Catching Up Since I’ve Been Away

Posted on by Elise
at the paul mccartney concert, every seat at nats stadium was filled.
At the Paul McCartney concert, every seat at Nats stadium was filled.

The bosses at NPR handed me the keys to our ‘All Tech Considered’ blog, which requires a lot of considering. So I’ve spent what time I have left on the important things: binge-watching Orange is the New Black, meeting up with friends at bars (naturally), and forgetting to blog on HeyElise.

Have I mentioned Orange is the New Black? I love, love, LOVE this show. So much to love. Last night I started a Twitter friendship with one of its actors (the dude you plays Bennett). He’s a hottie, but that’s not what makes OITNB so great. I don’t want to say anything else because you should just go watch it on Netflix.

Let’s see… what else? Between the Air Sex Championship and the fire-starting, I made a quick trip to Cambridge, where I reported a story on MIT’s folding cars (hasn’t aired yet) and attended the Knight/Civic Media confab. The Knight team was kind enough to let me curate and moderate the final panel of the conference, about disrupting newsrooms. You can read about it or watch the video here, though I didn’t bother to run a brush through my hair before going on stage and it’s painfully obvious.

At work, we had to say goodbye to NPR’s irreplaceable Director of Design, Dave Wright. Twitter (perhaps you’ve heard of it) lured him to San Francisco. Dave also happens to be one of the handful of people who made Washington so fun for us over these last two years. He’s such a special talent and hilarious human — I’m going to miss our long venting sessions and fast lunches and just general shenanigans together. To see just how much he meant to us, check out the quick video that Friend Claire and I made for Dave’s goodbye shindig at work. (Password: dwjr)

Oh, and thanks to a last minute invite from my bestie The Beam, I got to check off a bucket list item by seeing Paul McCartney. Just me, the Beam, and about 50,000 people under the stars.

My friends and I have hit “peak baby,” or whatever you want to call that time in your life when all your gal pals are pregnant and having babies. My BFF April came to DC a few weeks ago and announced she was pregnant (she’s the one whose Texas wedding I was willing to leave newborn Eva for). So is Friend Judy. And today, a bunch of us girls went out to Virgnia to celebrate the entrance of Baby Bob IV into the world. He’s the new son of one of my personal heroes, Angie Goff, and he’s a great cuddler. I love snuggling with these wee humans.

snuggling with ohmygoff's little prince, baby bob iv, at eight weeks old.
Snuggling with OhMyGoff’s little prince, Baby Bob IV, at eight weeks old.

Now we head into August (already?!), which will be a big travel month for me and the spouse and the spawn. Off to Ann Arbor tomorrow…

Neighborhood Pig Roast Featuring Many Small Fires

Posted on by Elise
the calm before the fires.
The calm before the fires.

 

2013 is halfway over and it’s been a riot so far. And sorta dangerous. Baby Eva keeps testing the bounds of her survival skills, rolling herself off furniture, squeezing the dog by the jowls or trying to crawl head first down the stairs. And we grown-ups keep acting like children.

A couple of weeks ago, my partner-in-shenanigans, Justin, visited DC. (You may remember him from previous blogged-about adventures.) We had already partied ourselves into a stupor on Friday night and thought we were going to lay low on Saturday by going to a neighborhood pig roast. A bluegrass band played the faves (but I couldn’t get them to do that David Allan Coe song because they didn’t know the long spoken interlude), the pork was that perfect blend of lean and moist and outside it felt cool and dry enough to actually enjoy a picnic. So relaxing was it that we got sleepy out there, with the tunes and the beers.

one of the many lantern crashes and subsequent fires. this one, in front of the band. but at the right it appears one lantern was trying to survive...
One of the many lantern crashes and subsequent fires. This one, in front of the band. But at the right it appears one lantern was trying to survive…

Then, after it turned dark, we got our second wind. To celebrate homeowner/hostess Hillary’s birthday, her friends had gotten Chinese lanterns, which, if made well, are easy to light and send floating into the sky. The more, the prettier. At this party, dozens of us got lanterns and the band started playing a little soundtrack to our impromptu lantern lightings. Justin and I successfully got one lit and watched it spirit away to the cheers of the group.

