theparkerfamily.org

  • first attempt at anniversary fails, couple reshedules for friday

    it’s our anniversary, and the lady sparkler and I packed up Saturday for some light camping along the Delaware shore (cape helopen, near rehobeth).

    the first problem is that she’s been fighting a cold, and it seemed to take up residence as the weekend went on. second problem was that the beach town was packed with old white people and their funny accents (the origin of which we never did figure out).

    but besides side-stepping octagenarians, we had a good lunch (authentic, takeout fish and chips) at the beach before heading bailing for the quiet serenity of the nearby state park.

    turns out that the economy really is in the toilet, because while every motel had bountiful vacancies, the campsite was quite literally packed with miserable looking middle-class white people. we checked in, and found our allotted 8 foot square patch of sand surrounded on all sides by kids, dogs and cars.

    our site seemed to have the special designation of being the dog run for the neighbooring sites, which would have been about 2 feet from our tent once pitched. i am pretty certain that I have never seen such a small “campsite” before, and (we decided) hope to never again.

    so, given the illness, the kids, the dogs, and the funny accents, we decided to take a long walk around the cape, eat some cheesy-so-bad-it’s-good Mexican food (Chevy’s) along the highway home and call it a day.

    in full disclosure, the day was by no means a wash … we had gorgeous weather, a beautiful hike, and a wonderful day trip. we’re going to celebrate our anniversary on Friday instead, with a meal at our favorite-est fancy restaurant in the world — Acadiana — like good affluent, married white-people should.

    hopefully we’ll have less sickness, and we’ll definitely have less funny accents.

  • live: the veep debate

    I’ve been looking to avoid this evening since I heard the veep nominations…

    The expectations for Palin are so low, that if she strings two coherent sentences together she wins. If Biden crushes her, she wins. If the moderator asks her hard questions, she wins. If she shows up with a star-spangled swimsuit and poses with a gun, she wins.

    To quote the pimply faced boy from the Simpsons: this is only going to end in tears.

    7:33 PM To get warmed up, some favorite veep-debate quotes:
    7:33 PM “Who am I? Why am I here? I’m not a politician…”
    — Admiral James Stockdale
    7:34 PM “I will never have another Jimmy Carter grain embargo, Jimmy, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter grain embargo, Jimmy Carter grain embargo.”
    — Senator Dan Quayle
    7:36 PM “George Bush taking credit for the Berlin Wall coming down is like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise.”
    — Sen. Al Gore
    9:01 PM Ahhh … back on PBS, but I am already missing that little audience response graph on CNN.
    9:02 PM If you flip between CNN and PBS, CNN is on a 5 second tape delay. Are they expecting a wardrobe malfunction?
    9:04 PM How come Joe in a black suit looks professional, but Sarah in a black suit looks like she is going to a funeral?
    9:07 PM Well practiced responses from both candidates. Palin stumbled right out of the gate, but settled down quick.
    9:12 PM Wow. I mean, like wow. Satan prepped this woman. She is on point, on message, and (like all good pols interacting with journalists) completely ignoring the question.
    9:15 PM Joe’s gotta watch it … he’s going to come across as a inside-the-beltway wonk, and she is going to become the guardian of the people.
    9:18 PM Satan, i tell you, Satan. Ham-fisted (barking at Gwen where there is nothing to bark about) but is going to do great for the anti-PBS vote.
    9:20 PM She’s stumbling just enough to increase her foloksy cred, but not enough to embarass herself.
    9:22 PM Flip over to CNN. Human’s are perverts. I can understand the audience response for men jumping when she speaks, but the audience response for women jumping when *he* speaks?
    9:26 PM Oh. Need something to distract me.
    9:28 PM How is she being allowed to successfully stake out their ticket as the one of change? Joe’s got to step up his game …
    9:33 PM Am i the only one who is a little disappointed that she didn’t say that Climate Change is just God hugging us closer?
    9:39 PM Oh, my. She just used tolerance as a reason to be intolerant. Artful.
    9:44 PM She just paused about 5 seconds before responding to a question about Iraq, and you could actually see her sifting through the mental file folders / media training looking for the appropriate canned response…
    9:45 PM When, exactly, is she going to start drooling again?
    9:49 PM I think she wants to sleep with Petraeus, too. What is the deal?!?
    9:55 PM Joe Biden shouldn’t talk about Joe Biden in the third person …
    9:57 PM Is anybody buying Sarah Palin as the harbinger of change? The Dems are “spending too much time pointing backwards” to convince Palin that they are going to move us forward. Ouch.
    10:00 PM I want to live in the parallel universe that she’s living in.
    10:06 PM I never thought in a million years that Palin would be the one who would need to watch coming off as being condescending.
    10:07 PM SOMEONE BRING ME A DRINK!
    10:09 PM “a team of mavericks.”
    10:15 PM This folksy thing is at the point where it’s just making me mad … literally, and certifiably, angry. You, betcha!
    10:17 PM Does Cheney have a doctrine now? And is she actually supporting it? How in God’s name does she think that a more active role for the veep will get her ticket elected.
    10:22 PM Sarah Palin: the candidate of change and tolerance. Doublethink. Blackwhite. She must be a closet fan of Orwell.
    10:35 PM thank god that’s over.
    10:36 PM observation number one: this answers the question about whether she can be properly media trained, not about whether she can be a chief executive.
    10:37 PM observation number two: mark shields called her “relentlessly colloquial” and i think that hits the nail on the head. the open question is whether or not the people want that right now, after 8 years of someone who couldn’t pronounce “nuclear.”
    10:41 PM observation number three: she threw the bush administration under the bus. i know that it won’t be remembered in 50 years, but if bush is expecting a positive legacy … oiff.
    10:52 PM that’s it. i’m done. good night, kids …

