So, a couple years back I was part of a Young Professional Networking Society. Kyle and I would go to the happy hours and other events and always had so much fun and loved finding people that were interested in business the same way we were. Well, sadly, the group slowly disbanded.
I still have several good friends that I met from being a part of this group and, ever since, wanted to find a similar group that I could join. Well, I never found one so I made my own!
http://kcyoungprofessionals.ning.com
Right now we're building our member base (you know - one person signs up and tells there friends then they sign up and tell their friends...) but once we get enough member to actually come to our events we'll host a happy hour. At the rate we're going we should have enough members by the end of the week! We're thinking of hosting a Haunted House event even.
So, if you're a young professional in KC or know one check out the site and create a profile! This site won't succeed without members!
28 October, 2008
Bern - October 25th
This Saturday we took a day trip to Bern. Kyle and I went with three of his work friends; Chris, Jody, and Gay. They were all SUPER nice and it was great to hang out with them. We also had an extra special guest join us. Flat Stanley from KC came with us as well and we were able to take a couple of pictures for his class project. I'll make sure to take pictures of Stanley as soon as I can.
I still don't have my camera so we only took a couple pictures with our camera phones...I'll have to get them off of the phones at some point. If you'd like to see pictures of Bern then click here.
We left the house at 7:30 to get to the HB for 8. We then had to pick up our tickets for Bern and meet the others. We took the 8:30 train to Bern and got there around 9:30. We spent the morning looking at beautiful churches (you can't walk more then about 2 blocks without running into one) and other sites that Rick Steves told us to visit.
We saw one of the ugliest fountains in the world and went up in a prison tower that also had an exhibit of Nelson Mandela's life. We also saw the soldiers tower where people used to hide out to smoke, but then you could smoke EVERYWHERE in Switzerland so people didn't have to hide anymore. Well - people might have to start hiding in the tower again, they're trying to pass a smoking ban.
We tried to see the clock in the city center strike the top of the hour several times but seemed to always miss it. Finally, at the very end of the day, we saw the most anticlimactic event- maybe in the world. But we can't say we weren't warned. The book did tell us it was an 'anti-event' AND we weren't even the only people hanging around waiting for the chime. At 4 minutes til the top of the hour a roster crows and a jester dances. Then, 4 minutes later, Father Time turns his hourglass and the gold guy with a mallet bangs on the bell.
We went and saw the bear pit again - still super cute! And walked up to the rose garden to look out over the city. I thought the view from the bear pit was amazing - that view had nothing on this one!
We had lunch and great conversation at a wonderful little Italian place too. And Kyle found a chocolate shop where he could get something that appeared to be a chocolate covered hedgehog. It was disgusting so we just ate off the eyes and trashed the 10CHF rodent (Mom, I think you might have liked it - it reminded me of a Cherry Mash).
We got home about 6 (of course it was already pitch dark). It was the perfect amount of time to spend in Bern.
I still don't have my camera so we only took a couple pictures with our camera phones...I'll have to get them off of the phones at some point. If you'd like to see pictures of Bern then click here.
We left the house at 7:30 to get to the HB for 8. We then had to pick up our tickets for Bern and meet the others. We took the 8:30 train to Bern and got there around 9:30. We spent the morning looking at beautiful churches (you can't walk more then about 2 blocks without running into one) and other sites that Rick Steves told us to visit.
We saw one of the ugliest fountains in the world and went up in a prison tower that also had an exhibit of Nelson Mandela's life. We also saw the soldiers tower where people used to hide out to smoke, but then you could smoke EVERYWHERE in Switzerland so people didn't have to hide anymore. Well - people might have to start hiding in the tower again, they're trying to pass a smoking ban.
We tried to see the clock in the city center strike the top of the hour several times but seemed to always miss it. Finally, at the very end of the day, we saw the most anticlimactic event- maybe in the world. But we can't say we weren't warned. The book did tell us it was an 'anti-event' AND we weren't even the only people hanging around waiting for the chime. At 4 minutes til the top of the hour a roster crows and a jester dances. Then, 4 minutes later, Father Time turns his hourglass and the gold guy with a mallet bangs on the bell.
We went and saw the bear pit again - still super cute! And walked up to the rose garden to look out over the city. I thought the view from the bear pit was amazing - that view had nothing on this one!
We had lunch and great conversation at a wonderful little Italian place too. And Kyle found a chocolate shop where he could get something that appeared to be a chocolate covered hedgehog. It was disgusting so we just ate off the eyes and trashed the 10CHF rodent (Mom, I think you might have liked it - it reminded me of a Cherry Mash).
