Night Construction

I'm pretty sick of them doing overnight construction work on our street. They warned us on Monday night by telling us that our water would be turned off from 10pm to 6am. Last night, there was no similar warning; they just started hammering and drilling away starting at about 10pm and on through the night. I find it obnoxious that they only feel the need to warn you about it if your water is turned off. Do they think that doesn't affect our sleeping? I sleep with a fan on to drown out noises like that and my fan is not even loud enough to completely wipe it out. I find it really really annoying and I really don't get why they can't do it during the day. I'm guessing nighttime noises are a bigger nuisance to more people than being without water for a few hours during the day.

The Office commercial

Has anyone seen the commercials for The Office that are running during the Olympics? This one really made me laugh:

Beloit College Mindset List

This is an interesting list that comes out every year that shows the mindset of incoming freshman. The world as they know it, basically. It's enlightening and a surefire way to make you feel old. For instance, to these kids "Caller ID has always been available on phones." What? I remember when Caller ID was new!! And when we got it for my parents and they thought it was kind of a waste. Another one: "GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available." Also: "There has always been Pearl Jam." Heh. (via)

The World Conspires Against Me...

So I haven't had Internet at home for about a week now. We were sharing Internet with my neighbor but she moved to the fourth floor and we seem to not get her signal anymore. So it's tough for me, an Internet junkie, but at least I have Internet at work from 8:30 to 5:30, right? Well, not so much. Yesterday, our Internet at work went out at about 11:30am! It was down the rest of the day and actually wasn't fixed until about noon today! 24 hours without the Internet!

To make matters worse, last night after work I went to the library thinking that I might use their computers. When I got there, they were evacuating the building! Apparently the fire alarm had been going off and so everyone was asked to leave and the fire trucks came to check out the problem. I stuck around for about 15 minutes but nothing seemed to be happening so I just decided that someone did NOT want me to have access to the Internet that day and went home. Argh!

Smartbike DC

So I guess Smartbike DC launched today, although I saw the bikes downtown yesterday so maybe that start date is a bit off. But, the idea behind it is similar to the Zipcar/Flexcar concept, where instead of buying a car, you can sort of rent one whenever you need it. Smartbike looks like it charges $40 a year and then you can borrow a bike whenever you need one in three-hour increments. There are initially 100 bikes at 10 locations.

Forty bucks a year isn't bad at all, especially compared with buying a brand new bike, but I kind of don't like that you can only ride the bikes in the District - there are plenty of great bike spots in Virginia. (via)

Library of Congress Junior Fellows

It looks like the Junior Fellows Summer Intern program at the Library of Congress has come quite far in three years, since I was part of the first group. Here's a blog post about their findings this year. It looks like there are now 50 of them. We had about 20. It's amazing they are still finding some pretty cool treasures. And they get their names posted on the Library's Web site! I never was so lucky. Our press coverage was pretty non-existent. I guess I can always say I was in the first group, though.

Brickskeller

I went to The Brickskeller today, which I've wanted to do for three years since I heard about it but just had never made it before. It's a little off the beaten path actually. And they have hundreds of beers to choose from. We had a work happy hour for one of our employees who is leaving and she is a big beer lover so it was a good opportunity to go there. I ended up getting the Firestone Double Barrel Amber Ale and really liked it! But, one complaint is that with a beer list this long, why do they not have more from Ohio?

What a race

Last night I was sleepy but decided to stay up at least until the 4X100 relay to see if Michael Phelps won his second gold. And boy did I not regret it! What an awesome, exciting race. I highly recommend watching it, even if you know what happened.