I Should Update More

Trixie the dog isn't mad I don't update more, she's just dissapointed...

5k Fridays and Luther's Return to Greatness

When I was in 8th grade we had to run the mile at the end of the school year. That was the first and last I broke the 7:00 minute barrier. After running the DC half marathon a few weeks back, I've been bitten by the running bug. I've decided that my new goal (besides getting licensed) is to run a 5k in less than 20 minutes. It sounds really ambitious as I type, but I'd love that feeling of finishing a race with not that many people around me.

The first step is Pacer's 5k Fridays. Every Friday in April there is a 5k race in Crystal City. The first was this past Friday. I did ok. My time was 24:23, so I've got nearly 4.5 minutes to cut. Sounds a lot more daunting now that I've typed it. Ugh.

Anyway, the race was a lot of fun, regardless of my time. There was only one thing that really bothered me. Just before the end, some guy totally cut me off. I know what you're thinking, but he really did.

The black next to me is the offender. The arrows are the paths that a normal runner would have followed.

This is the path that he followed:

If you don't believe me, here's the frame by frame:

Yes, I have too much time on my hands. This guy cut me off for no reason. It was so ridiculous even this random girl is staring over. I think my favorite part is that I'm so excited to have my picture taken that I've still got a giant smile on my face.

Anyhoo, the next race is Friday. We shall see how it turns out. Also, if you're in the area, you should totally do the race too. It's a lot of fun and it's right after work. See you Friday!

Wise Guys Over at Soccernet

Ok, since I'm a huge sports dork, I usually like to check sports stories before I go to bed. You know, just to make sure I don't miss anything. My go to source for soccer stories is ESPN's Soccernet despite the frequent sensationalist articles and Arsenal bashing.

Tonight when I checked it, I noticed the story links below. I'll let you draw your own conclusions...

Soccernet is clearly being run by 12 year olds. Or at lease people as mature as me. To top it off they gave the sack article an ambiguous title as well.

Stay classy Soccernet...

My Batch of Fail is Ready

Quick! What do Martha Stewart and I have in common?

That's right, absolutely nothing.

Which is why I must have been crazy to agree to join in the christmas um holiday winter cookie potluck at work. In classic Luther fashion, I decided to wait until the last minute.

I decided to bake peanut butter kiss cookies becauase I love them (donations currently being accepted) and the recipe sounded really easy. The one I found consisted of just peanut butter, vanilla extract, sure, and egg and the hershey kisses. The website claimed they would come out looking like this:

This whole baking thing is easier than Ithought. I don't know what everyone complains about. BOOM! roll up some peanut butter. BOOM! put it in the oven. BOOM! Eat up! I think I could replace Martha Stewart with this whole thing.

Maybe they should have given me her show during her... um... extended vacation.

Then the first batch came out.

I guess i flattened out the peanut butter balls too much and then placed them too close together which resulted in one giant cookie instead of 12 different ones. My bad.

While extremely cool. It wasn't exactly what I was going for. I may have to remember this for the future though. A man with a cookie this large could do many things. Mwahaha.

Anyway, on to the second batch.

I've learned from my mistakes this time nothing can go wrong. I made the balls smaller and spaced them out a bit more. I even put some flour on the foil so they wouldn't stick (Baller). I pulled these out of the oven and the result was even worse!

Ugh! I burned them! At least the first batch was edible. These tasted bad and made my apartment stink. At this point I decided to give up. I was tired and defeated plus Living Single was coming on BET or whatever station that was, so I had to be free for that.

Moral of the story? Don't f*** with the Martha.

Turkish Delights: Hagia Sofia

So our first day we decided to get the most touristy stuff out of the way, so of course Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque were first on our list. I've got photos from the Blue Mosque too, but I like Hagia Sophia better, so they come first :)

Some of the images have writing on them. I was fooling around with fonts because I'm thinking about making a book of the photos. Coming Soon!!

For those that don't know, Hagia Sofia is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as the Greek Patriarchal cathedral of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople of the Western Crusader established Latin Empire. The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931, when it was secularized. It was opened as a museum on 1 February 1935. That was stolen from Wikipedia.

View from the second level. I love this photo. I took one from the other side that should look the same because the space is symmetrical, but it just didn't look the same.

I put the camera on the ground and set the timer. Not to call myself an innovator, but I caught other tourists copying this idea.

