boston college

A Week Off … Cape Cod 2012 (Part Two)

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

(continued from A Week Off … Part One) Wednesday we woke up to some clouds and sprinkles and decided that it may be a good day to check our email and see what other non-beach related activities we could do, pending the weather. We hit up Dunkin Donuts near town and plugged in for a few hours – yes, I know it was vacation but I’m glad I was at least able to check a few emails, send out a few tweets and Facebook updates for clients, and delete some (maybe about 400 or so. Not joking) emails. After Dunkin, we hit up our favorite French bakery for another delicious Parisian sandwich, some olive bread and Croque Monsiour. Yum!

I heart bread (PB Boulangerie)

After the bakery, the weather was still looking iffy (cloudy with some sprinkles) so B convinced me to join him at a bike rental place. I was petrified. I don’t ride bikes. I know, it sounds so simple, right? I run (or at least I was before my boot) but riding bikes? Never. So naturally, the thought of riding along Cape Cod’s bike path (the Rail Trail) frightened me. B had found a bike shop just off the trail that had tandem bikes. The guy who worked at the shop probably thought I was crazy as I told him I didn’t know how to ride a bike and didn’t want to die that day. As we tried out the bike around the parking lot (probably going 2-3 mph) I was screaming nearly the whole time. “You’ll love it!” the guy assured us as B signed the paperwork. And with that, we were off on the trail. For the first 10 miles or so I was so scared of falling off. B was doing all the steering but still – what if we hit a bump? What if my hands stopped holding the handlebars and I went flying? Surprisingly, nothing happened. I don’t recall when I stopped feeling scared and when I started having fun, but at one point B started timing our miles which went down from 5 min per mile to 4 min per mile to even quicker at the end. All in all, we ended up biking about 35 miles! Not bad for someone who hasn’t ridden a bike, right?

Smiling now .. much better than my look of fear beforehand

Wednesday night, B and I enjoyed some old-fashioned fun and headed to Wellfeet’s Drive In Movie Theater for a double feature – Men In Black III and 21 Jump Street. I hadn’t ben to a drive-in in ages, and it was B’s first time – both movies were fun and perfect summer entertainment. Plus, who doesn’t love a drive-in?

Wellfleet Drive-In

Thursday the weather was gorgeous and we spent most of the day relaxing at the beach and finishing our books. That evening, we invited an old friend from college to visit – he lives less than an hour from the Cape and we hadn’t seen him since our wedding! Our original plan had been to go to the infamous Beachcomber – but it was closed! We ended up hitting the Pearl (which wasn’t bad – I had lobster quesadillas) for our last night’s meal and then returned to PJ’s for dessert.

Friday and Saturday we were off early to head to Boston for our Boston College reunion! Well, not without another stop at our new favorite French bakery for some breakfast. After that, we drove to Boston and checked into reunion. While we were only around for about 24 hours (before heading to a wedding in Boston Sat. night), our time was fun and included re-living many BC memories, including:

  • Staying in Edmonds, my junior year dorm!
  • A lobster bake (yes, more lobster. I don’t know my total lobster consumption, I lost count after the 3 full ones, 2+ lobster rolls and ) – the same way our freshman year started off!
  • Walking around the Reservoir, the place where B and I first held hands and then later got engaged
  • Taking a walk into Cleveland Circle, grabbing Pino’s for lunch, a stop at Mary Ann’s, a Reservoir run, and walking by Roggies (with a quick stop in)
  • Walking up the Million Dollar Staircase to Main Campus
  • A stop in Hillside to smell the fresh Starbucks brewing, paninis grilling and homemade chips (Yes, even after living in the real world and experiencing real food, I still love BC Dining)
  • And of course seeing so many great faces, friends and wonderful people from college

my beautiful alma mater at night

3 outta 6 ‘aint bad – half of Mod 25B! (plus a photobomber)

The weekend ended with a college wedding which featured not only a ceremony in BC’s signature church but a reception downtown with rooftop dancing and gorgeous Boston views (congrats Matt and Kim!) and a high school graduation (congrats Ignatius grads!). And now we’re back in the grind … until my next trip – Ireland!

