Ve Vant Your Blood

Yesterday I went to the doctors office to give blood so that they could confirm pregnancy. Usually I am a champion at the blood giving; I have good veins and I can fill those little tubes in a second. Yesterday however, she put the needle in the vein and NOTHING came out. I mean not even a drop. So she went to the other arm, and tried again and this one came pumped but so, so slowly. I'm guessing it was because I was so nervous and excited and I'm guessing it's good that they didn't take my blood pressure as I'm sure I would have broken the machine.

I'm thinking that if this blood test does come back positive (it will) I should sign up for prenatal yoga to try and calm down a little bit because otherwise it's going to be a loooong 8 months for everyone involved and then the baby will come out and be wired before it even breathes a breath of air.

And I'm sorry, can we talk about how creepy it is to grow a human...a human who goes from breathing water, to air.....(anyone else thinking of The Abyss?)? Cree-py!

I've been listening to Loudon Wainwright's Strange Weirdos album which was inspired by the movie Knocked Up. There are some funny songs on there including X or Y and Lullaby. I'm thinking the album with be played a lot around these parts in the next few months.

So sometime in "mid-afternoon" we'll know for sure! gotta sit tight and be patient...cause as everyone knows I'm so good at that.

Okay, that's clearly a line

This morning Leah peed on another stick and there was another line. This time, however, the pink line was pretty damn clear and left little room for interpretation. Um, yikes?

So, we've taken four tests (that's normal, right?) and have gotten two blue lines and two pink lines. So, as far as I can tell, there's still a 50-50 chance of having either a boy or girl. I'd say we could pee on one more stick (well...not we) and see what color comes up, but I think I want to find out the sex for myself when the time comes.

So now I'm just going to sit back and wait for Leah to exhibit some signs of pregnancy. I know she'd like to have some sort of sickness or soreness or something - who wouldn't want that. And some vomiting would make this pregnancy match TV more accurately. The people on TV always puke.

Today's a trip to the doctor to confirm with a blood test what we suspect from the pee tests. Here's hoping the results come back quickly so we can build a crib or something. And then it's only a month or so until we get to have an ultrasound (well, more her than me)! Yowza!

...wait, are we really having a baby?

Nah.

Wait, what?

We Have a Secret...

and I HATE IT.

I'm not a good secret keeper. I'm just not...I mean I can be if I have to be...but this is my secret and I don't want to keep it. I called my doctors office yesterday to ask them what the hell I'm supposed to do now that I have a positive pregnancy test. I laughed and told them that Jason and I might be the most fertile people on the planet, and she laughed and said, "Oh I see you did have a preconception appointment next week. Guess you won't be needing that". Guess not.

So she told me what the next steps were. First I will go in (this morning) and have a blood test to confirm pregnancy (which I'm already convinced I'm going to fail...really...REALLY...it's not a real test), then if that comes back positive I will have an appointment with a physicians assistant to go through all the do's and don'ts (don't do crack, do eat vegetables I'm guessing), then at about 8 weeks along I'll go in for the first ultra sound.

Since I'm a little bit OCD, I peed on yet another stick this morning and there is no doubt about the second line. So, according to pee sticks I'm pregnant, just gotta get the confirmation.

We've decided to tell family after we hear from the doctor on the blood test. But it's killing me right now when I talk to my parents. So what's new? Nothing, why would you think something is new. Just the same old same old. Or..How's the running going. Good. Getting better every week.

I'm guessing we'll just tell everyone next week....because....how the hell could you keep this kind of secret!

Well, that was unexpected

And, I might add, a little anti-climactic. Whenever I thought about finding out about a future son or daughter (or ewok...how cool would that be?), I figured it'd be all jumping up and down and excited, like in the commercials. Instead, it was a lot of "wait, is that a line?" and "I definitely see a line, but I need you to keep peeing until it looks like the other one". And it wasn't that I wasn't excited because I didn't want it to be true, but rather because I was afraid it would go away.

