Official Title Owner...Yay!!!

So I finally paid off my car! I sent the final payment in a few days ago and received the title in the mail yesterday. Yay, no more car payment...at least for a while. "Armand", that's my Passat is in pretty good shape. He's got a few dings and minor dents from those in Chicago that do not know how to parallel park and simply gauge their proximity to the car in front and behind them by just bumping into it. He's only got 39,600 miles on him and he's 7 years old!! So, if/when I do decide to sell I should be able to get a pretty good price.

I was going to sell him a few months back, but then I realized that I was less than year from paying it off, I might as well wait it out. Now I have extra money to put in savings or go towards paying off my credit card, which is also nearly paid off. I'm probably 3 or 4 months away from being debt free!! Yay!!!! I never thought I'd see the day.

~Kelli

How well do you know your neighbors?

So...my next door neighbors are seemingly normal people. They're on the quite side, keep to themselves mostly. They are from Vietnam and have 3 kids. The oldest girl, Mi (5) and her younger brother Khoa (sp?) (3) often hang out with me in the yard when I'm doing yard work or just hanging out on the porch. Mi is cute, but somewhat bratty and hard to manage and Khoa is adorable and very sweet. They also just had baby girl a few months back, also named Mi or so Mi (the oldest one says). I don't know why they named both daughters the same??

Anyway, the parents as I mentioned are pretty quiet. Even when the kids are out with me, they just sort of watch from the house and don't really talk much. They'll say hi and wave if they see us coming or going, but that is about it.

Several weeks ago, the husband put a sign up stating that they were selling all their landscaping. They have big fountain and pond thing in their back yard. Lots of stone and wood as well as trees and plants and such. We didn't think much of it at that time. We also noticed that they started moving a few weekends ago, but their house is not for sale (I'll come back to this in a minute).

Our downstairs neighbors have had issues with them because they leave their garbage can to the side of their deck and then just throw stuff over the deck. Sometimes they miss and don't bother to pick it up right away and sometimes they forget to take it out to the alley so it will start to stink and I don't know what they eat, but their trash is horrendous smelling. We don't notice it so much in our part of the house, but the downstairs neighbors notice it more as the garbage can is right outside their window. They talked directly to the neighbor's about it several times, but they never did anything about it so they filed a complaint with the city and the city came by and fined them and made them put it out in the alley where it belongs. It stayed there for a few days, but ultimately they brought it back to the deck only this time they left it on the other side of the deck. Even though it was further away from the downstairs windows it was still stinky so the downstairs neighbors complained again. Again the city came and forced them to keep it in the alley.

In addition to the garbage issue, the female, the Mom, wife, etc. cannot park to save her life. She always had one tire up on the curb and is diagonally facing out to the street with half her car on the lawn and half in the street. One day we saw a police car in front of their house and an officer walking up to their door and we thought maybe he was going to ticket her for her crappy parking job so we chuckled about it a little and went on our merry way. Then a day or two later, we saw another police car and another officer approach their door. These aren't just ordinary police either, these are sheriff cars so we figured it had to do with something other than her parking skills. Then we thought, maybe their house was being foreclosed on. That would make sense as to why to they're selling stuff and moving out without a for sale sign or anything.

Come to find out...

Our other next door neighbor to the East was reading in the local paper (sort of like the Davis County Clipper) an article that just happened to be about the neighbors to the West of us. She shared the news with the downstairs neighbor who then relayed it to us...I know it's very gossipy, but I bet you want to know what the article said too, right?

Well, the woman is an Accountant/CPA and apparently she has stolen nearly 2 million dollars in tax returns. I guess she had the returns direct deposited into their bank accounts as opposed to the rightful tax payers? Anyway, she plead guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 4 years in the Illinois State Penn. The husband hasn't been charged yet, but is under investigation to see if he was involved in anyway. Crazy!!

I feel bad for the kids. They do have some Grandparents in the area so perhaps they'll go live with them especially if the husband gets convicted as well. It's funny, I always a weird vibe towards them, but I thought it was just because they kept so quiet and I thought maybe (especially the wife) didn't speak much English and that's why she didn't talk much, but turns out she's a crook!

Their house is really nice, we'll have watch for it in the Government Auction section of the paper and see how cheap we could buy it for. Though its well over a million dollar home so I'm sure even at an auction price we couldn't afford it. Oh well!

Oops!

I know I haven't written in a while, but I just haven't had anything extremely interesting to write about, not that my previous posts were all that interesting either!! In any case, I decided it was time to write again and I have just the story to share...

So last night David and I were at Costco and our friend Pallavi called. We haven't seen her in a while and were just talking about trying to set up a dinner with her and Martin (her boyfriend) in the next couple weeks; anyway she said she'd been working really long hours, which she often does and just hasn't been around, but she got off at a decent time and wanted to see if we could meet for her dinner. We, of course, said SURE!

We picked her up and decided to go to a South American restaurant over in the Bucktown neighborhood. Not that it matters, but for those non-Chicagoan's, Bucktown is pretty much directly West and slightly to the North of downtown Chicago by about 2 miles or so.

We parked the car and here's the interesting part...I locked the doors and started walking to the rear of car where Pallavi and David were waiting and I dropped my car key. Now, you might be saying what's so interesting about that? Well, you're right, usually this wouldn't be a big deal...BUT my car key is one of those kind that's basically just a square, then it has a button on the corner that you push to release the stick part that actually goes into the ignition. Currently it's not attached to my house keys. I removed it a while back when I had my car in the shop and it's difficult to get back onto the key ring so I just haven't gotten around to putting it back on. A decision I would regret today because when it hit the ground it started to slide as the road sort of curved downward towards the gutter; I tried to stop it with my foot, but missed, then Pallavi tried to stop it with her foot and missed, David then tried to stop it, but it was too late...it slid too fast, right through a hole in the gutter grate!!!