But that was an exception. Most of these lanterns ended up crashing to the ground before getting any lift and promptly setting grass, chairs, bags, plates — and very nearly, children — on fire. We were able to stomp out these fires, but they happened in various places around the lawn, and sometimes at the same time. When some lanterns actually made it up in the air, they wound up crashing into trees or the roof, which made for real close calls. Eventually many of us gave up on the lanterns and cleared the yard.

Suddenly, Justin and I were amped up to party some more! Headed out to U Street after leaving the fire dangers and enjoyed a long night with some other fantastic pals. Nothing like almost setting houses and people on fire with a well-meaning Chinese lantern activity to really get you going again.

That Time I Judged The DC Air Sex Championship

Posted on by Elise
this is the contestant who went by "victory queef."
This is the contestant who went by “Victory Queef.”

This will go down as one of my highlights of 2013. Duh.

If you’ve never seen air sex, it’s like air guitar, only instead of fake-playing-a-guitar you are fake-boinking-an-imaginary partner. It’s a combination of performance art, improv comedy and a full on athletic event. Judges sit on stage and watch you perform (set to a song of your choice) before a crowd of cheering/jeering strangers. Then, just like on American Idol, the judges give you feed back one by one, though it’s never “Yo dawg, you sounded kind of pitchy.” It’s more like, “How many partners were you with in that scene? I couldn’t tell.” (More photos are available by Brightest Young Things and We Love DC.)

Why was I judging air sex? What qualifications did I have to judge such a competition? The answers are: Austin, and none. (But c’mon. Does ANYONE have qualifications to judge air sex?) I judged because Air Sex was introduced in the US at the Alamo Drafthouse, a small Austin chain of  theatres/event hubs that serve up beer and food and a whole film/TV show/comedy watching experience that can’t be matched anywhere else. The mastermind of the Drafthouse, Tim League, is responsible for launching air sex in America, and aren’t we all so grateful for it? Judging air sex was an emotional connection to home.

air sex host chris trew, me, and head judge molly.
Air Sex host Chris Trew, me, and head judge Molly.

What I learned: Just as it is in life, the key to great air sex is commitment. You can’t break “character” or the scene you’ve set up. You have to go boldly after your invisible partner(s). One contestant created a narrative in which he was videotaping a woman he was air sexing and generally treating her like crap, another contestant (stage name “Victory Queef”) performed BJs on “four or five” partners, according to her count. The winner didn’t do anything particularly subversive — he was just expressive and enthusiastic and displayed a sense of confidence and creativity on stage unmatched by the rest. I and the other judges were quite pleased to give him the championship. A high honor, indeed.

If you’re into this whole notion, the air sex team is on a national tour and could be coming to a city near you. Meanwhile, if you want to see the air sex documentary someday, you can back the kickstarter now.

The SoHo Pop-Up Shop

Posted on by Elise

dsc04431
A post in Mashable today about a new pop-up store in SoHo reminded me I hadn’t blogged about my trip to New York two weeks ago. It was the first of three weeks in a row of short work trips: New York, then Houston, then Eden.

Following a late dinner with some NPR colleagues and supporters, Friend Matt and I opted to walk back from the meal through his SoHo neighborhood. It had rained — monsooned, really — in New York that afternoon, so the streets seemed strangely fresh and clean. And at midnight on a Thursday, it felt like we were the only ones wandering that ultra-glam New York neighborhood, winding up and down streets lined with gorgeous display windows of designer stores.

