Friends in the fall......and misc stuff

On Columbus Day weekend in October some of my friends are gonna come visit me! My ol' college friend Paul from North Canton Ohio and possibly my friend Mike who I grew up next door to....Sounds like a fun time is brewin'!!

On another note, I have been thinking that the word "keen" needs to be brought back into prominence in the American lexicon. It's too good a word to just sit there unused. So, please, use the word "keen" now and again. Let's revive a blast from the past.

My Fiserv walking team won again this week...3rd week in a row. We walked over 600,000 steps combined. 2 weeks remain. We are ahead of our nearest rival by ~43,000 steps...not much at all. This week we plan to bury them as we are shooting for 1,000,000 steps as a team. Can we make it? Stay tuned to find out!

Walkathon

My walking team at Fiserv completed our Walkathon this morning. The 5 of us met at work at 7:00 a.m. today and walked for 4.5 straight hours (approx 14 miles/35000 steps). Yeah, we are tired, but we got some much need steps recorded on our pedometers. We are, pardon the pun, one step closer to winning the iPod Nanos!

I went to see Live Free or Die Hard tonight starring Bruce Willis. Of course it was incredulous with Bruce surviving all kinds of things that would kill a normal person time and again, but still it was a funny movie with lots of great special effects and action.

New things for me

Today I got some new sneakers and I got a new haircut(before and after shots shown). I like both of them. Oh man, I am so excited about this all it is overwhelming. I need to take a sedative.....and get a life...... :)

Back from Irish country

Well, I made it back from South Bend last night, airline flight snafus notwithstanding.

Here are a couple pics from a little Irish pub/grill we went to as well as a pic of the wing of a 757 and a couple other shots......

My 4:10 flight from Atlanta to Daytona Beach got cancelled and they could not get me on a flight back to Daytona last night. So they suggested a 10:45 p.m. flight to Orlando. No thanks, too late. I suggested they try Jacksonville. They got me on a 5:20 flight.

I rented a car in J-ville and drove it to Daytona Beach airport where I turned it in. In Jacksonville and most of the way to Daytona it was cloudy and rainy. It made me miss my Sunshine......follow that rainbow.

My luggage had apparently made it to DB airport (without me) but was locked in a room and nobody was around to get it for me. So I had about given up hope of seeing my luggage last night when I happened upon a Delta ticket counter agent who went back and found my bag :=) That was nice. Hit the road in the Subaru and back home by about 9:45. So it all worked out okay.

A few more ND pics.....

Visit to Notre Dame

I visited the Notre Dame campus last night with a few of my Lake Mary and Omaha Fiserv cronies. What a COOL place!

South Bend

I made it to South Bend this afternoon. Went directly to the bank I will be working with but there was nothing to do yet....so left after about an hour or so and checked into the hotel. it is a Marriot...REALLY soft and comfortable beds. A nice hotel for sure. We are right next to a river in downtown South Bend so I headed out for a walk. There was a Blues band playing across the river and people kayaking and rafting down the river...really neat! So I had a good walk and explored a little. Soon I'll head out for dinner....then back to the bank at 8 tomorrow a.m.......

My nephews from the desert :=)

Here are some recent pics of my sister Mara's and brother-in-law Robert's boys, Aidan and Roman. What cute little rascals! Uncle Chris misses you munchkins...time for a ride on the Guzzi, right boys?!

More pedo stuff!

My team, Hoofin' for Loot, picked up the pace this week even further. I put the pedal down and have 211,165 steps for the week. As a team we had over 600,000 steps! YEAH! On a personal note, I have lost 21 pounds now.....though I have yet to eat today....so I expect that will be more like 18 or 19 at day's end. Still, I am feeling better, more energy, etc. lately, so that's a good thing. :=)

Honestly...it's Honest Leigh!!

My friend Bruce and his lovely, sweet, too good for him wife Amy had a baby girl. Her name is Honest Leigh Krause. Really. Congratulations Amy and Bruce!!

Notre Dame and pedo stuff......

I'll be traveling to South Bend, Indiana soon for work, home of Notre Dame University. Looking forward to a little bit of travel. I get to stay HERE and I hope to see the campus (3 miles from the hotel....i can walk there)

My pedometer steps continue to climb. As of now (Wed morning) I am at 137,700 steps for the week. My goal is 200,000 by Friday afternoon when we have to turn in the #'s. That will be tough to reach, especially considering I HAVE to go have a beer or 3 with my pal Jim Thursday after work...could make for a more interesting than usual walk Thursday night :=)

Oh, by the way, our team placed first this week with the most steps for the week (~501,000 combined for the five of us) and we won some gift cards to Starbucks. Yippee!

Wax museum

I recently went to Potter's wax museum in St. Augustine, FL. Really neat and very eerie. Some of the figures looked remarkably life-like. Here are some tiny pics i took. I must have had an incorrect setting on the camera phone to make them so darned small :(

Florida winery

Saturday I rode with a group of friends to the Lakeridge Winery in Clermont, Florida. This is one of the most hilly parts of Florida. It's a pretty scenic part of Florida. We got a tour of the winery, which include a neat short video on the winemaking process as well as a tour of the grounds and a free tasting. The wine was good, if a bit on the sweet side, but that is okay. I like semi-sweet ones just fine :) Here are a couple pics from inside the winery. The rack of bottles there contains champagne and each bottle is hand turned several times a day about 1/4 turn. This is some process which has been used for years and years in the winemaking trade. The purpose is to slowly release sediment in the bottom of the bottle towards the neck of the bottle. It's part of the conditioning process of the wine.

We then stopped at a sportsbar/restaurant in Clermont called Benchwarmers for lunch. After that I followed the group back towards Deland on some really nice backroads. They were a very friendly group of people with which to ride.

It was a great ride and I now have a bottle of Lakeridge Southern White!!

Rainy Independence day

Looks like some more much needed rain today. Luckily I got my first, longer walk in early this morning before the rain arrived as it looks like it will be here for much of the rest of the day. Here are also a couple pics from the walking trail next to work that I walk on my lunch hours sometimes. It's a nice little trail.

Happy Independence Day to all my friends and family back in the midwest and here in Florida and all across this great country in which we are so blessed to live :=)

Great weekend....

Well, I had a fairly busy and really great weekend. I took an excellent motorcycle ride down to the german bakery in Yalaha. The weather was very nice. I got a little turned around/lost on the way back home but figured it out eventually. Then Saturday afternoon I saw Evan Almighty, which was a good movie. Lots of neat animal stuff in it and cool effects to show all of the animals interacting, etc. Plus hidden in it all was a sweet story...just a nice movie overall. Following the movie I had some really tasty seafood (lobster tail, scallops and grilled shrimp). All in all a fella could not ask for a better day :=) or a better way to spend it :o)

Sunday was my day to catch up on chores, like some cleaning and mowing and getting out for some exercise. Sunday evening I had a couple friends over for dinner. It all turned out well (except for the pinot noir reduction which I caramelized) and was a really good night.

Oh, by the way, I finished 3rd for the week out of about 300 employees patricipating in the pedometer contest with about 140,000 steps. Two others beat me...both with over 185,000 steps!! WOW!