Rest in Peace, Ragan

Michael James Ragan, born January 13, 1974, died June 18, 2008. He was 34 years old. Ragan was my brother's best friend, a brother to my brother. My heart breaks at the thought of such a young, promising life cut short, for the person he could have been, for his kids who will grow up without their dad, and for all the friends and family who loved him.

Rest in peace, Ragan. You will be missed.

More wakeboarding pics...

...courtesy of our friend B.



On your mark....

Get set...

Go!







Down for the count.

I got up on a wakeboard!

That was the exciting part of our trip to Bartlett Lake yesterday. We first went out there on Memorial Day with friends, J & B. J owns/operates the boat and is the resident wakeboarder. He went first and gave us all tips. Che went second and got up on his first attempt. Bastard. B went next and finally got up. On his first trip out, he wasn't able to get up but the second trip for him was a success. Me, I tried probably 20 times on Memorial Day and never got up. By the end of the day, my hands, wrists, and forearms were so beat up that I couldn't even get my car's gearshift out of park.

I tried to blame the fact that the bindings were way too big for my feet (and that I generally suck at sports), so before yesterday's trip, I rented some bindings that actually fit my feet. The boys all took their turns first, then it was my turn. With the smaller bindings and some new and different tips I read online, and about 4-5 attempts, success! I got up on a wakeboard!!! And I was so excited to be up, that I freaked out and promptly fell down. Who knew that staying up would be so much harder than it looks???

I took a few more passes and managed to stay up for a little while each time, but the crappy part of yesterday's trip is that I totally jacked up my right knee. I don't even know how or when it happened, I just know that today, I can't bend my knee without excruciating pain. I guess I'm off to the doctor tomorrow to have it checked out. I'm hoping I just twisted or strained it and that it's nothing more serious. But I got up!! :D

Ready, set....

GO!

Aaaaaand, then she's down.

Chicago Trip Report

We looooooooooved Chicago!! What a great city. Not for us to live in (too cold!) but to visit? We will definitely be back. There was so much to see in just four short days.

Thursday morning, we got up early, grabbed coffee at the Corner Bakery & Cafe, and headed out the roughly 2.something mile walk to the Shedd Aquarium. It was a gorgeous morning for the long stroll. We met up with a group from Che's conference for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Aquarium, which was mostly technical stuff that didn't interest me. Getting to see the breeding seahorse and seadragon tanks, though, was really neat. After the tour, we spent another few hours going through the exhibits at the Aquarium. The Komodo dragon was very cool, in a large creepy reptilian sort of way:


And who doesn't love a cute penguin?

This is us outside the Shedd:



The walk back to the hotel was long after being on our feet all day so we took our time walking up along the lake and through Millenium Park, stopping at Caribou Coffee for an afternoon break, where we met up with my friend Debie. That night we had a quick dinner at Bella Bacino's before heading to the Oriental Theater for Wicked. If you have not seen that show yet, you MUST. It was FABULOUS. Loved every minute of it.

Friday, Debie & I set out for shopping in Wicker Park/Bucktown, but we bailed with the crappy rainy weather and headed for the Michigan Avenue malls and indoor shops instead. Had a light lunch at Friends Sushi, which was fantastic. Then met up with the other CL girls for tea at the Drake:

Friday night was dinner at Everest, which turned out to be a great choice. Everest is on the 40th floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange, so the views were incredible. We weren't able to get a window table for dinner but they generously moved us to one for dessert/coffee.
We had the option of Chef Joho's 8-course (or something like that) degustation tasting menu, but a few of the choices (like the sweetbreads) turned me off. Plus it required the entire table participation. Instead, we each opted for a four-course menu, not thinking the portions would be as large as they were. The four-course menu gave us each a choice of two appetizers, an entree, and a dessert.