I only snapped two photos during our walk: Freedom Tower as we crossed the still-wet, shockingly still street, and the breakdown of the SoHo space used for pop-up shops. This is the space now occupied by Baublebar, as featured in the Mashable post inspiring this post. Delta had been its most recent occupier, but as you can see above, the countdown to its big launch had passed.

freedomtower

Notes from Eden

Posted on by Elise
somewhere above 9.200 elevation on powder mountain. see if you can spot my crew — the tiny dudes in the photo.
Somewhere above 9.200 elevation on Powder Mountain. See if you can spot my crew — the tiny dudes in the photo.

Just got back from rural Utah. More specifically, a place called Eden. Wandered high up in the clouds. After riding a rock crawler to nearly 9,000 feet elevation, I followed Summit Series leaders Jeff and Thayer to a point so high I panicked about how I’d “hike” (in my running shoes) back down.

“Hand eye coordination is not my thing,” I kept telling the guys.

But hey, it was for an interesting story about how Team Summit recently closed the purchase of said mountain, the largest skiiable mountain in North America. Note to self: If you get to hang out on a peak overlooking four states for your job, don’t complain.

Tune in for the piece later this month. For the purposes of this personal blog, some notes from the road:

– I drove a Ford Expedition for the first time, because Avis apparently ran out of smaller vehicles. It felt like driving a bus. I was white knuckling it for most of the ride north into the mountains, but eventually I loved it and stopped being scared that I’d accidentally maul an elk.

– Speaking of rental cars, while standing in the garage awaiting my oversized vehicle, I looked across the way and saw a familiar-looking attractive man. I thought to myself, that guy looks like a Romney! Just as I was running through the names of the five Romney boys in my head, a car attendant popped out and said to him, “First name?” and he responded, “Tagg.” TAGG! He’s it.

– Last time I was in Utah was in 2011, when I covered the National Governors Association meeting in Salt Lake and became buddies with the legendary Washington Post scribe Dan Balz. We had some beers with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, I taught Dan how to tweet a photo and we’ve been friends ever since. The mountains brought back memories of that random weekend.

– On the mountain, the Summit folks live and work in what feels like a dream summer camp for grownups. They have a cook that makes only gluten-free, Paleo diet approved foods at meals they all share and eat together. They also have an ashram, fresh juice each morning, a trainer, and all the skiing and snowboarding they want while it’s in season. Basically I was wondering why I still live in a sometimes soul-depleting urban environment and not on a mountain, instead.

– Almost missed my flight home due to unanticipated traffic, an evil GPS and the slowest possible milk scanning device ever. I’m still nursing Baby Eva and pumping while I’m away, which means when I go through security, each bottle must be scanned with a special device individually. I was the last person to be let on board before takeoff.

– How about that Delta Airlines? I love their cookie snacks, but I also really enjoyed their quietly subversive in-flight safety video. I watched it all the way through because I realized they were hiding little visual gags in there throughout.

We Graduated This Weekend, 10 Years Ago

Posted on by Elise
all these fellow mizzou grads live in washington and were on my porch. awesome.
All these fellow Mizzou grads live in Washington and were on my porch. Awesome.

From my Xanga blog, May 19, 2003 (Xanga was a blogging platform back then, okay?):

“So, I’m graduated, and it didn’t feel strange except high school graduation seemed a lot bigger.

My parents had a “So, what are you going to do with your life” talk with me, which means, I should probably get on that at some point. I’ve decided to chill for a few months and then go crazy job hunting in August. Because I like life chapters to be marked by a definitive start and end, I will begin the job hunt phase with a trip to San Diego for a job fair. Fitting, eh?”

This weekend brought back so many crazy wonderful memories about 2003, which marked the end of college and the beginning of whatever this “adult” life I should be leading now. A line from The Office‘s recent series finale actually summed up my thoughts much better than I could:  “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good ol’ days, before you’ve actually left them. Someone should write a song about that.”

The rest of summer of 2003 played out exactly as I described back on my Xanga... we really just partied and chilled for a few months, and it was such a sublime period of zero responsibility that we call it The Lost Summer. I did go to a job fair in San Diego, and most of us found jobs and dispersed by August. I never would have dreamt back then that the last 10 years would be as surprising, interesting and fulfilling as they played out. Or that I’d wind up living and drinking in DC, at least weekly, with so many of the people I loved from college.

