Las Vegas trip Day 2

Today was a day of relaxation away from the strip. It started out with a small run up a 300 foot incline and back down, followed by a nice quiet breakfast with just Lisa and I. Once her parents got back from church we headed out to our big adventure for the day, Lake Mead and Hoover Dam.

One of the things that is amazing about this area of America is that you can often find yourself in the middle of nowhere within just a couple of minutes of leaving the suburbs. We turned the opposite direction from Vegas and within 30 seconds we were over a hill and in a vast expanse of mountainous desert. We headed down the road into the Lake Mead recreational area and towards the marina where we had a paddleboat cruise scheduled for us. 

The cruise was a VERY relaxing time on a beautiful afternoon, despite a slight bit of pink-skin from the sun. The narration on the boat explained the history of the lake, and history of Hoover Dam. The cruise went around a portion of the lake and then headed toward the top of Hoover Dam. Seeing the dam from the top was cool, since after the cruise we were planning to walk the top of the dam. After returning to shore we headed down some winding roads to the historic site of Hoover Dam.

Hoover Dam is a project that has fascinated me for a long time. I've seen a couple documentaries on how it was built, including the construction of the diversion channels that allowed them to build the structure. Seeing it in person was amazing, as it is much higher than it seems from pictures. It was truly vertigo inducing and I couldn't even stand to look over the side for very long. We walked along the top of the dam to the Arizona side and back. It was truly one of the highlights of the trip for me. 

After the dam we hit a small casino on the way back, before heading to Freemont Street for the evening. Freemont Street is an interesting experience. It's as busy and crazy as the strip, but it's much more akin to a festival or fair than the strip is. On the strip you need to go into the various places to get most of the entertainment. On Freemont Street, there are stages and street performers everywhere, and even the bartenders get into the act with juggling routines during the light and music show that plays every hour. Most of the casinos are focused on being 'on the street' more than drawing people into a fascade.

After getting some dinner we split up and Lisa and I headed down to a beer garden so I could sample some more brews that I can't get at home. Then we met up with her parents again and sampled some of the shows at the various stages. One in particular has a woman doing the acrobatic act with two sashes hanging from the rafters as they twisted and turned themselves up and down. It was quite impressive to watch.

Now we're settling in for our final night here in Vegas. Tomorrow is a day of travel, especially since we lose two hours going back to central time. Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow night to digest a bit about the whole Vegas culture and reflect a bit here on the blog. 

Las Vegas trip Day 1.5

Meant to put together this entry last night, but was frankly just a bit too tired. That's because yesterday afternoon and evening was our 'day on the strip'. We headed down to Las Vegas blvd a bit after noon and parked our car at the end of the strip where the show we were seeing was. We then walked down to where we had plans to meet up with some other family that live around here and have a nice lunch at a steak frites place.

Of course we had to toss a few bucks in a couple slot machines, which we promptly lost. I'm not a huge gambler, but if I know I'll be at a casino I'll save out a few bucks to putz around with. Between Lisa and I we often can make it last a bit, but not yesterday. I think we finished off our allotment in about 15-20 minutes. Oh well.

The lunch was very good, a beautiful blue cheese steak with crispy frites. By this point though, Lisa had pretty much lost her voice from our illness, so it turned into this funny moment where her relatives are asking her how life is going and she's looking at me to answer. At certain points complicated hand gestures were involved, but I think I managed to convey all the right information!

Afer lunch we headed back down the strip with the goal of hitting a place called M&M World. It's a 4 story store dedicated to... M&Ms (duh). We caught the cheesy 3-D movie that they show to the kids, and did some shopping for some souviners. Personally I was astonished by the WALL of M&Ms. Absolutely huge and included flavors I've never had before. 

On the beer front I did manage to find some craft brew around this town. On our way down to the M&M store I saw a little storefront for Sin City Brewing Company, so I stopped in real quick and got a glass of beer to go (no open container law here...). Then while waiting for our show that evening I found a place in the Monte Carlo that had 100 taps. They also did flights, so I did a flight of local brews that included a really tasty American Brown ale by Tanaya Creek. The cool part is that none of these are beers I can get locally so it's a nice treat out here.

We ended our evening with a Blue Man Group show. I had only seen them in YouTube videos so this was a fun treat. The show was bright and loud and fun. They had some of their traditional music played on percussion pieces made out of pipes. There was a fair amount of comedy, and some really cool light effects. Perhaps the funnest part, was a song at the end where they got everyone in the audience to stand up and shake their butt while the song listed off dozens of euphamisms for your 'butt', such as "The place where all burritos go" and "The reporter at large". Ended up being a good time, and oh, Lisa got hit with Jello. 

