Author Archives: JJD
Desert wedding — El Paso and Las Cruces
I can honestly say that I never thought I’d go to El Paso, Texas. Especially not for a wedding. Double especially not for a Jewish wedding. But I did! And it was wonderful and fun. I went for the bride, Kristin, who is one of my good friends from law school. She’s originally from […]
Memorial Day – Cycling, sailing, custard, crabs
Memorial Day was a full day of outdoor fun. Mark, a friend from church, invited a bunch of people down to his parents’ house on the water at Breton Bay, a tributary of the Potomac River near where it feeds into the Chesapeake Bay. It was a multi-stage affair: A group of guys (and one […]
Adventures in cooking and trying not to get carried away
I remember my parents telling me a story once about my grandmother’s (possibly unreasonable but totally understandable) drive for perfection: She was having some people over for Sunday dinner and so, the day before, decided to make new curtains for the kitchen. Since it turned out to be a bigger project than expected, she essentially had to […]
Polo!
Okay, so the question on everyone’s mind since Saturday is, Where has polo been all my life? Seriously. It’s like all of the best things about a football game (fun ambiance, good friends, outdoors), only there are horses instead of football, people wear blazers with pocket squares instead of fan jerseys, and the foodstand sells fine Italian […]
The Ride: Slow and steady will still get you to the top of the mountain and back
One of the risks of going to dance concerts that are only 45 minutes long is that you’ll end up getting home in time to pick up your bike from the shop before it closes. Next thing you know, it’s Saturday morning and you’re out on another 100 mile bike ride with those crazy triathlete friends […]
Shen Wei Dance Arts (or, How modern dance can get out of your comfort zone on a Friday night)
Picture this: You walk into an all-white room that has been heated to approximately 87 degrees Fahrenheit. On the floor are three rows of square white mats with things on them. Things like lucite blocks, giant rubber bands, naked people, puddles of paint, piles of hair. You walk amongst those mats feeling hot and a […]
It’s all fun and games until you start ripping the flesh off your body
At Crossfit this morning we got hit with the benchmark workout known as “Helen,” which consists of three rounds, for time, of a 400 meter run, 21 kettlebell swings with a 24-kilo kettlebell, and 12 pullups. Normally Crossfit workouts aren’t repeated, but Helen is one of the benchmark workouts that gets trotted out periodically so that we […]
The grills are out at Heidelberg Bakery!
One of my favorite hallmarks of summer: grilled German sausage, sauerkraut and potato salad at Heidelberg Bakery. They grill every Saturday from mid-May until it gets cold again. And of course it’s only a few steps from the grills outside to the inside counters where all sorts of baked goodies are just waiting to be […]
One step closer
Look what came in the mail today! I can now legally enter Vietnam. Unfortunately things aren’t going so smoothly in Chicago. I heard from Vanessa today that the US Postal Service lost her visa, despite it’s having been sent via certified mail. We still have a month before we leave, so there should be plenty of […]
The Ride: Impromptu Century
So this happened today: For full stats, you can click on the link in the “Garmin Connect” widget in the lower right-hand column of this blog. How, you ask? Simple: I got on a bike at 6:30am and didn’t get off again until 1:30pm. (Okay, okay, so I did get off a couple of times in between — […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 