Today, I and two of my college besties Beam and Terp (who, fortuitously, also live in Washington now) hosted our fellow Mizzou alumni and other DC pals in a cookout celebrating our Class of 2003 graduation. Everyone got in on the Missouri theme: Friend Joey, who is a master griller, mixed up a signature rub for St. Louis Style ribs. Me and Matty made Jungle Juice, a big hit from my sorority days (which was often made in a bathtub, but we classed it up and made it in a large plastic party tub instead). My dad brought me toasted ravioli (a Missouri fave) from St. Louis to share. Friend Kate made Missouri-shaped cookies but the bootheels kept wanting to break off. Friend Doris brought wine from the Les Bourgeois winery in Rocheport, MO. Friend Patrick got us graduation cards. <grin>

In the spirit of college, we acted a fool, day-drinking to drunkeness, attempting to squeeze through the dog door, singing karaoke from the on-demand karaoke channel and, in proof that we are in 2013 and not 2003, we flew our family drone around in the front yard.

matty's drone didn't stay up in the air for long. the battery wasn't charged.
Matty’s drone didn’t stay up in the air for long. The battery wasn’t charged.

Here Are Photos of My Brother Looking Ridiculous

Posted on by Elise

Even though I gave him a hard time for, oh, our entire childhood, I’m really proud of my little brother, Roger Hu. He is risking his lungs to live in frighteningly-polluted Beijing for the sake of his startup, TeeKart. TeeKart is teaming up with golf courses across China to allow golfers to book tee times online. (I’m told that’s not a widely available service in China right now.)

TeeKart held a big launch event this week at a gorgeous course on Hainan Island, China. Cousin Cary, who is the company’s CTO, took a bunch of pictures. For some reason, Roger Hu and team decided to look UTTERLY RIDICULOUS in almost all of them. I had to share a few — he’s in the orange:

i don't even...
I don’t even…
maybe they were being ironic?
Maybe they were being ironic?
i guess this is to show they were tired after a long day of golfing.
I guess this is to show they were tired after a long day of golfing.

 

White House Correspondents Dinner Weekend: Jokes About A Town That Is One

Posted on by Elise

“How do you write jokes about a town that already is one?”

-Kevin Spacey, as his House of Cards character Frank Underwood, in the spoof video produced for the dinner

I’ve never covered Hollywood, so the White House Correspondents Dinner is the only place I’ve seen so many celebrities in one room. Granted, the dining room at the Washington Hilton holds 3,000 so it’s a large pool from which to find bold-faced names. The dinner — and the weekend of partying that grew up around it — is quintessentially “Washington,” for better or for worse. (Much like SXSW, apparently the event has gone from a well-meaning celebration of one idea to a marketing-laden orgy of totally different priorities.) A glutton for new experiences and an avid reader of celeb-blog The Superficial, I am game to witness the absurdity.

The whole event is sensory overload. You can’t turn your head without seeing someone famous or familiar-for-some-reason-you-can’t-quite-place. The long hallway shoot of pre-dinner receptions and a few post-dinner parties is in a basement, probably the only time Michael Douglas or Nicole Kidman hang out in a basement. After going through security with Don Draper’s wife Megan (actress Jessica Pare) to get in the ballroom, the likes of Kevin Spacey, Steven Spielberg and Claire Danes get gawked at near the stage. Packed in that giant ballroom, it was easy to walk right into and nearly run over a tiny Hayden Panettiere. Last year, I found myself reapplying lip gloss next to Kate Upton* and Anna Paquin. Ron Kirk snapped iPhone photos of people wanting pics with his friend Eric Holder. Tony Romo and his wife told me details about the birth of their baby, since we Texans just instantly bond that way, I guess. This year the Romo’s showed up again.

“Y’all are becoming real White House Correspondents Dinner regulars,” I said to him.

