June 21

I was thinking about uniforms today, why you ask?  Because the Rays released a picture of their new "retro" uniform and I was stunned at the sheer "wow" of it..  I like colored uniforms but only when the color does not feel like a slap in the face.  This new uniform looks like someone took the old Padres uniform pattern and changed the color scheme from brown and yellow to blue and horrid blue, and and yellow..  The only good thing I can say is that I do like the logo on the hat.  It is a "tb" with a sun in the b.  Anyway, without further ado.. 

I wonder if they are trying to compete with the Marlins for worst uniform of the year...  I was looking over some more of the "special" uniforms for 2012.  Apparently someone decided the A's should wear this PoS for a game or two this year?

"oaks"?  Yo' dawg I'm going to see the Oaks..  I guess this one can market well to little leagues?

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Last night I went to Mullen's sports bar to watch the Mets game.  I had a "Pittsburgh" steak and cheese.  It was chopped steak with mushrooms and provolone served with au jus like a french dip.  It was very tasty, I got chips with it instead of fries and just had a few of them to make sure I could stay under my points for the day.  Even with two beers (Oberon's Bells) I finished the day at 1379 calories.  Oberon's Bells is a summer ale but with hops.  Think maybe a hoppy version of blue moon, it had a citrus undertone with the hops overtone. 

Tonight is going to be another stay local night, I have to get up at 3am so I can get to the airport by 4 for my 6am flight.  Why do I keep booking the crazy early flights?  I think I need to remember why I don't like them..  Oh well, at least I got upgraded on both legs.

Driving to Chicago v. Taking the Train

Yesterday in class we had a discussion on how to get into downtown Chicago.  The general opinion was that driving is actually quicker than the train.  So, looking at Google Maps and the CTA schedules it looked close, maybe even favoring the car..  I decided, what the heck, I'll give it a shot.. 

If it was not for the construction I think the car would have been much faster, with the construction obstacles it took just about the same amount of time the train would have taken.  Time v. Sanity, that is the real question..  Should have taken the train, on the train I could have relaxed and just listened to my book, instead I got to drive in stop and go traffic through one construction area after another..  I will say that the trip back was much quicker.  The other downside of driving was I felt I should leave earlier because I didn't want to leave my car in the Chicago Diner lot and didn't want to pay to park.  Almost all of the street parking in that area is resident parking pass required.

Dinner was certainly tasty, I got the "southern plate" which was setain strips, mac n' cheeze, collards, black eye peas and bacun corn fritters.  See picture on Flickr.  With it I got a class of wine.  My calorie intake for dinner was 881.  That brought my total calorie intake up to 1347, minus my lunch walk brings me well under my calories for the day..  My lunch was the same yesterday and today.  I decided to get a salad and then was disgruntled when I saw how many calories dressing was, the only option - no dressing..  I ended up with spinach, mushrooms, bell peppers, baby corn and chopped up egg.  121 calorie lunch and most of that was the egg. 

I think tonight is going to be a quiet night, I am going to try to find a local sports bar and watch the game/get food. 

--Diversion of the Day

60 MPH Gusts

I told My Fitness Pal I am 150lbs and want to lose 1lb a week, it decided I need to eat 1500 Calories a day.  How did I do yesterday?  1432 Calories consumed, workout (20 minutes on elliptical and 1 set of 25 push ups) takes 204 calories off.  So, grand total was 1228 calories..  Before you ask, yes, 1 set of push ups, I'm a beast..  :P  I'm using the Hundred Push Ups ap on my phone and the first day is the "test" day to determine where in the program you should start.  Because of doing 25 I get to skip weeks 1 and 2, last time I did this the same thing happened and I got real burned out on trying week 3, hopefully I can do better this time.. 

Chicago = Windy City..  Yesterday was comically windy, apparently there were 60 MPH winds yesterday, I didn't know that till I was talking to some students before class today.  All I know is when I went out to find work out clothes I felt I was walking into a wall of wind, I swear if I jumped I would have been blown back..  Speaking of trying to get workout clothes, why is it that even workout pants sized "small" drag on the ground when I wear them?  I went to two different Dicks and Sports Authority, first problem is, apparently not many people want pants in the summer. Sports Authority and the first Dicks had no pants at all, just shorts.  The second Dicks had pants but they were all way to long (Nike, Adidas, Rebook and Under Armor), the shorts were ok but I couldn't justify spending $35+ dollars on shorts for working out.  I decided to just use one of the pairs of shorts I already had with me.  The second Dicks was in a parking lot with Whole Foods so I decided to grab dinner while I was out.  Got sushi and a Norse Legend.

