Sometimes it is just about finishing

On Saturday, I completed my 3^rd half-marathon of 2009 (my 6^th one overall). What was special about Saturday's race was that it was the inaugural "Rock 'n Roll" series for Seattle and given Seattle's place in music history, I had a feeling it would be rowdy and fun. And it was. I have never run a race where there were more people out and about cheering us on all over the course – even on the I-90 part where spectators had to walk quite a way to cheer us on. It was cool.

But it was also warm for us Pacific Northwesterners – probably mid-60s with no clouds in sight. Yes, it makes the scenery beautiful, but it also makes it hot which is not something we are used to. On the other hand, my "new" friends from Phoenix (thanks, Ed!) thought it was awesome and 2 of them made PRs (personal records). Good for them. Seriously. They are a lot of fun and I hope that this prompts them to come back for next year's race. I actually had the opportunity to participate in the post-race tequila shot ceremony and I'll admit that it has to be at least 10 years, if not more, since I have done one of those.

The day started out early – think before 5am. So early that we caught the sunrise during the week that has the longest days of the year. Marc, ever the supportive roadie, agreed to drive me and 3 friends down to the start, so we wouldn't have to deal with shuttles. And his meticulous planning got us about 500 meters from the race village at the start line. He is awesome, and I know the 4 runners (me included) in the car really appreciated his efforts. Note to Jeanne, Chris and Jen – Marc takes payment in chocolate treats (but no fruit).

Chris was doing the full marathon and going to clock in a serious time, which he did – 14^th OVERALL! Wow – congrats, my friend! Marc saw Jen on the course towards the end and gave her a cheer, which couldn't hurt her already awesome effort. And Jeanne clocked in a strong time too! Must have been the ride in the Jetta that got my fellow runners in a great frame of mind. J

Once Jeanne and I braved the porta-potty lines (which took over 35 minutes), we split off and I met some of my fellow runners, Patricia and Tricia, who are from Coach Lesley. Coach was actually competing on her own in the ½ marathon and she kicked some serious butt - how about 218^th out of 15,610 finishers (this does not include the approximately 2500 that did not finish the ½ marathon)!?! How 'bout that? I work with Lesley on and off depending on where I am at with my training, but let me tell you how awesome she is. Of course, she is also a 2-time Ironman Championships qualifier so 13 miles is just a quick run for her. Way to go, Coach!

Patricia and Tricia run a little faster than me, so my plan was to try and keep up with them. For the 1^st half of the race, I was either with them or they weren't too far ahead. I was trying to go for a sub-2 hour race even though I knew it would be a stretch due to some health problems I had at the beginning of the month, which really impeded my training at a critical time. I couldn't do the hill training that I did for Vancouver and Mercer Island, the two races I did earlier this year). One of my friends, Eric, got me obsessed with an awful hill near where we both live.

At the start of mile 4, there was a long and gradual uphill. By the time I got to the top (I was maintaining a good pace) at the start of mile 5, Marc was waiting patiently with my GU and G2. Unfortunately the fuel ended up being too late and I was gassed by the halfway point, which didn't bode well for the 2^nd half.

Our friend, Dave, caught me and was being supportive but I told him that I was battling. He also rocked with a great time (Marc saw him too on the course!) and we got to celebrate with him later at Crush. I did a lot of walk/run combo stuff in the 2^nd half. I'll admit that I thought about calling Marc (I keep my phone handy particularly at the race finish when it is impossible to find anyone), but I said that I needed to finish this out – fast or slow. It was pretty surreal to get into the I-90 express lane tunnel and hear heavy metal music blaring. I saw Marc again at the end of mile 12, and he got me going again even though he could tell I was gutting out the finish. I finished strong and found out that Patricia and Tricia also ran great times when we all met up for a group photo with Coach Lesley.

I found Marc and we began the long walk back to the car (Marc is not being cruel – the walk is by design to help my legs). We watched some baseball on TV and then our new friends from Phoenix pinged us to meet them at Duke's at Lake Union for tequila shots, beer, burgers and chowdas – in that order, I think. It was a lot of fun and I got to talk some NFC East with them as they are Cowgirls fans. Hehe. No, they were cool. A couple of the gals had Spicy Virgo t-shirts made, and given that I am a Virgo, I am ordering myself one. Marc and I introduced the gang to Mac 'n Jacks, etc. Fun times.

Rested some more with the ice/steam combo (thanks, Michael – it sucks, but always works), and watched the Yanks polish off the Mets before heading to the aforementioned Crush with Marc and Dave. We brought a 2001 Gary Farrell Encounter while Dave brought a 2002 (?) DeLILLE D2. Once again, Crush didn't disappoint and proved why it is one of my 2 favorite restaurants in the area (Café Juanita is the other one). Also saw my friend Jana and her fiancé, who were celebrating their engagement with some folks (good score on that one, Jana!). At that point, we were all spent by 9pm. Yeah, it was a disappointing race for me, but it was a fun day with Marc, friends (new and old), great weather, awesome food and wine, Yankees win, lots of positive messages from folks all over the place, etc.

Really in the grand scheme of it all, I have come a long way in my running. 10 minutes per mile used to be fast (in 2008) and now it is an easy pace for me. But I'd be a liar if I said that even with the health issues which impacted my training, I wasn't a bit disappointed with my time – 2 hours and 10 minutes for 13.1 miles. This puts me in the top 27% for all women who ran the ½ marathon and finished, and the top 30% for men and women who ran the ½ marathon and finished. And sometimes it is just about finishing even when you know you don't have your "A" game. I could have quit, but didn't so I'll give myself a pat on the back for that if you don't mind.

Slacking in the Blogging Department

We have definitely been a bit remiss on the blogging front. Lots of things going on in the household that have precluded us from updating things, but we hope that is going to change a bit. Today's very LOOOONG entry is going to be about some of the more recent exploits in the kitchen (non-baking edition because that is Marc's department). You can see some pics of these creations here.

But a friend of mine, Marlene - whom I had the pleasure of going to school with from 1st grade through undergrad, told me that she wanted some of the recipes after I posted some pics on Facebook. While this isn't an all-inclusive list, it is a start. Where I couldn't find the actual recipe, I'll post a link to the cookbook I found it in.

Grilled Flank Steak with Cilantro, Lentils, Feta Cheese and Green Grapes - this can be found in Tyler Florence's book, Tyler's Ultimate. This is one of many recipes I have made from that book and have enjoyed. And Marc really enjoyed the Lentil Salad, but I'll add that you want to mix and serve the ingredients in the salad the same day. For some reason, the flavors just don't mesh well when they sit together overnight.