    a couple more thoughts after the debate … it’s fascinating the sea change we have seen in regards to women and their roll in society. i’m sincerely happy that a woman can go into a veep debate with a folksy, soccer mom schtick and hold her own against opposition in a power suit.

    let’s be honest, if geraldine ferraro went for this approach 24 years ago, she would have been run off the ticket on a rail.

    to me, this election was all fun and games until tonight. honestly, i suspect i could live under a McCain administration … even if i would prefer pre-2001 as opposed to this particular incarnation. but, imho, the country just can’t survive even two years of a Palin administration.

    the way she looks down on intellect, forces herself to be colloquial, follows her politico-driven script, her obviously ultra-conservative credentials … that’s just a continuation of the bush approach which has proven bankrupt.

    that’s it for me. i’m (right now) going to go donate a lot of money to the Obama campaign, and go to bed to get the nightmares over with.

  • hiking in rock creek park (why we love dc #9)

    it turns out that rock creek park (of Chandra Levy fame) has a network of trails … *actual* trails with switchbacks, elevation gain, wildlife, streams, and mud. not just the paved rec paths or glorified sidewalks you would imagine in a city park.

    it amazes me that residents of Mt. Pleasant won’t shut up about the glory that is the National Zoo — though it is pretty awesome — and yet they neglect to mention the National Park-grade liking trails less than three blocks away.

    even more stupefying is that we had the trails to our selves. sans a couple or dog owners and a pair of septuagenarians warning us about the perils of poison ivy (they had just been interviewed by News Channel 8 on the topic) there was nary a human in sight on a stunningly beautiful Sunday afternoon.

    there are two main trails around the park … the western ridge trail and the valley trail. we looped through the bottom third of both in about two hours. the trails go from the Zoo all the way up to Maryland, but we weren’t that brave (and, frankly, should have been in better shoes).

    we did get lost (yes, in rock creek park) and used my fancy-pants new iPhone’s GPS locator-thingy to save our bacon. I’d like to think that the coolness of the iPhone balances embarrassment of actually using it in the “wilderness” … but, sadly, it’s still just humiliating.

    speaking of maps, those provided by the Park Service show the trails as one unintelligible smudge, which makes navigation (without an iPhone) that much more exciting. there are larger, more printer friendly rock creek trail maps here:

    Map: Hiking Trails in Rock Creek Park (South)
    Map: Hiking Trails in Rock Creek Park (North)

    Explore the Photoset:
    Hiking in Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC

  • live: the first presidential debate

    Guess who live blogged the debate tonight? Tonight’s coverage came from waaaay out in suburban Maryland — home of the very mighty baby boig. Also, in case you missed it, I live blogged that joint appearance by Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton on Saturday night two weeks back.

