A Busy Weekend

Hmm, spending a weekend in Washington DC with nothing planned, what to do...

Yep, you guessed it! How about visiting a few states that I haven't been to yet. (5 to be exact)

After leaving DC the first state I came to was Maryland...


After Maryland I came up on our nation's first state, Delaware.


From Delaware I continued on to New Jersey.


And from New Jersey I went on to Pennsylvania.


And last, but not least, the state of West Virginia.


So what does that raise the total to? A total of 31 visited states! And of course I had to add an updated map to show the 5 new visited states! :)


Now that was Saturday, today on Sunday I took a tour of DC!

The tour started out by visiting the White House.


And here's a picture of me with the White House in the background.


Just up the street is the guest house for foreign dignitaries. You can see it here with an American flag hanging from it. (It's the white one in the middle) When someone is visiting from overseas they hang the flag of where the dignitary is from instead of the American flag. The tour guide told us that until World War II they would actually stay at the White House. But apparently Winston Churchill wore out his welcome when he would walk up the hall and wake up FDR at 2 am to discuss different matters concerning the war. Mrs. Roosevelt apparently didn't appreciate that and so ever since the guest house has been where visitors stay.


We then drove by the Washington National Cathedral which sits at the highest point in Washington DC. President Woodrow Wilson is the only US president buried here, but other famous people like Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan are also buried here.


The next stop was the US Marines Memorial. The depiction of the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima is the main part of the memorial but if you look closely, around the base of the memorial it lists all of the wars that the US Marine Corps has been a part of.


We then stopped by the US Air Force Memorial. The memorial pictured here with the three spires represents the Air Force's core values: Integrity first, Service before self, and Excellence in all that we do.


The sign below marks the entrance to the memorial.


After stopping for lunch we next visited what they called the big three memorials. They call them that because they are located very close together. They include the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. Pictured below is a depiction of soldiers going through harsh terrain.


And we must never forget that Freedom is rather costly...


At the memorial they fly the American flag as well as the POW - MIA flag to remember those who were either prisoners of war or were missing in action.


We then moved to the Vietnam War Memorial. Depicted here are the three American races that were involved in the war: Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Caucasian Americans.


The majority of the memorial consists of the wall pictured below with the more than 58,000 Americans who were either killed or were MIA (Missing in action).


And finally we came to one of favorite parts of the day, the Lincoln Memorial!


Inside the memorial the larger than life statue of Lincoln.


And here's another picture of me with Lincoln in the background.


From the Lincoln Memorial there is a great view of the Washington Monument. Here you can see the reflective pool with the Washington Monument.


And here by looking at an angle you can see that directly behind the Washington Monument is the Capital building.


The next memorial we visited was the Jefferson Memorial, here from the back side you can see it resembles Jefferson's home at Monticello.


Inside the memorial is the statue of Jefferson.


And here is a view from the front of the Jefferson Memorial.


Amazing how often this happens. From the Jefferson Memorial there is a split in the trees that gives you a view of the White House.


We also stopped briefly at the World War II Memorial.


The memorial had 50 pillars, one for each of the 50 States. Pictured here is the California pillar.


There are also two main entrances, on the near side is the entrance with the title "Pacific" commemorating the Pacific theater of the war. On the far side the entrance is listed as Atlantic.


And finally, our last stop of the day was at none other than the US Capital!


Here is a shot from directly in front of it.


And here is a self portrait with the Capital in the background.


And here's a view of the Washington Monument from the other side.


The Capital rotunda is quite a site to see in person. I hope to have a chance to visit here again someday.



Now I did take a whole lot more pictures than I posted here. If you would like to see more of the pictures I took you can see them at http://picasaweb.google.com/kevinhornplayer.

Thanks for stopping by!

Off to the Nation's Capital!!!

Well, here I sit in the airport getting ready to board a flight to Dallas and then from there to Washington DC. Admittedly it is a little sooner than I had anticipated going after my flight on Sunday got postponed, but it will be fun to visit our nation's capital again, albeit on a business trip. Thankfully this time I'm not fighting a severe cold like I was last time I was in DC, so things should hopefully go better with work. I am scheduled to be for about a week and a half so hopefully this weekend (assuming I'm not working) I may get an opportunity to see something of DC this time. I'll try to take some pictures if I have an opportunity and post them later.