From the same book, there is a recipe for 'The Ultimate Spinach Salad', which really does rock the house. I can tell you that I have made this countless times without anyone complaining and people asking for another serving. For those of you who don't eat pork (the recipe calls for bacon), you can substitute mushrooms and it still works great.

With the spinach salad, we decided to go for some hard core protein and made Rosemary Balsamic Vinegar Glazed Ribeyes. I think we opted to do this after I ran Beat the Bridge to raise money for JDRF.

Shifting over to poultry, we did one duck dish as well as a few chicken dishes. There was Martha Stewart's Grilled Chicken with Red Pepper and Basil that was served with Carmelized Shallots with Barley. The original recipe from her cookbook, Martha's Healthy Quick Cook, calls for corn instead of barley, but we decided to make it a little healthier with the barley. It takes a bit longer to cook with barley, so you need to either cook it the night before or just allow an extra hour as opposed to corn, which cooks pretty quickly.

Next up from Jacques Pepin's Simple and Healthy Cooking cookbook - Chicken African-Style. It was pretty easy to make and it's a recipe that you can make on a night where you may have more time (i.e., Sunday night) and doesn't take a lot of time to cook if you wanted to serve it during the week when you have less time (i.e., Monday or Tuesday night). We opted to do the marinating on Sunday and served it on Monday, and it was very flavorful.

Wrapping up the poultry section of this blog entry, we went for something in Jerry Traunfeld's Herbal Kitchen cookbook - Tarragon Chicken Breasts with Buttered Leeks and Ramps. OK, I added the ramps because they happened to be in season when I made this recipe. Another easy recipe to make during the week due to the fact you do not need a ton of ingredients, which means less chopping and prep work.

Finally, we're going to end this entry with a seafood entry. Yes, I said seafood. Given Marc's dislike of seafood, we don't cook it much around here but we were hosting a dinner party in honor of Cousins Claire and Arnie being in town, and salmon is in season. We made special adjustments for Marc because this dish not only had seafood, but something else that Marc has a strong dislike for - mushrooms.

So I made one of my favorite dishes - Seared Salmon with Roasted Sweet Corn, Shiitake Mushrooms, and Balsamic Vinegar Butter Sauce from Danny Meyer's Union Square Cafe cookbook. While this recipe is not hard, it is a decent amount of work because of the amount of ingredients and chopping involved - particularly if you go with fresh corn as opposed to frozen corn. But even with the amount of work involved in putting together the dish, I never regret it because it always tastes so darned good.

As a matter of fact, I recommend you make extra of the sweet corn and mushroom mixture, as well as the butter sauce, because you can also serve it with chicken as a leftover, which is what we did for Marc. We also made a separate corn and carrot mixture for Marc, given how much he does not like mushrooms. It worked.

Traditional Ethiopian Coffee Tasting

I was going to write a short account of our visit to the Burke Museum to see the coffee exhibit and then participate in an Ethiopian coffee tasting. A blog for the Seattle Times covers it more extensively, so I will leave it at that. It was fun.

Putting the Cooking Skills to the Test

So I was going through one of our recent cookbook acquisitions, Paley's Place Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from the Pacific Northwest (Hardcover), last week and saw a number of recipes that piqued my interest. One of them, in particular, stood out - Duck Wellington with Mole Sauce.

Some background - this cookbook has some significance to us because on a trip to Portland, we checked out Paley's Place for dinner. It ended up being one of the best meals I ever had in terms of the quality of the food and the service. Yep, it is actually in my "Top 5".

As I started going through the recipe, I was thinking that this was going to be as complicated of a recipe as I have tried in a long time. Lots of ingredients, lots of steps, lots of things coming together at the end - all of the makings of either a culinary success or disaster. I figured I would attempt this on Saturday where I had plenty of time to make a "go" at this insanity.

First I dragged Marc around Green Lake somewhat kicking and screaming. I knew this meal was going to be decadent, plus he was doing something fun (read: fattening) for dessert. I clocked in one of my fastest times ever (29 minutes) around the outer loop of the lake, which is 3.2 miles. That's about a 9 minute pace, which is fast for me. I'm hoping that I can build on that as I ramp up for the 1/2 marathon season.

Anyway back to the Duck Wellington with Mole Sauce. I did the sauce first and it wasn't hard to make, but it took a bit of time and consisted of a fair amount of ingredients. I would make it again, and maybe to make my life easier, I'd do it the day before serving. The rest of the recipe is where this gets challenging because you're thinly slicing potatoes so that can form a "wrapping around the duck, minced vegetables, black currants, and duck skin mixture. Then that is wrapped in puff pastry.

I've included some pictures that Marc took in terms of getting this all together. I also made some sauteed vegetables with a persillade, which was very easy in comparison. Fortunately everything came out pretty tasty as this recipe took me a LONG time to pull it all together. I'd probably eliminate a couple of things to make this less labor intensive, and also use less bowls and cooking utensils. Marc was holding back his horror at the mess being made in the kitchen, even as I was doing my best to clean as I went.

As for wine, the book recommended a Rockblock Syrah (made by Domaine Serene) from Oregon and fortunately we had one ('04) on hand. We also thought it would be fun to pair a Petite Sirah since the flavors seemed to be complimentary, so we brought up an '03 Selby Russian River Valley Petite Sirah. The book's recommendation was pretty spot-on in terms of being a stellar match.

So all in all, it ended up being a great meal and then Marc made an awesome "moon pie" for dessert. No beverage pairing needed - the yum factor was in full effect.

A-Rod Karma Intensifies

Well, it just keeps getting better for pretty boy A-Rod who jilted the Mariners. The Karma has ratcheted up a level. I love it.

One Yankee Fan's Thoughts On A-Rod

Yes, I know A-Rod has really become A-Fraud or A-Roid or whatever. As a Yankee fan, I was never “attached” to him like I was to Paul O’Neill, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera or even Derek Jeter. When Andy Pettitte’s name came out in the Mitchell Report, I thought his apology was self-serving and a bit too late for my taste.

I can’t say that it surprises me that A-Rod’s name came out as someone who failed a drug test, but then again, no one’s name would surprise me at this point. I do recall being stunned that a player on the Mariners and who was so awful failed a drug test. I mean – he was so awful and he was taking “performance enhancers”! He was more of a laughing stock than anything. MLB, the Players Union, owners, media, etc. all screwed this one up and now we, the fans, are paying. There is blame all around on this.