CRAP! We were all sort of stunned for a few seconds, at least I was. I kept thinking did my key really just fall into the sewer? I had no idea what to do, I had no idea how deep this hole was and if we'd be able to get it out? I don't have a secondary key so I kept having visions of having to call the city, them having to send someone into the sewer to retreive it or use all this major equipment and it costing me a fortune!! Then I thought well, it's going to be expensive anyway because it's one of those square kind, it's not like you can just go to a locksmith and have them make you new key either! You have to order it through a dealership or through VW and they are like $100!!

After a few minutes of trying to figure out what to do. David and his super-human strength was able to get the iron grate off the hole and we looked down into the darkness. Fortunately, it was only about 4 or 5 feet deep and we could see my key leaning up again one side of the gutter wall. Now, it may have only been 4 feet deep, but too deep to just lean down, reach in and get it AND we didn't want to jump in, because we had no idea if the base was solid or soft or how deep it could go under all the sediment? Plus, it was just gross. I wouldn't want to get in there, nor would I want David or Pallavi to get in there either so Pallavi volunteered to go into the nearby restaurant to see if they had some kind of tool that would long enough to fish it out. In the meantime, some people playing catch with a football came over to see what we were doing and had the thought to grab some wire hangers. One of them unfolded the hanger and dipped it into the big hole. There is small opening one end of the key, but the reason I never put it back on the keyring is because it's really hard to even get a small key ring through it so I wasn't sure the hanger would fit through it. Thankfully...IT DID! and he lifted the key out to safety!!

We thanked them a million times and headed off to dinner, which by the way, was super yummy!

Moral of the story...Procrastination is bad and no matter how difficult a task might seem, it's better to get it done and avoid having to jump into the sewer!

~Kelli

June - Week Four

June 24th - June 30th: VACATION!! I decided to visit Salt Lake City this summer since I didn't make it home last summer. My sister and I always try to coordinate our summer trips home so we can all be there at the same time so she came in from Seattle and I from Chicago and we spent a couple weeks doing family things and filling our days with local tourist activities. I got to thinking that I hadn't been to some of the museums since I was kid if at all so I thought I'd make time to go since I'd probably appreciate it now more that I'm older and wiser (somewhat ;) ).

One of the first things we did was go to the Utah Arts Festival. We saw some pretty cool things of which I wish had lots of money to buy. The picture to the left you see is my contribution, an artistic shot of the Salt Lake City & County Building.

Then I went to the Aerospace Museum at Hill Air Force Base. I have wanted to go to this museum for a really long time. I remember seeing it when we'd go visit my Grandmother who lived in Roy. I finally got the chance this summer. I went with my Dad and it was worth the wait, I think. Lots of really cool planes and information. I highly recommend going if you're looking for something for the family to do.

The rest of my trip was filled with lunch with Grandma and my Aunt Maryiln, a trip to the Natural History Museum and of course lunch/dinner at some of my favorite spots among many more activites and fun that I didn't capture on film and certainly a trip to SLC would not be complete without fries and fry sause.

June - Week Three

June 17 - 20th - Back to San Francisco to facilitate another class, time it was a FOSSE class for CFRST Event Planners, which for you non-Marriott folks means cluster event planners that work with all of our select service hotel customers (Courtyard, Fairfield Inn, Residence Inn, Springhill Suites and TownePlaceSuites, hence the term CFRST. Pronounced C-first) with their meeting and event details. FOSSE is a computer system.

Anyway, not much to report about this trip, except that I was able to visit my friends at Hotel 480, now known as Marriott Union Square. I spent a good couple of months working at this property before it officially became a Marriott. I trained all their Manager's and Supervisors on Marriott's Payroll processes and the payroll system, then went back later and trained/assisted all the Sales and Event Managers on Marriott's catering processes and systems. I became pretty good friends with several of the people that work at this hotel and have continued to keep in touch with them. I went to dinner with and hung out with a couple of them while I was in town and that was fun. Aside from that it was all business.

The photos below are of the New Marriott Union Square. It just completed a multi-million dollar renovation and it looks awesome! I wish I had some before picture to show you because it looks completely different!

June - Week Two

June 8th - 12th: I left early Sunday morning to head back to California, this time to San Ramon. I was facilitating a week long training class for Sales Admins. I was facilitating with a co-worker of mine, Kelly Horaney. We mesh well and always have a good time when we work together. I didn't get many (if any) pictures from this week, but it was mostly filled with boring work stuff anyway. I have a couple somewhat entertaining stories I could tell from the trip.

1. At most Marriott hotels you can expect excellent customer service, but every now and then I run into one that is just so bad, it's almost comical. The hotel where this training was at was one such hotel. Nobody seemed to know anything and didn't care to go the extra mile to find out. I have been to San Ramon and was familiar with the area somewhat. I had recalled that I visited an area just over the hill that had restaurants and shops, etc. I asked several people and everyone looked at me as if I were crazy! Finally the valet guy said he knew what I was talking about and called us a cab because the place I was thinking of was too far to walk. We waited 30 minutes for the cab to arrive. We got in and 2 minutes later the cabby pulled up to this market place thing, literally a 1/4 mile from the hotel. We tried to explain that this was not the location we wanted, but he acted like he didn't understand what we were saying and seemed to not speak very good English so we just got out. We ended up having to pay $15 because that's the minimum fare in San Ramon. It's not like Chicago where you can hail cab from pretty much any street corner. We ended up just finding something to eat at the place he dropped us off at and then ended up walking back to the hotel. Which took us about 5 minutes. So basically we waited for 30 minutes and paid $15 to get to a place that we could have walked to in 5 minutes for free!! You can bet we let the valet guy our thoughts on the matter.

