The week and Milano-San Remo

This week has been busy. St. Patrick's Day was eventful, as usual, at my office with many festivities. The Senior VP of our division is Irish so its been a tradition for some time to basically goof off that day with a breakfast and lunch (extended) along with an in-office party and Limerick contest. I always wonder what St. Patrick thinks of everyone celebrating his feast day by drunken revelries.

We were finally able to schedule a Committee meeting via phone with three of the board members after two weeks of trying. Got that done and produced the report. That means the board book is done.

Had a conference call with our partners in India on Thursday. I had to get up at 4am to make the call due to the time difference. Not too much earlier than usual, but it still seemed to take a lot out of me.

The AIG flap is almost amusing. Do you understand CONTRACTS people? While I would never have agreed to million dollar bonus/retention contracts, these contracts were in place previous to the company taking a dollar in taxpayer money. These are legal obligations. You might not like it, but the company did not have a choice in paying them or else they would be sued for breach of contract and rightfully so. I have to deal with contracts all the time and spend a lot of time negotiating various aspects of them and there have been times that I needed to insist that my contract partner follow the terms of the contract when they tried to do something else. I was very happy I had the contract or else my business would have incurred expenses or otherwise been disadvantaged had these not been in place. This is a key factor in doing business in the US and around the world. If the government suddenly sets the precedent of breaking contracts they decide they don't like then this makes a contractual agreement between businesses and people not very secure. This would be a bad thing. The other thing is, if you had agreed to work for x terms and then you weren't paid after the fact wouldn't you be upset? I know that I would. I definitely see lawsuits over this if contracts are broken. Finally, the tax law just passed...it violates the constitution in multiple ways. Once again Congress spends (or maybe wastes) time just doing political cover...this law when challenged WILL get thrown out by the Supreme Court...in this case I doubt the vote will even be close its so blatently unconstitutional. The media has gotten people all worked up over something that they aren't explaining well and Congress is reacting to the media and rather than doing something constructive going forward they are trying to punish individuals who are just getting the compensation that was agreed upon at the beginning of the contract terms. This is just so stupid. OK - end of soapbox.

On to more interesting news - Mark Cavendish (Columbia) suprisingly won MSR today by a centimeter over Heinrich Haussler (Cervelo). It was pretty amazing. The speed that he came up on Haussler was astounding. But he is really lucky that the line wasn't just a foot further down the road. Just barely got him. He is an amazing rider and you've got to give him his due. I guess we'll be hearing his name a lot over then next 10 years or so. Its hard to believe he is so good at such a young age. One amusing thing was a statement HH made after the race in that he was unhappy because second place was just "first loser." I had to laugh out loud at that because my husband, Neil, has made that statement numerous times with regard to various races when I said "so and so" at least came in second...

Lance finished way down, but he was just planning a training race. At one point when Astana came to the front to do most of the work in chasing down the break, I thought he might have something planned, but apparently not. Just a hard training ride. Next week's race should be interesting. I'd be surprised if Astana didn't really try to win that one with the "all star" cast they are bringing to that race. Lance, Levi, Alberto, Andreas...all their heavy hitters. Should be interesting.

Tyler Farrar (Garmin) fell and as of right now its reported that he "might" have broken his collarbone, but it isn't confirmed yet. I hope he's OK, he's had such amazing form it would be a real shame if he loses out on all the northern classic races this year as he might really have a breakout year.

Finally, I am getting serious about increasing exercising and reducing calories. A milestone, not to be revealed, has been passed and its unacceptable. I went for a 40 min. brisk walk through the neighborhood today (too cold to cycle with my current cycling wardrobe). Its supposed to be warmer tomorrow so maybe I'll bike tomorrow afternoon.

This next week promises not to be much fun, especially Monday. Will write more sometime next week! Everyone have a good one!

Quiet Vacation

This week was fairly uneventful. I was on vacation this week. Nothing special planned and since I had a cold, just pretty much goofed off. Caught up some on reading back newspapers. Got some estimates for replacement of our side fence. Did get to ride my bike on Wednesday because the weather was so nice. But other than that, was just pretty boring.

I was glad to see the stock market went up some this week, but not holding my breath on the trend continuing just yet. Some signs the economy is recovering on its own. I'm sure the actions that the government has taken so far has only had a marginal effect, if any. The bank funds were probably the most effective to alleviating the credit crunch which isn't totally fixed yet.

