The rest of our trip to California

As you read from the last post, Shane and I went to CA for Alexa's wedding and since we don't get out there very often we made the most of it, in typical Thereasa style (aka: Whirlwind). We flew into town, went out to SMC to show Shane my college campus, headed up to Napa to do some tasting and purchasing of some great wines. We met up with Liz, who again, was an amazing hostess. She took us to Franciscan and Cosentino (my all time fav winery). And hooked us up with the industry discount. We headed to dinner where Tracy and Phil met us for a great meal. It's always such fun for me to catch up with good friends, and even though I am 3000 miles away from my good girlfriends, I cherish the time we get to spend together.

The next day we headed up to Grass Valley for Alexa's Wedding and had a great time! On Sunday we took the long trek down to Santa Cruz/Capitola to see Ross and Amy and Elsa. Ross and Shane did gymanstics together for many years when they were growing up, and now they have Elsa, their 16 month old beauty of a daughter! We had a great time at the beach, enjoying friends, the warm weather and a little dip in the Pacific.

Sunday night we were hosted by Kendra and Jason at their place in the East Bay. The night was filled with great conversation, a love of good beer, pizza and an exciting energy for politics. I do wish they would come visit, but they can be sure that the next time we are out in their neck of the woods- we will be stopping!

All in all it was another great trip to California, and as much as I love it in Boston, no one can replace good friends I have met along the way!

A good friends wedding

Wedding number 4 of the season: Alexa & Brian. Alexa and I met our freshman year of college at good old SMC. We lived down the hall from each other and got to be good friends. Our birthdays are a week apart, and I think just being fellow Virgo's led us to being kindred spirits. I think Lex and I probably got closest when we spent the summer living in Walnut Creek between Junior and Senior Year. She was Interning at Harris, I was at Enterprise. We would get together at lunch, we would use our fake ID's to get into bars at night and we generally spent a lot of the summer having a REALLY good time.

Then in 2003, we both found ourselves living back in the Creek and aching to get to the city. She had already started her MBA program and I was going to start mine in the next few months. We decided it was as good a time as any to get up and out of the East Bay and make the move to the big city. I dragged her along to DOZENS of open houses over multiple weekends. She liked to call me Monica, I called her Phoebe... For those of you that know me, Monica is not that far off.

We found this great little place on Bay street, right in our price range, which was low, given the fact we were just two years out of college and paying for grad school. But man did we have a good time. I remember one January, we both had the month off school. And I swear we went out more, and had more parties that month than we ever did in undergrad! We took one "spring break" and went to Cabo... Disastrous! I don't know what we were thinking pretending to be 19, when we were the ripe age of 24. HA! Lexa was by my side when I found out my best friend passed away, and couldn't have been a more supportive friend and roommate.

We have stayed close, even though the crazy upstairs neighbors drove me from the apt on Bay Street. And she met Brian near the end of our lease. Brian and Lexa have one of those relationships that everyone is jealous of. They are a really fun couple, they know how to have a good time, and spend a lot of time laughing at themselves and with others.

Now, to the wedding. This wedding was RIDICULOUS!!! I have never seen such an affair. They had EVERYTHING: oysters for ourdourves, a live band, a beautiul venue, a full bar and good friends. I think, thanks to Lexa's Mom (who is a kindred Monica). It was a beautiful wedding, but I think what made it most beautiful was Alexa and Brian, who know how to have a good time and host a great party. It was super fun to see a bunch of people from SMC that I hadn't seen in quite a few years. And like many friendships formed those first few years of parental freedom, they seem to just pick right back up where you left off.