Oh, but now, three faint lines later, I'm afraid. What's the first thing I do? Read a book? Let me just say, the expecting father books are pretty damn insulting. Yes, I get that I'm supposed to be involved in the pregnancy. Let me just put my beer down and I'll get right on it. Do the expectant mother books say "Hey, you know you can't just ignore the human growing in you stomach, right?" It's just quite insulting. It's every sitcom rolled into convenient book form (with 95% less funny and 500% more terror).

So now I'm just trying to figure out what best to do. I'm thinking I should either get the baby's room ready or maybe buy a stroller. I'm pretty sure I can't grow a human, so I need to find a way to make myself useful. I also have about 9 months to learn to use a power tool. I don't want to be that dad ("Mom, Dad's trying to drill again"). Also, I need to learn to swim. I saw this episode of Who's the Boss where Tony was participating in a Father/Son swim (with his nephew) and he totally couldn't swim and the kid was embarrassed and I don't want that for my kid.

So, I don't know. Luckily I have about 9 months to figure it out.

Less Faint

Yesterday after still no period starting, AND the faint line, Jason and I walked to Borders and bought What to Expect When You are Expecting (I think I'm expecting...) and Jenny McCarthy's book Belly Laughs (which yes...made me laugh...but also freakin' terrified and grossed me out). We also bought some none generic brand pregnancy tests.

Woke up this morning at 4:55, but didn't want to get up till 6, so I laid there convinced that my period was really going to start and all of the previous day was a fun little dream. At 5:50 I had to get up as I was tired of laying there and holy hell did I have to pee.

So. I peed. On the stick. And 3 minutes later there was a line there. Still not as strong as the control line...but you didn't have to squint to see it.

So right. Now what? Being a scientist, I'm still not convinced and I gotta say, this whole weekend was very anti-climatic. I figured a few months of trying, some disappointing trips to the bathroom just to find Aunt Flow (really...they still call it that on all the message boards), then one month of, "Oh I just know I'm pregnant honey!" and then taking a test and seeing the second line. Instead this was the month we decided to stop not trying and have some fun, two weeks later and I don't feel pregnant at all, and I'm still not convinced by the line (I KNOW I KNOW....there is no way that there is a line there at all unless you are pregnant...I just wanted a wham bam thank you ma'am line).

So right. There are some cells in there. Doing some dividing. Wow. I realize as I just re-read this post I don't sound excited...I am totally excited! ... but I just want to be sure. We aren't going to tell anyone including our parents until we see a doctor, and it's kind of fun having a little secret of our own.

Let the new door open!

Wait..is that a line?

Today - March 22nd I took a second pregnancy test. I had taken one yesterday but the line was really faint. So I took one right when I woke up this morning and What the hell...is that a line? I think it's a line...but it's faint. So Jason comes into the bathroom....does he thinks it's a line...he does...but it's faint. WHAT DOES A FAINT LINE MEAN?

I haven't had any symptoms (but read online that is not totally uncommon) and so I don't know if it's just a faint fake line or just a faint line....but then I read (on the interwebs!) that even if it's faint it's a positive. My period is two days late......I'm never late.

So with that I am going to put this into draft mode and save it for a few months. Jason and I have decided that they should use us to repopulate the planet after a nuclear explosion as we tried one time and viola....a faint (what does that mean!) second line showed up!

Blogging Request...

and thus I blog.

I've been a busy little bee around these parts. The weather in Chicago seems to have taken a turn for the better and Jason and I have been taking every opportunity to be out in the warm weather that we can.

Over the weekend (...yes I realize it's Thursday and I'm writing about days that were almost a week ago, but at least I'm getting it down), Jason and I got up early and went downtown and did the following:

• Breakfast at Yolk which was one of the best breakfasts that I have ever had; the omelets had the perfect egg/filling ratio.
  