2. There were all these people walking around the hotel wearing these white robes or white linen sheaths or skirts. They all looked like hippies for the most part and smelled of incense. You'd walk around a corner and one would be sitting there in a meditative state. I always felt like I had to whisper everywhere because you never know when you'd happen upon someone in full meditative trance. Anyway, we finally asked the front desk clerks if they knew who they were and what they were in town for and it turns out they were Amma followers. Amma is guru that passes enlightenment to her followers through her hugs. She hugs thousands of people day after day supposedly enlighten their spirits to heal themselves. Now I'm am all for whatever is going to make you happy and if hugging Amma is your thing, I'd rather you do that than go out and shoot a bunch of people. It might seem weird, but at least it's a positive thing to do with your life. So more power to you. In case some of you need a hug, stock up on white linen outfits and visit Amma.org to find when she'll be in a city near you. :)

June - Week One

It's been a while since I've blogged. Over a month now, but I've had good reason. I spent most of June traveling back and forth from various parts of California for work.

June 3rd - 4th: I was in San Francisco facilitating a 3 hour training class for Sales Manager's on how to set-up their home offices. It was a quick trip. I flew in on Wednesday morning, taught the class Wednesday afternoon, and flew back to Chicago Thursday morning. The best part about this trip is that my good friend Andrea was there attending the weeklong training class for which my class was a small part. I haven't seen her in a while so it was a real treat to be able to spend time with her. We went out to dinner with another a couple of former and/or current co-workers of ours as well as a friends, Krista and Julie. We caught up and had a great time.

I returned home to the chalk written note on the sidewalk outside our house that you saw in the previous post. Ahhhh. Then on Friday night, we went to a place called Delilah's for a little Happy Hour type thing. We didn't stay long, but had a good time. Below is a photo of me and Jen, one our MiC friends.

Somebody Loves Me!

I returned home after my 1st trip to San Francisco to this note written with chalk on the sidewalk out front of our house. It's from the neighbor girl, Mi. I let her and her brother help me plant flowers the past two weekends and everytime I'm outside, they are usually right there hanging out with me, no matter what I'm doing.


Mi is 5 or 6 (I think) and her younger brother is around 3. His name is Khoa. They are both adorable, Khoa is so sweet and Mi is too, but she's also kind of a brat. I don't mind hanging out with them though.


I grew up loving kids, I baby-sat and worked in several day care centers, just to be near them!! I was a kid magnet, they loved me. Then as I started to get older and spent less time around them I started to feel a little uncomfortable and wondered if I'd ever be able to have that same type of relationship with them again. So it's nice to know that at least with these two, I still seem to have the touch! (and by touch I mean the skill, or talent to engage kids, not physically touch them, just to be clear!! You can't be too careful these days!)

5/20/09: 30 Day Shred - 1 Day...DEAD!!!

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I started my workout program today! I bought a DVD circuit training workout by Jillian Michaels called 30 Day Shred. She is the tough female trainer on "The Biggest Loser". Man is she ever! I'm on level 1, the beginners level and it kicked my butt!! I couldn't even keep up with it. Man! I'm an in worse shape than I thought!! But...you have start somewhere. I figure after a week or so I might be able to actually do the beginner level the way they do it without adding too many modifications to make a littler easier, but still get something out of it.

Jumping jacks are hard!! I've always hated them, but they are easier than lunges. I bought another Biggest Loser DVD a while back, this one by Bob Green. I liked it, but it was full of lunges that I just couldn't do. My poor knees just can't handle a lot of lunges. Why is it two exercises I hate the most (lunges and jumping jacks) do the most for you?? I guess the same reason Broccoli tastes like crap compared to a doughnut. Oh well.

This DVD promises that you'll lose up to 30lbs in a month and up to 3 sizes if you follow it religiously. I'm guessing that since I've had to make so many modifications initially just to get through the workout without killing myself that it will probably take me a little bit longer to get there. Here's hoping!!

ALSO, Happy 43rd Wedding Anniversary to my Parents today!! :)

5/15/09 - Happy Birthday Denese!

Today was my friend Denese's 40th Birthday. She considers New Orleans home so we celebrate in true New Orleans fashion, by going to the New Orleans Zydeco band called Mojo and the Bayou Gypsies. It's quite what I expected, but I think we all had a good time. I forgot my camera again, but Denese and shar took some pictures so hopefully I'll be able to post some soon.

5/14/09 - Game Night a Guthries

I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures from this night. Sorry.
There is bar in Wrigleyville that has a bunch of boardgames so we set-up a Meetin event to go there and play games for the evening. It was fun. We played Apples to Apples. I should have been home working as I had a huge deadline this week, but oh well, David's friend was in town from Philly as well so I didn't want to be the work-a-holic, party pooper girlfriend, so I went out instead and was late getting the work done. It wasn't too big of deal though because everyone else on the project was just as far behind as I was! Whew!

5/11/09 - Dinner w/the Neighbors

Wing night or Turkey Wrap night (for me). We went to the Rail for Wing night. Katherine and I are both trying to lose weight so we get the wrap, while the boys dig into the wings. Aside from that, it was a good night.

5/9-10/09 - Clean, Clean, Clean

Nothing too exciting the rest of the weekend. I cleaned the house because it really needed it bad! Some people hate doing laundry or washing windows...my least favorite household chore is mopping!! I can't stand it. I'm much rather do 20 loads of laundry or wash every window in the house than mop the floor, but it has to be done. Especially in our kitchen because it has a cream colored tile!! Ugh! Every little spot shows up. It really should be done weekly, but currently it only gets done about twice a month.

