Denver!

I’m in Denver! As usual, I found out last minute that they wanted me here ASAP. Since we had Tigers tickets on Monday night, I agreed to flying out on Tuesday. Then the game got rained out… I’m supposed to be here for three weeks, with the possibility of more. At least they are letting me fly home every weekend (though Brad has to work every Saturday in May, so that sucks)

Denver is nice; I somehow expected it to seem really different, but it doesn’t – maybe because from downtown you can’t really see the mountains. There is an entire street that is closed to traffic called the 16th St Mall with tons of shops and restaurants of all varieties, so a nice place to take a walk and pick out a restaurant for dinner.

Our office is huge – 2 entire floors of the building. Our project is enormous – there are 3 others here from out of town to help, so having company is different. We’ve been doing lunch and a few dinners together, which I think has made this trip easier – not having to always eat alone makes a big difference and we try not to talk too much about work. So far my food highlights have been: an amazing smoked duck sandwich, getting to have my favorite dragonfruit mojito at Rock Bottom, and trying Indian food for the first time (at a food court!)

I’m really excited to head home tonight for a busy weekend – though I hear the weather has been crazy and as of this morning we didn’t have power at my house…

Opening Weekend

For some reason Tigers Opening Day was a Thursday this year (normally it is Friday) and so Brad and I took Thursday and Friday off and made it a 4 day weekend. Thursday morning started off a little slow – our cab was late and traffic was bad, but we made it downtown to meet up with friends at Greektown Casino by 10:30am. Brad played some blackjack and managed to win exactly what we spent on the cab ride and decided that was a perfect place to quit. After that we met up with his dad for a drink, and then it was already 12:15 and we headed to the park. The crowd was really pumped up – lots of cheering for the Tigers line-up – except for Brandon Inge, who got booed, which made me smile! (Seriously – he is a mediocre player who occasionally pulled out a clutch move and yet people loved him. When he would get big cheers during the starting lineup announcements last year, I always wanted to yell – “Why are you people cheering for a guy whose batting average is sub .200?” So, the booing made me smile.) The new scoreboard is huge and amazing – though I will miss the goofy graphics they had for the old low-tech one. As usual, it was cold and we got tired of the wind and the crowds and left during the 8th inning. Since phones don’t really work inside the park during opening day (so annoying) we didn’t find out till we had left the stadium that Brad’s friends were at the MGM casino. We went over there for 10 minutes – Brad declared it “boring” I declared myself “hungry” and we decided the best remedy for both of those things was to head back to Royal Oak. We met up with the girls from The Nine, ordered some pizza and were having a great time. I was drinking what was my 4th drink of the whole day, when I started feeling a little nauseous. I figured I was just super hungry and waited for our pizza. I ate the crust off of a piece of pizza, but kept feeling worse and worse. I felt so bad that gave up and went home – walked into my bathroom, threw up immediately and spent the next 6 hours throwing up everything I tried to eat or drink and shivering and sweating with a fever. I have no idea what was wrong with me – it wasn’t too much drinking – I had 4 drinks over 6 hours, I don’t think it was food poisoning since Brad and I ate all the same things that day, and I think it was over too fast for the stomach flu. Brad can home around midnight and made me some mac and cheese that I managed to eat a little of and then I finally fell asleep. The next day I felt a little weak, but otherwise fine…

Obviously, I didn’t do much on Friday – just lots of resting, though we did make a trip to Olive Garden for soup, salad and bread sticks for lunch!

Saturday morning I made it to the Royal Oak Farmers Market for the first time this year to look at plants and get yummy bread.  I didn’t end up getting any plants there, but went a little crazy buying a bunch of “hardy perennials” at a local nursery.  I’m loving the early spring – I’ve done so much work in the gardens already this year.  I’m hoping that the early start will let me make a dent in that insanely invasive vine I’ve been battling – my neighbors probably think I’m crazy, but every other day I’m out in the garden with a huge container of Round-Up spraying every little bit of vine that I see peeking out.  Saturday night we finally went to see the Hunger Games.

Sunday was our second Tigers game of the season, and it was…annoying?  The woman next to me talked so much I don’t think she had time to breathe, there was a guy behind us that kept yelling random stuff at the players (we started calling him Drunk Uncle – from SNL) I went on a 30 minute odyssey to get an Italian sausage with onions and peppers and ended up with a kielbasa, it was cold and the game was sloooooow.  The first 1 1/2 innings took an hour and it didn’t get better from there.  So, at the top of the 9th, with the Tigers loosing, we left.  We heard the roar all the way over in Greektown when they tied the game and saw the winning run get hit while sitting on our couch at home – almost 5 hours after the game started!