    thoughts from the debate

    8:05 AM I honestly can’t imagine a better prologue for the debate than McCain calling for it to be canceled, and Obama educating John that a President needs to be able to walk *and* chew gum at the same time.
    12:08 PM debate is looking like it’s a go. washingtonpost.com reporting that mccain has agreed to participate, citing “significant progress” on the bailout.
    12:14 PM in case you hadn’t heard, mccain has already won the debate … and this “happened” while he was still trying to kill it.
    5:10 PM i’m more than a little nervous about rolling out new technology (posting from iPhone) in a live broadcast event … even if it there are just three of you watching/reading.
    8:18 PM at the party … negotiations have commenced as to which network coverage to watch. it doesn’t look good for PBS.
    8:55 PM So we have the option of watching RoboCop or the debate. Dunno, I do like Peter Weller.
    9:01 PM Here we go, in the land of the stars and bars. On CNN. *Sigh*
    9:03 PM I [heart] Jim Lehrer.
    9:05 PM Interesting how McCain entered from the *right* of the stage … hmmm.
    9:05 PM Barack = too much makeup.
    9:07 PM McCain trots out Kennedy’s illness? Nice try, but poor form … especially for what was deemed a “mild seizure.”
    9:08 PM At least McCain practiced his response to the financial bailout question. Barack should have had that speech polished. You’ve *got* to map out your first fifteen offensive plays if you want to coach in this league, kiddo.
    9:10 PM It’s going to be a long night if they don’t start answering Jim’s questions…
    9:11 PM How is the financial crisis like the landings at Normandy? I got WAY confused on that one…
    9:13 PM Point to John McCain for making a joke … proof that he’s actually alive. Especially important as he (a) isn’t moving much, and (b) his makeup makes him look like a corpse.
    9:16 PM That lighting makes McCain look like he has a comb-over … or maybe that’s just reality doing that.
    9:20 PM “I didn’t win Miss Congeniality in the US Senate..” NICE!
    9:27 PM Barack is looking great … and I don’t think McCain is winning many points being *so* focused on pork barrel spending. It’s a bullet point, John. It’s not the whole speech.
    9:31 PM Is McCain running for President or Accountant-In-Chief? Next slide, John-boy.
    9:35 PM Barack is much more nimble at jumping from issue to issue … John-boy isn’t flustered, but isn’t exactly fleet of feet here.
    9:44 PM I hope Petraeus doesn’t retire … who is McCain going gush over when he’s gone.
    9:48 PM Watching on CNN, I am fascinated by the little graph on the bottom of the screen measuring audience response, one line each for dems, indies and repubs … I know it prolly has no substance what-so-ever but I can’t tear my eyes away
    9:51 PM Barack is calling McCain out for “misrepresentation” a lot. People here are standing saying “Hallelujah,” but I wonder how the confrontation is looking to the undecideds.
    9:52 PM I feel like McCain keeps fighting the last argument.
    9:56 PM Is McCain sleeping with General Petraeus? I know about this “don’t ask, don’t tell” thing, but maybe John-boy should do a little more “don’t tell…”
    9:58 PM John-boy supports extinction for North Korea and jokes about bombing Iran? Two good lines to Obama. I’m thinking he was well prepped.
    10:00 PM McCain’s jowells are twitching … I think he’s getting ready to combust.
    10:01 PM Oy. A verbal battle of soldier’s mother’s bracelets … unseemly. You can see that Obama is wearing the bracelet, John. Why bring it up?
    10:05 PM McCain just called Iran an “existential” threat. Was that “existential” as in “existentialism,” as in Albert Camus and Friedrich Nietzsche … as in “I create my own reality?” Heck, I’d agree that John-boy creates his own reality …
    10:07 PM I know that I’m partial, but I’m pretty sure Obama is doing waaaay better keeping McCain honest than vice versa.
    10:09 PM “Punishing countries by not talking to them does not work…” *great* line from Obama, putting McCain square in the Bush camp.
    10:12 PM So, this reminds me of a funny joke I heard: Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and President Obama walk into a bar — stop me if you have heard this one …
    10:18 PM I can’t hear the word “Russia” without thinking about Tina Fey saying: “I can see Russia from my back yard.”
    10:20 PM You know at least a hundred people outside Atlanta just called the Georgia state police to report that the Russians have invaded.
    10:24 PM That smirk on McCain’s face is positively Bush-ian. Do you think the general public finds it as pompous (and vaguely unstable) as I do?
    10:26 PM Does anyone know what Nunn-Lugar is? Two of you? Great. Are you an undecided living in middle America? No, not so much …
    10:28 PM If the U.S. is safer now than after 9/11, can we get step down from that “Code Orange” thing that’s messing up all the airports?
    10:30 PM I know Obama isn’t going to say it, but could the biggest threat to our security be to remain in Iraq? Or, for us to not fix our standing in the world?
    10:31 PM Spoke too soon. Obama just said “we must restore our standing in the world” and that statement shoved that audience reaction graph through the roof. Dems and Indies are way up. Even the repubs are up, up, up. Who knew America cared? Or, who knew a focus group in Atlanta cared?
    10:33 PM McCain just said “blood and treasure.” Which brings up an important point … does middle America celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and do they know it was actually last week?
    10:36 PM McCain just said Bush and Obama shared foreign policy stubbornness. Sharpest knock on the president so far, though (imho) it seemed a bit forced.
    10:37 PM John is tiring out, Barack. Just smile and nod… and say you love America, a lot. And babies.
    10:38 PM It’s over, enter the Stepford Wife!
    10:45 PM Well, that’s done … not sure anyone really won or loss, but I’m drooling over the next round of polling.
    10:46 PM How far up does Obama have to be to overcome people swapping teams in the voting booth due to the latent racism of Americans? Someone here at the party said 15%, though I’d guess Palin may have moderated that a bit (target for latent sexism).
    10:47 PM Okay, gotta drive home. More thoughts later …
    10:51 PM Not leaving quite yet. Was there any moment of this debate that we will remember in 20 years? I am thinking not. And it seemed to me that debating with McCain sullies Obama. I don’t like seeing such a gifted orator have to deal with a bean-counter like that.
    10:55 PM Lotta people talking (in person, on the telly) about Obama saying “John is right” so much, and that being a sign of weakness … I’m not so sure. A sign of bipartisanship, yes. Weakness? Maybe not.
    10:56 PM Okay, now I really am leaving…

