Long Overdue Update: The Arlington Chronicles - 2009 Edition: Part I - The Reckoning

I couldn't decide on a blog post title, so I combined them all in as cumbersome a way as possible. I think I succeeded.

Man, where even to begin after so long away from this thing? I'm just going to mention all of the noteworthy events over the past few months that I can remember.

- February was predictably hectic. That month included (in order) Valentine's Day, Andrea's birthday, and our 1 year anniversary. So yeah, talk about a lot of pressure on her boyfriend! ... Oh wait, that was me. For the most part, I think I managed to deliver a good series of weekends, although we planned our anniversary activities together, so that one doesn't really count in my favor. Valentine's Day was a standard flowers-dinner-chocolates affair, but since it was our first, I figured I should get the expected Valentine's Day celebration out of the way, so that we can get to the fun stuff next year. :-P

- As for Andrea's birthday, she figured out the big surprise well in advance: we went to a swing dancing ball. The affair was deemed "black-and-white", and I inquired about the dress code beforehand, which led to her figuring it out when she saw a bulletin for a "Black and White Ball" (doh!). I had no experience with swing dancing, whereas Andrea used to do dance when she was younger, so she did most of the leading, and I did my best to avoid stepping on her feet (and in that sense, it was mission accomplished!). Awkwardly, the demographics were skewed heavily towards... well, let's say towards the more distinguished members of society (translation - they were old), which made the swapping of partners during the survival skills lesson at the beginning extra nerve-wracking, but everyone was very polite and encouraging. After getting through the lesson without embarrassing myself too much, the rest of the night went quickly but pleasantly; although I could clearly do with some practice, we still enjoyed ourselves, and that was all that mattered.

- After all that excitement, we decided to be relatively lazy for our 1 year anniversary. We had a nice dinner out at the Melting Pot (a fondue franchise), followed the next evening by a night of lasagna cooking. Both dinners were very satisfying and filling. As for the rest of the weekend, we just hung out, watched TV, and enjoyed a quiet, laid-back weekend together.

- The weekend of March 14th/15th, I returned to Lehigh for EPiC XIII, the annual Gaming Club convention. For the first time, I was attending as just an alumnus, and not as a current student. And so I was going for the same reason as all the other alumni: to see my friends who returned to Lehigh just for this occasion. I convinced Andrea to join me so that she could meet some of my friends, and so that they could meet her. Also, it was partially a chance to make up for an abrupt cancellation last year during thesis craziness. While the convention was of no interest to her, we did go out with my friends Saturday night, and we had a grand ol' time hanging out at a bar and catching up. We met the next morning for brunch before heading back home. Being back on Lehigh's campus made me realize how much I missed the place and, more than anything, the people I knew and the experiences I had there. As Lehigh is about a four hour drive from Arlington, I find few chances to see my friends who are still in that area, and EPiC was a really nice excuse to do that.

- Some months earlier, Andrea had discovered Watson Adventures, a company that organizes scavenger hunts throughout the country. Ever since then, she was determined that we would go on one. As "luck" would have it, one of my holiday gifts from her was a coupon for a free scavenger hunt. Yes, it was clearly a gift for her too, but I was also very interested, and that was one of several gifts she gave me, so I let the ulterior motives slide. :-P On March 28th, I cashed it in with the Georgetown Scavenger Hunt. The weather was a bit gloomy, but we went through with it anyway and had a great time. Highlights of the hunt included finding John Kerry's and John Edwards's respective houses in Georgetown (surprisingly, you can walk right up to their front doors if you want, but the area wasn't particularly busy) and, well, we won the hunt! The prize: a free hunt. As prizes go, it's kind of lame, but as they explain in their FAQs, if the prize were valuable, it would encourage cheating and foul play. Plus, we wanted to do another hunt anyway after this experience, so it gave us the perfect excuse to make sure we did another.

This is only the beginning of a lengthy update, so I'm going to split this out into at least two posts. Conveniently, this also gives me time to finish the update. :-P Look for more in a month or so, if not sooner.

PS Why was one of this post's many subtitles "the Reckoning"? I just liked the ring of it. Fun fact for Jay's Jibberish superfans.