Cruise!

Hey – I went on a cruise!

One of Brad’s best friends got married on a cruise ship  and we went along for the trip.  I wrote this really long letter for my family and then thought maybe you guys would want to hear about it too.

 We were on the Carnival Glory out of Miami – left the 4^th got back the 11^th and did what is considered a western Caribbean itinerary.  I took close to 500 pictures – if you want to check them out they are here, but be warned – they aren’t labeled and there is an entire page of boring, unfocused or too dark wedding photos  

Day 0 – Saturday the 3rd
We flew into Miami on Saturday afternoon, had an uneventful night and went to bed early to be ready for an early morning on Sunday.

Day 1 – Sunday the 4th – Miami
Because we were attending a wedding on the ship we had to be at the port, dressed for the wedding, by 10am for VIP boarding. We were hustled through by some drill sergeant like wedding coordinators, who, once they were assured that all wedding attendees were on the ship, whisked the bride off and left us to our own devices till the wedding. We explored the ship, had some drinks, had lunch at the buffet and enjoyed the sun on the Lido Deck. Then it was off to the “Green Room” for the short but really nice wedding ceremony. After that was a reception with some awesome hors d’oeuvres (I think I ate an entire plate of prosciutto with melon) and a really yummy cake. All of a sudden it was 3pm and the non-sailing guests had to leave, and the rest of us finally got to check out our rooms.

Brad and I had gone all out and gotten a balcony room and it was amazing! Unlike the interior cabins, we actually had room to move around, even a couch and coffee table, plus the balcony had 2 lounge chairs and a little table.  We had everyone come to our cabin for a little setting sail party and watched the mansions of Miami slide past as the Glory pulled out to sea. Then it was off to the onboard steak house for a wedding celebration dinner followed by karaoke, comedy club and then crashing into bed after a whirlwind of a day.

Day 2 – Monday the 5th – Fun Day at Sea (or so Carnival says)

Bright and early at 8am, our friend Marc showed up to see if we wanted breakfast. It was during breakfast, staring at a plate of mushy scrabbled eggs that it dawned on me that the reason that I felt so horrible was only partially from everything I had drank the night before. I had figured that since I get sick in just about every other moving vehicle, that boats would be no exception. But the first night, after setting sail, I had felt only some slight wooziness that dissipated as the evening went on, and I was excited to think that I wasn’t going to suffer from sea sickness. Unfortunately, it seems we were experiencing some windy weather and the boat was rocking and pitching a lot, and I felt horribly nauseous. I went back to bed. After a little more sleep, I realized that I felt 80% okay if I was laying down, so I packed up my beach bag and went to go lay in a deck chair and read books in the sun on the main deck.

The big excitement on the ship that afternoon was when we suddenly slowed down and started turning. Apparently the crew had spotted a vessel that appeared to be in distress and was not responding to radio contact. We reached them just as we found out that the crew had already been evacuated (you can read about it here: http://www.newstimes.com/business/press-releases/article/Amver-Cruise-Ship-Rescues-2-Sailors-3396496.php) 

I made it to dinner that night, but since the dinning room is it the back of the boat the motion of the ship was more pronounced and I didn’t have much fun. To my surprise, I found out I wasn’t the only sick one – the groom’s sister had only left her cabin for about 10 minutes all day and I was the only one feeling sick that hadn’t thrown up. Yay me? Since we had the late seating for dinner it was almost 10 pm by the time we were done and I gave up and took my seasick self to bed. 

Day 3 – Tuesday the 6th – Cozumel, Mexico

Thankfully, when I woke up on Tuesday morning, we were pulling into dock at Cozumel. I sat on the balcony and watched the Royal Caribbean boats Mariner of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas and the Carnival Triumph dock next to us. Brad and I didn’t have a plan for the day, but Marc had found a beach resort called Mr. Sanchos that had all you could eat and drink for one price, so we went along with him, and that turned out to be a great time. We lounged on the beach, played in the ocean, ate our weight in some really great, fresh Mexican food and had some tasty frozen drinks. After that it was nap time back on the boat, dinner and then one of my favorite discoveries of the trip – Movies Under the Stars. The ship has a large video screen on the main deck by the pool, and every night they show 2 movies. So, I curled up on a deck chair, wrapped myself in my bathrobe (it was so windy and cold!) and watched While you were Sleeping as we sailed to Costa Maya. 

