Golf

Relays, Utility Poles and Teamwork


Yesterday was a first. I did my 1st relay race since I started running. The Mt. Si relay is something that Coach Lesley participates in annually, so I figured I would give it a shot. I was a little nervous going in not because of the miles or the legs that Lesley had signed me up for, but wasn't sure how my body was going to respond in between legs and the 2nd leg I was slated to run.
The deal with this relay is that you have teams of 5 people, and you are assigned 2 legs for a total of 10 legs. If you run leg 1, you get leg 6. If you run leg 2, you get leg 7 – BTW, the 2 and 7 legs were by far the toughest legs combined. OK. I was assigned leg 5, which meant I also got the anchor leg. No pressure, right? Well leg 5 looked pretty tough given that it went up 500 ft. over 6 miles (most of the climb actually happened in the 1st mile). The thing with relays is that you are there from beginning to end and you don't just show up for your leg (unless you are a last minute fill-in, which we needed on the other Coach Lesley team) so it's a long day.
Given that there was some elevation involved and the weather is frisky in terms of it could always go one way or the other, I spent about an hour just packing for the race on Saturday night. I took less on a recent trip to SF than I did for this race!! You need 2 sets of racing gear so you are not sitting in soaking wet clothes for the 3+ hours in between your legs plus food, sports drinks, lotion, Purell, etc.
Alarm went off at 4:45am and then a 45-minute drive out to Snoqualmie for the meet-up, etc. With the race starting at 6:30am, we needed about 45 minutes to get checked-in and get the cars loaded up the right way so certain things were more accessible than other items. Carol was in charge of all of this. Now the other thing that had to be managed that with a 6:30am race time and our expected pace, I wasn't expected to start until about 10:30am. Once the 3rd leg started, I figured I would be good to eat. Morning progressed and at the start of the 4th leg, I noticed it was cooler than expected, so I decided to switch to a turtleneck.
About 10 minutes before I think Libby (leg 4/9 owner) is going to finish, I get out of the car to start warming-up, and as luck would have it, the sun starts to come out and it feels about 7 degrees warmer. Unfortunately I don't have time to change back into the other shirt, so I am a bit overdressed as Libby comes in strong to hand things off to me.
I knew my leg was predominantly uphill, so I just tried to keep it slow and steady. My Garmin was losing its signal in the trees so it was hard for me to know what pace I was really going. All I knew is that the bulk of the uphill was in the 1st mile and a quarter of the leg, so when I saw the marshall at the top and she told me the worst was behind me, I was psyched. It was still overall uphill, but way more gradual (or so it seemed – it is all relative). I was wrapping up mile 5 on what ended up being a very pretty trail when I saw some more marshalls pointing me in a sharp right direction and upwards. So stopped short and just walked up some uneven stairs and then had the last mile and a half to go on the main road.
I was getting tired at this stage because I was running pretty hard – my pace also slowed up a bit. I just wanted the leg to be done so I had to resort to the unthinkable. That's right – started counting utility poles. Seemed like every utility pole was 1/10th of a mile. Told myself to only check my watch to see remaining distance every 2nd pole and sure enough, I hit the very quick downhill for the last 1/10th of a mile. Hand off to Dana and all important cool down after a tough run of 56:46 in 6.4 miles (8:54 pace).
As I was cooling down (thanks to Mike L. for the tips), I was thinking about the pace and was pretty pleased with the effort. I knew I was tired, but I just wanted to run a little before we headed to the next exchange. In the time I was gone, Dana found the radio station broadcasting the Masters and Marc started texting me play-by-play updates about the golf and the Yankees. All good. We get to the next exchange, I change and get a chance to stretch for 10 minutes. Ahh…..
About an hour later, I eat again and am very content cheering on my friends, listening to the Masters and getting text updates from Marc. We're all just making sure that we're eating enough and properly stretching between legs. The weather is good, so not much to complain about. Right before my 2nd leg, we had a little communication mix-up, so I got to the start of my leg in the nick of time for me to start my leg at around 2:40pm. I'll admit that with the last minute rushing around plus me having the last leg that I was pretty amped up.
Libby comes in with a super strong pace again and I was off. About 5 minutes in, I felt side stitches coming on and thought "WTH? Why do I have these?" Then I looked at my watch and saw a pace of 7:50/mile on the watch. Oops – better bring it back a few pips. So I settled in and tried hard to stay focused with a goal of finishing strong. The last portion of my next race is going to have a long flat bit at the end so I needed to stay mentally in the game. Cheesy, but true.
I make the turn to the school (finish line) and it was one of those finish lines that had a roundabout way of finishing, which is really ****ing annoying when you think you are almost done. I finish and was pretty happy with my overall time as the pace I kept was better than any time I had ever done around Greenlake (similarly flat). I was beat.
Had a great dinner with Marc – chicken poached in red wine with some flageolets and charmoula. Had a chopped salad with some tarragon. He decided to uncork a 2005 Foradori from the fine folks from Italian Wine Merchants. After that, the bottom half of my body was pretty weak so after a re-cap with Lesley, an ice bath, some Masters and Yankees highlights (yes, I was also very happy about both outcomes), my bed was waiting. But a good day in many respects.
One of my running friends in the Northeast wanted to get my take on my 1st relay, so here it is – I had a fun time and it was with a good group of people. But it's a long day (almost 12 hours from when I woke up to when I got back home) and on a Sunday, it's a bit much if I have a full work week ahead. Now if it was on a Saturday… that would have been great. To compare – even when I run a ½ marathon, I am done by 10am at the latest depending on the start time so I have time to relax and even do some things in the afternoon.
That said, I am glad that I tried it out – we ended up having great weather and a lot of people surprised themselves with excellent times on the course, so congrats to all of them for a great effort! Special congrats to Lesley for running with a client in the ultramarathon and then crewing 2 teams of clients. Uh hello superwoman!

