Big cooking weekend

In order to prepare for the upcoming weeks of study mornings, library evenings, and working late into the night, we decided to save some money, time, and our stomachs but cooking a lot of food that we can just reheat as the week went on. On the menu were beef stew, pasta, and meatloaf! Finally, JJ made the meatloaf he's promised for so long!

Beef stew:




Meatloaf:




Leftover meat from the meatloaf was made into meatballs!

Donna went to New Orleans for training

It was my first trip ever to New Orleans and it was with the firm's national training. This meant that I didn't get to see much of N'awlins other than the trip to and from the airport and the short walk across the street to check out Harrah's. I didn't know what N'awlins was like before Katrina but a year since the hurricanes, it felt like a dilapidated and semi-abandoned place. I saw very few people walking around but we did stay in a touristy part of town. Still, in the hot sticky humidity, the place felt rather empty.

My room's view of the Mississippi


For the entertainment portion of the training, the firm hired bands and various Mardi Gras type festivities to parade with us down the street! They closed off the streets and hundreds of us walked down with our beads and the music blaring.


At the restaurant/bar place that I don't know the name of, they had a jazz/blues band that was very good.


Also, the food (buffet food at a number of stations) was sooooo good. Truly cajun! There was the best jambalaya I've ever had, some cajun pasta, roast turkey/pork loin, fried catfish, coconut jumbo shrimp... ohhh it was so good! :) They gave us such small plates so I had to make 2-3 trips to buffet stations! Also, the catfish and the shrimp were on platters that the waiters went around with so we basically stalked them.

JJ went to Atlanta for a conference

He's been too busy to post but I'll let him talk about it :) Don't forget to check back!

10/14/06 edit:
Whew! Finally time to catch up. Yeah, went to Atlanta for a conference. Nothing too exciting to report except the trip to the Georgia Aquarium.



Most noteworthy of the Georgia Aquarium is that it has the world's largest tank at 6.2 million gallons. That doesn't really mean anything until you're standing in front of the ginormous main viewing panel. I don't know the dimensions, but I remember hearing that it cost a few million bucks to make a single piece of glass that big and distortion free. It's about the size of a big movie theatre screen and at least a couple of feet thick to be sure. It's really amazing when you see it in person.

Those fish (giant grouper) are literally bigger than the kid.

And the tank holds 4 whale sharks. I couldn't believe how big they were. To give you perspective, that fish in the lower left of the picture is the same fish that was bigger than the kid.

Chicago Air & Water Show

This weekend, the Chicago Air & Water show was happening so we went to check it out. Actually, we tried to check it out on Saturday but the weather was just awful. With a little help from our RAW shooter program, JJ managed to capture a few sweet shots.




Sunday was a lot nicer and I biked down towards Fullerton to get a better glimpse. I've never seen the bike path so busy and it was quite difficult to manuever around the walkers (who aren't watching where they're walking because of the jets up high), the kids, ice cream trucks, and other cyclists (also not really looking where they're going). I didn't take the big camera out but this one basically captured the air show experience along the lake in a nutshell.

Nike Run Hit Remix

I really do feel great. I accomplished a summer of running and I capped it off with a 5 mile (~8K) race! I made it in under an hour too! 57m 40s to be exact :)
JJ couldn't run with me because he was working out-of-town but he was definitely there in my head encouraging me on :)

I've never run a 5-mile before so I was definitely nervous! On the website, it said you had to keep a 12 min/mile pace and I wasn't sure I could keep that up for a whole 5 miles! It was a lot of fun though; you can tell it was a really "rich" race because they had so many sponsors: Jamba Juice (free juice!), Clif Bar (free bar!), free refreshments (apples, trail mix, chips), one free beer (Goose Island - which I didn't have), and bands! Bands played at every mile and the half mile in between there was some entertainment (confetti, Elvis impersonator, Japanese drums, bagpipes!) so it kept me entertained.

At the end of the race, I was so happy to see my accomplishment summarized as this:


I'm so happy that I'm proud of me! Yay me! Of course, JJ is proud of me too! If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't even have run as much as I did this summer! Yay JJ! :)

Edit 8/22/2006: Here are photos of me after the race, courtesy of the photographers at the run! Thanks!

Spoils of the day

Yesterday, JJ came back from a full week of work in Fort Wayne, IN. He got me these fine chocolates!


Apparently, DeBrand chocolates are "world-famous". I tried the "I Love You" chocolate but didn't find it "world-famous" but indeed, appropriate. I have yet to try the other bar though but I am excited because it has almonds :)

JJ's order of soap (slickdeal!) came as well. 64 bars of soap!!! I don't know what he was thinking!


Finally, marvel at the incredible memory of JJ's new desktop. We ordered 2 gigs last week (slickdeal!) and I installed it myself!

Race Judicata

I ran another race this summer and I'm feeling great!
About 3 months ago, I ran the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge. That race was 3.5 miles and I achieved my goal of running the whole thing without stopping and finished in 42m 45s.
This race was a 5K (3.1 miles) and again, I ran without stopping and finished in 32m 30s! And I didn't hurt myself too bad after either! You can see the results here.

I know, I'm only 954 of 1192 but that's fine! Ever since I saw the orthopedic doctor about my knees, I've tried to make a better effort in stretching my muscles and it helps. I'm glad JJ made me go get it checked out so I've been running and exercising a lot more this summer.

Now, I've got more t-shirts to add to my "Free T-shirts of Summer 2006" collection. I'll post a picture of all of them at the end of summer :)