I was hoping to post something before this about my recent trip to Missouri as I had an opportunity to site see in St Louis and visit the Gateway Arch. Perhaps I'll post some of those pictures along with any pictures I take in DC.

This may seem like a rather short post but I only have a limited amount of time to write before my plane begins boarding. Hopefully my next post will be a bit more substantial.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wyoming, I ride...

Yessiree! Scratch another state off the list I have now added Wyoming to my visited states and even have the picture here to prove it! Now what was I doing in Wyoming you may ask? Simply surveying telephone systems for the Forest Service. I had the opportunity to visit five Forest Service offices on my trip and below are the signs of the offices I visited.

The Shoshone National Forest Supervisor's Office in Cody, WY. This was my first stop on my tour of Wyoming.

The Cody Interagency Dispatch Center (IDC) also located in Cody, WY. This was more of a quick side trip as this was a rather small office.

The Wapiti Ranger District Office, once again in Cody, WY. (Yes I did spend a bit of time in Cody, WY) My last stop before heading south into the central part of Wyoming.


The Washakie Ranger District Office located in Lander, WY. After visiting this office I turned west and had the opportunitiy to drive through the Wind River Canyon which was quite a spectacular site.


My last stop before heading to Jackson, WY to catch a flight home. The Wind River Ranger Station located in Dubois, WY. After visiting this office I got to drive through the Grand Teton National Park!


Not the greatest quality since it was taken from a camera phone, but this is a shot of the mountain range known as the Grand Tetons taken from the Jackson Hole airport.



And another shot with a slightly wider angle.


And of course, I had to add an updated map of my visited states. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

An updated map

Ok, call me obsessed if you want to but I've decided to update my map now that I'm here in DC (via Virginia). Perhaps a bit early to be updating it since I may in fact visit a few more states before I leave a week from Friday but as I'm sitting here sick in bed I decided to just go ahead and update this.

This map may not look much different than the previous one, but if you look carefully, you can see Virginia is now colored in. And if you look very carefully you can see that DC is also colored in. :) 

Ok, so the DC one might be too small to actually see, but it is colored in, trust me.

One unfortunate thing to note in this update is that in the last couple of weeks I just missed going to Oregon and Wyoming, however I am hopeful that I will get to visit both of those states sometime in the near future. In fact I'm hopeful that someday I'll have a chance to visit all of the 50 states, though that may be a few years down the road.

Anyway, until next time, thanks for stopping by.

The curious traveler

Have you ever wondered what a map of the US would look like with just the states you've been to highlighted? I have, on many occasions. Well now I don't have to wonder any longer thanks to this website I found. You can use it too by following the link below. And just for fun I added a world map as well since I recently went on a short term mission trip to Chile with a layover in Colombia. Believe it or not that was my first trip ever outside the US.



create your own personalized map of the USA



create your own visited country map

I'm actually scheduled to go to Wyoming in a little over a week so I can update my map after that happens. With all the traveling I do for business I hope I can continue filling in more blanks. Well, hope you enjoyed that long overdue blog post. Until next time, thanks for stopping by!

A New Car, Exercise and Catching Up...

Wow! It really has been a long time since I posted something. I usually am good about getting one out every 3 months but it's been practically 4 months this time. I wonder if people have been checking this blog for the last 4 months hoping to see something. Well, if you have been and you're here now, please accept my humblest apology, I've been very busy and the few chances I may have had to post something, I probably just didn't think of it at the right time.

Anyway, the most recent thing to happen, (Ok, so it technically happened on Memorial Day, but who's keeping track anyway?) I got a new car! Yes, I'm afraid I crashed that little white car for the last time on my way to a CT scan up in LA and... well, let's just say it was too much to recover from this time. (i.e. the cost to fix was greater than the blue-book value so it was "technically" totaled) So I went car shopping online and came across a very nice car for a decent price at Carmax. It's a 2005 Chrysler Sebring 4 door sedan with less than 25k miles on it. (or it least it did when I bought it) But as I'm sure you're dying to see what it looks like, (well, maybe not dying but you know what I mean) without further adieu, here is a photo tour of the new car.

