Our friends are renting a million dollar house, which would probably be a $300,00 house in Rochester. It was big, with four bedrooms, four baths, and a home theater, but somewhat flimsily constructed, the doors didn't always shut, and it didn't have the presence a plaster and lathe house has. It was also part of a planned community with a home owner's association, which I found kind of creepy and Stepford like. They have rules about the type of lawn bags you can use, and they sponsored lots of community events. On the other hand, that sort of social pressure makes the moms at the pool MILFalicious.

In Yet Another Rochester is a Small City, the AFs are good friends with a developer I work with. It's not that odd, the set of middle class families with young kids living in the south east is pretty small.

While down there, I got in one movie, AF_dad likes John Cusack, so we watched Hot Pursuit, a lightweight action comedy from 1987, in which a prep school boy who had to skip a hot vacation with his girlfriend and her family due to failing a chemistry test attempts to catch up with them when his professor changes his grade. I still found the lead actress (Wendy Gazelle) cute, her outfits weren't too egregiously 80's, plus she's very limber. Hot Pursuit is also noted for the first onscreen pairing of Jerry and Ben Stiller. AF_dad also had a copy of the first Star Wars, where Han shoots first. It would have been awesome in the home theatre, but we didn't get to it.

In other media news, the whole family watched the Avatar series finale, I haven't seen all the third season episodes, but I didn't want to wait. Thumbs up, and like Star Wars and Vader, you can argue the series is really about the evolution of Zuko, with Aang just being a convenient Dues Ex Machina. Vote in my poll.

Twelve year old and I went to DC Saturday morning via the Metro at the Vienna stop, and saw most of the big memorials, including the World War II and Roosevelt ones, which were new to me. It was almost like having newspaper_girl and Porsche_girl with us, she kept texting them and sending them pictures, while they texted back. We had a hot dog lunch (perhaps her first street dog), and eventually met up with everyone else on the way to the National Museum of the American Indian. It's hard to represent thousands of years of history in a four story building, the presentation was a little shallow, though we never got to the fourth floor. The cafeteria was interesting as they mainly offered Native American derived recipes, with a nod to the kids with chicken nuggets and french fries. Mrs. Ha and I had a tamal with squash and beans, and some sort of quinoa salad, and then a refershing watermelon, tomato and dill salad. In book news, I bought a book for my mom with several mentions of our alleged ancestor.

In other book news, I feel ripped off by Stephenson, I bought King of the Vagabonds in paperback, only to relize I already owned it in hardcover as part of Quicksilver, the confusion between books and volumes confused me. I guess I should find volume 2 of the Baroque cycle.

In other other book news, I also finished Why Marines Fight, a series of anecdotes by Marines, and compiled by a Marine. It was interesting reading, Brady is open about his political bias, and it made me want to learn more about the Korean war.

In other, other, other book news, I also finished Luftwaffe over America, which is mostly about the Nazi bureaucracy's attempt to design an airplane that could bomb New York City from occupied France. The end gets a little wacky, talking about the superbomb the Nazis tested around Ohrdruf, and the potential in the flying winged Hortens. There's lot of wacky stuff if you google "Ohrdruf bomb". I suppose if the Nazis had more time and resources, they could have bombed New York.

In a future book news section of a future diary, I will talk about all the cool books I garbage picked Tuesday night, stay tuned!

My parents are taking the kids camping this weekend, and I'm not recovering from a bee sting, so it should be fun. We may see my friend's band tonight, may do the Park Ave fest, and garage sales are a certainty.