• Walked through the legs on the corner on Roosevelt and Michigan Ave. Jason and I couldn't decide if we liked the legs, but I think we both thought they were interesting. I enjoyed how they were really spaced out and then became more and more crowded.
  
• Went to the Field Museum and, using our membership, went to see the new Pirates exhibit. Did you know pirate ships were the only place where everyone was an equal unlike on land where there was, of course, the slavery problems and whatnot. Also unlike merchant ships, everyone on a pirate shop was given almost equal percentages of the loot they would take.
• From there we walked to Loopy Yarns because I was interested in starting a new project. I highly recommend this place. They have a huge selection of yarns, patterns and very very nice people to answer all of your questions.
  
• From here we walked to the Intelligensia cafe next door to the Chicago Cultural Center and learned about a new press process they have to brew the single cups of coffee. They guy next to us said that it seemed like a lot of work for a cup of coffee and, while I agreed at the time, it was a mightily good cup of Joe (and totally worth it, Jason says).
  
• After this we walked to the Millenium Park office to pick up a cell phone my cousin lost that, amazingly, they had found.
• At this point we realized that we weren't drunk, 5 years old, or parents of 5 year olds and so weren't interested in the St. Patricks Day Parade. So we walked on to the lakefront path instead.
  
• I took a ton of pictures along the way as we walked. all. the. way. home.

So in short, it was about 8 hours of outdoorsness with about 10 miles of walking. A great day.

Sunday we ran 4 miles and then went and played in Lincoln Square and walked home from there. Monday we walked home from work. Tuesday we went and ran out 3 miles.....and if you have gotten the picture...walked home.

Other business (non-walking division) is that there is some work funness going on. I've started working through some ObjectiveC & iPhone stuff and I've also started doing some more work on our company's website which I find very enjoyable. In my personal time, I'm working on knitting a blanket that has *gasp* cables in it. Turns out cables aren't that hard, just have to be careful when I get to those rows. Also getting through some more picture developing...a constant thing. I've posted every single day on my photoblog for 68 days straight!

Which is nice.

This weekend Jason and I are taking a road trip to Springfield, IL via the old Rt. 66. We've gotten the Rt 66 bug in our blood and are planning on driving the whole thing this summer. We've bought two books through Amazon on things to see along the way as well as a set of awesome maps (Dad...you'll love these) that are almost hand drawn with written directions on the page.

So that's about it in our little world. Just watching the March Madness tourney and hoping Villenova wasn't a bad choice for the final four...they are down by 10 to American University at the half. Shit. At least I didn't pick Illinois to win it all (teasing my stepmom and Aunt with that one).

And so now it's Thursday night. Happy end of week everyone!

Running! Road Trips! Exclamation Points!

Well JasonLeahRun got home this evening and were doubtful of a good run. It was raining, the wind was seeming pretty strong and well...we had worked an 11 hour day and relaxing at home was sounding oh so nice.

But Somone (and by Someone I mean LeahC) kept poking and pushing for a run and finally running clothes were on, laces were knotted, the door was locked and two pairs of feet started running down Seminary. Wow...dramatic sentance huh...well the run wasn't that dramatic, it was just great. Felt great, the rain was cooling, it was 60ish degrees outside and what's that? Sweat? WHAT?. Oh yeah, spring is coming people.

*Sidenote: Snow is Gone by Josh Ritter is a great song. And the two albums I got via iTunes are great....I might be follwing RainnWilson (Dwight Schrute) on Twitter and he tweeted about him and will +1 on the recommendation. End Sidenote*

Yesterday as I was looking at a map and thinking about some weekend road trips that Jason and I could take over some up coming weekends, I realized that old Rt. 66 goes all the way to St. Louis. Hmm...I thought...that could be fun. Then I kept thinking (like I like to do) and was like..huh...well it goes all the damn way to Los Angeles. Then I thought, hmm...I've never been to LA, and with all the road trips I have taken in my life I have never driven west. Interesting. Then I found some web sites, sent a crazy e-mail to Jason saying something to the effect of, .... you know...Rt. 66 goes all the way to LA right? It's looking more and more like these two crazy kids are going to take one hell of a road trip this summer. I have always been interested in Rt. 66 and so I'm getting way way pumped about this possibility. Our plan as it stands right now is to take our time out there and then book it like our asses are on fire via the main interstates on the way back. We don't know yet if we are going to take our car or try and rent one, but we are going to do it somehow. So stay tuned for details as we plan that trip.

