Moving the Old Oakton Schoolhouse

There's an historic building in my hometown, that sits on the corner of Chain Bridge Road and Hunter Mill Road, which is right next door to my father's office building. It was built in 1897 as a one-room schoolhouse for Oakton, Virginia.

Part of the property was used for a camping equipment store for a long time. As a kid, since I was in charge of cleaning my father's office (now my office too) on Saturdays, I visited it on my way to "work", checking out the Swiss Army knives, tents, canteens, etc.

I feel even more connected to it because I rented, and subsequently bought my first peice of commercial property from the Dan Couch, who must've owned it from the early 70's. Interestingly, Dan's daughter used to babysit me as a kid.

Anyway, Dan sold the property to Chevy Chase Bank last year for 3 and a half million smackeroos, and they prepared to build a branch there, to compliment the other 92 bank branches lining Chain Bridge Road. But they had a small problem; a bunch of do-gooders who didn't want them to tear down such an historic building. So, after months of haggling, Chevy Chase did an honorable thing and moved the building from that corner down to the site of a new park in Oakton.

I filmed the video on the morning of the move. Some of it is a little boring (I need to edit a minute or two from the actual moving of the building, because it moved so darn slow).

79th Academy Awards

Every year, Kesley and I, along with a couple of our best friends, make a point of watching every Best Picture nominated movie, so that on awards night we can intelligently make our picks in an online chatroom. This will be our fifth year, I believe.

This year, the nominations are:

The Departed

Little Miss Sunshine

The Queen

Letters from Iwo Jima

Babel

We've seen the first two, leaving only three to see over the course of the next 4 weeks. Since we have young children, we often will go out individually on weeknights to catch a movie every week or so in order to get them all in.

Watching a movie on a Wednesday night by yourself in a theater is an experience worth having. When the Pianist was nominated a couple of years ago I was the only one in the theater during the 10 o'clock showing. Halfway through, thinking the theater was empty, they shut off the film on me. I stood up in protest, and the guy had to restart it for me.

My New Haircut

I've been growing my hair out for quite a while, in an attempt to match Dr. McDreamy's sex appeal with an equally astonishing red mane. Unfortunately, I work in a professional office and am a bit self-conscious about it. Above is a recent picture.

Here's my new haircut. Honest opinions, PLEASE!