1:59:27 – I bent but did not break


Yep, that's my new PR (personal record) for a ½ marathon. It happened on what is known by many to be a really tough race – the Seattle ½ Marathon – for a few reasons:
  • The toughest hills are in the 2nd half of the course.
  • The weather in Seattle at the end of November tends to suck. In 2006, it was borderline icy.
  • The organization of the race is something that runners continuously complain about (i.e., running out of water at some of the stops, having to climb a boatload of steps to get your clothes at the end of the race).
  • Generally you have a few extra pounds on you from Thanksgiving.
When most people talk about the Seattle ½ marathon (there is also a full marathon component), rarely is anything positive said about it. See above bullets. So it made absolutely no sense that I would decide to run this when I had an offer to run other races, most notably the Rock-n-Roll in Las Vegas the following week.

Given how hard the course is as well as the typical weather pattern, I was only hoping to beat my previous PR of 2:05:29. I wasn't expecting to reach a more longer-term goal of getting in under 2 hours. Seriously, it never even entered my head for this race for all of the above reasons. Plus do you know how hard it is to shave 5 ½ minutes off of a ½ marathon time? You're talking about almost 30 seconds per mile! No way.

Clearly Coach had a different plan in mind. I am a person who really thrives on preparation by driving as much of the course that I can (usually dragging along Marc) and scopes out how bad the worst hills are so I can run the equivalent ones in training. So Lesley decided to organize a run that mimicked a good 75% of the course a couple of weeks before the race.

The weather was crappy and I wasn't feeling too stellar, but I got a sense of the hills and built up some more confidence in running a decent pace in the race. The pace was set by Lesley and when she told me that I was running close to a 9:00 min/mile pace for most of the run, I was pretty happy. I was set.

Marc and I decided to golf with our good friends, JoAnna and Mary, for Thanksgiving at Bandon Dunes. We had a great time and I got to hang out with my regular caddie, Todd. Todd even took us on a preview of the new course, Old MacDonald. Unfortunately my Giants lost to Marc's Denver Broncos, which was a bummer, but the weather was awesome all around (ok, the last 3 holes in the last round were wet but that's pretty good considering the time of year).

As we were wrapping up the golf on Thursday, my knees started to ache and I wasn't sure if that hole walking the equivalent of 36 miles over 5 rounds (4 playing, 1 just watching) was too smart the week leading up to the race. Oh well, that lowered the expectations even more.

Awhile back, my friend, Michael, a very experienced runner and triathlete offered to run the race with me. Then Coach Lesley offered the services of someone who wanted to pace someone running somewhere between an 8:30 min/mile pace and a 9:30 min/mile pace. Sweet. I was really happy with what we had done a couple of weeks earlier, so I told Lesley to share with Andria whatever the "secret sauce" was in our training run. That's all I knew.
Marc, ever the supportive husband, gets up before dawn to drive the 3 of us to the start, and we're psyched that it's not really raining and it's not that cold. Gun goes off and we're running. Mile 3 was kind of a long, slow slog up on to the freeway, but then it was mostly downhill and flat for the next 4 miles. The 8th mile was tough and while I bent in my determination, I didn't break thanks to Andria and Michael.

Andria was focused on my pace and Michael focused on my form (no boxing movements with my arms when I run) – what a team. Got over the tough hill and headed into mile 9 which was mostly flat, and then had a steady hill for mile 10. The 1st quarter of that hill was the worst and then it was fine. Michael was reminding me that we were on pace for sub 2 hours, but I wasn't ready to talk about that as I had bonked in the past.

Another bump before we crossed over the freeway at around the end of mile 12 was tough (another bending moment), but then I had another ½ mile to recover before the last stretch. I saw Marc again and I was just absolutely gassed. The last hill, while not that steep, was so tough at the end. Another Coach Lesley runner saw me (we never met but he saw my shirt!) and kept encouraging me, too!

I'm telling you – between Marty (my new friend), Andria and Michael, I think they did everything they could to get me to the stadium (finish line location) other than physically pushing me. I got into the stadium and the clock was on 1:59, all of a sudden the fatigue didn't matter. I ran as hard as I could to get in under 2 hours and while the official clock/gun time said 2:00:03 (3 seconds over 2 hours), I knew my chip time from when I crossed the start line was under 2 hours.

It wasn't until we finished mile 10 that I realized what Coach had told Andria to do – go for under 2 hours. And never in a million years did I think I would have achieved it in this race. But I did and I'm proud of what I've done. I'm thankful for Coach, Michael, Andria, Marty and of course, Marc for providing awesome support during the race.

When I started running, I was barely able to run 3 miles outside and ran about a 12 min/mile pace (I could have run faster but that would have involved a visit to the porcelain god… not a good outcome). My pace on Sunday was just over a 9 min/pace for 13+ miles. It takes time and patience (especially if you get injuries like I did). If I can do it, so can you! And some of you know that I am talking to you! J


So there you have it – 1 hour, 59 minutes and 27 seconds. I'm now the proud owner of a sub 2 hour ½ marathon time.

