I have a few minutes here in the middle of the night as I tediously clean up my work computer's hard drive over remote desktop, so I figured I should write something before I get lazy again . . .


Last Wednesday was the yearly JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge race, which I've run every year that Guidewire has participated (I think I'm now the only one that can say that).  I ran the 3.5 miles in 28:16, which was slower than my time last year (I believe it was 27:30 or so) but still very good for me.  My splits were 8:06, 8:15, 8:25, 3:30, so I really left it all out there in the last half mile, which felt good.  Hopefully I can find a way to train just a bit harder this next year and get back under 28 for next year's race.


Two weekends ago I went out to New York to see the men's semifinals of the US Open with a friend of mine from high school (my old doubles partner, actually).  The hurricaine rolling up the Eastern seaboard, however, made for an interesting change of plans, since the storms were supposed to hit Satruday afternoon or evening.  The matches were Federer v. Djokovic and Nadal v. Murray, who were ranked 2, 3, 1, and 6 coming into the open and 2, 3, 1, and 4 exiting it (I believe), so it was about as high-caliber as you'll ever see.  Normally the semifinal matches are played back-to-back on the same court, starting at 1 PM, but because of the storm threat they started at 11 AM instead.  We'd read that they might try to play both matches concurrently as well, and around 12:30 (about the end of the second set of Federer/Djokovic) they did just that, starting the Nadal/Murray match over on the secondary court.  Since there weren't any scheduled matches in that stadium, there were no reserved seats, so it was a first-come-first-served free-for-all, and we ended up about 7 rows back from the court sitting in the middle of the baseline.  Score!  That's the closest I'll ever be to a match of that caliber, I'm sure, and it was pretty epic being there, even if we had to miss the second half of the first semi-final.  The match eventually got halted by rain in the third set with Murray up two sets and Nadal up a break in the third, but we were able to come back the next day to watch the completion of the match (Nadal held on to with the third set, but was broken in the last game of the fourth).  All in all it was a lot of fun, and it made me want to come back some time earlier in the tournament, when there are more matches on the field courts to wander around.

Aside from that, being in New York involved the usual assortment of wandering about the city, staying out too late at night, and hanging out with whatever friends I could manage to see (plus a little unexpected bonus drama, just for kicks).  All in all a lot of fun; it had been about 18 months since the last time I was there, which is definitely too long between trips, since I always enjoy it when I'm there.


One weekend ago, I was back up in South Lake Tahoe doing wedding planning.  Wedding planning is, as everyone knows, a ton of work; there are just a lot of decisions to make and logistics to iron out.  We hadn't done much work since we set a date and a venue, so it was time to get to work on photographers, djs, florists, cake, accomodations, rehearsal dinner sites, and activities for people while they're visiting.  We somehow managed to be busy all day Sunday and all day Monday, meeting with vendors and visiting various places.  It was gorgeous up there, as it always seems to be when we go, but we didn't get to do anything outdoorsy.  Every time I'm up there, though, I think about how Lake Tahoe compares to all the other most beautiful places I've been around the world, and it really still manages to be pretty much at the top of the list.  So I'm definitely excited to get married there.  The planning can be a grind, so I just have to keep reminding myself that I really enjoy throwing parties, and this is really just a huge, elaborate, pathologically-expensive party.