Be clear – I don’t feel sorry for A-Rod. I’ll support my team, which means supporting him. A-Rod has his hundreds of millions of dollars but will now be stuck with the label of ‘cheater’ which will make his once-inevitable candidacy for the Baseball Hall of Fame seem “not-so-much”. If he did cheat, he gets what he deserves and now has something else to add to the litany of things to tell his psychiatrist.

But there is another issue here, which is being overlooked and I think it is even more important as a fan of baseball. I’m glad he didn’t handle his mistake like Roger Clemens did through vehement denials, or like Rafael Palmeiro did by saying “someone told him it was a B12 shot.” At least A-Rod is dealing with it “head on” on some level, although I question whether we will ever know all of the facts. It's sad that someone admitting to their own bad judgment is now considered a "nice-to-have" as opposed to "being expected". And I'm glad he spared us the cliché that “I only used it once… blah, blah, blah…”

If I was a player, there would be no way I would ever agree to any kind of drug testing controls because basically it has been demonstrated time and time again that the results cannot be safeguarded until the process has worked itself through. Yeah, cheats deserve to be out’ed but if this part of the process is compromised, what is to say that other parts of the drug testing process are not being compromised (i.e., the collection and analysis of the samples themselves). As a fan, I am concerned that getting the sport clean has just taken a huge step back because of the suspect nature in which this information has been leaked. And if I am one of those remaining 100+ players who tested positive…. who knows when my time will come for my “announcement”?

Whoever gave A-Rod’s name to Selena Roberts (who did great work for the NYT before moving to SI) didn’t really want to clean-up baseball. If that person did, all 104 names would have appeared in her article. Clearly the source had a score to settle with A-Rod and/or the Yankees, and decided to go for broke. In this case, those results were never to become public unless a judge unsealed them. Someone most likely violated a few laws by being Ms. Roberts’ source and they should go to jail. End of story.

And for all of you folks criticizing the Yankees for this, remember that you don’t know who else is on that list of 100+ players who tested positive in 2003. And for once, I agree with Curt Schilling. Publish all of the names and be done with it. The list has already been compromised.

Sometimes you just don't know what to say

I've been pretty busy over the past few weeks working with some folks to get a project approved at my day job (my non-Purple Teeth Cellars job, that is).... and as a thank you, I received a replica mask that was used by one of the greats of Mexican professional wrestling.

I happen to work with a couple of guys who happen know a ton about this league, but they were not the ones who gave me this mask. Forget about the fact that I was given this mask as a gift in a room full of people. And when you are in a situation like this, sometimes you just don't even know what to say.... which is unusual for me, as most of you know.

OK - confession: I didn't even know there was a Mexican professional wresting circuit since my brother was obsessed with the WWF (no, not the World Wildlife Fund) and the rivalries between luminaries such as Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake.

Apparently the mask that I received is a replica that belonged to a wrestler named Cien Caras. This has led to all sorts of issues. Marc now wonders if I am now going to start collecting masks. I now feel like I have a ton of research to do on the history of Mexico's professional wrestling scene since my brother tried to convince me that the fights between Jimmy 'Superfly' Snuka and Andre the Giant (also of "The Princess Bride" fame) were real.

I now feel obligated to also find a good use for this mask. I have an idea which hopefully you'll all see by the end of the weekend, but it has to do with some previous plans that we had in place for Purple Teeth Cellars and the blog for that. Stay tuned as I have to get back to some of the work I was doing for PTC...

Scout.com Recruiting Widgets

So Scout.com finally has something that you can embed in your webites/blogs, desktop sidebar, facebook profile, myspace profile, etc. The recruiting widgets are here and the 2009 recruiting season is in full swing for the next month. For example, I am including the widget for Florida, although you can customize it to follow whichever Division I team you would prefer. Our home page has the Huskies and Gators.

YUM - Part Deux

Just wanted to post the recipes that Marc referred to in his post on Sunday.

Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs

4 lb. country-style boneless pork spare ribs
Granulated garlic and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 ½ cups of Syrah
36 oz. honey-based BBQ sauce
1 can pineapple chunks (or 6 oz. fresh) – drained
1 large onion, sliced in strips
1 green pepper, sliced in strips

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Rub the ribs with the granulated garlic and pepper to taste. Bake for 45 minutes. Drain the grease and liquid from the ribs.
2. Mix the remaining ingredients well in a large bowl and pour over the drained ribs. Continue to bake for another 40 minutes.
3. Serve over hot rice and enjoy!

Some thoughts from Marc and Jill after we made this:
- Loved it. Flavors were great. It made Marc’s top 5, as he mentioned in that blog post.
- I couldn’t find a honey-based BBQ sauce, so I used a maple-based one. See 1st bullet. Yum.
- 36 oz. was a lot of sauce – we think you could probably get away with 24 oz. of sauce, but for those of you who want to go by the letter of the law, 36 oz. is good.
- If you don’t have a Syrah, I’m sure any red wine will do.

Ming Tsai’s Asian Meatloaf

- Main recipe is here: http://www.ming.com/simplyming/showrecipes2004/recipe01102004asianmeatloaf.htm - note that in Step 2, it should say “1/4” and not 14.

- Spicy Sambal to go with it: http://www.ming.com/simplyming/showrecipes2004/recipe02212004.htm

- Spiced Panko Bread Crumbs to go with it: http://www.ming.com/simplyming/showrecipes2004/recipe01102004.htm

Enjoy folks!

Food – YUM!

So Jill recently mentioned this book I got that has great recipes. I'll just show you the sweet & sour pork ribs which I declared to be in my current top 5. That was good.

Jill found this other book called Simply Ming and the concept is East meets West. She made meatloaf tonight and all I can say is "wow!"… That was delicious. That's in my top 10. We will be making more from both books!

An Overdue Entry on Some Culinary Adventures

Marc and I like to experiment in the kitchen and given the exceptionally crappy weather in Seattle recently, we've been doing a lot of it. A friend of mine on Facebook responded to one of my statuses and complained that we make her hungry and jealous, which kind of reminded me that we're overdue on a 'home cooking' entry.

Some recent recipes include Cinnamon Basil Chicken, Osso Buco with Pine Nut Gremolata and the Dry Aged Ribeye (a favorite of our guests) - those recipes can be found here in a previous entry.

