Lance came today to speak to us about leadership! What a great birthday present! :-)
--------------------------
Sent from my Berry
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Lance Armstrong Again!!
Happy Birthday...To Me!
You know, I was really flattered when T-Mobile first announced they were planning a week long event in Denver to celebrate my birthday. I knew my work was being recognized, but still..and entire week?? But I figured it would be done low key...we'd stay at a Best Western, eat at the Royal Fork, and have to buy our own drinks..
But the company pulled out all the stops, and I have to say I appreciate it. Last night we had a party for me (well, they called it an awards ceremony dinner, but that's how they get the Board to approve the expenses) hosted at the Hyatt Regency. Lance Armstrong (woot!!) made a guest appearance. He said it was to present T-Mobile their 7th JD Powers award, but I know it was to wish me happy birthday. Then Dana Carvey showed up to entertain us, I mean me. He was HILARIOUS! And of course the open bar sponsored by Samsung was great, I can't believe even our vendors wanted to help me celebrate!!
After the even wound down a small group of my co-workers drug me out to Coyote Ugly for another drink and some pool. Overall I would call it a successful birthday! A big thanks to everyone that throughout the day sent me texts, emails, and phone calls wishing me a Happy Birthday!! I could feel the love, and it did help make up for not being at home on my birthday.
Other highlights of the pre-birthday buildup this week: The Blue Man Group performed for me and a couple thousand of my closest co-workers yesterday. Slightly bizarre, but very entertaining! And of course a little karaoke singing with friends from work on Monday night. All in all, a fine party T-Mobile has put on for me! Oh, and I've learned a bit about our company goals for the year. But I know that's just a cover so we can expense my party..
One last shout out: Thank you to my great team that sent me a gift for my birthday. I will wear my pink "Ride Like a Girl..Fast!" t-shirt with pride! You guys are funny!!
But the company pulled out all the stops, and I have to say I appreciate it. Last night we had a party for me (well, they called it an awards ceremony dinner, but that's how they get the Board to approve the expenses) hosted at the Hyatt Regency. Lance Armstrong (woot!!) made a guest appearance. He said it was to present T-Mobile their 7th JD Powers award, but I know it was to wish me happy birthday. Then Dana Carvey showed up to entertain us, I mean me. He was HILARIOUS! And of course the open bar sponsored by Samsung was great, I can't believe even our vendors wanted to help me celebrate!!
After the even wound down a small group of my co-workers drug me out to Coyote Ugly for another drink and some pool. Overall I would call it a successful birthday! A big thanks to everyone that throughout the day sent me texts, emails, and phone calls wishing me a Happy Birthday!! I could feel the love, and it did help make up for not being at home on my birthday.
Other highlights of the pre-birthday buildup this week: The Blue Man Group performed for me and a couple thousand of my closest co-workers yesterday. Slightly bizarre, but very entertaining! And of course a little karaoke singing with friends from work on Monday night. All in all, a fine party T-Mobile has put on for me! Oh, and I've learned a bit about our company goals for the year. But I know that's just a cover so we can expense my party..
One last shout out: Thank you to my great team that sent me a gift for my birthday. I will wear my pink "Ride Like a Girl..Fast!" t-shirt with pride! You guys are funny!!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Get out and Vote!
Well, really I just want your opinion on some photos I've taken, I have no political agenda here.
I've sifted through about 3,000 of my pictures and picked out a handful that I think would be fun to print and frame. But my dilemma is that my eyes are bigger than my walls, and so I have to narrow the field further yet. This is where you, my 10 or so loyal readers, come in. I need you to vote for your favorites by posting comments. Maybe the voting public can help me decide?! So...let's do this!
Fence, Quito
Horses, Quito
NYC Highrise
Traverse Lake, Wallowas Mountains
Hikers, Wallowas Mountains (actually, that's James & Catherine)
Cactus Moon, Galapagos Islands
Cactus Silhouette, Galapagos Islands
Eiffel Tower
Church & Highrise, NYC
I've sifted through about 3,000 of my pictures and picked out a handful that I think would be fun to print and frame. But my dilemma is that my eyes are bigger than my walls, and so I have to narrow the field further yet. This is where you, my 10 or so loyal readers, come in. I need you to vote for your favorites by posting comments. Maybe the voting public can help me decide?! So...let's do this!
