Home On A Saturday Night

I'm sitting here at home watching Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones on a Saturday evening by myself with my dog, Bismarck. I can't help but think though that there is something better that I could be doing on a Saturday night. I'm not sure if it's the combination of being on travel this week or that I've been working so much lately that I'm feeling fatigued and don't really want to go out and stay out late. At any rate, I think what I'm feeling most is that I'm here all alone, for the most part. Everyone seems to be gone, most likely for the Easter holiday. It's a mixed bag, however, it's good to be able just to relax. So I should be somewhat grateful for the down time.

On a brighter note, however, I have managed to acquire a ticket to the Orioles' home opener against the Oakland Athletics on April 4th. I've been wanting to go to the Orioles' home opener for the last several years and I have never been able to get tickets, but this year I have, and I'm so excited this year, especially seeing on how I think the O's are going to make things interesting in the American League this year. Well, back to my movie and paying attention to my pooch.

School Application In

Earlier this week, before I went to South Carolina for business, I mailed my application for graduate school. I was very happy to have gotten this done well in advance of the application deadline. The application deadline is April 1st. I should hopefully hear something in the next few weeks. It would be nice if I got in without any trouble whatsoever. I'm optimistic that I'm going to get in, but I'm wondering if I'm just going to get in provisionally with the condition of taking the GMAT. I'm prepping for the GMAT, but I really don't want to take it, for obvious reasons. The application is in, and that's all that's important right now.

Marine Corps Marathon Training Blog

As I have previously mentioned here, I am running the marine corps marathon in October. As such, I have decided to document this journey with its very own blog. You can view it by clicking here or by pointing your browser to http://usafbratmarathonrunner.blogspot.com

Thanks!

GW Is in the NCAA Tournament!!!!!

On Saturday, the GW Men's Basketball team received an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament by vesting St. Joe's University in the A-10 Conference Tournament final. All that remained was to wait until Sunday evening to discover when, where, who, and what seed the GW men were going to be. We received a 12 seed in the Albuquerque region. The Colonials will be playing Georgia Tech in Nashville on Friday evening. Hopefully GW will be able to beat GA Tech on Friday evening. Hail to the buff and blue!

At Columbia Airport and Being Reflective

What an interesting trip down here to Columbia, SC this evening. The line to check my bag at National Airport, of course, was quite long, but it didn't bother me too much. The flight here wasn't too bad at all, I can't complain, even though we left a few minutes late, but we still got here early, go figure huh? So I arrive here in Columbia to discover that my colleague's flight from Atlanta was going to be delayed due to mechanical problems. So I get the car and my bag, and then I come back into the terminal waiting area, and here I am now, connected to the net wirelessly on the airport's free internet access. It's something else, it runs quite fast here, I'm pleasantly surprised.

There is something that occurred today in Washington that was quite disconcerting to me. After such a wonderful day yesterday temperature wise, it starts to snow! Well, it started out as rain when I got to the Fredericksburg train station this morning, but by the time I reached Crystal City, it had turned to snow! Perhaps I'm one of those traditional sort of people who feel it really shouldn't be snowing in northern Virginia in March. Perhaps I've gotten spoiled over the course of the last 10 years I've been living here, I don't know. The last time I saw snow in March though, I was living in Oklahoma City, and even then, it only happened once in the four winters I spent in Oklahoma. I'm sitting in my office thinking, it's March, spring training is going on, baseball season is right around the corner, and it's snowing. I don't know, I guess it put something of a damper on the day today. It is my hope that it will be much nicer temperature wise in Washington when I return on Friday. I know the weather isn't exactly going to be nice and balmy here in Columbia throughout the duration of my stay here this week.

Speaking of spring training, I actually have some optimism for my favorite team the Baltimore Orioles. And no, I don't have these optimistic feelings due to the off-season trade we made with the Cubbies for Slamming Sammy Sosa. We already had a potent lineup before the addition of Sammy, for crying out loud, the O's led the league in hits last season. I actually think our pitching staff is going to be much improved this year. With Ray Miller, who I might add is a great pitching coach, not a great manager, for those of us in O's land, you know what I am referring to, but the pitching staff in the second half of last year made some great strides to becoming better, not great, but better. And hopefully Kurt Ainsworth will be over his injury, as will Erik Bedard. I would like to think that the O's will make the AL East race a little more interesting and give those ESPN types another team to talk about in the AL East other than the Sox and Yanks. The pitching staff has got a lot to prove this season, and I hope they have matured to the point where they are somewhat improved upon from last year.

