Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Tech Honors

Crystal is making me (Richard) blog this post, which is really hard to do because I hate talking about how awesome I am.  So now that it is established that I am awesome, I will proceed to tell you why.  I was selected for Technical Honors at work for my performance in 2010.  For those of you non-Raytheoners, it doesn't mean I was technically honored, it means I was honored for technical contributions.  The cool thing about tech honors is that it is peer-voted, so this is kinda like being on the nerd prom court.  What adds to my awesomeness is: (1) 2010 was my first year here, so I made a good impression quickly, and (2) I got tech honors in TX in 2009, making 2 years in a row!



There was a nice dinner and award ceremony that was far superior to the one in TX last year.  I was able to bring Crystal to share the evening with me.  My coworker Katie, below, said a few nice words about me and presented me with the award.

The Gridiron Dinner

The Gridiron Club and Foundation, founded in 1885, is the oldest and one of the most prestigious journalistic organizations in Washington, D.C. The Gridiron Club is best known for its annual dinner which traditionally features the United States Marine Band, along with satirical musical skits by the members and remarks by the President of the United States and representatives of each political party. The skits and speeches by various politicians are expected to be self-deprecating or otherwise sharply comedic. (Thank you to Wikipedia). 

Now that you know what it is...We got to attend this year's dinner, thanks to Sara (who is in the aforementioned US Marine Band). The speakers were Kathleen Sebelius (D), Mitch Daniels (R), and President Barack Obama, they were all great.  But the highlight of my night....

Meeting Katie Couric...She was really nice and personable, we sat just a few seats away... My biggest disappointment of the evening was that Bon Jovi had the flu, because he was suppossed to sit next to Katie (one seat closer to us).  So I did not get to meet Bon Jovi, but it was still a wonderful evening.  Highlight of the political skits, when President Obama gave his speech the band began playing "Hail to the Chief", but he waved them off and asked them to play the song they had discussed, at which point they began playing "Born in the USA".


Afterwards, there was an afterparty with all kinds of important people that I don't know or remember... The best part was getting to spend some time with Sara and Tom, and an open bar.



If you want to know more about the evening check out this report from the Washington Post:


Tom, this is for you!

Mavs Fans for Life!

Richard and I have always been Mavs fans, we went to our first game together in 2003 three weeks after we started dating.  We continue to really enjoy the games, so naturally when the Mavs were in DC we jumped at our chance to go.  This was probably the highlight of our February!  (We aren't fans of the cold, so we tend to stay home a lot during the winter months here...)  But we braved to cold and enjoyed a lovely dinner at Brasserie Beck before heading over to the verizon center for the game.  Richard had told me we didn't have very good seats...but then surprised me with super seats about 5 rows behind the Mavs bench.

Mushroom Gruyere Crepe from Brasserie Beck (fabulous Belgian restaurant)

After the game, we had facebook messages from friends in Texas that said they saw us on TV!
 
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