The meal started with three amuses bouches (from left to right: something I can't remember but was a blend of different seafoods and had a spongey-like texture in some kind of lobster sauce, warm asparagus soup with creme fraiche and lobster, and broccoli emulsion with parmesan cheese that had the consistency of mousse):

My appetizer choices were the peeky toe crab cocktail and the Casco bay sea scallops:

DH had the warm asparagus with poached egg and the roasted Maine lobster with ginger butter:

My entree selection was the filet of Dover sole with lemon and capers:

DH had the tenderloin, of course:

And for dessert, I had the chocolate crepes layered with banana brulee, which was TO DIE FOR:

DH had the Five Tastes of Chocolate:


And after dessert, the server brought out this lovely selection of petit fours:



The best one (that even rivaled my delicious dessert) was the little cone-shaped one, which was a dark chocolate-covered mint marshmallow.



Our hotel had a gorgeous view of the Wrigley Building and the Tribune building:


Our hotel itself is the building to the left:


I wasted a gorgeous Saturday sleeping in my hotel room, but we did head to the Hancock Center that night for drinks in the Signature Lounge on the 95th floor. A beautiful view of Navy Pier:

We capped off the trip on Sunday with a long walk all over the city, ending at Navy Pier, where I thought my feet were going to fall off from all the walking and insisted on taking a water taxi back to the hotel:

Goodbye, sweet Brandy

Fourteen years ago, Che woke me up in the middle of the night coming home late from work with this scrawny mutt puppy by his side. Two of his coworkers were returning from Colorado when they saw a pickup truck in front of them pull off to the side of a busy Texas interstate and kick this dog out of the back to fend for herself. She was scared and bewildered, so they picked her up and drove her home to College Station with them. They stopped by work on the way to the animal shelter, and Che being the softie that he is, agreed to rescue her.

Brandy was so skinny you could see her ribs, and her muzzle was full of porcupine quills. But she was also the sweetest dog you could ever meet. She didn't take well to strangers (especially men) at first, but we think that's because she was abused as a puppy. We spent the next 14 years making sure she forgot about that life and knew nothing but love and happiness.

After Abbey died in November, Brandy seemed to decline rapidly. I think she missed her best friend, but today they're together again in a better place.

We love you Brandy, and we will miss you more than you can ever know. Rest in peace, my sweet beautiful girl.

Keeping my sanity

My work life sucks right now, so in an effort to not completely lose my mind, I made a list of things that I am thankful/grateful for or that I have to look forward to. If I focus on these things, I might not have a nervous breakdown today.

1) My sister-in-law Aubry's cancer has not spread to her lymph nodes;

2) My brother-in-law has a job interview in two days that would give him a potential great new career opportunity, which he desperately needs;

3) My friend Michelle is coming to visit in two weeks;

4) I am finally getting a desperately-needed massage this weekend;

5) We are going to Chicago for the first time at the end of the month;

6) I get to spa/shop/dine with my friend Debie in Chicago;

7) I'm having drinks in Chicago with an old junior high/high school friend that I haven't seen in probably 20 years;

8) I have a three-day weekend this month!

9) I am going to bed before 10:00 tonight. :)

The City of Brotherly Love

My blog (and life) have been sad this year. I have been so consumed by work that I can't seem to find time to post more than an average of twice a month. Pathetic. So I might as well post about something tangentially related to work.

Last week, the firm sent me to Philadelphia for our twice-annual seminar. This was technically my third trip to Philly, but I can't say that I've really seen much of the city on any of my previous trips. This time, between meetings, I did find time to check out a couple of sights. Che sent me to the Mint for him (he's recently taken up numismatism as a hobby), which turned out to be a bit of a hassle for our group of four. They don't allow camera phones inside and they don't have lockers either, so one of my colleagues offered to stay outside with our stuff while we quickly toured the Mint. Turns out she was the smart one. There was no A/C inside, so we blazed through the tour, sweltering along the way, then I picked up a couple of souvenirs for him in the gift shop.

Then we headed across the street to the Constitution Center, Independence Hall (which we only saw from the outside because all the tickets for the day had been distributed), and the Liberty Bell. Oh, and to Jim's on South Street for the obligatory Philly cheesesteak afterwards, with a stop at Reading Terminal Market on the way back to the hotel. A virtual wealth of sightseeing compared to my previous trips. I even took photos!

Tag, You're It!

I've been tagged, by Collateral Evidence.

