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As is our tradition, decorating the house for Christmas starts the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Kristin does most of the decorating, but things like lights fall to me. I refuse to risk life and limb to climb two stories to put up lights, so instead I hang them above the porch. I still need a ladder, but only to go up two steps, so I figure I’m pretty safe. We also hang lights on the inside windows on the second floor as well in a tree in the front yard. Only problem is the tree hasn’t dropped its leaves yet, so I need to wait to finish that up.

We also expanded our outside decorations a bit, adding wreaths to the coach lights on the garage and two pre-lit trees to sit on each side of the front door. Garden Ridge had the trees on sale, and while there I wound up buying the wreaths and a few other things. I can’t ever seem to go into that store without buying at least one thing that wasn’t on my list. Curse your deals Garden Ridge!

For those of you waiting to see my photos from the new Air and Space Museum (hopefully someone out there wants to see them), I haven’t finished captioning them yet. Soon, I promise!

Yes, a ham saved our Thanksgiving. I bought a roaster recently, and planned to cook our turkey in it, opening up the oven for side dishes. I’m one of those people who has to have turkey on Thanksgiving, but both Kristin and my mom aren’t big fans of turkey, so we picked up a small ham to have as well.

The first sign of trouble came when I checked on the bird near the end of its cooking time, only to find that the indicator hadn’t popped yet. A manual check of the temperature confirmed that it wasn’t finished. Not to worry, it just needs a little longer. Turn up the temperature and we’ll be OK. Nope, still wasn’t done. The natives were getting restless, and the sides were all finished, so we went ahead with the ham as the main course.

After dinner, the turkey was still not done. OK, time to revert to a known quantity and toss the bird in the oven. That finally did it, resulting in a very late, but well-cooked turkey. It may not have made it in time for Thanksgiving, but it’ll make some fine sandwiches for the next few days. And as for the roaster, I’m going to pick up a meat thermometer that can stay in the oven and determine if the roaster is having a thermostat problem.

Lessons learned?

1. Don’t risk a holiday meal on untried appliances.

1. Always have a backup meat.

   Update! I tested the roaster yesterday and confirmed that it is defective. Time to lug it back to the store for an exchange.

Today started off on a low note when I left for the day (or so I thought) only to find that my car wouldn’t start. I had the battery replaced a few weeks back, so needless to say I wasn’t happy about having this problem again. My dad came over, jumped the car, and we dropped it off at the dealer.

A few hours later (and $198… man those labor rates are painful), I find out the problem is my PIE CHRY02-AUX adapter. The adapter plugs into the CD changer port on the radio making it possible to plug in audio devices like MP3 players or, in my case, an XM satellite radio. It worked fine for the last couple years, but recently it decided to go on the fritz. To add insult to injury, while driving home, I discovered that when they worked on the car, they left the radio antenna disconnected. So I can’t listen to XM or regular radio now. At least the radio comes out fairly easily, so I can reconnect the antenna when I get a few minutes, rather than take it back to the dealer to have them correct their oversight. Still ticks me off though.

Sigh… If only auto makers would offer AUX inputs on their radios

Double sigh… Today gets better and better. The Packers just lost to the Vikings… by a field goal… again.

Last weekend (11/11-13) we were in Washington, D.C., to attend John and Kelly’s wedding. John is one of our friends from our MBA program at Washington University. We flew to Baltimore that Friday, picked up our rental car, and headed off to Alexandria, Virginia. We checked into the Sheraton Suites Old Town (high marks all around, great hotel) and walked down to the shopping and dining area in the heart of Old Town Alexandria. It is a shame we didn’t have more time here because Alexandria is a charming place. We noted that the area was very dog-friendly as we saw people with their dogs everywhere. We even saw someone with their Corgi in the Hallmark Store. Collen would have loved it. That evening we had dinner at the Wharf with our friends from Now This and Medley. (Photos)

On Saturday we went to the wedding out in Falls Church. The wedding ended at three, and the reception wasn’t until that evening at the Mount Vernon Inn. I had never visited Mount Vernon before, so we headed there right away, planning on touring the mansion and grounds before the reception. As it turned out, in November Mount Vernon starts closing an hour early for the winter season, so we barely made it inside, buying our tickets just a few minutes before the ticket window closed.

Mind you, we’re still dressed up for the wedding while we’re on the tour. I’ve never been so over dressed for anything as for this tour. We managed to tour the mansion, but that was all we had time for before they started to push us out the door. The mansion was incredible. The view from the piazza at the back of the house was unbelievable. I could have sat in one of those rockers all weekend, just watching the Potomac roll by. I look forward to returning some day and spending a day here. (Photos)

!http://images12.fotki.com/v240/photos/2/247084/914007/IMG_2561-vi.jpg (Scott and Kristin at Mount Vernon)!

The reception at the Mount Vernon Inn was a lot of fun. Our friend Juliana (like John, a friend from our MBA program) and her husband Ron were there, so we spent most of the evening catching up with them. The food was excellent. The appetizers scored high in my book, with several made of venison. Mmmmm!

On Sunday we headed back to Baltimore to fly home, but first we drove out by Dulles to visit the National Air & Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (whew, what a mouthful). I’ve been to the main facility a couple times, but this new facility is even more impressive (in my opinion). The place is made up of a couple large hangars, one dedicated to aircraft and the other to spacecraft. They have only been open since December 2003, and it still feels like they’re in the middle of moving things in. They have aircraft on display ranging from a one of a kind WWI bomber to German jet aircraft from WWII, to the Joint Strike Fighter. A couple highlights were the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and the Space Shuttle Enterprise. If you have any interest in historic aircraft, this is a must-see.

I don’t have photos posted from the Udvar-Hazy Center yet, so here’s a preview:

!http://images12.fotki.com/v239/photos/2/247084/914007/IMG_2577-vi.jpg (B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay)!

!http://images12.fotki.com/v254/photos/2/247084/914007/IMG_2653-vi.jpg (Space Shuttle Enterprise)!

Update! Photos from our trip to the Udvar-Hazy Center are finally online. (Photos, Slideshow)

Over at IEBlog, Dean posted about some new plugins Microsoft released for… Firefox! Plugins are now available for Windows Media and for Genuine Windows validation. Hopefully we’ll see more of this kind of thing as time goes on.

For the full story, see IEBlog : Genuine Windows and Browsers.