Fence, Quito
Horses, Quito
NYC Highrise
Traverse Lake, Wallowas Mountains
Hikers, Wallowas Mountains (actually, that's James & Catherine)
Cactus Moon, Galapagos Islands
Cactus Silhouette, Galapagos Islands
Eiffel Tower
Church & Highrise, NYC
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Is it cold enough?
Wednesday night, skiing at Alpental. 7 degrees F. Awesome.
--------------------------
Sent from my Berry
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Time Flies, Doesn't It?
Somehow it's Sunday night, and I'm wondering where my week went. Let's see..Monday: dinner out in the snow. Tuesday: worked late. Wednesday: skied. Thursday: Swim lessons and Grey's Anatomy, Friday: Dinner out followed by 11 HOURS of sleep. Yes, that's right, Eleven. Worth writing out because I don't remember the last time THAT happened. Saturday, fantastic breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe, a rather long phone chat, kitchen got painted (see below), dinner with Heidi & Hannah, then Sunday...today....a monumental trip to Ikea. So yeah..I guess I see how it's Sunday night, and my last post was a week ago.
So. The kitchen was painted. Why? After being ok with bland beige, poorly patched, slightly dirty walls for the last year and a half, why did I decide to paint now? Well..it all started with an incredible wine rack that I received for Christmas. You can see it on the right hand side of the picture: brushed aluminum pipe, offset holes cut out of it, wine bottles perfectly cantilevered on opposite sides. Gorgeous. Especially in a household full of aluminum tubes (ie. bike frames). When I first put it up on my walls, it caused me to notice something that I had not previously realized: my walls look terrible. Really. They looked bad. I can sit on my sofa and look into my kitchen, and even from there they look bad. Problem now solved. The paint was free (leftovers recycled), and in a couple hours it was like a kitchen makeover!
But then this caused me to take a step back and look around my living room. Suddenly the collection of hand me downs, post-divorce debris, and over-crowded book shelves just were not going to cut it. A trip to Ikea was in order! Top of the list: another book shelf and a new lamp. What I didn't realize I would ALSO come home with were a new table & chairs and 2 new rugs! You can see the new table & chair, and one new rug here.
How did I get rid of my old stuff you ask? Don't ask exactly what was offered for free, just take my word for it that all my old furniture moved quickly!
The joy that is Ikea. Not only do you get cool new furniture, you get to build stuff for hours as well! Luckily I had some experienced assistance today, Annie contributed her Ikea assembling prowess to the endeavor.
Ok, enough of the home makeover talk. Tonight I attended a start of the season meeting with my bike team, Bryne Invent (team name, primary sponsor), or Jet City Velo (club name). I made a resolution to do some real road racing this year (opposed to just cyclocross), and this was a meeting to get to know new team members and discuss the 2008 racing season. There are a ton of races that happen almost literally every week from March through August (event calendar). Stay tuned through the spring and summer as I get out there and see if I deserve the sweet Cervelo racing bike that I own! ;-)
That's all I got tonight. Time to go do some work and get ready to face another week. Game on.
So. The kitchen was painted. Why? After being ok with bland beige, poorly patched, slightly dirty walls for the last year and a half, why did I decide to paint now? Well..it all started with an incredible wine rack that I received for Christmas. You can see it on the right hand side of the picture: brushed aluminum pipe, offset holes cut out of it, wine bottles perfectly cantilevered on opposite sides. Gorgeous. Especially in a household full of aluminum tubes (ie. bike frames). When I first put it up on my walls, it caused me to notice something that I had not previously realized: my walls look terrible. Really. They looked bad. I can sit on my sofa and look into my kitchen, and even from there they look bad. Problem now solved. The paint was free (leftovers recycled), and in a couple hours it was like a kitchen makeover!
But then this caused me to take a step back and look around my living room. Suddenly the collection of hand me downs, post-divorce debris, and over-crowded book shelves just were not going to cut it. A trip to Ikea was in order! Top of the list: another book shelf and a new lamp. What I didn't realize I would ALSO come home with were a new table & chairs and 2 new rugs! You can see the new table & chair, and one new rug here.
