DC-area Reunion, 7th ed.

Yesterday was the 7th annual Imaging Science DC-area reunion! Typically this is our best attended event, as very many CIS alumni settle in Washington, DC and the surrounding area. Well, except for last year, that is, when we tried to coordinate with SPIE DSS and NO ONE came. The year before that was the mega 24 hour adventure that included a reception that was relatively well attended, but could have been more successful if the venue was actually accessible and not so difficult to find. Previous to that, in 2010 we followed a more traditional approach and had an excellent turnout; so in an attempt to reclaim past glory, we went with the tried-and-true Tysons Corner Marriott for this year. (Which had the extra benefit of beautifully renovated facilities, but the totally bogus addition of paid parking, whaaaaat!)

Greetings from Assoc. Dir. of Alumni Relations for COS, Lauren Sauer, with the welcome table and raffle prizes

Leading up to the event we had around 26 people RSVP, but as is to be expected we had a bunch more alumni show up on the day-of - which is totally okay, except for that it makes us nervous that there won't be enough food (but that rarely ends up being a problem anyways since there is almost always too much food... but even so, TSK TSK for not registering!). The cost of registration covered 1 drink and the heavy hors d'oeurves, which included cheeses, crackers, spinach artichoke dip, and a pita station with all kinds of dips and hummus and olives.

The beau of the ball was without a doubt John Schott, whom we were celebrating for his sort-of-retirement. Part way in to the party Lauren got everyone's attention and showed the Monica video and John's Innovation Hall of Fame video, after which John put down a baby in order to get up to say a few words and update everyone on recent happenings at the Center.

Turns out every shot of Schott is an Action Schott.

Some of the crowd, during John's update.

Overall the event went very well. We ended up having around 40 alumni in attendance, which is great! Even better, graduation years spanned a wide range, so we had a really nice mix of alums. One of the attendees was even a distance learning graduate, so it's fantastic to have them connecting with RIT on a personal level! We also welcomed COS Distinguished Alumnus John Roberts, as well as upcoming summer intern Calvin Salacain. Together we celebrated engagements, weddings, new babies, new houses, recent graduations, and retirements. And a great time was had by all! Hope to see you next year!

PS: More pictures here

DC Adventure Part VI: Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I wanna go to bed

After the alumni reception wound down, we all piled into the Mazda and made our way back up to Baltimore. And I finally got to take a nap, yay! So obviously I don't have much to offer about this leg of the trip, though Joe says I must have been in deep REM sleep because Kurt and Nadya were making a lot of noise and I somehow slept through it all. I think there was something about assigning class superlatives, or something.

We ate dinner with Nadya's family at this Mediterranean tapas place called Kali's Mezze. Nadya had been talking this place up allllll day, and it definitely lived up to my expectations! Tapas style eateries are my favorite kind of restaurants anyways, because it's impossible for me to ever make up my mind and I love sharing. And Nadya's family was really friendly and very willing to share, so much so that I practically felt a part of their family (which was awesome). I must have sampled at least 7 things off the menu, AND had dessert. AND I finished Kurt's pistachio custard dessert too, haha.

Besides the good food, there was lots of good conversation. We had an interesting discussion about airport scanners; and Nadya's opinion, while controversial, reminded me very much of myself when I was her age. (Okay just saying something like that makes me sound like I'm really old and fancy myself some kind of wise person - which I am not and do not - but it was just funny to me.) Nadya's family was a lot of fun - and some of them will be coming up for ImagineRIT, too!

We parted ways with Nadya's fam to make our trip back to the airport and home. Nothing too eventful happened for the rest of the evening, though I did find an awesome ghost sticker on the side of a trash can and took it (it peeled off easily enough...). We sat around the airport watching YouTube videos of SNL sketches and Don Hertzfeldt cartoons until taking off for our return flight, which was another smooth and on time trip (believe it or not). We landed right around 10:40 PM, thus concluding my 20 hour DC Adventure day.

The end! Thanks to everyone who made the trip possible and memorable!  
Everybody dance! Life is good!

