365-2 | Peaches Prattlings

{June 16, 2014} Chicago: Day 2. Didn’t think I could keep going did you?

The day started leisurely again, woke up when my body said so.

I missed breakfast in the lounge, but it was all good, I showered, got dressed and headed out. I’m going to brag, but I looked adorable in one of my new dresses from Old Navy and new white skips, I felt very summery. I stopped at Jamba Juice for a Tropical Greens drink and it was yummy! Green goodness to start the day right!

I walked up Michigan Avenue heading towards the John Hancock Building to see the 360 view from the top. I knew I was in no rush, so I took my time and walked in and out of some stores, some that I hadn’t been in a long time, picked up a few things here and there and kept on walking. This part of Michigan Avenue is where the shopping is at! Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstroms, just to name a few.

I went into a few museums, like the McCormick Bridgehouse and Chicago River Museum. http://www.chicagoriver.org/get-involved/attend/mccormick-bridgehouse-chicago-river-museum. It was very cool to be able to walk to the top to get a view of the river and to learn about the workings of the bridges and how the city has worked on the problems with the river water.

Along the way, I passed several pairs of seats from Wrigley Field, painted with different themes, donated by different groups, how much fun are they!

The next was a gallery, the Chicago Water Works, with some great pieces by Jason Reblando. http://www.jasonreblando.com/

I finally got to the John Hancock Building and used my ticket from my new friends last night to go to the top. It was quite a view! Amazing how many rooftop gardens and pools there are! And the beaches along the shoreline, too cool! So many buildings, still a lot of green space, really enjoyable to see. http://www.360chicago.com/

While I was there, I paid a few extra dollars to stand on a platform, hold the handles and look out and down while you are tilted forward, looking 1000 feet down. It was quite the experience, only eight people at a time. I recommend it! http://www.360chicago.com/tilt/

Check out the Lego rendition of the John Hancock Building, very cool!

As I was walking back, I found a sweet little church courtyard I went in and had a seat and enjoyed myself for a while, thinking about everything and nothing. The nice and interesting thing is while you are sitting there, in this beautifully tranquil courtyard and look up, you see the buildings of the city, reminding you of where you are.

On the way back, I passed The Chicago Tribune building, which was founded in 1847. Look at where some of the bricks that are part of the building were brought from!

I went back to the hotel for a much needed rest to the feet [don’t tell my podiatrist what I have been doing to my feet for the sake of looking cute!], phone and person re-charge.

I headed out after six for Grant Park and the Blues Festival again for Aaron Neville and Dr John! Fantastic!

Check out the nod by the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Building to the World Cup!

I can’t wait to see what adventures tomorrow will bring!

{June 14, 2014} What a day! Chicago done me right!

Today was a great day! I will tell you all about the hotel another time, I have to tell you all I did and it was a full day!

I slept in, in my fabulously comfortable bed, blinds drawn, it was yummy. I leisurely got up about 9:30 and realized I was hungry, so i got dressed and headed to the lounge area to get some breakfast. After breakfast, it was back to the room to shower and dress, then submit my time and expenses. Done.

I had my list of suggestions from people on what to do while I am in Chicago. I put on my walking shoes and headed out the door, stopping at the Concierge desk to ask suggestions and directions.

Turn right towards Michigan Avenue, then left. I found ‘The Towers’, two glass brick towers that have a face on one side and water coming from the top, very interesting. Lots of kids loving playing in the water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Fountain.

Then into Millenium Park to see ‘The Bean’, this was very interesting, made up of stainless steel plates, no seam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Gate

Through the park to walk to Grant Park for the 31st annual Blues Festival. That was a lot of fun, I didn’t even know it was going to be here! Lot’s of great music and food and music and more music, fantastic. Got a little sun today. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Blues_Festival

After the festival, I headed right until I got to the water and turned left toward Navy Pier, I’ve heard of it and seen it in movies and on tv, but now I got to go! They have shopping, dining and rides, including the giant Ferris wheel, which you know I took. It was about eight minutes and well worth the trip, for the view! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Pier

Next, I headed in the direction of the hotel, stopped for lunch and completed my journey back to the hotel to charge my phone and my internal batteries. A nice dip in the pool and hot tub, shower and I was rejuvenated.

At 8pm, I headed out for my last activity of the day, an architectural river cruise, with fireworks at the end. It was terrific! Our guide knew his stuff and had opinions on a lot of things and was very entertaining. We learned a lot and laughed a lot! We saw one of the buildings they used in Transformers 3, several locations that were used in the Batman with Joker movie, very cool. http://www.architecture.org/rivercruise

While I was waiting for the trip, I talked to the two women in front of me. One was from Madison, WI and the other was from Boston, what are the odds? We sat on the boat together and chatted and had a nice time. They even gave me a ticket for the John Hancock Building, might be using that tomorrow!

Right now, I am beat, it’s time for lights out!