We served Savory Potato Gratin from The Herbal Kitchen by Jerry Traunfeld with the osso buco. Even though I like Danny Meyer's version known as Creamy Potato-Gruyere Gratin, I happened to like Chef Traunfeld's version better because it wasn't as heavy.

Another dish that we just made this week is Roast Chicken with Pancetta recipe in the most recent edition of Gourmet magazine. From the same edition, we also made Braised Cannellini Beans with Garlic, Marjoram, and Oregano - scroll down (you need to register on Gourmet's website - it's free - to get this recipe). I substitued in flageolet beans for the cannellinis to make this work and added in a little bit of mascarpone cheese to make this a bit creamier. Good stuff and both recipes are shown in the picture on the left.

We also made some homemade pizza that I'll let Marc talk about in terms of the dough, but I like to top mine with pancetta (bacon makes everything better), shitake mushrooms, spinach, and some of my Sottocenere al Tartufo. We've done a hybrid lasagna that does a little combo of Marc's favored lasagna recipe vs. my favorite lasagna recipe. More goodness to come out of the kitchen.

We've been busy conjuring up pairing ideas for our 2006 Purple Teeth Cellars Eaglepoint Ranch Petite Sirah. So far, we have two outstanding pairings that you should check out including a Pan-Seared Duck with Plum Sauce and Creamy Mascarpone Polenta recipe (pictured on right), as well as a Braised Short Ribs with Cocoa Powder, Assorted Spices and Scallions recipe.

Let's see... what else have we been cooking? Oh yes, the French Onion Soup from Tyler Florence's cookbook - Tyler's Ultimate. And from the same cookbook - the Ultimate Spinach Salad, which is quickly becoming a mainstay recipe in our kitchen.

Marc got us this awesome cookbook, which focuses on food pairings with Washington State wines - Cooking with the Wines of Washington. One recipe we tried recently, which Marc thought was awesome was the Fort Walla Walla Cellars Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs. If you want the recipe, just ping me - it was really simple, but really, really tasty!

On a recent plane ride, I picked up an issue of Saveur and decided to make a Hanger Steak with Bordelaise Sauce based on this recipe. Liked that. The Butternut Squash Puree that I attempted - hmmm.... not one of my better efforts. But Marc's efforts around the Herb Gnocchi from Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook led to great results.

So there you have it. Lots of cooking going on in the kitchen here in Seattle. Most of it successful, too! And of course, we have been drinking some great wine to go with these dishes. I think I'll have to recap that in another entry.

:-)

Mama said there`d be days like this

It's been a crazy few months so I am catching up on some overdue blog entries. This blog entry is about October 19, 2008 and what turned out to be a really, really good day.

We were in San Francisco for a couple of reasons - I was running in the Nike 1/2 Marathon to raise money for JDRF and we had to take care of some very important business for Purple Teeth Cellars. Fun stuff.

The day started out with a pretty early wake-up call, particularly because the race started where we were staying - Union Square. So both Marc and I were up at 5:30am - what a guy. Marc and I drove the course the day before to get a sense of where we would be meeting up during the race, so after a delayed breakfast, we were ready to go.

The race weather was actually pretty favorable and I was pleased with my time of 2 hours, 13 minutes given how steep the hills were. My PR ('personal record' for the non-runners) was 2 hours and 9 minutes, so I was ecstatic particularly because I managed the race well and finished very strong.

After finding Marc, we high-tailed it back to the hotel because Big Blue was on TV because they were playing the San Francisco 49'ers. Watch our post-race celebration here. This is a good thing because I rarely get to see my Giants on TV living in Seattle so the fact we were in SF while their team was playing Big Blue... this was good. The Giants ended up winning and the Cowboys ended up losing, so the day is going well.

Marc and I spent the afternoon over at our winemaking facility pressing some grapes from our 2008 vintages, which was educational for the both of us. Then it was time to gear up for dinner at Michael Mina for lobster pot pie. For those of you who like lobster, Mina's lobster pot pie is just pure goodness and decadence. You can check out the presentation here. The sommelier paired it with a '04 Domaine de L'Arlot Nuit Saint Georges 1er Cru. Great stuff.

And the unexpected bonus came at the end of the evening when we found out that the Boston Red Sox were eliminated from the playoffs by the upstart Tampa Bay Rays. Unfortunately they ended up losing to the Philadelphia Phillies, but as a Yanks fan - it's always "anyone but the Red Sox".

Other restaurants we visited during our stay included Quince (with Cousin Claire and Arnie, who had some of our barrel samples from our '07 Purple Teeth Cellars vintages) and A16 (with Anne-Cecile and Dan). A16 - stick to the pizzas and pastas. Quince - try everything.

All in all, it ended up being a great day - but the important thing is to give a special shout-out to Marc, for being awesome, per usual, in supporting me for the race and just for being him.

Cheering for the Evil Empire

Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you and your families are enjoying some fun times.

We have definitely been neglecting our blog entries over the past 2 1/2 months, so stay tuned for a bunch of entries over the next few days.

Three months ago, I blogged about what I thought the Yanks would do over the winter to prepare for the 2009 season, which you can read about in detail here.

For those who don't want the full deal, let's recap, ok?

• Cashman stays - CHECK.
• Giambi is gone - CHECK.
• Abreu offered arbitration and the Yanks will leave it at that - DING. No arbitration offered.
• Pavano is gone - CHECK.
• Pettite is gone - Still outstanding, but most likely I think I will end up being right on this one.
• Mussina will be offered a one-year deal - DING. He retired before a deal came about.
• Cano will be traded - Still outstanding, but most likely I will be wrong on this one.
• CC is not coming to the Yanks - DING. OK, we know how wrong I was on that one. Welcome CC!
• AJ is coming to the Yanks - CHECK.
• No Ben Sheets - Still outstanding, but most likely I think I will end up being right on this one.
• No K-Rod - CHECK.
• No Derek Lowe - Still outstanding, but most likely I think I will end up being right on this one.
• Brian Fuentes to the Yanks - Still outstanding, but most likely I will be wrong on this one.

So thus far, my score is 5 correct (CHECK), 3 incorrect (DING), 3 trending correct, 2 trending correct.

Now I am unsure how to score the Mark Texiera deal in terms of my predictions since I left him out completely. I just assumed Boston would get him as they felt they had a glaring need there. But HOLY COW (to channel Phil Rizzuto)! Cashman pulling that off in stealth mode was a huge surprise. I am still unsure if I am more happy that the Red Sox didn't get him or that he is going to be playing for the Yanks!