I've been busy with work and with finishing up developing the roughtly one thousand photos I took in Zurich (yes really that many). http://leahcphotos.wordpress.com has been updated daily for roughly two months now (wow!) and has several pictures from Zurich over the last week or so. Here is a panoramic stitch I did of downtown Zurich :

So that's all from these crazy kids. Enjoy the rest of the week everyone!

It Always has to Slow Down

Well well well. Look up the definition of out of shape and you'll find JasonLeahRun's picture next to it. Sheesh.

We are trying to get to 12 miles a week. I KNOW it's lame. Leave me alone. So week one we did 6 miles, this week we struggled through 9 and hoping next week to get through 12. We are going to take tomorrow off since the last two days have been slow and some what painful....although as always, still a ton of fun. I miss those long runs and being able to go through a 12 mile run easy breezy. Ah well....all you can do is keep running. That's why running is so easy. It's super easy to get better at.

Not much else new in JasonLeahRun's world. We have put ourselves into Lockdown mode to take care of some bills that we have going on as well as the whole we need to get into better shape mode. Amazing how much money you can save when you delete "Sheffields" from your budget.

So that's it. Don't forget to change you clocks tomorrow everyone!

Wow, 2 Whole Days in a Row

I wonder when the last time this blog saw some love 2 days in a row. A long while I bet.

Signing up for a race is the most amazing thing ever. I don't know what shifts in my head when we do that but instantly I'm like, Ok. We are racing, gotta run no matter what. Yesterday the weather was atrocious with snow and 25 mph winds out of the north so good thing we are so out of shape that we are sticking to three mile runs for now because I don't know how much farther we could have made it.

Our Sunday in general was a great day, I feel like we did enough to fill a couple days worth. We woke up early and spent about 4 hours relaxing to some classical music and reading the Sunday papers (NY Times & Chicago Tribune), then we went for a run. When we got back from that we decided that our empty fridge and cupboard needed some love so we went to the grocery store and got a cart full of food amazingly it all fit into our fridge with room to spare.

The rest of the afternoon was spent totally relaxing and reading. We watched The Godfather which is of course just a fantastic movie and enjoyed the last fire in our fire place for the season (out of wood and optimistic about the weather...it is March you know).

Tonight is the Chirb meeting which I am going to and Jason is either going to work late on work stuff or go home and do work stuff at home.

Our running plans are going to be running Tuesday, Thursday Saturday and Sunday, and we'll be following the Hal Higdon intermediate 1/2 marathon plan starting in mid May.

5 Months + 1 Day

Well it is now exactly the first minute of March 1st. I can't seem to sleep and thus I'm up blogging at 12:00 am on a Sunday morning. Jason and I went for a run on Saturday afternoon and realized that we were in some kind of bad shape. Shocking I know after months and months and months of no training. While we were out running pretending that it was June and not the end of February and brutally cold and windy we decided to sign up for a 1/2 marathon at the beginning of August. We chose the first one we found, the Rock and Roll 1/2 marathon on August 2nd. Thus we have 5 months to get our shit together so that we can finish the race in one piece. Half marathons are always fun because the training isn't absurd like a marathon and the race itself doesn't knock you out for weeks on end following the race. Right now our tentative plan is to run 4 days a week and try and hit the gym 2 or 3 times a week. I figure March 1st is as good a time as any for some resolutions/goals.

