Bed & Breakfast

Being that this was our first trip to a B&B, I honestly wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was trying to stay open minded. As we headed over to the house, the first thing I noticed was that all along the street were other B&B's. That just seemed odd.



We arrived and as you can see, it was a very impressive house. As we got inside, it really hits you, this is someone's home and they are inviting you in to stay with them. I can understand how that would appeal to some people, but I just don't think it was my "thing".



As we got the tour of all the rooms, I was really impressed. This house had to be pretty old, but the inside looked so nice. You could tell that a lot of work had been done to the rooms to make them as comfortable and modern as possible. As we looked through our room, I got a little worried - I didn't see any DVD player! I quickly remedied this by swiping one from another room no one was staying in.



We later learned that the player from our room just recently broke, and it was no big deal that we grabbed the other one. One of the more interesting things came as we entered one of the rooms that was described to us as the most "controversial" room. Why do you ask? Well, because there was a toilet directly in the room:



I guess due to the proximity of the room to the edge of the house, the pipes had to be in a certain place to prevent them from freezing in the winter. This meant the toilet had to be positioned where it was. Apparently when one newly wed couple stayed there, the wife had to leave the room and stand out in the hall while the husband was doing his "business" inside. Too funny!

The hot tub was awesome, and the robes in our room were just great. Andrea liked them so much, she had to write down the information from the tags. She is going to want them for a Christmas present. (Shannon, if you are reading this, email me info on how I can get my hands on one!) The only problem is that after an early day of beer drinking followed by a big dinner and a long hot jacuzzi, we were dead tired by 9pm! We popped in a movie and both were asleep before 10pm. I must be getting old...

In the morning we had a breakfast of fruit, some huge slabs of ham, and a french toast type sandwich. They were french toast with cream and jelly in the middle. I covered them in syrup and gobbled them up. I honestly wanted to ask for seconds, but I wasn't sure on etiquette in that situation.

Like I said, I can see how B&B's might appeal to some people. That being, social people, extroverted people. Take the two people we met at breakfast for example. Both writers for a newspaper, in town for a wedding. It's there JOB to meet people. I'm a little too private to really dig on the B&B vibe. But hey, if this is only time I ever goto a B&B, it was definitely a nice one.

7 years

Today Andrea and I celebrate our 7th year of marriage. It's hard to put 7 years into perspective. In some ways it feels like a long time and in other ways it feels like a blink of an eye. I do know that I am a very lucky guy to have found someone as special as Andrea. She does wonders to keep me sane, even though I know she often time feels helpless.

Our weekend started out awesome as we headed to the Brewery Tour. The tour itself was of the "old brew house" which stopped beer production in 1998. The highlight of this tour was of the original brew kettle.



It was fashioned prior to 1900 for a cost of $25,000 dollars. To put that amount in perspective, August Shell built his entire Mansion for $5,000 dollars at the time. It was a huge investment and to think it lasted for so long is a testament to the original hand craft work that created it.



In this close up, you can see the individual hammer marks on the elbow joint. It probably took a huge amount of time to finish just this one section.

After that it was straight on to the highlight of the tour, FREE SAMPLES!



Not only did we get 6 beers to share between our table of 4 people (one beer not pictured), but after that you could go up to the tap and get as many more beers as you wanted. Many people were walking out with 2 (or more!) beers in hand.



As Andrea and I headed outside to enjoy our beer, this woman walked up to us:

"Where do you get the beers at?"

She seemed a bit disappointed to find out you actually had to attend the hour long tour first before getting access to the free beer. You see, according to the law they cannot sell beer at the brewery, but they can give it away for free!

The last interesting fact that we learned on the tour was that 1919 Root Beer is named as such because that is the year prohibition started. In order to stay in business, the Shell's Brewery started making soda (root beer) and "near beers". This may seem obvious to some people, but this was an interesting tid bit for someone like me who knows absolutely no history. Leif Ericson? Isn't he a baseball player?