We got home about 6 (of course it was already pitch dark). It was the perfect amount of time to spend in Bern.
22 October, 2008
Happy Birthday to ME!!!
Thanks to EVERYONE for the birthday wishes! I got so, so many and it meant so, SO much to me! It's nice to know that it's not 'outta sight outta mind'. I'm going to do my best to thank each and everyone one of you 'e-personally' (do you like how I can add an 'e-' in front of anything and you know what it means?)
Wanna hear what we did? Well, Monday night I got ambitious and made Kyle make me a quiche - and by 'made' I mean he chopped the bacon and grated the cheese - GO KYLE! Here's a picture. It's not very good because we had to take it with Kyle's camera phone because my fone is still in the shop...
I am damn proud that my first attempt at a quiche turned out like this! I made this in memory of Quiche Night Extravaganza! It's held every year by my dear from Megan. We have very yummy food and play games (I'm going to miss it this year :( )
So Kyle ate it (there's like a pound of cheese in there) so all day the next day he was like 'Do you smell cheese?' 'Smell my hand, I think it smells like cheese.' 'Do you have the desire to eat me right now?' Sorry Kyle, you're not made of cheese and I'm not going to eat you.
So, on to my birthday day! Kyle got to go into the office late and then come home at lunch. He was gone when I woke up at my usual 9 am. Between 9 and 12 I got a lot done. I worked out on the Wii Fit (and beat like 7 of Kyle's high scores - I was on a ROLL!), did all the email stuff I had to do, had breakfast, and had a great idea for Webster Team that I started in on.
Right at noon I hopped in the shower (2 seconds before I heard Kyle call). He got home and changed and then we had to decide what we wanted to do with our day. We had decided we wanted to go to a really yummy Italian place for dinner (let me tell you, after having REAL ITALIAN food made by ITALIANS Fazoli's just doesn't cut it anymore - that doesn't mean I'll stop eating there upon my return). We looked into renting a Smart Car for the day but there wasn't one close to us to rent.
We finally decide we're going to go to Ikea for Swedish Meatballs. 1:36 is our train. On the way there we decide we want a snack - ICE CREAM - Magnums baby!
**Magnum side note - For those of you that know what magnums are in the US it is NOT THE SAME THING. Magnums are eatable heaven here (endorsed by Eva Longoria). It's a piece of cake batter ice cream from Coldstone on a stick with a half inch shell of milk chocolate all over it. It is like the absolute best thing EVER! Now, if you ever, say, have a little too much to drink and then decide to eat ice cream on a stick you can go on for like four hours making innuendo-ous comments. But I would NEVER do that!
So it's 1:30 in the afternoon, it's like 50 degrees outside, Kyle should be at work and I shouldn't have even showered yet, and we're eating ice cream outside waiting for a train to take us shopping. Yeah, we got some looks.
Take the S8 7ish stops until you get to Bahnhof DietLikon (not Dietikon, VERY DIFFERENT STOPS!) then take the 787 2 stops to Industriestrasse unless you want to to straight to ToysRus then you take it 3 stops.
We get out at Ikea and hightail it into their bargain basement. 6CHF we are the proud owners of some crazy ice molds and a pickle ball set (minus the net). IN THE THE BIG IKEA!
Ikea is like a maze of wonderment. They don't really have aisles you just follow the tile brick road all over the store and you will see everything. Kyle wanted to beeline it for the food but the food is 1/2 way through the store so it's not really a good idea to, like, go to food then start shopping - it's more like a rest stop 1/2 way through.
Luckily for Kyle the first half of the store is pretty much all big stuff, sofas, chairs, tables, etc. I did pick up a rolling pin so I can make sugar cookies later. RIGHT BEFORE the cafe is all the kids stuff. OMG, my motherly side came out like crazy (it must be because I'm old now). I 'ohhed' and 'ahhed' over every little thing! I heart miniature stuff and they had a whole section of tea party stuff. I almost picked it up in one swift movement and put it in my bag. Kyle was like 'What the hell are you going to do with that? No one is going to play tea party with you!' and I was like 'If Megan and Lin were here they would play with me and we would make baby quiches and homemade crumpets and real tea!!!' But they aren't here so I didn't get it, BOO!
Finally Kyle got his food. He stepped out of the box and go some sort of wild rice and brown gravy something - he should have gotten the meatballs like me.
