3/23/09 update: Maybe I should delete this entry now that Daschle is not quite as cool as I originally thought…

Obama Nominates Daschle for HHS

President-elect Barack Obama formally nominated Thomas A. Daschle to become the next secretary of health and human services this morning and said the former Senate majority leader would lead efforts to reform health care.

Most excellent. I'm a big fan of Tom Daschle for a couple of reasons: one, I got to meet him in person five years ago, and two, my friend Peter worked for him as a summer intern.

Peter's probably going to roll his eyes because I'm showing this pic for the 3000th time, but I can't help it, it was VERY exciting to meet the current Senate Minority Leader… it was basically my one and only face-to-face interaction with a national 'celebrity.'

At the Wright Brothers' Centennial Celebration dinner in 2003. It was held in a hangar at National Airport… very fitting. (And COLD!)

John Travolta was also at the dinner, but personally I couldn't have cared less. Besides, who's cooler — a senator from South Dakota or a celebrity whose movie about his Scientology 'religion' (Battlefield Earth) won 7 out of 8 nominations for the 2000 Razzie Awards? Yeah, I thought so.

Additionally, Dad thinks it's funny that Travolta prides himself on owning/flying a Boeing 707, which apparently is a pretty crappy airplane. Not only does it have a terrible record (thanks to its predisposition to doing a "Dutch Roll" motion), but it's considered to have crummy fuel economy and is noisy as hell. To put it in perspective, the last Brazilian Air Force One was a 707-300, also known as "Sucatão" ("big junk").

I have long been one of those people who always takes the stairs whenever possible. Not only is it better for your health, but it also saves energy! (Yes kids, remember- elevators use electricity.)

It drives me CRAZY when I'm in an elevator and people use it to go up one or two floors. (Or even worse - DOWN any less than three floors.) If you look healthy and don't seem to have any physical disabilities, I will judge you as being lazy. Sorry to sound harsh, but with the incredible obesity epidemic we have nowadays, there's no excuse for not taking the stairs if you're able to.

Consequently, my new office building has some issues. Despite most floors having key card access doors to the interior offices, the stupid stairwell doors are LOCKED. Meaning, if you want to go to another floor — whether it be one or eleven floors up — you HAVE to take the elevator. If you go into the stairwell, you are locked out and the only way out is through the lobby or garage.

I work on the second floor.

As you can see, this is absolute torture for me. To get in the elevator to go up ONE floor is like asking me to drive my car 1/10th of a mile.

Whenever I get in the elevator with people going up to the 15th floor and I hit that "2" button, I want to turn around and say, "Look, the stairwell doors are locked! I can't do anything about that! Believe me, I'd take the stairs if I could!" (Hey, I would know — I was one of those people. I worked on the 10th floor at my old office and would inwardly groan each time some lazy person would make me late because they wouldn't take the stairs — which, coincidentally, were very usable because the stairwell doors were unlocked!)

Even worse, the bathrooms on our floor are being renovated, so we have to go up to the 3rd floor to use theirs. Which means going up and back down only ONE floor in the elevator. Rather than potentially embarrass myself, I've been using different floors' bathrooms. (Except the 6th floor. Damn SAIC has the ladies' room locked. )

Unfortunately, I've found a nice, newly renovated bathroom on the 4th floor… but I suppose the sacrifice of going up/down two floors in order to use a modern bathroom is worth the risk of being judged by elevator-mates.

Okay, so apparently last week's ride wasn't my last ride, after all. I'm not even sure if this past Saturday's ride will be considered the "last ride" of the season, so I think I'll stop dubbing them as final bike rides when they may not be.

Anyway. Went out on a 25 mile "training ride" on Saturday sponsored by the Capital MS Society… that I nearly skipped out on. First off, doing that ride meant getting up early on a Saturday morning. Additionally, the weather report called for showers and fog. Bleh. So, when my alarm blared at 8 AM (hey, that's early for me), I looked outside, saw wet pavement (no rain, though), and said "Screw it," and tried to go back to sleep.

Yeah, easier said than done. 30 minutes later, I'm still awake. I grumble at my conscience for ruining my attempt to sleep in and finally haul my butt out of bed to ride down to Courthouse. Fortunately, the weather cleared up and the pavement was dry by the time I got there, so my original "excuse" was no longer valid.

