Red Shoes Award

Jen and I went to a small graduation dinner for the pediatric program on Friday night. As part of the ceremony they handed out a couple awards. Jen got the "Red Shoes Award". Basically, it means that of all the residents she was the nicest and the most helpful.

The award stemmed from a book called "Hannah's Gift". In the book, a little girl who eventually dies of cancer wore red shoes every day in the hospital. I'll let you check out the book if you want to know more, but basically her personality changed the hospital she was in and caused everyone to think more about not only the patients but also their families and how to take care of them all emotionally as well as physically.

The other half of the story is about Mindie Bailie. As a baby, she was one of the first patients in Riley Hospital to undergo open heart surgery. Without the surgery she would have died, but with it she lived to be 38 and became a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit. When she passed away, her parents established the fund that sponsors the Red Shoes Award in honor of here memory. They were there Friday and presented the award to Jen.

The full story is here.

Anyway, I'm really proud of Jen. I always knew she was really, really nice to all of her families and patients. She's always gone that extra mile for them. But it was nice for her to be recognized like that. That's my girl!

We're In

We had a couple bumps during our closing, but we're officially in the house as of last night. The movers are moving us in right now. I'll update later on everything, but here's our new info:

7638 Black Walnut Drive
Avon, IN 46123
(317) 272-0583

I told some people (317) 272-2747, but that was wrong. I'm not sure why AT&T gave me that number, but it wasn't right. Oh well.

Our New Home

Here's a picture of our new home. The address 7638 Black Walnut Drive, Avon, IN 46123

Sold!

Yesterday afternoon Jen and I got some bad news. The potential buyer wasn't budging on price and had decided not to respond to our latest counter-offer. Our Realtor said that she was looking for a deal and could see that we weren't interested in giving it to her. Oh well.

Well, apparently after thinking it over she decided to change her mind. This morning we received a final offer from her at our last requested price, just $1400 under our asking price. We were hoping for $1000 under, but given the market condition right now I think we did pretty well. Especially since it only took two weeks to sell.

The only negative right now is that she wants to close and take possession on the same day, May 21. That means we have to be out of the house before closing, which is annoying. In the worst case she could back out of closing and we'd be stuck with two houses. But she is starting residency not to long after that and so would probably not do that. Plus, she'd lose her earnest money. So no worries really.

So assuming the inspection goes okay it looks like we're sold! Now we just have to find a house as fast as possible. (or we can just get temporary housing for a little while)

We got an offer

We got an offer yesterday on our house. It was a little low at $135,000. It was listed at $139,900, but that was a pretty firm spot for us. We countered at $138,900 and I don't think we'll move much after that.

I'll let you know what happens.

A Map of Places We Like in Indianapolis

I just found a new feature in Google Maps where you can save your own maps for other to look at. Then you can add little notes and things to show people points of interest. I've created a map of Indianapolis, so check it out by clicking here.

Bike Season's Back On

I hadn't biked for three weeks, partly because it's too cold and party because we've been getting our house ready for sale. But yesterday it was back up to 50 F so I went out for a ride.

I started out with some friends but they decided to only go 20 miles. I wanted a bit more mileage so I pealed off and headed north of Indianapolis. I ended up going 51 miles and riding for just over three hours. Not bad.

Man, it's good to be back on the bike.

Bike Season Opens

It got up to 50 degrees today, so I decided to take off from work at 2 and go for a ride. It was still a little chilly, but once I got going I had a good time. It was really nice to get back out there again.

Getting in shape continues...

As anyone who knows me understands, I've a very goal oriented person. So, if I want to continue exercising I have to set goals for myself. My last goal was breaking 6:00 in the Bop to the Top (and surviving). My current goal is much, much more difficult. I want to burn 1000 calories in an hour on the exercise bike at the gym.

It's harder than it sounds. It's easy to burn 1000 calories per hour on a treadmill or an elliptical trainer, but it's much more difficult on a bike. I guess it's because on a bike you aren't actually moving your body up and down or your arms back and forth. You're just pumping your legs. Cycling is a very efficient way to get around, so it's hard to burn lots of calories doing it.

To put it in some perspective, when I started at the gym last November I was burning around 600 calories an hour. When I started my goal to get 1000 in early February, I was at around 700. So that's around a 50% increase in power output if I can reach it.

Today I hit 950 and I think I almost exploded. I'm by far the sweatiest person in the gym by the time I'm done. My heart rate was over 180 for about 45 minutes of the hour, peaking at over 190 from time to time. Needless to say, I've gotten some strange looks.

I'm almost there, but man does that last 50 look hard. I've only got about 2 or 3 weeks to reach it, though, because then the regular biking season will start and I won't be going to the gym anymore.

The next goal after this? Twenty-five miles on my road bike in an hour. After that, who knows?

200 Pounds? Say it ain't so!

I've had quite a few questions about my qualifications for the "over 200 pound" class in the Bop to the Top. Well, I'm here to tell you that I am, in fact, over 200 pounds. Barely, but I'm there. The morning of the race I weighted 202. After the race 200.5. So there.

I'd like to weight less than 200 pounds. I've been working my butt off at the gym. Unfortunately, I also eat like a horse, so it doesn't seem to help much. I'm in better shape, but I haven't really lost any weight. I'm hoping that when biking season starts back up I'll drop a few pounds.