Washington D.C.

My family and I went to visit Washington D.C. on August 12th. If that date sounds familiar, it might be because August 12th is my birthday! That's right, I had the fortune to celebrate my 20th in the United States capital. My favorite description of America's Washington D.C. was best said by a British actor.

"We're in the middle of the most powerful city in the most powerful country on Earth." -Matt Smith's Doctor

So I had an unconventional birthday. But I had delicious food and we even got to see 30 Minutes or Less, which was surprisingly funny.

Bryan Turning 20

The Cropper family did a lot of visiting in D.C., so I've broken up our conquests into three parts. I'll start with what I call The Big Four, and then move onto the memorials, monuments, and finally museums. So let's start!

The Big Four: The Capitol, Supreme Court, White House, and National Archives

The very first building in D.C. that we saw was our nation's capitol, where the Senate and the House of Representatives create all the laws we hate today.

The U.S. Capitol

At least our legislative branch operates separately from our other branches of government. Speaking of other branches, I learned that the Supreme Court (judicial branch!) used to work in the basement of the Capitol. Fortunately, in 1933, the Supreme Court finally got their own building. At the Supreme Court Building we had a pleasant lecture about how the Supreme Court operates. For instance, did you know the Supreme Court only takes only 1% of the cases that apply to be reviewed?

The Supreme Court

Finally, no trip to D.C. is complete without viewing the White House. When we arrived, the lawn in front of the White House was closed to the public for an hour or so. But when they let us in, Nicholas and I went running!

Get to the White House!

We then struck our cool poses.

We Rock the White House

Lastly, we visited the National Archives, which holds our nation's most important documents. What kind of documents? I don't know, just the BILL OF RIGHTS, the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, and the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION.

The National Archives

That's right, in the Rotunda Room of the National Archives we got to see the three most important papers in the United States. What surprised me was how large the documents were. I always imagined these documents were slightly larger than printer paper, but the parchments were actually about two feet wide and two and a half feet long. Also, the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence were very faded, since they were held previously in picture frames. Our Constitution however, being four pages long, was not displayed and therefore the ink held up very well.

The Rotunda Room

Next I'll talk about the many memorials and monuments the Croppers visited in D.C.

Memorials & Monuments

The most identifiable monument we visited was the one featured on all of our pennies. That's right, we visited the Lincoln Memorial!

Lincoln Memorial

We actually found the memorial to be a bit closed off and very crowded. Despite that, we still managed to get our photo o Lincoln sitting.

Lincoln Statue

To give you a scale of how big the statue is, you can use mom for comparison.

Mom Looking at Lincoln

For me, what was more interesting than the Lincoln statue was the view from the Lincoln Memorial. Behold, the world-famous reflecting pool!

Washington's Majestic Reflecting Ditch.

Apparently the reflecting pool had a leak, so they are re-digging and re-cementing it. The project should be completed by summer 2012. But we did get to enjoy the other structure in the picture. Yes, we visited was the world's tallest free-standing stone structure, the Washington monument!

Washington Monument

Dad actually purchased tickets, so we got to see the view from the very top! The Washington Monument provided an excellent view of nearly every important building in D.C, so it was a real treat.

We're at the Top!

Our last memorial was the Jefferson memorial . It turned out to be a surprising favorite. As you can see below, this memorial is open at all four sides.

Circumnavigating the Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Also, inside there is a cool statue of Jefferson standing up, surrounded with some of his awesomer quotes, such as

"I have sworn, upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" -Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson Statue

Man, our founding fathers didn't tolerate any nonsense. Makes me proud to be American.
Lastly, I'll mention briefly some of the many, many Museums we visited while we were in the area.

Museums, Museums, and Museums

The very first thing museum we visited was actually in Chantilly, outside of our Capital. Here we saw the Air and Space Museum.

Air and Space Museum in Chantilly

My favorite part of this museum was being able to see NASA's Enterprise shuttle model. It was pretty neat being so close to the first reusable space craft ever built.