DC Adventure Part V: Now it's time to party and we'll party hard (party hard)

Having arrived 45 minutes late, the party was already in full swing when we arrived. After getting to have a few initial hellos, we broke in with some general announcements. Last year we had formal presentations, but we decided that this year would be more casual: simply announce some headlines, introduce the freshmen, and suggest speaking to us personally if more detail was desired. I had an iPad set up with a slideshow of pictures, mostly ones of the freshmen class but also some other images mixed in there of old conferences, current outreach, annual report images, and so on. Conversation flowed freely and everyone had a great time catching up. We also had hors d'oeurves and a cash bar available, though I chose not to partake as I was very much full from breakfast with Kurt's family and also very much looking forward to a tapas dinner with Nadya's family.

All in all, another successful alumni reception! We all had a great time (minus that whole getting lost part), and hope that everyone who joined us had fun as well. See below for some pictures from the festivities. (There are many more posted on the CIS Facebook page.)

Mix 'n mingle

Me, new parents Kyle and Courtney with 8 day old future alumna Claire, and Tiffany.
As usual, my hair upsets the whole color balance of the photo... I did what I could to fix it up.

Old meets new: Freshman Kurt speaks with class of '66 alum Richard.

Still to come - Part VI: Nadya would rather blow up than have everyone get their privacy invaded...

DC Adventure Part IV: We Get LOST

Next should come the actual "business" part of our day: The 5th Annual DC/Maryland/Virginia CIS Alumni Reception! A little confused over where our starting destination was, it seemed smart to use the GPS on my phone to get us to the reception venue, Clyde's of Tyson's Corner. After some fiddling around and waiting for accurate triangulation, we were on our way on a < 3 mile trip that was predicted to take over 12 minutes. Eh?

The roads and turns we were taking seemed screwy, but Google is never wrong! so we followed. At exactly 1:59 PM, we arrived with perfect timing at the venue. But... where was it? There was nothing to be seen but a leafy thicket. The Google Maps on my phone was even kind enough to switch to a street-view of what was supposed to be Clyde's - but it literally gave me a STREET VIEW. Of CARS. Ooookay.... So we pull over. At this point referencing Joe's printed out map, I typed the exact address of Clyde's into my phone, which then tells us to go in the opposite direction for 3 miles - another 12 (or more) minutes. And why was this different?

After waiting through what seemed like every one of roughly 239507 traffic lights, Google tells us we're there - but we see nothing but SAIC and some retail stores. After a few minutes of ruthless mocking of my navigation skills (which I would like to go on the record as saying are normally very on point), the decision was made to follow Joe's map, instituting a "like we should have in the first place" attitude. Off we go again in the opposite direction when we realize: Joe's map is just a print out of Google Maps, so it's taking us to the same place the GPS in my phone did the first time around. So we end up up by Wolf Trap again, and I reference the Directions tab on Clyde's website; which in its infinite wisdom says the following:

"Construction of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project has made accessibility to Clyde's of Tysons Corner challenging... Please call us for the directions of the day, and we'll also tell you the soup of the day!"

Wait, seriously...? So Nadya calls and gets more directions, this time taking note of significant visual landmarks ("Behind the Men's Wearhouse", for example). Another 12+ minutes in the opposite direction (and a top notch joke that a car rough roading it in the wrong direction within the adjacent construction site was being driven by one of our fellow RIT'ers who was also lost), and we're there. Well, we're behind the Men's Wearhouse, still trying to find our way. But eventually, the Benny Hill music ends and we finally make it - all in all, 45 minutes late to our own party. Oh, brother.

Here's a fun experiment to try when you're bored sometime: In Google Maps, type in "Clyde's of Tyson's Corner" and take note of the location it shows. Now try clicking "Get Directions" and put in a starting address of, for example, Anita's Mexican Food in Vienna. Now take note of where it actually directs you to go.... See, we're not that stupid, after all. Google CAN actually be wrong, sometimes.

Coming up next - Part V: Let's Party!

DC Adventure Part III: Goin' to the zoo, zoo, zoo, How 'bout you, you, you

ZOMG WE WENT TO THE ZOO!!!!!!! The end.

We saw pandas, and elephants, and nautiluses, and cuttlefish (changing colors!), and leaf cutter ants, and monkeys, and a sloth bear, and tarantulas, and some other stuff. But not much more than that, because we only had enough time to run around for about an hour before having to ride back to Vienna and get to the alumni reception. But it was totally worth it.

