Best Place?

This is really getting out of hand. Here's a little backstory, to set the scene:

About 4 years ago I took my company's college recruiter training. This was so I could go on trips to various universities (hopefully Purdue) and stand around at a kiosk and do first pass interviews of prospective employees. I figure, I went through enough job fairs, why not see it from the other side? Anyway, during the training they told us to really hype up the fact that Lexington Park was rated the #1 best place to live in the Mid-Atlantic region. I raised my hand and asked "Whoa whoa, who rated this the best place to live?" Turns out it was a respectable magazine (that I can't remember now), and we all thoroughly researched it later. It turns out that they ranked cities based on median income, average house prices, percentage of people with college degrees, etc. Basically it was one big computer error, because let me tell you: if you talk to 10 people who live here, 9 of them hate it and can't wait to leave, and the other one is a local who can't wait for the transplants to leave. I informed the training instructors that I would not tell anyone that this is a great place to live for fear of future retribution after they move. Oddly enough I never got sent on any recruiting trips.

So yesterday, this article makes the rounds on e-mail:
Business Journal's "Dreamtowns that offer refuge from big cities and congested suburbs."

I'll sum it up for you: BizJournal analyzed 140 places outside of major metropolitan areas, or as they put it "The answer is provided by a new bizjournals analysis of 140 micropolitan areas. It identifies America's 10 "dreamtowns," the small towns that offer the best quality of life without metropolitan hassles."

Their #3 "Dreamtown?" Lexington Park, MD.

How does this happen? The article says "The highest scores went to well-rounded places with light traffic, healthy economies, moderate costs of living, impressive housing stocks, strong educational systems, and easy access to big-city attractions." If you live here, you're probably laughing in disbelief right now. Let's look at them one by one:

Light Traffic: Have you ever tried to get anywhere between 3 and 6 pm? There's one freaking road in this county, and everyday it is backed up beyond belief.
Healthy Economy: There is one, and only one source of money flowing into the county: the Navy base. The good old boy zoning board has made every effort to ensure we have to leave the county to spend our money.
Moderate Cost of Living: I'm sorry, I'm almost laughing too hard to type. It's probably cheaper than New York, but tell that to the thousands of upper 20-something college grads who can't afford a townhouse on two salaries.
Impressive Housing Stocks: Well, there are plenty of empty lots if you've got half a mil to blow.
Strong Educational Systems: Everyone I work with that has kids either deliberately lives in a neighboring county or sends their kids to the private schools. The schools are notoriously bad.
Easy Access to Big City Attractions: Okay, DC is a reasonable drive. We'll get to that later.

As my coworker Dan pointed out, I'd like to see how many other "Dreamtowns" don't have a movie theatre, a mall, an Olive Garden, a sporting goods store, a book store. I mean, whoever put together this list has clearly never set foot in St. Mary's County, let alone spent a week here.

If you click on the slide show, you are presented with this picture and the quick facts about the area, including:
Quality of life
Strengths: Lexington Park sits along placid Chesapeake Bay. Hectic Washington is farther away, yet still within commuting distance. The result is a community that blends small-town and suburban qualities. Lexington Park's median household income is the highest in micropolitan America.
Location: Southern Maryland, southeast of Washington
Closest major metropolitan area: Washington, 48 air miles
Quick stats
Area population: 98,854
Population growth since 2000: 14.6%
Average commuting time: 26.6 minutes
Median household income: $71,158
Homeownership rate: 71.9%
Median house value: $322,000
Adults with bachelor's degrees: 24.4%

I'm going to go with my statistical error theory. Sure, based on those facts alone, it seems great. But look at the picture we get! Other dreamtowns show shots of charming downtowns, with rolling hills in the background. We get a church garden. The true irony is that this church is in the worst part of town, between two ghettos and across the street from a strip club and a seedy motel. As my coworker Barry put it "The photographer probably had to dodge bullets to get that picture."

But the hits don't stop there. Apparently Outsider Magazine rated Washington DC as "The #1 Best Town in America." As they said on Fark "They must be confused about the definition of 'town.' And 'best.'"

Maybe I am confused, and this place is really some sort of Utopia that I should cherish living in. But I don't. I don't hate hate it, but I certainly don't like it. I share the same opinion with almost all of my coworkers: It's livable, but we really look forward to the day we leave. It's not the worst place, but it's certainly no #3!

Company Picnic 2008

It's that time of year again! That magical day when we celebrate the summer by getting unlimited picnic food and the afternoon off for the bargain basement price of $6. Really, you can't beat that.

The formula was really the same as every previous picnic- I ate too much food, we threw around the frisbee and I kind of felt like I was going to barf, etc. There were a few key differences though, like having it professionally catered. While this was awesome (the food was great), that meant that there was no budget for raffle prizes for the adults. So, my win streak ended at two. I feel it was a good trade-off. There were raffles for the kids- and speaking of kids, either a lot of people brought their children or I am getting old! I swear half of the picnic was high-schoolers, but I'd get close to some of them and see that they were wearing Navair badges! It's like when you go to a college football game and most of the current students don't look old enough to drive.

