So I’m in the midst of planning a trip for Mike and I to Chicago to celebrate our 3-year anniversary (yay!!!) and his birthday (Aug. 1). We are supposed to be leaving on Tuesday, July 29, after work and staying until Friday morning. The hotel was recommended to my by Stacey Salas (who does a lot of recruitment in the Chicago area and has stayed at this hotel several times–which I don’t know how b/c it’s a category 6 hotel which is the most expensive!). It’s a Renaissance (Marriott brand) so I can use my reward points. It will cost about 78,000 points out of my total 145,000. Not too shabby.
I also looked up transportation. Stacey suggested that the best way to go, if we don’t want to drive into the city and pay parking garage charges (as high as $45/day!), it would be best to take the train (www.NICTD.com). It’s very cheap (only about $30 for both of us, roundtrip!) and we can park my car for free at the station in Michigan City. The train will drop us off right in downtown Chicago less than a mile from the hotel. We can either walk from the station or we can catch a taxi.
The only bad thing is the timing. If I get off of work on Tuesday and don’t make the earlier train time, we’re looking at leaving for Chicago around 9:30 PM EST and not getting into the city until about 11:00 PM. When I told Mike this, he didn’t sound to happy. He also brought up an apprehension about walking in the city that late at night (but it’ll be downtown, so it shouldn’t be that bad). But like I said, we can always get a cab (which shouldn’t cost that much b/c it’s not that far away).
Then he brings up the point that he doesn’t even know what time he’ll have to work on that Tuesday, or what time he’ll be to my house for us to leave. So in reality, we might not leave Holland until Wednesday morning. I just hope that he finds out soon so that I can get this finalized and ready to go.
In other news…There have been lots of car purchases lately in our office. The college “fleet” gets replinished about every 80-100,000 miles. Linda had a Stratus but it started acting up and was reaching its age limit. Turns out she got a blue Civic like Kat’s. She didn’t really say anything about it (Linda is like that. Very humble and not wanting to ruffle any feathers. I’m not sure if Kristin got a new car, too. They both started together so neither has seniority over another, so it would make most people upset if your colleague got a new car and you didn’t). There was also some speculation that this new “blue” car might be Kat’s. She’s on vacation right now so it’s hard to say. I think that Amy and Adam are also looking to get new cars. Adam currently drives Amy’s college car and she’s driving her personal car. This was the arrangemnt when Adam came back until the fiscal year (July 1) started and new cars were purchased. It looks like Adam might be keeping Amy’s old blue Stratus (it has low miles and he likes how fast it goes) while she gets a new Civic.
Garrett presented the biggest shocker when I returned from my mini-vacation. I pulled into the parking lot yesterday morning, and as I was walking to the back door of the building, this really nice silver BMW Z4 soft top convertible Roadster pulled up behind my car.
- Garrett’s New Car (though his is silver)
And lo and behold, it was Garrett! I asked him later about it as I thought it might be a rental car and that his was in the shop or something, but nope, he bought it a few weeks ago. This surprised me b/c he just got a new Honda Accord just a few months ago–he and Greg both. I think he might be going through a (later) mid-life crisis or something. I mean, he’s getting older, itching to retire, and has had another relapse of cancer. I guess that now is as good a time as any to spend the money you’ve earned b/f time runs out.
One last thing before I go. Yesterday we were all talking about ID4 vacations and such and Greg was talking about the trip he took with his wife and newborn to NY to see her folks. I somehow mentioned the time when Christine (Greg’s wife) brought the baby to Qdoba for lunch. It was fun to see the baby, but something bizarre happened. The baby kept staring at me–I mean a serious, ominous, imploring stare. It was so weird and made me kind of uncomfortable. Carol (who was a part of this vacation conversation) said that it’s probably b/c he hasn’t seen many African Americans before and can notice the difference and was wondering about who I was. At first, I rejected the idea that at that age (he’s less than 8 months old) he would be capable of such high cognitive tasks. But after thinking about it, it’s not too far fetched. Even if he doesn’t understand the differences that he sees (ie, my skin color), he still does notice a difference, especially when all he’s been surrounded by his short little life are white faces.
It was also posited that my smile and voice could be things that he noticed as well. Everyone agreed that I have a large, gleaming smile (well, my words not theirs). And Carol said that I had a “resounding” voice. People keep telling me this. Greg concurred. She elaborated by saying that her husband has a loud voice–he’s a coach–but the kind that could make little kids cry. Where as my voice carries and fills a room. People always tell me that I have a “radio voice” (does that mean they think I’m ugly?).
I kept thinking about this. That word…resounding. You know that phenomenon where when you think about somethign too much it starts not to make sense, or you question what you thought you knew about it? Well, that’s what happened when the definition of the word “resounding” started to elude me. So I decided to look it up.
RESOUNDING:
- making an echoing sound
- uttered loudly: resounding speech.
- impressively thorough or complete
- To be filled with sound; reverberate
…I think it’s nice to have a resounding voice ;-D
Filed under: mike, relationships | Tagged: baby, cars, race, trips, vacation, voice
Two things,
1) 3 years and you don’t live together?? Get that man to commit already!!
2) What kind of car did you get??
Neil
Well, it’s kind of complicated. He just finished his undergrad and I’ve been done for a few years now–so there is an age difference. We are fully committed, but we’re just kind of taking it slow, waiting for our lives to align. He is about to go to grad school and I’m preparing for the same thing. Hopefully we can go to the same school, but there are no guarantees. We don’t want to limit each other. Even though we’ll probably still be doing the long distance thing, we plan on staying together. It might be hard, but we love each other enough to make it work.
As for the car that I drive–Honda Civic! Great gas mileage.