ACC Tourney

 

Thanks to Mom and Dad Veerman for hooking us up with tickets to Saturday’s ACC Tournament games.  We couldn’t have asked for a better day, we got free parking, a short walk to the stadium, then the Tarheels played an exciting, winning game and Duke lost.  We even got to snack on a funnel cake (yum!).  Being at the game is great, because you are really involved in the action.  Since Charlotte loves the Tarheels, and because it was a close game, there was a lot of action – numerous cries of Tar … Heels! across the stadium and throngs of fans in light blue.  Evan thought it was a little different from a normal game because there were so many different groups of fans there – for instance, Duke fans came for our game and cheered for VT, and I screamed my throat sore for Clemson.  All in all, a great experience!  We had fun hanging out with Mom, Dad and Andrew too. 

Go Heels!

I’m bursting with Tar Heel pride after reading this article.

Family Heart Study

Getting paid to take part in a science study is not as easy as they make it sound. My brother and I signed up to be a part of the Family Heart study at Duke Hospital. It consists of several steps over several days. Tday was my last day and I went in this morning and got hooked up with this gear and then went about my “regular” day. But the very unregular part of the day is that I had this machine take my blood pressure every 15 minutes and every time it took my blood pressure I had to fill out this little survey about how I was feeling. Pretty much a pain but we will have some extra flow and some good stories to tell the friends. Enjoy the photo.

Thursday’s Scoop

1.  The scoop on the comfortability and quality of Dolce Vita shoes:  Both of my pairs of Dolce Vita shoes are of average comfort, but took multiple wears to break in (maybe 3).  They are also of fine quality, and don’t look scuffed or worn, but I don’t think I have had either pair for a year yet.

2.  The scoop on the excercise ball situation:  Excercise balls are a common sight at offices that win awards like “100 Best Small Companies to Work For”, which Almac is not.  Nevertheless, I was excited to incorporate this into my office life, especially after reading this article.  Using an excercise ball as your chair forces proper spinal alignment and you can burn up to 350 calories a day by working your core.  However, I was asked to run this move by the Safety Committee, and at that point I was told, “We don’t feel that using an exercise ball as a chair would be practical from a safety or housekeeping aspect.”

3.  The scoop on one perk of working at Almac:  I will be watching the ACC Tournament for most of the afternoon on the two plasma screen TV’s in our conference room.  Thanks to the tourney, we’re allowed to wear jeans today and Friday, and spend the afternoon checking in on the games.

What’s with Safety?

Continuing with my theme (I have only posted once but this is number two) What’s with safety? I mean seriously can a person not take the little risks in the life that truly make you feel alive or are we going to deem everything that might be fun and exhilarating unsafe. I am speaking specifically to Kelly’s work situation. She had the idea to sit on a exercise ball at work which seems fun, innocent and above all safe.

But alas she was shot down by the safety committee. Here are some pictures of us with the exercise ball that we now have at the house.

Shoe Love

One of my current favorite buys is Dolce Vita shoes.  I have two pairs, and I just ordered a third pair today.  The great thing about these shoes is not only are they cute, trendy and relatively well made, their online site has amazing sales.  I haven’t spent more than $30 on a single pair of Dolce Vita shoes, and most styles retail at Nordstrom for around $100.  Check this out for yourself here, just scroll to the bottom half of the page for the best deals.

Guitar Lessons

You might not have known that one of my secret goals in life is to be a rock star.  Oh yes.  Really, it’s a life long dream of mine to just be famous, but I have in later years decided that being a rock star is the best way to achieve this since I love to sing loudly in the car.  My dad always says if you really want to do something, you’d be doing it.  So I want to sing, and I am singing, just to a solo audience for the time being.  But recently I have also sought to step up my musical talents by learning to play the guitar.  Evan and I have been taking guitar lessons weekly for almost the past year.  It works out nicely because we can switch off and one of us goes every other week.  A huge milestone in our guitar playing was accomplished this past weekend when we had our very own guitar recital.  I mean, not just us, there were lots of other guitar players too.  We played Brown Eyed Girl and Stand By Me.  Five other people at the recital also played Stand By Me, which was a little embarrassing, but whatever.  Despite my lack of enthusiasm about the recital, it really did feel good, because I now feel like I can really play a song.  And that is the first step.  We’re hoping to learn a bunch of worship songs in the future so we can play for our small group.  If anyone has suggestions for easy songs, let us know.