You don't know humid until you are on the East Coast

Okay, according to MSN weather:
Bellevue, WA - Clear, 71
Princeton, NJ - Clear, 88 (and that is now a degree cooler from when I checked 15 minutes ago), with projected high of 92 for the day and a rainy cloud (yeah, that ain't happening)

The good news is that it should cool down this week - low 80's, maybe even in the 70's!

I miss Seattle...

Anyway, I should note that today was my first trip into NYC - went to a Yankee's game. Actually, I went to 1/2 an inning of a Yankee's game. Andrew's friend Justin, planned a trip out to NYC with a friend and invited Andrew and I to join them in the outfield bleachers for a game. Unfortunately, we did not know that it would feel like 96 degrees with the high humidity. Smack-dab, in the sun. The whole time. Hence, why I stuck around for half an inning. I spent the other 3 innings that Andrew survived in the concourse, which quickly became crowded. You know it's too hot out when Andrew only survives 3.5 innings of a ball game.

In other news, I got to experience NJ Transit and the NY Subway. Lots of fun. Though, I will note, I felt like I was in hell for part of it, just because there was A/C only on the trains, not on the platforms. I was constantly hearing Peanut shouting in my ear, "We're in HELL!!!" (hehe)

So, courtesy of MasterCard, here's the breakdown of the day:
* Round-trip ticket on NJ Transit to NY-Penn Station: $20
* Round-trip ride on the Subway (one transfer): $4
* Yankee's ticket in Outfield Bleachers (stub-hub buying route...): $95 (tickets are usually $15)
* Hot Dog: $5
* Water (they were out of soda at the point of buying lunch): $4.75
* Soda (eventually found a stand with soda) in a souviner cup: $6
* Not blacking-0ut or going into heat-stroke due to heat and humidity: PRICELESS

Though, if you calculate my ICA (inning cost average), it's infinite, because you know you have to calculate the inning on a whole number measure, and I did not complete the inning.

Unfortunately, I was not impressed with Yankee Stadium. I can see why they are building a new one across the street. Though, I was spoiled of going to Wrigley just a couple of weeks ago. But at the same time, I went there thinking, "It's hot as hell," rather than thinking of the history of all the great-time Yanks who played there: Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, etc... so I am dissapointed with myself for not thinking of all the history in that stadium, which has had ball games played in it for the past 85 years. That's amazing.

Heh - now I look at weather.com: For the zip code of 08540 (the one I'm in), they say "Mostly cloudy, 87 degrees F, feels like 94 degrees F, Humidity 63%"

Okay, I think it's time to sit in front of a fan and read, with a cold nalgene of water...

Keep cool!

I promised you this post...

Chicago! I finally have the time to discuss all the fun that we had in Chicago! (yes, all boxes are now unpacked - working on getting my sewing area set up, which will take a week in itself to figure out my new organization scheme)

So, as you know, Andrew and I took a slight break in the road trip in spending a few days in Chicago over Labor Day weekend.

We arrived about 5ish Sunday night, and hit traffic. Reminicent of Seattle traffic, but just a bit worse, especially given that we were not on familiar turf (but we were on I-90 if that counts...) Oh, and I should mention that GPS navigation gets totally confused when there are lots of tall buildings around - no workie so wellie in humungous city. Luckily, we still managed to find the hotel and the self-park garage for the hotel. After getting settled into the hotel and thinking, "Thank you Hotwire.com!" Andrew and I met up with Gen and Bobby in the lobby to go walk over and have true Chicago-style stuffed pizza at Giordano's. Let me just say, I will never look at a stuffed pizza the same way again. Boy was that pizza good! It was great to catch up with the two of them, and Gen was really helpful in giving us ideas of things to do while we were there. After dinner, Andrew and I crashed with full tummies on a comfy King bed.

Monday, we slept in and then figured out public transportation to the Field Museum. Putzed around the Museum for a good couple of hours (lots of dinosaur fossils - very impressive to see, especially Sue) and started to want to watch Night at the Museum again. We then went back to the hotel to grab the laptop in hopes of finding free WiFi at B&N cafe (found B&N a couple of blocks away, thanks to the bus), had no luck, but bought Andrew a book anyway. To finish off the evening, we took up one of Gen and Bobby's suggestion of taking the Red Line "L" to the Hancock tower, eat dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, then go up to the observatory. Yes, the Sears tower is the tallest one in Chicago, but Hancock is tall, reportedly cheaper to go up in, and you get to see the Sears tower from the observatory. Best of everything, right? Only downside to that trip was that the elevator talks to you for the 40 seconds your are traveling up or down. But the sights at night were impressive. I only wish we were able to catch it at dusk rather than at night. But on the bright side - less crowded!

