The rental car let down

We are suffering from rental car let down! Had we been on time, we would have had one sweet ride! But, no such luck!! We lost our chance after a series of events.

We were home a whole 15 hours from Chicago before heading out to AZ. Just enough time to do laundry, re-pack, sleep, and rake the dogs to the boarding place. Of course we were running behind from being gone for four days and leaving again. Plus we overslept out of exhaustion from being gone (and probably eating too much food). We got to the airport to pick-up our one-way rental and leave our car to have when flying in. We parked in the long term lot and couldn't find the walkway to the terminal since neither of us had flown out of the new Indy airport. So we waited in the freezing cold for the bus to pick us up. Thank goodness for heaters in the shelters (see pic below). That featur rocks!! We got on the bus and the lady dropped off some people flying and said she would take us to rental cars. She missed the turn and ended up circling around and dropping us at the main terminal where she dropped the original people. Turns out the rentals weren't too far
and we should have gotten off to begin with.

Our rental time was set for noon, but we were about an hour late to pick-up the car. Originally we were told they were out of one-way rentals so we were getting a car typically used locally. We got everything loaded into a fully-loaded all leather interior with heated seats, onstar, and xm radio Buick lesverne. Who-hoo! The car was started and we were pulling away when someone in the garage flagged us down. Apparently, someone had just returned a one-way rental while we were loading our car and we needed to switch cars. Boo! So, we are on our way in a Chevy Malibu. Not horrible, but definitely a letdown from the original car. I can't complain. We ate renting through Alamo and everything has been smooth so far. Definitely better than some experiences with Enterprise!

Let the travels begin...

Today begins our trip to Arizona. This is Todd's trip. I get to pick the next one and it will definitely not involve this much travel!! We are driving one-way in a rental car to Pheonix and flying home one-way on Friday. Yup, 25 hours in the car sounds fun, right??

Iowa State is playing in the Insight.com bowl game in NYE in Tempe. He was willing to skip Christmas for this game, that's how badly he wanted to go. I would like to point out that when I REALLY wanted to go to the Illinois Final Four game and then the Rose Bowl, I watched on TV. He owes me!!

For my friends and relatives in AZ, I am sorry to say we won't get to see you. We'll be traveling more days than we are actually there, which is not exactly my idea of fun. But, Todd HATES flying (I am not a huge fan) and this route was way cheaper than flying round trip. So, my week off work begins I'm the car. The good news is I have five movies downloaded to my iPhone, I set my blogger account for mobile access, and our rental car has two outlets to plug into, so I am good to go!! (Well, for at least a few hours. I am definitely one of those "are we there yet" kind of people.)

Christmas 2009

We where in the Chicago suburbs for Christmas. The weather and me having to work on my day off changed all of our driving plans, but we still had a good time. Lucy and Murphy ran around with cousin-dog Wrigley. They managed to stay out of trouble most of the time minus an ornament Murphy's tail got ahold of from the tree. Not too bad for three dogs all 50 lbs or more!

I was exhausted since I have been working so much lately. I spent most of my time watching Christmas movies (Four Christmases is my new fav), getting food ready, and eating food.

Todd got me a necklace for Christmas. It is small, but pretty. I am not much into jewelry, so it is perfect for me. After all of the eating, my brother and I went on a five mile run on Christmas day. The snow and ice were starting to melt, so it was the wettest run of my life. Some of the puddles were several inches deep. In many place is was an ice rink on the trail. My shoes and socks were soaked. My face was sore from the pelting rain/sleet. I already rotated those shoes to my backup pair (after they get done drying). But, it was good to get out since I'll have few workouts but lots of eating this holiday season!

We had a good te although we wished the weather had been been better to get out more and make the travels less stressful. We passed at least one major accident. I am hopeful everyone is okay and thankful we got there and back with no problems!

Another Murphy Disaster

Here is why we had to have the carpets cleaned downstairs last week. We left Murphy and Lucy inside on 9/24 when it rained all day. Everything was fine when I checked on them at lunch and let them out to potty. But, disaster struck sometime in the afternoon. I think Murphy got bored being inside. The plant used to be about 6-ft tall and was sitting in the corner between the window and the couch in our office downstairs. Apparently, he also needed to destroy a few magazines from the crock, too. The plant wasn't enough??

It took about an hour or so to clean up. I used a dust pan to scoop off the top layer of dirt, the shop vac to get off the next layer, and the vaccum to get the pieces down in. Then we had the carpet cleaners come in to get up all the stains as some areas where really ground in.

