And so for those wondering how my birthday went…
June 4, 2008, 2:07 PM
My birthday weekend went quite well, thank you. I spent my actual birthday at home, where I wrote a Wikipedia article about October Rebellion. Yes, that October Rebellion. I had a great time writing that article, though it’s not often that I’ll sit down and write a new article from scratch and go hunting for reliable sources and such.
Then the next day, Mom and Dad came to visit – just for the day. We went to downtown Silver Spring, where we had a birthday lunch at Austin Grill, a restaurant that serves Mexican food. As we were coming in, rain appeared to be imminent, and yet some people still wanted to be seated outside, and stayed outside, even as the rain started coming down. There was a very small overhang that these people ate under, and I presume they stayed dry for the most part.
At the restaurant, Mom committed what would be considered a major sin if you like to stay in the good graces of your companions. She told the server that it was my birthday. Now I admit that she didn’t mean to let that out in front of the waitstaff. It slipped out unintentionally. But you know how it is… if you say “birthday” to a server, next thing you know, you have ALL of them marching in clapping, and singing happy birthday to you. Once we realized Mom’s error, we flagged the server again about the birthday thing, and good news – Austin Grill doesn’t sing. Very good.
But all in all, it was a great time, as we had great conversations, and the people outside stayed out there until it finally got to be too much for them and they came in. Then when we were done, we paid and headed out. In the pouring rain. We went over to DSW Shoe Warehouse, where we just looked, and likewise over at Borders Books. Not bad. And then we returned home.
That evening, however, after Mom and Dad had left, I started feeling really bad. I first felt it in my feet, as they started feeling kind of light. Then I started running a temperature, and feeling kind of tired. Uh-oh. I hoped I wasn’t coming down with something. But there was no congestion, and no sore throat, which usually comes with a cold. I suspected food poisoning, meaning that something I ate, possibly at Austin Grill, was undercooked or otherwise didn’t agree.
However, in the morning, I felt great. That confirmed it was likely food poisoning, since those bouts are intense, and then go away as quickly as they came. It worked out, though, since I was going railfanning with Matthew Tilley on Sunday.
The plan was to go railfanning on Metro, meeting at Rosslyn, and then going down to Franconia-Springfield, around to Huntington, up to L’Enfant Plaza, out to Largo, and then back around to New Carrollton before parting company at Metro Center. We were also supposed to meet up with Matthew’s “friend” Keon, but Keon stood Matthew up! I don’t know what you think, but that’s just rude.
Coming in, I had a quick run-in with Transit Police at Rhode Island Avenue (I’ll talk about this in detail later), and then went right into Rosslyn. Once Matthew and I got together, we had a blast. We had lunch midway through, going to Sbarro at Crystal City. It was awesome, and that “agreed”.
And then I’m also in the process of redoing my computer, which explains my lack of postings lately. I’m all disarrayed right now, but we’ll get going again – not to worry. All this pain in the butt in dealing with Vista makes me all the more certain that my next computer is going to be a Mac.
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