Filed under: Close to Home
A special monogrammed order that came in at work today:
Filed under: The Internets
TinEye uses images uploaded from your computer and image URLs to search for exact and close matches from all over the internet. It looks like an interesting idea, though I’ve not yet had a chance to use it. The site is private and you need to be invited to get a username. I am on their “private beta waiting list”.
Via Design Dust
This Beijing bound equestrian was in the store that I work at today. That’s how we roll in horse country.
In other sports news… woot Tiger… with a bum knee and everything… what a rockstar.
New single! Sry if it makes me a 14 year old girl, but I luv Miley.
7 Things
[edit 7/12/08: posted official vid]
Filed under: Close to Home
Writing about 3rd graders made me want to post a pic of “young Lindsay.”
I was probably about five years old here. I had just learned to ride a two-wheeler.
…in third grade?
I remember myself. I was in Mrs. Burnett’s class and I sat next to my biggest crush of all time. (He made my heart flutter from 1st through 5th grade. He now goes to UVA. He’s still incredibly smart, good- looking, and single. I’m no longer interested, alas.)
I knew stuff in third grade; I was smart. That was the year that I found out what “bite me” meant. That was the year that I figured out that if I was only in Girl Scouts for the cookies, maybe I should quit. So why is it that Matt Yglesias thinks it’s a bad idea to have a little econ on the 3rd grade VA SOL (Standards of Learning) test? In fact, the concept in question that he sites from another blog is opportunity cost.
He says that most adults don’t understand this concept! Whether that is true or not is kind of besides the point. I don’t remember most of the chemistry that I had to know for the 10th grade SOLs only 4 years ago. Further more, opportunity cost is not really a difficult concept, especially when considering what the VA Department of Education has determined as the benchmark for third graders.
3.9 The student will identify examples of making an economic choice and will explain the idea of opportunity cost (what is given up when making a choice).
Now, I’m really the last person to defend the SOLs. Having taken many SOLs, I think they merely determine a student’s ability to take a test rather than their knowledge of a subject. However, seeing as they do exist, I think it’s best to make them as challenging as is appropriate. Choice and the consequences of choice are not all that abstract of ideas. I don’t think it’s a concept too difficult for 3rd graders especially when you consider that their understanding only has to extend to being able to answer one or two multiple choice questions.
The 3rd grade benchmark that I find more interesting is this little gem:
3.12 The student will recognize that Americans are a people of diverse ethnic origins, customs, and traditions, who are united by the basic principles of a republican form of government and respect for individual rights and freedoms.
Perhaps sometimes.
A funny from One Sentence:
My friend had tears of joy in his eyes when he found out his locker number was 1337.
… Your shiny new forever. — That’s was the message in the card that I gave to two lovely friends what just got married this past weekend. bwhahaha.
I’m actually all for commitment.
Anyways, it was definitely the first *fun* wedding that I’ve been to. Tons of my friends were there, and there was an open bar! Really, what could make for a better weekend? It was a bit of a drive… Martinsville is about 5 hours away from the DC area (somehow I made it back in a little over 4). But, it was kind of nice to be in LITERALLY THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. And the fact that we all stayed in the same hotel basically created a 48-hour party.
The bride of course looked lovely. The groom was handsome. (I only hang out with good- looking people.) And you know those people who sort of run in your same circle, but you don’t really know them all that well? Or maybe your circles create a venn diagram and you both occupy the middle portion at times. Well, I actually got to know some of those people a little better this weekend.
A bit of a babbling, uninteresting post… so here’s a picture! (For all you creepers who don’t know me, I’m the one on the left.)
Best of luck and much love to T* & M*.
Filed under: Close to Home
Saturday night, a friend from work, her boy wonder of the week, his boys, another girly from work, and I all went to Clyde’s Willow Creek Farm Restaurant in Ashburn, VA. We got there for dinner around 8:30 and then stayed and hung out at the bars.
It was a cool place. The entire restaurant and bar areas were old-school fox hunting/ Middleburg horse scene themed– I of course enjoyed that. I was surprised by the diversity of the crowd that was there. During dinner there was of course the 20s-30s crowd, but also a prom group, a few families with well behaved children, an 80 year old man with a lobster bib and his wife, and few middle aged couples. Perhaps I’m just used to living in a college town where everyone is my age, but I thought the range of ages of the dinner crowd (and even the late-night bar crowd) was impressive.
The service was average, the food was good, but it was really the setting that makes the restaurant. It was a really nice evening and we were able to sit outside under a large tent. As it grew dark, the lights in the tent were pleasant and the large stone patio and pool with lily pads were quite picturesque.
There were two main bars. One was pretty dark, a little crowded with some kind of wrestling match on TV. The other bar was more lit, had a bit less people, and might of had something on TV but it was unobtrusive. Those of age could easily provide drinks for others.
So, if you’re looking for somewhere to go in Ashburn… maybe after flying into Dulles (Clyde’s is right off the Toll Rd.) I’d recommend Clyde’s. 
