2 Do Before I Die

According to this website, “Writing a list of things you want to do before you die is a great way of reminding yourself exactly what it is that sparks your curiosity, captures your imagination and keeps you involved.”

I ran across this website in January, which is a fitting time… with everyone writing New Year’s Resolutions. I thought this was a nice alternative to the typical resolutions… and you get your whole lifetime to achieve them. :-)

I forgot I had bookmarked the site and ran across it again today.

I did start a list in January, but got nowhere near 100. I remember reading at the time that they suggested “100” because you really have to dig deep to come up with that many things. I didn't actually spend much time on it in January, but perhaps I'll work on digging deeper.

Here’s the things off my list that I don’t mind sharing (mostly hobby stuff, I'll keep the personal stuff to myself):

1) Take a European Cruise
2) Take a cruise out of San Juan
3) Visit Washington, D.C.
4) Learn to play the piano
5) Take a photography class
6) Learn to develop black and white photos
7) Take more golf lessons
8) Build my dream home
9) Go on a cycling tour

What’s on your list?

“Enchanted” Evening

I went to a play last night with Liz. Read about her “blonde moment”, because I did think it was pretty funny. However, even if we hadn’t gotten into the play, I enjoyed dinner, the margarita and catching up with Liz enough to make the evening really good anyway. However… the play ended up being quite good as well so that was a bonus. It was called “Enchanted April” and I agree with Liz that it was a girl kinda play. I would recommend it also.

And speaking of April (ha ha)… I’m having dinner with her tonight. I haven’t seen her since the cruise and we’re exchanging photos with each other, so I can’t wait to see hers. Afterwards I’m off to feed Gary’s cats and then I’ll be packing for my weekend trip. It will be a busy night. It is kind of a bummer I’m leaving town the day Gary gets back to town, but I do think my trip will be fun and I’m sure he will need the time to recover from his jet lag anyway. More on my trip later, it’s a surprise for a friend of mine, so I don’t want to mention it just in case it were to get back to her.

On the bright side, I made it through my week of working 4 10-hour days. I’m glad it’s over. I’m rather sleepy today.

Working Towards a Goal

I decided this week that in order to take Friday off, I would work 4–ten hour days. This is difficult since I’m not a morning person. However, in order to get 10 hours of work in, I can’t come in *too* late.

Thankfully, the idea of Friday off without having to take vacation has been enough motivation to get out of bed. Also, with Gary out of town this week, I’ve been going to bed early, which has helped with not being overly sleepy in the morning.

So far, so good. Yesterday I made it in at 7:15 and today at 7:30. I think my co-workers and employees are having fun with this. They don’t usually see me this early, so everyone has a comment for me.

Unfortunately I do see a trend in these two days – slowly getting later. Tomorrow I need to make it by 7:00 so I can leave at 5:00 (skipping lunch, if you are doing the math). I think I can do it, since needing to leave at 5:00 will increase my motivation to get out of bed. :-) I’m headed to dinner and a play with Liz tomorrow night, which I am looking forward to.

Anyway, I’m proud of my little accomplishment. :-)

I also thought that the workday would really drag on, but yesterday went quite fast and today is going pretty quickly so far also. We’ll see how the next two days go.

We Made It!!

I’m happy to say that Gary and I completed the 22-mile course at the Germanfest Bike Rally. The course was down a country road to a rest stop and back. The trip down was “a breeze” – literally, since it was windy and the wind was on our backs. There were a lot of hills, but they weren’t a problem on the first leg of the course. The way back was another story. That was tough. I think I could have done just the hills or just the wind, but both of them together made things difficult. There were several hills on the way back that I had to just get off the bike and walk. Gary did much better than I did, he didn’t have to walk at all, but he was nice enough to stop with me when I needed a rest.

So… it took us 45 minutes to the rest stop and 1 hour, 15 minutes to get back. I believe I averaged 10.5 mph, which isn’t bad since there was some walking involved. Maximum speed (down a hill) was 30 mph. That was fun… however we did see the aftermath of an accident on the very first hill. A cyclist was apparently taking the hill a little too fast and wiped out. They were loading him/her in the ambulance when we got there. I assume that was someone in the group that was doing the 63-mile course, because they staggered the start times for the three distances.

The event itself was very nice. There were 1400 cyclists. They had everything well organized. The rest stop was stocked with fruit, cookies, and Powerade. They had sag wagons for support that were very attentive. And we saw several ambulances. (We only saw the one “in action”, but others went by with lights on, so I assume there were other accidents). It was a bit chilly – around 55 degrees when we took off at 11am. I wasn’t quite prepared for that. I had worn my short sleeve cycling jersey. Thankfully, I had a sweatshirt, but I just didn’t look as *cool* as most other cyclists. :-)

We were pretty beat when we finished, so we didn’t actually go the Germanfest. Maybe we’ll check that out next year. :-)

Is it only Thursday?

It really seems like it should be Friday. It has been a long week. I am already looking forward to the weekend. Gary and I are going to the Germanfest Bike Rally on Saturday. We’ll be doing the 22-mile (shortest) route. I’m a little nervous after reading this review (3rd paragraph) from last year. We did 15 miles last weekend and I felt like I could have gone further without much trouble. However, that ride was fairly flat and there wasn’t much wind. I’ll have to hope that the weather is favorable as far as wind, but even so… I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle 22 *hilly* miles. We will see.

Gary is off to Korea on Sunday, so I guess I’ll have time to recuperate. Wait… no… I guess I need to do yard work. The weeds and mulch are calling my name. Oh well, I can probably take it easy part of the day at least.