The ride itself was fun, I'm glad I ended up going. The autumn leaves were out in full force and looked beautiful… a.k.a. nice and distracting, since there were many many many hills to climb. Since it was somewhat of a smaller group, there wasn't as much bunching-up/riding 3 abreast trend that I hate with group rides… not to say that everyone rode single file and obeyed all traffic rules.

Route is below, although the little section down by miles 12-13 is a little weird — I don't exactly remember cutting through 5 backyards to return to Lincoln Ave. I'm not sure what my total mileage was, probably closer to 30 with the commute to/from Courthouse… still a lot for my weak little legs.

Off to the gym to pedal 30 minutes to nowhere. Only 117 days left until daylight savings time begins again.

Let me say this outright: I hate, hate, hate clothes shopping. I really do not enjoy going to a mall, walking around, trying on various clothes, and then walking out three hours later empty handed.

Shoe shopping, on the other hand, is a little easier to like. Not sure whether it's because trying on shoes is a quick process, or the fact that DSW keeps sending me coupons and stuff… but shoe shopping is significantly less painful than clothes shopping.

That being said, I realize I want to buy a pair of red sneakers to wear to next year's DC United games. DSW doesn't really stock scores of red athletic shoes, so I headed online to see what I could come up with.

First contestant is from Zappos, one of my favorite (but albeit more expensive) online shoe stores. This is Puma "The Suede."

Next up, also from Zappos: Converse All Star Core OX.

At this point, I ran out of plausible options in the Women's section, so let's head over to the Men's dept.

Contestant #3:Gola Harrier - 40th anniversary. (Never heard of Gola before, but I certainly have heard of Harrier. Yes, that plane is hovering.)

Another site I particularly enjoy (save for their search engine) is 6pm.com. I think Zappos actually owns 6pm, and it's essentially their outlet store. Really cheap prices, but the tradeoff is no free return shipping. Meet Adidas TOP Sala VIII.

Sadly, this particular pair is only available in mens sizes 4.5 (I didn't even know they went that low), 10, and 13. Cross this pair off the list.

Thankfully, THESE guys come in my size: Reebok Superkick.

The Superkicks are my favorite so far… my only little quibble about those is the black heel. If I actually had any readers on this blog, I'd put a poll up or something to see what everyone else thought. (Then again, if I based my decision on what everyone else chose, what kind of person would that make me?)

Hopefully this won't be the last LAST bike ride, but with the time change (I really dislike daylight savings time), it's going to be much harder to find time to ride.

So, after shaking off my post-Halloween hangover, I quickly plotted out a route and hit the road. Despite not having ridden for about two weeks, I actually felt pretty good. For some reason my HR was not nearly as high as it has been going up hills, which to me seems kind of backwards. Oh well.

As you can see below, my trip took me back up to multimillion-dollar McLean neighborhood along the Potomac. I thought this was kind of interesting — the further north I went, from Arlington into Fairfax County, the more McCain/Palin signs I saw. Interestingly enough, the dividing line seemed to be Route 123/Dolley Madison Blvd.

A really inspiring sight for me: as I turned from Westmoreland St. onto Chain Bridge, there were about 10 people standing on the side of the road with a huge Obama/Biden banner and waving signs around. People were honking and giving the thumbs-up. Gotta love grassroots efforts!

April 2008.

My turnaround point was a familiar place, as I had previously visited this spot back at the end of April. The under-construction house where this photo was taken is still empty and unfinished, so I decided venture one more time into the backyard to take in the view.

I figured I should capture the moment 6 months later with another self portrait with the river and trees in the background.

6 months later and I still look like a tool.

[One thing I love about Virginia is the fact that most of the leaves are still on the trees by November, whereas in Connecticut they've been long gone for 2 weeks. The fact that it's commonly above 50 degrees (it was actually around 70 when I went out) also helps.]

I think that's the last time I'm going down to that particular spot, not only because it'll probably be someone's residence next year, but my cleats were completely coated in sticky mud. I may or may not have wiped them off on someone's lawn with a McCain/Palin sign on it.

Without further ado, the usual MMR route:

Oh yeah, and GO VOTE TODAY! Your future depends on it!