More bucket list items checked off!!!

What an amazing weekend I had!  That friend that I recently become closer with and with whom I planned to drag along my bucket list adventure, has now grown into something even better.  For me it was a series of stumbling baby steps as I tried to remember what it was like to date again, and I'm so glad she is such a patient and amazing person for putting up with my silly bullshit.  Anyway after a few mildly awkward moments on my part, things started going very well and I realized that not only am I starting to live again, but that I'm actually happy.  I think I had forgotten what happiness felt like, not that I was always miserable or sad, but it was more just a feeling of indifference as if I was just coasting along.  Now I that I remember what happiness feels like, it makes doing these bucket list things even more amazing.

So anyway, one night we were talking (texting actually) about things downtown that we wanted to do and she casually mentioned that one night we should just stay downtown, so we could do a bunch of stuff off our bucket lists.  Well, no sooner did I agree with her, I was on the internet looking at booking a room at the Hard Rock Chicago, a place listed on Jessi's bucket list as somewhere she wanted to stay.  After finding an amazing last minute room deal, I suggested we plan an overnight excursion for the upcoming weekend.  Crazy, I know for two people who only recently started officially dating, but than again that is the type of people we are.  We both like adventure and and are somewhat free spirits who live in the moment, so it didn't come as much of a surprise when Jessi said she was up for  it.  So anyway, now it's back on me to plan the afternoon / night.  After combing through our individual bucket lists I came up with a plan.  Again, big on the planning, but short on the details, but screw it, that's how I am.  I decided we would try to go ice skating again, but if that failed, I had a back up plan.  Also, one of the things on her list was to eat dinner in Little Italy, and I wanted to have drinks at the Signature Room on the 96th floor of the Hancock Building.

So with this general plan, we set out for the city.   Of course before we even left, I realized the weather would once again not cooperate as it was cold as shit out!  Cancel ice skating...again.  No worries, revert to plan B, the Shedd Aquarium.  Luckily The Shedd was open this time.  I didn't mention in my earlier post that after Jessi and I went to the Skydeck, we attempted to go to the aquarium only to find it closed, forcing us to check out the incredibly dull planetarium, at which we still had fun because it was so dull!  Well anyway this time we were lucky and found it to be open.  So after watching the beluga whales swim, now I have to steal another one of Jessi's bucket list items - swim with beluga whales.

After the aquarium and a long cold walk to find a cab, seriously it's the city of Chicago, the aquarium was closing, you think there would have been some cabs nearby, but NOOOO.  After finding a cab and just barely avoiding frostbite, we made our way back to the hotel to change for dinner.  Now I didn't make any dinner reservations (that's a detail issue) mainly because I didn't want to lock us into a dinner time, and I had picked three different restaurants, all of which were within a block or two of each other.  So I pick the first one that comes to mind and we hop in a cab.  Once we got there I saw reservations might have been a good idea, but we were able to be seated in the bar area immediately.  As I look around I realized the restaurant was perfect, cozy, a little dark, not too loud, kinda romantic.  Then came the food...largest piece of lasagna I had ever seen, but also the best tasting I've ever had.  So dinner was a HUGE success!

#103. Eat at an Italian restaurant in Little Italy

After that it was time for drinks at The Signature Room on the 96th floor of the Hancock building.  Another short cab ride, and a quick elevator to the top and we were there.  No line, and we were able to immediately get a table, not on the glass though, bummer.  We still were able to take in the AMAZING night time views of the city as we both started sampling their specialty drinks.  I don't think we were there for longer than ten minutes and Jessi stated that we had to come back again as this was most probably the coolest place to have a drink.  Now anyone thinking of going I must warn you, it's the city of Chicago...drinks in the city are expensive...this is no exception.  Keep in mind though you are not just paying for the drinks but the the atmosphere as well, and when taken all together it is so worth going to.

#54. Drinks at the Signature Room

Now I know I don't have any pictures of the view, but I wanted to make sure I got really good ones, and since we weren't sitting right on the windows, I decided to wait until next time.