Tuesday was the day of the Cubs game! Before the game, we walked over to Millennium Park to see the ampitheater and the bean. For reference, as you walk past Millennium Park, there's this structure that is curvy like the EMP, but not as funkily colored. Still makes you wonder what it is. Up close, the ampitheater is more impressive and has better functionality than the EMP ever had. Unfortunately, the day was too hot for us to feel up to putzing around the park for a long time, so we cowered in the hotel room until we left for the Cubs game.

Now - the Cubs game - Wrigley Field - AMAZING!!! If you want a baseball game, go to a game at Wrigley Field. We went early enough to catch the last hour or so of batting practice. The nice thing is that you can walk all the way down to the field (still within the bleachers) and literally stand just feet away from a ball player. Let's just say that Andrew was feeling like a five-year-old baseball enthusiast school-boy. And our seats for the game were quite good too. It was a packed game, and unfortunatley with the location of the seats, there was no air-flow, so needless to say, it got really warm there. But it was a great ballgame, and definitely not like the games at Safeco Field in Seattle. For one, Wrigley is smaller than Safeco (not a big surprise, Wrigley is a lot older...), but one perk is that there is less going on with the jumbotron, given that there isn't a jumbotron to do anything on. Also, the fans - that really brought in the baseball experience. Everyone there was there for a ballgame (and of course to drink beer). But I haven't seen fans really get into a game like I did there (even back during the glory days of the M's). The stadium was loud and we were up and down in our seats a lot. It was fun. And it was actually a competitive ballgame instead of a blowout. The game went into extra innings, and unfortunately, the Cubs lost it in the 11th.

Pictures of Chicago will be posted on my photo site soon - I am finally working on our desktop machine, but all the pictures are currently on Andrew's laptop (actually, I lie - Wrigely is not downloaded from the camera yet...), and guess who has that computer right now?

Okay, I should probably get back to organizing the sewing area before I head out to join the other ladies from Graduate Christian Fellowship for dinner...

Austin, MN

yet another day of a lot of driving, and today was really, really, really boring (except for the 45 minutes driving through the Badlands)...

* Miles traveled: 480
* Hours in the car: aprox 8 hours
* Current time zone: Central (and I finally changed the setting on the computer so my blog time reflects when I posted today Central Time!)
* License plate bingo: Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, West Virginia
* Bonus points (in the order we saw them...): Quebec, New Brunswick, Manitoba
* Tumbleweeds hit: 1

Quote of the day: "These are the drive-by shootings I am a fan of." ~ Denise, just after taking a picture and rolling up the car window as Andrew drives through the Badlands, SD.

Badlands - gorgeous, and really the only thing in South Dakota. Once again, I will be setting up a Picasa album and will link to that once I have that up with all the pictures from the trip. If you ever take I-90 through South Dakota, take the Badlands loop and just drive it (we only stopped at one outlook point). Nothing like looking at mounds formed from volcanic activity.

But other than the Badlands, there is nothing to note of South Dakota - it's hot, it's flat, but it at least has more color than Kansas ever did. However, their rest areas are really nice - inside a visitor center-esque building with clean restrooms. Oh, and I should mention the wind... for some reason there was a lot of wind that was hitting us from the right side... made for a terrible time to try to stay out of ditches... but we did :)

Minnesota is so far much better - less wind, and more activity off of I-90. And tonight, we are actually staying in a city that has civilization - 23,000+ residents... and a Target! Woo-hoo!

Tomorrow - 6 hours into Chi-town and meet up with Gen and Bobby for some infamous deep-dish pizza. Andrew and I are both ready for a break from all the driving, so luckily we get into Chicago tomorrow and will be putzing around there until Wednesday morning. If you know of stuff we should do in Chicago, please let us know!

Catch ya later on the other side of the Mississip!

Wall, SD

We finally made it into South Dakota after spending a lot of time in Montana and Wyoming. Sorry for not posting yesterday - for some reason our Super 8 in Cooke City decided not to provide the free WiFi... so, here's the update:

Yesterday: Yellowstone!
* Miles Traveled: ? - we drove from Bozeman down to the north entrance and through the main loop hitting up Mammoth Hot Springs, Norris, Old Faithful, West Thumb, and then back out through the Northeast Entrance. Then we spent the night just outside of Yellowstone in Cooke City. I will say that Old Faithful is definitely the place to hit up and some of the stops in the other "towns" weren't really worth it. Driving around Yellowstone Lake was really pretty, but long. And going out through the Northeast entrance is even longer with some steep cliffs - oh yeah, and Bison blocking the roadway - but the vistas were pretty - especially with the sunset hitting the mountains. Pictures to come... probably will set up a picasa album and put a link up on the blog.
* Hours in the car: ? - we did spend a good amount of time walking around and sitting out at the lodge at Old Faithful. Definitely less time in the car compared to the previous day.
* License Plate Bingo: Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Virginia. Bonus Points: Ontario. Über Bonus Points: Deutchland (yes, really - European plate with the lovely "D" sticker)
Unfortunately, we did not come across any recently married Jens and Cams :(