Weekend Fun: 18 miles, pizza, volunteering and Golden Gloves

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

This weekend B and I had a fun time running around Cleveland. We started off our Friday with an 18 mile training run. I know – that hardly sounds like anything fun (and if you read the post, you’ll see it really wasn’t), but it had to get done and we opted to start our Friday night with the run. We finished strong, got some groceries we needed for Saturday morning’s breakfast, picked up some pepperoni pizza and boneless buffalo wings from Angelo’s and caught up on the DVR. Is anyone else watching Awake? I’m hooked!

Saturday morning, B and I got up early and headed over to the Women and Children’s Center of the West Side Catholic Center to prepare and serve breakfast for the women and children there. It was Boston College’s Alumni Day of Service, and as Service Chairs of the committee, B and I had planned and organized the event.

After breakfast, we did some shopping and snacking at the West Side Market before returning home to crash. I was still tired from the previous night’s run and waking up earlier than usual on a Saturday.

Saturday night we met up with some friends to check out the Golden Gloves, an amateur boxing tournament. I’ll admit that I was skeptical when B asked if I wanted to go – while I love the movie The Fighter (who wouldn’t like a movie with Amy Adams, Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale AND Boston accents?) I wasn’t sure if I wanted to witness any fighting in person. We started the night with some Noodlecat Happy Hour, headed to the Golden Gloves, then finished it at Map Room. I love Saturdays!

Golden Gloves fighters

Sunday was pretty lazy and involved sleeping in while B played softball, a light elliptical workout to get my muscles moving after our run, lots more DVR catchup (PSA: The Ringer is THE BEST show on television right now. Please don’t judge me for watching the CW.) and some baking for this week’s work bake sale (proceeds go to the food bank … the recipe is awesome, I’ll be sharing it soon!). Oh, and of course some wine and cider on the patio while we enjoyed 70 degree weather! I love springtime in Cleveland.

Cider tastes better on the patio.

All in all, it was the perfect weekend in Cleveland. Hope you all a great weekend as well – and are off to a great week!

Marathon Training: Week Thirteen Recap

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 1 Comment

Lucky number 13. This week was week thirteen of Cleveland marathon training – and even included a long run on Friday the 13th (no, it wasn’t 13 miles).

This week’s training called for Tuesday: 4. Wednesday: 9. Thursday: 5. Saturday: 18, for a total of 36 miles. We stuck to the mileage but I ended up moving the days around some to fit in work schedule, happy hours and other commitments.

Monday: 5 –  Not a bad pre-work run. Had to travel to Columbus for a work meeting that day (meaning an extra 5 hours to my commute) and knew I needed a run to get me ready for my long day.

Tuesday: 4 – B and I had planned a post-run work together for our scheduled 4 miler, but the weather was gross out so I hit the dreadmill for the first time in months. Luckily I had my fun. playlist and some TV to watch to make the run go by smoothly.

Wednesday: 9 – Post-work run with B. The only way I could describe it was one of my new favorite words – Meh. It’s been a busy few days at work, so after an 11+ hour workday, 1.5 hours of running was the last thing I felt up to. Nonetheless, B and I made it out around 7:30 and were home by 10 p.m. for dinner.

Friday: 18 – That’s right, 18 miles!! It was just B and me running this Friday, instead of Saturday, due to a thunderstorm-filled forecast for Saturday and half-day service event scheduled. It finally hit me how far we were running when I figured out the timing – we were going to be running for three straight hours. THREE hours. We did two of our Wednesday night 9 mile route and after, I was SO SORE. I have never been in as much pain from a running workout – I’m going to have to figure out how to keep going, and stay a little pain free, for another 8 miles on race day. Only one more longer long run for training (20 miles) before we taper!

Today, Sunday, I managed to do the elliptical for 45 minutes to loosen my legs. My body is no longer sore but my left achilles tendon is still in pain. I’m wondering if I should skip next week’s mid-week long run and stay with “short” (4-5) miles during the week to keep up the running but help with the recovery? Anyone have any ideas?

A special shout out and good luck to all those running Boston TOMORROW! Best of luck as you race it up Heartbreak Hill and pass my alma mater, Boston College, cheering you on. In honor of Marathon Monday (a.k.a. Patriot’s Day, or the most fun day if you live in Boston), I leave you with an old photo of me and my roomies cheering on the Boston Marathon runners my freshman year at Boston College! I NEVER would have thought back then that I’d be training for a marathon 8 years later myself.

girlies

Weekend Recap: BC v. ND Weekend

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

As a proud Boston College alumna, I’d be in trouble if I didn’t post about my recent weekend in South Bend to witness another year and another episode of the Holy War. We (BC) were supposed to lose by 20+ points (sadly, we’re less than stellar this season) but the game was closer than it should have been – the final score was 16 – 14, with BC only losing by 2! Again, it was still a loss, but it was a fun day, fun game, and great weekend.

