Living it up in the Nation's Capital
Have not mentioned my volunteer count….I am currently at
39129 Air and Space
14054 Zoo
20 Zoo Tours
409 Hours
53183 contacts
Still a ways to go ;P Come in a say hello to me tomorrow at the National Air and Space Museum. I will be at the Welcome Desk at the National Mall location.
I caught a matinee at the Regal in Potomac Yard today at 3:30. At that theatre, all movies before 6 PM are matinees unlike Gallery Place where I think it is 11 AM! There is only one showing of a movie as a matinee there.
My partner came with me though he said he already saw the first 2. I was thinking to myself…there were 2 more before this? He was referring to Short Circuit and Johnny 5. There is a strange resemblance, check out this wheels and face with the strange “eyebrows.” While the movie seemed to be for all ages, makes the older crowd laugh more with the sounds and sights from recent technology. For example, when Wall-e is fully charged from his solar panels, Macintosh users will recognize the “gong” sound when a Mac is booted. You will also see an iPod which helps play old movies from beta tape. Zippos make an appearance and Wall-e disposes a diamond ring and keeps the fuzzy case for his collection along with rubber duckie and bobble head dog.
Movie buffs with notice a score from Indiana Jones….From the Raiders of the Lost Ark I believe. 2001: The Space Odyssey is alluded to as well. Check out the Robot that is assisting the captain. Notice the red light?
Finally, lights on the floor direct robots all over. Perhaps this should be an improvement in the next generation Roomba. Seriously, it reminded me of a robot kit I assembled as a kid which followed a pen mark on paper. I thought it was pretty cool, and in this case, ensured safe operation of vehicles kind of like how air traffic controllers or a metro control center steers planes and trains. On a few occasions a “MOP” robot, charged with cleaning, hopped off the “track” following the contamination left by Wall-e as he rolled around the ship.
Go check out the movie. This is one I am going to pick up as soon as it comes out on DVD. Too bad it is Disney and that HD-DVD did not make it. I will have to get the standard definition for now.
Last year this time we picked up a few pieces from Marlo furniture. This time we were looking for a new bed and headed out to Marlo again. I dislike stores that pay their workers a menial wage and encourage them by commission from sales. I was saddened to find out that Hudson Trail Outfitters does this, but that is another matter. Everyone knows that furniture stores work that way. Last year we had issues with a salesman in Rockville, so we travelled to Alexandria.
We arrived and attempted to dodge salespeople explaining that if we need help, we will ask for it. This Marlo seemed to be laid out in a odd pattern for shoppers, but like grocery stores who usually put the bread and milk furthest from the entrance to entice you as you go to pick up your staple products. For those who drink soda, you have convenient coolers at the end of each register to save you the hunt ;P Marlo seems to bunch them into collections which means you have to traverse the entire store to see all of the beds. We liked 2 of them, and the one we really liked had a sold floor model which gave me little hope. Sure enough it was the last one and the warehouse was out. I asked the salesman if he could contact other stores in the area for us to check on the floor models.
The salesman would NOT call for us. Making an excuse that he would have to do work and no one would answer the phone anyway or call them back. The latter is true, I tried to call a few stores and once I reached an operator who mumbled something and sent me to a voice mail box…another time, no one answered. Hmm..what about customer service? Basically the salesman did not want to help make a sale that he would not get commission on. Perhaps that is the downside of commission sales. I do know first hand with houses, the more money you are going to spend, the more attention you get!
On the way back to DC we saw signs for a furniture liquidation sale and headed over to the Landmark Mall. We got there and while there was no JC Penny, we did find the sale at Direct Furniture. DO NOT SHOP THERE! We had a pleasant experience in the lower floor showroom and was sent up to check out their other showroom, discount warehouse, on the upper level. I asked if the 2 were owned by the same and the saleswoman said NO! So at that point, my partner jokingly said the bed we really liked was $500. She believed him, I could not keep a straight face, and she went to check the computer to see if that was possible to “match.” At this point we were thinking they were competitors and the fact that the lady downstairs left us her card and said..”If you don’t like the price upstairs, to let her know.” Hmm…perhaps competition at it’s finest. It was a dying mall, so perhaps a sale would make or break the store.
So the saleswoman came back and basically called our bluff, joke anyway, and kind of with an attitude said the regular price that was on the bed. As we walked out, she said “For your information, we are the same.” That just infuriated me, she had flat out lied to us! She was mad at us for saying $500 which was a joke. I asked her why she lied and she had no reply. I am guessing she wanted the sale, but her dishonesty lost the sale. So, on the Internet I go looking for a good price on the bed we wanted, but will not buy from a dishonest store.
This past weekend I had the honor and privilege to assist Mr. John Berry, Director of the Smithsonian National Zoo with a VIP tour involving a very generous donor, Whole Foods who provides food and beverages to many of the Zoo fundraisers.
There were 4 adults and 5 children which I was pretty much responsible for as they had different interests and attention spans than the adults. I brought along a few interpretive objects to assist with Mr Barry’s tour one of which was panda poop. Surprisingly, none of the kids wanted to hold it.
It was an honor in itself to have Mr. Barry lead the tour, but these VIPs were in for a treat. They were able to go behind the scenes and feed the animals. I could not resist and asked Mr. Barry if I could participate as well. It is not every day you get to feed or touch an animal.
I was able to touch the trunk of an Asian Elephant, toss a carrot into the 3 ton herbivore Nile Hippo, and meal worms to a Sloth Bear! We were able to convince most of the parents and kids to do everything except feed the Sloth Bear. It must have had to do with the food they were being fed, meal worms! Yummy! Actually, as a child I did not like them either, but got used to it. My brother and I had turtles and fed meal worms to them regularly as a supplement to lettuce.
I hope to get an opportunity to help again as I was truly honored by the opportunity to help out.
That being said, FONZ (Friends of the National ZOO), which is celebrating 50 years this year, provides free tours given by volunteers such as myself for those who are not prominent donors to the National Zoo. Give a call to request one, but be warned, tours are not advertised on the Zoo website because we get so many requests without publicizing. They are free and private, so get your family together, join FONZ to get free parking, and visit the best zoo in the Nation!