Went back to the hotel, worked out, took a bath and chilled out for the evening.  Plan for tonight is to head into Wrigley Ville.  The Cubs are playing the White Sox but on the South Side so Wrigley Ville should not be super crowded tonight.  I was talking to some students who swear it's quicker to drive than to take the train?  Looking online at Google Maps I just don't believe it, depending on what time I get out I may drive but will probably just end up on the train.

--Diversion of the Day
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2012-05-01/index.html

Draper --> Lisle

Bet you thought I went away again.. Well, I guess I did but not for a long time like last time.. I'm sitting in Chicago this week monitoring another instructor to qualify him for a class.

So, last I wrote I was headed over to Park City in Utah. If you ever find yourself in Draper Utah and want to go to Park City there are two ways to get there, the highway and the "scenic route". I refer you to C.W. McCall's Black Bear Road "you don't have to be crazy to drive that road, but it helps".. Well, who's crazy? This guy... Crazy is driving Big Cottonwood Canyon Road, real crazy is driving it in a piece of shit Chevy economy car..

This road has an average grade of 7.8% with a 15% grade at some points. To say the car had issues climbing it would be an understatement, but hey, you only live once right? The total climb is 4584 feet from the bottom to the top. These numbers I am listing were not known by me *before* the drive, I looked them up afterwards. I was just told it was a beautiful ride, yeah, I was warned I might want to trade my rental in for a 4 wheel drive, but..

I was enjoying the scenery until the rock slide that passed just behind my car, I had the windows open (cause it was early on in the trip and hadn't hit the high altitude temperature drop yet) and heard the "whooshing/grumbling" sound of the rocks and got to see them up close as they past right behind the car. Now I was on high alert and not so much enjoying the views, but on a mission to "conquer" the road. Past the "if light if blinking do not attempt this road without 4 wheel drive" sign, it was not blinking so I continued. Then hit the snow and ice part of the journey, the temperature drop was over 40 degrees, then past the snow? Am I so high I am past the ability to snow? Oh my... Finally as I crest the mountain the road ends!?! Well, the "road" continues as a dirt path down the mountain, no up in the north east a "dirt road" is a much different thing than it is in the mountains. In the east a dirt road is mostly hard pounded dirt/mud/gravel. Up here it was loose sand and rock, the car was fish tailing all over the place and I had to ride the brakes to stay under 15 miles per hour. Two hands on the wheel, foot on the break and thinking I was going to fly off the cliff.. Oh, right, I didn't mention the fact that the entire drive there was a cliff face on the right of the car and NO railings anywhere! Finally made it down and hit the pub for a much needed drink.

After stopping at the pub I went over to Main St for dinner, walked around a bit and I have to admit it is a very pretty area. It's one of those areas that forces the chains to tone down their big signs/big colors/recognizable logos. On one hand I like when places do that because it makes the landscape look more "natural" but in the same respect it's sorta like a freedom of speech issue isn't it?
Well, I went to the place the guys at work recommended. The Elk was good, but the sides were over spiced and it was WAY over priced. Oh well.. Worth the trip anyway.. Off to the fire bar, it was not open yet and I was getting tired so I figured I'd head back to the hotel and check that out next time I'm in Utah.

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Spent the last two weeks at home, I suppose I have lots to say about that, but this is not the time to go into it. I realize that every time I start to think about blogging about "home life" I go into hiding, so in order to keep this blog active I have decided to keep "home life" out of it. For now I will continue to entertain you with my travel and culinary treats and ask that you forgive me for not talking about home life.

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So, I started off by talking about being here in Chicago, the flights here were ok. The flight from Hartford to Detroit was good, got upgraded again.. :) We were supposed to board at 3:40, but the arriving flight didn't land till 3:58, even though we boarded late we still managed to take off on time and even landed early. In Detroit however we didn't have such luck, didn't get upgraded, pilot didn't show up on time, missed our take off window and had to sit on the runway in the closed off plane for over an hour. Finally got to Chicago, got my car and headed to hotel. So hungry.. Crap, only thing open is McDonalds.. Ahh, when is eating at McDonalds the right answer? That's a question I was just talking to Lynz about while in the airport in Hartford. The other option is going to a gas station and getting something, drove around for a bit but gave up and got fries..