1. Pick up the nearest book (one of at least 123 pages).

2. Open the page to 123.

3. Find the 5th sentence.

4. Post the next 3 sentences.

5. Tag 5 people.

I have to admit, I had to dig through my nightstand to find something other than a People magazine. I finally came up with Capote's In Cold Blood, a book I started at least two (three?) years ago. I'm not sure I ever got past the first chapter.

"Hitchhiking his way to New Mexico? No, he said, he was driving his own car. And it was parked down the lane a piece."

Hmm, maybe I'll try this one again. Thanks, Amanda!

Now off to tag Robyn, Laura, the other Laura, and JeAnne. Yeah, I know that's only four people - I couldn't come up with five.

Bit by the travel bug

Che & I are in the fortunate position to be able to do quite a bit of traveling now. Well, putting aside the fact that I do have to work on pretty much every vacation I take and can't generally avoid calls on my cell phone, emails on my Blackberry, and sticking to locations where I can be wired and accessible. Umm, does that even COUNT as a vacation??? Anyway...

For my left-brained, OCD, dysfunctionally-anal retentive self, 90% of the fun in travel is planning the trip. Works out well for Che, since all he has to do is show up and go where I tell him. I know, I must be totally crazy. Or a travel agent at heart. That's not to say I plan every minute of every day of every trip. At least not anymore. :)

That said, booking our "big" trip of the year turned out to be a huge headache, even for me. And we're not quite there yet, but we're close enough that I'm no longer panicking. And we're super excited to head to Thailand (Phuket and Bangkok) and Hong Kong for two weeks in September!! What's funny is that we're almost as equally excited to return to NYC in July for a long weekend, a trip we impulsively booked last night just because we had the airline miles and hotel points to do it. We can't wait to spend more time in NYC - we had a great time there last year but our two days (plus) there was not nearly long enough.

But before that, we have our first trip to Chicago to look forward to next month. We've been looking forward to visiting Chicago for a long time. So far, the agenda includes a trip to the Shedd Aquarium, tickets to Wicked with my friend Debie (who is great enough to come down from Michigan to hang with me for a couple of days!), and dinner reservations at Everest (it was a very tight toss-up between Everest and Tru, not that we could go wrong with either).

Despite having to be completely connected to the office on my trips, at least I'm not IN the office, right? I can't tell you how much I look forward to these getaways throughout the year - I think I'd go insane at work without them. Now to break the news to my boss that I'll be needing three weeks of vacation in the next six months.

Bend Trip Report

I guess technically that should be Redmond, Oregon, which is where we were staying at Eagle Crest Resort. We spent most of our time in and around Bend, about 20 minutes away. But our 2-bedroom condo/townhouse was great, and the resort grounds were beautiful. I especially enjoyed the running path along the gorgeous Deschutes River:


Che's buddy Rik joined us for the first few days. For most of the week, the weather was GORGEOUS. We spent Saturday tooling around town, had lunch at Deschutes Brewery, and had a fabulous dinner at Deep. We already had plans to meet up with our friends Cory & Lisa at Deep on Monday night, but you can never have enough sushi. Monday's dinner was even better:




Sunday we hit the slopes at Mt. Bachelor. After a private lesson, I was still nowhere near ready to go. What happened to my confidence in seven years? Sure enough, at the bottom of the first run, I took a pretty hard hit to the head and was done for the day. Learned my lesson, though, and decided to rent a helmet the next time out. The boys, on the other hand, were tearing it up. They spent all day Sunday and Monday on the mountain. I spent Monday shopping, lunching, and spa-ing with my Lisa.

Rik went home on Tuesday, and Che & I were pretty much on our own the rest of the week. We did have a great dinner with my friend Alycia at Cork on Tuesday night, enjoyed a couple of massages (at our resort and at Jinsei Spa), did some shopping, ate some great food, and caught up on some R&R. Oh, I can't forget to mention breakfast at the Mustard Seed Cafe in Redmond - AWESOME.


The weather turned cold and snowy on Thursday. We hit Mt. Bachelor for the last time on Friday and boarded as long as we could until the visibility turned to complete crap:




We had a fun week, but man, I do not miss the cold.

Next trip up - Chicago in eight weeks!