theparkerfamily.org

  • Wedding: Holiday Inn @ $159/night

    As you may have heard (we tried to email everyone who may be looking for a hotel room) our room block at the Doubletree is booked solid.

    However, The Lady Sparkler was able to work her magic yet again and get a great deal at the Holiday Inn next door — and that’s literally next door, no exaggeration. Just call up the reservation line (202.483.2000) and tell them you are with the Spindler-Parker wedding, and they will give you the extra-special bonus rate of $159 a night, available Thursday, Friday and/or Saturday nights.

    (We just faxed in the contract this morning, so they might not know what you are talking about if you call before Tuesday afternoon.)

    The good news is that we don’t have to fill a quota of rooms, but the trade off is that the block rate is only available until September 5th, 2007.

  • Wedding: Unregistry

    The Lady Sparkler and I are in kind of a non-traditional wedding position … not only have we both been blessed with good jobs, but we have each spent a decade setting up our comfortable living situations. Unfortunately, that makes the prospect of registering for traditional wedding gifts a little, well, uncomfortable.

    With that in mind, we hope that you will at least consider making a donation in lieu of the gift you may have otherwise given us. For instance, we love the work that Mercy Corps does in the aftermath of natural disasters and human conflicts, as well as their work fighting chronic poverty and social instability around the globe. In the last three decades, Mercy Corps has provided $1.3 billion in assistance to people in 100 nations.

    Coincidentally, they also have a wonderful Mercy Kit gift program, which is perfect for people looking to give tangible gifts — a well for a villiage, a goat for a family, a soccer ball for a school — on behalf of their friends, family members or incredibly smart and attractive wedding couple(s). Best of all, Mercy Corps sends a card announcing your gift to the happy couple so that we/they can share in the joy of your contribution.

    All that being said, we have been told often enough that it is rude not to register somewhere — though maybe not as rude as blogging about it, I would imagine — in case someone would prefer to make a more traditional gift. If that is the case with you, we have found a few things we could use for our new kitchen (Cooking.com), on our eco-honeymoon in Belize (REI.com) or in our new home (CrateAndBarrel.com).

    p.s. We really weren’t kidding about Mercy Corps. Check out some of the work they are doing if you have a minute.

  • Home: The First Step Towards Disenfranchisement

    Today, The Lady Sparkler went to the DMV and successfully revoked her right to participate in our fair Republic. And, from the pictures, I’ll bet that you thought she just got license plates.

    For those of you who don’t know, voters in DC do not have voting representation in Congress. We didn’t get the right to vote for the President until 1961, and weren’t given the right to elect our own mayor until 1973. Our founding fathers apparently didn’t expect anybody to *live* in the Federal City, just work. Hard to believe, no?

    It’s especially ironic because Washingtonians pay the highest per capita federal income taxes in the country, even though we aren’t allowed to vote in the body that makes those taxes into law. This neatly explains why all DC license plates have “Taxation without Representation” emblazoned across the bottom, instead of a nice state motto like “Live Free or Die” or “She flies with her own wings.” (For those playing at home, DC’s motto is Justia Omnibus or “Justice for All”.)

    So, if you happen to be talking to YOUR representation in Congress, be sure to mention the DC Voting Rights Act. It has already passed the House, is currently before the Senate, and would give The Lady Sparkler, myself, and 600,000 of our dearest neighbors a voting member of Congress for the first time ever. It should be voted on this fall.

    That’s it. No more sermons until the wedding, we promise 🙂

  • Photos: The Home Stretch

    Life is finally returning to normal in the Sparkler household, after a pretty crazy couple of weeks. Here are some highlights (or skip to the bottom for pictures of the new place):

    • Emily has regained control of her faculties — After spending three hours on move-in day hiding in her litter box, Emily decided that day two would be best spent trapped under the bathroom vanity. It took a saw and a couple of crowbars to spring her. The good news is that after two weeks in Mt. Pleasant, she is starting to mellow down to her usual high strung, psychotic self.
    • Our home air conditioner has stopped flooding water all over our hardwood floors — Somewhere around day six, water started spewing from our air conditioning. We had the previous owner’s AC guy come out who said that it was leaking because the condensation drain was plugged up from the floor below all the way to the floor above. They professionally installed a bucket under the drain pipe (which we replaced the next day with a funnel and fifteen feet of hose leading to the bathtub) while we waited for the condo board to send out a plumber. Somewhere around day twelve, the plumber came and liberated us from our MacGuyver existance.
    • The car has stopped breaking — A green, glowing “emissions” light come on about day four, followed by a bright, blinking red “engine overheating” light on day six (which nicely coincided with the car’s air conditioning failing), followed by another green, glowing “emissions” light on day eleven. So, during four trips to the dealership in the last ten days, we have replaced the catalytic converter, the oxygen sensor, a radiator fan fuse, and retightened an engine exhaust hose. The dealership assures us that everything is fine … for now.