“It’s her. She loves to put on a dress,” Romo said jokingly, of his wife.

Saturday, Friend Matt decided to offer me his dinner ticket with only 90 minutes to spare. It took an incredible amount of perfect timing and logistical savvy for us to drive across town and do the pass off in time. (And to shower and get ready in 10 minutes.)

What I learned last year was that it’s actually the parties preceding and following the meal, the ones sponsored by real power — Fortune 500 companies and VC-backed startups — that are actually “fun”, if you want to call it that. (Fun in the weird Washington way.) Loved seeing old friends** and meeting new ones. Frankly, it was all so much better than when I attended while pregnant last year because this time I could drink through it. (!)

My memories of the weekend exist in single frames: A Swavorski crystal toilet at a late night house party. Asking Kevin Spacey about House of Cards spoilers (“I don’t know anything,” he said). Making new friends while in a super long bathroom line at The Atlantic’s Friday night confab. Seeing Gayle King and Joaquin Castro at every hoppin’ spot in town. Getting momentarily spooked when Gus Fring (the Breaking Bad villain who got half his face blown off) walked past my dinner table and looked me right in the eye WITH HIS WHOLE FACE. The AC dropping to temps in the 50s so a room of 3,000 wouldn’t wind up sweating. Conan really yelling into that mic. My gal pal Judy. Piano renditions of Coldplay at the Turkish Ambassador’s house. Delicious dolmas. Lots of red carpets and velvet ropes but way more gawkers than celebs. Celebrating a startup incubator in an unexpected place. Signature drinks named AT&Tini’s. Gorgeous views at the Sunday brunch. Corporate sponsor after corporate sponsor after corporate sponsor. Big brands. Medium brands. Small brands. Business cards. Bacon. Introductions. Jewel tones. John Oliver!

*When Kate Upton first walked by our table at dinner, I thought to myself, that woman should be a model! Doh.

** Including a sorority sister I hadn’t seen in 13 years

Food for Thought Fed My Soul When I Needed It Most

Posted on by Elise
lunch under this amazing pavilion included shrimp and grits, of course.
Lunch under this amazing pavilion included shrimp and grits, of course.

After last week’s total misery, I needed to get away. So this year’s Food for Thought Conference in my old stomping grounds of Greenville, SC, couldn’t have come at a better time.

My old source and good friend, Joe Erwin, heads an advertising firm in Greenville that started with three employees and has since grown into a thriving agency with major clients, hundreds of staffers and satellite offices in New York and Detroit. A few years ago he got a notion to host a retreat where people across several different fields — entrepreneurship, marketing, communication, philanthropy and more — could come together in his beloved hometown and hear from inspiring people, interact with business leaders, share ideas and do it a.) anywhere but in over-air-conditioned hotel conference rooms and b.) while enjoying memorable meals.

“It comes from the Bible, in which King David talks about being ‘at table,'” Erwin said, as he got the conference under way on in an airy bar overlooking the Reedy River. “It’s when we’re at table that we let our defenses down and do some of our best thinking.”

I was already satisfied that I got to meet interesting people, get exposed to new ideas and move from one interesting physical space to another (the FFT conference has a no hotel conference room rule). But it all the serendipitous meetings “at tables” of delicious food that made this experience stand out.

Greenville is a smallish city but thanks to the strong influence of Southern food culture, it has more delicious restaurants than places many times its size. On opening night, the attendees got broken up into groups of 10 so that each group could go enjoy a different notable Greenville restaurant in an intimate setting. My group was lucky enough to dine in a special apartment above the restaurant Soby’s, where the chef from Greenville restaurant Devereaux’s cooked up a five course meal in the private kitchen. Seated next to Joe and across from Southwest Airlines’ thoughtful marketing man, Dave Ridley, we chatted and laughed about our past experiences, our families and our passions. Sharing a meal fosters such fast, authentic connections — the conference nurtures that notion to exciting ends.

chef chris hastings and sous chef sadesh in the kitchen of greenville, sc's devereaux's restaurant.
Chef Chris Hastings and sous chef Sadesh in the kitchen of Greenville, SC’s Devereaux’s restaurant.

