Brad School Update

Brad found out last week that he was also accepted to the UPenn EMTM (Executive Masters of Technology Managment) program. It is a joint degree between The Wharton School of Business and Penn School of Engineering. It is a different kind of program that focuses completely on technology, which is the field that Brad is in. So, needless to say, it is pretty much perfect for him.

Campbell's seems to be more supportive of the Penn program because it is a more specific degree (and I think because it's local), so it's looking like that is where he will be spending every other weekend for the next two years.

There are definitely positives to this program, including no travelling, more contact with people in his classes, and the technology focus. It will definitely be tough for Brad to miss out on several football games, but that's what TiVo is for!!!

The final decision should be made by the end of this week, but it looks like my husband is going to join my brother as a member of the "ivy league."

Fire Department

So, this is kind of an embarrassing story, but I just had to share.

One night last week, Brad and I were cooking dinner and the smoke/carbon monoxide detector went off. Brad said this had happened to him before, so he just pushed the button to make it stop beeping. So, we sat down to dinner and the thing proceeded to beep about every 5-7 minutes. And pushing the button was only a temporary fix to the annoying beep. I was starting to get freaked out because what if there was a carbon monoxide leak in our house?? So, Brad called the fire department.

They showed up to our house in about 5 minutes, with the full truck, lights flashing and everything! Boy did that create a stir with the neighbors!! So, these two guys walk up to our door in FULL gear with tanks on their backs and masks on and they handed their badges to the fire chief before they headed on. Pretty crazy. The verdict was: no level of carbon monoxide, which is a good thing, but made us feel kind of silly for calling. But, better to be safe than sorry right?

Apparently, it's just a faulty smoke detector. Thank goodness it's still under warranty and the builder came and replaced it first thing the next morning. We had to turn the entire circuit off for the night because that was the only way to make it stop!! We talked to a few of the neighbors the next day, and it's a chronic problem because we are not the first people to call the fire department for this reason!

Shoo! That was pretty exciting!

Wicked

This weekend, I finally got to use the Wicked tickets that Brad gave me for Christmas!

We took the train up to NYC on Saturday afternoon and checked into our hotel at the Marriott Marquis Times Square and set off to Central Park. It was an absolutely perfect day in NYC, so it was totally packed in Central Park, but neither of us had ever explored the park before, so it was very cool to see. We didn’t get too far into the park because we didn’t want to get lost!!! I just wanted to see Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick and their son, but no such luck. Brad just laughed at me when I said that. I guess it’s not very likely that they would be in Central Park on the busiest day of the year so far.

Saturday night, we met up with Dawn and Keith (who live in Long Island) and Katie and John (who live on the upper east side) for dinner at a yummy Thai place. We haven’t been able to find good Thai around here, so it was great to be able to eat some quality Thai food. It was fun to hang out in the city with some folks we haven’t seen in quite a while!

Sunday, we were lazy in the morning and got up and got Starbucks for breakfast and then got ready and headed to Puelo’s Too for lunch before the show. It was fabulous! We had stuffed mushrooms to start, and for the main course, I had lasagna and Brad had Chicken Pesto. My lasagna was one of the best I have had! It was yummy!!!

We headed to the Gershwin Theatre (where Wicked was showing), and it is one of the nicer theatres. They of course had booths all over the place with things to buy, which were all very expensive of course, so we didn’t buy anything! The show was phenomenal!!!! It definitely deserves every last bit of the hype it has been getting. If you don’t know the story, it basically tells the story of the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda, the good witch of the North. The first act was pretty much a prequel to when Dorothy landed in Oz, but the second half showed where the scarecrow, tin man and lion came from. The two actresses that played Elphaba (the wicked witch) and Glinda were fabulous singers, and the music was wonderful. There were also some funny parts in the show, and Carol Kane played the teacher of the school that Elphaba and Glinda were attending. Apparently, Ana Gasteymer (sp?) from SNL played Elphaba in the original Broadway cast, but the current actress is awesome! I would definitely recommend seeing this show if it comes to a theater near you, or head to Broadway if you can. It is absolutely one of the best shows I have ever seen. And Brad liked it too! (And he’s not usually much for the musicals!)

Landscape Artists

My mom was here this weekend for a (too short) visit! Saturday, it POURED all day long, so we ended up going shopping, which is a perfect rainy day activity! J I bought a pair of sandals, and we found a perfect picture frame for our dining room, so it was a successful trip.

Sunday was a beautiful day, thank goodness. So, we headed to Home Depot to buy the necessary tools for preparing a garden. My mom is a master landscaper, so it’s good that she was here to help us!! We bought 3 bags of dehydrated cow manure (EWW!), 3 bags of peat moss, 4 bags of garden soil, a pointed shovel, a rake and a pitchfork. It was quite a trip! Then the fun began, we (by we I mean Brad, see right) had to dig up all the grass that was in the place where the garden will be. As he dug up chunks of it, my mom and I shook all the sand out of it and tossed it into bags (see below left) ! It was WORK for sure!!! After that was completed, we mixed all the stuff together and spread it around in the newly ungrassed spot in preparation for the garden. Mom ordered us 30 plants (about 9 different types) to plant in the readied area and it will be beautiful! She also drew us a diagram of where to plant everything, so we shall see how THAT goes in two weeks without supervision!! We will have the most beautiful garden in the neighborhood for sure.