The next morning as we were checking out of the hotel, Jessi noted a photo booth in the lobby, so sure enough... #65. Take silly photos w/ someone in a photo booth.

All in all it was one of the most amazingly fun weekends I've had in longer than I can remember and we are already making plans to go back!  Thanks Jessi...you are AMAZING and I'm so glad you came into my life at the perfect moment!!!!

Road to a half marathon

So apparently I'm not an invincible teenager anymore.  It seems all the running I did last summer took a bit of a toll on my body.  In the past I've had shin splints, and for anyone who doesn't know what they are, it basically feels like the muscle running down the front of your shin is literally tearing in half as you take as step. Luckily, shin splints are treatable and with a little ice, rest, Advil and some stretching they go away.  Needless to say as I began running more and more I was very careful to take preventive measures to make sure I didn't get them again.  Well back in late July, 2012 I was running a 5k with a friend of mine, and although we had run in practice together and even done some of the same races, this was the first time her and I actually ran together during a race.  Oh, I forgot to mention that the two of us are VERY competitive, and this particular race was organized through our work, so we had a bunch of friends and coworkers there at the finish line.  Now as we neared the finish line I noticed that we both began to pick up our pace a bit...I don't even know if it was initially a conscious decision, but there was no way in hell I was going to let her finish even one inch ahead of me!  The last tenth of a mile were almost at a full sprint, and by the time I crossed the finish line, ahead of her, we were at a full sprint.  Well I noticed the next day a slight pain in my right shin, but it didn't exactly feel like shin splints, as this was more of minor ache.  Anyway as time went on, and more races were run, this minor ache became more pronounced, still not painful, but definitely more noticeable.  So to play it safe, I started treating it like shin splints, icing, Advil, etc. etc, I even took a bit of time off of training in between races.  So as time went on the discomfort didn't go away and started to move into slightly painful, but it still didn't feel like shin splints, as it didn't bother me when I was running, but it would ache when I was just sitting, not even moving.  Then a coworker suggested it might be a stress fracture, which now started to concern me, as I've got a bunch of runs planned for the upcoming year, so finally in early January 2013 I met with a doctor.  Now the good news, apparently I one of the approximately 13% of the population who has a foot structure that pretty much guarantees me shin splints.  It seems that all the treatment I did only prevented the discomfort from becoming pain.  Basically I was told I couldn't run for 3 weeks and I would need to run with custom shoe inserts to hold my foot into a position that won't completely fuck up my shins.  Not great news, but at least it wasn't a stress fracture  So like any typical male, I blew off the part about not running for three weeks as I already had a 5k scheduled for the following weekend.  And besides if it wasn't a stress fracture, and I've been running on it for the last five months, what's another week?  But after that run I did follow his advice (sort of) and didn't run for about 2 and a half weeks.  Now I've been cleared to start running again, and rewarded myself with a easy jog of 3.1 miles.  While running I thought to myself "damn, I missed this" while at the same time I also thought "why the hell am I doing this?"  Should be an interesting year...stay tuned.

And so it begins...

So as much fun as I am having creating my bucket list, (and stealing ideas from friend's lists) creating a bucket list is no fun if you don't actually DO any of the things on your list.  Recently I've been lucky enough to become closer to someone I have known for a while, an amazing person, who also believes like I do that life without experiences isn't really much of a life.  So I am lucky enough to have someone who I can drag around to do things on our lists,  which is good, because her list is so much better than mine!  So it was with that sense of "lets just go do something" that we set out for Chicago on a day off.  Now let me explain something about my personality, I'm sort of a planner.  I say sort of because I'm really good with coming up with the grand idea of what to do, but where I lose focus is in the details.  This is because even though I am a bit of a planner, I'm like to be spontaneous and fly by the seat of my pants more often than not.  So anyway the original plan was to go into the city, go ice skating in Grant Park, do the Sears Tower (sorry, Willis Tower) skydeck, and then kinda see what happens from there.  Well anyway like most of my plans, things went to shit pretty quickly, as that morning I checked the weather and saw that it was freezing cold and windy out.  Cancel ice skating.  Time to scramble to come up with Plan B.  Ok...not a problem still can do the skydeck, and that will buy me time to come up with what to do after that.  So we head out, then I start to notice, it's really kinda cloudy and hazy out...I start to get that "oh crap" panic moment thinking this day that I planned and had been looking forward to was starting to go down the drain.  Anyway we get into the city and I see the cloud cover isn't too low to obscure the building tops so we decide to go to the skydeck, even thought the views wouldn't be that great, it was still something I wanted to do.  Now, I have a slight...ok, pretty severe fear of heights, but after a slight hesitation I stepped out into the clear cube and looked straight down 1,353 feet (103 floors.) Item #3 on my list, CHECK!