The only disappointing part was a lack of cheesy tourist t-shirts at the gift shop. We were all going to get matching ones and wear them around the zoo together. Alas, it was not meant to be.

My Eat Well Live Well pedometer logged over 10k steps at this point. FACT.

PS, I think the giant panda was really just a giant guy in a panda suit.

Don't miss - Part IV: Wait, you mean Google Maps can be wrong sometimes?

DC Adventure Part II: Casa Bonita Casa Bonita... Da Da Da Da Da

After landing in Baltimore and picking up our rental car (we ended up with a "sporty" [read: ugly] Mazda 5, as they were fresh out of Cadillacs...), we trekked down towards DC to meet up with Kurt's family for brunch. We dined at a Mexican restaurant Anita's, which was fantastic! I am not usually a Mexican-for-breakfast kind of gal (tortilla chips don't really go well with coffee), but my burrito was spectacular. I don't know what necessarily made it a "breakfast" burrito - perhaps only the fact that it had scrambled eggs in it and it came with home fries - but it was one of the best piles of slop rolled up into a flour tortilla and covered in red sauce that I have ever consumed. Home fries left a little something to be desired (I do reside in the home land of garbage plates, after all), but I was too full to eat them anyways. At any rate, that's enough about the food.

It was a lot of fun to meet up with Kurt's mom, dad, and sister and learn more about them. They were all really nice and friendly, and it was interesting to hear about Kurt's mom's career at Aerospace - well, as little as she could tell us about it, since it's pretty much all classified. I think the best part may have been how much Kurt was freaking out that we would be weirded out by his parents - which was completely not the case. I'm not sure what all his anxiety was about because we had a great time. They'll even be coming up for ImagineRIT May 7th!

After brunching we had a few hours to kill before the alumni reception, and someone had the ingenious idea to visit the national zoo! It was a beautiful day weather wise, and the Smithsonians are all free - so why not?

Up next - Part III: OMG Joe Pow is taking us to the zoo - This is the BEST. DAY. EVER!

DC Adventure Part I: I'm leaving on a jet plane...

Yesterday was potentially one of the longest days of my life! But it was fantastic. A long day makes for a long blog post, so I'm dividing it up into segments, this being part 1 of (probably) 6. Meanwhile, have I ever mentioned that I have the best job ever?

April 17, 2011 marked the 5th annual DC Alumni Gathering for CIS. Last year I planned a personal trip around this event, but this year I was going to follow in Joe's footsteps and just fly in for the day and back out that night. This is a great concept, except for the fact that the only flights we could get were departing Rochester at 6AM and returning at 10:30PM. So that right there is a pretty good indication of how long my day was going to be. Factor in airport timing, and my inability to peacefully sleep in anticipation of a big event, and I was up starting at 2:30AM. Said anticipation also wiped out any hope of napping in the airport or on the plane. But, what do you expect - the day was shaping up to be a big adventure!

My traveling companions consisted of Joe as well as 2 freshmen, Kurt and Nadya. (We had other fellow RIT/CIS'ers on the flight with us, but we parted ways after landing, so I don't include them as "travel companions".) On the flight down, Joe and I somehow managed to score business class seats - BONUS! I have never traveled business class before. It was pretty sweet. Although, the fact that we were traveling in fancy seats the Sunday of spring break for local high schools meant we shared company with some over-privileged teenagers. I am very grateful for AirTran's complimentary XM stations that I could use to drown out the conversations of Jamaica-bound Jersey Shore-esque 16 year olds, but nothing could help the fact that the girl next to me took off her flip flops and was putting her bare feet up on the seat in front of her. Ick - All the comfy expanded leg room in the world couldn't make up for that.

All was well with the flight and we landed about 20 minutes early. Thus concludes Part I!

Footnote: I would like to mention that Joe had doubt about what time I would arrive at the airport. But for the record, I was the first one out of any of the RIT travelers to arrive at the concourse. So TAKE. THAT.

Coming up - Part II: Kurt's dad crosses his arms... Don't touch that dial!