The weekend started off at 6:15 a.m. on Saturday when B and I were picked by his dad in a 12-person van, and it was already full with his parents, 2 of his brothers, 1 of his sisters, B’s coworker and our dentist and his wife (yes, you read that right – they’re family friends so we spend the 4ish hour carride, tailgate, and night/next morning with our dentist).

We arrived at ND and met up B’s aunt, 3 uncles, 2 aunts and 7 cousins. Yes, our tailgate was HUGE, family filled, and got even bigger when 4 of my friends from BC stopped by.

B* and me

There was tons of food, including my own first attempt at cake balls – shaped like footballs of course:

We stayed at a hotel after the game and then headed back to the CLE the next day.

Does your school have any big rivalries? What’s your favorite alumni sporting event?

*B does not usually look like such a creepster. He’s just doing Movember and raising money for man-cancers. If you’d donate to him, I’d appreciate it so he actually does shave it off come 8 days from now (and yes, I’m counting down).

Some Thoughts About Email

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

Yesterday, I mentioned to a colleague that gmail had rolled out some new themes, and I was pretty excited that when it was sunny outside, my gmail showed a sunny landscape. If I chose the beach landscape, at night the sun would go down on my gmail. Pretty snazzy.

She was taken aback. “Gmail?” she asked. “Should I get that? I already use road runner and I’ve used it for years. I pay for my road runner service! Besides, don’t you get a lot of spam on free email accounts?”

Generational differences, I’m sure. I can’t imagine paying for an email address. And I hardly get any spam, thanks to Gmail’s great spam blocker. But in the early days of Hotmail and Yahoo, this wasn’t the case.

Today, I read that my alma mater, Boston College, is stopping issuing students BC email addresses (such as JaneDoe@bc.edu) because so many of the entering freshmen already have their own email accounts.BC Email

I know this is true – I started using Gmail while I was at BC and eventually started forwarding all my emails to my @bc.edu. I’m a big fan of Gmail. It’s really easy to check anywhere and you have unlimited storage so if you want, you can save every single email you ever received. My BC email account “expired” shortly after graduation and I lost any saved emails from that account. I can still receive emails sent to my @bc.edu address, I forwarded them to my Gmail. This means that technically I can still send emails from my @bc.edu email name, but via Gmail.

I see why BC is doing it. It prevents the hassle of students “forgetting” to read their BC email and missing an important assignment or schedule update. It saves BC money. But does everyone REALLY have an additional email address these days? What about professors – will they be given @bc.edu email addresses so students recognize the name? And what about the separation of our personal lives and our work/school lives? I started using my gmail account for all personal matters, but the lines are slowly blurring together. I’m curious to see how it works.

By the way, it’s cold and snowy in Cleveland today. I opened my gmail, and it shows a snowy landscape too. How cool is that?

Labor Day Weekend

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

Labor Day was awesome. No time to go into all the details, but the are highlights:

  • The Patriot Bowl (more about that below)
  • BC friends visiting!!!!!
  • Cleveland Air Show
  • Beautiful weather

Patriot Bowl

My alma mater, Boston College, was represented in Cleveland at this past weekend’s Patriot Bowl! The game was BC v. Kent State at Brown’s Stadium.

I’d been counting down the days for this football game for quite some time, especially because about 50% of the people I work with went to Kent, and because I love college football.  Some of my coworkers had been talking trash for some time, especially in the weeks before the game. But…..if you haven’t heard… BC won! 21-0!

The weekend was fun, not only because BC won (though that helped) but also because I had 5 BC grads from out of town come to visit, 3 who I hadn’t seen since graduation. We picked a muni lot spot Saturday and tailgated all day leading up to the game. None of these friends had ever been to Cleveland before, so with the airshow, the game, and the beautiful weather, I am pretty sure they were impressed.

To hear the BC fight song (“For Boston”) or just some good old Dropkick Murphy’s, click here.