Act 35: Festival of Trees Parade

Last Saturday I went to the Festival of Trees parade.  I hadn’t ever been before though I have gone to the festival itself.  This year my friend Liz asked me to go since her bf was in the parade.

It’s billed to be the largest helium balloon parade in the Midwest and based solely on the fact that I’ve lived in the Midwest all my life and have never seen a helium balloon parade, I have no doubt that’s true.  I didn’t count them but there were quite a few.  We purposely stood by the skywalk between the hotel and the River Center so we could watch the people try to maneuver these massive balloons underneath.  It turned out to be quite entertaining.  A few balloons did this with grace and style, i.e. not dragging parts of the balloon across the street.  Some struggled a bit more.  One of the first balloons to pass gave us the quote of the day when the leader yelled “get it up!” to the other balloon holders after passing under the skywalk.  We, of course, passed this advice on to the other balloons as they came by. 

The parade probably lasted an hour and a half at least and as always the marching bands were my favorite part.  The tractors were also nice, though I did notice a distinct lack of horses.  Isn’t that a requirement for a Midwest parade??  My least favorite part was the string of cars carrying various pageant winners.  Do you really need a Miss Iowa Teen, Miss Iowa Preteen, and Miss Iowa Spirit?  And how can you have a Miss Something or Other, a Mrs. Something or Other, and a Ms. Something or Other.  Isn’t Ms. just what you use when you don’t know if a woman is married?  Seems like there’s some overlap in those categories! 

Definitely a good time had by all, though I will offer one more suggestion.  Throw candy.  This is also a parade requirement!

Act 34: Spring Awakening

Spring Awakening is a musical that takes place in Germany at the turn of the 20^th century and follows the relationships of a group of young students.  It won several Tony Awards including Best Musical in 2007 (I think) and I’ve heard awesome things about it so when I heard it was playing in Platteville, I jumped at the chance to go.  It was also an excuse to see some friends up there that I hadn’t seen in a while.

Steve, Kate, and I drove up to Platteville after work one night to meet some friends for dinner (Uno’s Pizza… yum!) and then Kate and I met up with her sister to go to the show while Steve hung back for some quality guy time.

I had heard that the musical was gritty and sexual in nature but I was unprepared for there to be a warning sign outside the theater stating that the show was for mature audiences only due to nudity, etc.  That made me a little nervous.  And though there were some blatantly sexual parts (like a scene with some obvious, vigorous, under-his-nightgown masturbation) and a lot of sexual references, it was not as bad as that sign made me think it was going to be.

The basic premise of the play is that a young idealist who despises convention falls in love with a naïve girl.  They want to be together but for various reasons that I won’t spoil for you, they can’t.  There are side stories, but this is the main one and the ending is pretty tragic.  Think Romeo and Juliet only less rhyme and more sex. 

This similarity prompted a pretty interesting discussion on the way home about how this kind of story could be written today as easily as it was 100 years ago or, in Shakespeare’s case, 400 years ago.  Some things never change.  People don’t seem to learn.  Which led us to the question of the night… why does love have to be so tragic?  Many of the best love stories in history are just sad.  No wonder people like movies with happy endings!

Deeper ponderings aside, the musical was very good.  The thing that kept it from being great or phenomenal for me is that it didn’t grab me from the beginning.  I didn’t feel invested in the characters and what was happening to them, which is probably the most important factor in a successful show (ask any TV writer/producer).  At the end of the first act, I wasn’t even sure where it was going or how I felt about it.  The second half did grab me more and I ended up liking it, but it was a little late.  That said, the songs were pretty cool (LOTS of rock influence) and everything was extremely well done, including the acting.

I’m glad to know that Platteville has touring musicals a few times each year also.  It’s an easy drive and provides me another location to see shows besides Chicago.  I’ll be heading back up there for Into the Woods next April; it’s one of my favorites!

Act 33: Autumn Cornucopia

Apparently the QC Area has a marsh.  Nahant Marsh… a low-lying, grassy wetland.  I know this because Heather worked there all summer and fall of this year, but that’s the only reason.  I don’t feel bad though.  There are plenty of people I’ve encountered that have lived here their entire lives and didn’t know that it was there.

From what I understand the purpose of the marsh is conservation and they have some pretty neat animals and plants out there, but they also have a ton of poison ivy so watch out!  Most recently they were featured in the paper as a good place to view river otters.

The Marsh seems to be trying to make itself more known as they are now on Facebook and are holding activities at the Marsh.  Then again, maybe they always did that and I just didn’t know about it.  Could be either one.  I’m not sure.

I attended the Autumn Cornucopia on October 9^th.  The event was a chance to help make and enjoy a meal made from local foods.  We got to take part in the making of three items: corn bread, apple cider, and pawpaw cookies.  We didn’t do any of the kitchen work as far as boiling the apple cider or baking the cookies but we did the prework.

For the cornbread they had corn cobs that we learned to see, or easily remove all the kernels with our hands.  Then we put them into a grinder with a hand crank and ground the kernels into cornmeal.  For the apple cider we had an apple crusher or presser.  I don’t know the technical name.  We cut the apples into quarters and hand cranked them through the crusher into a wooden bucket.  Then we pressed all the juice out of them into a second bucket.

Pawpaw is a local fruit that you don’t see in stores because they spoil so quickly.  The inside is yellowish and looks and feels like mushy banana.  It’s very custard-ish.  We scooped out pawpaws and mixed together all the cookie ingredients and let the volunteers take them inside for baking.  One batch had just pawpaw and one had chocolate chips as well.

Heather was one of the few people hard at work in the kitchen making not only the cornbread, cider, and cookies but also roasting bison, elk, and beef and making pumpkin soup and Jerusalem artichokes au gratin.  She worked hard that day!

While we were waiting for all the food to be ready we got to walk around the marsh and look at the different animals they had in the main building.  Once all the food was ready we dug right in though!  All of it was very good.  Jerusalem artichokes are similar to potatoes and I like those quite a bit, though I could have done without the pumpkin soup personally.  I prefer pawpaw cookies with chocolate chips (shocking, I know).  I ate far too many of them.  And the cider we made was pretty fantastic!

All in all it was a fun day and depending on the topic of the activities, I could definitely be interested in attending other functions at the Marsh.  I actually saw that this past weekend they had a informational session on different types of green energy for your home (solar panels, wind energy, etc) and the costs, pros, and cons of each.  I thought that sounded really interesting, but I already had plans.  Maybe they’ll do it again next year.

Act 32: Scuba Diving Class

It occurred to me that I never blogged about my scuba diving class experience so even though it happened back in June or so, here it is.

My friend Carrie was home for the summer after graduating from PT school and despite my work and her studying for boards we got to hang out a LOT.  Which was awesome of course!  One night when we were at my house she was looking online for God only knows what when she stumbled across the website for the Scuba Diving Club of the Quad Cities.  Who knew that even existed?  Well not only does it exist, but they offer introductory classes and certification classes at Augie.  So she signed me, Steve, and herself up.  It only cost $10 and hey, why not?

The night of the class we went to the pool at Augie and were taken through the building to a classroom near the gym.  This was not easy to find.  There was lots of confusion over whether the classroom was upstairs or not.  It was quite the ordeal actually.  The room was super hot and the instructor either didn’t show up for 15 or 20 minutes or left during a short video for about that amount of time and left us just sitting there.  I can’t remember all the details since it was a while ago, all I know is he was gone for what seemed like a really long time.  There was general discontent with that situation among the attendees.

