Part Two: Last 7.5 Minutes of Fame

Check out the St. John Sun Times wrap up of 8 Tuff Miles. A great article on the race and a bunch of good photos, including one smack dab in the middle of the page spread featuring yours truly with running buddies Brian and Brett (took this at the awards ceremony the afternoon after the race took place). As you can see we are proudly sporting our baby blue "Urbandale All Stars" t-shirts I labored away on leading up to our trip. Big thanks to Ella and Gina at the Sun Times for taking the time to email me an electronic version of the story! You can click on the pictures to see a bigger version.

So we just got back from an interesting evening out. We went up to Elgin to see Sarah Vowell speak. She is an author who has written several books on American history, and she's also pretty damn funny and played the voice of the daughter, Violet, in the move "The Incredibles." I haven't read her books but know her from her frequent contributions to "This American Life" the Chicago Public Radio show that is now one of the most popular on NPR and I have become nerd-ily addicted to. I listen to the old

podcasts most days on my commute. If you haven't checked it out,you should, I'd highly recommend it (check out the link to their website over to the right, I'm tired and don't feel like adding it again here!) Anyway, she was very good and although tickets were a little pricey ($20.00), I'm glad we went and look forward to reading some of her books, such as Assassination Vacation.

After that headed out to a small Italian place on the way home and had a fairly good meal served by what Ashley swears were waiters with fake Italian accents. I made the unfortunate decision to make a comment at dinner along the lines of "Too bad we can't keep the house more clean, both of us are very messy people." Well of course this isn't entirely true, and it's me that tends to put off the cleaning, but I seem to have made Ashley feel as if I felt she was a real mess maker too which is not true. Anyway, it's almost 11:45 p.m. and she's in the bathroom cleaning out the drawers!! On the bright side, her bronchitis seems to be much better and she's not coughing nearly as much.

So I hope to get that big trip report done.. eventually.

My 15 Minutes of Fame... St. John Style

So one of the coolest things about the whole St. John trip and the 8 Tuff Miles experience was having an opportunity to be interviewed and featured in one of the St. John Newspapers - The Sun Times.

The morning after we arrived, I went to check in officially at the campground while Brian and Brett got us a cab to go into town and pick up the rental jeep. While I was waiting I saw a copy of the Sun Times sitting on a shelf, picked it up, paged through and saw a picture of me and my dog!! They had used the picture I sent along w/ the entire email interview I had done. It was so crazy to arrive on a tiny island in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, and wake up in the morning to find my picture in the paper.

Anyway, the editor and publisher of the paper, Ella, was really fun to talk to and I had a chance to meet her leading up to race day and then right after the race as well (she was the first to greet me and congratulate me at the finish line actually!). She is a really cool person and looks to be doing a great job w/ the Sun Times. So click on the picture of the article and you can read for yourself!!

Got some pictures up!

Well - still haven't had a chance to write about the trip in detail - but you CAN now see all my photos on Flickr. You'll notice there aren't too many from the race day. We had our friend Heidi who we met in St. John take a bunch that day so hopefully I can post them before long. Anyway, for now, enjoy:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjhicks/sets/72157604127628531/

Updates on the way....

Sorry for no big updates yet. The new position at work and wedding stuff has been keeping me busy (not to mention watching the resurging Blackhawks and sleeping!). Anyway, check out this article from the Chicago Tribune that popped up in my VI news stories below:

Click Here

Does it mean I'm becoming a "St. John snob" when in reading this all I did was pick out some small inaccuracies?? Oh well. Started uploaded all the photos from our trip last night to Flickr so I should be able to post a link to them soon.