Out of This World

(The work week is tough on Dex)

Our work week routine was thrown off a little this week when Ben received a couple free movie screening tickets to Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. There has been a fair amount of hype and Oscar buzz around this movie.  We were excited to see it for a number of reasons that include, but are not limited to the following:

 

(1) It is about baseball.  You may remember such baseball movies as The Natural, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and Major League I (Major League II to a lesser extent and you probably would rather not remember Major League III: Back to the Minors).  

(Even Mo likes baseball)

(2) Ben had read the book several years ago and enjoyed it.  

(3) The author of the book also wrote The Blind Side. (Did you see that coming?)

(4) The screen writer also penned Charlie Wilson's War, The American President, much of The West Wing, and A Few Good Men. (Can you handle that truth?)

(5) Did we mention it is about baseball?  You may also remember such baseball movies as The Sandlot and The Bad News Bears (the original, not the Billy Bob Thorton remake from a few years ago).

(Some people believe George Washington fought against the British

 because of his belief that baseball was superior to cricket.) 

(6) It was free! (Movie tickets are $14 out here.)

 

The previous list adds up to a recipe for increased expectations, which generally leads to bitter dissapointment.  Overall, it was a solid movie,  and the actors did a great job.  There are quite a few funny lines, but it also felt slow at times and it certainly could have been shorter.  On a whole, we would say wait for it on DVD. 

 

Thursday Kelly took one small step for her passion for NASA and a giant leap for all space geeks. 

Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan testified before the Science, Space and Technology committee during a hearing about the status of NASA. 

(So uhh, you take a right at the ozone layer and then the moon is the big thing right in front of you. 

Seriously, you can't miss it.  If you get to Venus or Mars, you went too far.)

Kelly was fortunate to spend 15 minutes or so with Mr. Armstrong before the hearing began. He was going to show a video during the hearing and wanted to go over it beforehand. Kelly stood alongside him has he narrated the video of his decent to the moon on Apollo XI.  Kelly has read numerous books and documentaries regarding that decent, but hearing his perspective as they got closer to the moon was an unreal experience. I asked Mr. Armstrong when how close they were to aborting once he took over manual control the lunar module? Some of you might not know that the LM was running low on fuel because there original landing site turned out to be to rocky to land. Instead Neil took manual controls and flew the LM past the large crater to a more ideal landing sight. That additional flight time burn extra fuel and when they landed they only had 30 seconds of fuel left. This was the basis for my question. He answered with “it was a possibility when we saw the original landing sight, but after I took control we were at too low of an altitude to abort.” The hearing was looooonnnngg, but very good and beneficial for the committee.

 

Friday was another  busy day on the hill for Kelly. Congressman Costello took her and a few other people on a “members only” tour of the Capitol Dome.

(The view from the top of the debt ceiling.)

You can only access this part of the Capitol if you are a member of Congress or their guest. We headed up the first flight of stairs with no problem. That is when things got interesting. The ascent to the top is only accessible by what is essentially a ladder. You have to climb straight up and wind around until you reach this large steel door. Once we got the door open we were seemingly on top of the world, or at least Washington D.C. There is a district regulation that no building can be taller than the Capitol, so we were able to see the entire city and Arlington. Unfortunately, it was rainy, but it still was a great view.

 

(Even with the rain, Ben thinks the view is great.)

We decided on Saturday to vist the Spy Museum, which is a museum dedicated to espionage and the art of intelligence gathering. We have wanted to vist the museum for a while, however it is not free. We stumbled on  ½ priced tickets a few weeks back and thought it was reasonable enough to take a look. 

(We weren't certain, but it felt like someone was watching us at the Spy Museum.)

It was amusing and we are glad we went, but can’t say we would recommend it.   There are 20 museums in D.C. that are much better and free.

 

Sunday was a great day for Kelly. She achieved her goal of not leaving the house and basically doing nothing. Ben was on pace for the same outcome, but had to attend a conference in Arlington for work. 

After he returned, he got to work in the Kitchen. Upon Kelly’s request, he tried a new recipe for french onion soup. He even made homemade sourdough bread for the soup. The soup is fairly simple, but required us to chop four large onions, resulting in uncontrollable tears.  Ben assumed Kelly's tears were simply out of pure joy.