Happy Birthday, Grandma Oline!

We are bad grandchildren(-in-law). Grandma Oline's birthday was almost a week ago, and her birthday card is still sitting on our coffee table. We promise to put it in the mail tomorrow, and we hope she had a good day!

DC Voting Rights March

Though I didn't plan it ahead of time, I ended up having Monday off, and it just so happened to be the same day for the DC Voting Rights March. Amy and I decided to get out, enjoy the cold and wind, and participate in the rally. You can barely see us in the photo below (my highlighting added), captured by Flickr user cruelsmath in front of the Capitol Reflecting Pool.



I have to admit that until we moved to DC almost 2 years ago and started seeing the "Taxation without Representation" license plates on every car, I never realized the nearly 600,000 residents of the District do not have full and equal representation in Congress. We have "delegates" and "shadow representatives", but no one who can really go toe-to-toe with Wyoming's Barbara Cubin, for example, the single representative for that state's population of 500,000.

Interestingly, there are many different perspectives on how to resolve the issue. The march on Monday was intended to drum up support for the addition of a House representative for DC, and some speechifying talked of going for full representation in the Senate as well. Given the political ramifications of the fact that the District virtually always votes Democrat, this would of course not sit well with certain other political parties. The compromise to make the proposed legislation for the house representation more palatable to the Republicans would add an at-large seat to Utah, usually a state that goes their way.

Other alternatives include pursuing statehood for the District of Columbia, which would then provide all the congressional benefits of being a state, and retrocession to become a part of Maryland again, falling under that state's umbrella of representation.

I can't say I have strong feelings about any particular approach. I think the District is a unique place that deserves to have some kind of dedicated representation in the legislative branch of the United States Government, even if it's as a congressional district of a neighboring state. Any action which draws attention to the current situation is better than no action, and I was glad to support the action on Monday.

And hey, who doesn't want to walk down the middle of Pennsylvania Ave towards the Capitol at least once in their life?

Potential New Apartment

What!? Posts to this website two nights in a row? Incredible!

But, an event even more newsworthy than the DUAL-VISION viewing of NCAA basketball games I demonstrated in the previous post is upon us. In our search for a new apartment to move to this summer, motivated by saving a little on rent and living in a more residential neighborhood (i.e. Not Downtown DC), we have looked at 15 places over the last few weeks. We have seen a lot of cramped, dark english basements and a handful of apartments that looked decent to pretty good but had a too-early move-in date (i.e. immediately).

Yesterday, however, we finally found our winner, a place that we're actually looking forward to moving to and living in. Pending a favorable review of our rental application, we hope to lock it in over the next few weeks. Of course, you want pictures, and my camera phone delivers (click for larger images):



There are a lot of nice things about this apartment, and a few of them can be seen in the top right picture.

Notice the large section of the wall that is recessed a bit--perfect size for a 42 inch flat panel HDTV. I know, because I measured it.

The much smaller recessed section to the left is an iPort--perfect size for an iPod. If the size isn't enough to convince you of its purpose, then simply consider the name. There is a universal law that "i-Anything" products can only be associated with Apple's ubiquitous iPod music-listening device.

In this case, the product is quite awesome. Jacking an iPod into the iPort will allow us to play our tunes and NPR podcasts of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me throughout the apartment using speakers that have been installed in the living room and bedroom ceilings. Though I admit to overusing the term in middle school, I think my usage of "awesome" is justified in this situation.

UPDATE: My video uploads to youtube worked, so click on each of the links to see the footage. If you crank the volume up you may even hear my mumbling commentary!

Breaking the Silence

Long time, no post. Of course, I have a perfectly reasonable explanation. Over the last 8 months I have purposely been avoiding updates to this blog in order to build suspense and tension until such a time something so momentous occurs that I cannot possibly resist informing the world.

Ladies and Gentlemen, that event has occurred.

What is the occasion, you ask? What could possibly be so important that I would consider it a crime to withhold from the public at large?

(drum roll...)

Behold, the 2007 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament in DUAL-VISION!

Now, let me answer the obvious question. No, this picture was not taken at ESPNZone, Applebee's, or any other neighborhood sports bar. I can understand how you might be fooled...

That is in fact my computer screen in our living room, and yes, you are seeing two tournament games at once! I know, it's incredible.

Thanks to NCAA March Madness on Demand, I am able to stream live games during the first two rounds of the tournament through Windows Media Player, with only a 20 second delay (my estimate) compared to the broadcast on CBS. This is the game that appears on the left in the photo.

On the right side you see the output of my TV card, which is tuned to the over-the-air signal for CBS in DC, thus allowing for the simultaneous viewing of two games at once. And if this isn't brilliant enough, I have just realized that I now must test whether I can open a third or fourth stream for TRIPLE-VISION or QUAD-VISION.

The possibilities are endless.