    a couple thoughts from the drive home

    first, i liked how approachable obama seemed … he had a “kitchen table” schtick about him, and it think that will serve him well. it’s not him at his most eloquent, but i think everybody is expecting a good state of the union already. it’s still a question of if you want to drink beer with him, and the debate was a personal win for him here.

    second, that stupid audience reaction graph seemed to map indies and dems very closely together, with repubs more often swinging the opposite way. if that graph has value, which is a bold assumption, then this correlation is a very, very good sign for Obama. actually, anecdotally, i’d say that the three lines were more “together” when barack was speaking, and a little more separated when mccain was speaking. that could be good, too.

    finally, a Conservative commentator (not sure who) mentioned that foreign policy and national security are the bread and butter issues for McCain, and that if he doesn’t score in this debate, he probably isn’t going to score at any debate. Now, call the debate how you will, but i don’t think anyone is saying that McCain did any better than “holding his own” … so, that could be good, too.

    well, good night! god bless you … and god bless the united states of america.

    p.s. i want you to know i did this whole thing from a couch using my iPhone. come on in, my friends … drink the kool-aid. the water is *mighty* fine.

  • iPhone makes wife love you

    on the way back from the airport last night, i had my first “come to Jesus” moment with my new, beloved iPhone …

    it was late(ish) and we needed to get some food. there is nothing around the airport (bwi, yick…) and the lady sparkler said she wanted something that wasn’t fast food … like maybe baja fresh or panera, and then proceeded to start chatting up her cell phone.

    so, ever looking for reasons to play with “my precious,” i brought up the fancy GPS/map thing, and typed in baja fresh. it immediately brought up my location, the location of the closest baja fresh (8.2 miles towards D.C.), plotted directions for me, and then proceeded to blink a blue dot to guide me in.

    this, in itself, should have been enough to make me babble about the technology revolution all through dinner.

    however, it turns out that when we made the blinking blue dot (us) match up with the steady red dot (them) there was no restaurant — but (!), when i clicked on the red dot to get more information about the restaurant, there was a phone number listed (which i clicked), and the phone dialed it automatically (!).

    a nice boy told me we needed to go two blocks farther down the street. wifey ate, i didn’t go 20 miles out of the way, and evvvverybody was happy.

    i’ve totally drunk the iPhone kool-aid. nothing will come between me and my precious … <ominous> noothiing </omninous>.