Space Shuttle Enterprise

We also visited several art museums, but there was one piece of art that truly stood out. Below is a modern-art piece called Ghost Clock. What do you think about it? Do you understand the underlying message about our society and time?

Ghost Clock at the Renwick Museum

Just kidding. The real beauty of the Ghost Clock is that it is carved from a single piece of laminated Mahogany. The white sheet and string are actually just bleached parts of the single, carved piece of wood. When we told Nick, his eyes bulged.

Nick's Impressed

Lastly, we visited the Museum of Natural History, where I had my mind blown! Do you know about the mysterious Easter Island Statues? I always thought that they were very narrow since they were always photographed from the side. But here I learned that the statues are actually very wide, and not at all what I was expecting.

An Easter Island Moai

To end this post on a sweet/creepy note, here's a picture of a man and his dog that was on display in the museum.

Dr. Grover Krantz and Clyde

So that concludes our adventures in Washington in the District of Columbia. I can now say that I've been to the prime centers of each branch of our government, seen the documents that laid the foundations of our nation, and also got to appreciate new artistic and scientific curiosities. Overall, I'd say it was a success. Next up, I'll (really) talk about wonderful, wooded, West Virginia!

San Francisco: The City by the Bay

After I finished my summer classes, I went to San Francisco to see my Uncle Oreste. I think the most amazing part of San Francisco was the weather. It was a cool 70 ° F every day I was there. I've been told this is because the city is in a sweet spot between the hot, dry California mainland and the extremely cold (~50° F) body of water that is the San Francisco bay. Whatever the reason, it led to a pleasant stay.

Above: San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.

I fully planned on having a wonderful time here in this laid-back city. What I didn't plan on was that my uncle had four jam-packed days all laid out to show off how exciting San Francisco can be. Right after I arrived, we started off by riding on the Rocketboat.

Above: RocketBoat.

For our RocketBoat tour we went around the Bay Bridge at nearly 50 mph. Talk about fast! It was more like a water ride at a theme park than a tour boat. Our captain would open the boat to full throttle and then brake and spin around, getting everyone splashed. We got soaked. Fortunately, they gave us ponchos, but even those weren't enough.

Above: We all needed ponchos.

Afterwards we treated ourselves by going to Ghirardelli Square. What I learned was that Ghirardelli chocolate first debuted in the US at San Francisco. Good thing too, because going to this square was one of the big highlights of my trip.

Above: The Best Square Ever.

Going to a Ghirardelli shop was a true delight. I never knew that there were Ghirardelli products besides their chocolate squares. But after trying their Chocolate Shake called the Nob Hill Chill, I fell in love with their chocolate fudge sauce.

Above: Nob Hill Chill. See that chocolate on the sides? Pure Gold.

The next day Uncle Oreste told me we'd be driving in a GoCar. No, not a Go Kart, but a GoCar.

Above: The Three-Wheeled GoCar.

GoCars are little vehicles that can drive through the city at around 30 mph at top speed. They are technically motorcycles since they only have three wheels. But what I learned most about them was that they have very weak motors. There were times when we had to get out and push it to get it rolling on some of the uphills! Talk about exciting.

Above: Bryan Rockin' the GoCar.

Nevertheless, we did get the car to go past some famous landmarks. For instance, our halfway point was the Golden Gate Bridge.

Above: Bryan and the Golden Gate Bridge.

And our grand finale was going down Lombard Street.

Above: Lombard Street.

After we rode our GoCars, it was time to try Go Karts. We went to Go Kart Racer, which features an extremely large indoor racing track that even featured a hill. I found it interesting that my Kart was so much more powerful than my GoCar.

Above: An elevation change in a Go-kart track? Cool.

Normally Go Kart Racer has two very large indoor tracks to race from. But the day we came they combined the two tracks into a SuperTrack. What really surprised me was just how exhausting continued go-karting was. I was genuinely exhausted by the time we had finished our second 15-minute race. Not surprisingly, Uncle Oreste managed to place first on our second race, which was impressive given that there were eight racers present.

