Thanksgiving and More

Thanksgiving Turkey Trot! What better way to start off Thanksgiving then with a 10K run...My friend Tiffany Feger and I decided it was a good idea to pre-burn our calories before the big feast! When the gun went off, we didn't! We were at the very back of the pack and had to work our way up. They had live bands on the side of the road, even a Maryachi Band, I ran over to them and took a picture...with Tiffany's camera.

All of the Turkey trotters on the go!

It's never a wrong time to stop and take a picture (although, I believe I was still somewhat running at this time).

We invited our married friends, Bobbi and Kera Nichols over for the big feast. They brought the turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing. We provided the rolls (homemade) pies (homemade) and corn (which for some reason, no one really touched).

Me and Kera ready to dig into my rolls...even though they were nothin what my mom and sister make, they were still sub-par. After we stuffed our faces, we played some card games and ate some pie. Fun times with the Nichols.

I went to Chicago for 7 days for work. We had a tradeshow there that I coordinated and since it was my first one, and sometimes people make mistakes on their first tradeshows...there were a few unhappy people when my boss and I arrived in the windy city. Three other co-workers (my bosses brother, his wife, and another guy) went early on Thanksgiving Day to set things up and I never realized that the exhibit center was closing early that day. SO to make a VERY long story short...not only did the miss their Thanksgiving dinner, and the only restaurant open in all of the city (or that they could find) was a Greek restaurant that sold stale Gyros, a lot of time and money was waisted going up one day early. There were other so called "dillemas" that happend that I will not bore you with the details. But after being reprimanded by a not so nice Chinese woman (my bosses brother's wife) more than once and even being brought to tears, I decided that Chicago was still pretty cool (and FREEZING).
At this restaurant, I ordered pork flank not knowing that it was going to be so massive. I did a pretty good job cleaning it up, but soon into it, had other forks picking at it. I dont like the crunchy party of the meat (tendons) but my bosses do so they had at it....joyfully!

Here is the carcass...literally, there was nothing left to eat off of that thing. Kinda grossed me out just a touch. OK..Im not gonna lie. I pretended to be REALLY full so I wouldn't have to eat the "crunchy" non-meat parts.

I swear, all I did in Chicago was eat! Once we finished setting up for the show, I didn't want to wait around for everyone, so I ordered in...and it was lovely! I ate my pizza...on my bed mind you, and loved every minute of it...Until

I finished 1/2 of it and realized I felt sick and bloated!

On our way to China town to eat some good eats! We did it limo style...

Xing is the one in the middle...I don't think she was very fond of me by the end of the trip...Oh well!

We need to do something about those white legs!!

ALL of this food is RAW. There was chicken, TOFU (don't like it), calamari, tripe (stomach...which I tried and DID NOT like), oysters (blah), shrimp, and some other stuff. Anyway, the server brings out this pot , sticks it on a little burner, and boils some hot, spicy broth on one side and chicken broth on the other. You throw all the food in (not all at once, just what you want) and cook it in the boiling water. It was quite the experience. I enjoyed myself!

You have to fish your food out with a little scooper thing.

This is my eating area. It was pretty messy.

This is about all of Chicago I got to really see...this was taken from inside. I would have LOVED to go explore, but by the time the show was over each day my feet would be KILLING me and all I wanted was food and rest.

Me, at our booth. Basically, since I don't know much about all of the prodcut (extremely technical), my job was to get people to our booth, then I would pass them onto the bosses. Fun times! I actually had a pretty good time!

The Saturday after I got back, we had some friends over for dinner and Yhatzee. There little girl, Naomi, liked using Scott as a back rest. I just thought that this was a really cute picture!