Philip and Colleen’s Blog
Posts tagged Philip
First Non-Adjacent-State Family Visit
Nov 9th
My Dad and Karen came out from New Hampshire to visit us a little over a week ago. It was the first time we’ve had anyone from my family visit (they’re all from non-adjacent states). I took a couple days off of work so we could spend time together. We spent one day doing nothing, another day doing nothing except shooting at the gun range, and another day in Oklahoma City where we visited the bombing memorial and the OKC Museum of Art.
I didn’t get a picture of it, but there was a picture at the gun range that said “Hide your money, Hide your gun, Hide your Bible, Obama won”. Needless to say, it was awkward pulling up in our bright green xB (minus any McCain-Palin bumper stickers), without copious amounts of camouflage on.
Here are some pictures from the range and at the memorial:
Best…Gift…Ever
Jan 21st
I was browsing around the internet a couple weeks ago and stumbled across a website that had a sale price and free shipping on custom-printed glasses clothes.
$0.99 and 2 weeks later the package arrived from Hong Kong ($4 shipping had been paid by the sender).
There are at least three reasons why this is the best gift ever for Colleen:
- 1. A ridiculous picture of me
- 2. She almost always wears contacts
- 3. I got a great deal
I hope you enjoy the picture! To order your own custom-printed glasses cloth go to www.artscow.com.
For bonus points this entire post and the image were created on my iPhone using the WordPress app.
Project Management
Dec 24th
I’m supposed to be on vacation this week, but I’ve ended up working every day so far. As a project manager, when things blow up, you have to get involved even if your team isn’t responsible. Several of my projects have found themselves in various states of emergency over the last couple weeks. The good news is that I secretly love emergencies.
Want to see a graphical representation of a typical project? Here’s a picture that’s been passed around my team at work:
Disclaimer: My team always delivers
If We Lived in Springfield
Jul 6th
Even as a cartoon, Phil is a mouth-breather
After playing with Joe and Casie’s Wii this weekend and having so much fun with making goofy and freakish mii’s, we ‘Simpsonized’ ourselves at http://simpsonizeme.com
I Broke my Hand – I’m Healed
May 10th
I’m a really bad blogger. For those of you who don’t know, I broke my hand 2 months ago during my Krav Maga training. It was the perfect mix of stupidity, chance, and the fact the other guy was 70lbs heavier than me. I had a cast put on a couple days after it happened. It turns out wearing a cast isn’t fun (who’d have thought?). Last week the cast was removed, my wrist was x-rayed, and I was given a clean bill of health. I can’t believe how much the ligaments in my wrist have tightened. If anyone has any ideas for rehab, let me know (Casie??). I’m planning to go back to Krav Maga, but probably not until this fall – I need to make sure I’m totally healed first.
Working Out – Learning New Skills
Mar 11th
So, I’ve been working out here in Minneapolis since the beginning of December. It started off slowly with some light weights and running for a total of about 3 hours per week. Well, since then one of my coworkers and I have begun working through a 9 week plan he found in a book he’s reading. It involves pretty intense weight lifting (something I’m not usually good at) 3 days per week. We’re in the gym at 5:45am MWF, and I’m also running 5 miles on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Recently I’ve started going to the gym on Saturdays to do mock Army physical fitness tests (running, pushups and situps).
Last week I made the decision to add something else to the mix. It all stemmed from a conversation Joe and I had about martial arts. I wanted to know about Kenpo, and he mentioned that I should look into Krav Maga. It’s a martial art that was developed by the Israelis, and is practiced by their special forces. This evening was my first class, and I was really surprised by how much fun I had. I’ll keep attending the 1.5 hour classes every Tuesday and Thursday evening.
Birthdays, Tours, and Guitars
Oct 28th
Peg, Colleen, and Philip over St. Anthony Falls
Two weekends ago Colleen and I took my mom on a Segway tour of Minneapolis as an early birthday present (You can’t Segway in late November!). The tour was led by Human on a Stick, and lasted about 3 hours. We got to ride around the banks of the Mississippi and took a stop off at the Mill City Museum, which has ties to General Mills. Segways are a lot of fun to drive, and about half-way through the tour they had us swap out the keys to increase the top speed to 8mph. I almost wiped out a couple times when I was messing around by taking turns too sharply.
Last weekend we celebrated Brian’s 27th birthday here in Minneapolis. He brought his new Guitar Hero Rock the 80’s with him and we played that for several hours. The weather was wonderful so we spent some time walking around our neighborhood and looking at houses and condos.
A Bike Tour
Sep 19th
Last Sunday Phil and went on a bike tour of the downtown Minneapolis area. From the description we thought it would be about 20-30 people and a tour guide. What we found when we arrived at he Walker Art Center (the start point of the tour) was several thousand people.
I guess they meant tour as in tour de France or ‘let us tour around town on our bicycles in a turn of the century kind of way’ (see image at left). The grounds around the Walker Art Center were crawling with bikes and people and cars. I have never seen so many lumpy, mis-shapen, spandex encased men in my life. It didn’t matter if they were 5′4″ and 350 lbs or 6′7″ and 165 lbs, these guys were going to stretch the shiniest most obnoxious fabric they could find from their neck to their knees. It was like witnessing an accident. I knew I shouldn’t gawk at the horrors in front of me, but I couldn’t turn away until my brain understood what it was looking at.
It was a relief to finally start the ‘tour’ which turned out to be 15 miles around several of the ritziest lakeside downtown Minneapolis neighborhoods. It was a pretty fun couple of hours and the morning was perfect for it. We met a bunch of other GM people at the tour. This is a picture of Phil and me with other GM new comers Wei and Jie after the tour:
Wei, Colleen, Philip, Jie