Currently reading...

I'm trying to read Life of Pi right now. A number people have highly recommended it. It's a story (according to the back of the book and lots of reviews) about a boy who finds himself on a lifeboat with some zoo animals, namely a Bengal tiger. At this point I am on page 80 and we're still on dry land. It looks like I have another 20 pages before we see a life boat.

This book has got to get better in order to get rave reviews when the main storyline doesn't even happen until 1/3 of the way through the book. At this point, I'm forcing myself to keep going. Please say the pain goes away! I could quit now, but so many people have said the book is great that I'll at least wait until he's on the life boat. Better go read.

Universities asking for money...

Sitting at home relaxing (okay, spending time on GoodReads) and the phone rang. Joe answered it, then passed it to me saying it sounded like a telemarketer. Almost, not quite. It was the local university's vet school asking for money. Now really. Neither Joe or I attended the university, but our sweet cat Boots was a patient. She had Iodine Radiation Therapy there almost a year ago for hypothyroidism. Not cheap, really not cheap. Didn't they get enough money then? Not that I don't care about animals and getting medical attention, but still.

We get enough phone calls from our own alma mater that we don't need another calling. Does the cat being a former patient count her as an alumnus? Something tells me no, at least not until it fundraising time.

More company for the Medtronic Twin Cities 10 Mile!

Last week we met our friends Chad, Tina, and Anna at a neighborhood park. Kate and Anna had fun playing and Kate loves slides now (it was a rocky beginning and the swings are still not good). It was fun to watch them play together and Anna took good care of Kate while climbing through tubes.

While watching the kids play, Chad casually asked about my plans for running the Twin Cities 10 Mile in October. It is a popular event and a lottery is used for registration. He decided to sign up along with his brother Scott and sister-in-law Angie. Today the lottery was held and I get more company for the run. Had to call Tina and heckle Chad a bit. Guess I'll have to work not just to finish, but to finish ahead of him. =)

Mmm, Barbeque

Thanks to a blog post by our friend Tina, we now have a new recommendation for BBQ that is close to home. It's called Q Fanatic (www.qfanatic.com). We tried it out last night with Tina and Chad. They were a little short staffed, but the food was worth the wait...not quite sure Kate thought so, but they were nice and brought a roll for her to snack on while waiting. Of course, our little sweetheart promptly threw some of it on the floor. Sometimes we can't win.

On another topic, I am ready for Construction season to be over. The DOT has kindly decided to redo parts of 35W in Roseville as well as Snelling in Roseville at the same time! Nothing like working on 2 major north/south routes at the same time.

And in other news, I got Joe hooked on Good Reads.

Fun at the Parent's

This past weekend we went to my parent's house in central Iowa. My cousin Erin from California was visiting with her 3.5 month old daughter Bree (short for Aubrey). Kate did well with Bree and was very curious, but didn't get in her face. Kate was not happy when I held Bree, so we did a lot of looking. I took a few pictures of them, but they are on my mom's camera. I'll post some when I get them.

It sure made me think about when Kate was that little...trouble is, I can't really remember Kate at that age. I ended up looking at old pictures to remind myself. Here's one where she is 3.5 months old (in other words, it's about a year old).



Anyway, it was a lot of fun to spend time with my cousin. She has matured in the last year and we really look forward to seeing her, her husband Sean, and Bree again. Our plan is to visit Monterey this Fall (ahh, our favorite place to visit!) and Erin and Bree will be in town too.

Public Speaking 101

At the end of May, I sent a meeting topic suggestion to my org's VP at work (I know, what was I thinking!). Initially he said thanks and he'll address it at the next meeting. Then, he suggested an alternative of myself speaking in front of the organization. Ahh! That meant speaking to over 300 people. Of course I said I would...how can you turn down something like that.

Well, after one postponement, today was the day. In preparation, a few people thought my topic seemed unnecessary, but others, like my manager and director (manager's boss) were very supportive. My presentation was so short I'm not sure it qualifies as a presentation (a whole 2, maybe 3 minutes), but by all accounts, it went well. Joe was there and was impressed. He thought I didn't seem nervous at all (if only he knew!).

And I didn't think I'd have any presentations to make this year...

Running

I added a ticker so I can keep a mental eye on how long until the Twin Cities 10 Mile takes place. Sunday, October 5, 2008 is the anticipated day. Training was getting started again, but then a slight mishap occurred. Friends were visiting and I went for a run with them. Somehow I got distracted (okay, one of them pointed out an owl on an electric pole), I turned my ankle and went crashing down to the asphalt. That was almost 2 weeks ago and it still hurts. I'm hoping it's better by this weekend so I can restart training.

Oh, but wait! We decided to put in a patio this weekend, so I'll probably be exhausted by all the manual labor and therefore too tired to run.