Probably should have put this one first. This was the view when you first walk in. The two kids on the left must have either thought that I was a celebrity or someone important or, they just don't see that many black people. They nervously asked if they could take a picture with me. They seemed nice, so I said yes. Its not every day people meet someone as awesome as me...

There were mosaics everywhere. We didn't do the audio tour so we just stumbled upon them. This one depicts Mary sitting on a throne with Jesus on her lap.

These giant wooden disks were all over the place inside. We didn't know what they meant at the time, but after an "exhaustive" wikipedia search, I discovered that they are " gigantic circular-framed disks or medallions hung on columns. They were inscribed with the names of Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, the first four caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali, and the two grandchildren of Mohammed: Hassan and Hussain, by the calligrapher Kazasker İzzed Effendi."

The apse.

The Comnenus Mosaic. The Virgin Mary is standing in the middle, holding the Child Christ on her lap. He gives His blessing with His right hand while holding a scroll in His left hand. On her right side stands emperor John II Comnenus, represented in a garb embellished with precious stones. He holds a purse, symbol of an imperial donation to the church. Empress Irene stands on the left side of the Virgin, wearing ceremonial garments and offering a document.

One cool thing we heard while we eavesdropped on another tour group was that when the monarchs changed. they just changed the heads on the mosaics and kept the bodies the same. So, laziness prevailed, even back then!

Also, I must point out that anyone can take a picture of something, but it takes real skill to take a picture of someone taking a picture of something. Baller.

The sweating column. We didn't know what this was at first, but we saw the line for it and jumped in. Apparently if you put your thumb in it, rotate your hand and make a wish it will come true if your thumb come out wet. I wished for kittens.

0 For October & Turkish Delights

Hello everyone. My name is Luther. you ma not remember me because I've been gone so long.

If you are reading this you are no doubt a die hard follower (Derek, Haley?) that I have managed to not annoy too much with my lack of posting, so you know its been awhile. Like all of October. So, what happened this October?

1.) Cardinals win the World Series in epic fashion.

What can I type that hasn't already been written? I'll just say that I was in tears during/after Game 6. If anyone wants to get me the dvd when it comes out. I would accept it...

The only negative about the World Series was that I wasn't able watch all of game 7 because I was on my way to...

2) Turkey!!!

Way back in the summer travelzoo had a massive sale on flights to Turkey, so the gf and I decided to go. I guess Turkish Airlines is making a major push to become a global leader, so they went out and sponsored Manchester United and FC Barcelona.

Kobe Bryant is now their spokesman, but he wasn't on the flight with us :(

So we finally landed in Istanbul on Saturday night. Our hotel was in a touristy part of the city near the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia. The first night was so crazy. We took the Metro from the airport to the Sultanahmet stop where our hotel was and there were so many people out and we couldn't find our hotel partly because of the jetlag and partly because of the language barrier.

We turned a corner and Hagia Sofia was right there. It was amazing to see it after studying it since my first year of architecture school.

After getting directions from a really nice guy who was selling maps (I know very fitting) we found our place. After we put our bags down we decided to go out and see some of the city, and of course take jumping pictures.

There are way too many pictures and stories of me being loved and feared in Turkey, so I will break this post into at least a few parts.

to be continued...

DJ Lance...

So, a few weeks ago my friend Derek asked me if I could dress up as this character DJ Lance from the show Yo Gabba Gabba for his daughter's birthday. They live in Illinois so I would record the message and email it to them. I said yes, how hard could it be? I looked DJ Lance up on two of my favorite and most trusted reference websites, wikipedia and youtube. I came up with this gem:

Ok, this may be a little more difficult than I thought. It seems like they're all really good dancers and there the whole issue of the costume. I decided to get the costume off amazon.com first and worry about the dancing and music later.

When I was looking for the costume, it was kinda tough because I didn't want to get something too loose. The images on the packages just had photos of DJ Lance.

Like it would really fit like that... All my years trick or treating taught me that costumes never fit like the real thing. I didn't want to look like I was wearing DJ Lance's sweatsuit. When it came in, It was a decent enough fit and I just wore a pair of sambas for the shoes. Close enough.

For the video I just tried to do what he did in the youtube video. My gf filmed it with her iphone and we played the youtube video in the background to get some music. This was the first take. i would have done another, but the polyester was getting way too hot and no one want to see DJ Lance sweat. So, i'm typing too much. Here's the video :)

Derek said that she loved the whole thing and kept replaying it. Mission Accomplished. Happy Birthday :)

*Note I cannot take credit for that awesome wood paneling. That's my gf's place, not mine...