Atlanta...

In Atlanta doing a corporate gig for the company that I used to work for.

We were there for a big, busy set of meetings.


I wasn't expecting it to be so chilly in Atlanta. It was so cold and rainy that I had to buy a new sweatshirt.

It was great getting to see a bunch of folks who I used to work with.

Rob and Will.


And, Scott and Lisa.


Somehow, I didn't get a photo of Lisa. I'll get her next time. We have a few more big events in the next couple of weeks.

We were next door to a Sprinkle's Cupcake shop.


Sadly, the only southern style food I got to eat was a biscuits-n-gravy breakfast.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone 5

Shipped...

I'm back on a cruise ship for two weeks. It's been fun and weird getting my running acclimated to the warm weather.


The temperature was 86 degrees as I ran, which is quite a difference from the polar vortex temps I've become accustomed to this winter in Chicago. It was so hot that as I ran on the track, I would step in little puddles from the crew washing the deck. On my return lap, my footprints had completely burned away. It was hot.


Here's my view as I run.


One of the weird things about cruising is that you see people come on to the ship carrying huge bags of luggage, but the old guys on the ship wear the same outfits every day. This old guy has worn the same florescent workout show every day of the week. How can I tell? Because he even wears it to the evening performances of the shows and his Dry Fit Tech shirt glows every night in the audience.


Old guys act weird on cruise ships. Sometimes you go to the library and they'll fall asleep and snore so loudly that no one can concentrate on their books.


Some times they sit across from you for an hour and pick their nose the whole time they're there.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

San Antonio...

It's been awhile since I posted, but please know I'm still running. Most of it's done here.


At the gym. Treadmills, as we all know, can be so tedious.

I have been braving the cold and running outside lately, but it's been tough. I ran on Friday and was so happy to be outside, but then the rain came pouring down and I came home completely drenched and frozen solid. I was like a big, dripping icicle.

Now, we're in Texas for the holidays. It was so great to head out and run in the relative warmth and bright shining sun.

However, Texas is not Illinois. There are hills in this part of the country. This photo does not give you a true perspective.


This hill almost killed me! It went straight up for half a mile.


It's also fun to run in Texas because you see less geese on the path and more cactus!

A Girl and Her Salad...

Last night we went to a meeting at Second City.

We got to see our dear friend Kelsey!

After the meeting was over,  our friend Brynne asked us if we wanted to take home one of the left over pizzas.

Look, I'll eat pizza every day and twice on Sunday, so there's no way I'll turn down a free pizza.  (Full disclosure, I did actually eat pizza twice this past Sunday.

As we were leaving, Brynne asked if Jeannie wanted the unopened salad bowl as well.  They were going to throw it out unless someone wanted it.  Jeannie said, Sure.

Well, the salad bowl was a lot bigger than we realized.

Jeannie ended up carrying it around for the rest of the night.

 Here's a picture of me, holding the salad, while trying to take a picture of Jeannie and some friends.

She does love salad.

November, so far...

It's been a busy November.  Not so much in doing anything exciting, but busy in the fact that I'm constantly doing something.

6 out of 7 days I'm working at 1616 North Wells or at 3641 North Clark.

I'm also still out on the Lake Shore running path 4 days a week.  It's been cold lately, but the trees have been beautiful.

You can't beat that.

Here are some updates.

We went on a desert crawl in Andersonville with our blogging friend, Declan, his wife and their adorable daughter.

Monday, my sister Melissa was in town for a work conference.  We took her to Lillie's Q in Bucktown.

A lot of our friends have told us that they have great BBQ and they were right.  It's really the best BBQ I've had so far in Chicago.

I tivo'd the Bears game so I could watch it in it's entirety when we got home.  It was tough being on media blackout for the game because it was everywhere.

Holy smokes I was excited that the Bears won that game.

If you haven't listened to our movie podcast lately, we've got some really funny new episodes.  We've recorded 83 episodes.  We're almost through all 100 movies on the AFI List of the 100 Greatest Movies.

You can listen to all the episodes from your computer here.

Or, download the individual episodes on iTunes.

Here's A Streetcar Named Desire.

Philadelphia Story

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Saving Private Ryan

Guillermo..,

A few weeks ago on our podcast, Jeannie mentioned that she wanted to be with Guillermo when he decided to stop eating vegetarian.


He's not had any meat and today he decided he wanted a Maxwell Street Polish.

Jeannie and I met up with him, ordered our Polish Sausages and then went to Guillermo's mom's house to eat them.

Jeannie was very excited. I told her all about the historical Maxwell Street Polish Sausage stand and she wanted to see what all the fuss was about.



Guillermo dug into his.


We'll see how happy he is in five hours when his body tries to digest and adapt to all that meat in his body.


Guillermo and I both put hot peppers on our sausages and they were extremely hot.


Guillermo got the sweats and I had to take breaks from talking because my tongue was on fire.
Afterward, we walked around Bridgeport and saw someones amazing Halloween decorations.


It was a fun, meat filled day!
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Post Marathon...

Well, it's been a week since the marathon and I've fully recovered.

It took a few days.

People had warned me that I'd be sore for at least 3 days and they weren't wrong.  It was surprising.  When I ran 22 miles, I was only slightly sore.  26.2 miles made me ache all over.

On Monday, Jeannie, Brett and I went to Fleet Feet and got our medals engraved.  They turned out very cool.

We also bought a very cool drawing from a local artist who produced a fantastic painting for the marathon.

It's such a wonderful drawing.  He's a wonderful artist and has some very cool pieces on his website.

Today, I ran for the first time since the marathon.  I did 6 miles and my legs felt very strong.  The rest of my body felt very relieved to be back out on the lake shore running path.  A week without exercise left me a little creaky and doughy.  So nice to get back to tightening everything back up.

The marathon is over, but the running continues.

We've already started planning for where we're going to run next.