Asian Adventure: Beijing Edition

Hey folks! Sorry it's been a while since my last post; it has been a very busy couple of weeks. But I took my last law school final EVER yesterday, so life is good! I can't believe we made it all the way through law school. It will be nice to take a couple days off before I start preparing for the bar exam.

But in other news, Sarah and I had a fantastic time in Asia. We left on March 30th for my law school competition, and didn't get back until April 12th. We had a lot of fun, even though we didn't win the competition. Plus, Sarah managed to find a way for us to have an extended layover in Beijing on our way to Hong Kong, so here are some photos. I'll be sure to post more from the rest of our trip later in the week.


We arrived in Beijing at 5:20 in the morning after 23 hours of traveling, and immediately hopped in a cab to head to the Mutianyu portion of the Great Wall. In retrospect, hiking up a mountain at high altitude directly after a day of flying was probably not a good idea, but we made it to the top, and basically had the whole wall to ourselves.


Fortunately, Sarah and I had brought some pop tarts for an awesome Great Wall energy boost. I'm contemplating writing a letter to the makers of pop tarts to thank them. Those guys kept us alive and moving during our one-day marathon in Beijing.


After that, we had our cabbie drive us into town to go to Tiananmen Square and take some photos of the giant Communist statues. Sadly, the line to see Mao's creepy preserved corpse (behind me) was too long so we had to skip it.


After that, we made our way to the Forbidden City, which is just on the other side of the street. It is massive! It took use a while to go through and see it all, but it was really amazing.


Then we had some lunch, and were amazed to find we still had some time, so we made our way over to the Temple of Heaven to see some of the sights surrounding the Buddhist temple. By then, it was time to head back to the airport for our 6:30 flight to Hong Kong. We really packed in everything we could during our 12 hours in Beijing, and we had a great time. Stay tuned for an account of our adventures in the Special Autonomous Region of Hong Kong.

Busy busy!

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the lack of posting in the last months, but this is definitely the busy time for me during the semester. Sarah and I are leaving for Hong Kong in 16 days, so there is still a lot I need to finish up before we go. We're both still alive and hanging in there. Ok, gotta run!

Oscars Update

Hey folks,

Sarah and I just got back from New York City for another job interview for me, so hopefully we'll hear some good news in a couple of weeks. I guess we've been to NYC enough times when it occurred to us that we didn't even take any pictures this time. But we had a great time, including, but not limited to, the following:

* Delicious Venezuelan arepas
* Cheap tickets to a matinee performance of Billy Elliot
* Double cheeseburger and a black-and-white shake from Shake Shack
* Shopping at all of Sarah's favorite stores
* Grabbing some culture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
* Tasty macarons from Bouchon Bakery

But onto more important matters. The Oscar nominations came out last week, and I was mostly happy with the nominees. However, I feel like there are some essential categories that the judges left out. Here are some that I think ought to be included:

Most Unintelligible Accent


Winner: Jeff Bridges, True Grit – Maybe the reason that I thought this movie was so entertaining was because I had no idea what they were saying, so I was forced to make up my own story. I could only understand about a third of what Jeff Bridges’ cowboy marshal said, so I may have to rent it and put the subtitles on. Great movie though!

Runner-Up: The rest of the cast of True Grit – Everyone in this movie was either an immigrant, insane, or had an injured tongue, so I may have missed some of their dialogue as well.

Best Fight Scene


Winner: Inception – The fight scene in the rotating hallway may be my favorite scene from the movies this year. To film it, the crew built an entire hotel hallway that could rotate on gigantic axis. Then they threw the actors in and let them scramble around inside. Who knew that kid with the long hair from ‘Third Rock from the Sun’ would turn into such a zero-gravity force to be reckoned with?

Runner-Up: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World – Although this movie was pretty bizarre, the fight scenes in it were absolutely hilarious. And the fact that all of Scott’s enemies turned into coins after he beat them was the topper on the cake.

Biggest Tear Jerker


Winner: Toy Story 3, Fiery Doom – I thought Toy Story 3 would be lame, but I was very pleasantly surprised, especially by the entire ‘Great Escape’- esque final act. But, oh boy, there is one scene where the characters think they might be headed for their demise that’s pretty intense. I won’t spoil it, but bring some tissues.

Runner-Up: Toy Story 3, The End – Just when you have recovered from the aforementioned scene, BAM, they hit you with the ending that is just as heart-warming/heart-rending. Be prepared.

Awesomest Explosion


Winner: The A-Team – Every good movie should have at least one explosion. Great movies, on the other hand, have many explosions. I have explained to Sarah that this is why Pride and Prejudice is not a great movie, but to no avail. In the A-Team, the bad guy blows up an entire tanker ship with a rocket launcher, and it’s glorious. If Mr. Darcy had blown up that Wickham dude with a rocket launcher, Pride and Prejudice would have ruled.

Runner-Up: Iron Man 2 – This movie was basically one two-hour explosion, so it deserves an honorable mention.

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

It's Sarah's birthday today! And it looks like she got a pretty awesome gift too! Hope she let's me play with it. I love you, sweetheart!

Holidays 2010!

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been such a long time since our last post. The holidays are crazy for everyone, I suppose, and we have been all over the country. So here's one big giant post of everything we did this holiday season.


First up, we surprised my parents by coming to visit them for Thanksgiving. Sarah and I have always wanted to make a surprise visit home to Arizona, and I was glad that it finally worked out this year. I was excited to see the family, but I think Sarah was mostly stoked for her pork salad from Cafe Rio.


Thanksgiving was lots of fun, and it was great to see all of our brothers, sisters, and nephews back in Arizona.