#3. Stand in the glass balcony in the Sears tower

How I became a reluctant runner

First a little about me...I don't have the typical runner physical shape, tall, lean, long legs.  In fact I'm pretty much the total opposite.  Not to mention I'm a ex smoker with messed up knees from years of skiing and military training.  Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I hate running.  So needless to say running didn't really hold a lot of interest for me.  Anyway about 3 years ago my work organized a 5K race to support wounded vets from Iraq and Afghanistan, which having been in the military and having friends who have done multiple deployments, is a cause that was close to my heart.  Not to mention that I had recently quit smoking and was looking to get in better shape, so I decided to go for it, I didn't care how long it took me to complete it or how far I could run without walking for a bit, I just wanted to finish.  So after a little bit of training, and I do mean a little bit, I ran it with another co-worker who also was just starting to run.  I don't think I slept a single wink the night before, I was so nervous and I don't even know why.  So I ran for about a mile and half, sucking wind the entire time, then we walked for a bit, ran some more, walked a bit, ran some more.  When I crossed the finish line with a horrible time of something like 38 minutes it was such a rush.  I had a sense of accomplishment that I had not felt in a very long time.  I remember thinking "holy shit, I did it."  Now this is where I think I got hooked.  That runner's high that I got was like a drug, not to mention that I've always liked to do something that no one expects I would do. Next thing you know I'd signed up for 3 more 5K's the rest of the season.  My third race ever I finally ran the 3.1 miles nonstop, no walking and again I got this unbelievable sense of accomplishment.  I think it also felt so amazing to finish a race because I still hated to run.  My wife at the time would ask me if I hated running so much, why the hell would I do this.  The short answer was because I did hate running.  Let's get real, it's only 3.1 miles, to an actual runner this is a warm up, but to me it was an accomplishment and forcing myself to run when all my brain and body just wanted me to do is quit, was such an incredible feeling that I couldn't step away from.  So I continued to run and that year I ran in four 5K's, each race my time would get better and I would get that high.  So then my wife passed away from breast cancer and one of the races that I had done the year before was to support breast cancer, so I set my sights on that race in May as my first race of 2012.  Now for me signing up for a race was motivation to actually train.  It was easy to blow off going for a run when you didn't have a race scheduled.  So as I started training I found that me going out and running helped me deal with my grief and anxiety.  Pretty soon I was running almost daily and it was this amazing way to make me feel better when things got overwhelming for me. Running became my therapy.  At the same time I started running with a friend and co-worker who at this point we were at about the same ability level.  Not only did that push my competitive button, but she also wanted to sign up for a bunch of races, and of course at this point I had no willpower and would pretty much agree to anything, so between May 2012 and January 2013 I've run sixteen 5k's and I'm currently planning a half marathon.