Cruise Photos

Here are my Cruise photos – choose “April 2005 Cruise” and then I recommend selecting "view slideshow" in the upper right corner.

Descriptions in order of appearance:
- Formal night
- Men of the Rhapsody “strip” show
- The Solarium pool – my favorite location on the ship, where we spent a lot of time.
- Ice carving demonstration
- Key West
- Key West Sunset Sail
- Rhapsody Quest – adult scavenger hunt game. You can see that it progressed from tame, to men taking their pants off and then retrieving them, to the finale: Men wearing a bra, earrings, women’s shoes, lipstick and carrying a purse. It was hilarious. My team was #31. There were 5 girls and 1 guy, so the one guy was a good sport.
- Grand Cayman swimming with the stingrays
- The Midnight Gala Buffet
- Passion Island in Cozumel - This was a little private island with a buffet, hammocks, beach chairs, beach volleyball, and some little shops. It was a nice excursion.

Busy Weekend

Sorry to say, I still haven’t had a chance to link up my photos from the cruise, because I had such a full weekend. However, I think I’ll be able to get that done tonight.

On Saturday, Gary and I ventured out for our first group cycling ride. It began at a Plano bike shop @ 7:45am. Yes, I was up riding at 7:45am. How about that? It was 15 miles too. Not bad. That’s the farthest we have gone yet. It was a little chilly for me starting off (about 60 degrees), but it warmed up fairly quickly. It wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be, but we were doing a rather slow pace. There were 7 folks in the group, however one guy had some mechanical problems and had to call for a rescue.

After a nap to recuperate we had lunch and then went and did one of my favorite pastimes – looking at model homes. I always have fun dreaming. :-)

Saturday night we went to the Ranger’s game. Unfortunately, we lost 0-8 to the Toronto Blue Jays. I enjoy going to games, but my main reason for going to this particular game was because they were having fireworks afterwards. So, although the game was a bit disappointing, the fireworks were very cool.

Sunday we went cycling on our own and did 9 miles around my neighborhood. We’re getting a little more comfortable with being out on the road. I think I like the roads better because the trails are so busy, it ends up being a lot of maneuvering around people.

I guess we weren’t worn out enough from the bike ride, so we washed our cars Sunday afternoon. My Jeep *is* actually blue. Amazing. It’s been so long since I’ve seen it. I won’t mention Gary’s. :-)

Of course, since we did that yesterday, it appears it’s going to rain at any moment today. Oh well. It was soooo dirty, it just had to be done.

Last night we were ready for a relaxing evening, so Gary grilled for us. (He’s great). Then we watched a couple movies (“Garden State” and “Without a Paddle”).

So overall a fun packed weekend. :-)

Not a good sign ...

I got a friendly call today from the leasing office at my apartment complex. My lease is about up and they've apparently drafted the renewal paperwork. The woman added that there may be some "substanial increases" in rent this year, but not to be too freaked out because it is negotiable.

Needless to say, I'm a little freaked out.

April fools

I know it's a little late, but the editors of Scientific American published a pretty good April Fools piece.

Cruise #2

April and I really had a fabulous time on our cruise. The food was great, the activities were great, the weather was great and the ports were great.

After our first dinner, which consisted of an onion tart appetizer, shrimp ravioli and key lime pie for dessert - April declared, “This is going to be a good week”. The food continued to impress us throughout the cruise and most of our table quickly took to the practice of ordering two appetizers and/or desserts. On Lobster and shrimp night, I believe everyone had an extra Lobster tail. We had a great table assignment with 8 other folks.

With all the food, it was probably a good thing our cabin was on Deck 2 (lowest deck). We had to climb a lot of stairs. We did also manage to go to a few workout classes and April did many laps around the jogging track on Deck 10. (My heel has been bothering me, so I had to skip that activity). After my official post cruise weigh in this morning… only gained 1.5 lbs. That’s not too bad.

The entertainment and activities were also very good. We took part in a couple of the games, including an “adult scavenger hunt” which was hilarious. I’ll post pictures soon.

We had good weather throughout the cruise including our days in port. There was a forecast of rain in Grand Cayman and Cozumel, but we got lucky and it didn’t materialize in either port. Swimming with the stingrays in Grand Cayman was really cool. We enjoyed all of our shore excursions and the days at sea were very nice for relaxing.

Overall, it was a really good cruise and now I have that “can’t wait to go again” feeling.

Ready for Vacation

It’s been a busy week and I am ready for vacation. I’m off for my cruise bright and early Sunday morning. April and I will drive to Galveston that day and then the ship leaves at 5pm. Tuesday we will be in Key West, Thursday in Grand Cayman and Friday in Cozumel. As of right now, there is a forecast for rain in Grand Cayman. Hopefully that won’t come about. The forecasts for the other two locations look good.

Now I just need to get my packing and errands done and I will be all set… the stress before vacation. Funny how one gets all stressed out with things to do before going to relax for a week.

Yesterday, I needed some stress relief. Lucky for me, we had planned on going to the Improv to see Kathleen Madigan. She was very good and the two opening acts were really good also. They were filming Kathleen for the Golf Channel last night. Yes, that’s correct… The Golf Channel… go figure. Apparently, there will be some clips from her act on a show called “Makeover Challenge” (her sister is the actual subject) and will air on May 10th. I did see him take one scan of the audience… might have to check it out to see if any of the group I was with will be visible.