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Movie, concert report, crappy DC traffic, etc.
Spider-Man 2 was awesome. Go see it! (And as one of my friends pointed out, they did set it up nicely for #3. :)
Now, back to yesterday. As it was getting to be later afternoon--1600, to be exact--I gave Laura a call, to see if she was done with her daily stuff and thus ready to be picked up. Left a message. Around 1700, I called, she answered, and north I headed, having already strapped my extra jacket to the bike. Now, two unfortunate occurrences: 1) Traffic on 395 into DC sucks in the afternoon, and 2) There are no left turns off of M Street. Seriously. See, I'd intended to be on Mass Ave, but there's no sign indicating its presence in the 395 tunnel, so I got dumped onto M. From M, the only left (North) turns are NJ-style jug-handle turns starting on the right, and due to heavy traffic, I went a mile or two out of my way before turning into a HoJo on the left to head back. Uneventful ride from there.
Found Laura's house without difficulty, met her dad (who offered me advice on my job hunt; namely, learn construction estimation so I have a fallback. Heh.) and suited her up for the ride. I could never have found my way out via the route we took, but I had Laura's guidance. Ran into a problem at the toll booth on 267--I didn't have exact change, and she was taking too long, so the booth attendant in the next lane rang us through for free. Hope I don't get a ticket! Parking at Wolf Trap (at around 1920 or 1930 for the sold-out 1900 show) was as delightful as last time for our motorcycle-bound selves.
We grabbed some food before learning we couldn't take food into the loge, so we sat on the lawn off to the side while we ate, listening to Rufus Wainwright. I recognized more music than I expected, and he headed offstage around 2000, before we finished. He's pretty good. Next up was Guster, with whom I'm much more familiar; we found our seats somewhere during their set.
Now, here's where the show turned awesome. The view was pretty good, Guster rocked, and at the end of their set, the lead singer addresses the house. He tells us that what's going to happen is: they'll leave the stage, we'll applaud for an encore, and they'll come back on--with Ben Folds and his piano. If it takes too long, we should take a drink and keep applauding. Also, we should act surprised. :D
So that's what they did. They had Ben's piano out and hooked up in about three minutes, and true to his word, they came back with Ben and rocked an encore. Then a brief intermission, and a god of piano and stage returned to the piano. Seriously. Ben Folds was utterly incredible. The man is a phenomenal pianist and a consummate showman, calling on the audience to sing parts of his songs in harmony, standing and dancing on his piano, bantering with the signer, and calling in Rufus Wainwright to join him in a George Michael cover, not to mention calling Guster back in to join him for a piece or two. Rock.
Afterward, motorcycle departure was just as easy as last time, and we chatted and computered into the wee hours. Come morning, we headed south to IHOP for breakfast, back to NE DC to drop her off, and I headed south (through equally bad traffic and hot weather) to home, arriving just in time to get Nathan's call for the movie.
The motorcycle handles well enough with two people--despite higher and more rearward center of gravity, greater lateral area, and greater loading of the rear springs--but it's definitely much more responsive with just me. :)
Now, back to yesterday. As it was getting to be later afternoon--1600, to be exact--I gave Laura a call, to see if she was done with her daily stuff and thus ready to be picked up. Left a message. Around 1700, I called, she answered, and north I headed, having already strapped my extra jacket to the bike. Now, two unfortunate occurrences: 1) Traffic on 395 into DC sucks in the afternoon, and 2) There are no left turns off of M Street. Seriously. See, I'd intended to be on Mass Ave, but there's no sign indicating its presence in the 395 tunnel, so I got dumped onto M. From M, the only left (North) turns are NJ-style jug-handle turns starting on the right, and due to heavy traffic, I went a mile or two out of my way before turning into a HoJo on the left to head back. Uneventful ride from there.
Found Laura's house without difficulty, met her dad (who offered me advice on my job hunt; namely, learn construction estimation so I have a fallback. Heh.) and suited her up for the ride. I could never have found my way out via the route we took, but I had Laura's guidance. Ran into a problem at the toll booth on 267--I didn't have exact change, and she was taking too long, so the booth attendant in the next lane rang us through for free. Hope I don't get a ticket! Parking at Wolf Trap (at around 1920 or 1930 for the sold-out 1900 show) was as delightful as last time for our motorcycle-bound selves.
We grabbed some food before learning we couldn't take food into the loge, so we sat on the lawn off to the side while we ate, listening to Rufus Wainwright. I recognized more music than I expected, and he headed offstage around 2000, before we finished. He's pretty good. Next up was Guster, with whom I'm much more familiar; we found our seats somewhere during their set.
Now, here's where the show turned awesome. The view was pretty good, Guster rocked, and at the end of their set, the lead singer addresses the house. He tells us that what's going to happen is: they'll leave the stage, we'll applaud for an encore, and they'll come back on--with Ben Folds and his piano. If it takes too long, we should take a drink and keep applauding. Also, we should act surprised. :D
So that's what they did. They had Ben's piano out and hooked up in about three minutes, and true to his word, they came back with Ben and rocked an encore. Then a brief intermission, and a god of piano and stage returned to the piano. Seriously. Ben Folds was utterly incredible. The man is a phenomenal pianist and a consummate showman, calling on the audience to sing parts of his songs in harmony, standing and dancing on his piano, bantering with the signer, and calling in Rufus Wainwright to join him in a George Michael cover, not to mention calling Guster back in to join him for a piece or two. Rock.
Afterward, motorcycle departure was just as easy as last time, and we chatted and computered into the wee hours. Come morning, we headed south to IHOP for breakfast, back to NE DC to drop her off, and I headed south (through equally bad traffic and hot weather) to home, arriving just in time to get Nathan's call for the movie.
The motorcycle handles well enough with two people--despite higher and more rearward center of gravity, greater lateral area, and greater loading of the rear springs--but it's definitely much more responsive with just me. :)
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You're right about them setting it up nicely, but the actress (who played Mary Jane) only agreed to doing two movies. She "doesn't want to be known as Mary Jane."
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