But I'll tell you that I am really excited for the 2009 season. Bring it on!

Nothing posted in a while so…

Wow, we are getting lazy (or busy elsewhere) and haven't blogged in a while. Here are some photos I took today. The Olympic Mountains looked amazing yesterday, so I took a shot today. Unfortunately, the air quality has deteriorated because it's cold and people are burning fires to stay warm.

And just a decent sunset so I took a shot.

A really good day

The trip overall had been really good up until this point. The Giants beat the Seahawks. I got to see my nephews. I got to reconnect with Oswego after not being there for over 15 years and the weather was perfect. I met some cool students and have re-established some contacts with some professors and staff on campus. Actually before I talk about Tuesday and presenting at the Women's Conference, I should talk about the previous night – dinner at the home of Deborah Stanley, the President of Oswego State.

The President lives in a house called Shady Shore and it always seemed like it was the cool place that was right on the lake that I was paying for, yet never benefitted from. I learned later that was more of a function of the personality of the person living there. I was invited to dinner there with 2 other speakers for the Women's Conference, along with some other folks who are associated with fundraising and the Alumni Office. I show up and Deborah (she is so not a formal person) already has a glass of red wine in her hand. OK, cool.

All I can say is that I was just bowled over about how gracious of a host she was. She explained the history of the house as well as some of the furniture, which was really fun to hear about. She wanted to know what I talked to the students about and what I picked up on from the students. Really engaging – actually both her and her husband, Michael. Deborah was telling us that they have buffet dinners with students on a regular basis and people are just sitting on the floor hanging out and chatting. It's a very comfortable layout given the style of the house as well as all of the antiques inside. We discussed the current situation with the meltdown and how do you incorporate ethics into students' everyday thinking. It was an interesting dialogue.

Anyway back to the Women's Conference. I was pretty nervous about speaking partly because all of my experience is pretty much big city and corporate. The demographic of the audience was mostly women, some students, but mostly women in the workforce of varying ages, who all lived in Central Upstate New York. So I was concerned that my experiences wouldn't resonate with them.

As I worked on my preparing my thoughts, I thought of the overall theme of the conference, "Change, Growth and Vision". So I decided to talk about different phases of my career at a high level and have each slide have an area where I laid out where I made a mistake. I figured if I was transparent about my mistakes in my career, it may make me more genuine to the audience (I was also younger than probably 75% of the audience by about 8-10 years). When you're talking about your mistakes, it makes you take yourself less seriously, so I was throwing in some of the funnier things that happened in my career.

I tried to get a sense of the demographic in terms of people contemplating career changes, business owners, students, etc. That helped a little in terms of my talking points. I was trying to make eye contact with as many people as possible as it was a big room and I'm a vertically challenged person who was not on a podium. I felt as though my message was resonating but when I was done, I was pretty beat. The audience asked some great questions about what I talked about, so I was really pleased about that because clearly they were paying attention.

But my work was not done. I had mentioned in the 'Students' blog post about a woman named Rachel, the non-traditional student who served 4 years in the military before coming to school. When I saw that she came to the presentation, I gave her a heads-up that I may put her on the spot but to trust me. At the end of the presentation, I asked everyone to raise their hands if they would value military experience in a prospective employee if your job opening had absolutely had nothing to do with the military. Everyone's hands went up. I then told Rachel to stand up, introduced her to the crowd (everyone clapped), and basically informed Rachel that she now had a room full of people who probably could help her if she asked. She was stunned and a little embarrassed, but she saw what I was trying to do and that was to get her to believe in herself. I guess she never thought I would take an interest like that, but wherever she got the idea that her military background, combined with her maturity around going back to school with a young family, would work against her – I don't know. She actually sent me an e-mail later thanking me for helping her out and included some other nice thoughts. It is a good day when you can make an impact like that.

Finally my day ended with me rushing to the airport to catch a flight to NYC to spend the night before getting the early morning flight back to Seattle. Facebook has reconnected me with lots of people from my high school and college days that I haven't talked to in years. One of those people was my friend, Tisa, whom I met at Oswego where we were both in the same dorm for freshman year. We also did crew together (she rowed, I cox'ed…. Not very well) and ended up studying abroad in London the same semester but with different programs. I hadn't seen her in about 15 years. So we met at Volare, where the boys took great care of us and Tisa got lots of leftovers because of the insane portions. It was so good catching up with her. She looks great and is doing some great non-profit work with adults trying to learn basic math skills.

It was a great way to end the day, although I decided to stay up and watch the debate re-run, which ended up being 90 minutes of missed sleep. That wasn't smart because I went to bed at 2am and needed to be up at 5:30am for my flight back to Seattle. Oh well. It was an outstanding day, so it was all worth it.

Passing on wisdom to current students

As mentioned earlier, the Women's Conference that I was asked to speak at was on Tuesday, so I volunteered to speak to some School of Business classes on Monday. My 1^st class was at 9:10am, which was really 6:10am for me. But I knew that the students would probably be somewhat comatose because of the "early hour" for them and the fact it was a Monday. I was excited because the person teaching the class was one of the professors whom I really held in very high regard because he treated students like adults from the get-go. This was Dr. Ken Shaw, who always went by Ken, even when I was one of his students.

This was a sophomore level class so I knew that there was a good chance that most of the students were not in the mode of asking career-oriented questions. So I just tried to make the most of the 3 or 4 people asking questions. One student, Andy, asked a great question based on some of the work I am doing at Microsoft with regards to Unlimited Potential and how it impacts our competition with Apple (the answer is, "it doesn't", but good question). Ken tried to get more people engaged and tried to facilitate more dialogue. One student in the front, Rachel, raised a question and basically called me out for giving advice that definitely geared towards the more traditional college student (18-23 year old) as opposed to the non-traditional students. On campus, they are known as 'non-trads'.

Rachel's feedback was completely fair, and so I asked more about her background. She had served in the military for 4 years, so she is slightly older, has some more maturity than your typical student, and is also married with a 2-year old. Rachel actually had concerns around the fact that because she was "older" that recruiters wouldn't take her seriously. Maybe she was 22 or 23, 25 max, so clearly not "old". Plus she was concerned that as someone pursuing a degree in Management Accounting, recruiters would not think her time in the military was relevant experience. In my experience, that couldn't be further from the truth. I felt she might be more comfortable at the talk I was giving at the Women's Conference and invited her to come as my guest – more on that in a different post.