But here's the biggest difference from this year: I participated in the games. That's right- I usually shun all manner of organized events in favor of pickup volleyball or frisbee, but they were having trouble getting enough participants for the sponge race. One of our branch heads tracked down our group (who I until recently thought of as "the young people." I guess now we're the "30-ish childless crowd") and asked us to round out the competition. I was like "Uhhhhhhhhh....okay." Four of five of us formed a group to compete with the other teams, which were comprised of 40-ish people with their 10-ish kids. This is where my competitiveness kicked in. As the relay was in high gear I was like "C'mon people! Squeeze the sponge before you dunk it! Pull it apart under water to soak faster! MOVE IT!!" And actually, I had just eaten quite a bit of food since I wasn't planning on doing any more activities, so I asked the judge if it would count if I puked in to our bucket. Long story short, we lost by a nose. But as the winning team was awarded dollar store plastic gold medals with a big "#1" on them, my co-workers and I looked at each other with the common understanding that it was now our goal to rack up as many medals as possible before the day was through.

Next up: the sack race relay. I don't want to brag, but my team simply possessed an overwhelming height advantage and we won by a mile. Medals: 1.

Time for the 3-legged race! A coworker and I paired off on a height basis, and we had at least a head on every other team. We figured this one was in the bag! We didn't start out too well- we couldn't really get in rhythm until half way through the course, and at that point it was like finding a new gear and we shot off. But it was too late. This team of little girls shot off like a rocket right from the start, and our speed burst just wasn't enough to catch them. Next time, girls. Next time.

Event #4 was the pie eating contest. To be honest, I really felt like I was on the verge of barfing already, so I skipped it (as did all my friends). We'll just have to let that one go. I did watch, and it turns out the pies were just crust, jello and whipped cream. So even though it wasn't a real pie, the crust alone is still pretty bad, so this was a good event to miss.

Finally it was time for the volleyball tournament. This was organized by division- so you and a team of co-workers played a team of people you don't really work with. Our team was composed of me, six other people from my department, and a guy we'll call "Raffiki." Who was Raffiki? Nobody knows, because he wandered on to our side of the court a few points in to the first match and no one had ever seen him before (except that I'm pretty sure he was on the losing side of the previous match). I guess no one wanted to tell him to scram, this being a feel-good event and all, but we probably should have. 1, because this was a department vs department tournament, and he clearly doesn't work with us. 2, because the skill breakdown looked like this:

3 of my co-workers: Good volleyball players.
Me and 3 other co-workers: Competent volleyball players.
Raffiki: Destroying our team from the inside like a volleyball cancer.

And we can say that Raffiki was terrible, but that doesn't quite sum it up. I don't mean terrible in the "I meant to hit it left but it went right" or even the occasional "too-powerful hit that lands 5 feet out of bounds" ways, because God knows I'm just as guilty as anyone of those. Hell, at one point I yelled "Don't touch it! It's going out of bounds!" for a ball that landed a good two feet in bounds. No, Raffiki was terrible in that "running around the court like an ADD kid on a sugar high, swinging his arms madly at every ball that came within his reach" way. You know how some people know what they're supposed to do, but just come up short? And other people are so actively bad that they repeatedly overreach their ability and submarine their whole team? He was the latter.

I guess the best examples are when the ball was headed right for a player who yelled "Got it!" Right as he's attempting to hit it, Raffiki flies in out of nowhere and swats the ball with all his might- in the exact opposite direction of the net. It defied all logic and reason. I mean, what was he trying to do? Another time I executed a beautiful dig (if I do say so myself) and the ball was on the way to another competent player, when Raffiki runs in and bats it absolutely sideways. I think it almost made it to the parking lot. My reaction was like "I dove for that. I have sand up my shirt and down my pants, and you just carelessly pummeled the ball away." After every devastating play he'd say something like "Oops! Sorry! I'm really bad at volleyball." Then why are you trying to dominate the game!?!? He was transcending bad. It was more like he was actively trying to lose.

And let us not forget- this was a tournament game, and he wasn't supposed to be on our team. When you think about it, it's entirely conceivable that he worked for the department we were playing against and was deliberately sabotaging us. This may seem laughable for a company picnic, but you weren't there. The more I think about it, the more likely this seems.

In any case, we were down 0-6 (we played to 7) when we finally rotated into dream position: I was serving, the 3 good players were on the front line, and Raffiki was in a back corner where another teammate basically boxed him out of the action. We got 8 straight points. Medals: 2!

Withing minutes of the winning point, the sky opened up and it started pouring rain, so we all ran for our cars. Personally, I got a ton of sand in my car that I spent the evening vacuuming out. It was still may favorite company picnic so far, even without a gift card. And you better believe those plastic medals are hanging up at my desk!

Bienvenido a Miami!

A couple of weeks ago I was able to experience my first Indian wedding (and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it). Ramya's childhood BFF/former roommate Padmini got married in Miami, so we made a mini-vacation out of it. That's right- Miami on the 4th of July weekend. It was not chilly.

