Bases loaded and you're out.

Brewers, in the sixth inning... you blew it! But, I still love you.

Ever drive 20 miles to go to a specific restaurant only to find it closed? So wierd!
Thank you Jose's Blue Sombrero for the save!

Nothing better than filling up on chips and salsa and not having room for the meal.

Living the dream!

I now have HDTV?

Do you have one of these Flexible Spending Accounts with your insurance? What a terrible arrangement?!?! Here are my two complaints:

1.) The money that is set aside (tax free) from your paychecks is to be used only for health expenses and must be used in that year (unlike, the much better option, an HSA). After that, the money goes to your employer. Why not let it accumulate? Why does unspent money get taken away? Doesn't that just encourage us all to spend more than we need to?

2.) Because the money comes out of your paycheck over the course of the year, the amount you have to work with increases over the fiscal year. So if I need something done at the beginning of the fiscal year and my first few deductions from my paycheck don't cover it, I'm on my own. It is not as "flexible" as it seems.

So anyway, I was coming down to the end of the year and I had all of my flex dollars left and I was going to buy the biggest, baddest first aid kit you have ever seen (band-aids, neosporin, codine, scalpels, automatic electronic defibrillator, a couple stretchers and an ambulance!)


Instead, I scrambled to set up an eye exam because I don't really need an ambulance. I had meant to do this for quite some time. You see, when I renewed my driver's license, I took the vision test there (where you stick your face into what looks like a giant 70's microscope and they have you read a line of letters) and I specifically remember reading the line of letters confident in the twenty-twenty vision I had always had. To my surprise the response from the kind DMV person behind the counter was "what line were you reading!?!?" Upon the second try, I found that it was more difficult than I thought.

So I have glasses. I feel hip and trendy! And I can see!

Watching TV last night, everything was so clear! I have decided that this must be what HDTV is like.

Loving new sight and living the dream.

I discovered Minnesota!

This weekend had a trip to Minnesota in store for me. Elizabeth and I drove up on Thursday and found a nice route on county roads to avoid the closed I-94. The drive up was nice and we decided to go all out and get a hotel. We stayed in the Crown Plaza in St. Paul. Beautiful hotel, beautiful view, and wonderful service.

Thursday night we grabbed a bite with good friends Melissa and Adam, who are expecting in October. We had a wonderful dinner with them and then went back to their place for a marvelous summery dessert, some great conversations, and some fun with the wii. It was great to meet some of their friends from up there.

Friday was a walking day. First, we went to Al's in Dinkytown for breakfast. If you haven't gone, GO! I love this place. You have 14 stools to choose from to be seated except you often do not get a choice. We spent about 15 minutes waiting for a seat though it is always worth the wait. When we were the last ones in line, I kept laughing, to myself, that people would walk in and then right back out, unwilling to do the wait. "Fools, " I thought to myself. "How can you ever pass up Al's?"

Anyway, we ate and then bummed around campus for a while. It brought back tons of memories of all the trouble I used to get into at the U, some of it, with the aforementioned Adam. As we passed places I commented to Elizabeth, that is one of the places we smoked our cigars on my last night in town.

We saw the new stadium, which is a mammoth project and will surely be a tremendous addition to the school. We stopped in the Union, which was open for a brief period before and a brief period after construction while I was in school. We had to go to the bookstore to look at all the goodies that we would love to buy but didn't.

We stopped at a running store to pick up a pair of shoes for me and it was great. They checked my stride and fitted me for a new pair of shoes for the Lakefront marathon.
Then we were off to the sculpture gardens... I loved the exhibition that they had outside of the Walker called "Design for the other 90%." Make time to go check it out along with the sculpture gardens. They are both free!

Dinner at one of our favorite spots, Cafe Latte, was nice as we got to catch up with one of Elizabeth's good friends, Hillari. Dude!

Saturday was a Kayak day! We spent two hours on the Cannon River kayaking. Beautiful day. Beautiful area. What a day.

If you get a chance, discover Minnesota and keep on
living the dream!

I threw a bocce ball in the sewer

Elizabeth and I got to go up to visit the rents this weekend. Elizabeth has 13 straight days of vacation and we are planning to make the most of that time. It was good to see mom and pop. Granny was there and for an added surprise, my sister stopped up!

I threw a bocce ball in the sewer! They live on a hill and one ball really got away from me. It roleld down the driveway and into the street and we presume that it went down one of the sewer grates! Surprisingly, that was the closest ball to the marker!

I did my long run this weekend. seven miles wasn't so bad.

If you ever go to wausau, check out the coolest store in town. It is a flower shop on one of the main streets downtown. Unbelievably cool.

Also cool, my mom's cooking. She rocks.

And to top it all off, I got to ride home with granny. How great is it to spend time with family!

As always
living the dream!

A walk and a loss!

So after work today we took a walk with some good friends. I let this 2.5 mile walk take the place of the three mile run I was supposed to do. I think I'm allowed! It was a gorgeous day and the walk was a lovely one. Good friends, good pace, good weather, good scenery, good walk.

We came back here for Papa John's pizzas in order to completely negate any health benefits from taking a walk. ( I, personally wouldn't want to start doing any thing good for my health!)

Brewers lost. Mike Cameron and I are fighting until further notice.

Tomorrow I will sleep in.
Living the dream!

So here we go.

So I haven't been a blogger before and I figured, why not put myself out there?!?! I am not going to give a lot of background, I am just going to start with how the dream played out today!

When I was a kid, I remember saying rain rain, go away, come again another day. Couldn't say that phrase with more emphasis than today. The clouds this afternoon were tremendous! I love the chance to sit and watch a storm come in. What I don't love is cleaning up the mess it leaves in the basement.

Ok, so really, we get a fair amount of water in the basement but it doesn't really damage anything. Our basement is not finished so the water just comes in from all sides and trickles across the floor to a big drainpot in the middle of the floor. We should set up some sort of meditation room down there because we have the whole "zen garden waterfall" sound already going on!

I have resigned myself to not even bothering to clean it up until it stops flowing. That should happen sometime in the next week!

In other news, I ran today. I am looking at training for the lakefront marathon in October. In fact, I just registered minutes ago! Good thing I put it off until the last minute! I think I am one of the last 100 to register! I ran four miles today and it felt pretty good.

Well, blessings to you. Keep on

Living the dream!