  • return from the northern kingdom

    it’s the beginning of fall travel season, and we kicked it off with a trip to visit the Vermont Parkers, outside Burlington.

    I’m certain we did stuff — we have pictures as proof — but mostly we kicked around and relaxed. I remember something about mini-golf (tho we didn’t keep score) and food / deck / backyard, but mostly I remember relaxing.

    my iPhone is the personification (electronic-device-ification?) of *awesomeness.* I can’t believe I didn’t get one of these sooner (oh, wait. AT&T … that’s why.)

    next up is Dallas for our second consecutive “wedding of the century.” it’ll be an Anglo-Dutch-Indo-Pakistani-Mexican-Middle Eastern affair, so should be fascinating.

    Explore the Photo Set:
    Facebook: Long Weekend in Burlington, Vermont
    Flickr: Long Weekend in Burlington, Vermont

  • kids on campus

    It’s that time of year again … when drunken freshman boys roam the streets, parkour-ing off downtown curbs to impress non-existent girls.

    When young women move in packs of eight or more, with anorexic blonds leading the way (pressing the less-than-skinny into service as “rear guard”).

    When you see athletically mismatched couples running together, the result of conversations that must have gone something like this:

      Buff Girl: I love running. Do you run? (Please say yes, please say yes…)

      Flabby Boy: Um. Yeah. Of course! I, uh, run all the time. (Shoes. Did I bring anything other than flip-flops?)

      Buff Girl: Great! How about Saturday night? (That’ll get me off the hall, and if it’s dark people won’t be able to tell he’s a dork …)

      Flabby Boy: Sure, that’d be great. (I hope she puts out quick. I haven’t run since that presidential skills test in 7th grade, when I puked on the second-to-last lap.)

      Buff Girl: 9 o’clock? (Oh, I’ve got the perfect outfit. I hope his cute roommate sees me.)

      Flabby Boy: Great! (Dude, I *love* college! It’s exactly like I saw in that movie…)

    When on Thursday night, girls in impossibly impractical shoes — and with nary enough clothes between them for one good outfit — block up metro escalators by standing to the left.

    When on weekends, shell shocked parents lead miserable looking children around Target buying those last minute essentials, like toilet paper and granola bars.

    *sniff*

    Boy, I miss college.

  • one down, one to go …

    well, we (finally) polished off that hallway-painting-project that we started way back on labor day weekend.

    actually, we finished up most of it last week, but still had a couple of touch-ups left for today … a switch plate here, an empty picture frame there, that sort or thing. we’ve got a couple more things left in the bathroom, however, so we won’t be able to slay that beast until next week.

    never thought such simple projects could take so long. they say that, for home improvement projects, you should take your original estimate and double it … but, i think we are somewhere around 16x.

    well, at least it looks purdy.

  • Karma

    I’m writing this from my brand new iPhone … from the side of the road next to our broken-down car.

    Ain’t karma a #%*£?

    It’s hard not to think that something is up. Hurricane Gustav came after the Louisiana Spindlers. Hannah tried to get the Virginia Parkers (but failed) and took a swipe at us (the DC Parkers?) but we had fled south.

    And, just today, the Texas Spindlers took Hurricane Ike on the chin, though by all accounts they weathered the storm. But, in the immortal words of The Lady Sparkler, “if I were [the Oregon Spindler], I’d be on typhoon watch…”

    So, considering every one is happy and healthy (and I have an iPhone), I guess a temperamental radiator isn’t such a big deal … thank the good sweet Lord.

  • washington, dc at night (again)

    [Photo]
    ECPA20080829_5346, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    Explore the Photo Set:
    The National Mall at Night, Washington, DC