Start Spreadin' the News...

Saturday was a fun day for me. After Erin finished an early morning meeting at work, and we went to Panera for some breakfast, we got ready and headed to Bloomington for some shopping and a chance to see the nieces and family. The shopping goals of the day were to: 1) Look for lamps for our bedroom 2) Buy some new shoes and a new shirt for Paul (more on why later), and 3) Look at trumpet cases (I just bought a trumpet on eBay and while it's in great condition, it needs a new case). We were successful in 1 out of 3 - got the shoes and shirt. IKEA was very disappointing in terms of lamps, and the music stores we went to had very few cases, so it looks like I'll be going online.

Seeing the nieces and family was fun though - we actually all met at the Mall of America on a Saturday - no small feat - and Keagann and dad went on the rides she was tall enough to go on, while (sister) Erin, (boyfriend) Erin, and I entertained Laynie, who seems to be VERY content baby these days. Our original plan was to go to dinner at Tucci Benucci, but by the time we all go there and got through all the rides Keagann wanted to go on, the wait was 1 1/2 hours, so we chose the food court and pick your own food instead. Being daylight savings weekend, we wanted to get home early as Erin had an early shift at work.

The reason for the need for a the new shoes and shirt is that late Thursday afternoon, I found out I was going to New York this week for a joint technical conference, at the IBM Hawthorne site. I've worked with the team in Hawthorne for 2 years now, and have never been there, and the Rochester team manager was still looking for a person to go this week and of course I jumped at the chance. I'll be there Monday afternoon-Thursday night - and I should have at least one night where I'm able to venture into the city. I'll be reporting back on my trip when I get home, but today I'm getting everything washed and packed and ready to go.

Miscellaneous Updates

Four weeks into trumpet lessons, and I'm making fairly good progress - and now I have what I think is a better trumpet so we'll see how that goes. Starting into "Death Star" the book - haven't read a Star Wars book in quite awhile, so hopefully it's good. New Year's resolution progress - well, I'm doing well on 3 out of 10, so not so bad. Erin and I are really hitting the "Go GREEN" one pretty hard - cutting down on all sorts of plastic bags, second recycling bin, hang-drying our clothes, chemical-free detergents, shampoos, soaps, etc.