Today:
* Miles Traveled: 547
* Hours in Car: 10 hours (Including 1.5 hours sitting on I-90 12 miles from Buffalo, WY waiting for roadside assistance to come with some gas to get us to Buffalo like we had hoped. Moral of the story: don't trust the husband with the history of the car - get gas as soon as you find a station after your gas light turns on - stupid me for not pulling the veto rank as "driver" at that moment in the afternoon. Though, what's a roadtrip without some hiccup and needing to pull off to the side?)
* Liscense Plate Bingo: Iowa (finally! Now all we need are the East Coast states which are to come. Also really hoping to come across Saskatchewan as we keep heading east... who knows, maybe tomorrow...)

Also to note with License Plate Bingo - it seems like almost all of the trailer trucks come from Oklahoma... very rare to see one from another state.

I must say that it was nice to take US Highway 212 back to I-90. Yes, the road did suck as you traveled through Bearclaw Pass as you went up and down the mountains through several switchbacks and hairpin turns with cliff on either side of you the whole time (yes Becky, we have not found a cliff or a ditch to go into yet!). Hard drive, but really worth it for the views and the elevation change. We went from 8,000 feet in Cooke City to 11,000 at the top of the pass and then back down to 7,000 feet in about 80 miles. It was also fun in the sense that we started in Montana, to drive through Wyoming to get back to I-90 in Montana, and then pass back into Wyoming, all to get to South Dakota. At least I can now mark South Dakota on my list of states visited :)

Tomorrow - drive through the Badlands (we are just a few miles from the beginning of the loop) and maybe head into Minnesota - Andrew will be taking over the computer shortly to figure out the itinerary. Sad to say that we are not hitting up Mount Rushmore, but that was a detour that we felt was not necessary for getting there just to take a picture and say that we visited that landmark (go ahead and tell me how wrong we are...) Anyway, we drove past all opportunity to go detour there and would have to back-track.

Anyway, I'm tired, I think it's time to rest up for tomorrow's drive.

Later!

I went to play golf and I went to the beach instead...

Okay, posting a couple of days late, but you know, first need to recover from the round, and then needing to find the time to download the pictures from the camera and then write up the post (nothing like trying to share a computer...)

So, Friday was the long-waited for round of golf at Washington National, and overall, it turned out to be a great round - I shot a 126! (of course, still not counting holes where I shoot over 10, mulligans, hand/foot wedges, and of course the shots that only moved 5 feet - let's remember that I have been golfing for only a couple of years now). The details of the round:

~*~ No Oregon Ducks cart! We got to drive around in the Jack Nichols/Don Heinrich cart (Jack Nichols was the name on the side and the reading material up by the GPS was Don Heinrich)

~*~ We were teamed up with a Koren couple, who after the third hole, decided we were moving too slow and wanted to break up and move ahead of us (it was wide open). Turned out to be a good thing as my ability to hit the ball greatly improved (I have issues of not being able to hit the ball when other people are watching me)

~*~ There is a lot of sand at WA National - hence the title. I ended up in a few sand bunkers, in fact, two different ones on a par 3, but in all bunkers I landed in, I was able to get my way out without using one of my additional wedges - the hand wedge.

~*~ Hole 14 just plain sucks - waaaayyyy too long, and what the heck is up with the garbage in the middle of the fairway? There was no good way to lay up a shot to finish that hole in less than 10 strokes (in my case...)
~*~ Heck - what's up with all the garbage just after the women's tees? (Picture at left gives an idea as to what the garbage was like - luckily this hole did not have it directly in front of the tee box.) Made hitting my tee shot rather difficult on a few occasions.

~*~ I cannot play the UWAA golf balls: TopFlight Distance = Neicie gets NO distance. I think there is just too much compression for me to hit (I hit one well, and boy did it sting!)

~*~ I am finally figuring out how to hit my fairway wood and I rocked my nine iron. As long as I remember to keep my head down through the swing, I can actually hit the ball really well (Andrew was really impressed with some of my shots - even when I made my risky shots with my nine iron over the sand!)