The guy that taught the class was an old, white haired, no nonsense guy in a Hawaiian shirt who has the kind of sense of humor that allows him to pick on people quite a bit.  That aside, he provided a lot of good information on scuba diving, where you can do it nearby (lakes, quarries, etc), what it takes to get certified, etc.  It was pretty informative and though the videos were a little cheesy, the underwater shots of ocean life and ship and plane wrecks kind of made you want to be able to dive down and see those things for yourself.

The classroom portion gave way to the pool portion of the night.  This would require everyone to wear a mask, flippers, and weight vest with a tank on their back.  Now here’s where the night got a little weird.  The instructor lined us up by size.  By weight essentially.  Fattest to skinniest!  He actually made comments like “you’re probably the biggest guy here” and then to a girl “you’re bigger than these guys aren’t you?  Move to this end of the line”.  I, for one, was a little appalled and it was pretty clear I wasn’t the only one that was uncomfortable with this method.  Maybe the instructor didn’t realize how crass he was being but come on!  Size people up in your head, silently, give them the size vest you think they need and let them try it.

Anyway, once we got ordered properly we put on the vests and tanks and got in the pool.  We stayed in the shallow end and were taught how to breathe, how to lower or raise ourselves in the water, etc.  Then we got to go into the deep end of the pool and swim around.  They had some underwater toys to play with... a Frisbee, some diving sticks, and a couple of others.  We got at least a half hour to dive, maybe more like 45 minutes.  It was fun.  I can see why people would want to do this on vacations.  You get closer to the action than you ever can with snorkeling (though I’ve gotten pretty close that way too).  I can’t see the point in getting certified unless I was going on a tropical vacation where I could do it quite a bit because I don’t really have a desire to explore nearby lakes here.  Plus, I really don’t need another expensive hobby!

They did mention that most people who get certified are going on their honeymoon.  That prompted Carrie to coin a new term and suggest a Friendymoon.  Why should newlyweds have all the fun??

Act 31: The Amazing Razzpumple

When my friend Heather asked me what I wanted as a birthday treat, I told her I’d have to think about it.  There are so many options, after all, that it’s a pretty big decision.  Neither of us could have foreseen my choice or the adventure that it would become.

As you should with every big decision, I consulted an expert: my friend Aimee, connoisseur and lover of all baked goods.  She took on the challenge of the birthday treat with gusto and it was a slow work afternoon when she called me over to her desk to show me the Cherpumple.  What is a Cherpumple you ask?  It is a monstrosity of a dessert created by humorist Charles Phoenix of Arizona.  It is all 6 baked goods commonly asked for at his family functions slammed into one Turducken-style cake.  More specifically it is a cherry pie baked inside of a white cake, a pumpkin pie baked inside of spice cake, and an apple pie baked inside of a yellow cake.  These three cakes (all 9 inch rounds) are stacked on top of one another and covered in cream cheese frosting.  If you Google it you will get a number of pictures and firsthand accounts of people making their own.  It was quite the internet sensation when he first introduced it.

After seeing the Cherpumple, I was both amazed and frightened.  But it wasn’t until reading this, a hilarious firsthand account of making one, that I really wanted to try it.

The great thing about this is that it’s easy to customize it to your tastes.  There are plenty of types of pie and cake out there… you can use whatever combinations suit you.  Heather, Steve, and I all had a big hand in making this cake a reality and we chose the following layers for our Razzpumple (we modified the name to fit our layers):

-Razzlebery Pie in Chocolate Cake

-Pumpkin Pie in Yelllow Cake

-Apple Pie in Caramel Cake

First off, I highly recommend buying premade pies, either frozen or fresh from the grocery store.  I’d also recommend sticking to your basic cake mixes.  This takes plenty of time to make without having to bake pies and whip up cake batter from scratch. 

My second, equally important recommendation is that you use TALL round cake pans.  We made the mistake of using a regular 9 inch round cake pan for the pumpkin/yellow layer and ending up cleaning burnt batter off the bottom of the stove.  We used spring form pans for the other two and they worked like a dream.

So here’s how you make this. 

1)   Take your pre-baked pies and freeze them for a bit.  Especially the fruit ones!  Not so much that they are rock hard, but enough to allow you to cut into them and not have apple pie filling spilling all over the counter. 

2)   Remove the first pie from the tin and cut around the inside of the crust so you just have a crustless round pie left.  You don’t have to do this step as the original Cherpumple had whole pies, crust and all, inside the cake.  We just thought it would be tastier without all the extra crust. 

3)   Mix the first cake batter to box directions

4)   Grease the bejeezus out of your cake pan.  You don’t want this to stick!

5)   Pour cake batter in the cake pan, just enough to cover the entire bottom of the pan.

6)   Place pie in center of cake pan

7)   Pour more cake batter over the pie.  Now, don’t put ALL the cake batter on top.  You should have leftover batter of each flavor.  And you don’t need to put in enough batter to surround and cover the pie on all sides.  The cake will rise and even itself out.

8)   Bake until it’s done.

The last one is important because it takes quite a bit longer than a regular cake would.  Plan on 40 to 50 mintues per cake (you can have more than one in the oven at a time if your pans fit).  And for crying out loud, make sure the batter above and below the pie is cooked.  Granted, we probably put too much batter on top of the pies, but we had a little chocolate batter mudslide when we cut into it.  Delicious?  Yes.  Intended?  Nope.

Repeat the above steps for all 3 layers, let the cakes cool completely and then just remove them from the pans, stack them (with a layer of frosting in between of course!) and frost all around the outside. 

The assembly and logistics of this cake are pretty amazing.  The Leaning Tower of Cake, if you will.  Stack according to stability or it will not stand up to its own weight. 

Our Razzpumple turned out amazingly well considering how daunting the task was.  And considering Satchmo ate half the top layer :-P  It probably took a total of 5-6 hours of baking and assembly time, which we spread over 2 days.  And though you might think it sounds and looks not-so-appetizing, you’d be totally WRONG.  Everybody loved it.  It was a hit!  And it really was delicious :-)

So here it is.  My Ode to Gluttony and Indecision.  The Razzpumple.  

Act 30: A Work Conference

A couple of weeks ago, I got the opportunity to go to a conference for work.  It was pretty exciting because I haven't attended one before, but somewhat less so considering the circumstances.  I was a last minute replacement for a coworker who had a heart attack a few days before the conference started.  Luckily, he's doing well now.

The conference was put on by the Midwest SAS Users Group.  SAS is the primary programming language I use at work right now.  It's pretty versatile and easy to learn; I've been using it for 2.5 years.  The conference went from Sunday night to Tuesday afternoon and was held at the Hilton in Milwaukee, WI.  I went with my friend/coworker Aimee and overall it was a very worthwhile.  Lots of good sessions on Monday and Tuesday where we learned a lot and took 1.5 small pads of paper worth of notes.  The food was good and all meals were provided and the hotel was nice.

But the best part by far was the Monday night dinner event held at the Harley-Davidson museum.  It was a blast!  We had about an hour to go through the museum and see all the old bike styles.  There was a lot of Evel Knievel memorabilia too.  I knew all about the motorcycle daredevil stuff, but I didn't realize he was so ingrained in Harley history.  He was all over the place in there.

The coolest thing in the museum was touch screens that allow you to build your own motorcycle.  You big one of 8 or so models to start with and then you can change basically everything: fenders, gas tank, handlebars, forks, seats, paint color, designs, tires, etc.  It was a blast!  Aimee and I both made pretty sweet bikes.  They show your bike up on the big TV screens on the wall in the museum, email you a picture, and for $0.53 you can get your custom bike printed on a sticker.  Of course I got the sticker... why wouldn't I?  My bike was awesome.  I'm planning to put the sticker on magnet and display it proudly on my fridge!