    Fortunately, somewhere in all that we managed to unpack and finish setting up all the rooms. We still have about a car load of stuff in Arlington, and about 6 boxes of miscelaneous crapola that we have to give away, put away, pitch or recycle … but we are finally in the home stretch (pardon the pun).

    For those of you in town on Thursday before the wedding, we are going to host a little open house that afternoon so our beloved friends and family can see the new place. Until then, some more pictures below:

    Second Bedroom

    Master Bedroom

    Kitchen

  • Home: Emily’s First Day

    Well, we are in. We settled Thursday … the sellers were very sweet and gave us cookies. They even dusted, God bless them.

    Friday was vendor day (locksmith, Comcast) and we took over all the breakable stuff that we didn’t trust to the movers. Actually, we rented a Flexcar minivan — a Honda Odyssey — so we only had to make one trip instead of ten. Flexcar allows you to rent them for about $7 an hour, and they are parked all around town. This one was just 5 blocks from our door.

    Saturday was last-minute packing day (and travel-to-the-box-stores day) and then the movers came at 10 am Sunday morning. By 6 pm, Emily decided to join us at the new place, which bring us from DNA right up to this moment.

    We’ll post more about the move (including pictures) as we get a little more settled. G’night!

  • Photos: Berry-picking at Butler’s Orchard

    Picked, Berry Picking, Butler's Orchard, Germantown, Maryland
    Picked, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    In a break from the wedding planning madness, The Lady Sparkler and I went out to Germantown, Maryland with friends of ours (Michael and Anne McCauley) for an afternoon of berry-picking at Butler’s Orchard.
    Explore the Photo Set:
    Berry-picking, Butler’s Orchard, Germantown, Maryland

  • Home: 7 days, and counting … (July Edition)

    Made you look. No, the wedding is still 86 days away (not that anyone is counting). We speak, instead, of the move.

    In fact, in seven days I expect to be painting our very own master bedroom a lovely shade of Chianti after earlier in the day giving our sellers the largest check I have ever seen in my life.

    To bring you up to speed … Since we last mentioned Mt. Pleasant nary sixteen days ago, we have:

    • Gotten the results of our home inspection back — Everything looks pretty great. The combination furnace/AC unit needed to be serviced and there were a couple of power outlets that needed work. The home inspector also mentioned something about our electrical circuit box potentially bursting into flames without warning, but not sure exactly what he meant. All in all, we were pretty happy.
    • Negotiated some extra dough from the sellers for the (potentially) flaming electrical box — Turns out that having a Federal Pacific “Stab-Lock” electrical box that could burst into flames at a moment’s notice is considered a “bug” as opposed to a “feature.” After a little negotiating, we managed to get some money from the sellers to get it replaced.
    • Tested Evan’s bicycle commute — I have been biking to and from work for about 6 weeks now, and hope to keep it up after the move. It should be easy. Our new place is right off the Rock Creek Trail (which meets my current commute) and forms a nice little seven mile commute each way. This past weekend, I tried the full trip from to Mt. Pleasant and back, and it was a LOVELY ride with some truly beautiful sections through Georgetown, Rock Creek and the National Zoo.
    • Determined Evan probably should not use a two decade old bike for commuting long distances — The following day, while commuting to work, I nearly wrapped myself around a tree because my 18 year old brakes and gears no-workey-so-goody, especially when wet. If I make it another 6 weeks of commuting via bicycle — ie. haven’t killed myself and haven’t given up trying — I am going to seriously ponder getting a bike made sometime *after* the first Bush administration.
    • Reviewed the condo’s bylaws and budget documents — Apparently, The Lady Sparkler and I share 5.2% of the voting power in our condo association. I am already wondering how best to abuse our new-found power. Perhaps we will start by repealing the bylaw that states that 80% of our *gorgeous* hardwood floors are supposed to be covered by area rugs.
    • Started shopping for rugs — Well, yes, but not because of the condo rule. We did some research and discovered that the current owners have never had more than 30% of their floor covered since the late 90s, and that most people aren’t meeting either the letter or the spirit of that rule. Not to mention: our unit is directly above the lobby, so there aren’t a whole lot of people to complain.
    • Gotten our appraisal back — Perhaps the most bizarre realization of the last two weeks was finding out that the bank felt comfortable verifying the value of our purchase without ever stepping foot inside the building. Not to mention, they *miraculously* appraised it at $1,000 more than we are buying it for (so we have already made a profit!)
    • Gone to Home Depot for paint colors — The only thing we are painting before we move in is the master bedroom, as it is currently a lovely shade of mango. To be fair, the color really is quite lovely, but our drapes are burgundy and our spread is olive and maroon, so keeping the mango isn’t really an option. The rest of the colors — seafoam living room, mango second bedroom, cobalt-ish halway, beige bathroom — match enough to buy us some time.
    • Found movers, electricians specializing in flaming electrical boxes, locksmiths, water/sewage authorities, a gas service and an electrical utility — Not much to add on this one.
    • Petted Emily-the-Cat — For two whole weeks, we said “wow, Emily is really taking all all this commotion well.” Then two days ago, she finally figured out something was up … and that 200 packing boxes might be something other than construction materials for the fort of her dreams.
    • Packed 60% of our belongings — Basically, everything is done except the kitchen. It took 16 copier boxes (and then some) to pack our bookcases alone, and that is after giving away four boxes of books. It is going to take years for us to get everything out again once we make it to the other side of the Potomac.