Here it is nice and clean after a recent car wash!

And here's a little closer look.

And now a view from the other side.

The front console complete with CD Player, Cassette Player, Air Conditioning, MPG (Miles per gallon) tracking, Cruise Control and more!

The front seats along with a little compartment for CDs between the seats and even a little spot to keep my shades! (Very handy)

The back seats with my CD case in the middle.

Oooo, look at the shiny wheels! (I did say I just went to the carwash didn't I?)

And last but not least my new license plate that I just got about a week ago, complete with my new license plate cover. I know, it's changed, but speaking of running I'm getting ready to run in 2 5k races on July 19th and July 26th. Doesn't that sound exciting?!? No??? Ok, I realize not everyone is in to running, I just happen to be into it right now because... well, let's just say it has to do with health reasons and no I'm not trying to lose weight! Quite the contrary actually. Take a look at the picture of me running in my last post if you need confirmation on that.

So what else has been happening since I last posted. Well, I changed jobs for the second time in about 6 months, I nearly had surgery, I've been playing in several concerts lately (there'll be three this week including todays) and I started a new diet and exercise program. Again let me emphasize, I am NOT trying to lose weight, I am on this new diet to try to help heal my digestive tract. The exercise (running, biking and just last night I added swimming) is to help build my body up into better shape. But why biking and swimming you may ask... Well, I am considering possibly competing (ok, maybe not competing, more like participating) in a sprint triathlon on Catalina island this November. It involves a half mile (open water) swim, a 10 mile bike ride and a 5k run at the end. Crazy!!! Probably, but I figured if I can get myself into that kind of shape for this fall it'll also help my body in recovering from this disease. If you would like to track my progress as I train you can visit my new training blog I just started at kokid.sweat365.com/ Why the nickname KO Kid? Don't ask. It's a long story as it's a nickname I picked up at work.

Well, I think that's going to do it for this post. As always, thanks for stopping by! And leave a comment if you feel so inclined. Until next time! (Hopefully sooner rather than later, but you know how I am with posting) :)

Too much physical activity

Is it possible to have too much physical activity? (rhetorical question) Perhaps my body is just telling me I've been doing a bit too much lately. So what happened? Well lets see... On Saturday Feb 23rd I ran in my first 5k.


You may notice the watermark on this picture, I decided not to pay $30 to get a digital copy of it. Instead I used a creative screen capture application to get it. And unfortunately the camera caught me just before I smiled, (see the grin on my running partners face?) so I ended up looking like I was half dead. Oh well, I never was very photogenic.

The following Wednesday Aaron, Brian and I went snowboarding. This was only my second time snowboarding, the first time was several years ago, so I didn't do very well.


Here's the three of us riding the lift up to the top of the mountain.


Here's one of Aaron and I.


Now that is one beautiful view of the lake.


Me giving a thumbs up sign from my knees.

At the end of the day I tried to go skiing and found my legs were just too dead already. So much for having fun skiing after a hard day of snowboarding. (sigh) Oh well...

On the way home my legs started cramping something fierce and later in the evening I could feel some pretty intense cramps in three different places in each of my legs. Starting to sound like too much physical activity yet? Ok, well I have one more for you then.

Last week I signed up for a gym membership and this evening was my first time working with a personal trainer. (no pictures with this one) One of the exercises he had me do was push ups. Now I already knew my arms were extremely weak, but somehow I only managed two! (how embarrassing) He also had me do several other more interesting exercises and as a result just about my whole body feels worn out. He also wants me to up my calorie intake to 1000 a day and my protein intake to 100 grams a day and to do this resistance training 3-5 days a week. Ouch! And I thought training for a 5k was hard!

Ok, I realize for some of you that may not seem like a lot of physical activity, but I can tell you, it's a lot more than I'm used to. :)

If you feel so inclined you can post a comment or else just keep poking back in to see when I update this again. (it may be sooner than you think)