We finished up the store and picked up a couple of things and checked out. Our few things added up to 70 CHF - isn't that always how it works?
Next stop, the 'mall' across the street. We'd never been there so since it was the middle of the day on a Tuesday we thought it would be a good time. Nothing really exciting there, a shoe store and a whole bunch of sport stores. Although I did decide I want pink ski pants to go with my new coat (I found them in Switzerland so I have to be able to find them online right?). The top floor of this 'mall' was a Media Markt. It's like the hugest store in the whole world - but it's like 3/4 the size of the Best Buy in O-town. Kyle let me buy a couple of cds but that was all we could afford at 20CHF a piece, on sale.
ON TO TOYSRUS! We walked a couple of blocks to the store and were determined to get a new game. First, we wanted to get the expansion kit for Settles of Catan so we can play with 5-6 people. But that's still a game you need at least 3 people to play with so we set off to find a 2 player game. We needed up finding Ubongo and it came with the dice game of Settles of Catan (also a 2 player game) supposedly for free, so we pretty much scored big time. We also decided we needed another snack. Kyle got some Haribo and I got one of those crazy dust suckers that I used to get when I was little.
We're tired now so we head to the bus stop to head home. While we were waiting for the train to arrive we saw an ad for the new reduced price of the McDonald's Hamburger - you know, the 79 cent burger in the states? - it was 2.50 CHF. Um yeah, and you wonder why I spent like $10,000 in the states when we were home last month.
So we take the train home and then Kyle hides in the bedroom with the wrapping paper we bought at Ikea. I assume he's wrapping the presents he bought for me during the day.
Three presents later he surprised me! He wasn't wrapping what we just bought! On top of the new board games and 2 cds I got an UK edition of Cosmo (yeah English magazines!!) and 2 more cds!
I've been listening to my cds ever since: Ben Folds, Sex And The City soundtrack, Across the Universe soundtrack, and NKOTB!
We really didn't want to go back out by then so we popped a pizza in the oven and started playing Ubongo. It was really fun! It kinda as a Tetris aspect of it. After we played a couple games of that we decided we better stop playing, we didn't hate the game yet.
After our games we watched our Tivod episodes of Big Bang Theory (that show totally cracks me up!) and How I Met Your Mother (I'm so glad Sarah Chalk is gone - she was such a lame-o!). I let Kyle read Eclipse a little bit before he went to bed - but ripped it out of his hands promptly at 10pm (I let him read till 11pm the night before and he wasn't very happy with himself). He actually thanked me for taking the book away - he knew it was right thing.
I stayed up a little while long and did stuff and then headed to bed.
It was a great birthday! I wish I could have been at home but other then that Kyle and I had so much fun just spending the day together.
I hope everyone else had just a good of October 21 as I did!
Wanna hear what we did? Well, Monday night I got ambitious and made Kyle make me a quiche - and by 'made' I mean he chopped the bacon and grated the cheese - GO KYLE! Here's a picture. It's not very good because we had to take it with Kyle's camera phone because my fone is still in the shop...
I am damn proud that my first attempt at a quiche turned out like this! I made this in memory of Quiche Night Extravaganza! It's held every year by my dear from Megan. We have very yummy food and play games (I'm going to miss it this year :( )So Kyle ate it (there's like a pound of cheese in there) so all day the next day he was like 'Do you smell cheese?' 'Smell my hand, I think it smells like cheese.' 'Do you have the desire to eat me right now?' Sorry Kyle, you're not made of cheese and I'm not going to eat you.
So, on to my birthday day! Kyle got to go into the office late and then come home at lunch. He was gone when I woke up at my usual 9 am. Between 9 and 12 I got a lot done. I worked out on the Wii Fit (and beat like 7 of Kyle's high scores - I was on a ROLL!), did all the email stuff I had to do, had breakfast, and had a great idea for Webster Team that I started in on.
Right at noon I hopped in the shower (2 seconds before I heard Kyle call). He got home and changed and then we had to decide what we wanted to do with our day. We had decided we wanted to go to a really yummy Italian place for dinner (let me tell you, after having REAL ITALIAN food made by ITALIANS Fazoli's just doesn't cut it anymore - that doesn't mean I'll stop eating there upon my return). We looked into renting a Smart Car for the day but there wasn't one close to us to rent.
We finally decide we're going to go to Ikea for Swedish Meatballs. 1:36 is our train. On the way there we decide we want a snack - ICE CREAM - Magnums baby!