The MISC Recent Travel Photos That Marc Likes


You may have read my recent posts regarding our Bordeaux and Basque trip. And you may even be eagerly awaiting Jill's recaps of the glorious food experiences. In the meantime, here are some of the misc photos that sometimes defy categorization or at least their own blog posting. We are starting here with "Wine and Golf Shop" which apparently is what you may see in rural left bank Bordeaux and you will definitely see if you golf at Relais de Margaux.
The next photo is part of the gardens of Château Kirwan.
Then we have the kettle and chefs sign for La Tupina.
The Bourse in Bordeaux and a nice shallow water feature & play area for kids.

Some ivy covering the house of Château La Gaffeliere.
*Very* large format bottles (empty displays really) of Cheval Blanc, Petrus, Mouton Rothschild, and more.
Good 2nd use of wooden wine boxes.
St Francis of Assisi statue at Château Smith Haut Lafitte.
Sundial at Château Smith Haut Lafitte.
Art at the Pompidou Center (quite possibly one of the ugliest buildings ever made) and the Eiffel Tower in the background.
Outdoor 50m pool in Orsay (they also had at least 2 indoor pools at this facility).
Doggie cake cutter not to mention the chocolate cake and cidre!
Sedimentary layers of rock thrust upward many years ago along the Basque coastline.
Just some of the gathering crowds for the boat races in San Sebastián.
The wind comb sculpture in San Sebastián.
Pac Man ghosts on a random wall outside Bilbao Guggenheim museum.
Scottish bagpipes in Bilbao. Interesting scene really.
An outdoor ping pong table in Getaria.
Festival (fiesta?) of the Foam in Samaniego in La Rioja.
A donkey above the church in Samaniego. Part of the weeklong festivities and supposedly (originally) it ate the grass growing on the roof of the structure. Seems like a fitting end to photos that don't fit elsewhere.

Winery Tours Part I: Bordeaux Left Bank


We made a trip to Bordeaux and Rioja recently and visited several Châteaus and Bodegas. 75-85% of the tours are the same but that remaining amount that differs never fails to further enlighten us about the winemaking process. I've broken these posts down by regions.

The left bank, known as the Médoc, is relatively flat with lots of gravel to retain heat. We took a tour of Château Kirwan. The tour guide was fairly incredible as he gave the tour in French, Spanish, and English which was a remarkable feat. It made for a long tour as he repeated most of what he said in French two more times (the French got more info than the rest of us). The founder was Irish and happened to get a great property (luck of the Irish) and he did something crazy by having a huge garden on the estate rather than planting more vines.


We also visited Château Giscours which is just a massive property. They have a huge polo field - I thought it could be a driving range :-). The tasting room is in what used to be the stables (it's very clean). They rent a mobile bottling line for about 3 months every year to bottle the wine and we saw one of these mobile bottling lines over near St. Emilion later in the trip. We tasted a heavy rosé but it's generally not exported. The red wine was very good. They have updated the outside of the main building, but the Dutch owner has another beautiful Château only a few miles away so he uses that as his vacation home.

Finally, we visited Château Pontet-Canet which is next door to Mouton-Rothschild. The Pontet-Canet property is beautiful and we got a tour on a golf cart. The place was very clean and they use biodynamic farming methods and a gravity fed system of filling the fermentation vats after the sorting. They are a rare left bank estate that has an underground cellar. At one point we were talking to Gwen, our tour guide, about Burgundy and Oregon and Jill asked: "Do you drink Pinot?" Gwen said: "that is an aperitif to us!"

Healdsburg – A Favorite Place of Ours

On a very recent trip to Healdsburg, Marc posed the question, "what are your top 5 favorite restaurants?" I thought for awhile because Healdsburg, while very small in size, has a plethora of great food options for people to choose from. Of course I had to ask a clarifying question around if 'favorite' just encompassed food, or if it included food and atmosphere (inc. service). We started with just food, so my list was (in no particular order):


So in the end, we both ended up with Top 4 lists. If we took service into account, Dry Creek Kitchen would drop off of the list based on our most recent experience. Unfortunately we were not able to hit Restaurant Charcuterie on this last trip, but the concierge at the Hotel Healdsburg enthusiastically recommended we try Scopa, which had just opened in the past month. For such a new place, there were surprisingly very few kinks that were noticeable by the two of us. If you are in Healdsburg, check it out as it's right on the square.

Our friend, Erik, who is the Manager/Sommelier at Daniel's Lake Union, hooked us up with a tour at Jordan Winery, which is in the Alexander Valley. The grounds at Jordan are gorgeous, and they do a number of food and wine events, so we saw the garden where they source their vegetables and herbs from. What made this tour different than other tours that we were on was that it was an "industry tour" so the questions being asked by the participants were very different than the typical customer tour. We had restaurant owners, people who worked at other wineries, buyers, etc. so Marc and I were able to learn a great deal about some of the business aspects of making wine. They do customer tours as well, but they are serious when they say you need an appointment. Marc and I biked up some serious hills on a lark on a previous visit, and we were graciously turned down when we asked to join a tour. So make an appointment because it is worth checking out. Thanks to Erik for the great experience!

Other activities on the trip included some biking around Dry Creek Valley to wineries we hadn't been to before including Bella (great wine caves and they had a dog named Mollie), Kokomo and Amphora

There is a great 'general store' in the middle of the valley called the Dry Creek General Store, which continues to make great sandwiches. Marc also found a canoeing company that allowed us to boat down the very pedestrian Russian River. That was fun except when the water was so shallow that we needed to walk the boat down the river, so no 'Captain Nemo' moments this time around. We picked up some great picnic food for the ride at the Oakville Grocery – good stuff. Marc also continued his love of skin treatments by getting a 'honey wrap' at the Spa at the Hotel Healdsburg. And of course, we needed to do some wine tasting in the Russian River Valley.

