MSO = Minimum Service Obligation

For those of us who opted into Navy ROTC that meant 4 years active, 4 years reserve as a minimum obligation for taking the scholorship and the commission.  I had a fantastic time in the Navy and would go back and tell the 18 year old me to do the same thing again.  But 8 years ago today was commissioning and as of now I am eligible to become a completely free agent.

Funny thing about the inactive ready reserve (of which I am a member) is that once you reach your MSO you don’t automatically get unregistered, it requires a second ‘resignation’ to complete.  So I guess that is the next step.

I sure can’t believe it’s been 8 years…

7,361 miles, 1,424 pictures, 12+ friends, 9 days, (x)$ = 1 Great Spring Break Trip.

We’ve been home since early last Monday morning but work has been busy, and free time filled for me at least processing the 1,424 pictures I shot over the course of the week.  I’ve been publishing in batches to both flickr and facebook, and neglecting this site.  In more multi-web portal goodness news I’ve found that I can link both my flickr site and this blog to my facebook newsfeed so I guess that makes things a bit simpler for people to find out when i’m doing new stuff.

Anyway, the trip was a huge sucess and a ton of fun.  I had alot of interesting lessons learned and observations from a photographic sense which I discussed over at photo.net and got great response from the forums there. Since I haven’t spelled it out elsewhere I will also explain my photo posting reasoning, basically people photo’s (or ones of particular interest to friends and family) go on facebook, scenery, plants, stuff w/out people goes on flickr.  I intend to use the blog here to pull out my most favorite of each category but not try to document everything.  Hope you enjoy!

Fountain Hills is a suburb of Scottsdale, known for its nice lake with a huge fountain in it (I’ll have pictures to share when I get home).  Erika, Jenny, Evan and I have been all over the Phoenix – Tempe area exploring some of the natural wonders… Desert Botanical Garden (including the Chihuly Glass exhibit).  Jenny works there actually and got us day and night access including some of the off limits areas which was great.  I’m not hopefull for my night photo’s of the glass but we’ll see how they come out.

Also today we visited a ‘ghost town/tourist trap near Superstition Mountain which was pretty neat.  The collection of degrading old vehicles near the town was the highlight for me.  Tomorrow we are planning a hike and then getting at least part of the way up to Vegas where we begin phase 3 of the trip!  The original plan called for camping at the Grand Canyon tomorrow night but as the high’s are in the 30deg range and there is a chance of snow we’ve decided to make that a future trip.

Tony & Erika

In support of the BID and our new neighborhood I guess I will now start calling this area ‘Capitol Riverfront’ as well.  Check out the BID Websitewhich is an interesting view into the future of the neighborhood.

But getting to the best part of last night is that we met 20-30 of our neighbors, not just here in Capitol Hill Tower but also neighboors from the new Jefferson Apt Building and I think one person from the surrounding town home/row home places.  At the conclusion of the party in fact Erika and I brought the party upstairs to our place and we had a great time getting to know people, and distracting me from the depressing VT-Miami game.   How bout those Jets though!?!

Anyway, here’s hoping that last night is the beginning of several new friendships and a closer relationship with our new community!

Yesterday Erika, Sara, Ryan, Pete and I started a long football weekend by driving down to Blacksburg for the VT-MD Thursday night game.  Minus Ryan, we are now headed to Knoxville, TN for the Tennessee Homecoming FB game on Saturday,  two games, two parties and two very different stadiums!

A couple observations at this point (we’re on the road right now between Bburg and Knoxville…):

• Nice to see/be at a football game where you can barely see the opposing team’s colors in the crowd (reference the MNF Skins-Steelers game in Washington this week)
• There’s nothing like Lane Stadium on a big Thursday night game – THUNDEROUS NOISE!
• VT 13-3 all time in Thursday night games (2 of those losses against Boston College)
• Blacksburg is capable of some stunningly beautiful weather at odd times of the year
• I’ve missed seeing a full sky of stars like we got last night..

