viral sinusitis vs Sandy

We spent about an hour and a half at Arlington Urgent Care today. Sandy has viral sinusitis but
he thought his head was going to explode.

We enjoyed the waiting room for about an hour with other sufferers of seasonal colds, flus, etc.

After that we were escorted to the room in which the doctor would see Sandy. We waited there for about 1/2 an hour. I got a good bit of reading done.


As you may have guessed, for viral sinusitis there is nothing that can be prescribed. He is supposed to take antihistamines, Mucinex-D, and do nasal irrigation. This last bit I do everyday to maintain healthy sinuses due to allergies (I don't use a pot, as shown in the picture, though). Sandy, however, is having quite a bit of trouble with this and seems to throw up during the process. I guess practice will help...

NoVA

Monday morning we set out for northern Virginia. In Virginia (and many places in the US) life is a journey by car and journey we did. In a minivan no less! We are such a hip couple. Though not the coolest ride, Sandy's sister trusted us with her new minivan, so we've been cruising the state in an Odyssey. After walking, biking and taking transit most places, traveling in a minivan is like being in a space ship.

This is a quiet stretch of Route 1 heading north but still just outside of Fredericksburg:

We stopped at the Swedish furniture mecca known as Ikea where Sandy was overjoyed to encounter an authentic Swedish meatball plate at bargain prices!

After getting our fill of Swedish delights we got back on the road - this time onto the always pleasant I-95. Of course it was stop and go for much of the journey:

I'm not sure this photo adequately captures it but there is some pretty awesome on- and off-ramp action at key interchanges on I-95:

We made our annual stop at Ravi Kabob - the most amazing Pakistani food in the US! The place is definitely not for vegetarians but the boneless chicken kabobs, the chickpea sauce over rice, the amazing bread - it's all heavenly.

After Ravi's it was back in the car for the final leg of our Monday journey - to Jackie's, er, I mean Will and Miriam's home in D.C. After a few wrong turns (that took us through some cool old DC neighborhoods as well as past the Washington Monument), we finally arrived!

We are still in Northern Virginia. Sandy woke up this morning with massive sinus congestion and a wee fever that hasn't let him really get out of bed yet...I made the arduous three block journey to whole foods for chicken noodle soup and ginger ale as well as to CVS for sudafed, mucinex and so on. We're hoping it passes soon.

Jackie's house

It's late but I wanted to let you know that we visited Jackie's house tonight. She can be a bit rough with her guests but she really is quite charming. Here she is on the rug:

She lets Will and Miriam stay with her in this great house in DC where we had dinner, drinks, chocolate, a warm fire, good conversation, and much more this evening. Here are Will and Miriam:



Although I'm not a big xmas decoration fan, I have to say that I think they have a few fantastic ones. Here is Sandy with this bouncy xmas penguin:

ugh

Making conversation with in-laws and friends of in-laws is wearing me down. This Natalie Dee drawing pretty much sums it up:

In Fredericksburg

After xmas day we made our way down to Fredericksburg. Of course there was traffic on I-95 and the trip that should take around 45 min took about 2 hours. The smooth ride of the Nielsen's minivan put me out.

In an effort to get out and get some exercise (to fight of the calories of home made brownies), yesterday we walked from The Crains' house (our good friends that are putting us up) to downtown Fredericksburg for some cafe at Hyperion coffee.

We crossed the Falmouth bridge to get to "cute", historic, olde town Fredericksburg. The bridge indicates there is a bike route somewhere - we're assuming you're supposed to ride right off the bridge.

The cute town is in the background behind the Denverite with the espresso:

On the walk back we took a shortcut through this historic property - civil war era mansion, not quite a plantation. Sandy made himself into a human statue:

Oh, the shining star of Fredericksburg (not really) - they have a Hardees! I didn't think they still existed and, honestly, we weren't excited but we were surprised.

Stay tuned for more amazing adventures.

letting loose

While we're in Fredericksburg we tend to do whatever we have to do to entertain ourselves. This usually involves wine, good beer, board games, hamming it up (which Sandy usually takes care of), and taking photos.

This is us playing "Have You Herd?" It's actually a lot of fun.

This is my late night snack of white wine and gingersnap cookie.

