solar squirrel

Three Sisters: Me, Gretchen, Ashley (friend), and Katy

Friday was my sister Gretchen’s 20th birthday.  Thinking back I can’t even remember my 20th birthday…I must have been right in the middle of some crazy semester at school, trying to work and handle a full-time CS undergrad load.  I do remember my 21st birthday, though.  I had a huge test the next day - I think in either Calc II or DSAII (Data Structures and Algorithms — good lord, it could have been both I took them the same semester…)  Anyway - I remember being incredibly frustrated because I had to spend so much time studying and working on programming assignments when it seemed like a lot of the other majors were going out and having fun.  I remeber thinking - that’s ok - after I have my degree it will all be worth it.

Since then I have realized that sometimes it’s just best to live in the moment.  Who knows what would have happened if I would have partied through college (I would have probably failed a lot of classes and had to graduate later.)  Certain things require dedication and responsibility, but there isn’t this binary black and white border.  There are some greys that I really missed out on because I was so dedicated to school back in the day.  (I was valedictorian of my high school class, too).  Who knows what my life would be like now if I would have spent more time doing ‘fun’ stuff…  Things are different now - even though my GPA is pretty good at Case (3.7), I know I could have a solid 4.0 if I really tried.  I don’t care that much about it anymore, though.  What good is it to spend that extra time?  If it’s between hanging out with my family and friends or having a 3.7 vs. a 4.0 I’m taking the B every now and then!  Getting laid off has really taught me that success means more than job title, grade point average, and your salary.  It’s your overall LIFE that matters; your health; your happiness; your satisfaction with your accomplishments both career and personal.  It’s too bad that it took me a while to realize these things, but I feel like I know a secret now…one that’s so obvious but so hard to realize.

So - we went to the Melting Pot for dinner.  If you’ve never been there I recommend NOT going there for dinner, but instead dessert.  Dinner is overpriced and not very good (they give you raw meat/seafood and you cook it in this pot of broth on your table).  The dessert is also overpriced, but the experience is fun and it’s very tasty.  We decided to do this thing where you get an appetizer, salad, entree, and dessert.  It was $88 per couple.  (I told Gret she could get whatever she wanted).  Here are some pictures:

Spinach and artichoke cheese appetizer

Entree plates (each couple gets one) with seafood and meats

Dessert! 2 pots of different flavored chocolate and plates with strawberries, marshmallows, rice crispy treats, brownies, bananas, and cheesecake!

And yes, we did eat ALL of it!  I may have eaten more of the dessert plate than Gretchen did!  It was nice, though, because going here is more of an event than most dining.  We were there for close to 3 hours.  It was fun to have tons of time to talk and have fun in-between the courses.  We took lots of pictures of each other and at one point were being really silly and taking fake myspace pictures.  (If you have a myspace acct you know what I’m talking about — the over the head self-portrait where you’re trying to look good - yet another reason to make fun of myspace.)  Oh - and no, I won’t be posting those. 

I was out pretty late, but decided I really HAD to get in a long run and there was no way I was doing it by myself so I decided to run w/ SERC .  Daisy and Espeed are too fast for me and Barb was only doing 10, so I joined Dawn and Rich at the 6 mile mark.  They were planning on doing 20 and they weren’t going too fast for me so I ran with them.  They are great to run with because they talk most of the time and made the miles go by pretty fast.  Towards the end I was pretty tired though and barely made it up the big hill in the park.  Luckily Rich gave me one of his gu’s or I would have likely died because I was expending so many calories trying to stay warm!  Man it was frigid!  The wind was crazy and it was snowing pretty steadily so my fleece was soaked from the melting snow.  My eyelashes were covered with snow and ice and I could barely see!  Rich said my ponytail was like a barometer or something because it had so much snow on it that it was an indication of how long we had been running.  I know neither one of them read my blog - but they are such great runners and I’m really appreciative that they ran with me.  (They’ve both done many ultras including hundred milers).  I’m so happy to get that 20-miler over with.  Now I feel like I’m really training.  Let’s see where the rest of the weeks take me!

Woke up to a blizzard as I’m sure everyone already is aware of.  One of the great things about not having a job is that you don’t have to worry about driving to work!  Hopefully I’ll find a job soon, but in the mean time I’m keeping myself busy with school-related things.  (Yesterday interviewed someone from E4S and worked on business plan).

Today is Todd’s birthday, so I drove down to Akron to see him.  We were going to go ice skating, but they closed the park and didn’t clear off the ice pond so we opted for X-Country skiing!

