Is it Friday yet?

Friday just might be my last fun day at work. As most of you know, my boss and I are all who are left in our department, doing the work that was done by 4 and most recently 3 people. They’ve decided to go forward with just two people. But they might be able to off-load a couple of our responsibilities to other people who are in sister departments. To do that however they decided that my boss and I should be relocated to a different part of the building, starting next week. I love my work area, I always have, I’ve made a bike and coffee station next to my cube, I have satellite radio, I sit by one of my best friends, etc. Well my new cubical is much smaller and less private than I have now. It won’t be able to get satellite radio. My coffee and bike area will be gone. The kicker though? I am now going to be part of a small cube farm and the three people that sit directly around me are:
A. My Boss
B. My baseball talking buddy Bob (who is not irrelevant except within the context of this conversation and me making a point.)
C. My Wife

Not to mention that my boss’ boss will sit directly behind me. Don’t get me wrong now, I love Jess more than anything in the world and I for the most part like my boss. But to have my boss sitting directly between my wife and I? I can handle sitting next to my boss (like I do now) or by my wife but I am less than excited to have the combination of the two. Oh yeah, and I am the only employee my boss has. So of course I went to HR and asked if we could do something else, there are plenty of cubes around and even if I was a couple cubes away it would be better. They said they could probably work something out. I mean really, do you want to have married people working next to each other in the corporate world? Of course it took less than a day for them to say that they did what they could but couldn’t make it work. None of the feasible options I laid out could work I guess. So that’s that, and come Tuesday (that is the day we were given) I get to sit in a new cube, one with less privacy, less music and less space.

So this will be an interesting experiment, I mean juggling both a personal and professional life for 40+ hours a week. I mean half of the conversations I have with Jess not at work involve work things, but now we will both know the story and not have the story to tell. I’ll keep you posted on how things go, even my greatest optimism towards the situation could easily be confused with pessimism so it’ll be crazy.

On the plus side, Chili started class last night and is well on his way to being a B- student. Actually he handled everything like a champ...it was awesome! Rocked some pasta bowl tonight too, so that was good!

2008 Ironman

So my last blog post left off at the end of the weekend. I decided I needed to start working out regularly again. I’ve pondered how to do this. I really enjoyed swimming last week, but swimming in a pool isn’t nearly as fun. I haven’t run since last fall and I haven’t lifted weights in almost two years. Cycling in the fall is all about the weather. Well after thinking about this a lot, I decided, at least for the time being, to try and start running and then do some upper-body weight work. So Monday I rocked a 5k on the treadmill. It went so much better than I thought. After that I did a nice upper body workout and it felt really good. Then this morning I ran 5 more miles on the treadmill and it shouldn’t take too long before I am back to where I was last year, and hopefully I can build upon it. And don’t worry cycling fans, I’ll still be riding bikes. I love riding on nice fall days and I hope to get some crisp morning rides in along with some nice mountain biking mixed in. So hopefully I can get that going as Fitchburg has two nice 10k races in the fall so maybe a nice three month running season. Mainly, I just want to keep the weight down for the winter and it’s always nice to have the incentive.

First on my list is this.

Not much else going on here. I didn’t sign up for the 2008 Ironman. I toyed with it for a moment but I just couldn’t fathom training for it again. Ultimately I’d like to do better than last year if I did do it again and I couldn’t commit myself to training that hard for the next year. My decision was a good one, as now it is Wednesday and I am glad I didn’t sign up. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment and just sign up. Plus I couldn’t assure super-fan Kelson would be around to cheer me around the course! I know of two people who did sign up and I am waiting for the list to be posted so I can peruse it for random others. I can’t wait to rock my Hungry Like The Wolfgram Ironman T-shirt for next year.

I'm in the club...it's goin' down...

Thursday- Woke up early and went down to the Terrace for some swimming action. Yep, first swim since Ironman Wisconsin last year. 49 minutes for a lap and the finish, which wasn't that great, but ok for not training at all.

Got to work late, got some new, new brakes for my car. After work, Jess and I went to the mall (it's goin' down) and bought some stuff. Got some new trunks for our upcoming cruise for $1.97. Hot! We also went to Olive Garden for the neverending pasta bowl. Got home in time to watch the Colts dominate!

Friday- Just another work day. Got home and chilled and then left to go to the bachelor party of my friend, Brent the Tank. We ate some supper at the Great Dane, good times! Then we headed to the club (it's goin' down) called the Come Back Inn. Hung out and shared some good stories and stayed out pretty late. Good luck Brent!

Saturday- Got too little sleep and went to play basketball. Basketball went really well, I don't think I lost a single game. It was a blast! Left basketball and headed down to the Terrace for some more swim action. I dominated, keeping on Wolf's most of the time and my lap time was around 40-42 minutes which is about last year's race pace for me. I guess perfect conditions and one swim really do help! Met up with Jess as we dominated downtown. Oh yes, dominated! We did the farmer's market and the Ironman festival then went up and down state, down to the union twice, to Charley's steakery and Jess even hit up the contravercial new Taco Bell/KFC combo. It's not as bad as I thought as now they have plasma TVs and it's bigger. But I couldn't imagine getting Taco Bell there as it smelled liked chicken everywhere. Oh yeah, I found something I'll have to buy at Urban Outfitters, maybe for the cruise.The Tetris cube, not the Snoopy sno-cone machine, Hez! I even saw some racing sausages, meaning in the past month I've ran into them at 3 random places now!

Saturday after that we (Jess) stained the deck while I mowed the lawn and walked the dogs and cleaned up in the house. We also ate some Papa Johns and did a puzzle and watched sports, a relaxing night.

Sunday- Got up early to watch the Ironman swim. Watched it. Watched the beginning of the bike by this big bump where people would lose their water bottles and stuff. It was insane. I drank that red Gatorade laying there and even got to eat a dropped banana and 3 dropped fig newtons so it was a nice breakfast! We then headed out to mid-town to watch the race some more. Hit the in-laws for some Packers action and some lunch. Went back to the action though, now down on State St where we walked up and down following some friends.

Go Rybarik! Go Koebs!

And then Rybarik finished and Koebs was on his way to finishing so we came home to go to bed...a long weekend but full of fun!!!

This week, Chili starts obedience class. It's also 45F out right now, insane!!! Not much else going on here! Hope you enjoyed the photos!