Bike

Following Pablo's and Dave's great example, I decided to ride my bike to work this morning too. It was the first time I had been on the bike in quite some time, but it felt great!! It actually took me the same amount of time to get to work as it would with the bus.

A few weeks ago I bought a fancy Garmin watch that has a GPS and tracks my time and distance, and I wanted to share it with you, but truth be told I didn't read the directions and now I don't know if it's even possible to share the info through a link. I need to figure it out sometime, but not tonight. In short, I rode 11.6 miles (both ways combined) and it took me a little over an hour. That's all the stats I can share with you right now.

My mom and dad are here right now and between unpacking, shopping for the apartment and for them, and doing killer accounting homework, I've had a crazy week and I'm exhausted. Mom, dad and I went to Agami tonight for some sushi, and it's kind of funny how things have changed. I used to not eat sushi at all, and I was always the one who didn't know what to order and always had someone else order for me. Today I was the one ordering for my dad :)Tomorrow I have to go to Cincinnati for work and I have to get up at 5am. The good news is that I come back again tomorrow night so I get to sleep in my own bed. The bad news is that I have no blinds in my bedroom because I couldn't find any that I like yet, so it's not exactly dark in there in the morning.

So I'm off to bed.... Good night and sweet dreams.

Parents, Plays and Orlando

My parents were supposed to come today, but my mom just called me an hour ago to tell me that they were denied boarding because the flight was oversold. And when they arrived in Frankfurt (from Luxembourg) their flight to Chicago was already checked in full and there were no more seats. Tough luck. So they have to stay the night in Frankfurt and will arrive tomorrow morning. The good news is that they will each receive 600 Euro in cash or 700 Euro in Travel Vouchers, plus the hotel and meals until tomorrow morning are paid for. So at least it was worth it! And they already knew it was overbooked and had thought about volunteering anyway... so it wasn't really a big surprise.

In other news... Orlando Bloom is taking a break from making movies. I haven't discussed this with Nena yet, but I'm sure the two of us won't be very happy about this. Good for him for wanting to go back to the theather, but why does he have to choose a city so far away (London)? He could have done theather in Chicago!!

Speaking of theater... last night I went with Pablo to see his mom's and sister's play called the Hall of Hungry Ghosts, and I have to say it was great!! I loved it! It was very moving. It's only playing until sunday, but if you have the chance to go see it, you should. Check out the links for more information.

I had a very accomplished day today and wanted to share how proud of myself I am :)

First, I found yet another EXCELLENT sushi place today. Annabelle and I went to Friends Sushi on Rush and Erie today for lunch and had some great Tuna rolls. Crunchy, Creamy and with Avocado. Yum!!

After work I attended an open house at DePaul University to check out one of their Masters Programs. It was a great info session, but when I got home I was a little discouraged at the thought of another 2 years of school, not to mention another 30k of student loans (or whatever it will cost me). But I still want to do it... just have to figure out exactly which field because Business Management (my undergrad) is definitly out!

So after the slight frustration I decided to go to the gym to make up running the 6 miles Aaron made me miss on saturday morning. I got way too drunk and was way to hung over to get out of bed at 5.45am. I've been feeling guilty about not making it to the group run on saturday morning and I'm really happy I was able to do it tonight!! And to my delight my gym membership was still active.

Those were my accomplishments of the day :) I've been meaning to put up some pictures of the new place, but I've just been too busy. I promise I will get to it soon. My mom and dad are coming to visit on friday for two weeks, and I'm sure we'll get some pictures done then.

Last weekend in Annapolis

It's been a crazy week (Condo closing, packing, school work, Arthur visiting, etc...) and I've been meaning to post these pictures ever since I got back from visiting Susi and her boyfriend Matt in Annapolis. I was only there for one night, but it was so much fun!! Susi is one of my oldest friends - we established that we have known each other for almost 20 years!! She still lives in Germany and her and Matt met when he was stationed in Germany in the Army. Just after they met he was send over to Iraq. He's since lived in Germany with Susi for a while and has recently returned home to Annapolis because he left the Army.

