sorry , its been a while
after our long period of unemployment, working again kept us very busy.
lately for me, anything that happens i am comparing to MDG and everything is better. organisation, direction, documentation ,training, cafeteria food, the existence of a cafeteria to have food in it!, insurance, stock plan, pension plan, i should have left years ago. and the best thing is that when the day ends, the day ends, no more late night support, working overtime for free, working extra weekends for free...no more.
well with all this free time, i should have kept more in touch, but i have restarted my MBA which keeps me busy.
lately I arranged another amazing race event, which was not as amazing as the previous ones. one of the events was disc golf (imagine golf, with Frisbees), which is a summer sport , but we did it in winter, that was my only idea and reason to set up an event in the Hudson area, 2 suburbs cities away from my house. one Sunday morning i went to Hudson to find other activities and discovered unexpected history. this town was important in hiding slaves and was important in the fight to end slavery. also a word leader in maple evaporating machines. I only found out last year how maple was done, well it is more impressive when you see it. but the nicest thing was to find an artifact. here is the story.
a certain Chris Columbus , you may have of him, he discovered something vikings found out centuries before! but he was the one made famous, well he needed financing and went to the international bank of Spain, where the manager Isabella ruled.it Chris brought his cross from Italy and bowed to Isabella, got 4 ships, 4 made it and the rest is history. around 400 years later a Spanish delegation came to the world's fair in Chicago and drank and ate too much. this was before the invention of ATM and they needed money. so some dude name Elsworth bought the cross they brought to present in the fair , Spaniard were happy, probably till they got home and who knows what happened to them from losing such an artifact. but the cross made it's way to Hudson.
I learned all this in the historical society by a librarian who was very talkative and the 1st task in the race was to answer 10 questions about Hudson and its history. the racers ran around town, tracked some info signs with answers and asked the locals. this activity took people 45 minutes to an hour on a cold snowy day. after that i send them to Hudson springs which is nice park with a big lake and an island in the middle for 3 tasks.
one was disk golf, 3 holed under 10 shots, then , one team member was blindfolded (or in my version, close your eyes) and using snow balls, needed to hit 3 targets while directed by the other team members. the problem was that the snow was dry (yes dry frozen water!!!) , and didn't pack well, which made this task harder. the last task was suppose to be building a snow man, but given dry snow problem, i had participants use every slide in the park (there are lots of slides...its fun to see grown ups enjoying them selves in the snow) and surround the lake (3.2 k loop).
as i said it was a cold day, but the main problem was not enough travel, previous events were in multiple locations, this one only in two. the next one will be better, not sure when since i was too busy to even think about it.
Last week, my racer turned 29 once more and i was planning a tubing party - a nice cold event, but this is the warmest winter in a while (warm meaning you only partially freeze to death), but the snow doesn't stick on the ground, so my tubing event was cancelled on Friday after noon, about 26 hours before the party. lucky Alla was working the next day and i was looking for alternatives.
Heater seeky is an event organiser for the Solon bowling which holds nice events, i call around 5 and heather is in an event, i leave message (you know how i hate to leave messages) but this is important and last minute so i do., i call back at 6, heather a.k.a party girl is still in an event and will check her messages later, they promise, again at 7, 8, and 9, i am still optimistic at around 10, but don't worry, the party is not over. at 11, the party is over and party girl is home for the weekend and no body else can arrange an event. recession! give me a break, now i stopped seeking for ms seaki and moved on to other bowling places which are all full!!! not a Lane in sight. a similar story occurred to me with the other ski place, but finally they answered, it was so expensive!!. so with little time we decided on a house party. Lucky Alla's sisters help with some food tray, cakes and snack.
all I had to do is get the house ready, decorate, buy decorations, blow up balloons, finish the movie and make a birthday cake (well i didn't have to do the cake but I wanted too) and since I have no real baking experience, this was a challenge. but it turned out to be easy...just follow the instructions. but the point was not to make just a cake but to make a dolphin cake. so from 2 square cakes came a marvelous dolphin (more like a shark really) looking cake.
I blew lots of balloons and felt my lungs go way t empty, got supplies, chairs, a gift, and some how managed to play tennis.
6:30 came and it was party time, everyone came on time , which is rare drank some wine and hit, the kids on Alla watch kept triggering a false ALLArrm
and finally Alla made it home and was surprised by everyone. we enjoyed good pizzas, snacks, wine and more pizza with the usual many Russian toasts. Rita Arranged a nice game in which people had to to guess 18 questions and match to whatever Alla though about herself.
after much socializing we played my game, of charades based on small events from Alla's life. i asked people for stories. the funniest was when Alla returned from camp very hungry at age 2!, took a loaf a bread and wouldn't let it go, even going to sleep with the loaf of bread!!
the party went well and if you hit this link https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0ARvzQb4TEca7ZGQyNXJtajdfMWNqNXRkN3Jn
you can see some things that occurred on Alla's birthday in history and links to all the birthday greeting with the exception of 2, Dina (i did not manage to upload it yet) and my own, which was not recorded live.
this week I went to Wisconsin for some training. I am in Fitchburg, next to the capital of Madison. So far i haven't done much but work, but tomorrow i plan to visit Madison at night, I hear state street is nice so wait for photos and on Sunday to see some nature, while it relatively not snowing here, Wisconsin makes 40 states and a nice travel opening for the new year. still not counted since i have done nothing of value (travel wise) but it will change soon.
so that is it for now, promise try to try to write more
cheers from the cheese state
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