That's What Jenni Said

I'm caught up for the most part with work projects. This is a good thing. I really need to squeeze more time out of my schedule to pick up some more consulting clients but right now I'm just not motivated. We shall see what summer brings.     Recap for March/early April travels:     Jon and I went to Dublin, Ireland the last weekend in March with a few members of my travel meetup. Overall it was a lovely time, although I did have some personality conflicts with one of the attendees who was a bit subversive. Ireland is so very green and beautiful, even in winter. We spent two days touring Dublin proper and one day in the country seaside town of Howthe. I think we managed to see almost every key point of interest in Dublin sparing the Goal (prison) and Guinness Factory. We did try a pint of Guinness at one of the pubs and the stuff is rubbish. Sort of tastes like bitter water with cigarette droppings inside. Absolutely hideous. We managed to make it to a flyertalk dinner for mi...

The more contact with my siblings I have, the more rumors I hear bandied about and I am sick of it. According to the rumor mill, I've just found out that allegedly Jonathan and I forced my father to liquidate all his assets, including his car, and kept all the profits ourselves to fund our travels and happy lifestyle. Keep in mind I have little to no contact with my siblings so none of their ideas on my parents' circumstances is based on any sort of actual facts but all pieced together in their minds like some conspiracy theory based on bits of information they obtain when talking to Dad on the phone.     First, I really have no understanding why my siblings think our father has or had major assets to be liquidated in the first place. My parents had next to nothing (a little bit of savings) and in fact were at such a low income and asset ratio that they qualified for income sensitive housing here in VA. Second, my father sold his car long before they moved here to VA and it ha...

March has sped by like a hot wheeling testosterone laden teenage boy. Zoom!         The first weekend in March Jonathan accompanied me for our first official mileage run. We have a new hobby! Some people pick up golf, some try their hand at ballroom dancing. We've taken up random travel for the sake of accumulating miles and status with our airline. There is quite a group of people from all over the world who participate in this. Most of them converge on www.flyertalk.com . Here we share cheap fare finds, chat about our upcoming itineraries, plan parties and get-togethers across continents and reach out to strangers who share our love of flying. Jon and I are finding that outside of the core group on Flyertalk most people who find out about mile running think we are all crazy. Jetting all over the place on purpose? For short weekends and same day turnarounds? Our friends and coworkers can't see the fun or sense in it. I'm just glad Jonathan and I found something we both lo...

It would be nice to reach a state of organization whereby I am no longer a month behind on my blog posts. To dream…to dream….     February was dominated by continued recovery from pneumonia, with a dash of fine dining thrown in. I spent the first two weeks of the month slowly regaining my health and strength, grateful that the run to Quebec had not set me back at all. I worked my way back to 4 days a week at the gym for an hour of cardio each session plus strength training. I felt on top of the world again.     I spent the first weekend in February in NYC with friends for our annual Broadway getaway. This year we stayed at the very cozy and posh 76 Park Avenue Hotel. Just our luck many guests at the hotel were in town for the Westminster Dog Show with cute little toy dogs in tow. They were everywhere and adorable! Our chosen play was Mamma Mia and I loved it. The music (all ABBA of course) was fun and at the end of the show the whole audience was up off our seats belting out Dancing Q...

The past two weeks have seen me in "catch-up" mode as I work feverishly to get back to a place where I'm caught up in most everything. I'm making slow but steady progress and part of that is catching up on my past due blog entries.     Here's the January recap:     -Dined at Inn at Little Washington This was the first restaurant my friends and I tackled on the Zagat Top 20 DC restaurants. It's a goal of ours to make our way through the entire list over the next 3 years. Perhaps under ordinary circumstances I would have been delighted with the Inn but after returning from Paris where I dined at Le Cinq, the Inn was *very* disappointing. More on par with any standard DC restaurant yet the same price per course as Le Cinq. Shameful really.     -Caught Pneumonia, went to the hospital then spent 2 weeks in bed (lost 15 pounds) I've blogged about that previously already…     -Got better, went to Quebec, Canada for the Winter Carnival I went with my friend Penny ...

Since I know you've all been waiting with clenched fists in deep anticipation I am happy to announce I finally finished my blog entries for our Paris 2008 trip, including a lot of pics and 3 videos from NYE's on the Champs Elysees including a link to the riot footage.     Blog is here: http://www.travbuddy.com/travel-blogs/47153 . Be good to me and actually read it eh? :)

1. If you check the box on your license form to be an organ donor so that it shows up on your license or in the DMV database then if you are involved in a near fatal accident on the road, the responding EMT folks will deliberately move slowly and let you die so as to have use of your organs. Especially if you are ugly, fat, or dressed unfashionably. I still can't bring myself to be listed as an organ donor for this reason. 2. Unless you have a natural innate talent in a particular skill, all of the practicing and studying in the world is not going to really make a difference. Practice does not make perfect unless you're gifted in that area. So it's better and less frustrating to just focus in on things you seem to be naturally talented at and skip attempts at things that you don't seem to be good at from the get go. For this reason I never go back and try a second time at things I try once and suck at. I completely ignore the try try again philosophy even if at times I ...