mood indicator

My mood / stress level can be determined by what station I am listening to on Pandora the most. 


This week, I have consistently and constantly on the Broadway Showtunes station - Hair, Rent, Chicago, Lion King, Jersey Boys, West Side Story, Wicked etc. It's all the great songs I love right when I need them. 


 

"Hey, I put some new shoes on"

Last spring, I bought a road bike from a  family friend who was looking to upgrade. I got a sweet deal on a Cannondale, which I LOVE. I started out sans clip pedals so I could get used to the new ride - new brakes, new handlebars, etc.  Even though most of my road bike owning friends said clips were the way to go. 

With some Christmas gift $ (Thank you Grandma and Grandpa!) I bought shoes and clip pedals for my bike! I opted for the same pedals as the gym spin bikes so I can use them there too, and cannot wait to try them out tonight! 

title inspiration: Paolo Nutini's New Shoes

the girl with no motivation to read this book

I started this book on a 6 hr flight home from LA. I think since I had so much time to kill I kept pushing through it, but since I got home, I have had trouble picking it up for more than 15 min. I have heard so many rave reviews about this - but cannot get into it! Am I missing something?? 

Heather saw the movie and from her review, I would assume will never read the book, and does not recommend the film. I'm wary of wasting my time on the rest of the book, especially since I think I already have figured out the 'mystery' that is part of the story. 

From what I understand at this point : 

There is a girl, Lisbeth, who has a very broken home, and very messed up past. She is sort of on her own after a guardian she trusted fell ill. People are constantly watching for her, and following up on her to make sure she's managing life, but she's a million steps ahead of them and not interested in their babysitting. She's some sort of tech / sleuth genius.

There is a guy, Mikael Blomkvist, publisher of a magazine, who was framed in some libel case against a very wealthy dude. He is losing everything and will end up in jail, unless he can prove that the wealty guy - Wennerström - has set him up. 

Cue Henrik Vanger, dying CEO of a family company who a)hates his family and b) needs to solve a family mystery of the disappearance of his favorite niece some ridiculous amount of time ago. He has info on Wennstrom that he will release to Blomkvist once the research / book is done. 

Vanger hires Blomkvist to write a book / solve the puzzle, while Lisbeth somehow becomes involved in the project due to her technology, spying and work at a security company. 

I guess I'll keep trying to see if I can get to the end of it! 

Ups and downs of Fridays

check out the fitness tracking blog here. 

The week after New Years FLEW by. Short weeks are usually the ones that drag, since you have 4 days to do 5 days of work. I think we just had too much to regroup on for it to feel slow at work.

Recap:
Friday at work was full of news that our VP is leaving. It's a personal decision, to spend more time with his family. That led to a few shuffles in the VP layer and gives our team a new boss, who happens to be my friend Lauren's old boss. So, we dropped by Christopher's after work for a drink to catch up on the changes, gossip and get some info on what we are getting into with new leadership! I'm mostly grateful that we are keeping internal people on our team - outsiders can be fantastic, or detrimental to our progress and processes.

We all will definitely miss the departing VP. It's a huge loss for the department.

After 'happy hour' - Scott arrived on the train in Back Bay. We tried out The Salty Pig which had a good beer selection and good food. We made a plate of some salami thing only Scott ate, a few cheeses and some balsamic onion spread. Then, I got a pizza -

And Scott got clams

We rounded out the night with a drink at a bar near my apt - that now has Racer 5 on tap! One of my favorite CA beers !