This me entertaining myself at the end of the night by taking macros of walrus nick-nacks and Sandy.

Two days after Xmas

Alright, the xmas days in review...we surprised Sandy's parents by showing up on xmas eve at Jen and Jeff's house (my sister and brother in law) for xmas eve dinner. We experienced xmas morning with our niece and nephew, Jake and Morgan. Jake is 4 and Morgan is about 1 1/2 years old. Jake definitely grasps Xmas and the correlation with gifts. Morgan gets caught in the excitement but still just wanders around with bits of wrapping and bows.

Sandy seemed a little infected by the excitement as you can tell:

I spent my time trying to wake up and observing the fray:

While it was enjoyable spending time with the kids and our family, I definitely didn't leave thinking, "I want that life!" We're happy with small glimpses.

At the airport...again

Well, we're at Denver International Airport waiting for our flight to board of course. Sandy is entertaining himself with his new ipod nano, which is why me and my dinosaur ipod have commandeered the laptop!

I hate to admit it but blah life is back again. My work life has decreased in satisfaction and it's not just me. I've been receiving guests to my cube with some regularity that discuss their dissatisfactions. But I'm away from the office until next year, so I'm putting that behind me for now.

I've recently read Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. I recommend it if you're the kind of person that wonders not only why some people make the decisions they do but also if you've wondered why in the heck you've made certain decisions that don't make sense in hindsight. I'm not going to outline the key points because the link pretty much takes care of that.

The reading of this book is part of larger effort to learn more about human behavior, behavior change, and motivation (and how to get some). I'm starting with a literature review of sorts to see what's out there on these topics. I'll keep you posted. So far I've learned that a positive attitude, particularly about oneself, can make a big difference...damn.

Anyway, be on the lookout for cheery posts like this over the holiday season.

Transit related

Working in the transit industry is great because you're surrounded by other transit geeks and you always have that in common in a big way. You know, when someone goes to Chicago or Columbia or where ever, a topic is always "did you ride transit?"

Another perk is that you are exposed to all kinds of transit-related journals, blogs, reports, research and so on. Most of the time these can be rather dull but every now and then you get a gem. One of our Service Planners sent along an online periodical that included a link to the Tokyo Metro site and their new marketing campaign to get people to behave themselves on the train. Check this out:


It seems odd to me that they chose black, white, and yellow as the colors for all the posters...

Winter wonderland

Since I've walked around on the snowy sidewalks for several miles today (to and from places) and it has been no warmer than 5 degrees during that time, I found it useful to remind myself of the products of warm weather. I am going to share those with you.

I stumbled upon some photos I took at the Denver Botanic Gardens in July:




All lovely products of warm weather and sun, both of which I missed dearly today. It did make me glad that I don't live in Detroit or some place that has freezing winters that don't let up.

BTW, Miriam's blog had something mysterious posted on it recently...could it be what I'm thinking?

Night encounter

(at least one of you has probably heard this story already)
So last night I woke up at around 3:00am and my left arm and shoulder were wet! I put my hand down on the bed to prop myself up and the sheet was wet. There was this smell...like cat bile!!! My cat threw up on me. Of course, when I informed Sandy of this event he insisted I was probably just sweating. He believed me once I pulled the sheet back and found the gooey evidence. I know this is gross but imagine you slept through your cat throwing up basically next to your left ear but later awoke to find the product on you.

This is the most recent photo of the furry culprit:

These articles showed up in a news summary I get daily:

Riots 'kill hundreds in Nigeria'

Day of Reckoning as India Toll Passes 170

Thai Security Forces Clash With Protesters at Airport

Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death

The last one is pathetic. In our consumption-driven world, someone was actually trampled by shoppers on "black Friday."

The big day

If only the above photos had a bottle of wine shown, it would be an excellent pictorial summary of the partay Sandy threw for my birthday. There were fun and interesting people, satisfying wines, a table of delectable appetizers, and cupcakes with neon-colored frosting!

We did a test at the end of the night. We applied frosting to Sandy's face and determined that there must have been some serious dyes in that frosting.(maybe it was appropriate that Chris referred to them as the Love Canal cupcakes). This is what was left after he washed off the frosting (it was a pink cupcake).

