hot weekend

wow. what an incredible, wonderfully hot, weekend! friday was awesome, because #1 - i kind of learned how to write a macro in excel using visual basic (yeh, i know, total geek, but SO cool) and #2 - i got a new bike!!! after learning the visual basic syntax (okay, mostly paola trying to explain it to me, haha), p and headed over to the hub on the westbank and tried a couple a more bikes. i was at the east bank hub a couple of weeks ago and couldn't decide between giant or orbea, but when i got on the XS giant avail frame, i knew i found my bike! we woke early on sat morning and took piru to the dogpark, then jumped on our bikes and headed over to Red Bull Flutag in st. paul. although it was incredibly packed and very hot, it was awesome and we even saw a world record take place. we biked back, hopped in the shower, and had dinner at my friend's place. today was filled with CLEANING. we not only cleaned the house, we cleaned the GARAGE! oh. hell. yes. feels. SO. good. we took a bunch of stuff to the goodwill and also cleaned the basement because a couple of p's friends are going to be living with us for the next month or so while in transition. i totally wanted to get another 35-40 miler bike ride in today, but i must admit, it feels awesome having a clean house and garage...now, only if those weeds would pick themselves ;) all and all, it was a great weekend in the twin cities.

cafeteria/skybar

p and i have pretty much been out of town for the past month. it started with our trip to south africa to watch world cup group games, a long fourth of july weekend in and around seattle, a weekend at my parent's cabin (what would a MN summer be without the cabin, really?) and a whirlwind trip to chicago, in which the primary goal was to get paola's colombian passport updated, but the real highlight was renting a couple of bikes and taking a 28 mile roundtrip ride through chicago on a 90 degree day on fat tires...whew! btw, lake michigan feels really effing good on a 90 degree day. otherwise, stay away, cause it's COLD. but, the point of this post is about the cafeteria and support group, which opened it's doors sometime while we were out of town. on tuesday, p and i decided to go check it out. mostly, to check out the skybar views. now, don't get me wrong, i like stella's and seafood, but let's face it, it's rather expensive and the rooftop rarely has space available. and the other rooftop competitor, drink, is just...well...LAME. so i was kind of excited to check this space out. i read some reviews and they were pretty much summed up in, "the food was okay, the waitresses were nice, filled with uptown pretty people, and the view was great." aaaand, the reviews were pretty much right. the food was okay, but i'm not a foodie, so whatever, a burger was fine with me. our waitress was nice, but lacked personality. the view was GREAT and the place was filled with normal looking people, which was a total bummer, because i was ready to look at lots of pretty people. i personally think my backyard spot, cafe maude, has MUCH prettier people, and that's not just because i go there frequently ;) all and all, p and i, without ANYBODY else, enjoyed a pleasent evening to ourselves.

torchlight

the torchlight 5k was a success. it was a beautiful run through downtown minneapolis, across the stone arch and ending on st. anthony main. clearly my running partner and i were having fun in the first mile ;)

1st run, in a long time

i signed up for the torchlight 5K today while at work. i told a friend that i would do it with her. she reminded me of it via email today. dangit! so after work, i walked over to REI and paid the $20, got my number and t-shirt, and signed up. around 8pm i thought i'd better go for a 'test run.' i haven't run, or really done ANY SORT of vigorous (and yes, a 5k is considered vigorous right now) since my bike accident nearly 7 weeks ago. so, i went for a run. i did 5 miles in 56 minutes. i used to that run in 40 minutes. oh well. i ran FIVE miles. a 5k is only 3.2. yay! i'm ready for wednesday. oh, and special thanks goes to grace potter for getting me through it ;)