A little advice on customer service

Yesterday evening I went to log into the Mac when I realized that there were no lights on my modem. This is not a good sign. I know that calling Comcast at 10pm at night isn't really what I wanted to do with my night, so I checked email via the blackberry; and realizing there were nothing earth shattering going on, I went to bed. I made the dreadful mistake of calling Comcast this morning. I was on the phone for over 40 minutes. And I was told the following things:

• I was told that I should not be using my "residential" line to "work from home" instead I should have a "commercial" line. Let's talk about this for a minute. If I want to work from my HOME/or shall we say RESIDENCE then shouldn't I have a RESIDENTIAL LINE?!?!?! I also know NO ONE ELSE IN THE WORLD who has a commercial line from their house. I don't even know if that's available in my neighborhood.
• I was told that I could not get someone out to look at my modem until Wednesday. Today is Friday people, it's been off since Thursday evening... COME ON NOW, even if I had commercial service you would probably tell me the same damned thing...
• After more haggling I was told I could get an appt on Saturday from 8-12 or 12-4. That would have been fine, but we are out of town this weekend. And when I asked if I could get an appt on Monday, they said they can't see Monday's schedules, they can only see the next available appt.

I ask you now- what kind of company can see the schedule for Wednesday but can't see the schedule for Monday? We have our appt for Monday and I am going to ask them for a credit as soon as they fix the thing. But in COMPLETE CONTRAST- I walk in to the office this morning to check my yahoo mail and I get this from Netflix: "We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed Dear Thereasa,Our shipping system is unexpectedly down. We received a DVD back from you and should have shipped you a DVD, but we likely have not. Our goal is to ship DVDs as soon as possible, and we will keep you posted on the status of your DVD shipments.We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. If your DVD shipment is delayed, we will be issuing a credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-888-638-3549.-The Netflix Team" Turns out, and I hadn't really noticed yet, although when I did see the 1 disc on the coffee table this morning I did think, "it's been a while since I mailed in that last movie." But it wasn't a thought that stuck with me, until I saw this email. I just love proactively positive companies. They are apologizing and instead of me having to DEMAND for a refund, guess what, they are just going to give it to me up front??!?!?! How lovely is that? So, to sum up the story- Comcast is the worst company to have to get your cable through (and it stinks even more that they have a monopoly on the neighborhood), and Netflix is lovely, great, fantastic at customer service

University of New Hampshire

I know quite a few people here in Boston that went to school at The University of New Hampshire (UNH). It seems like it was a really good time, and a lot of people have very good friendships that were formed at school. It reminds me a lot of SMC. I was excited to finally be able to see the campus when a couple we know well decided to get married there in Early August. It is really a beautiful campus, and Durham is a cute little town. If you are in New Hampshire with some time to kill, or looking at schools on the East Coast, it's worth checking out. And of course... a pic from the wedding...

New Music: Jamie Lidell

Whew! I love it! I was lucky enough to be introduced this great artist through one of Shane's sisters. The cool one from LA, who is in the know about all things new and fun... and she didn't miss the spot on this one, check him out: http://www.jamielidell.com/ He's touring Portland, SF, Seattle and Boston in October... Tickets at least in Boston are $20...

10k PB

I ran the Beach2Beacon this past weekend, it's a fun 10k up in Cape Elizabeth Maine. I had my 10k PB. For those of you who aren't runners that means it was my Personal Best 10k time... which, is funny, especially since you readers all know that this is my first 10k. I almost think I should just stick with my 57:14 and call it a life of PB's completed. I had a 2:03:39 for my 1/2 and that sounds pretty darn good to me... If I don't run again, I will always have these PB's. I can commit them to memory like I did my High school, College and Grad school GPA's, so when someone on the street asks me what my 10k and 1/2 PB's are I can easily rattle them off. I won't have to worry about remembering if that was my PB from '08 or my PB from '29... This might just be the way it's going to go... All kidding aside. It was super fun. I ran with no iPod, which is kinda a big deal for me, and I ran by myself, which made me miss Shane, but also was a good test of my own abilities. I am happy and might be willing to do another one, Beach2Beacon 2029 here I come!!!!

These guys were just steps ahead of me, I swear!

It was a little foggy, but pretty warm, and by warm I mean humid...

That smile is deceiving... It makes it look like all I do is live for running... ;-)

My biggest fan, I didn't get a pic of the rest of the cheering squad, but they were a huge help!

This was the finish line!

Tomatoes aren't the only thing we have going on in the backyard

So, last week we discovered this HUGE disgusting, clearly carnivorous bug on the back porch (yes, that's a quarter). If we are found bludgeoned to death in our apt you will know who/what did it! Anyone out there know what this thing is?