I'm afraid I don't have any confidence that spending all of that money in the so called "recovery" bill will help at all. Its just a giant "earmark" by another name. Its obscene the way communities in each state are lining up for handouts. I just know that those of us who worked hard, saved, and spent our money wisely are the ones who will be asked to foot the bill for all the giveaway programs to those who didn't manage their finances in a responsible fashion. With them incentivizing sloth the way they are it will be a miracle if any of our children think that saving or getting an education to make a higher salary will be a good idea at all...at least if they have any brains they won't. I can see that mediocrity will be the result of all of this equalizing. End of soapbox...

On that depressing note, I'll sign off for today. Try to have a good weekend!

This and That...redux

Well, its been awhile again. I really need to blog more regularly. I'll try to do more frequent short ones instead of my usual long ramblings.

I did miss telling about the last Saint Saens' Organ Symphony we attended. There was a local one in February by the Baltimore Symphony at Strathmore Hall in Rockville, Maryland, a northern suburb of DC. We've heard it in that venue before and it has one of the best electronic organs we've heard, so we don't mind (too much) that its not a pipe organ. It was a very good performance and we did enjoy it. The next one's on the schedule are both in April a week apart. One in Dallas and one in Cincinnati. In addition, I have a board meeting to attend in Philadelphia in between those two concerts, so it should be an interesting week travelwise.

On to other news, Neil and I had a nice visit with the kids in Richmond. The weather was gorgeous and I got to sit on their deck in the sun for awhile. Neil helped out some with the kitchen renovation. Mostly gave advice and helped lift things, though he did do some sawing while Bryan was out of the room which made me nervous but apparently Bryan and he had discussed the cut so it was OK. They got the double oven in place. It is going to be a really nice area once they get it all done. Bryan has done a really nice job with the cabinetry. It has got be satisfying to be able to create something like that and know that you did it yourself rather than just buy something. His grandfather, my Dad, was good with woodworking and did carving a lot in his later years. My uncle was a carpenter who built houses (he and my Dad built the house that I grew up in) so I guess he comes by his talent honestly.

I HATE this cold. At least it finally seems to be getting a little better. I'm supposed to go to the dentist today for a regular cleaning, etc. I might even be able to breathe through my nose which would probably be helpful. Its the pits that I got this during the week that I took for vacation. I should ask for yesterday as a sick day instead of vacation since I wouldn't have gone into work if it wasn't a vacation anyway.

I am enjoying the leisure of being able to watch the Paris-Nice cycling race this week. I'm able to get the video in french, which I mute the sound and then get an audio stream in English from Eurosport. They don't quite match (the video is ahead of the audio), but it works out.

And finally, I'm not scheduled to cantor for Mass again until later this month, but then I do two weeks in a row. I can't believe its Lent already, it seems like it was just Christmas. Time just seems to fly these days. Trying to increase my spiritual reading and get back into the habit of visiting Sacred Space. Its a great resource to assist in praying during the course of a busy day.

Well, this turned into another huge post...maybe if I post more often I can keep them short.

Later ya'll...

India!

Once again it has been a long time since my last post. Where does the time go? In any event, as I said in my last post, I am now going to talk about my trip to India. It was not a long flight to get to India from Dubai, though I did go through at least 3 different security checkpoints before being able to board the plane. The trip went smoothly, though we departed slightly late, but not very by today's standards. I arrived, cleared customs without any issues...in fact, because I left my large bag back at the hotel in Dubai, I just had my little bag with me and they just waived me through, so that was nice. Upon leaving customs there was a crowd of people waiting for folks just outside the door. I soon located my name and there were two gentlemen from the hotel to pick me up. We went out of the airport and walked a short distance to the car. Driving to the hotel was an experience! I've never seen such traffic and the Washington DC area has the 5th worst traffic in the US (it was on the news last night). The unusual part was that there were hundreds of these small three-wheeled vehicles that looked like an enclosed golf cart. I asked about them and was told they were called "rickshaws." They just went everywhere. Since they are smaller sometimes two of them would go side by side or pass each other in the same lane. They zipped in and out in between cars. There were also many motorcycles and motorscooters that just zipped between the cars and around them. Everyone just kept moving along and just ignored all the littler vehicles that were zipping in and out. Very exciting. I saw more of the same the next day when travelling around with my hosts from Lilac Medicare. Of course, the traffic runs British style, which seems backward if you're from the US. Add to that the fact that turns across the other lane of traffic seem to be done mostly "nose in front" style (turn and get your car in front of one car, then scooch across the next lane and the next - forcing each lane in turn to stop and let you through) and it is a pretty hair raising experience. I wasn't too anxious as I just figured if my time was up, my time was up and that was the least thing I was worried about anyway.

