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We’ve been meaning to do some exercise, so Jason (and his trusty sidekick “Microsoft Streets & Trips 2004″) plotted a cool “almost-a-mile” loop around our neighborhood. We jogged it this evening (after having the neighbor comment “Oh, you two match. Cute!” ) … and I had to stop after 1/2 mile because my back started to cramp. This bummed me out — I have no problems stationary biking 18 miles at Bally’s (that’s 45 minutes @ ~150bpm), and everyone else I know can run miles after miles after miles — so what’s hard about jogging more than 5 minutes? I think the answer might have something to do with 230 pounds of me bouncing around. True to form, Jason had already investigated this and presented a “how to work yourself up to running” plan that we’ll be trying starting tomorrow.

We bought plane tickets for Chicago last night. I’m not sure who was more excited — us, or Jason’s mom (with whom we’ll be staying). I can’t wait — we’ll be there from July 1st thru the 6th! I spent a year in Chicago, living in the ‘burbs and working downtown in The Loop (the Merchantile Exchange building, if anyone knows where that is), but somehow managed NOT to do anything “Chicago”, like the Navy Pier, Shedd Aquarium, the world’s best Cheesecake Factory, etc. I’m jazzed that I’ll finally be able to see all of the stuff that I missed before, in the company of a hot tour guide of whom I’m kinda fond of. (I hear he’s easy, though, so we’ll see).

Had a blast going to the beach Sunday with the ultimate Team J: Jason, Joe, Jak and myself. Turns out Jak (a black lab) is afraid of water. Figures the gay guys would have the pussy dog, no? I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt as the water temp was in the 50’s (it wasn’t a proud moment for any man coming back on shore), but while swapping “what did you do this weekend?” stories at the lunch table on Monday, I found out that cold water doesn’t phase dogs. Oh well. And somehow, despite being drenched with sunblock, I managed to burn my back.

We saw two movies this weekend: Mean Girls and Van Helsing. Go see both. Immediately. And don’t let the lame intro to Van Helsing fool you, .. it’s a spoof of how old monster movies always started. Kudos to the Regal at MacArthur for showing “TV”-like commercials before the movie starts. Definately more interesting than the stupid slide show of ads that they used to do.

Meanwhile, back at the Tree House, last Thursday was quite the day: the AT&T Phonecard project went to pilot in three local stores, and about 50 of us had to swap cubes. Thank god for for wireless laptops — I was able to keep an eye on the Phonecard project while everything else in my cube was unplugged and boxed up. I’m rather proud of myself as the stuff I did for the Phonecard project was stuff that we’d normally hire an expensive ($200/hr+) consultant to come in and do. And more importantly, my stuff worked. This was my first time doing a lot of it, so a few folks were a little nervous, including yours truly. As a matter of fact, the only technical issue we ran into was a major OOOOPS by AT&T — they forgot to “activate” the phonecards, so the first few that we sold didn’t work for about an hour. Duh.