Anyway, after the Brewery tour, slightly buzzed we headed over to check-in at our Bed & Breakfast. I'm going to break my weekend report into two posts, so you'll have to check back tomorrow to read about our B&B adventures...

Parting thought for the weekend

One of the best things about running outside:

Knowing you can fart without consequence.


:-)

Half assleep post

I really should get a post up before the weekend starts, since I won't be getting any done this weekend. This week at work has been pretty crappy for reasons I won't bore people with tonight. It all peaked today with the worst day so far. Hopefully things will turn around, but damn do I need some time off.

As I came home tonight, I realized I had left my wallet at work. That was just icing on the cake of crap from this week. Since I pretty much needed my wallet for the rest of this weekend, I drove all the way back to work to get it. We took the opportunity to go to dinner at Biaggi's, so it wasn't all bad.

The rest of the weekend is packed. Tomorrow morning I'm getting up bright and early to go running around Lake Nokomis again. Then, we head down to New Ulm for our Bed & Breakfast weekend. Our first stop will be a tour of the Shell's Brewery. Samples please! After that, we will check in to the actual B&B and then do dinner the Lamplighter. It's a somewhat well known New Ulm restaurant, but I've never been there. Did I mention the free bottle of wine that will be waiting in our room? I'm not sure yet if the mini bar is included in the price.

For now, I'm just exhausted and I really need to get some sleep so I'm well rested for the drive down and all the activities tomorrow. Hope everyone has a good weekend! Come Monday, I'll do another large picture post.

It's that time again...

Understand that friends come and go,
but for the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle
because the older you get,
the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Case of the Monday Pictures

Just some pictures today...


Megan and Mommy playing the clapping game.


Megan being cute, resting her head.


Saturday night we baby sat a little girl, about 6 weeks younger then Megan. The two of them had a great time together.


Andrea showing Megan how to share!


The idea behind this toy, was you put the balls in the top and they would roll down into the thing. Then a motor blowing air would pop the balls back out again, to roll down again, etc. Apparently Megan played with this toy at another persons house and liked it. Only problem was, when we tried it, it sounded a lot like a vacuum and all it did was scare the crap out of Megan! Maybe she will grow into it...?


Megan and her crazy Dad!!

10k Devil

This morning looked gloomy and like any minute it was going to dump buckets of rain on us. We packed up our stuff and Megan and headed out. My Grandma lives just a few blocks from the start of the 10k, so we dropped Megan off there and headed over. At first there wasn't a lot of people there, but it grew quickly. I even bumped into someone from my old job.

Somehow we lucked out and the rain never came, and in fact, the weather turned out great. A nice cool breeze coming off the lake, and eventually some sun coming out towards the end of the race.

Andrea did great, and I am so proud of her. She has been a great inspiration for me in the past, and now I'm trying to do the same for her. Problem is, I sometimes push too hard or in the wrong ways. I would try to be encouraging, but it just came out like I was the evil 10k devil guy. Andrea was a runner long before I ever started. She never let my lazy life style be an excuse for her to not exercise. She has always been more health conscious than me, and it's for those very reasons I've gotten to where I am today. 10k might not be the perfect distance for her, but she finished strong and that's just awesome!

The really interesting thing, is even hours after the race, she was already having those exact same thoughts I was having after my first 10k: What next?

Also this weekend, my sister-in-law is doing the Breast Cancer 3-day walk. 60 miles of walking over 3 days. I hope that the good weather holds out for her! Good luck Val!!

Crappy Commute

Ugh. Running outside directly after work is working out to be a double edged sword. On the one hand, I'm able to get a solid hour long run in, finishing shortly after 5pm. On the other hand, this means I am running into the peak of rush hour traffic. My commute home is taking much longer then normal, upwards of 50 minutes. On top of that, Highway 13 is completely ripped to shreds right now. They are resurfacing large parts of it, making the traffic that much worse. As I said... ugh.