And we have no official comment on how much wine was purchased on this trip. J

Home Cooking and Sharing Recipes with Friends…

Been busy on the cooking front this past week. With the holidays rapidly approaching and being lucky that I got most of my shopping done, I had the opportunity to get in some more experimenting in the kitchen. Some of the books I have been using for inspiration include:

We also had some wonderful short ribs with some fellow wine lovers, Sharon and Ralph. The occasion required bringing some awesome wines from the collection, especially considering how generous they are when they come to our home for food and wine:

Recent cheeses consumed – Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk, "Guinness" Cheddar, Sottocenere al Tartufo, Coach Farms Triple Cream Goat Cheese, Maytag Blue from Iowa (hey, we've been there!) and Saint Nectaire, along with some others I am sure I am neglecting….

Back to the Chocolate Peppermint Tart mentioned earlier. We made a lot more than what Marc and I could consume in a reasonable timeframe, so we called Gure, our friend who lives close by to see if she would help us out and take one for the team by taking some of the tart. What a trooper – with friends like these…. Anyway she called us up shortly after we dropped off the tart to tell us that while she LIKED the recipe, she does NOT want it (we offered to give it to her in case she wanted to make it herself after she said she really liked to bake). Now I don't want to upset our good friend in the event that she is reading this, but in honor of our good friend, Gure, below is the recipe for the Chocolate Peppermint Tart – page 1 and page 2.

Marc, we should have paired a scoop of mint chip ice cream with the tart! Oh mon dieu!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Restaurant Update….

Seems like winter has arrived a tad early; actually it feels like it has been here for almost a month already. But fear not, the weather has not stopped us from heading out to spend time with folks as the holiday season continues. Some of the places on the list include:

  • Matt's in the Market – checked this out for lunch with Joanna and Mary. BTW, these two ladies both have a very serious golf game that would put most people to shame – men or women. They regaled us with tales of them hanging out with Lorena Ochoa right after she won her 1st major at St. Andrews. NICE! We also got to hear about one of Mary's more composed moments when attempting to score a picture of Annika Sorenstam. And oh yeah, the food and wine were both really good too. Not a huge space, but nice and cozy plus we had an awesome view of the Olympics and Pike Place Market from our table.
  • Chez Shea – checked this out for dinner with Ben and Nicole to celebrate their recent marriage. Unfortunately we were unable to go to their wedding, so we got to hear all about it at dinner plus we got into the usual current events political "discussion". I loved my Pear and Fourme D'Ambert Tart…. Sal actually made something similar back when we had the JDRF dinner at the end of September. Ironically enough, Chez Shea is in the same building and on the same floor as Matt's in the Market. And to top it off, Ben and Nicole were considerate enough to bring us a gift from their recent travels to Asia!
  • Canlis – this is pretty much one of the best restaurants in the Puget Sound area. We actually had a gift card to go there and given some recent news on my job front, we felt we should go out and celebrate. David Kim and his team took such great care of us, and Dawn, our sommelier, deserves a special mention. She walked us through the Bordeaux section of the wine list (this wine list is something like 80+ pages) because we were interested in trying something from there, and we ended up with a bottle from Pomerol from the year 2000, which was excellent. Dawn also hooked us up with something that the Aussies call "the stickies" (sp?) – a Chambers Rutherglen Muscat – to have with our dessert course. YUM! We're going to try and find some of that!
  • Latona Pub – love the grilled cheese and tomato-basil soup combo. They also have an awesome cheese selection, as well as a nice assortment of microbrews and wines.
  • Mona's – also very solid food and the bartenders always take such great care of us.

More later on this week about some of the recent experiments in the kitchen. Stay tuned.

Guilty as charged.... and the Yanks blow.....

Yes, yes. The person who Marc refers to in his previous post is me. Jill B. Yankee fan. I know this does not come as a shock to any of you who know me, but still I'd like to think of myself as a person completely accountable for my actions.

For the record, I would add that my language is significantly toned down when I am in the presence of children (oversized children like my husband are not included in this categorization).

That being said, the Yankees offense looks as anemic as I have ever seen it this evening. They are playing like they could give a **** and want to start working on lowering their golf handicaps. Winning 3 in a row seems very unlikely so I guess I'll announce that my social calendar for the month of October has now re-opened.

And Nat - given that you are up 2-0 against the Halos, I'll start thinking about the bottle of wine to send over.

BREAKING NEWS: Moneypenny snags Bond after all.....

For those of you who know me fairly well, you know that I am a huge James Bond fan. It started back when I was in elementary school and was home sick for a couple of weeks with bronchitis or pneumonia (something like that) and my Mom would bring home a James Bond tape each day for me to watch. I then read some of the novels too.

So needless to say when our friends Elisabeth and Neil decided to host a birthday party in honor of Neil (Happy Birthday!) on Saturday and set a dress code of "James Bond" attire, I was all over it. Unfortunately not many of the Bond chicks had my mop of hair and when I went to try on some wigs, none of them would fit.

This meant "Plan B" for me - as a Project Manager for a living, you always need a "Plan B", I decided to be Miss Moneypenny. I have some suits from my Wall Street days, so I plucked out one of the more conservative ones of the bunch, and threw on some "extra nerdy glasses". For those of you who don't know, Miss Moneypenny (the secretary to Bond's boss at the British Secret Service) has an unrequited crush on Bond. Such a shame.

Anyway we also had to dress up Marc. Now keeping in mind that Bond was either in tight bathing suits or tuxedos, I figured I had quite a challenge ahead of me. As a matter of fact, both Elisabeth and Neil fully expected Marc to show up at the party in a golf shirt and cargo shorts. How wrong they were.