Plus I don't know what it is, but sometimes it's hard to clean when other people are around. So I took the opportunity of David being in Philly to put a good dent in the cleaning. It looked pretty nice, but it didn't last long...oh well.

I went over to my friend Denese's house and helped her plant some flowers, then I called my Mom on Sunday to wish her a Happy Mothers Day and then went and picked David up at the airport and that was about it! Pretty mellow weekend.

5/8/09 - Crapple

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David is in Philly this weekend visiting his Mother for Mother's Day. I wish I could have gone to SLC, but tickets were too expensive. I'm going to try and go this Summer sometime though. Instead I went to Crapple tonight. A Meetin event. It's a bar near our neighborhood. Crapple is a raffle game. You by tickets, then if your number is called you win a prize, the catch is that there are good prizes and bad prizes so everyone yells, "Crap!...Crap!...Crap!" because they want to you to get a crappy prize. The grand prize is giant blow up toy of some kind and you have to travel home with it blown up. So if you rode the bus, train or your bike as many Chicagoan's do, you'll look pretty silly toting this giant blow up thing....and look who won, our friend Rob...too bad he drove to the event :(

Carl, Jenni, Becca, Kelly, Jen and Sarah (also pictured)

5/6-7/09 - Road Warrior Training - Santa Clara

Traveled to Santa Clara this week to facilitate training for Sales Force One. A Marriott Initiative that is rolling out across the nation. It was a quick trip! I flew in on Wednesday morning, taught the class Wednesday afternoon and had dinner with some cow-workers then flew back to Chicago the next morning.

I must be getting old, that trip, though short, wore me out!!! It's about a 3.5 to 4 hour flight depending on head/tail winds. A lot for such short time frame. I'm heading back that same area in a couple weeks and think I'll do it a little differently this time.

5/5/09 - Opera Night

Again, camera's not allowed, but tonight we went to the Opera with our friend Kelly Goodall and a few others from the Meetin group. We saw "The Tragedy of Carmen" it was pretty good. Carmen is a little hussy though. I never realized it before, but it makes sense now. The story is basically about her running from man to man, breaking hearts left and right. This version was what they would call an operetta, it was a condensed version of the full Opera, which is like 4 hours long. This one was about 90 minues. Good thing, although I really enjoyed it very much, I don't know if I could have sat through 4 hours of it.

5/4/09 - Stepping Down - MiC it's been good...

It's been a little over a year since David and I took over MeetinChicago. It's been fun, but we decided it was time to pass the torch. The new leaders are Jen Strom, Jenni Langland and Greg.

We'll continue to be active on the board and go to Meetin events, but I'm also looking forward to hanging out with the friends we've met through Meetin (and outside of it) and deepening those friendships.

5/3/09 - Our new canopy: Hooray for BigLots!!

We went to Big Lots today to look at canopy they had on sale. It was perfect so we bought it and assembled it right away. I love it! It provides shelter from the sun on our patio, but doesn't take up the whole patio so if want sun there is still plenty of room to roam around. Can't wait now for the weather to be more consistent so we can enjoy it.

5/2/09 - Titanic Exhibit/Sprecher Brewery

A Bunch of Beer Bottles

That's one heck of a coozie!!

David and I in front of the Brewery

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This weekend David and I and a few of our friends; Derek, Jamie, Erick, Shar and Bof drove up to Milwaukee, WI to visit the Milwaukee Public Museum for the Titanic Exhibit. This exhibit included artifacts and personal belongings from the ships survirors and deceased. It was very interesting. They have been able to bring up, clothing, jewelry, money, dishes, toiletries, all sorts of stuff. On one hand it's very eirie looking at stuff that once belonged to these people that are now dead and not only dead, but that drowned in the sinking of the Titanic and on the other it's quite amazing at how in tact a lot of it is. There were bottles of medicine and champagne that still had liquid in them. There was even a jar of face powder that still had powder in it. In a lot of cases they had photos of the items either on the person (clothing/jewelry) while they were still alive on the ship or where they found it amongst the wreckage next to the item.

It was really cool. I hightly recommend going to see it if the exhibit travels to your area. In fact if you google Titanic Exhibit, you'll see a list of destinations and dates.

Now, a trip to Milwaukee wouldn't complete of course without a trip to a brewery so we visited Sprecher brewery, in Glendale, WI while we were in town. Camera's were not allowed at the exhibit, but was able to catch a few photos at the brewery.

4/30/09 - The Wizard of Oz

Tonight, David and I went to dinner and then to the musical,
"The Wizard of Oz" with our friends Derek and Jamie.
We ate at Catch 35, a restaurant in Downtown Chicago next to the Rennaissance hotel. It's very good. The show was great as well. It was opening night so we anticipated a few mistakes, but they actually did a great job. If they did screw up, they did a great job covering it up because I couldn't tell.

4/24/09 - Dark Lord Day

Another Beer Event: So as you know by now, David's #1 hobby is fine crafted beers so he obtained "golden" tickets, which incidnetally we're purple for a once yearly beer event.

Dark Lord is a beer. It's brewed and distributed only once a year by 3 Floyds brewery, which is in Munster, Indiana. You wait in a really long line, which is occupied by other beer lovers that share their own local brews, home brew recipes, and just chit-chat, etc. This is the 4th year (I think) that 3 Floyds has hosted this what has turned into sort of a festival type line up for this special beer. The first year they only had about 400 people come, over the next couple years attendance has grown to over 4,000 and one year they actually ran out of beer, which left some a little ticked off, especially after waiting in line for several hours so this year you had to have a ticket, which guaranteed you beer. You could wait in line, but you would not be guaranteed the brew unless you had a ticket.