Upon arrival at the hotel, we pulled into the area in front of the door and there was a whole crowd of people in traditional Indian dress and there was also a full band!!! The driver said it was an Indian wedding. The band finished just as we pulled up and all the people started going into the hotel. It was quite a surprising sight. The doorman was in a white military like uniform with a red turban. Very elegant. The hotel was quite nice. I'll add some pictures in a day or so here. I enjoyed my stay there and ate at the restaurant there that evening. I was able to get Bhindi, which is a spicy Okra dish that I first had in London a couple of years ago. I enjoyed that a lot.

The following day I was picked up by my hosts from Lilac Medicare and they took me to their office for an all day meeting. It was a very fruitful meeting where we ironed out a lot of operational details, they explained a lot of things about doing business in India and the challenges they face, I explained some of my challenges and we were able to work out the next steps in our relationship and in planning to present the MLE program to Indian laboratories. After our meeting, they took me back to the hotel for a short rest and then picked me up and took me to a shopping area. I was able to get a bargain on some of my usual face cleanser and also purchased some bracelets in the Indian style. They also bought me a CD of classical Hindi music to take back. I was very touched by this last. We then went to dinner at the Hotel Intercontinental, which I am sure is a 5 star hotel. It matched the best of any hotel I've seen in this country. We had some traditional Indian food (way more than I could eat - but I did my best!) and I enjoyed it very much. I also got to go over to the kitchen area and see how they cooked much of the food in traditional Indian tandoors. That was very interesting. It was late when I returned, but I enjoyed the day immensely.

The following day I returned to Dubai, went to the hotel to pick up my other bag and eat lunch and then returned to the airport. My flight to the US didn't leave until after midnight, so I had to hang out at the ticketing area until it opened at 9:30pm. I arrived back in the US at around 6:30am the next morning, but since there is a 9 hour time difference, it was a VERY long day.

I'll catch up on what I've been doing since the trip in my next post...hopefully sooner than two weeks from now.

Long Trip - Long Time since Last Blog

It was a long way to Dubai and India. In fact, its taken me this long to get over jet lag since returning and getting my thoughts together about the trip so I can do a decent recap of the trip.

Dubai
It was a very interesting place. In fact, after spending a few days there, I realized that if the signs weren't in both Arabic and English and there wasn't a periodic "call to prayer" from the Mosque nearby the hotel, that I wouldn't have realized I was outside the US. It felt very familiar, the taxis were the same as here and the mall across the street was pretty much like most in the US, except bigger. It definitely has a shopping culture. When I entered the food court, I knew that if I didn't like the food in the local restaurants, I knew where to come for a "taste of home" In the food court was a McDonald's (expected), Burger King, KFC, Subway, but the big surprise was there was a Krispy Kreme!! That was almost too much. In addition, there was a children's play area there with a carosel playing "Stars and Stripes Forever." Very strange given I knew I was 7,000 miles from home.

I did go to church twice while I was there. There was a major Catholic Church, but it was in a compound and didn't look much like a church from the outside. I guess they were keeping a low profile. However, the people seemed very devout. There was a grotto with a statue of Our Lady in it with candles in niches next to it. The church itself was very modern. There were no missals or hymnal, but everything including responses, hymn lyrics, and readings was projected onto the walls on either side of the altar. This was almost necessary because of the size of the church and layout, not everyone could see the altar, but they could see the projections. Also, when not projecting the responses, etc., it projected a camera view of the priest and altar, so the actions of the Eucharist could be seen.

The World Trade Center where the Arab Health Conference was held was very much like any convention center in this country. The architecture, particularly of their office buildings was pretty interesting. Probably because they just started building up the city, they have more room to build structures that don't fit the straight up and down geometry that we are used to seeing in our cities. Some of the buildings look like they have chunks out of them, some look like ships sails, and other fantastic configurations. The building that is going to be the tallest building in the world when complete, is mostly finished, but it doesn't seem to be as tall as it really is because its out away from any other buildings, so you don't get perspective unless you get close to the bottom of it, then you realize how really tall it is.

