One last update to the 52 in 23*

I made some more updates to my 52 in 23*.  I had considered them pretty set in stone, but I had to work out some final details.

See, Marek and I had decided to make a master list of all the touristy things to do in New York.  That way, when we move away, we won't have any reason to come back here if we don't want to.  If we decide in the end that we don't like it and don't want to ever come back, we want to get all the touristy things done so people can't say, "But you never did X!", where X is that one thing that would have made us just fall in love with the city.  I put some of these things on my original 52 in 23* list, but the list was getting long, and they weren't things that were super important to me for this birthday year.

My brother must have read our minds though, because for Christmas he gave us a book, The Best Things to Do in New York!  I think there's about 1,000 things in there, and we've decided to use this book as a starting point.  We started compiling our master list, and I'll post it soon, but for the time being I've taken most of the New York things out of my 52 in 23* and added in some new ones.  I'm looking forward to doing some exciting things this year!

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52 in 23*

I was perusing the blogosphere and came across a girl who was trying to conquer a list of 26 things in her 26th year (or something like that).  Around the same time, my cousin and I were chatting about her 30 before 30 list.

This got me thinking.  If you were to do this every year of your life, assuming you lived to be OLD and didn't die some tragic or unfortunate and untimely death, then when you were say, 70, you'd have a huge list of things to do.  Some people look at this as a Bucket List, and that works for them, but I'm lazy, impatient, and worry about the future a lot.

I want to get those things done now.  Plus that way, when I'm 70, I'll have accomplished a whole ton of things, and then I won't feel as much pressure to get things done when I'm old and cranky.  Hopefully I'll still be adventuring about, but just in case I end up in diapers, I want to be prepared.

So I'm going to make my list a little differently.  I looked up the average life expectancy of people in the US (78) and South Korea (79), so I just rounded up to 80 for simplicity's sake.  Assuming I want to have nothing on my list when I'm 80, I subtracted my current age (we're still going to pretend I'm 23...and I'll tell you why someday soon) from 80 to get the number of things that should be on my list this for this age-year.  Make sense?

Over the next week or so, I'm going to start putting together my "52 in 23*" list, and then I'll post it here to share, and we can see if I actually manage to come up with 52 fun, non-lame things to do in the next age-year, and then if I actually manage to get them done.  Fun, right?

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Bathtime for Claudius!

I'm fresh out of ideas for a blog post today but I really want to try to post every day this month (although I already failed), so instead I'll just share this video of Claudius getting a bath.  Apologies to anyone on Twitter and Facebook who's already seen this.

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My favorite boyband songs

One of the highlights of karaoke for me was singing some old school Backstreet Boys (they're old school now, right?). The video for "I Want It That Way" has over 20 million views on YouTube.

(As an aside, I'm pretty partial to this version though. The guy in the background kills me.)




Now on to some boybands from across the pond.

This is one of my all time favorites. I have no idea when I first heard it, but it's been a mainstay of mine for a very, very long time. Bonus points that it's by Take That, who brought us one of the greatest boyband songs EVER (see above). On the other hand, this is probably one of Marek's least favorite songs, given my propensity to listen to it on repeat for hours along (while singing along). Whenever it comes on, he mockingly starts singing "patieeeeeeeeence" to me.




And of course we can't forget Take That's most popular US song, which had us all slow dancing back in 7th grade.




I think most people have heard or heard of Boyzone. I love this song. It gets a little long towards the end, but it's another repeat offender on my playlist. I can't deny what I believe, I can't be what I'm not...




How about Westlife? I discovered them on a trip to Aruba a few years ago. This song was playing at the hotel bar, and I actually asked the bartender (who was my BFF by this point, since we went to the bar twice a day) if he could look on the CD who this was.




And here's a bonus video from Take That. Interestingly enough, when I watch the video, all I can think about is whether or not Gary Barlow is actually playing that piano.

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Joe Buck on the Island 5?

I know - I can't believe it either.  I used to be a diehard Red Sox fan.  Starting in 1998, I diligently followed the Red Sox.  I taped their entire schedule, in Excel format (because I was a big geek, even back then), to my bedroom door, and meticulously tracked their progress for the entire season.  In 2004, I, along with every other Red Sox fan, stayed up religiously every night, even for those games against Anaheim that ran long and made for short nights and tired days at work.

And I, like every other Red Sox fan, hated Joe Buck because of his (obvious) bias for the New York Yankees and his (obvious) disdain for the Red Sox.  I knew plenty of people who felt the same way.  I know plenty of people who still feel that way.

But I don't watch baseball anymore.  And Joe Buck's kind of growing on me, especially with the recent batch of Super Bowl on Fox commercials - the ones that use the tagline "It's good to have a ring".




So I've decided to put him on the shortlist for serious consideration.  He'll be bumping David Beckham because I'm not quite ready to get rid of Zac Efron yet.  Thoughts?

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Food diary: harder than it seems

So this is my obligatory post for the day.  I'm trying to blog every single day in December, just because.  Maybe that'll get me to update this blog a little more often.

I started taking pictures of (almost) everything I eat starting on July 20th.  With the exception of a few times (usually when there's so much eating (snacking) that it would be difficult, or when it's not really socially acceptable, or when it's just not possible), I've actually managed to get pictures of most of the food I've eaten between then and now.