Baseball Contracts

I was listening to the Cubs game on the radio the other night and heard a question someone emailed in to Ron and Pat. The question was directed to Ron and went something along the lines of questioning if the players in past years (specifically the 1960's and early 1970's when Ron played) where better conditioned than current day players as they spent less time on the disabled list and played in more games. Ron's response was interesting. He said that the baseball contracts back then were one year deals. So, even if you were injured you had to be out there playing day after day so no one could come up and take you job. In today's world of guaranteed and multi-year contracts, it is not as big of a deal. Players can go on and off the DL as needed without worrying about their playing status the rest of the season and next year.

It was a really good question. I find sports contracts like this interesting. It's almost like we baby the players of today. They get more conditioning, better medical care, and yet they play less often then players in the past who probably didn't even get free aspirin. Whatever happened to no pain, no gain or there's no crying in baseball. I understand if you can't play due to a broken foot (Johnson - foul ball off foot), but some other injuries like a left calf strain (Blanco - not considered a serious injury) put someone on the DL for 15 days. That's like me calling in sick for soreness in my left hand - can't type work related emails for the next 15 days. Don't I wish. I understand the need to be cautious, but it sometimes seems to go too far. We need more players that keep playing through the pain and manage their injuries and pain (Lee - bulging disk in neck). Just sayin'!

Celebrations and Old Friends

I love when I get to go somewhere and see old friends and acquaintances I haven't seen in years. It is always fun to see what people are up to these days. Yesterday, I was in the Chicago suburbs for my friend Tracy's wedding shower. I got to see several friends from college and celebrate her upcoming wedding. It was a lot of fun!

There were a ton of people at the shower, so Tracy got a ton of great stuff. One of the gifts was a really cool creative gift. I am not good at coming up with stuff like that, so I'll have to steal it for future use. It used candy and little sayings for clever thoughts on marriage. Like the Almond Joy bar with the saying for the joys in life you will experience. Very cute. I had never seen that before and definitely want to use at some point! The room the shower was in was decorated so cute with flowers on every table and a brunch/lunch buffet. The favors were adorable, too! But, the best part of the shower (for me, anyway) was getting to see Tracy and catch-up with old friends from college. Granted the time was short, but it was fun to see everyone!

Tracy, me, Kendra, and Sarah

The Cell = The Worst

US Cellular Field is the worst baseball stadium I have ever been to. Period. Each year we try to see a new stadium or two. We have seen most of the ones in the Midwest and a few East Coast stadiums, too. Out of all he ones I have been to, The Cell is the worst by far. I am glad we went to check it off our list and to never go back!

We decided to catch the Cubs at the White Sox, so at least we could see a game we would like. That was probably a bad idea in hindsight, but who knew at the time! Not me! I don't know the Southside very well, but there is nothing there. We tried to park, but had to use White Sox parking. They had us going around in cirlces through neighborhoods to a community college parking lot. We had no clue where we were, so had to follow the crowd to the stadium. Since there is nothing there, people just tailgaited at their cars. I seriously felt like I was at a football game and not a baseball game.

We finlly got to the stadium about an hour or so before game time hoping to get tickets. There were none because the police don't allow scalping around the stadium. Interesting since the same Chicago police department allows it on the Northside. We searched high and low, even coming up with a plan to catch one of the museums to make our trip worthwhile. We finally found someone who sold us the worst seats ever in the upper deck. But, at least he admitted before we bought them they would be crappy. Kudos for the honestly, but these seats were horrible. Upper deck near the top and also near the tunnel to the concessions. So, we never really saw the game since we were so high off the field and had a stream of people walking in front of us. I got hit in the head with peanut shells, had beer spilled all around me, and saw the police escort many people out for fighting in the stands. Literally throwing punches fighting. Oh, I felt bad for the guy next to us who brought his kid. Not only could they not see the game, but the people behind us were using inappropriate language the whole game. He finally left about half-way through. I probably would have, too. Actually, we did leave a few innings early. The Cubs played horrible the entire game and lost.

The thing I hate most about the stadium is all the advertising. Every place they could put a sign, sponsor, or flashing light, they did. You would never see this at Wrigley. You just watch and enjoy the game, not all the crazy advertising. Also, they played music all the time. Before every batter, between innings, during pitching changes. People we up doing the YMCA and dancing to other songs. Horrible. It is a baseball game, not a drunken party people!

I can promise, I will never be back to US Cellular Field again.

I'll take the ivy at Wrigley anyday for a REAL baseball game!