Overall it was a good day, a little windy, but better than being 90 degrees since there isn't much shade throughout the line. We met a guy named Matt, he's the blonde pictured with David and our friend Bof. He's a Medical School Graduate who is currently serving his residency. He's only going to be in Chicago for a year and is so busy with his residency he hasn't really made an effort to make friends so he hung out with us for the day. He didn't have a ticket so our friend Erick sold him one of his tickets so he could buy some beer. Our friends Erick and Shar actually rode their bikes to the event which is about a 30 mile ride. Yeah, not David and I, we drove. Then again, someone had to haul all the beer that was bought back to Chicago!! :)

4/19/09 - Tempted by the Evil Empire

I've been wanting a bike for a while now, but I held off purchasing one mostly because I traveled so much. It would end up just sitting around all the time gathering dust. Plus, I lived in Seattle for a while which is very hilly and not really conducive to riding a bike unless you're an avid cyclist, which I am NOT! Then I lived in Utah on/off during traveling, still very hilly and again wasn't home much. Now I'm in Chicago, which is FLAT!! and since my traveling has now decreased to about 20% per year instead of 80 to 90% per year I went ahead and bought one. I looked around at bike shops, sporting goods stores, new bikes, used bikes and of course I found the best deal at a place I really prefer not to give my business to...the store that must not be named...the evil empire itself...WALMART! dun-dun-da-duuuuun! I know, I know, it's terrible...I feel guilty...I feel dirty, but David made me do it!! :) He made me go in there.



I wanted something simple, in a neutral color, that had a wider seat and multiple gears, that was under $250. All the other bikes I saw at the other places were between $239 - $579 so some were in my price range, but they were all brightly colored. I wanted something gray, black or white, maybe a blue or purple if it was dark, but everyting was electric purple or blue or pink and auqua or some crazy color like that.



Then as we turned the corner to the bike aisle, there it was, right on the end, a sliver/gray street bike, with a wide seat and multiple gears and on sale for only $179! How could it be, why would I be tempted so...I tried to resist...I even went acorss the street to Dick's Sporting goods and I tried to find one there, that I liked, really I did, but alas...I was weak and couldn't pass up the perfect bike and the perfect price even if it meant buying from the evil W.

4/18/09 - Two Brother Brewery

We went on another brewery tour today. This one is called Two Brothers Brewery, it's about 30 mile Southwest of Chicago. We caravaned to the brewery with some friends and folks from our Meetin group. I've now been on several of these tours with David and friends. I finding the story of each brewery to be the same. Some guy starts messing around with brewing his own beer in the basement, then gets more serious and moves into a storage unit or small warehouse, then suddenly he has a brewery! End of story. I am amazed though at how popular it is and how much people lean towards one style or flavor. I do try most of the beers as they do give samples at each tour and I have say that most, to me, are not that good. I really don't like the taste of hops and since that is one of the main ingredients in beer - I guess it makes sense that I wouldn't like it. The only ones that I have tasted that I "like" are the darker beers. They are called Stouts or Porters (for those that don't know). They usually taste like Chocolate and are sweeter because most are brewed with coffee or chocolate extracts or nibs and they use roasted grains that make it taste more like coffee or chocolate than un-roasted grains and don't contain hops or if they do it's a minimal amount. Anyway, here some photos from that day...


This is the group toasting their samples at the end of the tour.


This is a gaggle of kegs and a box on the conveyor belt.

This is just one of the fermentors, but liked the way the gloves were

sitting there and then of course the group the joined us on the tour.

4/17/09 - Movie Night

David and I watched "7 Pounds" with Will Smith. Kind of a depressing movie. Interesting premise, though I basically had the whole figured out within the first 20 minutes. I love Will Smith, but I can't say I'd recommend this one. Sorry!

4/16/09 - The last Harrah!

YUMM-O!

My friend Carl invited some people out to dinner at the place called Tango Sur. It's one of the best Argentinian Steak houses EVER! and one of our favorite places to eat in Chicago. This night, however was not just a night with friends, but my last Harrah! I've reached Defcon 5 status with the eating healthy or lack there of really. So I decided it's time to focus and get serious about getting back in shape. I think I've gained about 25 pounds this last year. Not good. Not good. Not only that, but I just can't do the things I used to do. Even when I was overweight before, I was always fit. I could walk, run, swim, play sports and all sorts of stuff and it seems like lately I just get winded going up the stairs. Plus, very few of my clothes still fit. In fact, unless I'm going out, I'm usually in David's sweat pants because all my other clothes are so uncomfortable.

SO times are a changing for me. I'm getting back on track and back in shape. I started the year out pretty good. I was watching what I ate, exercising and then I don't know what happened, I just gave up. I've realized that all there is to do in Chicago is eat and drink - especially during the winter. I do really well when I control what I eat at home, but eating out really takes it toll. Plus it's so hard to make the healthy choice and order salad when there so many yummy things on the menu to choose from like the one shown above so I got frustrated and stopped caring.

Well, I care now!! I'm hoping to lose the 25 I've gained recently and then some. I'll keep you posted.

4/14/09 - Taste of Peru

Our Meetin group some re-occurring events, called "Ethnic Eats", this night they were headed to a Peruvian place. It was pretty good. We has a good turnout and I learned that one Theory about how Macchu Piccu was created, is that Aliens built it. Cool! :)

4/13/09: Milkshakes and Movies

My poor friend Karen. She had some dental work done a few weeks back. Had her wisdom teeth out. She unfortunately is victim to one of those horror stories you always hear about when people get their wisdom teeth out. She suffered some nerve damage. She has no feeling at all on her bottom jaw line so she's had to work with a speak therapist and see her dentist multiple times a week. They are hopeful that she'll eventually get feeling back, but in a small number of cases, people don't - so we're hoping for the best. I just feel so bad for her, but Karen is a strong, determined person so I have no doubt that she'll fully recover.

