It's not TV, it's HBO

On a sad, sad day a month ago I decided to cancel HBO in favor of saving some money. I was really bummed because I love Entourage and Real Time with Bill Maher. I figured Entourage is a show that I will be able to catch up on later, either on DVD or at friends houses who watch it too. But Real Time is more difficult because it discusses current events. And watching it a year later just doesn't have the same effect anymore.

Last night I found that Real Time with Bill Maher is available as a free Podcast on iTunes!! Oh happy day! And I downloaded and listened to it at work this morning...

Busy Busy

The last few days have been rather busy, but fun at the same time! It was supposed to start with a Red Sox Party on Saturday night, but I ended up not making it there. Sunday was Aaron's Farewell Party, since he is moving to Orlando on Wednesday. We had a BBQ on his roofdeck, followed by swing dancing at the Holiday Club on Irving Park. So much fun!! The view from his roofdeck (here with Aaron's friend Tom) is just amazing!!

Monday night we had a dinner at Cafe Iberico. One of my collegues from Miami is celebrating her 40th anniversary with Air France this month, and he was in town this week for a company meeting and her official anniversary celebration. She's been a life long Cubs fan, and last week our boss Silvio announced that he managed to get four tickets for the Cubs-Brewers Game for tuesday night. He got the tickets through a friend who is the manager of a few local radio stations. Since he was only able to get four tickets, he decided to take Carol for her anniversary, and Annabelle and myself as a going away present. We had no idea how good or bad the seats would be, and to our surprise and delight, the seats were amazing! In the eights row... close enough to almost smell the grass (and the Brewers sweat). ;)

In true Cubs Game tradition, Pablo was also at the game (it seems I only ever see Cubs games with Pablo). He and his friend Ron met up with me during the game sometime and we decided to get a drink later. Silvio told me his friend made sure we would have access to the Club Lounge (or whatever that bar is called), so after the game Pablo, Ron and I decided we would check it out. After some name dropping and spelling (S-C-H-M-I-D) we were in, although I don't think the name of actually on the list. Either way... we celebrated the Cubs win with another drink and then headed home...

The not so happy news of the weekend/week is that I somehow managed to injure my knee and I had to miss our 23 mile training run this weekend. I still went to the run to help out, and it was fun to be out there although from 6am until about 8am it was pouring like there's no tomorrow. Hopefully by next week I'll be back and I'll make up the 23 miles in two weeks just in time for the marathon in 5 weeks!

Seinfeld - The Switch

I love Seinfeld! Even if I have seen each and every episode about 10 times, they still make me laugh every time.

I love Chicago!!

Today I biked the Lakefront path from top to bottom and back. I did it to support the Chicago Parks District and their "Bike da Lakefront" program from Foster Beach to Rainbow Beach at 77th Street :) It's a total of 36 miles both ways. I've been wanting to do it all summer, and today seemed to be a perfect day for it (except the damn wind on the way back).

I wish I had brought a Camera along for the ride, because it was just gorgeous! Not only was it nice and sunny, but the airshow practice was going on, which was fun to watch. I must also say that to my surprise the South Side Lakefront is awesome!! The beaches are nice and clean, and not nearly as crowded as on the North Side. The view of the city if great, and the Bike Path is virtually deserted. Everything made for a perfect ride (again, except the wind) :)

This was Chicago at its best! And it once again confirmed that I live in the GREATEST City in the World!!!

To the Moon and back...

I found this website three days ago that lets you enter ever flight you have ever taken, and calculates all kinds of interesting info for you.
Unfortunately I don't know if this is 100% accurate. I have records of all my business trips, and remember where most of my personal trips went and why, and not when. So... this is what I came up with:

I have flown 510,428 Miles (821,454 km)
I have flown around the earth 20.5 times
I have flown to the moon 2.1 times
I have spent 1041:23 hours on a plane. That's 43.4 days. Or 6.2 Weeks. Or 1.45 Months.
Overall, I have been on 257 Flights. 128 of them Domestic, 8 Intra-Continental, 93 Intercontinental, and 28 others (which are probably Intra-European)

My longest flight ever was from San Francisco to Sydney (7,432 Miles = 13:47 hours). Although, my longest flight was really from Washington DC to Johannesburg, South Africa. But that doesn't really count as one flight because it stopped in Accra, Ghana although we didn't get to leave the airplane there.

My shortest flight was from Frankfurt to Luxembourg (109 Miles = 42min).
My average flight is 1,986 miles (4:03 hours).

My Number one Airport is Detroit (129 Flights started or ended there), followed by Boston (69 Flights) and Frankfurt (65 Flights). Chicago O'Hare is fourth with 59 Flights. I should say that I'm not sure how many of my flights went to O'Hare or Midway, so the Chicago airports total is 77, which would make it my number 2.

My number one Route is Detroit - Frankfurt - Detroit (for obvious reasons... my family lives there and I worked for Lufthansa in Detroit). My number two is Detroit - Boston - Detroit (in part due to a 1 year long distance relationship).

To my surprise, my number one airline is Northwest! Guess it comes with living in Detroit. Plus those Detroit - Boston flights were always on Northwest. I have flown with them on 67 flights. Lufthansa is second with 39 Flights.

I have flown 113 different routes to 13 different countries, 42 different airports, and I have traveled on 19 different airlines.

The stats about my flight class are incorrect because I don't remember what I have flown. For the most part, I travel in Business Class between the US and Europe, and travel in Coach domestically. Although I do have some flights in First Class for both as well.

