While much of the DC area is still dealing with the excessive rains, the lab and its various neighbors had no water yesterday.  Ironic.  Lake Needwood was about to flood parts of Rockville and our lab didn't have water to drink or flush with.  The water commission told us it would be an hour, but it would be no such thing.  Fortunately, we have a water cooler but I refrained from liquids for most of the day just in case.

Unfortunately, the campus gets it A/C from the chilled WATER supply.  No water pressure, no A/C.  Temps in our lab & offices rapidly increased, especially for those near windows.  The lab head honchos finally released us due to "intolerable conditions".

Used the extra hours off to watch Superman Returns before my lindy class.  Not bad, but it didn't quite grab me as I had hoped.  The storyline lacked sufficient energy.  Sure Brandon Routh had the likeness of Christopher Reeve, Kate Bosworth was admirable as Lois Lane though her character missed the intrepid nature of Margot Kidder's daring reporter and Kevin Spacey was great with Lex Luthor's maniacal eloquence & flair.  The missing element was just too little face-to-face time for the two arch-enemies.

So as many of you know the DC Metro area has been soaked in drenching rain.  Many coworkers came in late, or didn't even bother.  Many half-hour or so commutes lasted over 2 hours for my coworkers.  I was pretty fortunate; cruised in my normal commute time but you can see where mud has slushed onto the highways.

The most interesting thing out all of this is one coworker biked roughly from the National Zoo area to work.  He went through standing water and mud.  He states he saw a SUV in the trees!  He also saw lots of abandoned BMWs and the like along the way.

We found some rain leaks in our lab ceiling.  Unfortunately, maintenance is overloaded by higher priority calls around the facility.  Gotta love poorly done building renovation projects.

Just heard my first booming thunder ... a car alarm is going off now and I can hear the pounding rains.  This is gonna be an interesting week.

Anyways, hope everyone is fairing alright.

Picked up this interesting quote by Mark Dever (author of The Message of the New Testament) from Joshua Harris's blog:

So we've all heard various theories for successful dating relationships & marriages.  One theory says a couple will have a happy relationship if they have a lot in common.  The obvious belief is there is a shared oneness.  Many soulmate concepts seems to be based on this shared oneness & understanding.

On the flipside, a troubled relationship is one where there is little in common.  One of my friends shared with me how rocky his relationship with his girlfriend has been, apparently due in part to their lack of shared activities/interests.  So in search of something they are trying.  Another friend tells me his on-again/off-again/back on-again relationship is strained by the long-distance and lack of time together.

Last night I arrived early for class and observed the married folks in the Intermediate Waltz.  There was something magical about the missteps and the gentle laughters as well as the victories I saw [1].  I just kept thinking that would be really nice if I was in that situation.  Then I remembered a friend in the past persistently tried to match me up with someone with also a dance interest, but I also remembered I didn't have much else in common with that person.  I also wondered why my friend only focused on the dancing interest when there were and are deeper passions that I have and the other person didn't share.  (Other friends have committed similar dissimilar match-ups.)  Now after my recent dance classes, tennis games, and conversations with dating/married friends I'm wondering about all this common ground stuff.  In the hypothetical married situation, I can call up friends to play tennis if she doesn't want to play but if she doesn't want to dance, well, I guess I don't dance, right?

And oh, recently an older colleague of mine
told me he and wife got into Tango dancing after many failed attempts
at finding a shared activity.  They've been dancing regularly every
weekend.  Other friends share in a love for videogames.  In the past we
had a bunch of wives/gfs who joined their husbands/bfs and I for
rollerhockey.  Now I've heard of a couple that shares an interest in the shooting range!  [Some brothers are so blessed!  ]

Now some couples share in their love for food and for certain television programs.  With food we all have to eat and for Americans, television is a big thing for people, so they both take relatively little effort to accomplish.   Let's look outside of those things:  What do you couples out there like to do together?  How important are those things?  Are there significant outside interests apart from each other?  Were there certain interests that were non-negotiables in your dating life?  Did you give up any of your past interests?

Well, going back to my earlier hypothetical.  Dancing isn't a requirement; practically speaking it obviously is not something many people learn to do (of course, I'm still learning myself).  If I don't dance, I don't dance.  I'll miss it, of course, but hopefully there will be other things to make up for it.  (On the other hand, most women I've met want to learn, so my odds look pretty good that I'll be doing some kind of dancing.)  However, I'm hoping it is obvious what my great passion is and I prayerfully looking forward to sharing in that.

[2] I sadly don't remember a thing in Waltz & Slow Blues except for the fact at how much fun they were.  When we were on target, my followers loved the spins!    Ladies:  Want to encourage a guy into an ego-trip, tell him he's a great dancer, or at least let your smile show it. 

Unless it's rains really hard, I've generally noticed that post-rain conditions tends towards humidity.  Recently a bunch of us kept playing when it started to drizzilling (thanks Sam for bringing the rain with you!).  Four of us were playing doubles, and yah, it was getting kind of slippery, but we kept at it.

Anyways, the rain stopped shortly,  and WOW, the humidity went away.  Totally refreshing.  For some reason a sense of God's creation swept over me.