After class, I was talking to Ken and we were both lamenting about the fact that his seniors would have gotten more out of my experience than his sophomores. So I asked when his senior classes were, and I was free during one of them. That made for a hectic day and that café in the School of Business ended up coming in handy. J

I then had the pleasure of going to Bill Lundy's (aka Lundo or Wild Bill). I had e-mailed him prior to coming up to see if he wanted me to cover any specific topics but never heard from him. So I wasn't sure if he even remembered me. He sees me in the hallway, just lets out a huge laugh and yells, "Jill Consor!" It was hysterical. It got even funnier when he asked what his prized pupil (Lisa A.) was doing. When I told him that she was an organic farmer, he almost fell over. The best part is that the Alumni photographer happened to be taking pictures at that moment, so I can't wait to see how those turned out.

What is unfortunate is that Lundo and Spector are no longer teaching upper-level Accounting classes because of some accreditation rule that requires all of the teachers of upper level courses to have PhDs in Accounting. Huh? So if my friend, Nancy, a partner at E&Y, wanted to teach Auditing (an upper-level course) at Oswego, now she has to get a PhD? I don't get it. And the students lose out. I can say that while taking Lundo's class was super hard, it gave me a unique perspective on Accounting. What a bummer. Lundo is also retiring at the end of the calendar year. I hope he stays in touch as he was the one who made it possible for me study abroad and graduate in 4 years, which is nearly impossible to do at Oswego.

Again it was Intro Accounting, so it was sophomores and some juniors. But given my Accounting degree, I figured there might be more questions. Of course in this section, there were NO Accounting majors. But there were more students engaged and someone from the Alumni Office snapped some pictures of me talking to students, which I found to be funny. Lundo has mellowed A LOT, although all of his students still think he is crazy but I didn't see any evidence of it. Again, these kids are soft and have it easy. And for those of you who had Lundo, he still uses those overhead transparent sheets to explain concepts to the class. Some things don't change.

After that was International Business with Dr. Khan. He was not teaching at Oswego when I was there, but he was incredibly welcoming and happy that I was taking the time to talk to his students, mostly seniors and some juniors. Unfortunately we again had a handful of students asking questions, with a fair amount of the students not paying attention. I guess they have it all figured out, but that's fine. The students that are keen on getting help will seek it out. I spent a lot of time talking about my international experiences, which I consider myself so lucky to have.

Then we had my final class of the day back with Ken. It was pretty much all seniors. This was the most polarizing class in terms of extreme interest and extreme arrogance. For the latter group, I had to literally stop myself from giving these kids too much of a reality check. It is kind of hard to describe the vibe, but it was shocking and this was the class of mostly seniors! There was such a sense of entitlement in this class and this was the day that that the Dow dropped 500 points!! The other classes had some people who had a little entitlement going on, but mostly because they were underclassmen, they didn't think that career stuff affected them now. I never really believed that even when I was a student, but I can understand the perspective so it doesn't really bother me that much.

The arrogance and sense of entitlement bother me a great deal. I keep hearing it is a generational thing. I don't know. All I know is that I was disappointed in the attitudes that I saw in more students than not. Curiosity was more the exception than the norm. And these kids (the traditional students) are so micro-managed by their parents. One student has a credit card and never even heard of the term 'credit check' or 'credit report' (yes, she was from Long Island – a couple of towns away from where I grew up). When I was running later on in the day, I was trying to think about how do you make these kids feel more accountable for their own destinies? Couldn't come up with anything that could be implemented and truly effective.

But there were a handful of students that were engaging, concerned and prepared. I'm glad they were concerned because it showed me that at least they were paying attention to what is going on outside of campus. I hope those students reach out to me because they are the ones that I would be willing to help because they understand that the jobs are not going to just land on their lap. I don't know if anyone can say that a job just landed on someone's lap coming from Oswego. I mean if you had stellar grades like Lisa did, maybe? But she worked her ass off and no one begrudged her success because they knew her work ethic was second to none. Lisa was also more mature than a lot of other people at Oswego. She definitely had the big picture in mind. And now that big picture is an organic farm, which is awesome because now she gets to apply her smarts to something she is truly passionate about.

One of the interesting takeaways from that class was listening to a student named Bobby. You can tell that he was completely freaked by having too much information at his disposal on networking, interviewing, etc. Whereas I think we didn't have a lot of information at our disposal, I think some students may be overwhelmed with advice. Then of course there was the student who said he had an interview on Monday, but asked if he should prepare a resume to bring. Hmmmm.

The next day I was meeting 3 students to talk about a winery supply chain project that they were working on. Given that I am the Chief Advocate of Purple Teeth at Purple Teeth Cellars LLC, it seemed like a good idea. I was told that they were 3 hockey players, which normally wouldn't be relevant but when they introduced themselves, they were nicely dressed but one of them had a black eye from a recent game. He had a good sense of humor about it; I guess you have to as a hockey player, right?

They are basically conducting a survey of wineries in the Finger Lakes and Long Island regions to see if they can identify process improvements. An alumnus, also a former hockey player, has a supply chain management business and is thinking about expanding into winemaking supplies. The idea is that they would make recommendations, similar to what consultants do, and try and build a business out of it. So it was Brendan, Mark and Mike in the conference room. Of course, the Alumni photographer came in and said, "Pretend like I am not here". OK, sure.

They did some good analysis, but like when I was in college, they are not wine drinkers. I had to explain to them that people go into winemaking because they love the art and science of it. They love wine. They don't necessarily do it to make millions of dollars in profit, and this is especially true of their target demographic of small and independent wineries. So I had to explain to them in a non-hypocritical way that they needed to drink wine in a way that didn't involve chugging, funnels, keg stands, etc.

I give them props for taking that feedback well. I gave them some thoughts on how they learn the basics of wine without spending a ton of money, and offered to provide some help where I could. I also told them that if they are doing supply chain management work for wineries that they should see if they can volunteer on a weekend in the next couple of months because this is the time of the year where "everything is happening" with the picking, crush, de-stemming, etc. They'll be able to gain more credibility with their prospective customers if they have attempted to walk some part of the walk. I hope they do it but I know that with hockey season having 2x/day practices, it is going to be tough to fit it in. But again, they were very polite, had lots of enthusiasm, and had lots of great ideas. While it wasn't the smoothest presentation, they came prepared and asked some good questions. I left impressed.

