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Ivy Leagues and Major Leagues

Yesterday DawnO and I celebrated our anniversary ‘Boston Style’ and it was wicked awesome.  DawnO started off her morning with a phone in radio interview and I got to sleep in a bit.  I informed Dawn that her anniversary present is waiting for her when we get home.  It’s a Venus fly trap!  I know, I know, it’s hard to believe how I came up with a gift that was practical and romantic.  (Thanks to Claire for finding it and taking care of it until we get home.)

We eventually got organized and headed to Harvard with both sets of parents.  We took a tour of the grounds which were quite lovely.  It was interesting to learn about all their traditions, superstitions and history.  For example, women didn’t receive the same degree as men until 1999.  How do you like them apples?
Afterwards we made our way to Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox take on the NY Yankees.  We got there early so we could enjoy our time at Fenway.  DawnO got to have her foot long dog (happy anniversary, indeed) and ‘crack beer’ while I enjoyed some park nachos and ‘gluten friendly’ pizza.  The game was great, though the Sox ended up losing.  The crowd was the most entertaining part for us.  I’d tell stories but I’m trying to keep this PG-13.
All-in-all we had a great day.  Tonight we’re going to have our official anniversary dinner  while our parents go to the ‘Book of Mormon’ musical.  I plan on having some New England clam chowdah.
And now for the pictures!
Apparently touching this dude’s foot brings good luck.  Immediately afterwards, DawnO lost her subway pass.  Good luck?  You decide.
The red chair marks the longest home run ever hit at Fenway.

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I kissed a girl…

Today was the running of the 118th Boston Marathon, and I was lucky enough to be a part of it. What a cool experience. The weather was perfect for me (aka a bit too hot for most people). There was a moment of silence in the athlete’s village for those who were killed or injured last year, but really the focus was on ‘Boston Strong’.

My goal for the race was to enjoy it. I was not focused on time, though of course along the way it’s hard to keep it out of my mind. As requested by my male (of course) running mentor/friend Terry, I took a picture of myself kissing a girl at Welsley College. This is a tradition, and it was serious. At least 300 girls held signs of different varieties (“kiss me I’m Italian”, kiss me I’m a first year”, etc, etc.). I chose one that said “kiss me and you’ll run faster”!
I felt really great up until the last 2-3 miles (pretty much the usual for the marathon), and finished with my second best time of 3:24:41. It was great to have a big cheering squad (robO, my parents, robO’s parents), plus all of those who were cheering while tracking online!
We spent the rest of the day wandering around, then I had a great dinner at Quincey Market, followed by a cannoli from the famous Mike’s Pastry.  We’re looking forward to checking out Harvard, then our Red Sox/Yankees game tomorrow.

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Sports Weekend in Chicago

Hey blog fans.  We just had an incredible sports-filled weekend in Chicago with our friends Nick and Meg.  One of the few things on my bucket list was checked off today when I went to a tailgate party followed by a Bears game at Soldier Field.  If that wasn’t enough, we went to the Madhouse on Madison to watch the Blackhawks play the Oilers 4 hours later.  But that’s not all… I got to play hockey with Nick last night on his rec league team.  I may have gotten my first penalty of the year due to a rather weak call.  DawnO wants to note that she agreed with the call.  Traitor.  Anyway, as you can probably imagine I’m a bit exhausted so I will leave you with some pictures.  Tomorrow we fly home!
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SFO –> YYC


We are heading back to Calgary this afternoon after spending a few days in Palo Alto with friends.  I thought I’d write a quick blog showing you some of the highlights.

We took a trip to the Great Basin to see some giant redwood trees.  We rode bikes around Stanford and saw some amazing Rodin statues.  We also went to the top of the bell tower and got a pretty nice view of Palo Alto.  Last but not least, we got to test out our español skills at a taqueria and ordered up some amazing Mexican food.  We’ll be back in the Hat until next month when we head to Chicago!