Day 4 – Wednesday the 7th – Costa Maya, Mexico

Costa Maya is weird. It was built to be an alternative port to Belize to deal with congestion and there is basically nothing there that wasn’t built for cruise ships. We had the worst weather of the cruise that day – very, very windy and a lot of water based excursions were canceled. Fortunately for Brad and I, we were headed out on a land based excursion to see the Mayan ruins at Chacchoben. At Chacchoben there are some ruins that you can climb on (but not very far up) and our guide was really good and informative. That night, the water was so rough that only about half of our group made it to dinner. I only made it through the appetizer and 2 bites into my entrée before I decided that I rather be in bed, too, though I did get up later to go watch the movie

Day 5 – Thursday the 8th – Isla Roaton, Honduras

Roatan was my favorite port – it was so beautiful! We arranged for a little bus with a tour guide to take our whole group on a tour of the island – we did some sightseeing, toured a botanical garden, got to play with monkeys and parrots and went to the beach. And when the ship pulled out of port that night the wind and waves were finally calmer and I felt great for the rest of the cruise! 

Day 6 – Friday the 9th – Grand Cayman

In Grand Cayman there is no dock for cruise ships, so we had to take tender boats ashore, which was a fun little boat ride. It was hot – sweating in the shade hot, so I was really glad that we had booked a water excursion for that morning. Our excursion was snuba diving – like scuba diving, but with the air tank on a small raft on the surface and a 30 foot hose connecting you to it. It was so much fun – we saw tons of fish (even barracudas!) some lobster, swam over a ship wreck, and it was over way too soon! After that we all went to the beach, which was beautiful but still really, really hot.

Day 7 – Saturday the 10th – Fun Day at Sea

This was actually just as Carnival says – a fun day at sea. I sat in the sun for 5 hours and finished an entire book. I ate 6 different times – room service breakfast, buffet breakfast, dessert buffet, taco bar, sushi and dinner in the main dining room! Then it was time to pack up our suitcases and get ready for the return to Miami. 

Day 8 – Sunday the 11th – Miami

I couldn’t sleep and got up around 5:30 and went out on the balcony and you could already see Miami in the distance. We arrived at the port before the sun was up and had a quick breakfast before heading off of the ship. Because we had a late flight (5:40pm) we had booked one last excursion for that morning in Miami – a tour in the Everglades. We were off the ship and on a bus by 8:30am and on an airboat in the Everglades an hour later. The boat ride and tour were a lot of fun – we saw lots of alligators, even a mom and her babies, turtles and tons of different kinds of birds. After an hour of zipping around the Everglades on an airboat, they dropped us at the airport for 5 hours of waiting for our massively overbooked flight, that then boarded and took off late, but finally got us back to Detroit :

Illness x2

Until I was around 10, I got strep throat all the time. More than once, I even had to have shots of antibiotic in my butt because the pills weren’t working. This may have started the whole fear of needles thing – I do remember being terrified and sobbing and just being one of those pain in the ass kids that I’m sure the nurses love to deal with. And at some point, I guess it just stopped, because I haven’t had strep since….until this weekend.

I had been feeling run down all week, and then Friday night my throat really started to hurt. I figured I just had a cold and took it easy on Saturday. But Saturday night my sore throat went from “a little sore” to “searing, fiery pain.” It was so bad that I kept waking up every hour all night. I knew then that this wasn’t “just a cold” and dragged myself to the CVS Minute Clinic for a strep test (as an aside, the Minute Clinic was awesome – open at 10am on a Sunday, no wait and takes my insurance!) An hour later I had a positive strep test, a prescription for antibiotics, and just about every pain killing throat spray and lozenge that CVS carries. Having strep throat sucks – I don’t remember it being this bad when I was a kid. It was a good thing that Brad worked all weekend and then super late on Monday because I would have been pretty annoying to be around. By Tuesday night I had finally turned the corner to really feeling better and Wednesday I finally went back to work.