Marc surfed the web for some images of Bond, and one of the images caught my eye of Oddjob - the best evil sidekick ever in a James Bond film. Oddjob was in Goldfinger, my favorite Bond film of all time. Now Marc would have been an awesome Oddjob, but again the attire would not have suited him, so I thought more about Goldfinger and remembered the 'golf scene'. Hat (no, not cap), sweater, slacks, golf shirt and black shoes. Yes, we could do this!








Lots of similarities here - the attire, drink in hand, Slazenger logo on the sweater, the golf club in his right hand that you can barely make out. Gosh, I was proud.

Needless to say when we walked into the party (and BTW, Marc had a golf club in tow), we received lots of laughs. As a matter of fact, we actually got to see the scene that Marc "was in" during the party as Neil was playing some Bond movies throughout the evening. Applause from the other guests ensued, which of course embarassed Marc - but hey, that's the price you pay for being famous.

Fun times, fun times.... and in this case, Moneypenny got her man in the end. Yeah, baby! [ok, had to throw in an Austin Powers reference, which takes a number of things from Goldfinger - like the character, Random Task - take-off on Oddjob]

On another note, the Yanks are sending the biggest bust of the year - Kei Igawa - to the mound tonight since Roger Clemens is still nursing the hamstring. I have a feeling it is going to be an ugly night for our pitching staff - I'll be hoping and praying for the Yankee bats to take over tonight, or else we have some problems.

Friday... woo woo... Friday... woo woo...

So some of you may have heard about the 30-3 baseball score in Baltimore on Wednesday.  Yep, that is a baseball score.  The game broke all sorts of records, and the best recap is here (play video) by Tim Kurkjian of ESPN.  Mr. Kurkjian is normally a pretty professional commentator but I guess because of his ties to Baltimore, he is a tad "over excited".  It's hysterical.

It's Friday and all I can say is - the Yanks are still 2 games behind the Mariners in the wild card.  I find this all very distressing, regardless if we get playoff tickets as Mariners regular ticket holders.  The only thing I can hope for is that the Angels (who owned the Yanks this week) implode which would mean the M's take the AL West and the Yanks get the wildcard.  Actually that would be the ideal scenario. 

The thing that burns me about Seattle fans is that they epitomize the "fair-weather" in the term "fair-weather fans".  And it has nothing to do with the supposed rain we get here [BTW, that's a myth to keep everyone else from moving here].  When the M's pretty much stunk, the stadium was half-full.  No one went to games and it was a crowd dominated by Yankees and Red Sox fans.  Now that the M's are competing, the stadium is filling up.  It's not right.

This article about what not do at the ballpark cracked me up, particularly the 'Attire' section. 

More action from the ballpark - this hurts.  The person decides to pop the question to his girlfriend at the ballpark and let's just say that it didn't work out so well for him.  Poor guy.  I remember that one time my friend Michele and I were at an Islanders game, and we saw someone pop the question via the Jumbotron, and we were both thought that was not exactly the most romantic way to capture the moment.  Anyway, tough break for the guy.  Hope it works out for them.

My sister and her husband are excited about the return of this show.  All I can say is that I am scared to what my nephew will now be exposed to.  I will only watch if they return to the hairstyles of the late 80s/early 90s.  Hehe.

Happy Birthday to Rebecca (a day late).  Good luck on your knee surgery Maureen.  And to Michele (same one mentioned above) - hope the A/C is helping in the final days of your pregnancy.  Congrats to my cousin Bobby for getting "Rookie of the Year" at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation golf tournament - we're proud of you (and shhh... I'm cheering for your A's to win every game in September).

Go Yanks!  Don't let me down!

Overdue Entry On Bend, Sunriver, and Crater Lake

So we took a little road trip recently to Central Oregon. We started with a 6 1/2 hour drive to Bend and stayed at McMenamins Old St. Francis School right in the heart of the downtown. This place was clean, had a nice soaking pool at about 90 degrees, and of course had the brewpubs attached with great beer. We highly recommend staying here when going to Bend as most of the other hotels seem to be much farther from the core of downtown.

We had some wonderful food & wine and we hiked a couple of times in addition to a round of golf. The most interesting experience was at Deep, which just opened not long before we rolled into town. They have a trough of water above the restaurant that supposedly has a waterfall attached although that wasn't running. The food was excellent - kind of a Japanese-Northwest Tapas exprience. Jill had Angry Lobster on a bed of nails. 

Our dining neighbors (Barry, Shannon, and Tod) became our friends by the end of the evening. It all got interesting once Tod and I learned we were both Gauchos that graduated in 1991 (weird meeting in Bend in 2007). Eventually we moved over to their table and bought them drinks because Barry was celebrating his birthday. They invited us to his party the following night at a house only 3 blocks from McMenamins - but we were so worn out we just couldn't attend.

I'm sure Jill can tell of other restaurants or experiences. We certainly enjoyed the outdoors while we were there.

We moved on down to Sunriver (15 miles south), which is master planned and just has soooo much to do. We biked around on some of the 37 miles of bike trails and worked out at the . The main reason for going there was to play the Crosswater golf course, home to the Jeld-Wen Tradition (Champions Tour event) for the next 4 years. The course is VERY nice. And strangely, we got paired with another twosome in which one of the guys is also a Gaucho!

And for the Grand Finale, we drove to Crater Lake. Words do not describe the natural beauty so if you contact us by email or webform, we can send you a link to about 100 photos we took while at the lake. These are 1.5mb to 5mb per photo so we will email anyone interested a link to a page of thumbnails. Wikipedia has a decent intro, but YOU MUST GO THERE before you die.