I've noticed that after 16 races in just under eight months, the runner high isn't as high anymore.  Don't get me wrong I still get a sense of accomplishment and I love the atmosphere and energy at some of these bigger races I've been in, I just don't have this huge sense of accomplishment anymore.  Now I always said I wouldn't run a marathon or even a half, but last October I ran in a 5K that had a 10K and a half marathon running as well and I saw those people finishing their half marathon and I began to think "I wonder how great that must feel to finish." That got my tiny brain thinking and I realized, just like a drug addict, I was chasing that high that I once had, now I just need a larger dose.  I still say that I won't run a full marathon, because training for that is like a full time job, not to mention it is hell physically on your body.  But then again I said that about a half marathon as well.  So anyway, that is the story of how I became a runner, which I only started to recently accept that term, even though my friends have called me a runner for quite some time now, I've always denied that I was a runner. I will keep this blog posted as I train for this half marathon in the fall and I'm sure run a crap load of 5K's and maybe some 10K's between now and then.

Stuff I've done

As I've been nosing around I've come across other people's bucket lists, and while I've gotten some great ideas reading these, I've also noticed that I've done a lot of the things that are on people's lists.  One thing I am grateful for is that so far I have lived a pretty good life, done a lot, and experienced a lot.  So with that in mind, I decided to compile a list of things that I've done that WOULD have been on my bucket list, if I had made one earlier, again in no particular order.

1. Bungee jump
2. Visit Times Square
3. Hike in a redwood forest
4. Drive around Lake Michigan
5. See the Statue of Liberty
6. Drive across the Golden Gate Bridge
7. Gamble in Vegas
8. See the Northern Lights
9. Go camping (real camping)
10. Attend a fish boil
11. Run a 5K
12. Go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras (ok I went during Jazz Fest, but close enough!)
13. Feed an alligator
14. See the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup
15. Go snowboarding
16. Eat a cheeseburger at the Billy Goat Tavern
17. Visit the House on the Rock
18. Make a bet on horse racing
19. Attend a rooftop game at Wrigley
20. Crowd surf at a concert
21. Stand atop the Empire State Building
22. Get a tattoo
23. Blow something up
24. Shave my head
25. Stay up all night and watch the sunrise
26. Visit Central Park
27. See the Milky Way
28. Make a Thanksgiving Day turkey
29. Moon someone
30. Visit the Hockey Hall of Fame
31. Touch the Stanley Cup
32. See the Hover Dam
33. Attend a private event, small venue, concert with a major band
34. Play pond hockey
35. Sit in the bleachers at a Cubs game
36. See each of Chicago's professional sports teams play
37. See all the major Chicago museums
38. Go on the Miller Brewery tour
39. Try sushi
40. Eat frog legs
41. Go to a Bears vs. Green Bay game
42. Swim in the ocean
43. Touch the bean in Grant Park
44. See a Broadway show
45. Spend the night downtown Chicago
46. Ice skate downtown Chicago
47. Eat alligator
48. Make someone breakfast
49. Try beignets.
50. Visit Brookfield Zoo
51. Eat a burrito after 2 am at LaBamba
52. Eat at a Golden Nugget Pancake House in the city at 4am after bars close
53. Stay at a bed and breakfast
54. Attend Midget Madness at Casey's bar in Pittsburgh
55. Eat at Primanti Brothers
56. Go to a dueling piano bar
57. Go whitewater rafting
58. Tailgate at a sporting event
59. Go to a Jimmy Buffet concert and party in the parking lot
60. Watch a lunar eclipse
61. See a comet
62. Watch a solar eclipse
63. Help build a Habitat for Humanity house
64. Do a charity walk
65. Try raw oysters
66. Drink at a dive bar (done this one a bunch!)
67. Participate in a bar crawl
68. Order room service
69. Eat a deep fried Twinkie
70. Get my picture in the paper
71. Go to a drive in movie
72. Go to a Renaissance Fair
73. Tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue
74. Tour a winery / vineyard
75. See a band perform at The House of Blues (done both Chicago and New Orleans)
76. Go to Taste of Chicago
77. Drive down the coastal highway in Northern California to Carmel
78. Tour the Winchester Mystery House
79. Fall asleep in a hammock 
80. Go paintballing
81. Visit Alcatraz 
82. Check out a "Mystery Spot"