Help Isaac ride 100 miles!

Isaac signed up for a century (that's a 100 mile bike ride) called the Tour de Cure (not to be confused with the Tour de France) to raise money for the American Diabetes Association. He is riding with one of his coworkers and one other guy and their company will match donations made to their team.

Please get yourself over to his ride homepage and help him meet his fundraising goal! And don't forget about the company matching - you're donation will actually count as twice as much money for the ADA.

And if you don't want or can't donate, please help him by wishing him good luck and sending good bike riding vibes his way.

Thanks!

DC is great in the springtime

Tamagawa University Taiko Group (Tokyo, Japan) at the Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival, April 8, 2006 - very, very cool.

The rough life at the National Zoo

Isaac is trying to think of some way for us to trade Dario (our quite large red ear slider) for a smaller turtle from the turtle pond in the top left picture.


The main attraction:
Tian Tian (papa panda - top left), Mei Xiang (mama panda - top right) and Tei Shan (baby panda - bottom) at the National Zoo - April 9, 2006

More of Tai Shan in a tree and falling out of said tree. He is adorable!!! I don't care what other people say, I could watch pandas all day.

Is my hair really that color?!?!

Chicago

I went to Chicago for a week in March for a work conference. The added bonus is that I got to hang out with my family for a week too and check out my parent's new place (which I haven't been to since they moved there in June).

Let's see some pictures, shall we?

My sister took us to the zoo (because it's one of her favorite places - must run in the family).

From above left clockwise we have a nice big monkey, followed by a smaller monkey and its baby (sorry I don't know exactly what speices they are). The little kitty cats are actually a sand cat family. The one in the front is the mom and the other three are her kittens. They were so cute (I once saw a sand cat kill a cobra for dinner on tv. crazy! his little tongue was hanging out the whole time because he was so hot there in the desert).

Finally we have mr. and mrs. lion. Mr lion let out a couple of big roars while we were there. So cool! I have pictures of the cheetah too, but they're all blurry (because he's a cheetah, get it? too fast for the camera.)

The top 2 pictures here are of Marshall Fields. Go sign this petition. The one on the left is one part of their current store theme. The one on the right is of one of the famous clocks that surrounds the building.

The bottom 2 pictures are the view from my parents' condo. Not too shabby, eh? On the left is Navy Pier and on the right is the water treatment facility/park. It is really pretty up there.

Those are pretty much the highlights of the trip that have pictures.
Here are the other highlights that didn't have pictures.

• We went on a really cool walk behind the aquarium one night and saw the dolphins and whales through the glass. The pictures are dark though and there aren't really any animals to be seen in them.

• We also found a huge mansion tucked in between all of these brand new townhomes right near McCormick Place, but the picture is also dark and kind of looses its effect if you can't see the new construction surrounding it.
  

• Did you know that there is a secret route for buses to go between McCormick place and downtown? Me neither. It runs down by the train tracks under the Art Institute and goes into lower Wacker (At least I think it's Wacker).

• My mom, sister and I went to see Wicked. It was unbelievably good. I want to see it again and take Isaac. Go see it if you have the chance!!!
  

That's it for now! bye!