To make a long story short, Susi was there visiting, and I decided to join them for the weekend. They have a gorgeous house on the bay, with a fun little golfcart, a cool bar, a big dog, and the family was over on saturday night to play poker. Good times!

Click on the link to see a few more pictures... Enjoy!

I will post more about the new home, the closing, etc after I move this weekend.

Are they kidding??

We put in a work order with the building today because it's been freezing in here!! It's like this all year long, but at least in the winter we're dressed for it.
During the past week, it's been so cold that we had a space heater on ALL DAY!!

Today an engineer from the building came up to our office and said he would fix it. An hour later we received an email with the closed work order... it said that he turned the heat up from 57 to 61 degrees!!! First of all... why is it only 57 degrees in here??? Second, how is turning it up to 61 helping?

AHHH!!!

This one is for you Susi :)

Since I can't post any pictures of the two of us, I'll tell you a story that I know you will appreciate. I don't know what made me think about THIS today, but I did...

Years ago I had the biggest crush on an American Figure Skater named Mark Michell. I have no idea how old I was, but my guess is somewhere around 13. I was a silly, naive German girl, and the United States were faaaar away. Plus I was only 13, so the chances of ever meeting my crush were slim to none. Besides, at that age, my crushes lasted about a month before I moved on to the next.

Fast foward 13 years...

I gave up Figure Skating when I moved to the U.S. at 16, and haven't even really been to many ice rinks since then. I had looong forgotten about Mark Mitchell and any other skater I ever had a crush on. But one day, while working for Lufthansa German Airlines in Boston, we crossed paths...

I was working the check in counter when a man came over and handed me his ticket. I didn't look at his name too closely as I was punching it into the computer, but as soon as I opened his passport I stopped. The guy didn't look familiar when he walked up to the counter, but the picture sure did! It was Mark Mitchell!! The funny thing is, I had only ever seen pictures of him, so I immediately recognized him on the picture, but the person in front of me didn't look familiar at all. To make sure it's him, I asked him if he used to be a figure skater, and he was surprised at the question, but said yes. I told him I used to be a skater too, and I used to always watch him skate on TV. We exchanged a few stories while I was checking him in, compared where we used to skate and who we knew, and I think I upgraded him to business class. He was still pretty damn hot, and he lived in the Boston area. But I didn't confess my crush.... The guy was OBVIOUSLY gay. :(

So that's my luck. Destiny brings my crush right to me, and he's gay!!?!?

But at least I will never have to wonder what would have been if I ever met Mark Mitchell :)

What's wrong with my scanner??

I just tried to scan in a picture of me and Susi today. Susi sparked my memories today with her comment about the times when we were skating, so when I got home tonight I looked at some of the pictures again and they made me laugh. But my scanner didn't want to cooperate... it won't scan anything. It's not recognizing my computer for some reason, although it's also my printer, and it prints just fine. Does anyone have suggestions??

"Hello, my name is Alvin"

This is Alvin. Alvin and I have just been all over town! We went to Uhaul to pick up some moving boxes, and then drove to Dominick's and did some serious grocery shopping.

Zipcar is God's greatest invention!!!

I have a Billboard!!

That's right...

Immigration Reform

There is a great discussion about Immigration happening on Pablo's blog.
Check it out... Post your opinions!

I made an interesting discovery today... Although I've only been running regularly for about a month, I can already tell that my endurance has gotten better! I've been taking a Cardio Strip class (yes!) every tuesday night, and by the end of the class each week, I was dead! I haven't been in class the last two weeks because I was out of town and had a root canal last week, and when I went today, it seemed easier than ever before!! I was so excited when I realized there are only five minutes left in the class, and although I was sweating, I wasn't totally out of breath :)

And given the type of moves I was doing... I couldn't help but wonder what all this would do to... em... other areas of my life that are always more fun when they last longer with less effort. Hmm....