We considered hitting one more pub before bed, but decided we were done for the night so we came back to the room and relaxed with some HGTV before calling it a night. The plan today is to hit some other sites, such as Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. Then it's back to a Minnesota spring tomorrow.

Las Vegas trip Day 1

Our flight was un-eventful, but it did remind me that I'm not a fan of flying. I love traveling, hanging out at airports, and getting places quickly, but I hate actually being in the air. Strangly, I love landing, with the slow, quiet glide into the airport. Funnily enough, Lisa hates landing.

After landing we proceeded to meet up with Lisa's parents and head out for some food. One thing that I've noticed is how much a two hour time difference feels weird. It's not like when I went to China and everything was just totally reversed, but it's enough of a difference that it feels odd. 

Our first stop was a small casino on the way back to Henderson, NV. We got some food and played a few games before realizing we were getting quite exhausted, and that on MN time we were looking at midnight. So we headed back to our room and collapsed into bed. 

This morning we started out the day getting up slowly. This was good because the first thing on our agenda was a run. Because we were sick this week we're low on miles so there's no way we could skip running this weekend, with a race coming up next Saturday. We headed out and quickly realized that all the hills we drove down last night were not in our imagination. It's a solid climb up to get out of here. I managed 7 miles back and forth, however the first half was incredibly slow and included a total of almost 600 feet of climb. Many of the hills are super steep as well, so even on the run back I couldn't just go all-out, I had to control my run and slow it down so I didn't just fall into a barrel roll down the hill.

On the upside, this is my first visit to the desert, and the chance to run in scenery that was completely foreign to me is amazing. I was surrounded by a type of environment that I've never run in before and it was fascinating. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't see more wildlife, but considering that many of the creatures I could have encountered might have been slightly danerous I guess I'll be happy. Overall, the run was slow and a bit of a slog once the hot sun started to push the temps up, but given that I just left 8 inches of snow behind I won't complain.

In fact, as I'm writing this I'm relaxing on our balcony, enjoying a beautiful day. It's a bit of a break in what will be a somewhat busy evening visitng The Strip. I'll post about that experience later tonight, or tomorrow. 

Las Vegas trip Day 0

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted on the old blog, but now I have something interesting to talk about. Tonight we leave for a trip to Las Vegas to visit my wife's parents who live out there most of the year.

So far the trip has started with a bang, and our flight doesn't even leave for 8 hours. Yesterday both Lisa and I came down sick. Lisa got tested positive for strep throat, and although I didn't test positive, I insisted they give me a prescription to bring with for the trip. Then last night it REALLY hit. I haven't had a night of feeling that sick in a long, long time. I was seriously starting to plan how I'd just get Lisa to the airport alone and stay back in Minnesota for the weekend.

By this morning things have healed up quite a bit, and I'm back on track to make the plane flight. As Lisa was stating, the worst case is that I end up needing to recuperate more in Vegas... next to the pool... in the sun...

Which brings up the other interesting aspect of this trip. We got a good 7-9 inches of snow last night around here. Today has been an absolute mess on the roads, and so we're going to have to plan to get to the airport pretty early. So far our flight is listed as only delayed 15 30 minutes, and hopefully it will stay that way.

If all goes as planned my next blog entry will be from Nevada where the high will be in the mid 70s all weekend long.

The streak so far

So as of January 1st I started a running streak, meaning I would run a mile every single day for as long as I could. So far I've been almost perfect in my attempt. I had one day where I had some serious bronchial issues, spent 2 hours at the doctors trying to get a prescription for a steroid so I could breathe. That evening the steroid kicked in and I managed what was probably close to a mile of moving around the house, up and down the stairs, moving furniture. So in the truest sense I have missed one day in my streak so far. However, every other day has been accomplished. 

Two things that are interesting to see about this streak:

1. My pace is naturally getting faster. The other day I did 3 miles at just over 9 minute miles. That's faster than I've been in quite a while.

2. My monthly milage is higher than it has been in a long time. Even though most of the days I'm only running one mile, the cumulative total is getting very high. In fast, I'm only 8 miles shy of beating my highest month of running in 2013. I'm still nowhere near 2012 monthly totals, but it's a good start to the year. With only 6 days left in the month I'll need to do 2+ miles a couple days, but I think I have 2013 beat easily. 