How did I get rid of my old stuff you ask? Don't ask exactly what was offered for free, just take my word for it that all my old furniture moved quickly!
The joy that is Ikea. Not only do you get cool new furniture, you get to build stuff for hours as well! Luckily I had some experienced assistance today, Annie contributed her Ikea assembling prowess to the endeavor.
Ok, enough of the home makeover talk. Tonight I attended a start of the season meeting with my bike team, Bryne Invent (team name, primary sponsor), or Jet City Velo (club name). I made a resolution to do some real road racing this year (opposed to just cyclocross), and this was a meeting to get to know new team members and discuss the 2008 racing season. There are a ton of races that happen almost literally every week from March through August (event calendar). Stay tuned through the spring and summer as I get out there and see if I deserve the sweet Cervelo racing bike that I own! ;-)
That's all I got tonight. Time to go do some work and get ready to face another week. Game on.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Snow in Seattle!
It was supposed to be an uneventful evening. I had dinner plans with James and that was about it. As I was driving back into Seattle the rain started changing to snow, and by the time I got to his place in Capital Hill it had changed to sleet. From his condo (20th floor, views looking north and west) we watched the chaos unfold. The sleet turned to insane hail, then snow, and the streets below us were quickly turned to white.
Needless to say, we opted for a restaurant within walking distance and we ventured out into it. Not a block from his place we helped push a BMW Z3 out of an intersection...real wheel drive, high performance tires weren't working so well...
Quinn's wasn't too busy, food was great, and we had a perfect view of the snow that fell through most of dinner.
By the time we left, ~ 9pm, the snow had stopped and the streets were clearing. It was a mostly uneventful walk home. His road was partly blocked off due to a car that had slid into scaffolding on the building next to his. (hard to see from this blurry camera phone pic)
I then drove home to discover, sadly, that there wasn't really any snow in Magnolia. :-( Good news is that the mountains got dumped on again and I'm skiing this Wednesday after work! woo hoo!
Later skaters
Needless to say, we opted for a restaurant within walking distance and we ventured out into it. Not a block from his place we helped push a BMW Z3 out of an intersection...real wheel drive, high performance tires weren't working so well...Quinn's wasn't too busy, food was great, and we had a perfect view of the snow that fell through most of dinner.
By the time we left, ~ 9pm, the snow had stopped and the streets were clearing. It was a mostly uneventful walk home. His road was partly blocked off due to a car that had slid into scaffolding on the building next to his. (hard to see from this blurry camera phone pic)I then drove home to discover, sadly, that there wasn't really any snow in Magnolia. :-( Good news is that the mountains got dumped on again and I'm skiing this Wednesday after work! woo hoo!
Later skaters
Saturday, January 12, 2008
A Day in the Life
I've realized that there are people who only know me as the single guy. He travels a lot, he races bikes, he works too much. Even when they ride with me and see the car seat in the back they really don't get to see the other half of the adventure that is my life. So this weekends posts will be about that. An ordinary weekend with my kids. I picked them up after work on Friday. We stopped at the video store and rented Shrek the Third. We had dinner with our friends Heidi and Hannah. I read to them from Harry Potter. I fell asleep reading a book about excavators and bulldozers to Bennet and woke up around 11pm, in bed, fully dressed, no idea where I was. And so my weekend begins....
Saturday morning. Pancake morning. We lounged in our pjs until past 10am. The vote was for pancakes, I overruled Clara's request for Swedish pancakes (her choice every weekend) and made some fabulous pancakes with chocolate chips and diced banana. The recipe came from my new Joy of Cooking cookbook (thanks Heidi!).
Ben LOVES to help in the kitchen. If I don't do it for him he will drag a chair from the table into the kitchen just so he can get up and help. So it's become part of our weekend routine for him to help me make breakfast. Usually pancakes, although he's also quite good and making banana bread! He's whisking the dry ingredients together here.
Clara is also getting interested in helping out in the kitchen. Today she ladled batter into the pan, put in the chips and bananas, and even tried her hand at flipping. Many hands make light work, right?
