Going Back To Cali

Sorry for the delay in posts. I'm actually on location in San Francisco this week for work. I generally travel here three times a year to work with the half of my team that is not in Milwaukee. The weather out here is average, mid 60's at best. I understand I've been missing some extremes back home with weather near 90 on Monday and downpours Tuesday.

Still, it's good to be out here for a change of pace. It can be boring a little though since I traveled out here by myself and most of my co-workers catch buses or trains home so they're not always up on hanging around the city after work. This time, I'm staying at The Palace hotel which is definitely nice, but a little snooty for my tastes. Plus the cheapskates don't even offer free internet access. What's up with that? You can charge me $200 a night and $8 for a banana but can't give me internet access? Come on folks.

One thing I always like when I'm here though is the walk to and from work. From The Palace (tight asses - sorry, I can't let it go) it's only about 2 city blocks from the office so it's a very quick walk but that doesn't prevent me from firing up the iPod. I love walked among the crowd of people with some Joseph Arthur or Peter Bjorn and John playing. It just feels like I have my own little personal movie soundtrack going on as I walk. Great, relaxing stuff.

(Except for all the aggressive bums around. They usually break me out of my relaxing trot.)

Have you ever had one of those encounters where you're walking one way and someone's coming the other and both of you try to move one way and you end up doing a little awkward two-step dance with the person to get by? I know you have, I have too. Well this morning I had that again this time with a pigeon. Yea that's right, a little flying rat. The thing was totally in my way and as I walked up I could tell the little bastard wasn't going to move so I made a move to my right and the thing walked right in my path! I went left guess what it did. I finally decided to bring to light my athletic prowess and leap over the rodent with wings. I even stuck the landing (!!)

I got a couple (sarcastic) laughs from other people walking nearby. That pigeon had nothing on me and my leaping ability. My joy was short lived though as I figured out I was probably being toyed with. There was yet another bum nearby that gave me a sly smile. I'm pretty sure the little gray rodent was his pet. Oh well. Next time I'll just kick the thing as I pass by.

The pigeon, not the bum.

5K and the Curse of the Cristo

As I eluded to earlier, Kirsten and I were in Indianapolis this past weekend participating in a big run called the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon. It's one of the largest half-marathons, if not the largest, in the world with 35,000 people participating. It's a weekend event really as we found out Friday afternoon when we got down there. We rode down with our friends Emmett & Julie and were to hitch a ride back with other friends Mark & Carmen who were coming down a little later than us. When we arrived around 2, tons of people were already in the convention center where you could pick up your registration packet and then go through the center where various sponsors had booths and were pimping their products and also giving away some free stuff. Pretty good time. I had no idea there are so many all-natural drinks out there. Some of which tasted like snake pee though. Gross.

Friday night we headed over to a restaurant called Bennigan's which is like an Applebees, or a TGI Fridays, only not as good. Time to carb load for the run early the next morning. Around the table we go placing our orders. And then we come to Emmett who orders.... The Monte Cristo.

From the Bennigan's Menu:
A delicious combination of ham and turkey, plus Swiss and American cheeses on wheat bread. Lightly battered and fried until golden. Dusted with powdered sugar and served with red raspberry preserves for dipping.

Yikes. The first sentence makes this out to seem like a delicious, healthy club sandwich. The second and third sentences destroy all possibility of that. He orders it, we all laugh.

The meals come and then we laugh even harder. This thing was ridiculous. First of all, they say it's "lightly breaded." Lightly breaded my ass. This thing has a good 1/4 inch of breading on it, deep fried and if that wasn't enough, it's covered in powdered sugar! I mean I'm all for being disgusting and eating things like chicken wings for every meal, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Emmett manages to knock down about a quarter of it before he started to lose consciousness. This "sandwich" has no business being on a menu anywhere in this fine nation of ours. Just gross.

The next morning we're up at 5 AM to get ready to go down to the race. (We were staying at a hotel outside of the city) and Mark, the one non-runner in our bunch, decides to be proactive and go get gas while we're still getting ready. Well he goes outside starts to back up the car and snap! breaks a strut and a spring on his car rendering it useless to us. The Curse of the Cristo is born.

Emmett & Julie swing by and pick us runners up while Mark has the unfortunate task of waiting until normal business hours to see if he can get his car fixed. (Our fingers were crossed since they were our ride back!) So we all pile into one car and head on downtown for the run.

The 35,000 or so half-marathoners get a move on including Emmett, Carmen and my lovely wife (all of whom completed the 13 mile trek with ease) and I wait with the 2000 or so people left for the 5K which includes morbidly obese people, retirees and me. Off we go...

... and I finished! My first 5K that I was able to run through to completion. I'm not sure why running comes so hard to me but it does so leave me alone. Next up for me, the 5K Storm the Bastille run this summer. Looking forward to it.

So we finish the run and, with perfect timing, the car has been fixed! So we go meet Mark, who has been at Midas and it's surrounding shops for the past 5 hours. Off we go, just need to stop for gas. Mark fills the tank and click! The car's battery is dead. The Curse of the Cristo continues. Back to Midas for a new battery.

We eventually get out on the road and make it back home, conquerors of the races but not quite conquerors of the Cristo.

sold!

Well, my first ever home purchase has now been bestowed upon someone else. We've sold my, er, our condo so the biggest hurdle has been overcome. We can now sit back and relax (and save money) until June 29 when we close on both the current condo and the new, more pimpin' one.

We are very excited to get to the new one. I'm sure June 29 will sneak up on us quick, especially since it's so soon after we get back from Bonnaroo!

Sorry for the short post, but today we were in Indianapolis for the Mini-Marathon (5K for me) so I'll be posting about that shortly because there is a ton of material from this 24 hour vacation.