Act 29: Apples Galore

Last weekend I went to visit my sister, who's living in Freeport, IL.  We decided to dedicate Saturday to apple picking and cooking.  I've been to orchards before but never did the pick-your-own thing.  Just bought apples and cider in the store there.  This time we had plans to try a couple different applesauce recipes so we needed plenty of apples.  We bought a 1/2 bushel bag and filled up it.  Final count: 49 apples!

We got them home, got out the recipes, and got to work.  Have you ever peeled and chopped up 49 apples?  It's pretty much exhausting!  We took turns at the different jobs but it was a lot of work. 

We made three different applesauce recipes.  The first was good but way too sweet.  The second was the same recipe but my sister wanted to try using Splenda instead of real sugar.  We also cut the sugar a little because the first one was so sweet.  I though the Splenda gave it a bitter aftertaste.  Not a fan.  Then again, my experiences with Splenda have not been great in the past.  The last recipe we made was my favorite.  It was more cinnamon-y and had just the right about of sweetness.  The only downfall of that one was that the recipe said to let the cooked apples cool before mashing them which made it a lot harder.  I'm going to ignore that instruction next time.  I did learn after I got the stuff home that mixing the too sweet applesauce with the cinnamon-y one evens it out pretty well.  A good way not to let any of it go to waste.

We had plenty of apples left so we also made apple-pecan bars (mildly successful) and an apple cheesecake-type thing.  That one was pretty good.

After all was said and done, we had 9 apples left for just eating.  And they were Northern Spy apples. I hadn't heard of this variety before, but they are incredibly tasty!  So after 5 hours of baking, this was what we ended up with.

Looks tasty, huh? :-)

Act 28: Maine Event

My parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided that my sisters and I needed some extra bonding time with them.  During our college years we each got two one-week long vacations: one with just mom and one with just dad.  My junior year, 2004, I had a fantastic vacation with my dad in New Orleans.  We listened to live music, drank hurricanes, learned about voodoo, and wrestled gators (kind of).

My mom and I planned an equally fantastic trip to Boston for that summer but unfortunately health problems (hers, not mine) prevented us from going.  After that I graduated college, real life got in the way for both of us, and we never made the trip.  Finally, 6 years later, we made the trip.  This past August we went to Maine.

The plan when we went was to rent a car and drive up the coast.  We flew into Portland (Maine, not Oregon.  I got asked about that a lot) and stayed there the first couple of nights.  We took a double decker bus tour of the city, a boat tour of the bay area, and saw the Portland Head Light which is apparently the most photographed lighthouse in the world though I don't know how they prove that.

After we left Portland we drove up the coast about 4.5 hours to Bar Harbor, which is on a peninsula with several other harbors and Acadia National Park.  We went up into the hills for some great views and went whale watching, though it was too foggy that day to see anything.

After a couple of days there we headed back towards Portland, making a few stops along the way.  One stop was in Port Clyde, Maine which is the home of the Marshall Point Lighthouse (which we saw along with 4 other lighthouses in the area).  Recognize it?

I didn't either, but when Forrest Gump is running across the country he runs down to this lighthouse and decides it's time to turn around.  So there you go! 

Another of our stops was Rockford, ME which is known for being the home of L.L.Bean.  They had about 5 different stores in town... an outlet, a regular store, a Bike, Hike, & Ski store, etc.  Their presence made the whole place a shopping destination though.  The main street in town looked like a smaller town main street but instead of your typical small town stores they had a Nike, Bass, Coach, GAP, and about 50 others.  It was a fun day of shopping spent there and all I bought was one pair of shoes.  Not bad!

When we finally made it back to Portland we celebrated with a spa day before we had to leave.  That was fantastic!  I had a salt scrub/body polish followed by a 30 minute massage.  I had no idea what to expect but the scrub was pretty nice.  I was all kinds of soft, exfoliated, and relaxed afterwards.

The rest of the trip mostly consisted of eating a TON of lobster (literally, lobster rolls for almost every meal!), going to see a couple of movies, and lots of good talks with my Mom.  I'm glad we finally got to spend this time together.  I think the trip was even more special now that I live farther from my parents and get to see them less.  And Maine was beautiful!

Act 27: Theology, Beer, and Going Solo

A few weeks ago my friend who works in church ministry invited me and a few others to go to Theology on Tap. I hadn’t heard of this before but it is a national ministry for young adult Christians (mostly Catholics) in their 20s and 30s. Each month the group meets at a bar and listens to a different speaker on issues of faith. They provide snacks, pop, and beer and give time to mingle before the speaker and discuss afterwards. Sounded pretty awesome to me!
We all agreed to go until about 2:30 in the afternoon the day of the event, when the friend that initially invited us had to back out because of a work meeting. This caused a domino effect. The two guys in the group decided to golf instead. The other girl had other plans within 30 minutes of the original person backing out. And then there was me. I still wanted to go so I talked to a few other friends about it that afternoon. One had to work, one had other plans, and one was uncomfortable with the idea of religious conversations (the topic was controversial). Thus the dilemma: go by myself or not at all? Some people are very comfortable going to events, movies, etc by themselves. I fall somewhere in the middle. I didn’t actually make the decision until about a half hour before it started and I decided to go. Why? Because otherwise I’d be sitting at home watching TV. If I had something else I could have done that night I might not have gone, but I didn’t. And I’m glad.

I drove to the bar and arrived about 10 minutes early. I went inside and was told to go upstairs for the speaker. There were already about 10 people there when I showed up and I introduced myself to a few of them, took part in the snacks, and got myself a drink. It seemed wrong not to imbibe at an event called Theology on TAP. I chatted with one of the organizing committee members and signed up for email updates on future events. Awfully bold considering I didn’t know if I would like it yet but hey, I’m an optimist!

I chatted before things got started with a girl named April, who just moved to Iowa from California. Talk about culture shock! We found a table with a couple others and kept up the chatting until the speaker was ready.

The topic of the night was something along the lines of “Matters of Life and Death” and covered big ticket issues like abortion, stem cell research, and contraception. Rather controversial, but so interesting! The speaker talked about the scientific facts some, the Catholic Church’s official stance on each, and the conflicting arguments. I definitely learned things I didn’t know, but I won’t get into the guts of that stuff here. If you’re interested, we can have a good conversation on it in person sometime.

After the speaker was finished there was Q&A and then table discussions. These were surprising calm, though some good debates took place. After we’d had enough of that kind of talk, April asked if I wanted to stick around downstairs and get a drink. Instead I invited her to Old Chicago since I was already planning on meeting some friends there. We shared some of our new knowledge with them and I have to say that I’m more confident talking about these subjects now that I’ve got more information.

April and I have hung out a few times since then and she’s even joining my volleyball team, so not only did I find a new activity (because I definitely plan on hitting up more Theology on Tap events), but I made a new friend. (All together now… “awwwwww” :-P ). I’d like to think I’d have been just as interested in striking up conversations with strangers if I’d had all my own friends there, but I’m not sure if that’s the case. Sometimes it’s not so bad to go solo.

Act 26: Baby We Were Born to… Ride?

Two weekends ago I took a motorcycle safety class.  For curious minds, I don’t own a motorcycle nor do I plan to purchase one any time soon.  It was just something new and interesting to do.  And in Illinois it’s free (after they refund the $20 down payment that holds your spot in the class).  So why not?