I've made some decent progress this week, reigning in some of the extra eating I've been doing lately. Ever since hitting that goal of 199, it's been hard for me to stay on track. Part of me keeps saying, "200 is a good weight, you don't need to work so hard anymore." But that isn't my final goal, so I need to push those thoughts aside and focus. I WILL be 184 by the end of the year, I can't lose sight of that.

I forgot to mention that this weekend is the Fantasy Football draft. I don't know how well I will do this year, for a few reasons. First off, my brother will offer no assistance, considering I beat him last year. Secondly, I'm not sure if I really have the time or desire to tweak my team as much as I did last year. Hopefully I will draft a little better, and actually get a decent QB this year. Will have to see... the draft is Saturday night.

One last thing... no matter how bad my day is, one single hug from Megan sure can take it all away.

The wonders of Sound

Crank up the speakers or put on your head phones! Today's post is all about the audio. First up we have a commentary on life goals... I agree with this one 100%, and can only hope to achieve it. WARNING - Harsh language!

Quote of the Day

Someday... I will make it happen.

Next up is my first attempt at linking to youtube.com. Someone sent me this video recently and I thought it was worth sharing. Pretty funny....



I didn't get around to posting about my awesome Sunday bike ride with Steve. Neither of us bothered to check weather forecasts, and so a few minutes before we started, I took a look. Hmmm... might get some rain later. I figured we'd be okay, and I was actually looking forward to the ride because we loaded up the bikes and went all the way into Minneapolis for a ride around the lakes area. Sure enough, we got friggen drenched. So much for planning!

Not much else going on this week. Some light running leading up to the 10k run on Saturday. I'm looking forward to that, it's sort of the half way point to my 10 mile run. I actually can't believe we are already half way through August, it seems like this month is blowing by. I suppose the end of the summer is like that...

Slow Week of Blog

I wasn't too terribly busy this week, I just felt like playing more World of Warcraft then blogging. Plus, the unintesting theme continues...

On the running front, things are going pretty well. Running right after work, outside the area around my work went really good last week. I did it twice, and the second time I was able to get something around 6 miles in and still be home by 6pm, which is great. Today Andrea and I did some really long runs, Andrea finished 5.5 miles and I did around 7. Next week is the 10k, which should be a lot of fun.

Megan turned 10 months old on Wed of this week, and she is doing great. She sleeps through the night every now and then (just did last night!), but sometimes still gets up once. Hopefully she will just out grow the waking up... The next big thing is going to be her first steps. Andrea has a prediction that it will happen by August 24th.

Speaking of August 24th, this month marks our 7th year anniversary on August 28th. To celebrate, we are going to try a bed & breakfast down in New Ulm. We will drop Megan off with Andrea's parents for the over night. I've never done a B&B before, so I'm not sure what to expect. The place is called Bingham Hall Bed & Breakfast. We will be staying in The Elijah I'll definitely report back on our experience.

That's all for now... back to more World of Warcraft!!

Where does time go?

I wish I had something interesting to post today. Honestly, I really do. I put a lot of thought into what I wanted to call my blog, but I never thought it would be so accurate for me. But I digress...

I got to thinking today about how I've been in a cube for the last 8 years of my life. Okay, well there was that 6 month break I had at the end of 2003. Damn was that a good time. I've had people say they would get bored or wouldn't know what to do if they didn't have a job, and let me tell you, it was nothing like that for me. So lets call it 7.5 years in a cube.

I'm sure people are sick of my lame ass commentary about time in a cube, but I can't help it. It's what I know, it's what I do. So I started to think about where I'd be in the next 8 years. Would I still be in a cube? That would be great, because that would mean I'm employed, and that's a good thing. I got to thinking about the year, 2014. It seems so far off, yet not really? I mean, when I think about who I was when I graduated highschool in 1994... the thought of 2014 seemed impossible. 20 years?

Bleh, sometimes I don't even want to post for the simple reason that all I do is drone on about nothing in particular. I suppose that is the whole point of this blog, but sometimes I wish I did have something interesting to say. Today just doesn't happen to be that day.