So right. We went to Zurich which was awesomely fun and there will be more details following as I'm also setting a goal to write more here. You know the only way to become a better writer is to do it everyday...shocking, it's just like everything else in life...practice makes you better. I'm still working on getting all of the photos developed, but until they are all ready here are a few of the city of Zurich. I'll be updating my photoblog (http://leahcphotos.wordpress.com) daily with photos from the trip and will have a full smugmug account full within the next week or so. Enjoy!

Quiet Around These Parts

Yikes. It's been awhile.

I have been keeping myself busying with my photoblog http://leahcphotos.wordpress.com, traveling, work, preparing to go travel...and travel :).

Tomorrow Jason and I are going to Zurich to visit some of our best friends from graduate school. We haven't seen them for about two years I think and so we are really looking forward to seeing them. Bonus that we get to see them in in Europe. We are also going to go to CERN (in Geneva) to visit some of our friends from our Fermilab days as they have gotten positions working on the new detector there.

We've been running on and off and found a perfect 3 mile loop that goes around the neighborhood that takes advantage of running around the neighborhood, the lakefront path, around Wrigleyfield...you know all the high points.

I suspect that when we get back from this trip we are going to tighten our belts and budgets and calm down a bit. Alright, that's all from here. I will update this with stories and pictures from Zurich when I get the chance!

Long Cold Walk

Well apparently we don't run anymore. I have desires to run, and then I'm like....cold. It's cold and snowy out. We did go to the gym on Tuesday and it was so crowded I barely got a locker and there was a line for the treadmills. I found some other kind of machine and did it for 10 minutes before I was so bored I had to stop. So yeah.

Instead of working out yesterday Jason and I went for a long walk. We put on our winter running clothes....but just as base layers. I want to learn how to take some night time pictures with long exposures/tripod blah blah blah. So I know...let's go walk to North Avenue Beach from our house, and take pictures when it's 11 degrees feels like 1. I just get so stir crazy in the winter having to stay indoors, that I will do anything to get outside. So we did walk over to north avenue beach. I think all the pictures I took are bad, but a lot of the pictures I took when I first got my camera leave a lot to be desired and there might be a gem in there somewhere. Given the long exposures it was a lot of open the shutter...then sit and freeze, check the image, try again. I didn't get a lot of pictures either...but anyways, it's all just practice.

After the picture taking we walked until we found a cab, and we had him drop us off at Sheffields where we enjoyed the company of our favorite bartender Matt, some delicious food, and some reading I had to do for work.

We have a fun weekend planned. Next week I'm off to sunny florida to visit theMom and then the following weekend Jason and I are off to Zurich to visit old friends for a week. I'm getting excited as I really love to travel!

Bad Night

Well it was just one of those nights. With a new project on the way at work, snippyness between Jason and I, basic unrest feeling makes for a long, sleepless night. I layed awake for 2 hours, then I woke up at 2:18am (and not just like opened my eyes, looked at the clock and rolled back to sleep...oh no it was one of those bolt awakes with your heart racing...and so you get up, get something to drink, check your e-mail and question whether you should just stay out of bed...I didn't...but I thought about it). Finally I woke up for reals at about 5:30, and was in the office by 7. I do like being in early before anyone is here though.

My photoblog is going really well. Mirrored is the post for today:


if you haven't checked it out, stop by : http://leahcphotos.wordpress.com as there some other good stuff over there.

I have a dentist appointment tomorrow morning. I am *not* looking forward to it. I have really bad teeth genetics (thanks mom and dad!) and in grad school aside from having no insurance, I didn't have any money for the dentist so let's just say I haven't been for awhile. I'm really going to get yelled at I'm guessing. I sort of hate this dentist too as last time I went he told me that if I get the jaw surgery I need, they might be able to give me a chin implant at the same time to take care of my weak chin....I was like..what? Really? Dude...could you be more vain? And really...giving me advice on my looks. thanks. But the place is close, and maybe they got a new dentist. The things is there used to be two dentists there and one of them was awesome, then I went back and I got the old vain dude and I was all, what happened to the nice one? Anyways. That was a lot of ranting about the dentist.