While curled up on the couch, moaning in pain, I did get to catch up on some TV shows that I had saved on the DVR and watch some movies. I finally saw Pan’s Labyrinth, a Spanish movie that I have been wanting to see for ages. I really liked it – weird and tragic and wonderfully strange.

But then comes along part 2 of the bad news….the wonderful penicillin has apparently been doing a great job of killing all the bacteria in my body because now I have a yeast infection! Arrrgg – I just want to be 100% healthy!

Books!

I’ve been doing a lot more reading this year – mostly due to all the travel I’ve been doing.  It is so much easier to find time to ready when I’m stuck in a hotel/plane/train/etc.

So far I’ve finished:

Moneyball – written by the same guy who wrote the Blindside (which I read last year and loved – much, much better than the movie)  Moneyball was pretty good, definitely a book for those into either the culture of sports (me) or statistical analysis (not really me)  Saw the movie after I finished the book.  The Blindside was better, both the movie and the book.

The Hunger Games – Loved, loved, loved this book.  But mostly because 15 year-old me would have been obsessed with it.  Strong teenaged girl battling to survive in dystopian future?  It is like they asked a teenaged me what would be the perfect book.  In fact, there was a similar book, The Girl from the Emeraline Island, that I loved, and reread a lot as teenager.  The Hunger Games isn’t great literature, but it is an engaging and fast read and I’m looking forward to the movie.

And I’ve started:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – it is slow, but I like it.  I read a review that said something along the lines of it reads like stage directions, and I can see that – lots of descriptions of people’s outfits and food and the layout of rooms.  I wanted to read it before the movie came out just because I always think that seeing the movie first can ruin the book, but that the book rarely ruins the movie.

Make the Bread, Buy the Butter  – this is half cookbook and half the author’s story about losing her job and deciding to do more “from scratch” cooking.  I’m really interested in finding things that are better/cheaper if made at home, so this seemed right up my alley – surprisingly, it is also totally hysterical.  This book goes much further than I ever will – they end up raising chicken and goats, but I will admit that smoking my own bacon does kind of appeal to me…

Catching Fire – this is the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy.

Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World – my mom got me interested in mindfulness meditation a few years ago, it is supposed to be very good at helping you deal with stress and depression.  I even went as far as to sign up for a meditation class, that I dropped out of after 2 weeks because I was too busy and stressed with work (ironic, no?)  The book is a little heavy on the “meditation is amazing” and the dopey illustrative stories about how it has helped people, but I do believe in the practice of meditation, so I’m mostly focusing on the “8 week plan” part.

WTF?!?

Do any of you guys use LinkedIn? I have a profile that I set up and then didn’t do anything with for 6 months. The other day I got a request to link with someone I work with, so today I logged in to accept the request. Just like Facebook, LinkedIn will suggest people you might know and want to connect to.

It suggested 3 people:
1) a current co-worker
2) someone I worked with frequently at another company a few years ago
3) an ex-boyfriend from 10 years ago!

 
I have not talked to this ex since before I took this job, he has never (as far as I know) had my email address at this job , we do not work in the same industry, and I really don’t want to be in contact with him. It is really freaking me out that LinkedIn somehow connected us. He does know #2 on that list above and we did both go to Tech, but I’m sure there are a lot more people that meet both those criteria that LinkedIn should be suggesting.

 
Ah, the joys of technology….

Fall?

Hey! What happened to fall? I seem to have missed most of it….

I spent the end of September going to baseball games, 2 weeks of October in Jacksonville, Florida for work (which was incredibly boring) and then it seems like I skipped right to Thanksgiving.

For Thanksgiving weekend we took the train to Chicago and then rented a car to drive the rest of the way to WI. I normally like taking the train – I put on some headphones and read for 6 hours and then I’m there. Unfortunately, this year I managed to be super sick and unable to sleep the night before we left, and Brad decided it would be a good idea to stay out till 2am (the train leaves at 6:25am). So, we were both really tired and looking forward to getting some sleep on board. Our fellow passengers had other ideas – like using the world’s loudest method of eating potato chips and listening to DVDs with no headphones. Needless to say, neither of us slept that much.

The rest of the weekend was ok – lots of football, eating and shopping – but this year we finally got a chance to hang out with Lesley She took us all around her neighborhood and its overabundance of bars. My favorite by far was the Wisconsin Cheese Mart, where I had coffee stout and we shared soft pretzels and an amazing cheese platter.

And now we are home…and it seems to be winter…