It's been going on so long now that most of my friends and family are used to it, and don't question when I whip out my BlackBerry and start snapping pictures of everything I'm eating and drinking!  (Thanks. :))

I did fall behind for awhile, so I've been trying to catch up.  It got to the point where I was just bulk posting several days' worth of food every few days or so, so I'm trying to set aside time to go through and get those posts updated - put them on the right days, at the right time, in the right order - but it's a daunting task!  Especially since we moved and with all the short and weekend trips I've gone on, there's a lot to update.

I finished the entire month of November today though, but I ran out of steam as I headed into October, so I'll have to save that for another day.  It is nice to be able to look back on how my eating habits have changed in the past 4.5 months as well, especially during the move and as we transitioned to city living.  I'm up to 72 pages on my food diary Posterous...I wonder how many it will be up to after a year.

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A different kind of Christmas list

I think I've made my feelings on the Kindle very well known, and I was talking to Marek the other day, and I said to him, "I think a Kindle would be the worst present someone could give to me."  He pointed out that it wouldn't be such a terrible present (and then tried to convince me that I'd end up using it and loving it), but I qualified it for him: I think it'd be the worst present because I would think that whoever gave me that present really didn't know me at all.

I think that good gift-giving is an art.  I tend to be kind of boring, but I try.  I put a lot of thought into what I'm getting, and try to make sure it's something that the person would like.  I do have some standard gifts though.  Every year I give my father an Ansel Adams calendar.  Every year I give my brother the Guinness Book of World Records.  EVERY YEAR.  I gave my mom some forks one year as a present, wrapped up inside of a brownie box...that was pretty unexpected (and it was a good present, but too much of a story to get into here).

Anyway, so here's the top items on my "Do You Even Know Me?" Christmas list.

1. A Kindle.  I have no interest in one of these at all.  My Dad once said that being surrounded by books "comforts" me, and I can't disagree.

2.  An iPhone.  No thank you!  I like my BlackBerry a lot.  My friends seem to have taken the tactic of harassing me until I give in, but it's not going to happen.

I will give a special "thanks" of sorts to Marek and Airport Chris, who are the veritable leaders of this movement.  They never miss an opportunity to tell me how much my BlackBerry sucks/how much better the iPhone is.  I truly admire their commitment to the cause.




Tied for 3rd.  I'm not really sure which one I'd rather have least, but the only way this gift could be worse is if it were pink and sparkly.

Other things that make the shortlist would be make-up and anything Hello Kitty.

And there you have it.

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2011 Running Goals

Today I registered for 2011 Hyannis Half Marathon.  After the Boston Half, I searched for some other half marathons to run in the winter.  I wanted a half marathon that was some time in January, which would give me a little bit of time off and still enough time to train, but was also a few months away from the Mini.  The ones I found in my exact time frame were in South Carolina, West Virginia, and Missouri.  I ended up settling on the Hyannis Half which is later than I was hoping for, but I think it'll be okay.

When registering for the Hyannis Half, I noticed something called the Cape Cod Half Marathon Trilogy, which is a series of three half marathons on the Cape.  I'm not sure if the timing will work out for me to run all three, but it got me thinking about some running goals for 2011 (and got me back out running today).

So here they are!
Race goals:

• Complete the Hyannis Half Marathon (February 2011)
• Complete the OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini Marathon (May 2011)
• Register for and complete the Boston Half Marathon (probably October 2011)

If I end up going for the Cape Cod Half Marathon Trilogy, there's also the following races:

• Johnny Kelley Half Marathon (May 2011)
• Harwich Cranberry Half Marathon (May 2011)

Then I have a few pace goals:

• Run the Hyannis Half in 2:10 or less
• Run the Mini in 2:00 or less
• Run the Boston Half in under 2:00

I think these are pretty reasonable goals for me.  When I started training for the Mini last January, I was running a solid 12:30 mm, and have shaved a solid 2 minutes off my time in about 10 months, and with about  7 months of dedicated training.  I met my personal goals for both the Mini and the Boston Half, so I'm hoping I can keep up my training and get down to a sub-2:00 half marathon.  If I make all of my goals for 2011, then I think I'll start training for a full marathon!

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Home for football and Thanksgiving

For my birthday, my cousin was generous enough to give me his tickets to the Colts/Patriots game in Foxborough!  What a wonderful birthday present!  I've been to every Colts/Patriots game since 2007 (and also in 2005...I must have been sleeping in 2006 or something), and the past 3 games have been in Indianapolis.  I was glad we were able to continue our tradition this year, even if the outcome made me sad.

I lost my voice two days before the game, so was barely even able to cheer, but then again, there wasn't a whole lot to cheer for.  We met up with some other people beforehand and tailgated - it was my first time tailgating!  We had a lot of fun though.  My cousins were also at the game, so I got to pop over at halftime and say hi to them.

I spent the rest of the week at my parents' house, and we had my family over to our house for Thanksgiving.  A couple of my cousins from the West Coast were at dinner, and I was really glad to see them.  I only see them about once a year, so it was nice to spend time together and catch up.  Here's a picture of my cousins, my brother, and I.  Someone's wicked short!

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