A little statistic this website of course doesn't capture is that most of these flights were free!! :) Most of them were business trips, free passes from other airlines, or even ID90 tickets (airline employee tickets that cost 10% of the fare). Maybe 10% were actual real tickets from before I worked for an airline.

I love this website!! And if the info above wasn't enough for you, click on the link to see a map of all my flights...

Half Marathon

Woohoo!!

I ran the Chicago Distance Classic today! My running buddy David ditched me last minute because he couldn't bring himself to leave Market Days yesterday to go pick up his race packet. So I was left to run on my own. Or rather, I joined another Aids Marathon Group.

Long story short... the race was awesome! Since this was my first long distance race (I've only done 5K's until now) my goal was modest: to finish! I ended up finishing it in just over 2:40. Not bad for someone who's never run before :) I'm proud!

Fastest Money I've ever made...

Yep! I made $100 in about 5 minutes today. A few weeks ago I signed up online with Adler Weiner Research Company to do market research surveys. They're on the same floor as my office, so I always see people going in and out of there. Although I was a bit skeptical at first, within a few days I got my first email inviting me to do a study. I couldn't go because it was the day I left for Germany, but I soon got two more emails for different studies on different dates.

So today was my first one. It was a study on Oral Care, would take about 45 minutes, and I would be paid $100 cash. Awesome!! At the scheduled time, I went over and took a seat in the waiting area until my name was called. I then went into a meeting room with a girl who explained the process to me, and then asked me a couple of questions about mouthwash. Then she said she was waiting for something that she needs for the survey (visuals I assumed) and she would have to go see if they are there yet. When she walked in a minute later, she apologized because the materials had not come in yet, and therefore she would have to let me go. And here's the best: I STILL GOT PAID!! Woohoo :)

On another note, I had a second interview with a company two days ago. I think it went pretty well, but I'll have to wait and see. If all works out, I will hopefully have a new job September 1st.
Not much else has happened since I got back from Germany. I ran 20 miles on saturday, and that pretty much killed my weekend. Walking was out of the question the rest of the day. This Sunday David and I are running the Half Marathon, which should be fun!

Oh, and I know I said I would post about my Germany trip soon, but there's really not much to report. I came down with a wicked cold the day of my cousin's wedding, and it was quite miserable, but I did get to spend some time with my little cousins which was fun as they are now getting to an age where they at least remember who the hell I am and what we did the last time I was in town. Here are a few pictures from the wedding and of Duesseldorf. And I made friends with the photographer at the wedding, and he just emailed me and said he would send me some pictures soon. I'll post them whenever I get them.

"If you could live an eternity and not change a thing or exist for the blink of an eye and alter everything, what would you choose?"

Moment

--

Let him wish his life

For the sorrows of a stone

Never knowing the first thread

Of these

Never knowing the pain of ice

As its crystals slowly grow

Needles pressing in on the heart

--

To live forever

And never feel a thing

To wait a million lifetimes

Only to erode and become sand

Wish not for the stone

But for the fire

Last only moments

But change everything

--

Oh to be lightning

To exist for less than a moment

Yet in that moment

To expose the world to every open eye

Oh to be thunder

To clap and ring

To rumble into memories

Minds and spines

--

To chill the soul and share the very ground

Pounding even the sand

Into smaller pieces

Or the mountain

Brooding, extinct

Yet gathering for one fatal moment

The power to blow the top clean off the world

Oh to last the blink of an eye and leave nothing

But nothing unmoved behind you

--
- Vincent Guilliano

Where do our taxes go?

http://www.truemajorityaction.org/oreos/contest.php

Good deed of the day...

Two weeks ago I read in the paper that there was a blood shortage in Chicago. Wanting to help out, I convinced Annabelle to go and donate blood with me after my trip to Germany. We made an appointment and today for lunch we set off to do our good deed and donate blood.

I've given blood only once, and it was many many years ago in Germany, so I kinda knew what to expect. They asked a lot of questions, for example about countries we traveled to, if we are prostitutes, if we are men who have ever had sex with other men, or if we ever had sex with a man who had sex with another man. One of the questions asked if we had been to Africa, South America or if we ever spent more than however long in the U.K. or in Europe. If anything, I thought I would be turned down for having traveled to Costa Rica in the past 6 months. But that apparently wasn't a problem. Then I was asked where I had traveled to in Africa, and having been in South Africa two years ago wasn't a problem either. Great! I thought that was it and I was good to go.

But not so fast... The nurse then asked about the time I spent in Europe since 1977, and I told her I was born in Germany and lived there until 1995. THAT of all things disqualified me from donating blood. Ever! I couldn't understand why that would disqualify me, so when I asked her, the answer was "Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease" (aka Mad Cow Disease). ....Oh.

Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease is very rare, and occurs only in 1 out of a million people. If you have the disease, you will live an average of 4 months, up to a maximum of a year. It's always fatal and there is no cure. I think it's safe to say that if I haven't lived in Europe for 12 years, and I haven't died yet, I probably don't have it. But... for the rest of my life... I will have been exposed to the risk and will therefore be banned from donating blood. (except in Europe, where apparently it isn't a problem that you've spent more than 5 years there).

Aside from Europeans, gay men, and people who have EVER in their life visited a list of Central African countries are excluded from donating blood. People who have traveled to South America or have spent longer periods of time there also seemed to be disqualified, although I didn't get any info on this since it didn't apply to me.

No wonder there is a blood shortage....