In the summer, the surface temperature of the water is normally between 50°F (10°C) and 60°F (16°C) and it felt close to 50. They told us on the boat if you fall in, you become useless within 15 minutes at these temperatures.

The only downside to the natural wonder of this lake is that a company called Xanterra runs the place (along with several other National Parks). They could not do any worse with service (if you could call it that) if they tried. I can't even type how many things they screwed up, but if you ask, I'm sure one of us will tell you the horrors. Don't stay at the lodge, find a campground (or other lodging) outside the park if you can.

Difference between living in New York and Seattle

So Puff Daddy (soon to be Slim Shady) and Sunny D came into town this past week to visit us. Both Puffy and Sunny have been looking forward to visiting Seattle, and have recently taken to modifying their lifestyle for the better in terms of their health. This is excellent news. They thought it was going to be vacation, but I told them to expect boot camp. You see – whenever I tell my Dad that I am going to exercise, his response is, "Be careful. Don't hurt yourself" as if exercise is the equivalent of a 4-letter word (no examples will be cited as this is a family-friendly blog). Being that we live so close to Green Lake, I knew I had an opportunity to try and change this line of thinking.

I caught a huge break when I found out that Puffy drinks decaf coffee, which we have none of in our home. So we had to walk down the hill to get coffee, and then walk back up the hill. Mom wanted her decaf tea, so she came along as well. Dad came along on a walk to Whole Foods one day, which also has a bit of an incline. 

By Sunday, Marc and I had them ready to walk all the way around Green Lake (2.8 miles). I took the easy way out by running 4 miles, and walking a mile back with the group. Marc, on the other hand, walked with the 'rents around the lake. Yep, I married well as if any of you had any doubt. J Anyway who needs Canyon Ranch when you have Camp Beck to keep you honest about your eating and exercise. Spots are filling up quickly for 2008, so operators are standing by to take your reservation for next year.

Some of the highlights from Puffy and Sunny's 2nd visit to Seattle include dinner with Rebecca and Michael at the house (congrats Michael on the STP ride), dinner with Chris and Robyn at Coupage (very nice on all fronts), visit to Snoqualmie Falls (see picture above), playing miniature golf at Newcastle on the famed 'Rusty Putter' course, celebrating 5 years of Marc and I being together at Lola (surprisingly excellent) and of course, catching a Mariners game – hence the real reason for this post.

My parents really had one request for their visit – if the M's were home, they wanted to go to a game. So as luck would have it, Detroit was in town and it was a game of significance as both teams are in the playoff race. The M's played horrible, in no small part to the overpriced Jeff Weaver and the back-up catcher Jamie Burke. Weaver walked 3, hit one guy, threw multiple wild pitches, gave up 10 hits, and didn't try and hold any of the runners. So the Tigers were stealing bases left and right, including one by Sean Casey (who is known as a good hitter and one of the nicest guys, but the slowest runner ever – ok, Bengie Molina may be slower), and two by Gary Sheffield (one of those was stealing home). So in the top of the 6th, Weaver hits a guy, then walks a guy and is finally pulled. And then the perfect moment transpires that personifies life in New York vs. life in Seattle:
As Weaver walks off the mound, the crowd applauds and we actually hear people around us saying, "Nice try, Jeff."
"Nice try, Jeff." Are you [bleeping] kidding me? The guy is getting paid $8mm+/year and the fans are actually applauding and saying, "Nice try, Jeff." My Dad was stunned and thought he needed to get his hearing checked. He asked, "Why are people applauding this guy? He didn't try to keep anyone on base. He walked guys and he's getting paid how much?" I just nodded my head and said, "Welcome to life in the Pacific Northwest". But as usual, Harv took the loss in stride and both of my parents really enjoyed Safeco Field. He talks about the stadium like it's the only thing to see in the Pacific Northwest. Just ask him about it and he'll start in, "Oh, that Safeco Field….." (think Jerry Stiller in Seinfeld or King of Queens). We booked them on a tour the following day, which they enjoyed. Overall, it was a great visit and we expect to see them back in Seattle in 2008.

I know, we still need to post pics from our recent trip to Bend, Sunriver and Crater Lake. I'll leave that to Marc. J

P.S. – Dad, just so you know – there is a coffee shop closer to the house than Peet's. We walked by it everyday.

Sports update anyone?

This made me fall over laughing.  You go, Natalie Gulbis!

So the Red Sox finally got their man, but here's something interesting about what the key stat is for Dice according to the Japanese culture.  Hmmmm.... I guess we'll find out if it means anything.  Anyone know what Hideki Irabu (aka Fat Toad according to George Steinbrenner) had for a blood type?

We have to have a minimum of one YCMTSU instance in this entry.  "Hi, uh, coach.  I have some stiffness in my elbow and I am not sure if I can pitch in the playoffs tonight.  Been working hard on my mechanics and technique.... just don't know what's wrong."  Well, how about not playing a virtual rock star on Guitar Hero on your PC?

More MLB pitching news - does anyone remember John Rocker and his comments about the No. 7 train on the NYC subway being in Sports Illustrated?  Well I guess Mr. Rocker is now writing a book and complains that Jeff Pearlman (author of said article) is a "liberal Jew from New York" and things were taken out of context, blah, blah.... whatever.  T.O. always claims that he is a victim of the press too.  Yeah, if you're not anti-semitic then tell me why you need to mention that Mr. Pearlman is a liberal Jew.  Good luck having enough intellect to get your book published.

