It’s been a couple of years since I’ve attended the annual NOAA Fish Fry in Washington, DC, but because my wife work’s on the posters, banners and inner office communications for the CFC event, she receives free tickets. So this year she talked me into going with her again and I’m glad I did! The big hit of this years NOAA Fish Fry was Lion Fish and all the different ways you can cook it and use it in different recipes. My personal favorites were Grilled Lion Fish Cesar Salad and Grilled Lion Fish Kababs. I have to admit though, I love sea food, so I tried everything… from the oysters and shrimp to the octopus and crab cakes… and it was all delicious! Another highlight of the evening was meeting and chatting with Captain Keith Colburn of the F/V Wizard, one of the stars from the Discovery Channel’s reality show “Deadliest Catch”. After ten minutes of discussing commercial fishing, politics and the ever shrinking Alaskan fishing grounds and quota’s, we posed for a selfie and then indulged ourselves in some of Keith’s famous Alaskan king crab legs. I had such a great time… I can’t wait to attend it again next year!
I’m starting to suspect that this is becoming an annual event for my brother and I, but who knows. I do know that Julie and I enjoy the venue and the band, so I guess it’s a good way to ring in the holidays. Here are a couple of photos from Carbon Leaf’s annual Christmas holiday show at the Birchmere Music Hall in Alexandria, VA.
Now that my son Dylan is a little older I’ve been meaning to take him to a Nationals baseball game, but for one reason or another we just haven’t had the time. Yesterday my brother called me up out of the blue and said he had a friend who worked for a company that was a huge sponsor of the Nats and that she could hook us up with tickets for the next home game. It was a very last minute thing, but jumped at the opportunity… and everyone had a great time including Dylan who got to hang with the boys at the ballpark and chow down on a huge box full of Thrashers style boardwalk fries!
‘Julie & I enjoying a nice relaxing train ride to NYC’ – 174 Northeast Regional, Amtrak
This week Julie and I took the train up to the Big Apple for a family business dinner and some meetings the following day. It was a very nice trip and well needed getaway from the normal everyday grind. After a nice dinner with the family at Toro on 10th Avenue, we returned to our hotel (the Conrad) and went up to the roof top bar for drinks. Talk about a nice view… and the cocktails were pretty good too!
I have to send out a big thank you to the family who donated the Nationals tickets to the RS annual fund action this past spring. Julie and I had the winning bid for the ticket package which included four Diamond Club Passes and great seats just behind home plate. With four tickets in hand, we decided to make it an adult evening out, so we arranged for a sitter and invited our dear friends Steve and Melissa B. to join us for the game. It was a great night and we had a lot of fun catching up over beer, good food and a ball game! Too bad the Nats lost, but we still had a blast!