Oh and I mentioned the lack of attendance at The Shed on the previous night to the students. They didn't have any excuses given playoff baseball and Sunday Night Football, along with the associated drink specials. A few were embarrassed and asked if I wanted to meet them there on Monday or Tuesday evening. Between dinner with the President of SUNY Oswego and my flight to NYC, I had to take a pass. That could have been interesting.

Reminiscing on the campus tour

I started my day with Michelle of the Alumni Office taking me to breakfast at one of the dining halls. We ate at Lakeside, the dining hall that served the Scales, Waterbury, Johnson and Riggs dorms. The wind started to show itself as I figured it would. Lakeside has been completely renovated and still provides awesome views of Lake Ontario. It wasn't like Pathfinder or Cooper, the dining halls that I typically ate in when I was a student. Both Johnson and Riggs have also been renovated extensively, and look great. And neither one of them are single-sex either. Johnson is a freshman-only dorm now, and they have special leadership programs for those students to get involved certain activities.

I'm going to talk about my impressions of the campus before I get into what happened in class today. Michelle also gave me a tour of the campus and she invited a current student to join us. It was cool because I graduated in '93, Michelle graduated in '98 and the student, LaTasha, is graduating in '09. So I was able to get many of my questions answered on when certain things were changed.

Lonis and Moreland, part of the Mackin "complex" – the dorms that were the closest to The Shed, are now singles for seniors. That's pretty cool because when I was there, those dorms were definitely not the places you wanted to live in, although given the proximity to the bars, I now question that logic. Hart and Funnelle look the same. Scales and Waterbury have not been renovated yet. Michelle called going in there a time warp and you still have to walk outside from Scales when you go to Lakeside to eat, which must stink given the proximity to the lake and of course, the wind. New Campus, which consists of Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga and Oneida, looks the same except for recent paint jobs on Seneca and Onondaga.

LaTasha's student ID was good enough to get us into the Seneca dorm and the lobby looked exactly the same in every way possible. Yes, pictures will be posted. I remember the rugby players pulling pranks like putting stinky cheese in the elevators (what a waste of stinky cheese, right?), etc. No, we didn't go upstairs but I didn't get the sense that the rooms changed all that much. The buildings in the center of campus like Mahar, Lanigan and Penfield looked the same pretty much, although Penfield now has a coffee shop/café inside, which is handy. Of course, the reference area is now devoid of any evidence of card catalogs and microfiche and is full of computers. But an area that we used to study in on the 1^st floor, the Documents room is gone. They just put some sheetrock there and use it for library offices. Come to think of it, I would love to know if anyone recalls seeing a student or professor ever use those 'Documents' in the room?

Park, Piez and Snygg look the same. I learned later that those buildings, which house Natural Sciences, Computer Science and Mathematics, are next in terms of major renovations. That should be cool once they finish that.

The big news is that Hewitt Union is pretty much on its last legs. The only things that seem to be left in there are the actual book store, which is different than the campus store where you would be Oswego State merchandise. There are a handful of offices still there, but no major student activity seems to go on there. That is because Oswego State renovated Swetman Hall, former home of the School of Business, to be home of the new Campus Center.

The Campus Center is now home to the aforementioned campus store, numerous cafes, lounges, smoothie bars, Career Center, media (WTOP, WNYO and the Oswegonian), meeting rooms, Study Abroad Office, amongst other organizations. It is bright, well laid out and way more accessible for students to not have to go back to their dorms or off-campus for something decent to eat. It is also home to the new hockey arena, which is very cool. No more schlepping to Rommey for games, and during the day, they let students rent skates and host an open skate session. Way to share it with the students. I had the opportunity to meet 3 of the hockey players (more on that in the other posts) and they think it is awesome because the crowds are way better.

In essence, they very shifted the center of campus away from Hart/Funnelle and Hewitt Union, and moved it to Swetman/Poucher. Oh yeah, Poucher was also significantly renovated. So I don't think Swetman really exists anymore in how we might remember it, but Poucher still has classes – English, Education, Foreign Language Labs, I think. More lounges and rooms for students to meet up in between classes. Really cool. I thought it was great they moved the Career Center, now called Compass, to a place friendlier to students. I remember it being in Culkin Hall, which was and still is administration, and who would want to go there. I don't think I ever did in retrospect. Oh and the Centro buses now stop at the Campus Center vs. the back of Hewitt Union where the dumpsters were. That's a plus, right?

So you are probably wondering where the School of Business is, right? When we (meaning my classmates) were there, Rich Hall was used for Foreign Languages – I hated schlepping there for French because I basically had to walk from one end of campus to another, being on New Campus and all. On the other side of Rich Hall was Public Safety. Well I don't know where Public Safety is now and that has to be a bonus that I didn't need to find out, but the entire building is now the School of Business.

The best way to compare Swetman to Rich in its current form is like thinking we had the Best Western and the current students have the Four Seasons. No offense to anyone who stays at the Best Western, but these digs are palatial in comparison. The new building opened up in 2003 (?) and it has everything you need for presenting seamlessly from your laptop, wireless, café, meeting rooms, lounges, etc. BASAC is still there as well. It was pretty cool to see that they made such an investment. I'll post some pics on that too. I must have looked like a complete dork (ok, I'm typically a dork anyway but still) taking pictures because I was really impressed. Different recycling bins were in every classroom that I saw – people seemed to take it seriously, which was cool.

After speaking to the classes, I went for a run around campus in preparation for my ½ marathon. There was no excuse not to run because it was absolutely perfect running weather – clear, sunny and high 50s. I did a 5 mile loop, which included a bit of off campus too. "The Blues", right near the soccer fields and Rommey, are still there and are still very blue. LOL. My run took me around the New Campus area loop, so yep, there was Glimmerglass Lagoon (that was for you, Lisa A.), and there was a ton of construction going on over by where the Hidden Fields are.

So think about coming into the main entrance of campus and taking the 1^st left, and that is where the construction is. They are building suite apartments, so like Onondaga but with actual kitchen facilities, that will house 350 students. Demand is very high for that kind of living arrangement on campus, and it looks like they just broke ground recently. Since I was doing my run, no pictures but right now there are just a bunch oversized Tonka trucks on the land.

I was really looking forward to the tour when the Alumni Office put together my schedule, and I'm glad that I wasn't disappointed. But it looks like even more changes are afoot, which should be great for the students, professors and the rest of the community.