Speaking of fries, my fat ass is having an issue fitting into my pants, I think it was just a few months ago when I was feeling real proud that I could fit into my old work pants, then something happened.. Not only can I NOT fit into those pants anymore, I can barely fit into my jeans either. I have two pairs of work pants that "fit" if I suck in my gut before buttoning.. Time for fat ass to get back to the gym and to start counting calories again.. At the time of this blog I'm at 151 lbs, I want to get back down to 130-135 but I am not really a big "number" person for weight, the goal is to get my gut to go away. I signed up for myfitnesspal, if you're on there send me your ID so we can be friends on there. I also am going to start doing push ups again, yeah, I know, I've said that before.. But this time I downloaded the app for the phone so it will pester me if I don't do it.

Plan for tonight? Go get some workout clothes, hit the gym at the hotel. Go find something healthy for dinner.. Depending on time line I might go to the Chicago Diner, if not I'll have to find something more local..

-- Diversion of the Day

Utah 2

Apparently my Flickr add-on for my blog no longer works.  I need to investigate that..  I posted over 100 pics to flickr this month so if you haven't been over there you should check it out.  My new phone (Droid 3) can send pictures directly to Flickr so now I don't need to go through the copy to PC process.. 

Back to our regularly (or semi-regularly) scheduled program.. 

Wednesday night after work I spent a few hours looking at online D&D tools before going out for dinner..  Quick tip, don't wait till 8:30 to get dinner in Lehi Utah!  I went to Cabella's because they are open till 9 and the restaurant actually looked pretty good, unfortunately the restaurant is NOT open till 9, they were closed when I got there a little after 8:30.  I decided I need some come of utility device to open bottles (beer and wine) so I decided to look around while I was there since I figured they would have some kind of little camping tool.  They did, but man are they expensive there.  Maybe I need a little Swiss Army Knife, I used to have one but lost it a long time ago, the cheapest thing I found at Cabella's was $50 and I'm not willing to spend that much on it.. I will probably end up buying a little waiter bottle opener at Stop and Shop for a few bucks when I get home.  Now it's about 8:45 so I decide to just go get some Subway, hmm, those closed at 7pm?!  Onto sushi again?  Again you may be asking?  Monday night I got sushi at a place called Koi in Lehi, it was ok..  Well I went over to Koi and it's also closed...  Hrmph..  Running out of options I ended up at a fast food place called JCW, the food was surprisingly good, or maybe I was hungry..  Don't know...  Quote of the night while talking to Lynz about what NOT to say to a Mormon when they ask what comes after life..  "You get reincarnated based on how much of a douche you are, or are not, in this life".  The correct/political answer is of course "I don't worry about what comes after, when I get there I'll figure it out"..  :D

Thursday after class I went into Salt Lake City proper, I parked in a central area and set off on foot with Yelp and Happy Cow as my guides.  Happy Cow was no help, which I guess is not a big surprise and Yelp led me to a brewery called Epic.  It was 5 blocks south and 1 block east of where I parked so I set off.  FYI - Salt Lake City has BIG blocks!  It took about 30 minutes to walk south and as I was walking the area started getting real bad, if it was dark I would not have been walking in that area.  Got to Epic and found out that you can't buy beer there unless you take it to go.  They do offer tastings, but not right now..  So, back to the north..  Went to a bar near my car called Murphy's Irish Bar..  Yes, there is one in every city..  :)  In Salt Lake City all bars need to be under street level in order to serve beer over 4%, so a few steps down I found a selection of wonderful micro brews including a few by Epic..  Asked the barkeep what the best IPA was and she recommended Elephino Double IPA made by Red Rock Brewery in Salt Lake City.  This beer was amazing, I would put it on par with the Maha..

Off to dinner..  I ended up an old polygamist "compound", I don't really know what else to call it.  It had a large main building / mill house and 11 little houses on the land.  It was built for a husband and his 11 wives back in the late 1800s.  Now all the houses were little stores, sewing shops, candy shops, toy store, etc and the main building is a restaurant called Archibalds after the guy who built it all.  I got a steak with shrimp and spinach in it and with sausage gravy over it!  Might not be healthy, but man was it good!

Tonight I'm going to hit Park City, I got a few suggestions from students so it should be a fun night.  Plan - get a beer at the local Park City brewery (yes, it serves it's beer on premise unlike Epic), get an Elk Steak and head over to a fire bar.  Can't stay out too late since I have to leave my hotel at 4am to get my 6am flight..  Sleep is for the weak right?   

-Diversion of the Day