[Will post video when I have better wi-fi]

So now we have both a rat and a rat terrier (bred to hunt and kill rats). This sounds horribly cruel to both animals, and could have been, but Boomer doesn’t seem to care about the rat. Perhaps because we already trained him not to go after Maegan’s other pet rodent, a hamster named Peaches.

Along with Darah’s fish, Atlas, the house has become a zoo.

There was one open seat on the Metro this morning. A guy was sitting on the left side of the train, writing on a notepad on his right knee with his right elbow sticking way out, literally halfway into the next seat. (No wonder this was the last available seat.) When I started to sit down he wouldn’t move his elbow out of the way. I squeezed into the seat anyway and he still wouldn’t move. I assertively said “excuse me” and the jerk just tilted his head up slightly and glared straight at me. He still wouldn’t budge. Not fully in a seat yet, I jammed in there and the battle to not be pushed out of my own seat escalated.

After a few stops I looked up and noticed a LARGE older woman standing in the aisle. I immediately stood up and offered the woman my seat. Giving my seat up for an elderly woman was the right thing to do anyway, but it was so damn satisfying to look back and see the guy who was sitting next to me, now squeezed up tight against the glass, shoulders collapsed inward, no longer able to write anything anymore. A good deed and revenge, all rolled-up into one sweet action. It was a win-win.

Late yesterday I got word at work that there was a strong desire to send me out the following day on what would have been my first business trip ever. The reason would have been to assist with a time-sensitive video shoot in another state, to ensure that everything went smoothly.

That state was North Carolina. The specific location was Mooresville, in the Charlotte metro area!

It looked probable, but the final decision wouldn’t be made until we discussed it in a group meeting early the next morning. So I went to work with luggage packed, ready to leave in the afternoon.

Since nothing would be definate until just hours before leaving for the airport, I didn’t mention anything to Patty or the kids. First, I didn’t want to get their hopes up incase plans feel through. But also, how awesome would it have been to knock on the front door and surprise Patty and the kids, totally unexpectedly?! (I would’ve had to leave at 5:30am to make it to my shoot, but a short visit is better than no visit.)

Needless to say, I didn’t end up going to Charlotte on business today. If I had, I would’ve been knocking on the front door and saying “Surprise!” right at this very moment. And I also would’ve been posting some totally awesome video too, shortly thereafter.

Throughout my mile-long walk through the neighborhood, I was never in a spot with less than four wi-fi signals. That’s a lot of wi-fi spilling into the streets. My first thoughts were about how many people used personal information in the name of their network, including people’s names. Just walking by I could tell that Mary and Anthony were the names of a couple of my neighbors.

Most of the wi-fi throughout the neighborhood was secured networks that you would need a password to get on to. But what surprised me was at least 10 different wi-fi signals were totally open, unprotected from anybody like me stealing their bandwidth. One person (Anthony, mentioned above) had two very strong network signals. One that was secure named “Anthony-secure” and another totally unprotected signal named “Anthony-guests”. What the heck is the point of having a secure wi-fi signal if you have another insecure signal on the same network? That’s like having a lock on your back door but having the front door wide open.

It didn’t take too long but it took long enough that I knew I was now going to miss kickoff, and most likely lose a choice seat too. I thought to myself that karma owes me for helping that woman and I had the urge to tweet a comment about it. While walking back down to the Metro entrance I pulled out my cell phone specifically to tweet about karma and pressed the button to unlock it. Instead of my standard unlock screen or any other display that would show when using one of the phone’s various functions, I was extremely surprised to see an unobstructed full screen photo of the universe displayed on my phone, without any buttons, icons, or text that I would normally see on my phone display. I had never seen this image on my phone before!  This image may have been hidden in my  phone as a factory setting but that still wouldn’t explain how it magically showed up just then, for no reason. Was this karma trying to tell me something?

When I finally got to the ‘local establishment’ that was showing the game, I did indeed miss kickoff. But somehow there was still a seat left for me! A good one. Karma?

So my photo excuse is that on my last trip back from Charlotte to Washington, I was the first person on the double-decker bus. After trying out the upper deck once before I decided not to go up there again because you’re in the sun the whole time, beneath the glass ceiling. But being first on, plus the fact that it was overcast that day, plus the fact that the first couple of rows doesn’t have glass overhead anyway – I decided to do it. So below is just a collection of cell phone photos taken from my view in the front row of the upper deck. (Again, just an excuse to test out some plug-ins.)

So in Charlotte they are currently painting the World’s Largest QR Code on the top of a warehouse. I’ve seen businesses like Lowe’s Home Improvement paint their logo on their roof before, either to be seen while flying overhead or more likely when viewing the satellite view in Google Maps. So it only makes sense to take it to the next step with a QR code.

I think this is a great idea, although I do think it’s ironic that you can’t capture the code on your smart phone while flying overhead, since all electronic devices must be turned off during takeoffs and landings. (Note: The NoDa neighborhood (where this QR code was created) is not on any flight lines anyway.)