~*~ Carts with GPS only rock when you can use the GPS - nothing like trying to figure out which club you might want to use when you can't take your cart off the path (really sucked with regards to hole 14)

~*~ My new putter rules - I shot a 6 on the last hole (par 4)! The green there is just evil and of course, I was in a terrible spot when I got on the green, but I am so much more confident with that putter!

~*~ Golf sandals rule - just as long as they stay in tact during the round - though apparently I played even better after the heel strap broke off during hole 11 (should be fixable)

~*~ I lost less than 3 sleeves of golf balls - I was anticipating much worse.

~*~ The UWAA and Husky Athletics (especially Mike, Krista, Eyrn, and whoever else that helped in arranging the round that I don't know about) rule for their help in making this round possible! A huge THANK YOU from both me and Andrew for the opportunity to play a round at this lovely course before this Husky gets lost in Tigerville.

And of course, I had to take a picture of the 18th hole with the big purple W with hopes of showing the pin placement. It was a great day for a round a golf, and in Sue's words, a great day to be a Husky :)

Day 1 of unemployment

Yes, that's right, I am now unemployed.

That's because Friday was my last day at the Alumni Association. Yes, sadly, I had to leave... kind of hard to do my job with them all the way across the country. Luckily they found a great temp (and hopefully hire!) in time for me to train her in my last two days. I must say that I was really pleased with my time with her and I am confident that the UWAA is in great hands. And, of course, I went out with style - a great big happy hour at the end of the day. Did a little drinking, chatting, laughing, and said lots of goodbyes. Also, there was the lovely going away gifts, which really came in handy today!

Nothing like celebrating your unemployment by spending money on a new putter and then going to test it out at a golf course. We drove over to Bremerton to play at Gold Mountain so that Andrew could tackle his "white whale," if you will. All I can say is lovely course, and thank god I was in a a cart! Also, best round yet. I may not be a pro, but my score came out to be a 132 (not counting some shots here and there... but you know that the important ones to count are the shots that went somewhere, especially the shots that were terriffic). Finally, I have a putter that I'm confident in. Another reason for playing today was to get in a little practice before we hit up Washington National on Friday (I've been looking forward to this round for so long). My new towel worked perfectly as there was a lot of muck to clean off (rainy day) and that little pouch works perfect to organize my balls and tees in my bag... and finally I have a ball marker to be proud about (I finally had a chance to use it!!). Nope, when I golf, you can't tell I'm a Husky ;) (hope to post a picture of all my gear after Friday).

Anyway, time to shower and then go grab some dinner with the hubby... then who knows what... definitely need to plan the rest of the week out and contact some people about getting together (yes, I'm sending a message to you Becky, I know we need to get together this week! I will call later)

Shoot -there goes the shower... the cute puppy came upstairs to hang out with me (aka, scratch him as he keeps a close eye on me)... must break away...

later!

Another weekend come and gone...

and at least this time, I wasn't packing

Spent some quality time with Andrew - the weather was just perfect for golf Saturday, so that's what we did. I was actually doing pretty good - back-to-back drives over 150 yards (some of my longest, prettiest drives yet) and I have improved my technique in putting, but I am still convinced that I need a new putter. I should mention that I have only been golfing for a couple of years now and compared to some of the other ladies on the course, I looked like I knew what I was doing.

Sunday was the Cornell Alumni picnic - just blocks away from Genesse Park (aka, SeaFair/Hydroplanes/BLUE ANGLES!!!) We were at least able to figure out the bus shuttle to get to Genesse Park and luckily did not get lost in the neighborhood. But oh, my, gosh - no way to get closer to the Blue Angles action than to be in the park with everybody else. In fact, after the years spent watching them IN the park, I think I have to say that up the hill at a house, the show was even more spectacular.

Now, what is it with me and airplanes? I guess I'm just my engineer-father's daughter - grew up learning about the wonder and awe of powerful machines... man, I got chills during that performance!

Now, being the Events Registrar at the UWAA, I must say that I wish I had a pre-printed nametag to put on at the Cornell Alum event ;) But all in all, they know how to throw a good BBQ and figure out a great location for an event. Heck! I even won a huge Cornell mug (lots of hot chocolate and great soup mug - just not the two at the same time.) I'll just have to drag Andrew to the Husky Summer Celebration New York BBQ next year - show him how Dawgs really party.

Nothing else really going on - waiting out my time at the UWAA and it's slowly feeling more and more official and like it's time for me to leave (I'm BORED to death). Who knows what's in store for me in Princeton - honestly, I'm looking forward to some time off while looking for a job - sitting at home, working on my quilt, and relaxing with my dog (yay! we can adopt a dog!)

I think that's it for now... still trying to convince myself it's cool to write about nothing... and dinner should be ready soon... mmm... divan...