The sad thing about the Beltway 'burbs is that there aren't too many restaurants open late.  (Especially that will take in a bunch of sweaty tennis players! )   Fortunately after both late-nights of tennis we drove a bit to the 24 hour Yechon, and I believe I found my post-game comfort food: Duk (Rice cakes) & Dumpling Soup.  Cheap & good & satisfying.  Good stuff.

Amazing -- not only did today have great weather, but today was also a great day of dancing!

• Our lab had a cultural day and invited two Salsa instructors.  While other cultural performers were doing their thing, on the side the two Salseros were warming up and instructing people on single-step swing.  I, of course, jumped in!  Then I got to dance with the lady instructor.  She doesn't do much Lindy but she's obviously got great following skills.  So much fun.  Unfortunately, turns out some of my coworkers saw me ... hope I don't get teased too much tomorrow! 
• Went to both swing classes I mentioned earlier.  Great refresher; learned a lot of new moves!  And Donna corrected a running problem I've been having in my Lindy Swingout.  Yay!   Now the question, where were you all?  Especially you potential Lindy followers!!!  Can't y'all help a brother out? 

Life is good.

Friday is our division picnic.  Hopefully the weather will hold up and I can play some tennis.  My backhand slice is coming along nicely ... the little joys in life!

Had my first official assistantship in Children's Sunday School.  We have children's worship and then we split into separate classes.  I'm fortunate to be working under my cousin's husband.  He's great with the kids.  Disciplined yet still encouraging.  And he works really hard to make the lessons understandable.

I can see why we need two teachers per class, the young kids have a lot of energy!

Anyways, today one of the first-grader kids accidentally sits on my shoe:

Yep, the kids respect me!  Haha.  All this makes me wonder how I was as a Sunday School kid.  I remember Mrs. Z was really tough on us!  Of course, I probably deserved it.  I remember goofing around in the fellowship hall, sliding down the railings when she would yell at us to stop cuz we might knock over somebody.  Hee-hee, good times.     Hmmm, I hope our students are gonna be better behaved than me.  Of course, the saying is "what goes around, comes around."

Tired of 6-count East Coast Tuck-Turns & Passby's?  Wanna be lead into those exhilarating Lindy Swingouts?  Love watching those Charleston Kicks?  Then you want to learn Lindy Hop Swing!

Starting June 8th @ 9pm there will be a five-week 1-hour Beginning Lindy class taught by Donna & Mike at the Glen Echo Ballroom.  It's $55 *with* a $10 registration fee.  (The $10 is per *one* registration form, so sign up for more classes at GEP if ya can.)

Donna's website class info:

In the past, D&M have taught the Lindy Circle and, if memory serves correctly, the Texas Tommy.  Even those who have had the 8 week Tom & Debra class have enjoyed taking another beginner's-level class for the additional practice and, more importantly, to reinforce the concepts of frame, connection & counter-balance.

Not interested in lindy?  Or maybe you learn more swing dancing?  Just before the lindy class there's an Intermediate Swing class (same day, 8pm to 9pm):

Note: Get out of those Thursday office clothes!  The Spanish Ballroom can get a bit warm in the summer, so bring a change of clothes & some water.

Seeya on the dance floor! --Koine

Congrats to Voganite for getting through grad school!  Last Saturday I drove up to outside of Philly to visit Young in Glenside, Pennsylvania.  What do two brothers-in-Christ do when they haven't seen each other in 8+ years?

Eat.  Talk.  Eat.  Talk.  Play chess.  Eat.

1. Ate a Schmitters sandwich for lunch.  It's a roll-bread with salami, bologna, steak & cheese with a Russian-style dressing.  Good & messy!
2. Then we drove over to Rita's for Flavored Ice.  Mango-flavor all the way.
3. For dinner we found a hole-in-the-wall called Ting Wong in Philly's Chinatown.  2 Won-ton-meins (Shrimp-pork dumplings and noodles soup) & a bowl of Pei-don-sow-yook-jook (Salty pork & preserved egg rice porridge/congee) to share.  Pretty good & cheap & filling.  Under 11 bucks.

Turns out Young is a chess player ... a serious chess player.  While trying to figure out how to kill some time before dinner, I saw a chess book on the floor.  Just as I was about to ask if he played, he asks with a huge grin, "Wanna play chess?" Sure thing!  Next thing I notice, he's out the door grabbing his travel roll-up set from the car.  It's a roll-up chessboard mat with large very nicely weighted plastic pieces.

From all that I know this guy can play!  And mind you, I may play somone once a year.

And boy, can he play.

• I lost the first game in his Sicilian Defense.
• The second game I get a nice attack on his King despite being down a Rook for a Knight, but I misplay it and lose.
• A third game I'm up in a King + Queen versus King + pawn endgame, but I get over-confident and miss his pawn promotion to a Queen with check!  Our pieces dance a round for a while but he missteps and I quickly force a trade of Queens to draw.
• Then I quickly flame out twice in our fourth & fifth games.

Next time: a chess rematch plus a tennis game!  Us, competitive?  Nah ...

Despite $17 in tolls & rising gas prices, definitely fun times for a one day trip!  Thanks, Young!  And congrats!

And by the way, ladies:  this godly, Christ-centered brother is single!  Just be sure your resume includes chess knowledge ... j/k (but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt  )

P.S.  Interesting find:  A Korean-Chinese Association.  I had never heard of it before.  Is this a well-known organization?  What is it all about?