And now on to Knoxville, GO VOLS!

A couple pictures to get you into the right seasonal state of mind! Plus a couple other random ones I hadn’t gotten around to posting lately.  The Redskins managed to eek out a victory today which saved the football weekend! (not sure if you saw the VT or UT games – if not your lucky!)

Here are a couple pictures from the trip along with a couple more of our new dog.  We took him to his first obediance class where he did good but had to be separated from his old kennel mate for barking.  We also have named him – Knish.  The story behind the name is that Erika and I decided to make potato knish for a holiday party in FL a couple years back, basically it was a very long and involved process for some very small but tasty treats.  It confirmed our aversion to most baking but its stuck w/ us as a good story… now its going to be a good dog!  Enjoy the pictures, I hope everyone in the DC area got out and enjoyed the gorgeous weather!!!

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Why so relatively little pictures, well my Canon Digital Elph finally crapped out after I had downloaded the pictures you do get to see about halfway through our trip.  It was getting an ‘E18′ error that has something to do with the lens malfunctioning.  This wouldn’t have been too bad b/c I was able to take pictures all the way up untill the last day. The real tragedy of this is that there are probably another 50-75 pictures, mostly of St John and the really interesting Eco-Resort we stayed in (Maho Bay Camps) that appear to be corrupted on the memory card.  I haven’t completely given up hope but it doesn’t look good.

Our trip was exactly what we’d hoped for, St Thomas was a great low-key place and Secret Harbor Resort was as advertised (thanks Dad!).  August is a very slow month for tourism in the USVI due to threat of hurricane and average rainfall. We lucked out on both counts only loosing two days to rain in St John and avoiding the hurricanes.  I think my favorite pursuit in St Thomas was floating about chest deep sipping rum drinks from solo cups, in St John the place we stayed put us in the middle of more wildlife than I would have believed.  At any given moment we had 4-5 full sized iguanas in sight, basking in the sun or eating leaves… tons of birds, small anoles and other lizards.  The tent we had at Maho Bay was also just abou the penthouse equivalent given the views (which I can’t share with you other than w/ words)

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If enough people harass Erika about making a post perhaps she will share her thoughts, especially on Maho Bay.  It is a cool place but definitly not a place for everyone!  By resort standards it is definitly ‘roughing it’, by camping standards it is luxurious!  We had the disadvantage of being there in the slow season and found that many of the regular activities, tours and crafts were not available.  I also can’t recommend having your own car enough. We did on St Thomas but not St John.  The constant fares for taxis, the tips, the hassle all added up to both of us wishing we had our own car.

Hope you enjoy the pictures, we should have professional pictures from the wedding soon as well.

-Tony

I’m pretty devestated by the start to football this year,  we watched the VT-ECU debacle from the beach bar at our hotel in St Thomas, the UT-UCLA game from a wonderfully air-conditioned bar in St John and the Skins-Giants game after we made it home on DVR (thanks Ryan!) and came out dissapointed in all three.  That is some bad luck!  Perhaps we should shuffle QB’s and coaches between them and see what happens?!?

Back to work next Monday and while I do feel relaxed from my time off I think it just makes me want to head back to the tropics soon!  I wish we still did Naval testing down off of Puerto Rico!!!

My digital camera seems to have crapped out on the plane ride home so I may have lost as much as half the honeymoon pictures so I’ll be directing people to a couple websites to fill in the gaps.

The house unpacking is going well, Erika brought over her vintage diner table, chrome with a red stripe… and it looks great in the place. We expected the red to clash with they room but it actually goes quite well.  I can also proudly report that the bar is to the 98% level of completion with Plexiglas inserts, shellacked wood and caulked crevices. There are a number of finishing things to do still but it has alcohol on the shelves and stemware hanging from the ceiling box.

You’ll have to take my word for it though… no pictures just yet.  But just so you get to see at least one new-old pic. For all the VT Corps of Cadets out there, especially those of us from Kilo Battery…. enjoy!