Here’s the routine: up at 4:45am. On the road, usually, by 5:45 or so. (Yeah, I tend to drag myself out of bed and then spend twenty minutes checking my e-mail and checking my queues on AstroEmpires and checking QuestionableContent.net). I’m at work, usually, from seven until about 3. As I get more and more familiar with my job, I stay later and later: today, I was there until just before 5pm. From work, I drove to Grosvenor and caught a Metro downtown to meet Emily at Woodley Park. We detoured through the National Zoo, then found a Chinese carry-out across from the Metro.

I’ve been up since, eh, 5:15 (like, really up-up). I’m not really tired, which is kind of surprising. Maybe it’s the forced exercise that’s doing it, or just my new routine. Maybe I’ve been a morning person all along, and I’m only now realizing it.

The Zoo sucked. Okay, yesterday was a little chilly — mid fifties, not too bad — and overcast and wet, so maybe that’s why all the animals were indoors. Okay, not all the animals: but all the cool ones. The big cats, especially. No tigers, cougars or lions? Boo! Some other visitors to the Zoo were also not impressed: “Oh, look, we saw a gray squirrel!” I’ll have to go back later in the year. Also unfortunately, they’re remodeling the Elephant house: saw one of those big gray beasts in a doorway, but no rhinos, no giraffes.

Did, however, see a Triceratops! Uncle Beazley, to be specific.

Here’s an interesting tidbit about this dinosaur! It used to be on the Mall, across from the Natural History Museum. You could climb all over it, and as a kid, I did. I grew up right outside of DC, in Adelphi, and went to the Mall on a fairly regular basis with my folks. Anyway, so this model dinosaur was a big part of my childhood. I remember being disappointed when it was removed from its long time spot on the Mall, years and years ago, and I remember being excited five years ago — last time I was at the Zoo — when I saw it on an unused parcel of land outside the Elephant House: as completely overgrown in weeds as it was, it thrilled me. Since then, it’s been moved: it’s now just west of the lacking-in-big-cats Big Cats, and has a couple of placards describing how this Triceratops came not only to be, but came to be the property of the Smithsonian.

Here’s his story.

I’m not even going to talk about the nightmare I had putting money on my SmarTrip card. Holy shiiiit. (Well, I’m sure it gets easier …)

Also: left my cell-phone. Brilliant. Really need to carry an index card in my wallet with important numbers I’d like continued access to.