Perhaps I can’t stop gushing about this confab because I got the opportunity to eat grits at breakfast, lunch and dinner. I also enjoyed flavor explosions in my mouth at every meal. On the second (and my last) night, the whole group of 100 dined together at Devereaux’s, with a guest chef in the kitchen. The organizers flew in Chef Chris Hastings of Birmingham’s Hot and Hot Fish Club to cook for us. He was 2012’s James Beard Award winner for “Best Chef in the South” and dominated Bobby Flay in the sausage showdown on Iron Chef. Even if he hadn’t those accolades, the MAN CAN COOK. The meal he prepared for us last night instantly entered my top three most memorable dining experiences ever. Who knew rabbit pot pie or snapper jowl could be so delicious? Chef Hastings knew.

I had to jet before the final day, which looked amazing. But my short time was packed with highlights, including the amazing Carolina spring weather, my pre-conference catchup time with my inspiring journalist/momma pal Michelle, and becoming buddies with the COO of my ultimate favorite fast food, Taco Cabana. Todd Cuerver randomly sat at the same table at the conference lunch yesterday and I totally geeked out when I found out he was with Taco C. I had so many Taco C moments to tell him about! (Most of them involved drunkenness and flour tortillas.)

To stop the rambling and sum up: If you can make it next year, take a break from your boring lunches at Potbelly and your constant inbox grooming and get away to Greenville. Food for Thought fed my belly, but more importantly, it fed my soul when I needed it the most.

Tough Week, Or The Toughest Week?

Posted on by Elise

Satirical news source The Onion summed up the past week well:

“Maybe next time we have a week, they can try not to pack it completely to the fucking brim with explosions, mutilations, death, manhunts, lies, weeping, and the utter uselessness of our political system,” said basically every person in America who isn’t comatose or a complete sociopath. “You know, maybe try to spread some of that total misery across the other 51 weeks in the year. Just a thought.”

Pal Justin texted this to me, halfway through this week from hell: “What does it say when a justice of the peace murdering a district attorney and his family is at the bottom of the news totem pole?” (I’m not even sure that story made it into our newscasts. Nor did the sentencing of the Travis County District Attorney for DWI. She’s serving 45 days in jail. Normally I would think that was a big story, too.)

Oh, and then, last night the week was capped off with a destructive earthquake in China:

“As Boston celebrated last night, the week from Hell managed to end with one more tragedy: A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit southwestern China’s Sichuan province on Saturday. Right now, 156 people are said to be dead, and an estimated 5,500 are injured, making the earthquake the country’s worst in three years. We’re just hoping marathoner and West, Texas resident Joe Berti wasn’t around.”

Journalism and social media both got a reminder to just chill out and take a breath. Reddit sleuths went down as many bad trails as promising ones, implicating innocent people in the process. The New York Post was particularly egregious in its fact ignorance, reporting 12 people were killed on Monday and that a Saudi national was a suspect. (Neither of these reported “facts” proved true.)

Oh, and our newsroom was split into two buildings, producing our afternoon show, All Things Considered, from 1111 N. Capitol, and the morning program, Morning Edition, from 635 Massachusetts Ave. As tragedy struck blow after blow, we were struggling to coordinate news reporting and broadcasting while in between the final phases of our staff move. By Friday, the old building and its parts were getting dismantled around us. The moving and salvage crews outnumbered NPR staff. Yesterday, in the middle of our efforts to report a manhunt that shut down the city of Boston, the TVs got cut off. This prompted a move to 1111 half a day early.

President Obama called it a “tough week.” I’d call it a curl-up-in-fetal-position-and-rock-back-and-forth-week.

As you reflect and process and drink heavily (you deserve it), consider consuming any of the following:

Your kids, your parents, your friends, your lovers: Hug ’em tight. Hug ’em tight.