On Monday night we all joined her at her apartment and watched a movie and drank milkshakes and smoothies with her. The movie we watched was called "The Secret Lives of Dentists" probably wasn't the best choice for some who just had dental work done. Initially we thought it was fitting, but the movie was weird and has some painful dental work scenes. We'll know better next time. Sorry Karen!!

I don't have any photos, but thought I'd share the experience anyway.

4/11/09: Hiking/Paradise Pup

Today we went hiking with our Meetin group. It was pretty fun, we just went to a forest preserve west of the city. Afterwares we grabbed some lunch at Paradise Pup. It's a small Hot Dog/Burger joint, that supposedly has the best burgers in Chicago and was also featured on the Food Network. I think my Dad ate here too when he was in town a few months back. There is line that goes out the door and winds around the exterior. We waited a good 25 minutes and it was really good, but I'm still trying to decide it was worth the wait...

Ghost Stories - Galena, IL

One Eleven Main is a restaurant in Galena, IL. David and I ate at this restaurant during our trip to a couple weekends ago. We saw a picture hanging in the restaurant, the one shown to the left. It looks like white streaks or something in front of the back entrance to the building. We thought it was interesting, but didn't really think anymore about it at the time.

The next night we were scheduled to go on a Ghost Tour of Galena. The tour was designed to tell the history of Galena through the spirits left behind. It was collection of stories from the Townspeople and tourist's paranormal experiences over the years. I of course was excited. David was not so excited, but was a good sport for going with me. For those of you that don't know me well, the Paranormal has always been a great interest of mine, especially when connected with history.

Usually I'm disappointed in these tours (I've been on several similar tours in other cities) and although this was just as cheeky as the others it was interesting to learn of the history of the city and would could be left behind. The restaurant that David and I went to the night before, and the one mentioned above (One Eleven Main) turned out to be the town's first mortuary and funeral home back in the mid 1800's. In fact the ceiling in the restaurant was the original ceiling. The photo that was hanging on the wall was taken by the restaurants Executive Chef. They had just moved into the location (from a different one up the street) and so he took a picture of the newly finished building.

Other employees had reported strange occurrences as well, things being moved, cabinets opening and closing on their own, voices, and even witnessing apparitions. One of an older woman and the other of three children. Not to mention several employees said they felt someone tap on their shoulder, walk by or even bump into them, but nobody else would be around. They had several paranormal teams in to investigate and run tests, etc. In fact, in July or August the owner said they were going to be featured on an A&E show though he wasn't sure which one, so I'll have to keep an eye out.

Anyway, the owner let us go upstairs to where most of the sightings and strange occurrences have happened. When we first walked in, I was immediately drawn to this one corner of the room, not in a psychic kind of way, just in that way when you feel someone enter a room so look to see who is it or turn in their direction, it was like that. I snapped a picture in that direction and that photo is seen below. In the corner you see what looks like small ball. It's actually an Orb. Now, I personally don't put a lot of stock in Orbs because they can be explained away as many other things such as dust in the air or on the camera lens, reflections from the flash, water spots, etc. But what I thought was particularly different about this orb, that leads me to believe it *could* be something paranormal is it's color. It's bright blue and when you zoom in on it, it's got some purple and pink marbling. Definitely not dust or a water spot. There was nothing in the area to create a reflection from my flash so I'm just not sure what it is. You can decide what you might think...

04/01/09 - 4/10/09 - Deadlines, anniversaries, deaths, ghosts and more...

It's time again to let you in on what's been happening in the life of Kelli the last couple of weeks. Let's see, it has been a busy couple of weeks, but with mostly work stuff. I'm working on training documentation for the Western Mountain Pacific - Sales Force One Launch. Sales Force One or SF1 is an innovative restructuring of Marriott's Sales Departments world wide. In short, instead of having a Sales Manager for each hotel, our Managers have gone global. They represent all Marriott's, everywhere. Now, they do have specific region that they focus on, but they are given accounts in that region and in turn could book business for that account in any other region if the need arises. There is certainly more too it than that, but that's about as Nutshell as I can get it. Unless you'd like to go through the 3 Powerpoints I just finished. One is 114 slides, one is 90-something and the other one is pretty small only 68. And that's only 3 of about 20 that explain how SF1 works. Anyway, it's a lot of work and has kept me pretty busy. Everything has to be done and ready for the printer by the 17th so the 10th is the deadline to get all final drafts into proof-reading mode. Ugh. I just finished one and have one more to go.

So, this weekend (the 5th) is David's and mine 1st Anniversary. For those that don't know the story, I met David shortly after moving to Chicago, but we didn't start dating until nearly a year later. David had a Pub Crawl in his neighborhood this weekend last year and I went. It was that night we got to talking and found out that we both had crushes on the other, but thought the other wouldn't be interested. Mainly because there is a 10 year age difference between us. But we decided to give it try and we've been together ever since. It happened quite quickly, but we both just rolled with it and so far it's been great! We decided to go up to Galena IL to celebrate. It's a small town about 3 hours North of Chicago. We had a good time. We stayed at this hotel called the Irish Cottage Inn. It was a decent place, but no Marriott that's for sure. I swear this job has spoiled me, but also allowed me to appreciate how hard Marriott tries to ensure their products are up to par. Now that's not say that I haven't been to a Marriott that wasn't perfect, there are certainly several out there, but they are usually the Franchised hotels, though having said that, we have some good Franchisees as well. Anyway, I digress. We saw Irish Dancers, strolled along Galena's main drag, toured Galena's oldest home (built in the 1840's), did a little hiking, drove up to Potosi Brewing Co. & ABA Museum in Potosi, WI and went on a ghost tour.