The class was one weekend long: Friday 6-10 PM, Saturday and Sunday 8-5.  Friday night was just class time.  They have a book they go through, some videos you have to watch that are quite as bad as the 50 year old driver’s education videos I watched 12 years ago, and study questions you go over as a class.  I learned all kinds of things about parts of a motorcycle (it has a clutch!) and how to operate it safely.  Good things to know since I didn’t know the first thing about motorcycles.  I knew my dad and my cousin both had one and I’d ridden on a few and that was about it.  Now I know that the clutch is the left hand lever, there’s a foot and a hand brake on the right side, and all that kind of important stuff.

I also learned something about the class.  It’s not just to teach you how to ride and ride safely.  It’s actually a licensing class.  On Sunday they actually give you the driving and written test!  That threw me for a loop.  I didn’t actually care to get my license right now.  I just wanted to learn to ride.  Having a test at the end puts all kinds of pressure on me that I don’t need.  I stress myself out about tests.  I hate failing.  Ugh.  More on that later.

Saturday we spent the first 5 hours of class learning how to ride.  It was fun!  A few times across the parking lot and I had the clutch mostly figured out.  We worked on curves and turns and emergency stops and other important maneuvering skills to keep us safe.  Then we went back into the classroom for a few hours and went over the book more. 

When I left class that night, a few things were clear to me.  I wasn’t very comfortable on a motorcycle.  Don’t get me wrong, it was fun to learn to ride, but the thought of being unleashed onto the streets and highways alone after just one more half day of riding around a parking lot didn’t seem appealing to me at all.  I could think of two reasons I felt that way.  First off, I don’t have very good balance.  Things that require balance (rollerskating, water skiing, standing on one foot) were not things I was even remotely good at.  Being on two little wheels did not seem all that stable.  And it’s not the same as a bicycle.  My bike doesn’t go 55 mph, or even 35 mph for that matter.  Okay, it did once during RAGBRAI but it was a huge downhill and though it was kind of fun in a oh-crap-my-bike-is-going-to-shake-apart-isn’t-this-exhilarating kind of way I wouldn’t want to go that fast very often.  The second reason is that I’m afraid of getting hurt.  I’m not that great of a driver anyway, I get easily distracted, and I’ve seen how scary motorcycle accidents are.  I don’t want to be a statistic.

Basically Saturday night found me not feeling all that confident that I even wanted a motorcycle license and not even the slightest bit confident that I’d actually pass the driving test.  But I got up on Sunday and went to the class anyway.  The riding in the morning was still fun but I was really frustrated for the first 20 minutes because I basically had to relearn the use of the clutch.  Turns out it’s not quite second nature on your second day doing it.  Weird.

 When it was time to take the test, I still wasn't quite confident.  Especially about the figure eights that you had to do in a little box (i.e. tight turns).  Though I never got the figure eights down in practice, I still could have passed the test.  Going outside the lines of the box was only 3 points off the test and you could lose 20 points before you failed.  So I got in line to do my figure eights because it was the first part of the test and one of the instructors came up to me and said "I really think you can nail this.  You just have to lean more to make the turn."  So when it was my turn, I leaned more than I had been before (and was really comfortable with) and... I fell over.  Yeah, that's right.  Two days and no one in the class and gone down with a bike and I did it in the driving test.  Awesome.  Turns out crashing is an automatic failure on the driving test (as I would assume is true for cars as well) so my test ended there.  It was embarrassing and frustrating at the time.  In all honesty though, for all the reasons I stated before, I'm really okay with not getting my motorcycle license and I'm not sure I'll try again.  Plus, I really don't need any more expensive hobbies!

Act 25: Dressage It Up

Though we all grew up riding and showing horses, my sister Chrissy is the only one of my family to still be actively involved with the animal and the sport. For the last 5 years she has been showing Dressage, which for those who don’t know is kind of the ‘fancy footwork’ of horsemanship. The tests contain a series of movements that showcase the horse’s gaits, such as collected walk, medium trot, extended trot, and extended canter as well as other movements such as pirouettes (like the ballet movement), zigzags, and lead changes.


For non-horsey people it might be hard to understand what it all entails but its tough stuff to do well, and Chrissy does it well. There are 8 levels of dressage show total: 4 lower (amateur) and 4 upper (professional). The highest level is Grand Prix. In the last 5 years Chrissy has trained and showed them all. It’s been a long journey, with her regularly riding 4 times per week. Now she’s thinking about hanging up her boots for a while and starting a family and her last show, at least for the near future, was this past weekend. So I went to see her perform!

Despite knowing the movements and being familiar with the sport due to her involvement, and seeing videos of most of her rides over the years, this was actually my first dressage show in person (I’ve seen several hunter/jumper shows though). And thus the first time I saw her ride in a show. Unfortunately the spring/fall show schedule doesn’t work well when I only fly to Georgia for the holidays.

All this made it extra special to see her ride now. And to make it even more special, I didn’t tell her I was coming so it was a surprise! I love surprises. My mom picked me up from the airport and took me to Chrissy’s hotel, where I popped out from behind a corner causing her to scream and practically jump off the bed. :-)

Riders generally show both Saturday and Sunday, one ride for each class they are competing in. Chrissy was competing in one class. She rode Saturday morning and had a decent ride, but Patrick (her horse) stumbled during one of the movements and it was hard to get a rhythm back after that. Though the score was a little disappointing for her, the rest of the day was great. She and I stayed at the show while the rest of the family went to do other things. We helped her teammates when they needed it and watched them compete, watched other shows, and spent some quality time with Patrick. I don’t get to spend much time alone with Chrissy anymore so it was a great afternoon of catching up on boys, family, work, hobbies, and everything else we could think of. That night the whole family sat in the lobby of the hotel playing card games and being generally a bit rowdy (as my family is known to do during card games).

On Sunday Chrissy & Patrick rode again and they were fantastic, got a great score, and ended with her grinning from ear to ear. It was a special moment and I’m glad I got to share it with her. Definitely made the plane ticket worth every penny. =)

Act 24: One Full Tent

Since the first road trip/vacation with the dogs went so well this summer, Steve and I decided to take them camping with us. We were going with two friends from college and their beagle, Ruby. Then they invited a few of their friends and their friends brought two dogs as well. So on two campsites we had 7 people and 5 dogs. That’s kind of a lot! Luckily the capsites we had were tucked away against a border of trees/tall grass so we didn’t have other campers on all sides of us. And the campground itself was extremely dog-friendly. I’ve never seen so many animals camping!
We brought what seemed like a ton of stuff, mostly because of the dogs. Traveling with dogs has to be close to traveling with small children for the amount of packing they require. Food, treats, toys, poop bags, leashes, stake, etc. We brought short leashes for walking and long leashes for staking them in the campsite. We have a stake that twists into the ground and 22 foot long leashes (they’re actually horse lunge lines I bought at Farm & Fleet) and they work great. For most of the time the first day, Dean and Satchmo were off leash. They did a pretty good job of sticking close to us, with Satch naturally wandering farther than Dean. We still had to keep our eyes on them. Satch got put back on the long leash that evening because he wandered over to another campsite. They had their dogs tied up and told us we really should too, even though Satch didn’t really bother them at all. Oh well. Dean wandered to another campsite as well but the people there were much cooler and seemed to love playing with him. No harm, no foul I guess… just depends on the neighbors.

All the dogs got along pretty well. There was a giant mutt (had to have some shepherd and probably Great Dane in it) that was a bit more aggressive so we was watched pretty closely and a hyperactive Boxer that always wanted to play. They all had a good time together. We had a campfire that night and made dogs, burgers, and smores, had a few beers and played some fun games.