**Magnum side note - For those of you that know what magnums are in the US it is NOT THE SAME THING. Magnums are eatable heaven here (endorsed by Eva Longoria). It's a piece of cake batter ice cream from Coldstone on a stick with a half inch shell of milk chocolate all over it. It is like the absolute best thing EVER! Now, if you ever, say, have a little too much to drink and then decide to eat ice cream on a stick you can go on for like four hours making innuendo-ous comments. But I would NEVER do that!
So it's 1:30 in the afternoon, it's like 50 degrees outside, Kyle should be at work and I shouldn't have even showered yet, and we're eating ice cream outside waiting for a train to take us shopping. Yeah, we got some looks.
Take the S8 7ish stops until you get to Bahnhof DietLikon (not Dietikon, VERY DIFFERENT STOPS!) then take the 787 2 stops to Industriestrasse unless you want to to straight to ToysRus then you take it 3 stops.
We get out at Ikea and hightail it into their bargain basement. 6CHF we are the proud owners of some crazy ice molds and a pickle ball set (minus the net). IN THE THE BIG IKEA!
Ikea is like a maze of wonderment. They don't really have aisles you just follow the tile brick road all over the store and you will see everything. Kyle wanted to beeline it for the food but the food is 1/2 way through the store so it's not really a good idea to, like, go to food then start shopping - it's more like a rest stop 1/2 way through.
Luckily for Kyle the first half of the store is pretty much all big stuff, sofas, chairs, tables, etc. I did pick up a rolling pin so I can make sugar cookies later. RIGHT BEFORE the cafe is all the kids stuff. OMG, my motherly side came out like crazy (it must be because I'm old now). I 'ohhed' and 'ahhed' over every little thing! I heart miniature stuff and they had a whole section of tea party stuff. I almost picked it up in one swift movement and put it in my bag. Kyle was like 'What the hell are you going to do with that? No one is going to play tea party with you!' and I was like 'If Megan and Lin were here they would play with me and we would make baby quiches and homemade crumpets and real tea!!!' But they aren't here so I didn't get it, BOO!
Finally Kyle got his food. He stepped out of the box and go some sort of wild rice and brown gravy something - he should have gotten the meatballs like me.
We finished up the store and picked up a couple of things and checked out. Our few things added up to 70 CHF - isn't that always how it works?
Next stop, the 'mall' across the street. We'd never been there so since it was the middle of the day on a Tuesday we thought it would be a good time. Nothing really exciting there, a shoe store and a whole bunch of sport stores. Although I did decide I want pink ski pants to go with my new coat (I found them in Switzerland so I have to be able to find them online right?). The top floor of this 'mall' was a Media Markt. It's like the hugest store in the whole world - but it's like 3/4 the size of the Best Buy in O-town. Kyle let me buy a couple of cds but that was all we could afford at 20CHF a piece, on sale.
ON TO TOYSRUS! We walked a couple of blocks to the store and were determined to get a new game. First, we wanted to get the expansion kit for Settles of Catan so we can play with 5-6 people. But that's still a game you need at least 3 people to play with so we set off to find a 2 player game. We needed up finding Ubongo and it came with the dice game of Settles of Catan (also a 2 player game) supposedly for free, so we pretty much scored big time. We also decided we needed another snack. Kyle got some Haribo and I got one of those crazy dust suckers that I used to get when I was little.
We're tired now so we head to the bus stop to head home. While we were waiting for the train to arrive we saw an ad for the new reduced price of the McDonald's Hamburger - you know, the 79 cent burger in the states? - it was 2.50 CHF. Um yeah, and you wonder why I spent like $10,000 in the states when we were home last month.
So we take the train home and then Kyle hides in the bedroom with the wrapping paper we bought at Ikea. I assume he's wrapping the presents he bought for me during the day.
Three presents later he surprised me! He wasn't wrapping what we just bought! On top of the new board games and 2 cds I got an UK edition of Cosmo (yeah English magazines!!) and 2 more cds!
I've been listening to my cds ever since: Ben Folds, Sex And The City soundtrack, Across the Universe soundtrack, and NKOTB!
We really didn't want to go back out by then so we popped a pizza in the oven and started playing Ubongo. It was really fun! It kinda as a Tetris aspect of it. After we played a couple games of that we decided we better stop playing, we didn't hate the game yet.
After our games we watched our Tivod episodes of Big Bang Theory (that show totally cracks me up!) and How I Met Your Mother (I'm so glad Sarah Chalk is gone - she was such a lame-o!). I let Kyle read Eclipse a little bit before he went to bed - but ripped it out of his hands promptly at 10pm (I let him read till 11pm the night before and he wasn't very happy with himself). He actually thanked me for taking the book away - he knew it was right thing.