For some you, you know that I have an interest in the Paranormal. It intrigues me. I would consider myself a believer in ghosts or spirits, but I'm also a skeptic. I've experienced some unexplainable phenomenon in my lifetime, which makes it hard for me to dispel it completely, but I've also never come face to face with an apparition either so...I remain open to the ideas and find other people's stories interesting as well. I will tell you more about our Ghost tour in a separate post because this one is already getting long and it's quite interesting - I even have photos to share!!

Lastly, in the post I'll mention the passing of my parents (and my) next door neighbor of many years. Her name is Beverlee Lombardi. She,her husband Paul and their three daughters, Danielle, Dana, and Deidre grew up with us. We were friends and hung out much as kids. We've since lost touch as we've all grown up and moved away and started lives and families of our own, however have kept tabs on each other through our parents. My mom called me the other day to inform me that Beverlee had passed away. Now, what is amazing about this and not so sad is that she was told when we were kids that she only had two years to live. She was diagnosed with a disease called Sculaderma (sp?). Back then, not much was known about it and the life expectancy of someone with it was not long once diagnosed. At the time her youngest daughter was maybe 2 or 3 and she said she wanted to try and live until Deidre turned 18. Well Deidre is 31 now so not only did she make it past the two years, but made it nearly 30 additional years than what was originally expected. She was always a very strong and dominant woman so I'm not surprised that she lived up to her promise. Yes, it is sad that she is finally gone, but what a blessing she received to be able to see all her kids grow up, graduate High School and College, get married and have kids. I'm sad for them, but glad that Beverlee is no longer in pain and in a place where she can continue to watch over them without suffering.

My brother shared his favorite memory of Beverlee on his blog so I thought I'd so the same on mine. Mine is when we decided to get a family pass at the local pool. I can't remember exaclty why now, but I had to pretend like I was one of their kids. I think they needed six total people to get the family discount or something like that. Beverlee told me that when the guy asked me my name, all I had to do was say, "Kelli Lombardi". Seemed easy enough, but when the time came, the guy asked, "...and what is your name?" I stuttered a little bit and said, "Kelli Mc...Lombardi" and he repeats it with the Mc-part, in a very quizitive manner and I was stunned. I must have had that deer-in-the-headlights- look. I thought for sure we had been CAUGT!, but Beverlee jumped in and said, oh her middle is McKayla (or something like that-I can't remember now which name she actualy gave), she was just trying to say her middle name. Silly. Nice save Beverlee!! We got the passes and ejoyed a summer of fun at the local pool and at the discounted rate! I still have the actual laminated pass that say's "Kelli Lombardi."

Well, I guess I should get back to work. I'll post some pictures soon, but wanted to at least get this post written. Don't forget to check back regarding the details of our ghost tour...

~Kelli

3/18/09 - 3/31/09: Broken Promises

I keep promising that I'll do better with keeping up my blog, but in reality the opposite has happened. I think I'm further behind than I've ever been since starting this thing. This is due mainly to two reasons: One-I'm on the computer all day for work; designing presentations, writing facilitator guides, participant guides, certification tests and study guides so two-last thing I want to do when I get done is write more!! So I end up putting it off and putting it off and before I know it I'm 2 WEEKS behind.

A New Promise

I can't promise that I'll make an entry every day. I can, however promise that I have no plans to give up and will make an effort to add an entry at least once a week if not more often. Although, I'll still try to make entries everyday when possible.

So...what's happened the last couple of weeks. Nothing too exciting, I talked to my brother on the phone, did some laundry at the laundromat, at a Glen's Diner, Drove up to Illinois Beach State Park (saw some deer ) and drove by this recreation of pyramids of Giza that some guy built, supposedly it is haunted or vexed or something. People claim they feel weird when looking on the grounds, but I didn't really feel anything peculiar. I made my neighbor a Birthday Cookie in the Shape of an Artist's Pallet because A. she doesn't like cake and B. she's an art teacher. David also made her a display with Balloon shaped cookies as well. We had a poker night at our house and I discovered I'm definitely in the right profession. There was a girl there that didn't know how to play and myself and my friend Laura taught her how step-by-step. It was actually just as fun to me teaching her how to play as it to actually play and rewarding to see her understand it and get excited because she understood it. It was cool. Let's see...what else, I think I went grocery shopping once or twice as well among other things I didn't get pictures of. Here are some pictures of the things (other than work) I've been up to recently (as mentioned) though I can't remember which days they all happened:

3/17/09 - The Real St. Patty's Day!! Missing Pictures?

Happy St. Patricks Day everyone! Today was another work-packed day. Lots of projects going on so I'm keeping pretty busy these days. Later on tonight David, Marcus and I are going to dinner at Glen's Diner...I told you I'd be going there frequently now, didn't I!!! Anyway, Tuesday is all you can eat Crab Legs for $30. I ordered Chicken. The crab legs are good, but I just can't order a whole plate for myself. It's not because I don't like the taste, I actually do like it, but I don't like having to pry open my food. Tear the skin off and crack the knees open of my dinner. It just seems overly cruel to me. Just ask my friend Andrea, who cracked open all my craw fish for me at her wedding in Louisiana. I can't even eat shrimp that haven't already been removed from their shell either. I don't know, it's a quirk I guess. Let someone else do the ripping and shredding and desecrating of the pour (insert name of: meat, chicken, seafood, etc. here) and I'll just enjoy the taste. It's also not because I'm lazy or even grossed out by it, well maybe a little grossed out, I just feel bad for the little guys/gals. Guess I should feel bad about eating them too, but I don't for some reason?? Hummmm. Interesting.

~Kelli

By the way if you're wondering where all the picutres are? I've misplaced the attachment that I put my memory card into that inserts into my computer so I can download the pictures so I have them on my camara, bu no way to get them to the blog at this moment. I know it's around here somewhere so as soon as I find it - the pictures will be back. I promise.

