifically but somewhere between his time and the beginning of the Lo Dynasty (two weeks ago) the Chinese rules for a new mom were determined.

They are:

• Drink only special Chinese tea
• Eat only special Chinese chicken soup
• Do not go outside

At first I thought these were ancients customs, good to know in that understand-your-heritage sort of way. But, no, they are being taken this very seriously.  I know because of how many people come to visit bearing chicken soup.

Selena’s dad, step-mom, aunt and uncle, her dad’s friends, and even our have dropped by to see Kaylee and brought with them the special Chinese chicken soup.

With each new guests arrival, it became clearer to me that this was a conspiracy. I have been in the dark, while the greater Chinese culture was cooking Chicken soup, mixing hot teas and getting ready for Selena’s recovery month.

And how has Selena taken to being grounded by her culture?  Pretty well. She’s been recovering from the surgery, so she’s hardly been interested in even going upstairs, much less out on the town.  Plus, she prefers warm beverages anyway, so that was no biggie. The real aspect that’s required some discipline for Selena has been the food. Chicken soup is good on occasion, but she’s had to eat quite a lot of it. When this month is over (in about two weeks), I know she’s going to be craving some good eats.

My brother Jeff went skiing this year on our annual pilgrimage to the Poconos. It may not sound blog-worthy, but this is the first time he’s strapped on a pair of skis since 1992 when on a high school class ski trip ... [ more ]]]>

Skiers on the ski trip (Jeff at center)

My brother Jeff went skiing this year on our annual pilgrimage to the Poconos. It may not sound blog-worthy, but this is the first time he’s strapped on a pair of skis since 1992 when on a high school class ski trip he was ridiculed by the jackass instructor. Jeff finished the lessons, returned the skis and (despite coordinating a ski trip to Shawnee annually for 10 years now), never returned to the slopes… until this year.

For our book club, Selena and I are both reading World War Z – The Oral History of the Zombie War.  I am only half way through the book, but I have already mentally shredded my Zombie Contingency Plan. I realize now how naïve and foolish I ... [ more ]]]>

World War Z

For our book club, Selena and I are both reading World War Z – The Oral History of the Zombie War.  I am only half way through the book, but I have already mentally shredded my Zombie Contingency Plan. I realize now how naïve and foolish I was when I made that plan.

My whole plan involves hiding for a series of days. But if the zombies do rise, they will grow in number feasting on civilians far faster than our military will be able to build the force to eliminate them. It would likely be a lengthy battle of years, with our human side taking heavy initial casualties (that would then become essentially defectors).

So, now I need a new plan, something that involves running like hell or stockpiling some ammunitions I think. Perhaps I’ll finish the book and see how those humans won that war, and take some pointers from there.

The whole Hunt was done on foot in a section of DC that was mapped out ... [ more ]]]> This past Sunday I was running around downtown DC with about 10,000 other people trying to solve riddles and piece together clues to win a $2000 prize. It was the second annual Post Hunt.

The whole Hunt was done on foot in a section of DC that was mapped out in the Washington Post Magazine. Solving some initial trivia told you where on the map to go to find the five clues. At each of these five points were Post Hunt volunteers providing the clues in brilliantly creative manners, such as:

House Bill 98999

Two faux members of the House debating the merits of the text of bill 98999 and stating that it lacked accountability. Nowhere in the text of the bill could you find one word of accountability.

Do you get it?

For this clue you had to pull out your phone and “text” the word “accountability” to the number 98999. You immediately got a response that “The solution is a simple majority”. Being that this was a faux bill in the House of Representatives, which has 435 members, the majority would be 218. That was the answer: 218.

All the answers were numbers and corresponded with clues in that same Post Magazine. Once you had all five clues you were prepared to hear the final puzzle, which would be a race to finish, first one to solve it wins the whole Hunt.

We did ace all five clues, but sadly, we took a wrong turn in the third or fourth step of the final puzzle and ended up not finishing. Still, it wasn’t about winning or prize money, it was about you and your team having that eureka moment when you suddenly discovered a right answer.

I am really glad I joined a team to play this year and familiarized myself with the event, and hope I can get a lot of you all out next year to join me on the Hunt.

Over the past few months Selena and I have been going to open houses and trying to formulate an idea of what we would want in our next home. We will be leaving condo living behind and moving ... [ more ]]]>

We do really like our proximity to Rockville Town Center

Over the past few months Selena and I have been going to open houses and trying to formulate an idea of what we would want in our next home. We will be leaving condo living behind and moving into our own home with more room, and more storage and a big kitchen and preferably a man-cave.

So the type of home we want is really taking shape, but we still can’t figure out where we would like that home to be. For as long as we’ve been in this area, we really don’t know it all that well, especially from a real estate perspective.

So, help us out blog-nation. Tell us where you think is the best area for Greg and Selena to live. Is it staying in Rockville? Moving to Tysons? What about Alexandria? Is PG County sketchy? How about Huntington?

And for those visitors to this blog that are not in the beltway, don’t feel you can’t weigh in as well. Why should we move back to Delaware or up to New York or Boston or San Francisco or down to Atlanta or Florida?

Let us know where you think is the best place to live in the comments below.