Megan Picture Day

This is the best I could come up with, nothing super new or interesting. These pictures basically illustrate one thing: how much standing Megan is doing. She stands on anything and everything. Andrea said she even pulled herself up a surface with no real hand holds... in otherwords, she's not lifting herself so much as standing up. It should really only be a matter of weeks before she's taking her first steps.


Mom and Megan playing a little airplane.


Last night, Megan and I went over to my Mom's house to spend the night. My Mom is in Vegas, so we had the place to ourselves. I just wanted to give Andrea a Friday night all to herself. She enjoyed the night and had some other Moms over and played games. Sounds like they had a fun time.


Yes, that is Van Helsing playing in the background. Best Buy had a special price of $3.99! I couldn't pass that up.


Another one of Megan standing... See how similar the pose is in the next picture?


And for the record, in all these pictures, Megan is getting into those positions all by herself. There is no propping or positioning of her just for pictures...

Rest of the weekend should be pretty fun. This afternoon, I'm taking my bike over to my work place area. Sounds weird, I know - but I want to explore some areas around there and also get some distances measured out. My bike is the best way to do that, because of the pedometer it has. Basically, I'm planning on starting to do my runs right after work in the area around my work. The area is called Purgatory Creek Walking Trails. (6+ meg PDF download if you click the link). My work place are those small grouping of buildings just east of Staring Lake (next to Hwy 212). So I'm going to go check that area out and do some running there today also.

This evening we are going over to dinner with at an old co-worker of mine from my previous job who invited us over mid week. Should be a fun time, and will be interesting to hear about how people / things are going at the old job. Sunday I'll probably just relax, maybe get a small bike ride in.

What does 100 pounds look like?

Have you ever wondered? I was actually meaning to do this once I hit the elusive 199 mark. I finally got around to it today (197.5!) I'm looking at these pictures and can't really fathom who I was or how I got where I am. But somehow I did.

As always, standard disclaimers apply. This images are scary & graphic in nature! And for the record, the images are progress at the following dates:

July 7th, 2005 -> Nov 10th, 2005 -> Aug 2nd, 2006 - FRONT

July 7th, 2005 -> Nov 10th, 2005 -> Aug 2nd, 2006 - SIDE

The images are slightly smaller and lesser quality on purpose - no need in seeing graphic detail and getting all grossed out. :-)

Not much more to say, a picture is worth 100 pounds? These pictures definitely evoke other emotions for me... but maybe another day. Besides, I promised pictures of Megan this week, not my funky ass! And I haven't delivered on that yet, so hopefully tomorrow or Friday.

Mid Year Resolution

I'm trying to stay positive this week, honestly! The truth is, it's just been a pretty uneventful week, both at home and work. Just getting through for now... Which got me to thinking, why settle for just getting through?

About a year ago (more or less), was when I made my serious resolution to change my life style habits. It's paid off pretty well, and I've since read that resolutions made during the middle of the year tend to be more successful then actual "New Years" resolutions. Seemed to work for me, so why not try again!

This resolution is kind of strange, and I'm not even sure if I totally understand it yet, but here it is: I'm going to find a new interest within a year. Like I said, I don't even really know what I mean by that. Keara's recent comment (aka spock74) about "just DO it" kind stuck with me. I think it's time to stop obsessing about not having any interests and just find out if maybe I do.

With work, family life, exercise goals, video games & blogging, it's not like I have a TON more free time. But there is enough there to explore if I really wanted to. It's not going to happen over night, which is why I'm qualifying "within a year".

I think a lot of people have "projects" that they do - probably because they come with a sense of accomplishment, and a defined beginning and end. Like working on your house, or car, or building a garden, who knows. Maybe I'll go the project direction... One qualification of this is that whatever it is I try, has to be somewhat inexpensive. In fact, I was even thinking about how cool it would be to find something I enjoy that makes money on the side. Like people that do scrapbooking and make money off it. That would be pretty sweet... I'm not a very good "idea" guy, so will see.

That's all for now, it's almost time for Megan's bath and bed time. I'll try to post some new pictures of her later this week. Can't believe she is going to be 10 months old!