So far I've been injury free, and mostly ache and pain free. The only issue is that sometimes my feet are tired, but considering I also use a standing desk at work, that probably shouldn't surprise me too much. If I need to sit at work a bit more that won't be the end of the world. 

So here's to keeping the streak alive another month!

Leaving big red.... for pink

I've been with many cell phone companies since I first joined the mobile revolution. Some random company with a 15 minute a month brick phone, Ariel (the pre-cursor to T-Mobile), AT&T (which became Cingular and then AT&T again), T-Mobile, and Sprint (under the guide of Qwest). Since 2008 I've been a customer of Verizon Wireless. Last night that changed. This past week T-Mobile announced a deal where they will buy you out of your current cell phone contract (Early Termination Fee) if you switch to them. So I started doing some comparisons.

The really unique thing about T-Mobile is that the cost of your phone is a different part of your bill than the cost of your plan. So you can see right up front what you're really paying for. Most cell phone plans subsidize your phone over the course of a 2 year contract, but you never see that cost broken out, and it doesn't matter what type of phone you buy. Because T-Mobile is up front in the pricing of their phones you can see just how much that iPhone will cost, and can choose something lower priced if you want. Plus, as soon as you've paid off the cost of the phone, you're done paying for it, and your monthly bill goes down. You could certainly upgrade to the latest phone model, but you don't have to, thereby reducing the cost of your monthly bill. It's a type of pricing that is more similar to how the rest of the world does it, or so we're led to believe.

The other part about T-Mobile that enticed me over was that data is not shared, but it's also not capped. So for members of my family who keep their phones on wi-fi almost all the time, I can go with a lower cost data plan, and if one month they happen to go over the 500MB limit, they simply get throttled down to 2G speeds until the billing cycle resets. Sure it's not a ton of fun to go to dial-up speeds, but the phone still works, and you don't get hit with overage charges.

So last night we spent an hour and a half at the T-Mobile store getting everything switched over. My only concern of course is the network coverage, but so far it doesn't seem to be much different than what I was getting with Verizon. At least in my general neighborhood. Once we do a bit of traveling around the state I'm sure we'll find some pockets of dead air, but I'm hopeful it won't be anything too detrimental.

Year in Review 2013

It’s time again for another year in review. This is actually the first one for my new blog here at www.secondrunnings.me, which was one of the things that changed in 2013. I decided that with my life entering a sort of second stage, that starting a new blog was the thing to do. Hence, Second Runnings was born.

When last we left our heroes, the year had just started, and I had just proposed to Lisa. This was by far the biggest change in my life this year, and one of the best ever. Even though Lisa and I had only met in September, we both were quite sure of where we wanted to be with each other, and so January 1st, just after midnight, was the time I asked her to marry me. This set in motion a whole series of events in 2013 as we prepared our wedding. Some of the highlights:

• Trying to decide on a reception venue. We looked at a beautiful venue at Metro State University, but with all the costs for catering, and decorating, involved we ended up choosing Claddagh Irish Pub, which was the site of our first date. In the end it was a perfect location, just the right size for our group, and the food and service was amazing. Everyone seemed to have a great time. 
• Getting to see all of our friends on our wedding day, including our out-of-town guests who came long distances, to see us get married. 
• Shedding tears as we worked through the process to have a church wedding. Since both Lisa and I were divorced there was a process with the church to work through to allow us to marry in the Catholic church. At a couple points it seemed like it wasn't going to work, and there were moments of frustration and pain, but in the end everything came together. 
• Getting married twice! For insurance reasons we got married legally in July. We met a judge on a beautiful Wednesday evening and got hitched. 
• Finding an amazing cellist to play our music during the ceremony. 
• Having our children be a part of the ceremony. Lisa's son Alex walked Lisa's mom to her seat, and Sam and Noah walked with me down the aisle. 
• Deciding on a honeymoon location. Our original thought was to take a train to Seattle, but when Lisa decided to go back to school, and I changed jobs, that just didn't seem very feasible. So we opted for a couple of nights in Duluth, which ended up being beautiful and amazing. 

Those are just a few of the thoughts that come to mind. Our wedding capped off a year of a lot of changes for both of us. But even more so for Lisa. In 2013 she:

• Moved to Fridley.
• Went back to school.
• Got ACL knee surgery.
• Got Lasik eye surgery
• Got her personal trainer certification and started a career in the fitness industry.

