I love my computer. The week before I started grad school, Jake and I made a trip to the University of Minnesota bookstore, where I purchased a brand new MacBook, iPod touch, and a printer. I was ecstatic. First of all, I was planning on using some of my ed award to pay for this beauty. Secondly, I was ready to put the old computer aside. Now, I want to say that the old computer did a good job and was very satisfactory. But, it was a G3 iBook (thank you Rob Burns for saving me in the midst of computer panic-honors writing crisis) and it did not even have a cd drive, amongst a list of other things that it could not do (I don’t want to hurt its feelings, so I won’t get into more detail). So needless to say, I was thankful for the update while I embarked on a new period in my life where I would once again rely on my computer for all things important in life.

My favorite season is definitely fall. I love it when the leaves change color, I love the crispness of the air after 3 months of hot and tropical humidity, I love pumpkins, and mostly…I love apple picking! Since I’ve moved to Minnesota, I’ve enjoyed apple picking even MORE. Why? Because in Minnesota, you can pick Honey Crisp apples!

Today in the mail I received a mysterious letter sent to my NE address. The letter was from Alaska…from the GOVERNOR of Alaska. Sure enough, I looked inside to see a photocopied picture of the one and only Sarah Palin, Gov. of Alaska. Now why would Sarah Palin send ME a letter? (No, we’re not pen pals…)

So, long time no post (but I’m not going to kid myself, I’m not sure if there is a single person in the world who reads this blog. Especially since I only post once every other month.) But we’ve been quite busy lately, too busy to post about all the things that are actually worth posting about.

Since there is no sense trying to recap everything we have been doing, I’ll just start with today.  Jake and I joined 3,500 Minneapolis residents in the Minneapolis Bike Tour! We went all around the lakes, down by the great Mississippi River, into Northeast Minneapolis, on the Theodore Wirth Parkway, and then back to Parade Park for the “aftour” party for a 40 mile ride! By far the longest I had ever gone on my bike (previous best was about 20 miles). We ate lots of snacks, saw so many cute kids and pretty dogs, and even though it rained a little bit on us, we really enjoyed ourselves. We’re hoping to do a repeat next year with more of our bike loving friends.

Well the past month has been an exciting one! And because of the excitement, I haven’t had time to post anything, which is quite sad. We went on our two and a half week vacation to Alaska, I spent a week working at the National Youth Leadership Training, and Jake and I packed all of our belongings, vacated our first post-college apartments, and moved in together (!!).

Here is some catch-up on events from the last week or so. The BIGGEST NEWS is that Jake defended his thesis today and passed! Two years of hard work and research later, Jake now has a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering! Congratulations Jakey! To celebrate, we had dinner at Chino Latino’s and it was delicious AND fun. Our favorite dish was an order of fries with black beans, guacamole, queso fresco, and pico de gallo. Who knew we liked fries with so much stuff on them???

People waiting for the Obama rally

Originally uploaded by jacob.scheckman

On Tuesday, Jake and I tried to go see Barack Obama at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul. I had underestimated how many Obama fans were in Minnesota! We arrived a little after 5pm, paid $15 to park, and then discovered that 35,000 other people had beat us there.

Nobody could find the end of the line, which zigzagged all over downtown Saint Paul. An Obama volunteer directing traffic told us that we would not be able to get in–us and 15,000 other fans waiting in line!

So we got some caramel corn and watched Obama’s speech on TV. I thought it was fabulous.

Here’s a pic Jake took of people waiting in line. You can kind of get a sense of how many people are there.

Hello world indeed! My very first blog entry. Over the past year (and a very adventurous year it has been: graduating from college, moving away from home, starting my first post-college job, and continuous explorations in my new city: Minneapolis) I have toyed with the idea of starting a blog. However, as you may know, I have a strong love/hate relationship with blogs (and therefore, blog users). I love to hate blogs but I also love to read blogs. A dilemma. After much thought, the idea of sharing photos and stories of my adventures, explorations, and mishaps with family and friends won out.

And now, the adventures!