{June 13, 2014} Taking Amtrak to…

I have a few days off after working 12-14 hour days over the past week and it is most welcome!

With this much time off I decided to take myself to Chicago! I’ve been a few times for work and an interview, but never for pleasure so I think it’s time.

Chicago is about 4 hours from Ann Arbor and after three hours sleep and twelve hours of work, who wants to drive? Yeah, not me.

I looked at flights and then I remembered Amtrak! KS and I have passed the station many times and we’ve talked about taking a trip and train travel. It always makes me nostalgic for when I was a kid and my grandma M, my dad’s mom, would Come to NYC, meet my family at Penn station and she and I would get on Amtrak and head to Philadelphia.

It was always so much fun- being on the train, going to the snack car, all of it, and I thought this would be like that, not so much.

Now, I did take the train from Buffalo to NYC when I was in college, to go home, but it’s been a long time and I was worth friends.

It’s incredibly reasonable. The roundtrip ticket was less expensive than what I would pay for parking at the hotel, if that tells you anything. Someone else gets to drive and I just sit back and relax.

Or so I thought.

There are three sections- Coach, business and quiet. Business is what it sounds like, get some work done the quiet car is just that, quiet, no talking, no cell phones and music or movies with headphones only. Guess where I am…

Let’s just say going back will be Business or the quiet car. No talking, mouthing off, obscenities, especially with kids on the train, drunks, showing off, screaming kids, parents screaming at their kids, so happy to have headphones!

I also forgot how much the train cars shake. It’s definitely been an experience and I’ve enjoyed it, no matter what the trip and fellow passengers have been like, watching the scenery go by while the sun was still up.

I have a feeling the hotel will make up for all of that. Tell you more tomorrow!

{June 12, 2014} Mmmmm cookies!

Have I told you about Insomnia Cookies?

This is a great establishment! It is a small storefront in Ann Arbor that sells three things: Warm cookies, ice cream and milk. Ok, there may have been water, so that makes it four, but three main things!

The best part is the warming tray under the counter! When you order a cookie or cookies, as you should, they pull out the warming tray to give you the cookies, Y U M! They have 10 flavors of ice cream and regular, chocolate and strawberry milk, what could be better?

To top it all off? They deliver until THREE AM!!! And guess how far they deliver, yup, out by the hotel, but to date, I have not placed an order. Could you imagine having a craving and 30 minutes later having warm cookies and milk delivered. Genius!

Tonight, after dinner, KS, KNOB and I went to Insomnia Cookie and got ourselves a treat. The peanut butter cup cookie, oh my! was warm and gooey and took me about 30 minutes to eat! i couldn’t eat it all at once! I now have two white chocolate chunk macadamia nut cookies to share tomorrow!

oh my!

https://insomniacookies.com/

{June 12, 2014} Nananananananan….

Please tell me you knew what that was from!

I just turned on the TV and it was on and you knew I had to watch! DCM and i la la la love this movie and one time watched the behind the scenes documentary and it was something, the things we learned about the cast and production. Isn’t this one of those movies you just have to watch when it comes on?

I’ll give you a few more quotes and if you didn’t know what it was, you might or I’ll just tell you, at the end of course!

Al Czervik: Oh, this your wife, huh? A lovely lady. Hey baby, you must’ve been something before electricity.

Ty Webb: Don’t be obsessed with your desires Danny. The Zen philosopher, Basho, once wrote, ‘A flute with no holes, is not a flute. A donut with no hole, is a Danish.’ He was a funny guy.

“This calls for the old Billy Baroue, oh Billy Billy Billy Billy”

Ty Webb: You take drugs, Danny?
Danny Noonan: Every day.
Ty Webb: Good. Then what’s your problem?
Danny Noonan: I don’t know.

Carl Spackler: Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac… It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!

Ty Webb: I’m going to give you a little advice. There’s a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball.

Ty Webb: Just be the ball, be the ball, be the ball. You’re not being the ball Danny.
Danny Noonan: It’s hard when you’re talking like that.

Please tell me you finally got that it was Caddyshack!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O7YGQjMKNQE

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080487/?ref_=nv_sr_1

{June 10, 2014} I signed up for what?

The Star Wars Rebel Challenge!

This is an inaugural race for Disneyland and I’m in on it! Every so often Disney, either land or world launch new races. I have participated in two so far, the Everest Challenge, which was a 5k scavenger hunt that was at night and went through Animal Kingdom. It was fun, we started in the parking lot and headed into the park and a few times they had signs that said “Quiet, the animals are sleeping”.

The next race was the Disney Enchanted 10k, this was part of an inaugural race series as well, there was a 10k and half marathon that made up the Glass Slipper challenge. This one started way too early in the morning, what was i thinking? I know I told you about that one.

Well, there was a Marvel Super Hero run that i saw and didn’t sign up for this year, but when this Star Wars Rebel Challenge came up, I so had to get in on it! I had decided that I wanted to do another half marathon at some point and get in on a Disney one at that and how could I turn down this opportunity!