I for one had a great time. Sandy described it as a "quiet, adult affair" but I beg to differ based on the bottles of wine we went through and the fact that H sang a giggly happy birthday to me while offering up a cupcake with a lit candle sticking out of it.

Anyway it was a success if only for the fact that we fit that many people (11) in our small condo!

I knew if I stayed online long enough...

So, I was just checking out my iGoogle pages and somehow got onto a Google sponsored Life Magazine search site. I've been listening to an old episode of Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me and browsing the old streetcar, bicycle and subway pictures. I wasn't finding that much that caught my eye after the cool, old, international streetcar photos. I decide to search for something silly: hamster. I really didn't think I'd find anything worthwhile but au contraire! I found a photo of this hamster just leaving his/her trapeze platform! I can't imagine what's really going on here. I mean what happened after the picture was taken? Did the hamster just plop to the ground? Did the hamster complete his/her routine by grasping on to the little legs and feet of his/her counterpart trapezeing hamster?!

I couldn't help myself

Our friend Will tipped me off to this great blog for life comic relief: Cake Wrecks. There is so much good stuff here, I've been chuckling for a good 15 minutes. After I'd called Sandy in to look at the third picture he commented that it reminded him of a cake he made for our friend Pete when he moved to Hawaii. It was a beautiful and creative piece but obviously not professional so we can't submit it to Cake Wrecks. Some things in life just aren't fair.

cats...with a twist

You may be thinking to yourself, this animal looks like someone I've seen before, who could it be? It may look like Hitler but it's no nazi cat! It is a kitler!

The internet is such a bizarre place but it does bear some interesting fruit.

The blah life continues on down the road of routine, which of course is comforting but lacks some motivation at times. I was motivated to go by the cube of one of my coworkers with the bowl of candy corn several times today but that doesn't really count.

Ever since I read Getting Straight A's before college and then used its techniques and actually got straight A's, I've been a proponent of self improvement books as useful tools. In addition to some cheery library selections on motivation, I'm currently perusing How to Keep People From Pushing Your Buttons. This basically points out that the problem is the reader, which I anticipated, and I can change my behavior to not be annoyed with others (I'm not holding my breath). Well, I'd better demonstrate some self discipline and get back to that.

CTV

As H says "cat TV":

keeping in touch with us!

As a follow up to my previous post, some people are better at staying in touch with us than we are with them (really that's most people). Our friend Will is one of those people. After losing touch around 2003, he gave us a call about a month ago! He's one of the people we knew back in our east coast days. He's in Denver for a conference and visited Capitol Hill for dinner at the Beazley-Hutchison's (or the Hutchison-Beazley's). This is him below, giving us some pointers on how to dress a dachshund in a sweater or, wait, was this the discussion on how to spit roast a hamster...

After a lovely visit, Will went back to the Sheraton in the company of a fantastic book.

Anyway, that's the scoop. I'm going to get back to my HOA email now.

not so good at keeping in touch...

I would like to state for the record that I think often of my friends and how I should visit or email or whatever. Unfortunately I don't act on it often and I feel bad about that because the friends I have are such amazing, hilarious, fantastic people (I've only had a few sips of wine). So, if you're one of these people - I'm thinking of you right now! Oh, also, sometimes I've got too much going on and can't even fathom having the time to run the dishwasher - this busyness also keeps me away.

The cat picture could be replaced with a picture of you!


BTW, this article confirms that running outdoors is dangerous.

Hell's yeah!!!

This is Pete Kelly, a man that was once a bit more conservative but tonight is weeping tears of joy (and probably relief) about the news of President Obama. Pete is a great guy and a good friend to us and he has a well rounded sense of humor. You may not be able to see it but his shirt says "I want a president who is smarter than I am" - I would wear the same tee shirt.


Me and my champagne cork are going to get back to smiling and holding each other. Thank goodness...

The dilly on San Fran

Let me tell you right away: San Francisco is no Portland! That said, San Francisco is a beautiful and surprising city with weather that is like an ever changing wardrobe. This past weekend we visited SF for the third time.