Graduate School Application Process Update

I must say, after the past couple of days, I'm most pleased with how my application for graduate school is coming along. On Thursday, before I left for Columbia for another business trip, I managed to mail in the necessary form to GW to request copies of my transcripts. While I was in Columbia, I finished my goals statement for my application. I thought it came out pretty well, I had it proofed and it's now looking better than what it was when I originally wrote it. And then, this morning, I got the last recommendation forms filled out by my last recommender. As soon as I receive those transcripts, I can go ahead and get the first all important application in. I'm definitely going to get it in prior to the April 1st deadline. At which time, a few weeks from now, it is my hope, to proudly announce I will be beginning my graduate program in the summer. I hope this all comes to fruition. It seems that with everything going so well in my professional life at the time, that this will enhance that success even more. Just another month tops before I find out. It will soon be the waiting game.

It's Official.....

That's right, it's official..... I officially HATE DC traffic now. For those that know me, they know that this doesn't come as any surprise to them. This morning, just really irked me for some reason. For the last week and some change, while my brother was taking a vacation from work, I had been riding the train to and from work everyday. I found this to be quite a relaxing commuting option. The Fredericksburg VRE train station is about 10 minutes from the house, I hop on the train, grab a seat, and wait until we get to Crystal City a little more than an hour and fifteen minutes later. That being said, I decided to try this out for a bit longer, say, by purchasing myself a monthly pass for March to see if it just wasn't some sort of honeymoon.

Well, since I have to go out to Dulles International Airport to catch a plane this afternoon to Columbia, SC, for work, I had to drive in this morning. It didn't take me long to get around 35 miles up the road, however, about 10 minutes away from the 234 commuter lot, my father gives me a call to tell me that there have been 4 accidents on I-95. I'm thinking, swell.... I took it as a bad omen of things to come. When I dropped by the 234 commuter lot to pick up some slugs, there were no people and a line of 15 cars... Strike two...... After waiting about 20 minutes to pick someone up. Then, when I do get on the HOV lanes and get up the road about 10 minutes, the thing is slammed, both lanes, all the way up to the Pentagon.

HOV lanes in Northern Virginia are a fantastic idea, especially on I-95, it's HOV-3, and until hybrid vehicles started being mass produced, you could get up and down the freeway with smooth sailing. However, VDOT, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to grant an exemption to the HOV-3 rule to those who drive clean fuel cars, in order to give people an incentive to buy them. Well, guess what?!?!?!?! People are buying these things like hotcakes now. At the middle point of the year last year, VDOT, once again, in it's infinite wisdom, decides to extend the exemption until the end of 2006. Granted, this was a great idea at the time, but, when I see 5 out of 6 cars, like I did this morning, are hybrids with only 1 person in them, that gets me going. It tells me the exemption needs to be terminated.

This is just another great reason why I think I should continue to ride the VRE to and from work, so I don't have to put up with the wonderful traffic on I-95..... What a terrible morning to drive in.......

Marine Corps Marathon

For those of you who don't know, I decided a couple of months back, to run the 2005 Marine Corps Marathon. I'm in the process of training for it, and I'm happy to say, it's going exactly how I've been wanting it to go. I've been running quite a bit more than I have in the past several years. It took me quite some time to get over a few things, such as shin splints, but now I'm running without any difficulty or pain in my legs. I need to be running more than what I am currently, and I plan on rectifying that situation very soon. I'm going to see about running a few times a week now, so I can get even better. One thing I'm having some difficulty with though, is choosing a training program to sign up for. I was originally going to run on the multiple sclerosis team, however, they aren't putting together a marathon training program this year. So, I'm down to two choices, either the AIDS Marathon Team or the St. Jude's Team. Both are great causes, but I'm having difficulty choosing what I want to raise money for. Perhaps some of you out there might have an idea, or could even point me in the direction of some other teams. This is something that I definitely want to do this year, and I'm going to do it.... I'm also losing some of this excess weight I've picked up over the last couple of years so I can run a little faster. It's going to be grand, but a lot of work, work that I'm definitely looking forward to. I will keep posting updates with my training for the marathon.

Graduate School Application Process

My new year's resolution this year was the start graduate school. It's now been five years since I graduated from George Washington University, and I've had that itch to get back to school for quite some time now. I'm looking at getting into a local MBA program here in the northern Virginia area. It's definitely going slower than what I thought it was going to. I still have a few essays left to write, and I need to acquire my transcripts. I'm also preparing for the GMAT as part of the process. I'm a little more than half-way through prepping for the GMAT. I'm confident that I'm going to blow this test away, now that I know some good tips to get through the questions on the test. I think I might have some difficulty with the math portion of the test, but I'm taking extra time to prep for it.

I have one application deadline of the 1st of April. I'm confident that I'm going to meet that deadline. This is to start for the summer session. If I get into this particular program without a GMAT score, I'm going to go there, plus it's the closest program to my home here in Fredericksburg. I'm optimistic that I'm going to get everything accomplished on time, it's just slow coming, that's all.