I am going to be running the 10k on Saturday, way too early and the Half Marathon on Sunday, way to early, but I’m going to do it! And…then I will find another half marathon because…if you do two half marathons in one year, one at Disneyworld and one at Disneyland, you get a coast to coast medal! The more bling the better!

I am also going to start training because what I really want to do is run the entire thing! I am going to do my best and I know I will finish, but what I really want to do is run the entire thing! That’s been a goal of mine for a while, to run a full 5k, so i am going to start small and get that accomplished and move on to the next and bigger and better.

I will be telling you more and more about it as I make my journey! Thanks for always being my support

http://www.rundisney.com/star-wars-half-marathon/

{June 9, 2014} It’s definitely spring…drive slow around a lake!

The hotel I am at is on Briarwood Circle and part of the road has a little lake, right near the hotel.

As anyone knows when your office is near some water or maybe your apartment complex or your home, you know spring brings new life. New growth on trees, new flowers and new two legged fuzzy things, so cute!

And, as you also have experienced, the geese, more than the ducks, will just walk across, doesn’t matter when and they saunter or waddle and you can just wait for them because they will not move out of the way or any faster!

I was coming back from my walk and as I turned the corner, I saw two families of geese, one with wee babies and another with teenagers! It’s great to see how they function together and follow their parents.

Happy Spring and good luck crossing the road!

{June 8, 2014} I slept…ahhhh

What a nice feeling! I slept for eight whole hours in a row!

As you know, I sleep about 4, maybe six hours a night, if I’m lucky. When I’m tired, I will catch up and today was one of those days.

So, you know that last night, I worked from 4pam-6am, tonight I’m on 6pm-6am. After my shift “yesterday” [until I go to sleep, it’s still technically the day before, to me] I got back to the hotel about 7, taked to Debra and Sean at the front desk, told them I was going to pass out and headed upstairs.

I got into the room,put the ‘Do Not Disturb” sign on the door!, set the alarm for 4pm, submitted my time for the week, took a quick shower to rinse the day away, got into some comfy jammies, closed the blinds and put a towel on the air conditioning unit so it would block out the light between the curtain and the unit, it was now about 7:30. Then I pulled back the covers, climbed into bed, pulled the covers up and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I woke up about 12:30pm, looked at the clock and said, no thank you! rolled over and began watching my eyelids again. It was about 3:30pm that I liesurely opened my eyes, looked at the time, stretched and smiled. I felt GREAT! Sleeping until my body said it was time to get up. I was refreshed and ready to greet the day!

Guess what I’m going to do at 6am Monday? The same thing!!!

Bottom line…don’t wake me before it’s time!

{June 7, 2014} The night shift…

Is rough, just saying.

For those of you who work the night shift and it’s your life, more power to ya! It’s not for me. Let me ‘splain.

As you know I am in Michigan on a project and Train-The-Trainer, or T3 for those ‘in the know’ is complete, train the end user is complete, of course there will be some new hire training and people who might have missed, maybe they were on vacation or out sick.

Now…it’s time for Go-Live! Flip the switch and it’s magic, new application.

Go-live started at 3am this morning, which was just before I was falling asleep last night, I was not due to be here until 4pm, and here I am, 4pam-6am, just at three hours left to my shift.

I normally work during the day, so overnight is not always the easiest when you’re not used to it. If you’ve been working nights, once you get used to it, you’re golden, but if you’re not…

I’ve done go-live implementations before and after a while you get used to the crazy hours, hospitals being 24/7. Today, you know I’m on 4p-6a, tomorrow, 6p-6a and then next week I’m on 6a-6p. I would rather be on the 6a-6p schedule, when we teach classes they are generally 7a-4p, you have to be there at 6a to prep for the class, so not a far stretch.

As we know, I have a bit of insomnia, so I am usually falling asleep somewhere between 2 and 4am, and since I’m nocturnal, it’s not too bad this overnight stuff, but the first time is a doozie, I don’t have the option of falling asleep if I want to.

It’s all good, soon I will go to the hotel, close the curtains tight, crawl under the covers and zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

If anyone even thinks about trying to wake me too soon…

{June 7, 2014} Go Tigers!

Have you noticed that foods you could make at home or buy for next to nothing at the grocery store, we will pay exorbitant amounts for at a sporting event and it tastes that much better?

Tonight, KS took me to a Detroit Tigers game, they wiped up by beating the Boston Red Sox! And as my dad says “My two favorite teams are the NY Yankees and anyone who beats the Red Sox!”

I’m not a sports fanatic, KS is the sports nut, but I enjoy going to the game, being around the people, the fans, the energy in the stadium, the excitement when the home team scores.

It was a lot of being at the game, people watching, the plays, sights and sounds.

And after the game…A fireworks show!

Go Tigers!

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