My first try at xcountry skiing

We were the first people to make tracks on the towpath.  It was so quiet and beautiful.

Self-portraits in the snow

It was Todd’s 3rd time that day playing in the snow.  When he found out Akron was closed he went snow-shoeing, shoveled his entire driveway, and then went skiing for the first time!  No wonder he’s so fit!

Today is going on our third full day in Oregon visiting with Todd’s family.

Todd looking out at the winter snow

Yesterday we woke up to a winter wonderland!  It was so beautiful and white.

Looking out over the back yard

Todd’s sister and nephew were going to drive back north and before they left I decided that we should have a snowball fight - 2 against one - Todd’s 11-year old nephew and I against him.  Hee hee.  I didn’t get any pictures of the fight but it was pretty fun.

My running has been non-existent but here is a rundown on my ‘exercise’ so far during the trip:

Saturday 12/13:  Sat on a plane all day, then drove 4.5 hours from Portland to Grants Pass
Sunday  12/14:  Played in swimming pool.  Tried to drown Todd by standing on him while he was under water (sorry Brian, it didn’t work)
Monday 12/15: Snowball fight with perfect snowball snow.  Built a snowman with rock eyes, pine cone nose, and branch mouth and arms.  The 2nd snowman that was built was smashed when Todd threw his nephew on top of it.

We’ll be here till the 22nd.  I’ll probably be taking more pictures and posting fun updates.  Stay tuned.

Oh E-Speed - if Wii Fit counts as exercise, so does snowball fighting!!!

The past few days have been action-packed and full of fun.  Here’s a quick review:

My weekend started on Thursday night because I decided to take Friday off of work.  I got out of class and took my time getting home and when I got home I stayed up later than usual laying around and watching episodes of The Office that I’ve rented on Netflix.  I slept in on Friday and got some errands done and then around 7pm got ready for my own personal ’spider walk’ with Todd.  Todd does a spider walk for the public every year, but I had to miss it this year because of class, so Todd promised me my own personal spider walk.  I decided to invite Joe F. from work and his family since they didn’t get to make it either.  We had a fun time wandering around the park in the dark and finding spiders:

This one is an Argiope that is actually pretty common.  Elizabeth took this picture today, but we found it on Friday during our walk.  It’s so fat!  We even got to see it poop!  I didn’t even know spiders pooped!  LOL!  Friday night ended pretty early because Todd and I had to get up super early (4:30 a.m.!!!) for the Akron Marathon.  Todd did the full marathon and I was part of an all female 5-person relay team - Five Fast Femme-Fatale Freaks.  I was hoping for our team to come in top 3 (we got 2nd place last year).  I had the 3rd leg - a 10k - and I was hoping for around 7-min miles.  For some reason I wasn’t thinking strait and Janet got there earlier than I was expecting so I had to hurry up and drop my stuff and sprint to the relay exchange point.  (Seems to be a common theme for me this year…)  Anyway - my 10k went pretty well.  I was hoping to be sub 7 pace, but it wasn’t happening and I ended up with a 7:04 pace - which IS a new PR for me!  We took 2nd place female team overall and celebrated by hanging out in the awesome weather and drinking the free beer.  Todd looked awesome at the finish and had negative splits the 2nd half.  (I Think his time was 3:27 - and he felt great and didn’t even try).

I’m finishing up this post 2 weeks late but stay tuned for the Tow Path marathon recap coming soon!!!!!

Yesterday afternoon (4pm) I’m staring at my computer screen trying to figure out the SRU code that I generated for the DSP that I’m working with.  It is super exciting, let me tell you - and Marcus sametime’s me (sametime is like an instant messenger).  He tells me about this Hermes race that is going on for Cinco de Mayo at the Blind Pig downtown.  It looked fun - there was no predefined ‘course’ because it was like a scavenger hunt, and you had a ‘green card’ that you had to take with you to different checkpoints.  The person who got to all of the checkpoints the fastest was the winner.  It started at 7pm and we still had time to register, so we decided to leave work and meet there.

