This weekend, the weather was beautiful about half the time. Unfortunately it was the wrong half.Friday night was beautiful and clear followed by most of Saturday being nice too. Saturday was a big day for Raymond, as he turned 8 years old! Here he is enjoying his birthday cake:
And on his new bike:
We planned our usual "bon fire" birthday party for Saturday night. Cranky got the fire pit all ready to go -- lights, chairs, music -- while I got the food together. Cranky lit the fire at 5:00 pm (the guests scheduled to arrive at 5:30). Unfortunately it started raining at 5:15! Arghh! We moved everything inside and watched it pour. Luckily Cranky did a bang up job on our porch, so we had a nice place to party. A good time was had by all:
(The porch isn't quite done yet, but we've been spending A LOT of time enjoying it already.)Naturally, Sunday was a picture-perfect fall day. Clear skies, cool weather, beautiful.This morning, the rain came back at 4:00 am. I heard the thunder and listened to the rain pounding the roof until I got up at 6:00. Why was I getting up early on a day off? I was heading to Boston to run in the Tufts 10K. My friend Lynn and I drove down and met a few other friends. With fingers crossed, we headed to Boston Common for the race. The rain stopped for awhile and then started up again 5 minutes into the race. It rained for about half the race, and then cleared up. Geez, I was only running for about 50 minutes; you'd think I could've gotten a break on the rain. We still had a great time. Here's the gang after the race:
Last Monday was pretty exciting for me. I was in the middle of a 6-day trip, on a layover in Cincinnati. I put in for this trip since the New England Patriots would be in town for Monday Night Football. After we got in from Frankfurt, I went for a run all around the stadium -- in, out and around the stadium and in and out of tailgate parties, running in my Patriots shirt. I got a lot of looks but nobody threw anything at me or anything. I was hoping some wonderful Patriots fan would offer me a ticket. Nobody did. I went to dinner with the other 2 pilots and had given up on going the game. On the walk back to the hotel, I talked to a ticket scalper right next to our hotel (we stay 3 blocks from the stadium) and ended up buying myself a ticket. I was on the lower deck on the Patriots side. Here's the view from my seat: 
There were some Patriots fans at the game, but as expected, I was surrounded by Bengals fans. A few people asked my how I could show up with a Patriots shirt and hat. I said, "I'm a fan! Wouldn't you do the same thing?" Anyway, as New England proceeded to kick some Cincinnati ass, the fans grew quieter. I decided to go down to the field level for the 4th quarter:
And then for the last few minutes of the game, the stadium was nearly cleared out so I walked over to a seat behind the Pats on the 50-yd line:
Final score: Patriots 34, Bengals 17. WOO HOO!!(Not bad for cell phone pictures, huh?)In other good news this week, the Boston Red Sox swept the LA Angels and as I type this, the NY Yankees are losing to the Cleveland Indians. Another big WOO HOO!!Have a great week everybody!