Alright and I'm off.

Fitnio

Yesterday at about 4:45 pm, I was looking out the window at work and noticed that it wasn't dark out. I mean it was *dusk* but it wasn't black as death out. It was that day, when you realize that the days are in fact getting longer and that April is right around the corner (when I mentioned that to my friend Jake he looked at me like I was crazy...which I am...but I told him we were closer to April than we were yesterday and so it's right around the corner). So I got the itch to go for a run when we got home.

I noticed a post about iPhone running applications on this blog, and thought that it would be a good time to try one of them out as I didn't really care how far I went and so if the GPS got all wonky as GPS devices can do in the city, I wouldn't really care. She mentioned two apps, one called RunKeeper and the other called Fitnio. I decided to try out Fitnio (I had a reason for this....don't remember why) but as they are both free I'll give the other one a whirl as well and then I can have more accurate reporting/opinions.

So we got home, changed quickly before changing our minds, downloaded the App, and filled out the information (great user interface by the way, very clean and simple to enter all your information....they have you enter height/weight/birthday etc and it's all via menus and not typing via the keyboard which is nice and quick). Went outside, started the program and it quickly got a GPS signal, I threw the iPhone in the pocket of my running jacket and off we went. I looked at the phone after about the first 1.25 miles and it was still running, and accurate as compared to my Garmin watch (I wasn't wearing the watch, but have run that route a lot and know what the miles are). But I looked at it again at the turn around point and the screen was off. I turned it back on and had a nice message from the app saying something like, "Oh NO!!! Fitnio lost the GPS signal and has had to estimate your location" So it grabbed it again, and we finished the run, finishing up at Belmont and Sheffield. The run said about 4.5 miles which I would say was about right.

I got home and logged into my account online only to still find the welcome screen. I tried to sync things up a couple times and couldn't get it to work so I left it for the morning. Overnight the servers must have caught up with updates or whatever and my run was there. When you log onto your account you will see a listing of all of your activities :

Then you can click on one and get more details about that particular run (or bike ride as they have that too), including the pace for each mile (it got a little wonky for miles 2 and 3 where I think it lost the signal as I dont' think I was running 10+ or 7ish min/miles :) ) :

Fitnio's tag line is "We're just getting started..." so I think they are going to add in a lot of other functionality. The website however, is really slow and so that's kind of annoying. I like the idea of making RunTrackRun into an iPhone app, using it's GPS instead of the Garmin's. There is a lot of framework on RunTrackRun and it might be cool to jump on the iPhone development bandwagon. There is a lot of power in RunTrackRun and it might be cool to pair it with an iPhone App and their GPS. It would also be nice to keep in the Garmin reading functionality in there, but add in an iPhone portion. I own runtrackrun.com for the next three years and so we'll see where that goes.

I want to get a workout strap for the iPhone so that I can attach the phone to my forearm so I can look at the screen while I am running so if the GPS gets lost I can turn the phone back on.

So there's that. And if you missed this :


Head over to http://leahcphotos.wordpress.com to see more!. Leave me a comment, add me to Google Reader and Bloglines, gaze with awe at my photos. :) Thanks!

Mini-RoadTrip, Up Without Alarm, PhotoBlogging Again, New Office Construction

This past weekend my Dad and I went on a mini road trip to Indiana. I had worked extra hours to make up for time, taking off all of Friday and three hours on Thursday so we could get out of Chicago around 1pm. We went to Indy to visit my Dad's sister and on Friday afternoon we went into town so my Dad could meet up with an old band member of his that he had found on Facebook. That was a really funny trip and it looks like 5/6 of the band could get back together in the fall which of course would be hilarious.