After breakfast and some more lounging in jammies we finally decided to get out of the house and do something. Clara's been asking for weeks to go to Creation Station. We've been several times and had a blast, but it's been a while. Basically, it's a place where you use all kinds of random recycled parts to build anything your imagination can conjure up. I talked with the owner today and he said most of what he gets is from local small businesses that donate to him as an alternative to recycling. Regardless, you can find some cool things here, and the kids have a never ending supply of imagination.
Today highlights were a perch for the kids bird Sherbert (lives with mom, thankfully!) constructed by Elise, a marvelous handbag by Clara, and several 'Monster Trucks' created jointly by Bennet & dad.
Bennet hard at work coloring the wheels on his monster truck.
So, after spending a solid 3 hours at Creation Station we stopped at Wendys for lunch, Best Buy, and then home. We recovered by playing with our creations and then I got to work on dinner. The kids do actually have a refined palate (Elise tried sushi just this week and liked it) but tonight we went pub-style with nachos. Amazing what a ton of cheese and some black olives can do to tortilla chips! We feasted on these, then chilled out for a while. I read more Harry Potter, about 45 minutes worth, then got em in bed.
What next you ask? Lounging on the sofa? Early bed time? Do laundry & pay bills? Nah....I set up my bike on the trainer and rode for 2 hours whilst chatting on the phone and watching a movie. All part of the post-holiday recovery program! BTW, I watched 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later, and it was lame. Wouldn't recommend even a rental, unless there's nothing else!
So now I've ridden, showered, posted, and it is time to crawl into bed. What's on deck for tomorrow? Another pancake breakfast, Swedish this time. Perhaps a trip to the aquarium, or the park if it's dry. Clara has knitting lessons at 230p, and who knows what else life will throw at me! But it's never boring, even when it's just a regular day in my life...
Saturday morning. Pancake morning. We lounged in our pjs until past 10am. The vote was for pancakes, I overruled Clara's request for Swedish pancakes (her choice every weekend) and made some fabulous pancakes with chocolate chips and diced banana. The recipe came from my new Joy of Cooking cookbook (thanks Heidi!).
Ben LOVES to help in the kitchen. If I don't do it for him he will drag a chair from the table into the kitchen just so he can get up and help. So it's become part of our weekend routine for him to help me make breakfast. Usually pancakes, although he's also quite good and making banana bread! He's whisking the dry ingredients together here.
Clara is also getting interested in helping out in the kitchen. Today she ladled batter into the pan, put in the chips and bananas, and even tried her hand at flipping. Many hands make light work, right?After breakfast and some more lounging in jammies we finally decided to get out of the house and do something. Clara's been asking for weeks to go to Creation Station. We've been several times and had a blast, but it's been a while. Basically, it's a place where you use all kinds of random recycled parts to build anything your imagination can conjure up. I talked with the owner today and he said most of what he gets is from local small businesses that donate to him as an alternative to recycling. Regardless, you can find some cool things here, and the kids have a never ending supply of imagination.
Today highlights were a perch for the kids bird Sherbert (lives with mom, thankfully!) constructed by Elise, a marvelous handbag by Clara, and several 'Monster Trucks' created jointly by Bennet & dad.
Bennet hard at work coloring the wheels on his monster truck.So, after spending a solid 3 hours at Creation Station we stopped at Wendys for lunch, Best Buy, and then home. We recovered by playing with our creations and then I got to work on dinner. The kids do actually have a refined palate (Elise tried sushi just this week and liked it) but tonight we went pub-style with nachos. Amazing what a ton of cheese and some black olives can do to tortilla chips! We feasted on these, then chilled out for a while. I read more Harry Potter, about 45 minutes worth, then got em in bed.
What next you ask? Lounging on the sofa? Early bed time? Do laundry & pay bills? Nah....I set up my bike on the trainer and rode for 2 hours whilst chatting on the phone and watching a movie. All part of the post-holiday recovery program! BTW, I watched 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later, and it was lame. Wouldn't recommend even a rental, unless there's nothing else!So now I've ridden, showered, posted, and it is time to crawl into bed. What's on deck for tomorrow? Another pancake breakfast, Swedish this time. Perhaps a trip to the aquarium, or the park if it's dry. Clara has knitting lessons at 230p, and who knows what else life will throw at me! But it's never boring, even when it's just a regular day in my life...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