The neighbor that is directly behind us (an Asian man) has some very interesting landscaping technique. Ever since we moved in last September, we have watched him working in his backyard. For pretty much all of September and October, he and his parents tilled the entire backyard by hand with rakes and stuff. It just looked really strange. So, their backyard is basically just one big plot of dirt. A couple of weeks ago, we saw him out there picking up all the scraps of stuff they had tilled and putting it into black garbage bags. Then, he was taking it out of the garbage bags and spreading it all around. (Isn’t that a little counter-productive??) Then, this past weekend, he was out there putting down grass seed. He had the spreader right next to him, but he was just throwing the grass seed out by hand. Very strange!!!!! We shall see….I am convince they are going to have a beautiful lush green lawn soon, but it remains to be seen if this unconventional method really helps the grass to grow.

And my cousin Rebecca came up for dinner because she was visiting the University of Maryland as one of her choices for grad school. It was great to see her, and we just found out today that she is going to attend the University of Maryland, so I will have a family member about 2 hours away! Pretty exciting!!!

Coldplay

Last night, Brad and I went to the last Coldplay show in North America (for this tour) and it was GREAT!!! We had a good time. The opening band was Richard Ashcroft, who was the lead singer of the Verve. He was pretty good, but a little bit out there. Coldplay opened with “Square One” and then went into “Politik” and “Yellow.” During Yellow, these huge yellow balloons dropped down from the ceiling. As people were hitting them around, I noticed something floating inside them, and when they popped, gold confetti came out. It looked really cool!! I don’t remember the rest of the order of the songs, but they played most of their big shows.

Chris Martin said he had woken up in New York and was sure he wouldn’t be able to sing, but he went to see some doctor at UPenn who fixed his voice so he was able to perform. They did a little tribute to Johnny Cash, which he said they have done at every show over the past year. He said “We got our style of dress from him, except our shoes, which we got from Venus Williams.” (They were wearing all black (obviously!) with white sneakers. It was quite a look!!) It was really fun! He sang the song that is covered on the X&Y album (I think it’s called “Kingdom Come”) and then they went into “Ring of Fire,” which was so fun!! The crowd loved it. After the Johnny Cash tribute was finished, he said “This keyboard is dead. Just goes to show you, never buy a keyboard from George W Bush.” Hysterical!!

I was just completely amazed by how much energy Chris has. He was running all over the place during the whole show and jumping up on the piano and everything. He’s really fun and he kept asking to make sure everyone was doing ok.

Before Coldplay came out, some enterprising fan (who has a lot of time on their hands) had made “over 9000 signs” to hold up at the end of the show. Some of the said “Thank You” and others said “USA Loves Coldplay.” (The bottom of the sign said “There are over 9000 signs here tonight. Please hold up at the beginning of the first encore to become a part of Coldplay Concert History.) We kind of confused about this, but then when he said it was the last North American show of the tour, it made sense. So, everyone was holding them up during the last song, and then they came out and did three songs as an encore and ended with “Fix You,” which is a great song!

We also saw them in August, at an outdoor arena, which was similar to this show, but I think last night’s was better. They had a lot of energy and seemed very excited to be there. I am sure they were very excited as well because they are taking a couple of months off!!

And thanks to Brad’s friend Jeremy who got us some excellent seats! We were in the lower level on the side about three sections back from the stage, 14 rows back, the last two seats on the end of the row. Perfect!!

My dad is 60!!!

Spring is here! My tulips have bloomed, which is very exciting. However, they are starting to be sad because it’s 39 degrees here. What is that all about? I guess I should be used to it because Chicago was the same way, but I hope the ones that haven’t yet bloomed don’t die of frost bite.

We went down to Nashville this weekend to celebrate a momentous occasion: My dad’s 60th birthday. His wife, Connie, organized a little surprise party for friends of theirs from church as well as some of our neighbors. Brad and I were given the task of keeping him occupied until 3:00, so we took him to lunch and then went to Home Depot to do some research on the deck he’s helping us build in May. At 3:00, he received a call from a lady at church who needed some help with the lights at the place where she was having a party. He was on a mission from the second the phone rang. He walked in the door and was completely shocked when everyone in there was someone he knew, including my brother, my uncle and my grandmother! He was completely surprised! He had absolutely NO idea!! It was perfect!! We also had another surprise for him: we bought him a new golf cart. It’s really nice, and he was definitely totally shocked about that as well. And it all became clear to him why Connie had been nagging him to get the trailer hitch put on the car and the trailer repaired. It was really great to see my 2 uncles and my grandmother as well!! We had a great time and my received lots of chocolate gifts as well, which I am sure will be gone in 2 weeks!!! We definitely did a lot of eating, which is normal for a trip to Nashville!!!

The trip home, however, was definitely a nightmare. We flew into Baltimore because it saved us $120 per ticket, but after our 4 HOUR trip home, we will never be doing that again!! It should have taken a little over an hour, but it took nearly 4 because of the stupid Delaware roads. They were doing construction on the Delaware Memorial Bridge and there were 3 of the 4 lanes closed!!! I know it was like midnight on a Sunday night but there was SO much traffic! We ended up getting home around 2 AM, which was not good!! We both took the day off on Monday to rest! (Which meant I got to watch the Cubs beat up on the Reds!)