Above: Go Kart Racer SuperTrack.

There were many other activities that Uncle Oreste and I did, such as:

• Going to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom
• Eating at Pier 39, Hog Island Oysters, and other places
• Watching three movies in theatres
• Saying hello to my great-aunt Perlita and other family and family friends
• Petting the many, many cats outside my uncle's place
• Riding on my uncle's Segway to his workplace
• Driving out to see San Francisco's bunkers and maritime defense

Clearly I had a packed four days! Unfortunately I did not get many good pictures of these activities. So I'll just skip to the last day. 

On my last day in San Francisco, Uncle Oreste and I went to Embarcadero square outside San Francisco's Ferry building. In the Embarcadero there is the Vaillancourt fountain which features a bunch of square pipes that are constantly releasing water. Below you can see the fountain and even the ferry building behind it.

Above: The Vaillancourt Fountain at Ground Level.

But what interested me was actually the eighty-foot zip-lining tower left of the fountain. That's right, you can actually zip-line through San Francisco!

Above: Justin Herman Plaza ZipTrek Tower.

For our last thrill-inducing adventure, Uncle Oreste and I walked up this tower and zip-lined through San Francisco. Now I've zip-lined before, but this was the first time I ever zip-lined upside-down. And let me say, doing it upside down is awesome. It knocks the pants off of doing it right-side up (and I love zip-lining right-side up). I highly recommend upside-down zip lining for any adventure-seekers out there.

Above: Vaillancourt Fountain from 80 feet in the air.

Anyways, that was it for San Francisco. Afterwards, I went back to nice, warm Austin. But my summer wasn't over yet. Next up, It was time to see my Aunt Shelly in the beautiful, forested West Virginia!

Back in America

After I traveled in Europe, my father suggested starting this domain so that I could keep track of my adventures in good, old USA. I hope to use this website to document my experiences now that I'm back here in the states. Because I am once again taking UT classes, I do not expect to update that often. In fact, this blog is mostly for me to help me remember all I've done. So without further ado, it's time to try the great experiment.

What did I do when I returned to the states? First I took 15 hours of business summer classes. There I worked as VP accounting in a group of six people. We ran a Marketplace Live simulation where we sold personal computers around the globe. Our company was called Anchor Systems.

Above: Nothin' Sinks Like an Anchor.

We started off last, and worked tirelessly over many days and nights. Finally, eight weeks later, we finally finished... last again. The irony of our name and placement was lost on no one. But we did have one strength - we gave excellent presentations. For instance, for our venture capitalist presentation, we raised the full five million in capital, even though there were groups with better returns. Also, on our final presentation, Anchor Systems told the class that we were going green. It was our turnaround strategy since we were last. We concluded by revealing our new logo.

Above: We are so good at spinning.

We gave a huge, spectacular final presentation which put our competitors' powerpoints to shame. We were  called the "poster child" of how to give a presentation despite subpar performance, and ended up with the highest grades. I really had a great time with my Mötley Crüe of unique individuals, who showed me what people outside of my standard social bubble were like.

After I finally finished classes and got a business certificate (which is somewhere between a business minor and a major). What was more important though was that I now understood some of business vocabulary and human psychology. It's weird to see now how motivation is broken down. Now I notice how targeted advertisements are. For instance, you get different movie previews depending on which movie you're seeing in a movie theater. Also, employee of the month awards are a way to increase productivity in minimum-wage, unskilled jobs. This is because for these kind of jobs,  productivity increases due to recognition equals productivity increases due to a cash reward. Strange seeing how all the invisible cogs work. I'm not sure I like understanding how complicated running a business is, but the knowledge is valuable.

Anyways, after my classes were over, I decided to see my Uncle Oreste in California. Next up, time for breezy San Francisco!