While at my Aunts house, I sent an alarm on my phone....even though there was no need to, I had nowhere I had to be. It went off and I turned it off immediatly. I haven't been feeling so hot the last week or so and thought maybe it was because I hadn't been sleeping enough, or whatever. I didn't set an alarm on Saturday night (yes. I turn an alarm on every day of the week because I hate wasting one second of my weekends by sleeping...but then I'm always off a bit during the day because I go to bed at 1 in the morning and then get blasted by my alarm at 6am...but goddamn it, I'm up). I got up at 7:30 on my own, and felt great the entire day. Jason and I had a great day, we took a walk to the lakefront and walked north to Fullerton. We stopped a few times along the way to get breakfast and then some coffee to warm up our toes. So...yeah, I'm going to not set my alarm on the weekends. I also woke up at 5:55 this morning...5 minutes before my alarm which was nice... I don't think that will be a common theme as I just had a super relaxing 3.5 day weekend...but still nice.

Apparently the shock of working 9-5 has worn off (seriously...going from Grad school to real work was tougher than I had thought) and I have a nice setup at home to get back to photoing, and more importantly I'm going to really try and keep a photoblog going (yes....really...not just for a week and let it fall to the wayside). I really enjoy it when I'm more organized about it and don't just end up with 200 photos on my camera that then need to be dealt with. SO. You can check out new things at http://leahcphotos.wordpress.com. Leave comments...let me know what you think. For example...here is the newest picture :


While my Dad was in town, I couldn't not put him to work. I saw these magnetic photo wires on the interwebs and I thought it was a great idea...except the price of them. Seriously...$99 for 12 freakin' wires...I don't think so. Dad and I talked about it, and thought that it might be better if the wires themselves came out of shelves to hide the tops of them. He put fishing weights at the bottom, and just got galvanized cable at a home depot along with the shelving. The whole project cost about $50 bucks and I think it looks great. Really fun to put pictures up quickly. I just need more of those little strong magnets. Here is a picture without many photos on it, to get the idea. I'll get a better one tonight, as the wires have been filled in a bit.

It's a *really* easy project and a nice way to display pictures in a fluid kind of way. Thanks Dad!

So that's it. We have no real plans for about two weeks now, which is nice. But then I have a busy two weeks because I am going to Florida to visit my Mom and then going to Zurich the following weekend. I'm going to have to make some time up so I don't take extra vacation days. Today we have the first of 6 hawks game tickets. We were going to go to the gym but obviously Blackhawks trumps everything. We have another game on Wednesday, so we'll try and run home from work tomorrow.

So that's it. Happy Monday All!

Dad in Town!!!!

Wheeeee my dad is in town for the week.

I'm working extra hours so that I can take of Thursday afternoon and Friday for a Dad/Daughter roadtrip to Indiana. We are going to Indy to visit my Aunt, and my Dad has recently hooked up with his old college band members who still live in Indy and so we are going to stop by and see them, and there is talk of driving to Bloomington as well....just cause...well Bloomington is cool.

We have a bunch of projects for my dad to do including a DIY photo wire wall and some shelving which I think is going to be really cool and I should have some before and after pictures.

Other than that things are fine. Big demo for work stuff tomorrow, setting up the Apprentice program at Obtiva to be a bit more rigid with a senior developer and yeah...that's about it.

We won't be working out this week (Well maybe on Saturday and Sunday) because with Dad in town I want to spend time with him and not at the gym....but we'll be back on that horse next week.

A Good Example of Sucktitude

Last night Jason and I played racquetball and while it had been awhile since we had played...holy hell are we sucky. Both games ended 16-14 in Jason's favor, although after discussion on the way home we decided that the first game should have ended 15-13 in my favor as he hit me with the ball and we had the rules of interference a bit wrong. Anyways...it took 1 hour to play two games. A lot of not scoring on the serve and a lot of really weak playing....BUT I did remember some stuff and had some nice shots for a point. I think we are going to try and play once or twice a week.