I stayed up a little while long and did stuff and then headed to bed.
It was a great birthday! I wish I could have been at home but other then that Kyle and I had so much fun just spending the day together.
I hope everyone else had just a good of October 21 as I did!
19 October, 2008
I'm a Green Goddess!
(Since I'm scared to leave my house without my camera - sometime cool might happen that I can't take a crazy amount of pictures of - I'll just continue to blog about things I think about while I sit in my house, alone, all day long...)
Ok, well maybe not completely a green goddess but I'm trying really hard! First, I started being green because I was cheap. It was cheaper for me to be green then not...
I saved over $200 a month by living downtown KC and walking to work (not to mention I got to keep my sanity); even though I made sure to buy a car that has pretty decent gas mileage. Then, my condo building offered recycling - I had to take my trash down there anyway, why not separate out the recyclables (this later became Kyle's job). Then, my ventless dryer kinda blew (or, actually, didn't blow...) so I started hanging out some of my clothes...
Now that I've moved to Switzerland I see just how much more I can do. I've started doing a lot of it and will try to do a lot more once we move home.
Here, you have to take public transportation everywhere - most people don't have cars and it's actually quicker to take the train most of the time. People are basically forced to recycle. Small trash bags cost about $2.00 a piece (because you have to buy special 'Zuri-saks') but recycling of paper, plastic, glass, and tin are completely free.
I've also all but stopped using our dryer here. I air dry all of our clothes on our nifty drying rack from Ikea and then once I have 2-4 loads dry I put them in the 'tumbler' for about 15 minutes to soften them up. They feel the exact same. Oh, and of course we don't have air conditioning here - so no electricity there!
Another very interesting thing they do here is make you pay for grocery bags at the market. So, you just buy a couple sturdy bags and take them to the store with you when you go. At first it was a little annoying because I would always forget my bag and have to carry an armful of groceries home but now it's very nice. I don't have to find a place to put all the plastic bags that I always promise I will use again and never do. When we moved here for KC I had 2 trash bags full of plastic bags that I was going to 'use again'. And stores will never really go to recycled plastic bags because it is exponentially more expensive to buy them then the non-recycled kind.
Once we get home my new car will get at least double the gas mileage my old car (triple the gas mileage of a lot of cars) because it will probably be a hybrid. Our new house will have solar panels (surprisingly affordable!) and maybe even a windmill :)
Ok, well maybe not completely a green goddess but I'm trying really hard! First, I started being green because I was cheap. It was cheaper for me to be green then not...
I saved over $200 a month by living downtown KC and walking to work (not to mention I got to keep my sanity); even though I made sure to buy a car that has pretty decent gas mileage. Then, my condo building offered recycling - I had to take my trash down there anyway, why not separate out the recyclables (this later became Kyle's job). Then, my ventless dryer kinda blew (or, actually, didn't blow...) so I started hanging out some of my clothes...
Now that I've moved to Switzerland I see just how much more I can do. I've started doing a lot of it and will try to do a lot more once we move home.
Here, you have to take public transportation everywhere - most people don't have cars and it's actually quicker to take the train most of the time. People are basically forced to recycle. Small trash bags cost about $2.00 a piece (because you have to buy special 'Zuri-saks') but recycling of paper, plastic, glass, and tin are completely free.
I've also all but stopped using our dryer here. I air dry all of our clothes on our nifty drying rack from Ikea and then once I have 2-4 loads dry I put them in the 'tumbler' for about 15 minutes to soften them up. They feel the exact same. Oh, and of course we don't have air conditioning here - so no electricity there!
Another very interesting thing they do here is make you pay for grocery bags at the market. So, you just buy a couple sturdy bags and take them to the store with you when you go. At first it was a little annoying because I would always forget my bag and have to carry an armful of groceries home but now it's very nice. I don't have to find a place to put all the plastic bags that I always promise I will use again and never do. When we moved here for KC I had 2 trash bags full of plastic bags that I was going to 'use again'. And stores will never really go to recycled plastic bags because it is exponentially more expensive to buy them then the non-recycled kind.
Once we get home my new car will get at least double the gas mileage my old car (triple the gas mileage of a lot of cars) because it will probably be a hybrid. Our new house will have solar panels (surprisingly affordable!) and maybe even a windmill :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