I was a little nervous about Steve, me, and the 2 dogs sleeping in the tent together but it went much better than I anticipated. It took a few minutes to get situated but when everyone stopped moving, it was pretty comfortable. Satch was at the edge of the tent, as far away from everything else as possible because he was cooler that way. Dean curled up right between us at the bottom of the tent by our feet. He’s a doll to sleep with. Never moves around… just curls into a ball and keeps your legs toasty warm 

The next morning there was a little…incident… with Satch not wanting to go back on the long leash, so unfortunately Steve had to deal with that. Satch through quite the temper tantrum and it kind of soured the beginning of the day. There were games of lawn golf and Frisbee to wear out both people and pups and a couple of long walks through the campgrounds and by the beach. By that evening it was time to pack up and head home before it got dark. The pups slept like logs in the back seat of the car, all curled up together cute as can be. At least we found one more surefire way to wear them out!

Act 23: Punch It Out

I don’t really like boxing.  I’m familiar with the greats of the sport and can even get in on some nostalgic, riveting footage of the Rumble in the Jungle but the last thing I generally want to watch is two grown men punching each others teeth out.  I tend to gravitate to sports with less blood and disfiguration.  There’s a reason I didn’t go into the medical field! 

The contradiction to all of this would be the fact that I LOVE punching things.  Not people.  I’ve never hit anyone, though I can think of a few times when people really truly deserved it and sometimes I wished I had socked ‘em one just so I could feel what it was like.  But I generally like punching, well, punching bags.  I got one for Christmas during a particularly stressful time in college and it was a godsend.  There is no better way to get over a bad day than by punching something really hard.  Go at it for a few minutes and not only will you be tired, you’ll have punched out most of your anger.  (Note: Listening to the German heavy metal band Rammstein really loudly has a similar effect.)

That story was basically leading up to this one:  I took a boxing class.

One of my friends from work took up a boxing class at a local gym earlier this year and has asked me multiple times to join her.  Apparently she caught me on a week day recently because I finally gave in.  I’m not sure why I was resisting.  Partly because I find classes aren’t my favorite workout style, I’ve been trying to focus on running, and it’s not at my gym so if I loved it I’d have to pay for it.  But the first class is free so why not?

Turns out it was pretty awesome.  First we got some boxing gloves on and learned a little.  Punches have numbers.  A standard left arm punch is one and a standard right arm punch is two.  Three and four I believe are uppercuts, and there’s at least a five, but since I was new to this I only got to use 1 and 2.

The first half, after some initial stretching, was all focused on boxing.  There were punching bags around the room and the instructor had the thick hand pads.  The three of us in the class that night rotated from working the bags (he’d tell us what to focus on) or working with the instructor.  When you worked with the instructor he would call out what he wanted you to punch and you’d hit his hand pads.  1! 1! 1! 2! 2 1 2!  During this he was moving around the room and you had to follow.  He gave instruction on the footwork as well and this guy really knew his stuff.  The bag work was just okay but working with him was kind of exhilarating. 

The second half of the class was all conditioning.  Which meant ab work and LOTS of it.  Some variations of ab exercises were ones that I hadn’t seen before.  It was tough.  I was sore for three days and I only did 10 of each exercise!  A part of me wants to start doing… maybe 3 or 4 reps of these exercises and work my way up, because clearly they work and I could use some improvement in the ab strength area, but I haven’t convinced myself to do it yet.

All in all, I enjoyed the class and would be interested in going back.  I’m just not sure I will.  I loved boxing with the instructor and if I could just do that part of it every now and then, that would be awesome.  But like I said before, I’d have to pay for the class since it’s not at my gym and I’m not sure I want the extra expense.  And if I’m really going to run this half-marathon next summer, I’m not sure I have time to be flirting with any sport besides running!

Act 22: Pieces of Art

Earlier this month I went to the Figge Art Museum in Davenport.  I can honestly say I’ve wanted to go there for a while.  I can also honestly say that the only reason it actually happened was because it was the 5 year anniversary of the Figge and admission was free.  It’s only $7 normally, but the free thing really sold me.  Who said free stuff only attracts college students??

The museum is nice.  It's no Chicago Art Museum, but hey, what is?

The Figge did have some really interesting exhibits.  My favorites were two photography exhibits.  The first took up an entire floor and entitled “Scale”.  It featured panoramic (and some not) photographs of stunning geographical landscapes, mainly rock formations.  Most of the pictures were shot at close range so you could see the contour and edges of the formations, rather than being a far off picture of a mountain range surrounded by greenery.  The photographs were quite excellent and, of course, made me want to see them in person.

The second photography exhibit was by a man whose name I cannot remember who took pictures in the 1930’s and 1940’s of seemingly mundane everyday things.  A person buying a newspaper from a vendor, children playing in a park, a man working on a car, someone waiting for a taxi, etc.  They were all in black and white and contained no famous faces but they were still striking for the emotion they showed.  They were very candid, like little glimpses into the lives of these people, their thoughts and fears.

Other enjoyable parts of the museum were the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit and the Grant Wood collection.  I like Wood’s style… they remind me a bit of “home” since he lived in the Midwest and was inspired by the landscapes.  The quote painted on the wall near his collection made my day:  “All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.  That’s why I moved back to Iowa.”

Act 21: A Century of...

The title of this post could end with any number of words... Fun.  Determination.  Pork Chops.  Pain.  All were (not quite equally) a part of this adventure.  But let's start from the beginning. 

When I did RAGBRAI in 2008 (the week-long bike ride across the state of Iowa, annually ridden by ~15,000 crazy people and surprisingly, a few dogs) I rode every single one of the 471 miles.  I never had my support driver pick me up in a pass-thru town.  I never walked my bike up a single foot of the 21,000 feet of climb, despite the fact that some of those hills could have (and probably did) make grown men cry.  It's not because I was super fit, physically or mentally.  It's because I never considered it as an option.  How silly of me.

The one thing that was optional that year, and every year, is the Karras Loop.  On an already long day (70-85 miles) near the beginning of the week there is always an optional loop that will make that day a 100-miler.  A century.  It was (and still is) a huge accomplishment to ride RAGBRAI start to finish.  There was no way I was going to go farther than necessary.  "Hey Steph, today's mileage is already 2.5 times longer than your longest training ride.  Wanna add another 17 miles, just for fun??"  Uh, NO.  But that was then...

Fast forward to 2010, just a few weeks ago.  My second RAGBRAI started off with me missing the first day of riding.  I knew from the beginning that would be the case because schedules just weren't going to allow me to be there.  Pressure to ride every mile, gone!  I also knew that this time I wanted the century.  Badly.  It was a new challenge.  It was a feat to check off my list.  It was... a really long ways.

Since my frequent partner/roommate/friend-in-crime Steve and I had missed the first day of the ride, our first day was Monday.  Monday was also Century Day.  The original daily mileage was 79 miles, ridden in varying distances of north and west from Storm Lake to Algona, IA.  The Karras Loop was more than halfway into the route.  At about mile 50 the entrance to the loop went straight south and around a town called Rolfe, then west back to the main route to finish the day.

We hit the road with the rest of our team at about 7 AM, but we quickly pulled away.  We weren't fatigued from the hilly day before and we had adrenaline pumping already, imagining the triple digits we'd see by nightfall.  Everything was working in our favor that morning.  The tailwind was strong, the weather was perfect, and the route was just gently rolling which means plenty of momentum and plenty of pedaling breaks on the downhills.  The pace was a solid 17-18 mph and we rolled into the meeting town, 36 miles away, in just about 2 hours.  I felt fantastic.  I couldn't have asked for a better start to the day.

Now every other day of the week we'd do the normal "meeting town" thing which is joining up with the rest of your team and your support drivers for some food and fun before hitting the road again.  That morning though, we were way ahead of the rest of our team and Eileen, Steve's aunt and our saintly support driver, hadn't even left Storm Lake yet.  Steve and I fueled up on a Pizza Ranch buffet and before you think it, yes, after you've ridden that far a pizza buffet at 9:30 in the morning in an air conditioned building sounds like a fantastic idea!  The food hit the spot and got us ready to go.  We left the meeting town just after the first of our teammates pulled into town.