We were supposed to run home today according to the plan that I set in motion...but there is no way. After no working out for months and months...working out three days in a row is exhausting. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I didn't move at all last night in bed as when I woke up my ear was sore as if I had slept on it, in the same position all night.

In the future we might take Wednesdays off so that we can still run home on Thursdays without being an exhausted puddle but we'll see. Maybe we'll try that in the next couple weeks and then slowly add back in Wednesdays.

The plan of course will fall apart a bit next week as my Dad is in town and so I will foresake working out to spend time with him. Plus we are going to Indy at the end of next week to visit my Aunt and my dad found his college band members on facebook and so we are going to go visit them too I guess. We might even make a run to Bloomington as my student ID is still valid, and Lightroom for the student liscense is a lot cheaper than the non-student price....but we'll see on that one, as it's still a pretty long drive from Indy.

Extra work hours this week and next so that I can take off the afternoon on Thursday and then Friday....so I best be getting on it.

Better About Bed Time

Tuesdays is run home from work day which Jason and I did...not with flying colors maybe, but not too bad. Working out two days in a row is *crazy*. Tonight we have racquetball which I'm guessing in our current state of exhausted and sore will be quite the funny sight.

I set up an older laptop at home to run photoshop/lightroom stuff (woot! another 30 day trial!) and forgot about all the updating that it needed and so I was up fighting with it....and didn't get to bed till after midnight....getting up at 6am (even with my iPhone alarm which is labeled, "Keep your ass out of bed!!!!!") was not going to happen.

So a bit tired today and no work in the morning which frustrates me. Ah well...tomorrow is another day. Looking forward to the YMCA tonight.

Oh yeah and stomach still store from the Pilates on Monday night.

Alright, time for work.

A New Year...A New...You?

Oh screw that. Why do the new plans always want to start on January 1st? I mean I'm totally a sucker for it, but why not like October 12th or something? And why does it have to be a *new* you. How about A New Year....and a more improved you.

Anyways, that being said. Happy New Year to everyone out there! Jason and I had a pretty good 2008 with only about 6 rough weeks. But seriously our little family unit is 180 from where we were last year so that's always good.

A more improved JasonLeahRun is starting with a new membership at the YMCA. We heart the Lakeview YMCA and all it's quirkyness. Our plan is to cardio + pilates (leah)/weight lifting (jason) on Monday, Run home from work on Tuesdays, racquetball + weight lifting on Wednesdays, run home from work on Thursdays, relax + lazy on Fridays, racquetball + pilates/weight lifting on Saturdays and run longer on Sundays. That's the idea anyways.

Also LeahC is doing a lot more photoshop work this year. It's a beast of a program but I am learning a ton from Scott Kelby's 7-Point system book. He takes 21 photos from out of the camera, and takes them through the steps he would use to make them a final product. You can download the photos used in the book from his website and follow along. The theory behind the book is that all photos out of a camera are a little dull, could use a little sharpening, etc. He found that most photos used similar steps, all deriving from these 7 basic steps outlined in the book. Not all photos need all of them, but the idea is that at the end of the book you'll be able to look at your photos and be able to get to the output using different varieties of the 7 steps. Anyways, I highly recommend that book (and any of Scott Kelby's books for that matter). Eventually I am going to buy Lightroom2 so I can take advantage of the photo workflow that it provides.

LeahC is also going to be working with a senior developer over lunch on various programming tasks.....still working out what that actually is...but looking forward to it.

LeahC and JasonR (although we might need to get a 2nd copy if we want to include the JMan) and ScottSails are all going to read I'm a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter. This reading will probably be slow with the photoshopping/work reading + working we need to do (We are going to have a study group at work and JasonR is starting at class at his company tomorrow).

LeahC and JasonR will also find themselves in Zurich in about 5 weeks visiting old friends and a city we have yet to see.

So 2009 is starting off with a bang and sore core muscles and thus it's time to enjoy the rest of the evening.