I registered us and got our map and our ‘green card’.  There were 3 checkpoints - to get to all of them and return back to Blind Pig was about a 4 mile run.  At each of the checkpoints you had the choice of either doing a shot, drinking a beer, or doing a Mexican hat dance (wtf is a Mexican hat dance??).  At 7pm they lined everyone up and then let a new team start every 10 seconds.  When we were up Marcus takes off at like a 6:30 pace (I was wearing my Garmin) towards the first checkpoint - “Tower 230″, I think it was named.  Marcus thought he knew where it was, but as we ran past some people sitting outside they were like “where’s your stuff?”…eventually we realized that we had passed wherever it was we were supposed to go - and we ran back - it took us a while to find the place, but we finally did and when we got there - without even thinking - we each did a shot of tequila.  Yea.  BAD MOVE on my part.  My stomach was burning as we raced out and headed towards checkpoint #2, The Clevelander.  (Did I mention that we  each got a fake mustache at checkpoint #1 - we must have looked SO RIDICULOUS!!!) We FLY there - go in and I basically KNOW that I will throw up if I do another shot or drink beer - so I’m like “I don’t drink” and they put this sombrero on me and give me some maracas and made me to a “Mexican Hat Dance” for 30 sec.  Omg - I am so sure I looked like a complete freak!!  I was wearing pink running shorts and a sombrero (and a fake mustache that I stuck to my shirt so it wouldn’t fall off) - need I say more?  Hell no.  Marcus does the shot - probably because he realized how ridiculous I looked and didn’t want to do the same!  Checkpoint 3 didn’t require drinking but we got a sombrero to carry back with us to prove we were there.  We hauled back to the Blind Pig and were greeted at the finish line with, of course, a Corona!  Ha!  I just wanted some water!! 

It was actually really fun now that I am writing about it - but my stomach felt awful.  Both of us were just like - uuuuggggghhhh.  The Spazmatics (sp?) were playing and it was a pretty cool time!  We stayed for another beer (and I asked a midget for a lime!!) and then headed out at about 10 pm. 

When I got home I took 2 tums and went to bed.  Tequila shots and road racing seriously do not mix.

My friend Joe who used to work at Philips with me (and was my running partner at work) mentioned a few weeks ago that Kenneth Thomas was going to be at Traffic Nightclub the last Fri. of Feb. (Yesterday). I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to go out dancing with my good friend or miss out on some good trance music so I said HELL YEA! We had a blast! Since E-Speed didn’t have a husband for the night, she decided to tag along too, so it was the three of us.

We met at Joe’s house at 9:30 and then all drove together in my car downtown. First of all - E-Speed looked HOT! She was wearing this cute scarf on her head and a black tank top with jeans that made her look perfect (note to self - try to tone up butt and thighs so I can wear cute pants like that). We should have gotten a picture! (There was this chick there who was taking photos for this spotted cleveland website, but who knows if those pictures will get posted…besides it was dark and foggy in there so you couldn’t really see us.) When we got there it was pretty much empty - but hey we had to get there before 11 to get in for free, and I am all about free! I ordered a $10 martini (yikes!) and got E-Speed one, too. Joe was drinking a glowing gin and tonic. (tonic water glows in black light - it’s pretty neat!) We were freezing cold and I happened to notice that the VIP room had something that looked like the flames of a fireplace, so we headed in there. We stood by the fireplace and chatted and drank our drinks while we waited for the music to speed up so we could get our dance on. I decided to get a beer (my second and last drink since I was the D.D.) and while I was standing at the bar this gross drunkard stumbled up to me w/ 2 red bull and vodkas and tried to give me one - yea right. I shot him down quickly (and nicely, no need to be rude to the poor idiot) and he left. We hung out in the VIP room a bit longer and then headed out for some dancing!

The music was pretty good and it didn’t take long before I was a sweaty mess. (I am SO glad I wore my hair up). Oh - haha - one other funny thing - I wore running shoes so that I could dance without having my feet tire out after an hour - E-Speed attempted to make fun of me but I know I looked good! (well, in my own mind…). It was pretty funny because it seemed like there were way more guys there than girls but the girls that were there were a good mix between the usual buffy-bud lite drinking- marlboro-lite smoking -let me dance on the pole with my friend so guys will look at me - kind and actually girls that looked and acted more ‘normal’. At one point this guy that had been dancing next to us brought me over a drink (yet another red bull and vodka) and I politely told him that I was the D.D. so he proceeded to give it to Joe! He seemed cool, though, he wasn’t trying to hump me. A word of advice, guys - do NOT under ANY circumstances EVER try to dance with a girl like that. If she’s a girl worth actually dating she will deny you immediately hence ruining your chances to further any relationship. Plus - that is not how you dance to trance music. (Go next door to the velvet dog if that’s what you’re looking for.)

After dancing non-stop for about 3 hours we decided to go. (I think we left at about 2 a.m.). Man, I really needed that. I think I’m going to have to try to go out once a month so I don’t forget how fun it is! Next time I think I’m going to rent a limo and get all the running girls to go. Oh - and bring a camera!