The Robots Take Richmond

Troy and his colleagues were invited to Richmond this past weekend to exhibit the music robots at the FIRST Robotics Competition--an annual event that challenges high school students, working with professional mentors, to design and build robots.

It turned out to be a great venue for Troy and Steve to showcase PAM and MADI--and it was apparently refreshingly different from their academic presentations. They gave countless demonstrations, handed out loads of business cards, and even made some people dance!

I'm hoping Troy will add his perspective to this post and maybe some pictures too but don't hold your breath. As usual, it's a busy time for him.

Happy (Early) Birthday Troy!

On Saturday after the competition was over, Aurie and I joined Steve and Troy for an early celebration of Troy's birthday. Steve and Aurie paid for a nice hotel room for us all that was within walking distance to the Capital Ale House, which boasts the one of the largest selections of beer in Virginia--great idea Steve! There were something like 40 beers on tap. Troy was in heaven! And as you can see from this picture, I was pretty excited too (part of my enthusiasm was likely fueled by the Belgian beer that Troy ordered me--it was 10% alcohol).


We went on to sample a good quantity of beers and stumbled back to the hotel. In keeping with the pie tradition, I surprised Troy with birthday pie. This time it was key lime.

He liked it.

So did Steve and Aurie.

It was fun to spend a night hanging out with our good friends in Richmond! Even though it's only an hour or so away we haven't ventured there much.

We went out for brunch in a cute area called Careytown on Sunday. Troy ordered the "trailer park pancakes"--basically French toast sandwiches smothered with peanut butter and bananas. I guess it was a good, solid hangover cure for him. Thankfully, he didn't realize that there were $2 bloody Mary's until we were ready to get back on the road!

We happened upon a Penzey's Spices store after breakfast, which was really cool because I have mail ordered from them for years. I spent more money than I ever have on spices at one time but I'm pretty excited to use them!