The next 20-25 miles went by pretty easily.  Stopped in a pass-thru town or two, because that's what you do on RAGBRAI, but kept a good pace.  We were still feeling solid when we saw the entrance for the Karras Loop between mile 50 and 55.  And that's when things started getting rough.  We turned south on the loop route and immediately we were smacked in the face with the worst headwind we'd have all week.  It slowed the pace way down and made me grip my handlebars in an uncomfortably tight fashion just to keep my front tire from being blown off-center.  The southern stretch of the route wasn't even that long, 7 or 8 miles, maybe shorter, but by the midpoint my arms were shaking and I was cursing the wind and myself.  When we made it to Rolfe I was ready for a break.

Everyone who does the century loop gets a special patch for their efforts, like in the boy scouts, symbolizing your acheivement.  You get a different patch for doing RAGBRAI in general.  I don't know what normal people do with these patches, but Steve mentioned sewing them to the Camelbak I religiously wear throughout the week and I'm thinking this might be the best way to display.  Assuming someone wants to sew them on for me. :-)

After resting by a pond in Rolfe for a while and chatting with a man who mistakenly took us for a married couple and told us we'd be setting such a good example for our kids some day, we hit the road again.  The rest of the loop was west and the headwind was weaker but not absent.  When we hooked up with the main route again, we had about 20-25 miles left.  It started getting tough around mile marker 75 or 80.  My hands were starting to go numb from the pressure on the handlebars (something I get frequently) and my quads were starting to complain.  Which meant that we pushed on to about mile 85 for the ultimate prize... pork chops!

Mr. Porkchop is a RAGBRAI tradition.  It's a guy (now the son of the original guy) who drives a big pink school bus that looks like a pig, ears and all.  (pic to come).  He has a huge flat grill, innumerable pounds of pork chops, and a bus full of corn husks for fuel.  They cook the chops about 30 or 40 at a time (I told you the grill was huge) and throw them in coolers (not filled with ice).  We waited in line for at least a half hour and it was worth every second.  We devoured the pork chop and learned that Mr Porkchop has his reputation for a reason.  He's GOOD.  Also fun was the massive slip 'n slide next to the bus.  It looked like a good one but unfortunately it was starting to sprinkle when we went to leave so getting more wet didn't seem like a good idea. 

Sprinkling was the most of it and the weather stayed pretty good for the whole day.  The last 15 miles were pure determination with equal parts whining and grunting.  This was the pain part.  My quads were spent, my butt hurt like crazy, and I just wanted to be done.  It didn't help that the biggest hill of the day (really not that big at all... more like a mound) came at the very end of the day while riding into Algona.  And it felt like a mountain.  The thing that got me up it was seeing my CatEye trip distance read 100.00 halfway up.  I was just euphoric enough to make it up the hill.  I had ridden 100 miles!

Steve and I were quite home free yet though... we still needed to get to the house of the kind people putting us up for the night.  We got a little lost on our way, stopped to ask for directions, and then called Eileen for better directions.  We learned that the house was out of town about 3 miles or so and it was pretty hilly.  Ugh.  Approximately 102 miles down and more yet to go.  Well you know what we did?  We had Steve's other saintly aunt come and pick us up, and I didn't feel the least bit bad about it.

Act 20: In a Pickle...

Well the garden has been a success so far, with out main crop being cucumbers.  In fact, last weekend we had so many ready to go that there was no way Steve and I would be able to eat them all.

What better way to use all these yummy looking cukes than making pickles??  I found a dill pickle recipe (my favorite kind by far) online and then found an invaluable website for beginners: the USDA Canning Guide.  It took a bit to navigate at first but it gave me everything I needed to know about sanitizing the jars and lids, how to process the filled jars, processing time, etc.

Armed with this new knowledge, I set out on Saturday to pick up supplies.  Steve already had 4 quart sized Ball jars, so I only need lids and bands for those.  Easily found at the grocery store.  I needed pickling salt and fresh dill for the recipe.  Pickling salt was easily found too (right next to the jar lids) but I had to go to 3 grocery stores before finding one with fresh dill!  I couldn't believe it.  Apparently this is not a popular item.  A little bit frustrating for sure.  The last thing on my list was canning utensils.  I went to the kitchen store in the mall and asked if they had something to easily transfer the jars in and out of the boiling water.  They said of course... a jar lifter!  It came in a set of canning utensils that included a lid lifter (a cool magnetic stick that lifts the lids out of the boiling water), tongs, a wide mouth funnel, and a few other toys.  All my purchases, the cucumbers, jars, some garlic and vinegar and I was ready to go!

First we simmer the jars, lids, and bands to make sure they were all sanitary and ready to go.  Everything stays in the hot water until you're ready to use them.  We also got the brine ready.  6 cups of water, 2 1/4 cups of white vinegar, and 1/2 cup of pickling salt boiled until the salt is all dissolved.  Next we cut up the cucumbers.  We did half slices and half spears.

One by one we removed the jars.  We put fresh dill and a garlic clove in the bottom of each, stuffed with as many slices or spears as we could fit, put another garlic clove and more dill on top and then poured the brine in to fill up the jar.

Once the jars were filled we used our nifty magnetic lid lifter to get our lids out their pot and closed them up.  We used the jar lifter to transport the jars into the stock pot (which was acting as our canner since we didn't want to invest in an actual one for our first time.

We had a candy thermometer on the side of the stock pot because the water was supposed to be 140 degrees when the jars first go in.  Then you cover the pot, bring it to a boil, and then process it (let it boil) for the proper amount of time.  The website I linked to above has tables that help you determine your processing time by what you are canning, the size of the jars, and your altitude.  Our cucumbers processed for 15 minutes.

Turns out the stock pot was barely big enough.  Safe canning instructions say that the water must be at least one inch above the tops of the jars and not drop below the lid during boiling, even if that means you add more water.  Also, the water must never stop boiling during the processing time or you have to start all over.  The water was all the way to the top of the stock pot and the boiling made the lid jump and sputter the whole time.  Clearly if we do this again in the future there needs to be a purchase of either a canner or a bigger pot! 

We got through the processing time without any mishaps though.  The next step was to turn off the heat and let the jars sit in the water for another 5 mintues.  After that we lifted the jars out of the pot and set them on towels on the counter.  The jars need to cool completely before you check the buttons on the lids to see if they sealed or not.  It was recommended to cover the jars with towels so they don't cool too quickly; there is a chance the glass could crack if they do.  Don't say I don't follow directions!

I was dying to check the seals the whole rest of the day, but Steve kept me in line.  Finally on Monday after work I was able to check and all 4 jars were perfectly sealed.  Success!  I was so excited and proud after this little adventure that I couldn't stop bouncing.  It was fun!  One thing that was surprising is how much room there seems to be in the jars.  We stuffed as many slices and spears as we could shove into the jars, but now there is a lot of wiggle room.  Guess that's just how it works.  Next time maybe I'll try to get more in there.

Though we could open them as soon as the next day, I hear we should wait a couple of weeks for them to become properly pickle-y.  This means one more week before we can dig in and see how they taste.  I can't wait!  Looks good, eh? :-)

Act 19: My Vacations are Going to the Dogs...