Despite all the changes, Lisa is happy and enjoying life, and I'm enjoying life with her. I've also been very grateful of how accepting her family has been of me. I've felt tremendously welcome by them, and have enjoyed spending time with them throughout the year.

In my life, beyond getting married, one of the big changes is that I changed jobs. The job I had at Thomson Reuters ended up not being a very good fit. I took the job thinking I'd be doing one thing, but it turned out that portions of management weren't interested in having me do what I thought I was there to do. So most of my time there was a struggle trying to convince people of the need to do things a bit differently for long term sustainability.

So in July I took a job with the National Marrow Donor Program, a.k.a. Be The Match, as an Infrastructure Architect. It's been a MUCH better fit for me, and the role I have here is work that I enjoy doing. I'm also in an organization that wants to see long term sustainability in their IT architecture, and is open to working with me to design how that will get done. Additionally, Be The Match is a great organization, doing life saving work. The mission to save lives is embedded in the culture of the organization from day one. 

Also, in solidarity with many friends and family who are going back to school, I decided to start up a graduate certificate in leadership at Capella University myself. It's four classes that I should hopefully have done by the end of 2014. I'm hoping it helps give me some academic credibility as I look towards other leadership jobs in my future. 

My beer brewing hobby also continued to grow this year. I bought a small chest freezer and started kegging my beer. The project for this Christmas, and start of the new year, is building a collar for the freezer, and adding in real beer taps to make dispensing easier. I also took 1st place in a local beer competition for my Blonde ale, so that was a nice pat on the back.

In addition to brewing beer, I've gotten the chance to visit a lot of the local taprooms. Being close to NE Minneapolis has benefits, as there are at least 5 taprooms within a mile or two from each other. Giving us lots of options for a spur of the moment night out to have a quick pint. Lisa and I have also done some beer related travel. Heading to Mankato to visit the Schell's Brewery, and to Chippewa Falls to visit Leinenkugel's. Both of which were fun quick trips as an excuse to get a night away.

On the fitness front, my running took a bit of a back seat this year. My total distance for the year dropped to only 308 miles which is the lowest since I started running in 2010. I did manage a lot more diversity though, with over 100 miles of elliptical and close to 450 miles on bikes (both indoor and stationary). I also added in some weight training, with Lisa using me as practice for her personal training. I also only ran a few races this year. Lisa and I did some 5K's together, as well as a 10K. But the highlight was running a half-marathon relay with Lisa where I ran the first half, and she finished it out on the second half. That was a great time and might end up being a yearly tradition. 

I do have some fitness goals for the new year. My weight has fluctuated between 160-170 this whole year, and I'd like to get it into the solid 150's by next Christmas. I'm also going to try a 'streak', running at least 1 mile every day of 2014. I'd also like to make sure I add in a little bit of weight training to help tone some of my upper body. Lisa and I are also heading to Grand Rapids, MI in May to run the River Bank 25K race, so I need to make sure I'm trained up for that.

The boys are doing well this year. They've adjusted to me being married, and seem to really enjoy spending time with Lisa. Noah is finished up 6th grade, and we'll be considering education options for him next year, including, but not limited to, online school. Sam is finishing 8th grade, and next year will be starting High School. We're looking at a Project Based Learning charter school in Coon Rapids as a possibility for him. As an old Open School grad, I have a soft spot for alternative education options. 

Sam is really into horses, and this past year he has been taking riding lessons, and we went to the State Fair a couple times to see horse shows. He still loves computers, video games and movies, but it's nice to get him outside from time to time. He's even had the opportunity to volunteer a bit at the stable where he takes lessons. 

Noah really got into the Warriors book series this past Fall, and has been devouring all the different books in the series like crazy. He's even started a blog where he's been writing little reviews of the books. He's also continued to run with me from time to time, and did both the Monster Dash 5K and the Turkey Day 5K with Lisa and I. Noah also really likes tabletop games and can often be found playing Forbidden Island or Castle Panic with me on cold evenings. 

As I look back on all the photos from this past year, I'm sure I could write twice as much as I've written here, but I think this is where I'll end. It's been a good year. A year of change and transition, but a year where I am feeling very grounded and stable for the future. I'm excited about the possibilities for Lisa and I in the new year. The future feels very wide open, and we often talk about plans for our lives. Thanks for reading about my journey this past year, and I look forward to blogging (hopefully a bit more frequently) in 2014.