a guy and a bee
a collection of random thoughts and ideas from me, her, and sometimes us
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a trip to the air and space museum
yesterday, bee and i took a trip to the air and space museum, the udvar-hazy air and space museum. bee had never been to this one but she’s always loved the main museum downtown. now that one is her second favorite, haha. if you haven’t been, it’s out by dulles airport and holds tons of different airplanes as well as the enterprise space shuttle (s00n to be replaced by the discovery). if you have been to the other museum, you will know that it has more of the history of planes and aviation where as the udvar hazy museum has lots of planes, many of them military and/or donated by companies or private collectors.
we arrived around noon and started with the space shuttle. they have a separate whole hanger/wing for the the shuttle and lots of the other different NASA paraphernalia as well as the 
history of space flight and rockets. if you haven’t been to a shuttle launch or seen a shuttle in person, the sheer size of it is incredible. to think they were all built in the ’60s and have flown for years as technology has grown leaps and bounds is amazing. as a child after a trip to key west, we stumbled upon a shuttle launch on the way back and stayed an extra day so we could see. what an incredible experience to see it lift off and take that crazy adventure. anyway, from the picture to the left, you can see the scale of the enterprise and the building itself.
after we wandered around the space shuttle and the different NASA items, we moved through the main portion of the building. when you enter the main part of the facility, you come across an SR-71 blackbird. at over 100 feet long of stealth technology, it’s a sight to see. from there there are lots of war planes and civil aviation items. a whole section of stunt planes and different planes from the early decades of aviation hang from the ceiling. a supersonic, concorde from air france spans across what felt like half of the floor. on the other side there are planes from WWII, both US and German, as well as an F-15 Tomcat and JSF X35B and many more. there was a speech taking place from several members of the tuskegee airmen as part of a black history month celebration. we 
took a lot of photos of different propellers and hope to do some sort of photo display of them. we did not get a chance to go up in the observation tower because the line was pretty long and decided not to wait as i am sure we will be back. it does cost $15 to park, but to enter the museum it’s free, so there’s that.
we took lots more photos and posted some of them on my flickr page here.
after the museum, we went over to the outlets in leesburg and did a little shopping. we bought some new beach towels, which was entertaining because at one point there were flurries coming down. afterwards, we met a couple of our good friends and fellow elon alumni who live down that way for dinner at dogfish alehouse. after a whole day of hanging out and relaxing, we got home and passed out. surprisingly, bee didn’t even fall asleep on the way home in the car.
My ‘Grand’ Adventure
This past (Labor Day) weekend was the Inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix. If you follow my tweets regularly, you would have seen my tweets on Friday about all the activities. (sorry it took me awhile to get this posted)
Not being a big race fan, I was going into this experience pretty much as a novice. Both a novice fan and a understanding. Having gotten free tickets for Friday from The Fan, I got to see the practice rounds that day. After the months of hype and prep, getting to the event at on day 1, I was underwhelmed (at first).
I got into Baltimore around 9:30 am and start walking around the venue.
I start walking down to the Budweiser party area 98 Rock still had their morning show going. Took some photos of the area and moved around the steel walkways into the main area. People were still setting up and come to find out, the race course wasn’t ready for racing, which was a real disappointment. The picture to the right was from around 11 am when they were still welding man hole covers shut. As well, they were still cleaning the course with the street sweeps up until at least 12:30 when they were supposed to have started. Practice was supposed to start around 8 or 9 and then got push to noon, and the was delayed to after 1:30 pm. After noon and the opening ceremonies, no updates were giving as far as time changes and I never heard anything as to the original delays when I got on site. Shortly before the street sweepers came by for the third time, workers will still securing the walls in place. One of the pieces of the metal wall even fell on one of the flag guys on the other side of the street.
securing the fence
As the ceremonies got under way, I was disappointed to not see either Mayor Rawlings Blake or Governor O’Malley. The Lt. Governor was on site and gave a few words on behalf of the Governor and State, but with the city being on the national and international stage, I was very surprised, to say the least, that they weren’t there. with all that being said, once racing started, no one was worried
about how they got their and just enjoyed the race. the first lap there was a minor crash right at grandstand 6 where I was sitting. After the first practice race, I shifted locations and moved up closer to the convention center. After that, I walked up through the Paddocks and Camden Yards. From there I saw some of the Le Mans racing which was louder that the Indy races.
Le Mans Race on Lee Street
For a first race experience and that it was only practice it was all in all a neat experience. I would have liked to have been able to take some photos from the walkways, but we were quickly removed through those areas when we tried.
After the race, Bee and I hit the road and went down to the Outer Banks. There was debris and some minor damage, but it was alot less than expected! We enjoyed the rest of the Labor Day weekend with the sun, surf, and sand.
I posted a bunch of photos of my trip to the Grand Prix on my flickr page for you to check out. I tried to capture the essence of Baltimore in among this neat, inaugural event! And I even got to meet @juliemore to boot!
view of the sound from atop jockey's ridge
the baltimore grand prix
ps… remember when you say “grand prix,” you have to emphasis the “gra” portion of grand prix. it sounds more european that way. haha.
one last thing, i saw the UTZ girl and the pickle’s pub custom, LOL.
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a guy and a bee 