Moving to the NFL, how about this?  A quarterback, who is picked as a No. 2 in the overall NFL draft in '98 (Peyton Manning was No. 1, I believe - good pick Colts), and has an awful career in the NFL, and now may have a movie being made about his life.  Yes folks, we are talking about Ryan Leaf.  Is there really nothing else to talk about?  I'm sure Marc's friend, Todd, will be lining up to see that one.  Todd is a big Chargers fan. 

Isiah Thomas, you make me ashamed to be a New York Knicks fan and I never thought I would say that about any team that I followed since I was a kid.  You must have some dirt on David Stern to not get any fines or suspensions in your role in last weekend's brawl.

Finally and I don't know if this falls into more of the sports or entertainment category, but the Sports Guy from ESPN has his opinion of which Rocky movie was the best of the lot.  His description of him seeing "Rocky II" as a kid is priceless because it was so spot on.  I guess this is to honor the latest installment, "Rocky Balboa", which is coming soon to a theatre near you.  Unbelievable.  Yeah, I'll be at the movie theatre to see that one.  NOT.

No more gadgets for Kim Jong-Il. Too bad, so sad.

Random thought:  What ever happened to Jake Ryan from "Sixteen Candles"?  Now he was 'all that and a bag of chips'. 

Sorry for the delay in posts.  Marc and I took a few days off and headed down to the place where he popped the question - Bandon Dunes.  We golfed, drank some awesome wine and had some excellent food.  On one of the nights we were there, Marc and I unexpectedly ran into some people we used to sit near during Mariners' game when we had a package - JoAnna and Mary.  What a fun surprise - had a lot of laughs with those two down in Bandon.

So if you are fortunate enough to be traveling by air during the 2007 holiday season, you can do a public service for you and your fellow travelers.  Sounds like fun so I'll just get right on that one.  That is almost as good as the U.S. government thinking that they can prevent Kim Jong-Il, North Korea's esteemed leader, from obtaining his favorite gadgets like iPods and Segways.  We hear that Kim also likes fine wine.  Unfortunately whenever I hear about him, I think back to that awful movie "Team America: World Police" made a couple of years ago.

So someone will have to explain to me how Michael Irvin still continues to have a job at ESPN with all of his transgressions (recent and not-so-recent).  Anyone?

I have friends who do this, which is probably illegal.  The moral of the story is - don't move to Singapore. 

Continuing the legal angle, McDonald's wants to patent how to make a sandwich.  No folks, I am not making this up.  There is some serious intellectual property here.  More from the WSJ.com Law Blog, Slate is suggesting some new rules for your company's holiday party.  Worth checking out.  And my final WSJ.com Law Blog reference of the day, apparently there is enough content to have a symposium called "The Law of Beer".  Appropriately enough, it took place in Oregon, which is home of some of the world's best microbreweries.

Someone want to tell me if this is a good thing or not?  Kind of freaks me out.
Just so we have a little bit of everything in today's post, let's shift gears towards the entertainment world.  And it looks like Jessica Simpson had a bad day at the office on Sunday evening.  Was it as bad as her sister's when she got busted for lip sync'ing on SNL a year or two ago?

An ice cream pioneer died a few days ago.  For anyone who knows me and the rest of the Consor Clan, you know that ice cream is a big deal in our family.

And finally, here is a great article on how NOT to see New York as a tourist.  More soon.

Hawaii photos and other musings....

We got the Hawaii photos up.  Check them out here (scroll to bottom).  If you look carefully, you will see some pictures of me attempting to do some Tahitian dancing (as opposed to doing a hula).  Hilarious for everyone in attendance, I can assure you, especially when the dirty old man tried to grab my waist and I was attempting to keep a straight face.  Some other highlights:

  • The Prince course at the Princeville was one of the hardest, if not the hardest course, I have played.  Beautiful but lost more balls there than I did during the 3 other rounds of golf played on the trip (combined).
  • Maui onions are awesome.  Lots of great local produce and seafood to be had on Hawaii.
  • Joanne at the Ritz took amazing care of us (even if she is from the Boston area).  Luckily she did not hold my affinity for the Yanks against us.  Thanks for the goody bag and the great hospitality, Joanne!
  • The Plantation course at Kapalua is as beautiful as it looks on TV every January.
  • Read 3 entertaining books - Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized Parody (a Harry Potter satire), Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (thanks Sally and Dustin), and A Year in Provence By Peter Mayle.
  • New favorite "fruity concoction" a Lava Flow - a pina coloda with pureed strawberries.  Yum!

Domino's is attempting to do Brooklyn style pizza.  Whatever.  Interesting perspective on what makes a homemade bread really special.... I think Anthony Bourdain could have used this article based on his love/hate relationship with his baker in Kitchen Confidential.  The NYT decided to give everyone a turkey primer in the latest Dining & Wine section so if you are hosting Thanksgiving for the 1st time, you may want to check it out.

All over the place....

There was an interesting off-Broadway play review in the NYT that's a one-woman show chronicling a teacher's trials and travails.  Since a number of people in my family are in education, I thought I would mention it.

Gary Sheffield, SHUT THE HECK UP and play out your contract.  You negotiated the contract yourself, so deal with the $13 million that you will be paid in 2007.  You'll make more money next year than most will in a lifetime, so just sit back and be thankful/hopeful that you don't end up like your uncle who once thought he was irreplaceable (scroll to Legal Troubles).

When I worked at Cisco in 2000, I was at a new hire breakfast with John Chambers and someone asked him why they would not sponsor a sports stadium (note this was at the height of the tech boom).  John responded that there was not a good return on investment typically associated with that kind of marketing.  Guess they changed their mind with the Oakland A's (or should I say Fremont A's of the Bay Area?).