I went on a Dhow dinner cruise while I was there. Dhows are work boats that move a lot of cargo around. Dubai has a canal that goes through the center of town and a lot of Dhows have been converted into floating restaurants. They are all adorned with different patterns of lights. I tried to take many pictures of them and the buildings we were passing, but due to the low light, distance (flash wasn't very effective) and movement of the Dhow, I wasn't very successful, though I did get a couple of good pictures.



Finally, I went to the Souk, which is an outdoor (kind of) shopping area with a lot of different stores. But there is the same kind of store in each area. One area is the Gold Souk, another area is the Textile Souk, there is an electronic Souk (sounds kind of oxymoronic timewise) and of course there is the Fish Souk. I didn't go to this last one, but I heard about it. I had enough of fish markets after the big one in Tokyo. I'm including a picture of a shop in the Gold Souk.



Well, this has gotten long enough. I'll talk about my trip to India in my next post. Till later

Off to New Adventures!

Getting ready to head off to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I will be staffing a booth at the Arab Health Conference MedLab section of the exhibits. I hope all goes well, both in travels and with getting the exhibition materials ready. I'm supposed to be getting the stuff by Sunday to set up the booth. The weekend in the UAE is actually Friday and Saturday, so Sunday is a work day. Interestingly, St. Mary's, the Roman Catholic church there has a full schedule of services Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The ones on Friday seem to be in a variety of Middle Eastern languages, but the ones on Sat. and Sun. are mainly in English. So, I'm going to try to get to the 9am Mass on Sunday if possible. I arrive in Dubai on Sat. evening at around 7pm. So, getting to church will be my first adventure and then I'll head over to the Convention Center.

On the bike racing front, the Tour Down Under is underway in Adelaide, Australia. It is Lance Armstrong's first race back. He is racing for the Astana team. He is doing pretty good...able to keep up with the other pros and he's not even the oldest racer in the peloton. Jens Voigt (Saxo Bank) is one day older than him! He was in a break with the other major players the other day and it was nice to see. He is doing double duty besides, he has a whole host of Livestrong (Lance Armstrong Foundation) events that he's been attending besides just racing. I don't know how he does it. Of course, he's also in demand at the start line for autographs, etc. I think he's going to have to stretch it out some at other events otherwise he'll burn out before the Giro (Tour of Italy), much less the Tour de France in July. I think this pace is primarily because of the limited time he has in Australia and they are launching a whole lot of new initiatives and partnering with a lot of cancer organizations there. That was part of his reason for coming back to racing. It gets him a lot more publicity if he is an active racer and he can piggyback his activities with Livestrong onto an already very popular event, like the Tour Down Under.

Next month, he'll be in the Tour of California. That should be something to see. Carlos Sastre (Cervelo Test Team), last year's TDF winner will be there as will Ivan Basso (Liquigas), who is coming off his suspension for "attempting" to dope (long story...). Ivan had been one of Lance's main rivals the last couple of TDF's that he raced. Going to be a great season!

Well enough rambling for now...I'll try to update from Dubai. I think I should be able to because I should have internet in the hotel. This is a new one, it just opened in October 2008.

Another Saint Saens

Well, this weekend was good and bad. Good - arrived in NJ before snow; Nice dinner; Good acoustics; excellent soloist; excellent desert; dry drive home. Bad - Cold during walking; something went wrong with organ or conductor (organ so promising during 2nd movement was a bust during 4th); Neil fell in icy conditions on Sunday coming back from church; spilled coffee during fall and injured ribs but they seem to be getting better.

Overall, it was a good weekend. Nice concert, though the Saint Saens was disappointing. Nice drive, good time just being together.

Busy, busy, busy at work. Getting ready for my trip to Dubai and Mumbai. Plus a million other things on tap that need to be taken care of before I go.

That's all for now!

Back to Work

Back to work for a couple of days. It was pretty stressful yesterday...there was a substitute organist and a substitute priest, but we managed. Another go round on New Year's Day.

Enjoying the reports from the 'cross group overseas. A lot of US riders going up against the Euros. I would love one of them to beat up on Sven Nys, but its not going to happen. Though he doesn't seem quite as over the top as he's been the last year or two. I'm all for JPow (Jeremy Powers) and Matt Shriver...I'd like to see them do real well. Of course, I'm not adverse to Ryan Trebon (US National champion) doing well either, but I'm partial to the other two I mentioned.

