further activities out east

On Friday, I made it to my first Baltimore Orioles game since moving out here. It was a good time, to be certain. The stadium was packed, and the home team scored a rousing come-from-behind victory.

My Saturday was mostly spent hitting the Washington, D.C., museum circuit. Pictures are here.

I started my morning at the National Archives, which is highlighted by the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Constitution has been preserved exceptionally well, while the Declaration and Bill of Rights were fairly faded. Seeing them was certainly worth the wait, though.

After that, I checked out the Air and Space Museum. Not being much of a science person, it didn't hold as much pull for me as the Archives. The highlight of that museum and, to be perfectly honest, of the past two or three weeks was riding the interactive flight simulator with the most hilarious kid I've ever met. On this simulator, one person is the pilot and the other is the shooter, and your mission is to shoot down other fighter jets. And when I say flight simulator, I mean you climb into this capsule that can completely roll 360 degrees. It's pretty intense.

So I get randomly paired up with this 10-year-old boy, Malachi, who is certainly one of the most gregarious kids I've met in some time, and we immediately hit it off. He asked if he could be the pilot, and I readily agreed. As the operator closed the door, Malachi looks at me and gives me a half energetic, half nervous giggle and says, "I'm kind of scared."

"Don't worry man," I reply. "Just go nuts."

And he does. We spend most of the 6 minutes rolling over one side to the other, hanging upside down with out legs flailing about and half-blocking our view of the screen. Simultaneously, Malachi provides the soundtrack: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!! Oh my god! Oh my god!! Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!" When we got out, the operator tells us they could hear Malachi clear across the room. I'm not surprised.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I laughed so incredibly hard. Funny how you can have one brief interaction with a complete stranger, and it's such a memorable experience. I don't think I'll ever forget how hilarious that kid was.

I finished my day with a walk through of the National Museum of the American Indian. I found it intriguing (as well as a little disturbing and certainly heartbreaking) to juxtapose the USA presented in the Archives with the Native American history presented here.

At any rate, I'm back to work this week. We have our final day of rookie camp Wednesday and will have a bit of a lull until training camp begins in late July.

Today, I had the chance to witness one of the reasons I continue to work in sports. Three of our rookies had a photo shoot with a group of about 20-25 kids out on our practice fields for the kids' fan club newsletter. Seeing how much fun those kids had was absolutely great. They just ate up the attention they were getting from these football players.

Even better, though, were the dads. The dads were out there tossing the football around with the kids on the practice field just, you could tell, fantasizing they were out there to get ready for the big game. At one point, our rookie quarterback, Joe Flacco, let loose a few bombs to one of the guys, who caught both passes and hollered back, "Sign me up!"

It's definitely rewarding helping create these memorable experiences for people. Also, standing a few yards away from Flacco as he threw the ball from the sideline at one 5-yard line to the numbers on the opposite 30 -- about 70-75 yards through the air -- was pretty sweet, too.