Look at me! I'm getting my ass kicked!!

In my quest to lose a few pounds, I decided to go to a Cardio Box class at the Health Rec Center. While there was a part of me that was a bit timid about going to one of these energetic, bouncy classes, I thought "What the hell." And the confident side of me thought it would be a good idea to do my own abs routine prior to going to the class. So, I did my lower back bends, my crunches, my leg-lifts, my side-bends, my oblique twists.....and then went to Cardio box. Yeah....that was a bit dumb.

I actually could have done worse with the cardio part of things, except that we bounced the whole damn time. After 15 minutes, my calves were cramped and burning because we just kept jumping around. And then she leaves the last 20 minutes (it's an hour class) to "toning," which included a lot of abs work. Since I had already devoted 40 minutes of my own routine just to my abs, I was hurting and sloppy during this part. BUT, I got through it!!! I was red, sweaty, and even a bit cranky....but I got through it. Never mind that walking today it a bit difficult and if I laugh my abs hurt like hell. I think next week I'll save my abs workout for another day.

Yoga and.....Mexico?

Every Tuesday and Thursday at the Health Recreation Center are 12:15-1:00 Yoga sessions. Perfect time for the typical Butler staff-member to get on over and stretch out their stress. Tyler and I went to a session last Thursday and this week we dragged along some more people from our department, Julie and Andy. The instructor implements a lot of meditation techniques along with the Yoga stretching. At the end, she always asks us to get into fetal-position and think of a peaceful place in our mind. Somewhere relaxing, perhaps a body of water nearby. Of course, my thoughts float to Mexico. I imagine I'm back on the beach with the white sand between my toes, the bright blue ocean a few feet in front of me with the warm sun on my face. And then I want to never go back to work again. But alas, I must. It's quite unnerving to have to go straight back to work. Oh well...I'll get back to Mexico one of these days.

GO COLTS!

The Indianapolis Colts won their FIRST Indy-era Super Bowl bid!! It was an amazing, nail-biting game with a 38-34 victory after going back and forth with the lead for quite awhile. I went with a group of friends to watch the game downtown and what was most amazing to me was the celebrating in downtown Indianapolis after the victory. It was absolutely AMAZING. The crowds of people filing out of the RCA Dome, all celebrating and screaming. The excitement from the masses of people was overwhelming. The streets full of thousands of people, bumper-to-bumper traffic of excited fans beeping their horns. All I can say is, GO COLTS!

Back to the ho-hum work-life

Except it's not so ho-hum anymore. I'm acting as "Interim Director" for my team until we find a permanent director, which basically means I get to go to double the number of meetings, get CC'd on all emails that might have anything to do with our team and get to dabble a bit in university politics. YAY! It's a dream come true! Hmmmm.....or not so much.

I won't dwell on the negatives. The positives are that I'm staying busier with more meaningful work than I have in the past, I'm getting to work with more and different people and I can make decisions without consulting a director. But, I can't wait until we have a director in place, as this is not my forte. Of course, I'm still wondering what my forte is exactly. But I suppose by doing what I don't like, I learn better what I do like.

Mexico Rocks!

Well, I'm back from Mexico. While I appreciate the American toilets a little more, that's the only thing good about being back in reality here in Indy (Well...and of course, I get to see my friends and loved ones).

The trip was awesome. While the majority of the vacation was spent on the beach, sunning ourselves or relaxing in a hammock, we also scheduled some fun activities. We visited two sites of Mayan ruins, one close to the beach and one more in the jungle. We went snorkeling, went into the town of Tulum to do tourist-shopping and made several trips to the "super mini" convenience store. Uhmmmmm...what else? Oh yes, we went to a Euro-techno New Years Eve bash (*very* interesting), stumbled across some Cirque du Soleil types (where we made wishes under a full moon with a "fortune teller"), drank Pina Coladas, Green Iguanas, Negro Model, Coronas and definitely stayed away from non-bottled water.

Pictures are up on my Flickr Photos, but not all of them. There are a lot and it will take some time for me to get them all up.