I'm Baaaaack!

Yep that's right I'm back living and working in the DC area. If you remember we left here 2 years ago thinking we would never back but guess what? Things change and never say never.

We settled on the Rockville Maryland area to live. We live in what they call a 'planned community.' I'm not sure what that means but I think it means some thought was put into the layout of the neighborhoods. We have most conveniences we need within 2 blocks of our home. Lots of restaurants, grocery store, banks, and even an ice cream shop. I haven't checked out the ice cream shop yet but I will shortly.

As far as shopping goes around here what do you want? Whole Foods? How about 2 within 5 miles. Trader Joes? How about 3 miles away. Costco? Target? Kohls? Barnes and Noble? Dicks? Too many to count. Do you like malls? Indoor? Outdoor? Take your pick still too many to count. How about a REI store big sis? Yep got one. In fact from what I can see there is a least one of everything on the main drag called Rockville Pike.

How about restaurants? I like eating at all the different restaurants and I will be years if not decades eating my way through all the different restaurants. The only kind of restaurant there isn't an over abundance of is barbecue types, although I went to a Good Times Restaurant the other night and they had pretty good ribs.

As far as what we live in it is called a condo. Why I don't know because it could be considered an apartment or even a small townhouse. We have a kitchen, living room, family room (not sure which is which, what one is the TV in?) two bedrooms and 2-1/2 baths. Seems out of whack to have more bathrooms than bedrooms but that is the way it is done around here. It's a quiet community even quieter than the apartment I was living in in Wisconsin.

In our family room (?) we have for furniture 1 TV and two chairs, lawn chairs, to sit in. Our living room consist of a dining room table and 4 chairs and our living room (?) has our computer set up on a cardboard box and cooler. HGTV would love our decorating ideas. In our bedroom we have a dresser and queen size bed. The queen size bed is a air mattress but you can't tell when you look at it. It sits about 2 feet off the floor and is very comfortable I actually sleep better on that than the bed I had in Wisconsin.

For the kitchen I have almost all my day to day cooking utensils and I hope to get back to updating Jock's Good Grub blog soon now that I have someone to cook for again. The grilling blogs will be in short supply for the next year or so since we can't grill here but you can look for other methods to try and get that same grilled flavor. I got some ideas.

If anyone wants to come visit I have 1 spare bedroom just bring a sleeping bag. We are located one short bus ride from the metro that will take you anywhere in the DC area. If anyone is interested in the middle of October they close some of the streets of DC and let the bikers use them. I don't have all the particulars yet but I am thinking about riding in it. I believe it is 100 miles long but like I said I need to get more information.

Next time I plan on having pictures to show so you can see out decorating ideas at work. I think you will be impressed.

A Simple College Lesson

I don't know where this originated from because it came in one of those emails that gets passed on from email address to email address but I thought it was such a simple lesson I would pass it along.


An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.
The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

What's the Hidden Message?

I came home a couple of days ago and look what I found laying by my door.



Hm, what could it be? Do you think it is something I need? I don't know but let's open it and find out.



Well I'll be socks. How do you like that? Funny I didn't think I needed any socks yet, all my white socks are still in pretty good shape. They don't have any holes in them and still look pretty new. I do see a problem with these socks however, they are missing the top half. Where is the top half of the sock? You know the part that keeps the lower half of my calf from getting sunburn. If I switch socks now I will end up with unsightly tan lines and I'm not sure any of us can live with that.

Let's see who they are from.



Hm, I wonder is she trying to send me a message?