Initial impressions from Oswego

I'm back in Oswego at the request of the SUNY Oswego Alumni Office. I still have about $150 in parking tickets outstanding and with compounding interest, I now owe about 700 BILLION dollars. OK, I jest – no parking tickets. They asked me to speak at their annual Women's Conference and since it's on a Tuesday, I will also speaking at 3 School of Business classes on Monday. I flew into Syracuse after a brief visit with my family, where I found out that Harrison (Glenn and Gwen's son) answers "Obama" when asked who he is going to vote for and that he knows Food Network stars Giada, Paula, Emeril and Rachel. And Harrison knows that Emeril says "BAM!" My other nephew, Jeffrey (Lisa and Jarrett's son), is starting to respond to questions and knows how to signal "Touchdown!" Fun times.

I landed in Syracuse late on Sunday afternoon and noticed that the airport was slightly bigger than when I was late there in 1993. As I was walking towards the rental car counter, I wasn't looking for anyone I knew but all of a sudden I saw a former manager of mine (manager kind of understates it, she was SEVERAL levels above me) who I always considered a great role model. She immediately recognized me and we caught up for a few minutes. She was in the area at her alma mater, Hamilton College, where she is on the Board. You can't make this stuff up.

BTW, I am trying to be hip on this trip since I am going to be speaking to students. I know that is not my normal M.O., but one must stretch themselves out of their comfort zone. Figured I would check out a former hangout or two during my time in Oswego. Unfortunately due to a PGA tour event being in the area, rental car pickings were slim and I am now driving a white mini-van through Tuesday afternoon. And the rear door is so big that I can barely reach it to slam it shut. It's not easy being vertically challenged. Hmmm.

I cruised up Rte. 481 and noticed some landmarks, like the Great Northern Mall, which was the only decent shopping mall in the area for the 1^st couple of years I was at Oswego. Because most of us didn't have cars, it was a big deal to take the bus there to shop at places like the Gap, etc. In my junior year, a larger mall opened up closer to the city of Syracuse that had a larger selection of stores, including Ann Taylor, home of where I purchased my 1^st interview suit. Wow, I'm dating myself. Anyway I also passed a sign that has provided years of entertainment in the form of another "Proud Consor Family Moment".

The 1^st couple of trips up to Oswego for me to check out the school were with Puff Daddy. Freshman orientation was the 1^st time my Mom and sister came up. I guess Big Yves (my Mom) slept for most of the ride up, which meant she missed signs like Mexico, New York, or Florida, New York, etc. You get the point. So when I checked into orientation, Lisa (my sister) came up to see the dorm room. She noticed that my roommate was from Mexico, New York. OK, fine. My mother asked Lisa about my room and roommate, and she told her that the person was from Mexico thinking she has seen the signs for the different towns on the way up. Well apparently at the 'Parents and Family BBQ', my mother is talking to another family with Lisa and Puff Daddy sitting right there, and belts out in all seriousness, "Jill is getting a real cultural experience! Her roommate is from Mexico!" Needless to say I was so thankful I was not there and I think if Puff Daddy and Lisa could have left my mother there at that moment, I think they would have. The embarrassment factor was that high.

Back to current day. As I approached the town of Fulton, I noticed a couple of landmarks; most notable to me was the Jeep dealership that my car seemed to visit on a quarterly basis when I was at Oswego. I knew there was a road that ran parallel to Rte. 481 (the main road between Syracuse and Oswego) on the other side of the river because of my crew days. So I decided to take the last 10 miles on Rte. 48 to see if I could find the old factory that served as the backdrop for our very shaky dock. I did find it in the town of Minetto, but clearly the dock is gone. I'll have to ask in the classes to see if there is still a crew team and if so, find out where they practice. But as soon as I walked past the gate, I knew I had the right place. Other than the makeshift dock being gone, nothing had really changed about the place. Yes, I have a couple of pictures.

The weather was pretty much perfect fall weather. Fall foliage is starting to take shape and the sun was out. I had some time before my dinner with Betsy of the Alumni Relations Office, so I decided to swing by the house that I lived in off-campus with Lisa. It looked exactly the same, which was a kick. As I was driving around the residential neighborhoods off-campus, most of the houses actually seemed the same. It was kind of funny. Lisa A., you should know that the taxidermist is no longer at the end of the block.

With respect to the areas of town I was able to see before dinner, Admiral Woolsey's, where I bussed tables, is no more. The structure is there and was completely gutted out with a new restaurant. The deck and outside look the same, but the inside is very different, although some of the bar chairs look very familiar from when I worked in the same building 15+ years ago. I should know as I lifted plenty of them. J

Betsy and I had a nice dinner, and she gave me the keys to my room on campus in Sheldon Hall, which I think is right near where I remember the AEPhi and DK houses to be (see current map here). She then told me that some students are also residing in the same building because of dorm overcrowding, so then I had to ask if I was sharing a bathroom with the other residents. It wouldn't have been horrible, but it honestly never occurred to me to ask prior to that point. BTW, the answer was no. I have my own bathroom. The room actually ended up being very nice.

After dinner, I decided to cruise around town. I couldn't find a couple of bars that I remember frequenting – Barney's, Shaki Patch (where I guest bartended once), and of course I knew that Broadwell's and Buckland's cease to exist many years ago. New York Pizzeria is gone. There is a huge McDonald's and gas station on all of that property now, but the Friendly's is still there. The Oswego Sub Shop is still there, as are the BPOE, Canale's and Vona's and Bridie Manor – places I never gave a thought to once I graduated. Of course, the Woodshed Tavern (aka The Shed) is still there so I decided to go in figuring there would be some action given it was Sunday, football and baseball are both on, and the fact that HELLO, we're in Oswego. Every night is a drinking night.

Clearly the current crop of students is soft. Maybe 10-15 people were in the bar tops, including me and the bartender. No TVs were on. The atmosphere was too depressing so I left for my room. Maybe there will be a bigger crowd for Monday Night Football. But you know I will bring this up in the classes I am speaking in tomorrow. And yes, I did get pictures of The Shed. It was easy because it was so empty. But it looks exactly the same as when we were there. The pizza place attached to The Shed is still there. Perkins is gone. I need to see if Old City and The Wheel are still around.

Tomorrow (Monday), I'll get a tour of the campus in addition to talking to students. I have been told it has changed a lot! I'm also having coffee with the Dean of the School of Business, and then dinner at the University President's house with some of the other speakers at the Women's Conference. Should be an interesting day, but I'm really hoping for the chance to get in a run around the campus along Lake Ontario. Stay tuned.