As weddings go, the only thing that was different from "us-people" weddings was the actual ceremony (and the groom's arrival, or "Barat"). Everything else was basically the same- mostly that I met a ton of people and had to try to remember names. And I usually suck pretty hard at names, but this time I had to try to remember ones like Bharath, Anagha, Saramati, Sandhya, etc. It's hard enough when you have to remember a bunch of Kelly and Steves, but with a lot of Indian names I don't even natively know the gender. But that's neither here nor there.

The ceremony was interesting, but it was long and complicated. And not only that, but the whole thing was conducted in Sanskrit, and I'm pretty sure the priest was the only person in the room who spoke it. As such, they passed out a little book that explained the various stages of the wedding in English (they also passed out little pieces of sugar and flowers, but I never really understood why). And because the ceremony is so long and incomprehensible, paying attention isn't necessary, or even encouraged. People were chatting amongst themselves while the priest went on and on, guests came and went, people would randomly walk up front and take pictures, etc. As Bharath put it "Yeah, you could start a poker game back here and no one would notice." There were really too many stages of the ceremony to count. They included (but were not limited to): Sitting on a swing while older women sung chants, passing around colored rice balls, eating a mixture of milk, sugar and bananas, all the guests walking up and throwing flower petals at the couple (my favorite) and taking seven steps together. Needless to say I was pretty lost, but everyone was very willing to explain things to me. I believe the most important part was when they walked around the fire together- everyone stood up and applauded, and I think this is the moment when they are considered "married."

At the conclusion of the Hindu ceremony they actually did a mini "western wedding," during which the bride and groom stood up and a woman who is a notary (who can perform marriages in Florida) does a brief presentation. This I was familiar with- it included vows, exchanging rings and all those other things I'm used to seeing at weddings. They even kissed afterward, which I understand is still pretty risque in this instance.

Of course, the wedding is followed by the reception (and the food was delightful, naan and all). Then, the dancing started. Now, I can barely dance in English so I was really starting from scratch when the Bhangra music started thumping. What the women were doing was easy to figure out: it's what I think of as stereotypical Indian dancing, what with the arms up and vague pushing hand motions and swaying to the music. This I can imitate. The problem here is that that's what the women do. The dudes, on the other hand, just kind of held their hands up in the air and kicked their feet around. It all seemed very random and disorganized. You would think this would make it easier to blend in, but it had the opposite effect- I just didn't know where to start. It got a little easier once they passed out the glow sticks (yeah baby) because then I had something to do with my hands. Anyway, I think I faked it pretty well until they switched to hip-hop music, and which point I could dance poorly in a more familiar style.

Here's the weird part: when they switched to hip-hop, all the Indian kids (and by "kids," I mean 15-30 years of age) started dancing like I'm used to. It seemed odd, but I guess that's not so much how Indian people dance as it is how you dance to Bhangra music- like you wouldn't dance the same way to death metal and bluegrass. See? You learn something new every day.

But the biggest obstacle on the dance floor was the video camera. Now, I know some people love to have footage of their special day, but I believe weddings should be still-picture only. Especially when it comes to the dance floor. This particular video camera had a very bright spotlight attached to it, so at least you were sure when it was pointed at you! I'm sure every time I'm on camera all you see me doing is shielding my eyes and awkwardly standing there, waiting for them to realize that there's no way my version of Bhangra is ever going to end up on YouTube and move on. Still, it wasn't as bad as an earlier wedding this season, in which there was a video camera mounted on a high tripod, permanently fixed on the dance floor. I mean, is there any bigger dancing buzz kill than knowing that every move is being caught on tape? I say live in the moment, take great stills, and screw the tape. But that's just me.So altogether it was a great time. We stuck around Miami for a few more eventful days, which I'm sure I'll get around to blogging about in the next few weeks!

I Shall Call Him "Mini-me."

That's right. Check out what Ramya got me for our anniversary- my very own bobblehead! It's actually frighteningly accurate- they even got the smile creases in my cheeks, the goatee that's lighter than my hair, and the (ahem) bald spot.

But you know what might be my favorite part? Ramya's choice of outfit. Clearly inspired by my traditional game-day ensem, she went a step further and made the jersey #42- which is not only my favorite number, but is the jersey I give myself in video games. Perfect! You can see all the pics here.For the record, I made her a personalized page-a-day calendar that started on June 17th (our anniversary) and was all pictures from our first year together. It's pretty sweet as well, but I think she wins!

How do you pronounce "XKCD?"

Something recently reminded me of XKCD, a poorly drawn yet brilliant web comic. It might not have mass appeal, because he makes extensive use of sci-fi, engineering, and other generally geeky references, but I think a lot of them really hit home. For instance, this one:I kid you not- I once actually figured out how to play "Ode to Joy" on a handrail at my dad's house. And for further geek-hit-home-ery, last weekend I was telling Ramya all about how much I love the Jurassic Park soundtrack. Seriously. It's brilliant.

In any case, if you do decided to check out XKCD, make sure you let the cursor hover over the picture for a few seconds to see the "secret" message. Here's a few to get you started. Enjoy!