For a long 4th of July weekend (and because I needed to go somewhere that is even hotter) Steve and I took a road trip to Georgia to visit my parents.  I've done this drive two or three times before, but this time we had a little company... DOGS!  Steve's 3.5 year old Siberian Husky Satchmo and my almost 3 year old German Shepherd Dean :-)  I've never traveled with dogs before, except bringing them home or driving 20 minutes to the dog park, so we were all in for a new experience.  Through the kindness of Steve's mom, we got to drive her Ford Flex down to Georgia.  This meant we could fold down the third seat and the boys had plenty of room to stand, sit, lay, and move around.  Much better than being in my tiny car!  I've never seen a reason for me to have anything larger than a little car since I don't have kids right now but if I ever needed a reason, this would be it.  It worked out SO well.

I was excited about the trip, but I also had some serious reservations about how it would go since so much was going to be new for the dogs (and the humans).  As I mentioned before, they don't do more than 20 minutes stints in the car.  This was 15 hours!  But they were angels!  They just laid down in the back and stared out the window or slept.  Couldn't have been better.  I was a little worried about the leash too... let's face it, the fenced-in back yard has spoiled me.  I don't walk the dogs.  And when I do they go crazy and pull me all over the road.  Not fun for anyone.  I was hoping this trip would be like a leash boot camp that would whip them into shape.  1 point for me!   The boys took to the leashes wonderfully.  The pulling was far less than at home, possibly because they didn't know what in the world was going on.  It was soooo much fun to take them on walks with my mom and sister :)

At my parent's house they got along well with my sister's chocolate lab and were very well behaved.  Moreso than at home actually!  They had plush toys (usually off limits) on the trip that went 5 days without being torn up.  This is a world record for these guys.  First day back home though?  Two of those same toy, dead.  Stuffing everywhere.  Apparently when things are different from the everyday routine, the boys are on their best behavior.  I'm not opposed to this.  Makes me more willing to take them places!  They even got to go on my parent's boat and had a blast sticking their heads out in the wind and watching the wake.  Turns out though, they're not exactly swimmers.  They can if they have to, but they need a push off the dock first :-P

The rest of the trip included golfing, more boating, and LOTS of card games with the family.  It went so well that I'm hoping to make the same trip every couple of years, dogs included.  I might even consider taking the dogs on other trips with me... but that would depend on whether I could find a hotel that would allow 2 big dogs, weighing 65 and 78 lbs, in one room with me.  Might be a tough find!

The boys were tuckered out after a morning on the lake!

Garden Update...

I’ve written a couple posts about my first foray into vegetable gardening… starting my tomatoes and peppers inside and then planting a square foot garden outside. I figure it’s time to update since it’s not so much a garden anymore, but a jungle!

The green beans were the first to explode. They sent out their shoots and started climbing and when they reached the end of my 5 foot trellis they just kept going! They actually started wrapping around each other to make them stable enough to grow taller and when they couldn’t support their own tower any longer they fell over and started winding themselves around the railing of the back steps. One shoot keeps grabbing onto my clothes when I try to go in the back door… I’m currently not sleeping to avoid nightmares about Audrey 2.

The cucumbers are also out of control. The leaves are huge! Tons of flowers are sprouting on there… I had no idea that cucumbers are actually the stem of the flowers. There are literally itty bitty little cucumbers growing on this plant with yellow flowers at the end. Not all of them… only the female flowers. Thanks to Kate, my resident expert and the only person I’ve ever met that majored in Ornamental Horticulture, for explaining to me the ways of the plant world. (This conversation about male and female flowers also led to the revelation that the Grease 2 song “Reproduction” is all wrong. A female sings “make my stamen go berserk” but in reality the stamen is part of the male flower. Just goes to show you that movies are no replacement for education. Come on lyricist… do your research!).

And just today Steve and I picked our first three cucumbers!!  I couldn't believe it, but a couple of full-sizers were hiding way underneath all those branches.  We were soooo happy, as you can see!

The tomatoes and peppers were actually the slowest growers, which I thought was strange since I started those inside in March. Imagine how long they would take if you didn’t do that! But now we have little hybrid tomatoes and little pepperoncinis growing so they’re on the right track.  Woot!

Act 18: Paddle Chatting

My friend Carrie, who I know will be reading this (Hi Carrie!), came out to see me run a triathlon in mid-June and saw that the lake that we swam in also rents paddle boats. Being quite excited about this, we went back and rented one the next day. Getting onto it without being dumped in the water was a bit of a trial at first but once we figured that out it was a breeze. It’s a pretty good workout really… my legs definitely got tired. We had it out for an hour and we were able to circle the whole lake and have some time to just float. It was a beautiful (read: hot) day… perfect for being outside on the water.

My favorite part about it? The talking. When just the two of you are on this little boat paddling around a usually pretty empty lake, there’s nothing to do but talk. About everything under the sun. Of course you can talk about anything, but it seemed like such a great place for those deeper, more personal conversations. The kind of conversations where you really share and connect; really catch up. The kind that can be hard to have when there are other people or things going on all the time. On the lake it’s just you and the other person and whatever is on your mind. I love that.

I also think it would be a great activity for a date. It would allow you to get to know the other person (instead of sitting in a dark movie theater and not talking) and if you run out of things to talk about 15 minutes in, take it as a hint ☺

Act 17: Don't Tri without the Train... and Magic Drinks

Okay, I’ve done a triathlon before. I trained solidly for a few months and it went really well and it was awesome.

Fast forward two years. I sign up for another triathlon. I don’t train. I run it anyway. This is my new thing that week. Running a triathlon without training. I know, it’s a stretch, but it’s all I had.

Surprisingly, it was not as terrible as it could have been. I could have passed out. Or collapsed from exhaustion. Or fell asleep on my bike, fallen, and broken a bone. Or pulled all of my muscles and been unable to walk for days.

So considering everything that could have happened, the fact that my foot went numb for the last mile of the run and my time was 17 minutes slower than 2 years ago is really pretty good. A little disappointing on the time front but overall I was just excited to finish. Still, I can tell you… I won’t be running many more races in the future without training (hopefully). Maybe it’s a “anything worth doing is worth doing well” mentality, but hey, that’s me!

Oh! So you know those energy gels (GU, Hammer, etc) that are thick and pasty and really hard to swallow but are recommend for all kinds of endurance or multi-sport athletes? I don’t like those. I have found something I do like though! Thanks to my local bike shop I found GU Electrolyte powder and GU Recovery powder. These are powdered drink mixes, meant to be mixed in 16 of 20 ounce water bottles with… you guessed it… water! Two of us put the electrolyte mix in our bike water bottle and drank that on the bike leg of the race and then drank the recovery drink right after the race. Considering my lack of training, this is the only thing I can possibly think of that would explain how I wasn’t terribly sore for days after. In fact, I was never really sore. Tired yes, but my muscles had the best recovery of their lives. I highly recommend this stuff… it’s like magic!

Act 16: Skiing Trials and Tribulations

Backwater Gamblers are a water ski team. They put on two free shows each week that act as their practices for the competitions that they compete in all summer. They have jumpers, pyramid teams, two and three person groups that do gymnastic/cheerleading-esque lifts and turns, and girls that do fancy ballet-like things like turning around on their skis and holding the handle with their foot. It’s all very impressive and fun to watch.

The downfall is that they only have a few boats and there is a decent amount of downtime between acts. Actually the downtime isn’t the problem, but what they fill it with. It’s a little skit that continues throughout the whole show. It’s a radio station (the sound equipment work nicely for playing appropriate music during the ski acts) and three people pretend to be a station manager, DJ, and call operator. These people try so hard to keep you entertained and keep it funny and interesting, but the script is really ridiculous. I think the downtime would be better filled by music and possibly interviews with the skiers that aren’t setting up for the next act. That’s my idea!