Its hard for me to focus on my trip at the end of January. In fact, I'm trying my best to not think about it before Jan. 1. I know its going to be stressful, so I'm trying not to get wound up about it while the kids are here. They're coming on NY Eve and will stay until Friday. I'm really looking forward to it since we haven't seen them in nearly 6 months. Even though we only live 2 hours away.

Will report more later!

New Life

Just attended a friend's marriage blessing at St. Veronica's church. It was really nice. The reception afterward at their house was really nice too. There were several people from New Dominion Chorale that were there. We found a couple "small world" things. We discovered that Peter Patente (baritone in NDC - married to Jeanne Patente - my friend from NDC) grew up a few blocks from Immaculata H.S. where I graduated. His sister still lives there and he performed for a memorial concert for his other sister who passed away just a week ago or so in Immaculate Conception Church. Unbelievable. Then my other friend Rose Mary...her husband Vic had produced a couple of manuals for submarines in New London some years ago. Neil and he hit it right off.

So, besides celebrating Sabine and John's marriage, we all discovered something about each other we had in common. It was a great time had by all. It was nice that they were able to get right with the church. They had been delayed by various illnesses and deaths in their family. In Germany, you have to get civilly married and then do the church thing since church marriages are not recognized by German civil authorities as being a marriage.

We came back home to discover that the next door neighbors had locked themselves out of their house. John had fallen down and hurt himself, but wasn't too bad off. They had called a locksmith and expected him shortly, but I felt bad about leaving them by themselves, despite them refusing any help.

However, just shortly after going inside, I saw the locksmith had pulled up...so I'm hoping they're OK.

Miami is playing U of CA this evening. We're looking forward to watching the game. In the meantime...more laundry!

Water, Water Everywhere...

The big news in the area is the water main break on River Road in Maryland. It was pretty spectacular, its on CNN. This is just north of the beltway outside of the District. This is a major commuter route. Bad news!

Work went well today, pretty slow this time of year. I've got all my shopping and wrapping done so that's a good thing. Pretty unusual for me for Dec. 23rd.

I've been following Lance Armstrong on Twitter (among other pro cyclists) and its been interesting. He's had a couple of young cyclists staying and training with him over the last couple of weeks. Its kind of cool how he's trying to work with them and pass his experience and wisdom along. I think folks are reading too much into his return. He is competitive (no doubt!) but I also think he's being realistic about what goals he can hope to obtain...frankly I don't think he or anyone else can know what he will be able to do until he can test himself against the current crop of professionals. He may have raced against all of them before, but they've grown (e.g. Christian Vande Velde) and he doesn't know what he's lost over the last 3 1/2 years of not racing. He actually may be better than he was in 2005 because he wants it more, but who knows. If I were him, I'd actually be more interested in winning the Giro and maybe next year the Vuelta just to be one of the select group that have won all three grand tours. The Giro organizers have really given him an opening with a TTT and a loooong ITT. Though frankly, I think Garmin is going to win the TTT. Too many specialists...Lance and Levi (if he rides the Giro) aren't going to be able to overcome those folks. Well...enough geeking out for now.

Another Monday

Things chugged along today. Work was work. Made my reservations to go to Dubai and India so its really on now. No turning back now. Wrapped Christmas presents. Not a whole lot else new today. Glad those folks all made it off the plane that ran off the runway in Denver. That's all for today!

Welcome!!

Thanks for checking in! This is the first real post to my blog. Not having done this before its likely my ramblings will be unorganized at first, so bear with me.

I'm intending this blog to be about my thoughts about my interests and about how my life is going. I enjoy cycling as a fan a lot!! I check several cycling news sites routinely and listen to a regular podcast on cycling, so I geek out from time to time on that. I am also in several singing groups so there should be an eclectic mix of music and cycling. And the music isn't likely to be the type usually associated with cycling...no techno for me.

So, to start...today I served as the cantor at my church and it went really well today. No mistakes! Yesterday we had practice with the strings, brass and timpani for Christmas Midnight Mass. Some rough patches, but the adrenalin on Christmas Eve will overcome...it usually does. I also sang with the New Dominion Chorale (my community group) at their outreach singing event at The Virginian, a local senior home. It was fun and I think the residents who attended enjoyed our performance and the carol sing.