Monday, June 28

Dizzy from all this Spinning

Borrowed the title from a Dave Matthews song - hope he doesn't mind. But it's pretty accurate, since one week from this very moment I expect to be pulling the 'ol Mazda into North Platte, NE at the conclusion of MSP-SFO: Day 1. In case you were dying to know, the plan is to end up in Salt Lake City after Day 2, and finish up at the San Francisco airport on the 3rd and final leg of the journey. I'll be flying solo on this mission, which means that if you read this you should call me - and call often.

Susan and I had a nice dinner last night with Wade & Ali at Wildfire in Eden Prarie. I mentioned it on the way home, but it truly is a lot of fun to go out with them - especially when they bring $100 worth of gift certificates with them :) I did a "jazzy reds" wine flight, which included:

• Beaulieu Costal Pinot Noir - this was my favorite
  
• Heritage Road Shiraz - I've never met an Austrialian wine I didn't like
  
• Kempton Clark "MAD Zin" - This was OK but I'm beginning to realize that I'm not much of a zinfandel fanatic
  
• Ravenswood Lodi Zinfandel - Being from Lodi was the most exciting part of this one
  

Now I'm the type of person who "likes" most things he tries, but by far the most disappointing beverage of the evening was the bottle of Chilean Tarapaca Merlot that we bought. Since Wade is so cultured, he did us the courtesy of translating Tarapaca to it's Chilean origin of "llama poop."

It was also great to see Rich back at home after his surgery yesterday. It is completely unreal to me the he can be home 6 days after going through such a major surgery, and I know I speak for everyone I know in wishing him a continued return to full health.

After work today, I was unsuccessful in convincing the 33diots at US Bank that I should be able to get cash from my Corporate Relocation Card without paying 2.9% cash advance fees. I let out my frustration by visiting the gorgeous Ridgedale Library and picking up a coupla audio books for my upcoming trip:

• Black Boy by Richard Wright
  
• The Jester by James Patterson
  

These are, of course, on top of the Harry Potter CD's that iTunes is currently ripping at a furious pace - thanks to Becca and Daniel for those. I certainly will have no shortage of things to listen to during the trip, what with all your phone calls and such.

Good thing my Dad just added roaming service to our Sprint PCS plan, since the digital coverage along my journey leaves quite a bit to be desired. I'll be pretty good from the Twin Cities down through Des Moines and into Lincoln, but then comes about 880 miles without service save a precious few seconds in Cheyenne. Salt Lake City seems to be well covered, but then another big gap until Reno, where the signal is rock solid through to the Bay Area.

I went a little nuts with the links this time - my bad.

Now Playing: Jason Mraz - Waiting for my Rocket to Come

posted by Brad at 6/28/2004 08:11:00 PM | permalink | 1 comments

1 Comments:

• You and Susan are both busy people!! I hope that you will have the opportunity to join us for dinner on Friday night at Mom and Dad's for a homecooked meal of green salad, chicken parmesan and crusty french bread. Are you game? If you want to see book 3 of Harry Potter you'll have to see us eventually.
  Rebecca

  By  Anonymous, at 6/30/2004 7:38 AM