The one things that I couldn’t get over while watching the show was how incredibly jealous I was of them. I am insanely jealous of everyone who can water ski. I just can’t ski. CAN NOT. This is one of the major failures of my life. Not kidding.

My mom and her siblings grew up on the water and some of them were on a water ski team. They were awesome. For most of my childhood we had a newspaper clipping from the 1950’s hanging on our fridge; a picture of one of their pyramids. Also as a child, my family had a boat and water skiing was a big deal. We were always out skiing, tubing, or knee boarding. In fact, my parents still live near a lake and this is still the norm when I go home.

The first time I remember trying I couldn’t have been more than 5. I remember trying to start off the dock and I remember people being in the water with me teaching me what to do. And I remember not being able to figure it out. My sisters and cousins got up and pretty soon they were slalom skiing or skiing two at a time and weaving back and forth around each other. Not me. Never even really got out of the water.

This continued until… well… about 4 years ago. That’s when I stopped trying. Because after you spend nearly 20 years of your life trying to do something and failing miserably and then minutes later watching others do it effortlessly and have a blast, it gets frustrating. I do still have visions of going home one future summer and deciding to try again. In the vision I finally get up out of the water and ski, fulfilling a life-long desire and eliciting beaming smiles of pride from my family…

It’s good to have goals.

Act 15: Comedy Sportz

Back in May I attended a bachelorette party in Chicago and went to Second City. If you live near one (lots of big cities have them) and you haven’t been, you should go. It’s a rollicking good time! They are an improv and sketch comedy group that has turned out some of the most famous comedians in history including Bill Murray and Tina Fey. In fact, this time around I could’ve sworn Tina Fey was there. One of the comedians playing in Chicago might as well be a clone. Scary thought.

The show this time around was funny but I remember thinking that I wished they did more improv. I think that every time I go actually. They are currently about 80% sketch comedy, which makes sense since they basically exist to supply SNL with their next lineup. And while sketch comedy can be really good, I’ll take Who’s Line Is It Anyway over SNL any day. Seriously, how does Wayne Brady come up with this hilarious songs off the top of his head?? (If it’s all a fraud and it’s not really improve, well, don’t tell me. Ignorance is bliss in this case.)

Anyway, out of my hankering for some more live improv I found out about Comedy Sportz. It’s an all improve comedy troupe in the area. I went the next weekend, with 6 or 8 of my closest pals. The place was packed and the performers were pretty hilarious. They did a normal improv show with several shorter ‘games’ and had an extra show after the main show that was long-form improv. In long-form one performer tells a story about anything he wants, all off the top of his head, and when he’s done the rest of the people do all kinds of funny jokes and skits inspired by the story. This was the really good part. My favorite was a story that mentioned a restaurant called Orchard Green and a skit that ended with “Orchard Green is people!”. ☺

Thank goodness I saw them when I did… they’re currently looking for a new venue and not performing again until they find one.

Get Ready because...

I’m baaaaaaaaaaackkkk!

Well, that was a nice 7 week break! Turns out the last thing I want to do in the summer is sit inside on my computer. I do that all day for my job… why would I do that at night? So basically I’m saying that the reason that I haven’t written anything in so long is because I’ve been out DOING things! Just in case you don’t believe me, I’ll even tell you about some of them. These posts (separated so as not to overwhelm you with one monstrous novel on seemingly unrelated topics) are going to come hard and fast over the next few days, so get ready!

Act 14: If the Price is Right

I made a price book this week!  Woot!  Wondering what a price book is?  A book of prices.  End of post.

Just kidding :-)

I learned about the price book idea from reading Time Magazine's blog It's Your Money.  This blog has been a bit disappointing as it is mostly about ways to save money and not about money management and financial things in general.  I didn't know that at first.  But it did once give me a 30% off coupon to a shoe store so I finally got to replace my worn out boots, so I keep it around.  Regardless, it linked to an article one day about price books.  It talked about how people don't really know what they pay for their goods and don't comparison shop the way they should.  It recommended that each person make a list of items they buy regularly and pick 3 to 5 stores at which you might potentially shop.  Then print out your list and go price your items. 

I had a hard time keeping my list under control.  I think the article recommended the basket of goods be around 30 items.  Mine was 51.  I covered all your major grocery categories... meat, dairy, produce, packaged foods, and toiletries.  The stores I priced at were Hy-Vee, Jewel, Walmart, Target, and Walgreens.  For the purposes of experiment I eliminated Target and Walgreens from the results.  Neither of the ones near me sells produce or meat so the data just wasn't as comparable (no Super Target over on this side of the river!).

It was a little time consuming to price my items at the different stores, but really it ended up only being a couple of hours.  I wanted to upload my spreadsheet but I don't seem to be able to do that, which is too bad because it was pretty cool!  For each item the lowest price is highlighted in yellow and the highest price is in red font.  Unless you have a Mac, in which case Microsoft chose not to include support for conditional formatting in your software and you won't see any of my pretty colors.  Not that I'm bitter.  Doesn't matter though, currently none of you can see the spreadsheet at all.  Moving on.

The first thing I learned from viewing my results was this:  NEVER buy anything at Walgreens.  Holy crap.  Ibuprofen, allergy medicine, and body wash are $3 more expensive there than anywhere else.  Same item size and everything.  They were consistently expensive on all the products they had.  Convenience is not cheap.

The results were as I expected between the big three.

	# of Goods	Total Price	Difference ($)
Jewel	51	$224.73
Hy-Vee	51	$203.56	-$21.17
Wal-Mart	51	$186.45	-$17.11

 I should probably say that I currently shop at Hy-Vee.  I switched about a year ago when my roommate went there and discovered how much cheaper it was.  This kind of proves it.. $21 in savings is probably worth driving an extra half mile.  Turns out though, I could drive a mile farther down the road and save another $17 by shopping at Wal-Mart.  I kind of already knew that.  And it would be worth it.

Here's my issue:  have you seen their produce?  It's possible other Wal-Mart stores have better looking fruits and veggies but I am never impressed when I go in the store near me.  Not by the selection or the quality.  And after looking at it, I'm not all that impressed with their meats either.  Now it's a quality issue.  I buy a lot of produce and I want it to be good.  Great even.  I'm all for saving money but I'm not having financial hardships and at this point I'm not sure I want to sacrifice quality for $17.

 Being the analytical person I am though, I couldn't leave it at that.  There has to be a compromise.  What about shopping at 2 stores?  Experts recommend it to save money and get better deals.  Here's the breakdown:

	# of Goods	Total Price	Savings over Hy-Vee only
Hy-Vee Dairy, Produce, Meat	29	$97.88
Wal-Mart Grocery, Toiletries	22	$94.58
Total	51	192.46	-$11.10

I chose to buy produce and meat at Hy-Vee because of the quality issue.  Dairy is actually the only sub-category that was cheaper to buy from Hy-Vee.  The grocery category (packaged foods like bread, cereal, snacks, pop, etc) and toiletries come from Wal-Mart.  This setup would save me $11 over shopping at Hy-Vee alone.  Not bad.  Worth shopping at two stores?  I lean towards no, but I haven't had tried it either.  They're on the same road basically so the logistics are easy.  It would be the extra time and hassle that will ultimately make the difference.  

Maybe on weeks when my shopping list doesn't have much meat or produce on it, I'll head to Wal-Mart and save a few extra bucks that week.  Or maybe I won't change my actions at all.  The point of the exercise was to become a more educated consumer, and I have.  My behavior, whatever it is, is now a deliberate choice driven by actual data rather than just being driven by whatever store I happen to feel like going to that day.  Which is probably a lot more reliable!