Last night the Cowboys practically gave the game away with two first half interceptions thrown by Romo after a dominant first drive by the Skin’s resulted in a touchdown… I was exultant after DeAngelo Hall (go hokies! – also lower case after last Thursday) picked off a horrible Romo pass to T.O. in his first game as a Skin but the offense never got going again and instead I sat there the rest of the game hoping they would pull it out despite the lack of offense.

Also it seems like someone had been starving Marion Barber all week and then dangled a snickers bar in front of him for the start of an impressive 6 min drive by the Cowboys to finish us off in the 4th quarter… which if you remember is exactly the way we closed out some of those impressive games earlier this season.

I’m not giving them up for dead, but my enthusiasm is officially tempered… go skins

Erika, Sara and I are speeding north on I-81 as I write this listening to NFL on sirius radio (thanks Ryan!).  All in all a fantastic mid-fall football vacation!

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!)

I’m still playing around with just how I best like to present albums on this site and this is yet another option, feel free to comment and make suggestions if you wish.  My first album is from Saturday morning when Knish and I took an exploring trip down to the DC Riverfront area.  This whole area used to be federal property as part of the Washington Navy Yard.  Now it is under private development for condo’s and commercial areas.  If you are interested in the latest happening son this topic, check out JD Land’s website as she is the expert.

Click on the picture below to see the album;

The bigger event this weekend was Erika and I going to the Redskins-Rams game at FedEx field.  Pro football is really an awesome spectacle in person and we had a great time.  Unfortunatly I seem to be cryptonite for any sports endeavour I support and the Skin’s impressive 4 game winning streak was snapped after a lackluster offensive effort with a field goal as time expired by the Rams.  The weather was nice and I got some fun pictures with my 70-300mm lens.  Our seats were pricey, but close to the action and as low down in the stadium as I’ve ever been.  Enjoy!

Click on the picture for the album;

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.

Sometimes everything just seems to fall into place just right, and without a ton of effort on anyone’s part.  Not often but this past weekend was such an occasion…  As the wedding draws closer my groomsmen have been looking for something worthwhile and memorable for a bachelor party and being a huge Redskin, and football fan we really lucked into a great time.
The itinerary was a typical ballgame roadtrip;

1. Fri night dinner at Cantina Marina in SW DC, then drive to Pittsburgh (sleep at my Dad’s house)
2. Sat get up drive to Canton, OH – home of the NFL Hall of Fame and enjoy the festivities, tailgate and watch Art Monk and Darrel Green (two of the all time greats from the Gibbs era Skin’s teams) be inducted into the Hall of Fame
3. Sun back to Canton to tour the actual Hall of Fame, tailgate most of the afternoon (touring the National Guard Apache and Chinook helicopters) and meet up with my Dad for the Hall of Fame Game which this year featured the Redskins vs Colts.
4. Cannonball Run from Canton to SE DC… rolling in around 0430, and making it to work (well not on time) on Monday!

For anyone who saw the game it was really a great one for a pre-season game, but the best part of the weekend was hanging out with Ryan, Andrew, Rob and my Dad.  Great trip, enjoy the pictures!

$5 tickets (2)

$20 parking (at our own building)*

$30 concessions

Monsoon in the bottom of the 6th Inning avoided by a timely exit and a $6 bike-rickshaw ride directly to the Marriot bar(same building as our place) to enjoy scotch while laughing at wet people…

PRICELESS!!!

The escape from the rain delay actually turned a very poor game (from the Nat’s perspective) into a fun time.  I guess we got spoiled by Friday nights 4-2 victory against the O’s which Erika and I also went to because despite the delay the game did finish 9-1 O’s.  The Nat’s also lost another ’star’, in centerfielder Lastings Milledge just before the rain came when he got his foot stuck under the centerfield pads and strained something.  So depressing all around from a baseball standpoint.  The bike-rickshaw ride was great though, there aren’t a ton of them operating in SE yet but w/ parking so far and scattered I’d be surprised if there aren’t more coming.  If you haven’t seen them its a bike w/ a 2-3 seat bench behind it, usually trike style and its a fun way to travel short distances.

And now a couple pictures from the better (Friday) of our two baseball experiences this weekend…

*More about the $20 parking, be warned… the street ‘Pay-to-Park’ kiosks around Nat’s park cost $20 for the 7pm-10pm period encompassing the game and there is NO mention of the extra cost during special events on the kiosk.  In fact the instructions state that no parking tickets are issued 30 min prior or post a Nat’s game.  Not being  the trusting sort I decided to try anyway – and so I got the 3hr $20 boobie prize.

One last picture to share, a wonderful night sky color from last week looking out of our balcony:

Other highlights from today include watching the movie ‘The Longest Day’ this morning as I woke up slowly and getting birthday cake for breakfast with my coffee. Also of random note, playing with firefox this morning I found a great extension called PicLens. I haven’t seen anything particularly striking and ‘new’ in a while for webbrowsing but this thumbnail – video wall is really cool.  Check it out with Firefox 3.0 if you are interested.

Hope you all enjoyed today as much as I did, share what you did if you want in the comments!
Tony