Well this week before half marathon week has been, ummm, busy. I managed two two-milers and hope to run 8 this weekend along with another shortie of around four or five. Nothing huge. I’m breaking in new shoes, too, which is kind of late in the game but they’re the same exact shoe so hopefully about 30 miles of warmup miles will be enough for these shoes to carry me through to the finish line on May 7.

I’ll be traveling on Monday through Wednesday of race week. This is perfect, because in past years I have brought my shoes and gone for short early morning runs on the Stanford campus before my meeting. It is such a beautiful campus to run on. I’m looking forward to it.

Hey, this upgrade stuff never ends does it? Now after fiddling around some more with WordPress, I have also integrated new photodatabase software. The blog has now been integrated with the photos as one. Much better too. If you see images in the posts from the gallery and click on them it will open the gallery page. Also you can access the entire photo collection via this address: http://www.korioth.com/gallery . So far its pretty cool as it can display a variety of media including video.

Decided to do things a bit different this year. Instead of the usual beer and cake type gathering that is usually held (if I feel like it that particular year), we decided to drink beer and eat cake downtown instead. It was time to take some time off work cash in our gift from Christmas and stay at the Hotel Burnham for the night.

Wow, what a nice little boutique hotel, right smack in the middle of Loop near Daley Plaza. The gift we had included a package deal with a bottle of champaign with chocolates and a continental breakfast.

Ah yes, bubbly went down fast and the chocolates were delish. So, now it was time for dinner, and we have been wanting to go visit Rick Bayless’s place Frontera Grill for a long time. I suppose Trisha and I are foodies of sorts, we love watching the Food Network all the time and also if we happen to catch Rick’s show Mexico One Plate At A Time we always watch. We thought we wouldn’t have a problem getting in the joint because it was a Thurday night. No way sorry! We walked in and were promptly told there was no more seating for the rest of the night and were pointed towards the bar area, which also served the full menu. OK, this place must be good! We got lucky and found a little corner to sit at. Trish and I then proceeded to have one of the best Mexican dinners we’ve ever had. WOW! The food was fabulous, I highly recommend it.

A few drinks and empty plates later it was time to head off to our other destination of choice The Green Mill. Always wanted to go to this place and tonight was the night to do it. After some fumbling about with where it was at with the cabbie we ended up on the north side, not the kind of neighborhood I would freely walk around in (at least that was my impression). So we walk in the door and the place was jumpin, a full Swing Orchestra was crankin out the tunes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Al Capone himself walked in the door. Trish told the bartender it was my birthday so he made me so a shot of some kind of turpentine or maybe kerosene with him. That was it for me, check please!

On Friday, after a gut busting artery choking breakfast in the room we wandered around a bit. We went into Marshall Field’s one last time before it becomes Macy’s (Booo!). The we headed over to Millennium Park to see it in all its finished splendor. Man what a nice day too.