3/16/09 - Dinner w/the Neighbors

Monday night is wing night at the Rail. Well most of time. This Monday it was and we went with our downstairs neighbors, Katherine and Rich. Their turn to buy, Yay!! :) We had a good time, just eating and chatting, etc.

3/15/09 - Cleaning, Brewing and Work

Today was cleaning day! I cleaned the bathroom, the kitchen, and the bedroom, Whew! David's friend Erick came over around 2pm as they are brewing beer again. They've entered a local brewing contest so I hope it turns out well for them. While they were brewing, I was working. I know...boring, but I wanted get a jump start on a project I'm working on because I'm out of pocket all day Monday for a training session.

3/14/09 - Chicago Celebrates St. Patty's Day

Today, Chicago had it's North Side St. Patty's Day parade and the dying of the Chicago River green. I have yet to experience this phenomenon, though I'm not too upset about it. Why? Well, A. I'm not particularly fond of large crowds and I'm especially not fond of large crowds fueled by copious amounts of alcohol, though I suppose it's something I should expereince at some point during my time here. Maybe next year.
Instead of participating in the St. Patty's Day festivities, David and I got Massages. Our friend gave us gift certificates for Chirstmas/Birthday so we finally used them and it was good! David's guy, but was better than mine, but I still enjoyed it. He didn't suck, just didn't do as much as David's guy did. I still felt pretty good afterward. After that, David and I grabbed some lunch at Glen's Diner. This diner is right up the street from our house and has been featured on "Diners, Drive-in's, and Dive's" on the Food Network. It was pretty darn good. I'm sure we'll be going there quite frequently now. After that we went to Ravenswood Art Center. It's a community art school that was having an open house. We wandered around and looked at the art and projects and looked into signing up for some classes, so we'll see what happens.


Later, we went over to our friend Chris's house for some corned-beef and cabbage in celebration of the sudo holiday. I wore green, but felt defiant since it wasn't technically the 17th! Oh well. It was a packed, but fun and relaxing day!

3/13/09 - Girls Night @ Denese's

As you can see I had a pretty busy week of work-related events so I was really looking forward to this night. A few of the girls got together at Denese's house for a good meal and conversation. Denese has been in/out of town on business so it was great to be able to catch up with her and get to know some of the others that were there a little better as well. We shared some laughs, some tears, some ideas, some advice - your typical girls night out kind of stuff, well besides the naked pillow fight of course! ;)



~Kelli

3/12/09 - Work, work, work...

Another busy day of work! and that's about it. Sorry...nothing too exciting happening this week.

3/11/09 - Work, work, work...

Not much happended today, just a bunch of work! So pretty boring... How do you take a picture of boring? :)

3/10/09- Finally caught up

I've updated all the entries from 2/26/09 to now. I don't have much going on tonight. I'm going to make some Salmon for dinner because David is going to an All-You-Can-Eat Crab Legs MiC Event. I'll post a picutre later if I see some thing worth sharing :)

3/09/09 - Blog Slacking....Sorry

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic and as a result I've fallen behind on my what's suppose to be my "daily" blog. Aside from today, my last entry was 2/26/09 so my plan this morning is get caught up. I'm starting with today and back tracking so if you happen to begin reading early this morning you'll see some empty entries. I titled each day so I could post them in the right chronilogical order, but havn't filled in all the details yet so if you come back later this afternoon they should all be updated. I should say that I did actually try to get caught up a couple times over the last couple of weeks and I don't know if it's my computer or the site or what, but I couldn't not get blogger to work. Either it wouldn't save my posts or it wouldn't upload the photos or both. It was so frustrating that I eventually gave up and planned to come to it later, but of course you know how that goes sometimes...
Anyway, happy Monday everyone! Have a good week and I'll try to stay more on top of my blog, though I'm not promising anything :)

3/08/09 - Recovery/Chicago Wolves Hockey

Tonight we went to a Chicago Wolves Hockey game. This is Chicago's Farm team or Minor league team (I guess you'd say) I'm sure it has a more poper term, but I can't remember it at the moment. It was a pretty good game, though we lost 3 to 2. Oh well.

3/07/09 - CHIDITEROD 2009

How do you explain Chiditerod?

Basically, it's a charity food drive, a race and a pub crawl all in one, that is loosely based on the Iditerod, the catch... A shopping cart is your "sled" and people are the "dogs". Not only that, but you have to come up with a theme, then decorate your cart and wear corresponding costumes. There is a starting line, in which everyone lines up in order, from there you follow a map to various bars to "water your dogs", you must remain at each bar for a set amount of time before proceeding to the next bar. Ultimately for the extremely competitive, your goal is to be the first team across the finish line with the most donations. For others, the goal is to be the last team across and for others still it's to get as drunk as you possibly can and still make it to the finish line in any order. I should mention that there is also a third element to winning and that is sabotage. There is a prize for best sabotage of a cart or team so you have to watch your cart very carefully so other teams don't try to steal it or break it in some way, forcing you out of the race.

Our team? Team: Buddy Christ from the movie Dogma as listed in a previous blog. We came in fairly close to last. I think we might have been the 3rd to last team, but our goal was to just have a good time, which we did, but it rained the entire day putting a slight damper on things.

I have to admit, I was a little concerned about our costume idea at first. I liked it, but thought that people who haven't seen that movie might not understand why we were all dressed up like Christ and be offended. I'm sure some people (passers by) were, although everyone that participated in the race seemed to get it. I wasn't worried at all until about the 2nd stop when another team of "Slasher Movie Characters (or something) sprayed fake blood all over us. That just didn't look good. Fortunately the rain washed most of it out and it just looked like pink punch stains or something. I posted most of the photos I took on Facebook, but here are a few from that day!