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Breakfast with Tiffany

RobO and I flew to San Francisco yesterday.  Our main purpose was to visit our friends Lyndsey and Mike, who are living just south of the city in Palo Alto for a year.  And the other little reason was that I got into the San Francisco Women’s Half Marathon (the one where you get a Tiffany’s necklace at the end, given to you by a firefighter in a tuxedo)!
We had a great day in the city yesterday.  As usual, robO helped me carbo load before the race (Thai lunch and Indian dinner), as well as pig out after the race (Ghiardelli’s chocolate).
The race course was the hilliest I’ve ever run (mostly uphill) and it was so foggy that I couldn’t see the bridge.  For the first time since receiving a GPS watch I didn’t wear it during the race – I wanted to go just on feel and try to enjoy the experience.  I felt pretty good for most of the time, up until the last kilometer when I got a big stitch.  I knew I was in the range of achieving my sub 1:40 goal, but that cramp foiled me.  I ended with a happy 1:40:30, my new Tiffany, a pic with a firefighter, and a post race celebration with my #1 fan!  That equals 14th in my age group and 187th overall out of 26,417 runners.
We’re in Palo Alto now, enjoying our first night with the Bristows.
Here are some pics…
San Francisco days
Team carboloading
Here she is: the X is for the 10th anniversary of the race
Movember’s coming early
Slurp

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Thursday – NYC

Today was a bit of a mixed bag. I got up early to get in line for Jimmy Fallon stand-by tickets and was successful. Afterwards DawnO and I went to the Museum of Modern Art and spent the morning realizing that as much as we’d like to be, we’re not really museum people. I kind of feel the same way about malls. Except I know I don’t like malls.
Regardless, it was a cool building and we did see some nice pieces.
We headed to the Flatiron building (skinny building below) and took a few MoMA worthy pictures and then headed to the all you can eat Indian buffet before our date with Jimmy Fallon. Or so we thought. After about an hour and a half of waiting, signing in, getting in line, getting out of the way, waiting some more and so on, we were told that only the first 5 people would get in to see the show. We were numbers 15 and 16. Sadly, we had to find something else to do with our evening so we tried to take in a musical. This too was a complete bust. Either the show was full, or it wasn’t running on Thursdays. Our only option was a naked man chorus line. Great, singing dinks… is this what our evening had come to? Instead, we found the NHL headquarters where I spotted Gary Bettman(speaking of weenies) finishing a radio interview on the NHL network. I strategically placed myself near the exit to the studio. As he came out I shook the man’s hand and said, ‘nice to meet you.’ His hand shake was firmer than I thought it would be.
After that brief yet awkward encounter we went to the Top of the Rock (the observation deck of 30 Rockefeller Center) for some evening shots of the city. Then we got an ice cream and headed for home.
We fly Back to Calgary tomorrow and we’ll be sad to go. We may not blog again until the New Year when we have trips to Austin, TX and Cuba lined up. Until we write again…

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A show not made for Mommies and Daddies

What a holiday!
Yesterday we dropped Granny off on Fashion Ave so she could ‘shop ’till she dropped’, then robO and I continued on to the East Village. One of the must-do things on my list was trying a ‘blintz’, and our sources say this is the place to get one. We had our lunch in a park (for the record the blintz was good but not addictive) and wandered through the vintage shops and record stores.
After a quick trip down to see ‘occupy Wall Street’ and where they’re building Tower 1, we had a Mexican dinner and headed to our show – The Book of Mormon.
A few months ago I had listened to a CBC radio interview with a Mormon woman who had gone to the show and said that it was tasteful humor and that she would recommend her Mormon friends to go see it. We, on the other hand, would NEVER suggest this show to any of our Mormon friends (and we have a few of them). In fact, Rob told my parents that this is not a show for Mommies and Daddies!
That being said, it was really funny and a well done show. A little like a Broadway Southpark. robO had a few occasions of knee-slapping laughter.
This morning robO took his turn getting up early for a ticket line – this time Jimmy Fallon. We’ll blog again after this final day in NYC so stay tuned!