History buffs - check this out as it tends to be rare to have history be as vivid as this.

A blog that I subscribe to published a journal from someone serving in Iraq.  Regardless of what is going on in Washington, we gotta keep supporting these guys out in the field.  Scroll down to the bottom of the link's page for some perspective on the election.

OK - JDRF is probably really happy with Tuesday's election results.  Gotta get that stem cell research bill through!!

In the continuing saga of 'you cannot make this stuff up', some Brit decided to light a firecracker in a creative place wth less than stellar results.  Unbelievable.

My father-in-law made a hole-in-one today.  Wow.  Great job, Bruce.  Too bad you were not keeping score.

Lots of publicity for Microsoft with Windows Vista being ready to ship (party tomorrow - I am told it will be crazy - glad I take the bus).  I work on a great team of people and some of the great work that the team has been completed has been featured in a couple of high profile blogs like Robert Scoble's (new networking stack) as well as Mary Jo Foley (IPv6).  Great job, guys!

M's Take The Series, BUT.....

Harv always taught me to try and look at the glass half full. Even though the last place Mariners finally showed some moxie and took 2 out of 3 from the Yankees, the Yanks are still 6 1/2 games ahead of the Red Sox in the AL East. The reason: the aforementioned Mariners still had some gas in the tank to SWEEP the Red Sox right after the Yanks left Seattle. We got to watch Schilling get his tail kicked in on Friday night while making a horrific fielding play, so it was a very satisfying week from a baseball perspective when thinking about the bigger picture.

In other news, Marc and I spent a couple of days down in southern Washington State checking out some golf courses. It was sunny and hot. We played the Links on Saturday where I shot a pretty decent (for me) 117 - if only my putter decided to show up, it could have been easily under 110. Spent the night in Olympia (for those of you who don't know it is the capital of WA) and well... at least dinner was good at the Budd Bay Cafe. Pretty boring town. There was actually a high school reunion going on at the hotel we stayed at, so I wanted to crash it and pretend we went to the school.... Marc was pretty wiped from the round. Oh well.

Sunday we played the Woodlands, which was ok except the round was pretty long and it was fairly hot. I actually never asked Marc how I did, but that was probably a good thing as my game was not on as much as I would have liked. Oh well. We still had a good time anyway.

Also got to start a new book, which was recommended by my friend Sally - Heat, which was written by Bill Buford. So far it has been pretty entertaining - it's about the author getting a chance to work at Babbo under Mario Batali as well as under another famous chef named Marco Pierre White - both very eccentric in their own right. I'll let you know what my final opinion is of the book when I finish it. And Sally, no worries - I'll use tongs when I make the barolo short ribs. :-)

Summer Golf in the Desert

I survived! I drank soooo much water it wasn't even funny. I played 90 holes of golf in under 90 hours and most of it was outside of Palm Springs.

I played 18 with my dad the day before in Anaheim Hills. It was pretty decent and good practice for warming up to the heat (it was only 90) and for the bermuda grass which can be tough for those of us who never play on it.

We played the Stadium Course of PGA West which was in dis-repair. Sidewalks were torn up, the greens were SLOW with super long grass (for greens) and tractors tipped over in the waste areas (see photo). We also played Desert Willow Firecliff Course which was the nicest we played. And finally Silver Rock which was also a fine course and was certainly the hardest one of the group.

I've put a few photos up on Shutterfly for those who want to see the courses. It was a fun time, except maybe all the "del Taco" some of the guys wanted to eat.

Seafood and mushrooms make a quick visit.....

While Marc takes a weekend to golf with the boys in Palm Springs (still don't get the golf in 110 degree weather in August thing), I decided to do the unthinkable - cook some seafood and mushrooms. One of my favorite dishes of all time to make is this Seared Salmon with Shitakes and Roasted Corn recipe from Danny Meyer's Union Square Cafe cookbook. Since Marc detests most of the main ingredients (seafood and mushrooms), I decided to make it for my friends and host a Girls Night. Sinead, Rebecca, Maura, Maureen and Robyn all came over, and we all had lots of laughs.... some until 2:30am. Good food, good wine, good laughs and great people - not much more to ask for.

Also was able to spend some time golfing on Thursday afternoon at a private course my friend Chris belongs to - TPC at Snoqualmie Ridge. Another friend of ours, also named Jill, joined us for the round. It was a ton of fun and as Marc always says, no matter how bad the round - any day on the golf course is better than a day at work. The rough was pretty thick as they are hosting a Champions Tour event there during the upcoming week. Lost a lot of balls, but we had a lot of laughs along the way. Hopefully my game was not so pitiful that Chris will invite us back since Marc has never played there.

Harrison Reese Consor - woo woo!

At 2:05am PST, we received a phone call from the East Coast family that we became an uncle and aunt for the 2nd time. Harrison Reese was born this morning at 3:30am EST to Glenn and Gwen weighing in at 5 lbs. and 5 oz. Harry and Uncle Jarrett will now share a birthday so we hope that JB does not get too jealous with sharing his special day with the little guy. The baby was a little early, but the best news is that both Mom and Baby are doing well. And the Consor name gets to continue on.... woo woo!

So yes, before we forget - Happy 30th Birthday to JB!

In addition to the excellent news from back east, we had a great weekend here in Seattle. The weather continued to be excellent. We caught an M's game, but unfortunately they lost to the A's again (they currently have a 12-game losing streak against them - not good). Also got in a round of golf and caught up with Andrea and Trevor, who hosted us for lunch while watching the Blue Angels speed by above Lake Washington.

Unfortunately Monday looms tomorrow.....