The first trip was a quick stop on a west coast driving tour in 1999. The second trip was about 3 or so years ago and that was a good time. We got all around the city in three full days of sunshine. I was sick with a nasty sinus infection, for which I could procure no meds before leaving Denver. That didn't stop me though! I put a box of lotion tissues in my bag, took Sudafed every four hours and topped off my situation with cappuccinos. Ahh, but that was the last trip.

This trip started with several days of the RailVolution conference. Very informative but I'm not going to bore you with the details. I will say that the highlight was staying at the Hyatt Embarcadero! I had a view of the Ferry Building and the Bay Bridge from my 5th floor room:


This is the view in the morning with clouds:This is the view at sunset:
In an early blog post I mentioned my privileged life - this is yet another example but the stay spoiled me.

On Wednesday night Sandy arrived and on Thursday we moved to a different hotel...but that is coming up later.

Prior to Sandy's arrival I had about three days in SF. Aside from the conference sessions and mobile tours, I got to "postcard row" and took a ferry to Sausalito. Postcard row is a reference to the view of the Victorian row houses that act as the foreground for a city view from Alamo Park in the lower Haight area (you've likely seen this kind of picture before - it's like the Maroon Bells and Colorado):

The trip to Sausalito was on Tuesday afternoon - the last sunny afternoon of the week. I did get this photo of the Golden Gate Bridge and some evening clouds moving into the city:

The ferry ride was windy:
On Thursday morning it had not yet begun to rain. We took the Alcatraz tour. It was more interesting and better put together than I had imagined. We toured the main cell building then went for a walk on the Agave trail. Sandy smartly booked the 1st boat in the morning and we ran into few people on our walk - but jesus, later the island was crawling with people.

This is Sandy on the Agave trail:
Shortly after we returned to the mainland it started to rain. The next two days were spent walking through SF in the rain. Here is me on the way to Lombard Street (the popular, twisty-turny section), it's a steep uphill for three blocks - this picture is meant to convey the angle (but you can see how wet my pant legs are - by the end of the day it would be soaked to the knee):

That was San Francisco for us.

Business Travel

I'm at Denver International Airport (DIA) using their free "device charging station" and free wifi! I've check out my favorite new sites as well as all y'all's blogs! That's me, staying on top of the action. Thank heavens for our modern world, I'm able to charge my cell phone and dispatch useless crap into the "blogosphere" (I'm not really sure what I think of that word yet...).

Anyway, being that I work for a public agency, my work usually involves no travel outside of my commute to and from work (and some occasional trips to other agencies' or consultants' offices). So, this is something of a special occasion. I'm being flown (on United - bleh) to RailVolution in San Francisco! I'm such at TV-deprived dork that I'm especially looking forward to staying at the Hyatt Embarcadero - I never stay at nice hotels. We usually stay at hostels, which are nice but not nice (if you know what I mean). Another reason we avoid bona fide hotels is precisely because they have TVs (poor Sandy has a hell of a time tearing me away).

Well, more to come - I'll be connected!

Wedding #5

Yesterday, I attended my fifth wedding - the wedding of Scott and Kara. My first wedding was the renewal of my parents' vows at age 4. The others are (in order): my wedding to Sandy, Jen (my sister in law) and Jeff's wedding, and Dennis Lima's wedding (we were on the board of BikeDenver together for a while).

Yesterday we traveled to Mary's Lake Lodge in Estes Park and attended their wedding and reception. We had a pretty good time so you can imagine how horrible I've been feeling all day. The wedding began at 4:00 pm and when we arrived back in the room around 11:00pm we immediately ordered a pizza. Then the channel surfing began...

We tried to take some good pictures and got a few. These are the ones I've chosen to share:

There were these "poppers" or whatever that contained chocolate and paper crowns, Sandy and I had a good time wearing them:



This is the bride and groom cutting their cake. It was a small cake on a tower of cupcakes! Such good taste - the cupcakes were really, really tasty.




We met Eric and Trisha and were seated with them - this is the four of us at the end of the evening - not sure why I'm hunched over, perhaps I thought I needed to scrunch down to get in the picture (?!).

Sunday has been unremarkable for me. I noticed it was a beautiful day outside but I was sleeping for most of it. I have gotten through a good bit of On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan and am going to try to finish it now. Good night.