    So, there you go.

    Neither of us can wait ’til the end of October, when we can look back at this and start thinking that “shooting the moon” by moving and getting married on top of each other wasn’t the silliest idea we have ever had 😉

  • Wedding: How well do you know the Bride?

    Our bridesmaids put together a little quiz to see how well everyone knows her, and I have posted it on an online quiz site called “Quibblo.”

    If you want to see how you how you stack up in knowledge of the inner-workings of The Lady Sparkler’s brain, just go here:

    http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/3i14kS/How-well-do-you-know-Tasha

  • Wedding: Church Declares Bride and Groom Incompatible, Couple Unrepentant

    So, maaaaaybe that statement is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is safe to say we are now formally banking on the axiom: “opposites attract.”

    We just got back from the second of our three church counseling sessions with the man who would marry us, Rev. Dean J. Snyder. At the end of the first session, he administered the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test to us. Now, at the second session, he promised to review the results with us.

    And, oh, what results they were.

    Turns out that of the four bands (Extraversion vs Introversion, Sensing vs Intuition, Thinking vs Feeling, Judging vs Perceiving) we were at the opposite ends of all but one. The Lady Sparkler is a ESTJ, and I am an ENFP.

    Below are some highlights of our personalities:

    Favorite world: Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world?

    People with a preference for Extraversion (both she and I) draw energy from action: they tend to act, then reflect, then act further. If they are inactive, their level of energy and motivation tends to decline.

    Information: Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning?

    Individuals with a preference for Sensing (The Lady Sparkler) prefer to trust information that is in the present, tangible and concrete: information can be comprehended by the five senses. They prefer to look for detail and facts.

    Those with a preference for Intuition (Evan) will trust information that is more abstract or theoretical, that can be associated with other information. They are more interested in future possibilities.

    Decisions: When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances?

    Those with a preference for Feeling (Evan) will prefer to come to decisions by associating or empathising with the situation, looking at it ‘from the inside’ to achieve the greatest harmony, consensus and fit with their personal set of values.

    Those with a preference for Thinking (The Lady Sparkler) will prefer to decide things from a more detached standpoint, measuring the decision by what is reasonable, logical, causal, consistent and matching a given set of rules.

    Structure: In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options?

    People with a preference for Judging (The Lady Sparkler) prefer matters to be decided, to start tasks well ahead of a deadline, and they can sometimes seem inflexible in this regard.

    Those whose preference is Perceiving (Evan) are happier to leave finishing a task until close to the deadline, are energised late rushes of information and ideas, and are readier to change plans if new information comes along.

    In retrospect, it’s funny/encouraging/touching that our number one response to the question “why do you like each other” over the last three years has been that the other “balances me.”

    Maybe there is hope for us yet.

  • Hike: Calvert Cliffs

    Water Lillies, Grey's Creek, Calvert Cliffs State Park, Lusby, Maryland
    Water Lillies, originally uploaded by [ecpark].
    One of the side-benefits of working at The Nature Conservancy is that we get every other friday off during the summer (assuming that we are able to compress the 40-hour work-week into 4 days).

    I usually use the day to go hiking around the region but this year, with the wedding, I haven’t gotten out as much as I otherwise would have. Today, a friend of mine from TNC and I hiked around Calvert Cliffs State Park for the afternoon, and snapped some pics.

    Explore the Photo Set:
    Calvert Cliffs State Park, Maryland