As is usually the case, none of the boys ate any actual food. I suspect that they might have been raised by elves and only subscribe to the four candy food groups. Here's one of Aidan sneaking some M&Ms.


When we got back to DC, the Brutons were kind of enough to hold off on Thanksgiving until our return, so we got to have turkey, stuffing, and pecan pie twice!


After that, we decided to have a cookie swap party at out house for Christmas, in a tradition started by our friends the Albas last year. Sarah talked me into helping her painstakingly craft all of her usual intricate sugar cookies, and they turned out pretty well. My main contribution was the mouse cookies that you see below.






After that, it was back to Arizona for Christmas. This time we were able to stay for a whole week and visit with everyone, which was great. Sarah got a great big pile of presents, so she must have been pretty good this year.


I, on the other hand, got a gift bag with twenty bucks inside, so I don't know what that says about me. In actuality, I got lots of great stuff too (from both the Brutons and Petersons). THANKS EVERYONE!


Sarah and I had an awesome holiday season, but it's nice to get back into our usual schedule and stop eating pie and my Mom's awesome Texas sheet cake every day. I hope you all had a great Christmas as well, and I'll try to keep posting a little more frequently this year.

My Ode to Dr. Jones

I promised I would be putting more movie-related stuff on the blog, so hopefully this is a good way to kick things off. I love the Indiana Jones movies. As far as adventure movies go, it doesn’t get much better than this. The other day I started thinking about my favorite moments from the films, and I came up with this list of my top five. For those hoping for the scene where Indy escapes a nuclear blast by hiding in a fridge, I’m afraid nothing from the most recent movie, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, made it onto the list (but you can read my review of the movie here).

5. The Sword Fight That Wasn’t


There’s no way this scene couldn’t make the list. After fighting off a handful of baddies, he has to go up against one last Arabian ninja with a sword. Rather than waste time with another fight, he simply shoots the guy and moves on (ala Han Solo). Which begs the question, why didn’t he just shoot all the other people he was fighting in the previous scene?

Interesting Fact: I’m sure at this point that most people know the story that there was supposed to be a big sword fight right here, but that Harrison Ford was too sick to film it, so he suggested, “Why don’t I just shoot the guy instead?” But what you may not know is that not only was Harrison Ford sick, but in fact most of the cast and crew was deathly ill while filming in Tunisia. In fact, the only person who did not get sick was Steven Spielberg, who only ate cans of Spaghetti-O’s from the States the entire time they were in Tunisia.

4. Escaping the Night Club


George Lucas and Steven Spielberg originally came together because they wanted to make James Bond-type secret agent movie. Instead, they came up with our favorite adventurer archaeologist. I think this scene made it in, however, because they did want to see Indy in a tux fighting some bad guys at least once. The fact that he’s been poisoned and is frantically searching for the antidote made it all the better.

Interesting Fact: The name of the night club where the fight takes place is the Club Obi-Wan, as an homage to George Lucas’ other trilogy.

3. Indy’s Magic Hat


This isn’t as much a moment as it is a recurring theme. Indy’s gone through a lot to protect his beloved fedora, including nearly being smashed by booby traps. This screenshot above references the scene in the Last Crusade where Indy miraculously survived driving a tank off of a cliff. Just as he’s catching his breath to get ready for his next adventure, his long-lost hat miraculously blows from over the cliff edge and lands in his lap. Classic.

Interesting Fact: In the “Making of the Last Crusade” documentary, Harrison Ford was filmed stapling the fedora to his head before filming the tank chase sequence. Many people believed this to be real, but sadly, he never actually stapled his hat to his head (though he did use double-sided tape).

2. The Bridge Sequence


This scene brings to its close a series of amazing action sequences: fighting for his freedom, escaping in a mine cart, outrunning a wall of water, and finally facing enemies from both sides on a rickety rope bridge hanging precariously over a crocodile-infested river (all while missing one of his shirt sleeves). What’s the manliest thing you could do in this situation? Cut the bridge in half.

Interesting Fact: Steven Spielberg was in fact terrified of the rope bridge and refused to cross it, which meant he had to drive an extra mile and a half to get from one side to the other.

1. The Truck Chase


This is without a doubt one of the greatest action sequences ever filmed. After fighting his way through the snake-infested well of souls and dispatching a giant Nazi with the propeller of an airplane, he begins chasing after the truck containing the Ark of the Covenant. This scene is every bit as edge-of-my-seat exciting for me as it was the first time I watched it.

Interesting Fact: The truck chase was one of the first scenes filmed for the movie. Harrison Ford was actually dragged behind the truck for some of the shots, bruising his ribs. When asked if he was worried, he stated, "No. If it really was dangerous, they would have filmed more of the movie first."

So there you have it; my top five Indiana Jones moments. If I missed any that you think should have made the list (like the fact Indy continually seems to be beating up Nazis and stealing their clothes), please let me know with your comments. Thanks for reading!

Blog-apalooza Part I

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted anything on the blog. That's why today we're putting up three posts of everything we have been up to in the last few weeks. First off, we completed the final do-it-yourself project of the move into our new place by covering up the hideous mirror walls that plague our front room.


For whatever reason our landlord thought some floor-to-ceiling mirrors would be awesome for his place. We're not allowed to take them down, so instead Sarah found a way to cover them up using fabric and ordinary spray starch.


It took us a few hours but we managed to cut the fabric and paste it up on the walls to get rid of seeing our reflections in every corner of the house.


The walls look great and we're glad to finally get them covered up. Also, there are two other new posts below, so please keep on reading.