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The President, an Angel, and the Boy Who Lived

Yesterday we had an amazing day due to some hard work and a dash of luck. DawnO got up early yesterday morning and sat in a line to get last minute tickets for “How To Suceed – In Business Without Really Trying”. It is a broadway musical starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and John Larroquette. She returned home with 2 tickets in hand and we set off on our day. We hit a few stores, had lunch in central park, and walked down to Barnes & Noble. We got inside and made our way upstairs to where DawnO believed her book would be and I could use the washroom. We quickly found out that most of that floor was blocked off because President Clinton was there signing his new book. We stuck around and DawnO managed to get a picture of him while the secret service was shouting, “NO CAMERAS! NO PICTURES!” at her. Let me be clear because I’m not going to say this again, we did not… have… photographic relations with that man. But if we did you can see the paparazzi shot below.
After Bill left the building we were free to shop and urinate. We made our way home and got ready for our Broadway show. We got some excellent Thai food for dinner and got to the theatre in time to get to our 7th row seats. The show was great. It rivaled any Harry Potter movie I’ve seen and there is no episode of Night Court that can touch it. Seriously though it was really great. The sets were amazing, the music was fantastic and the story was hilarious. 8.5 out of 10.
On the way back from the theatre I am 100% certain we walked past the guy who plays Angel Batista from Dexter. Dawn wasn’t sure and wanted to follow him. After our earlier brush with the secret service I didn’t want to press our luck so we kept walking.
All-in-all it was a great day. Tonight we’re going to the Book of Mormon musical so we’ll let you know how that one is.

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New York Minute

It has been a busy time for us so far in NYC! We have been behind in our blogging for a couple of reasons… 1) we haven’t had a minute to spare and 2) we (thus far) do not have a way to connect our camera to our iPad (we’re not kidding ourselves – we know many of our loyal readers are ‘skimmers’ and ‘photo gazers’).

After settling in on Friday night, we started Saturday with a visit to the race package pick up, followed by a visit to the top of the Empire State Building. What a good way to get our bearings in the big apple. The audio tour was well worth it, as was Granny’s wheelchair which got us to the front of all the lines! 🙂 I was tucked into bed early that night after a bit of a rampant carbo load on restaurant row.

Sunday morning was race day! I had to take the 5:30am bus to the start line and my race started at 9:40, so it had picked up some Value Village winter wear for the long wait. Compared to the thousands of other runners with full on sleeping bags and pillows I looked a little unprepared, though I was warm and cozy with my hand warmers tucked into my gloves and waistband.

The weather was perfect for race time and I enjoyed the start line comradery and Sinatra’s send off. Without going into too much detail, the race felt really great (famous last words) until about mile 20 where I started the decline in speed and muscle function. By the finish my shuffling feet got me across the line in a personal best 3:23:02. I was energized through the whole route by the infamous NYC fans and my own personal fans (Anne, Sjanne, RobO, my mom, dad, and Granny). It was a really cool experience.

We finished the day by going to a great Italian restaurant and to a Rangers/Jets game at Madison Square Garden.

Today we were up and at ’em for a big day of sight seeing. No rest for these weary legs!! We spent the morning in Central Park (race finish line revisited and the John Lennon memorial), then to the American Museum of Natural History, and on to a Circle Harbour boat cruise to see the skyline and Liberty herself. Tonight we went to an underground comedy club – how New York! It was improv with Scott Adsit from 30 Rock (props to Roxanne for the recommendation).

On tap for the next few days is more sights, Broadway shows, and, of course, food (that’s why we travel right?).

Empire State Shadow

Taxi

Murray Hill

Mile 25.5

DawnO and ErinP

Strawberry Fields

Constructing Tower1

Lady Liberty

Brooklyn Bridge

30Rock

Tourists

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Start Spreading The News…

DawnO and I will be headed to New York, NY so DawnO can participate in the New York Marathon this coming weekend. I will be joined by her parents and her Granny as we try to find a decent place to watch from amongst the crowds.  You can watch too!
Here’s how:
Her bib# is 12273 and you can track her progress during the race by visiting www.ingnycmarathon.org during the race and clicking on the “TrackMyRunners” link or by buying the TrackMyRunners app on the iTunes app store or Android market.
Dawn starts at 09:40 Eastern Standard Time, so it’s going to be a bit early on Sunday morning if you’re tracking live from the west coast of North America.

NBC Sports will be showing highlights from the NY Marathon sometime later that day.  Check your local listings for details.


After the race we’re going rest up, and prepare for a week in the big apple.  First up is an NHL game at Madison Square Garden where the Winnipeg Jets take on the NY Rangers.  We’ll be blogging as usual so stay tuned for more.