project: city date

most of you know that my current job requires an intense amount of traveling. the unfortunate side effect of being on the road all of the time is that i don't have much of a life anymore. while i'm grateful to HAVE a job and for the chance to be a constant tourist, i have sorely missed the usual opportunities to socialize and meet new people. i'm fortunate in that i enjoy my co-workers immensely, however, none of them are lds, and as a result the 'social activities' at work functions usually involve watching people get drunk in bars. though this can be quite entertaining at times, it is obviously not my ideal situation.

hence the birth of project: city date!

in an effort to try and make the best of this situation, i've begun a little project. the goal of the project is to find a date in each city i'll be traveling over the course of the next year. it's my hope that project: city date will provide an opportunity to meet some new an interesting guys, sans the normal dating pressures and expectations, while also providing me a superior alternative to either solitude in my hotel room or the lobby bar!

still with me? 'cause this is where you come in. who do you know in these cities? who do you know that might know someone? does your husband/wife know someone? do you have single or married friends who might know an interesting single guy in their city?

i only have three criteria for potential dates:

1. i will rarely have access to a vehicle, so they should be as close to the city as they are willing to drive
2. ideally, as i've now hit the 33 mark, they should be between 29 - 45 years old
3. they should be able to hold a conversation (in english) and interested in meeting someone new just for the heck of it!

none of these are hard and fast rules (except for the english thing), but hopeful 'suggestions.' beyond those three requests, everything else wide open. i would prefer an lds guy, but won't mandate it. they can be short, tall, blond, brunette, bald, of any ethnicity or profession - it simply does not matter, i am completely open, no preconceived notions or expectations, no limits.

while it is natural for people to ask 'what does she look like?' or 'what is SHE like?' i hope that you will set expectations accordingly as you begin to have conversations with your friends and friends of friends. all of you have access to literally thousands of pictures of me and if you want to share my blog address with people you trust, that is fine. however, just keep in mind that this is meant to be a fun and casual experience, something new, something different.

my friend jami has the honor of having launched this project, contacting her married friends in austin, tx to see if they might know someone i could meet while in san antonio this week. they immediately responded that they had someone in mind and would see if they could work it out. follow jami's example people. follow jami's example because you are now officially a part of project: city date.

the following are a list of known travel dates and cities for the next year. i'll be sending out reminder emails 1 - 2 weeks prior to each trip which you can either delete or start (or follow up) making phone calls and shooting off emails. obviously, i'd prefer the latter ;)

* san antonio, tx
o 9/22/09 - 9/28/09
* new york city, ny
o 10/22/09 - 10/26/09
* frankfurt, bamberg, munich, germany & venice, italy
o 11/18/09 - 11/25/09
* orlando, fl
o 01/14/10 - 01/22/10
* las vegas, nv
o 02/12/10 - 02/20/10
* madison, wi
o 03/10/10 - 03/12/10
* long beach, ca
o 03/16/10 - 03/22/10
* baltimore, md
o 04/07/10 - 04/13/10
* phoenix, az
o 04/15/10 - 04/19/10
* los angeles, ca
o 06/11/10 - 06/14/10
* san francisco, ca
o 06/24/10 - 06/28/10
* san diego, ca
o 06/16/10 - 06/19/10
* atlanta, ga
o 07/29/10 - 08/04/10
* kansas city, mo
o 08/24/10 - 08/31/10
* san antonio, tx
o 09/08/10 - 09/16/10

for those of you who need a little guidance in asking your friends for assistance, here is a sample message that you can tweak appropriately:

Hi (Insert Name Here)

I have a co-worker/friend/relative/etc. who travels frequently around the country for work, and rarely gets to be home. In an effort to make this a more positive situation, she's begun a little project to try maximizing her network of friends and family to find a date in each city she visits for the next year. Her only requests are that the gentleman be within the 29-45 age range (she's 33), can hold a conversation, and would enjoy meeting someone new for a meal or fun activity! For ease of both parties, he should also be as close to the city in question as he is willing to drive, as she does not typically have a car available. Can you help?

any questions? thank you in advance for your assistance - the success of this project is dependent on you! ;)

weekend at home = good for the soul

after taking advantage of a saturday morning at home to run some errands (which were oddly fulfilling) i headed to long beach to meet mihaela for crepes at la creperie, a delightful little place that my former roommate used to rave about, but one at which i'd not yet had the opportunity to try out. i indulged in both a savory and a sweet crepe, which were both delicious, but mostly i reveled in the being able to spend time with a friend. i hadn't seen mihaela in, literally, four months - thanks to my travel schedule, and it was so nice to feel like i was engaging in my own life again!

after crepes, i had just enough time to enjoy a catap before alison came over to see the new place and meet the dog. on the agenda for the evening was an la galaxy game.


i'm the first to admit that i'm not an avid soccer fan. that being said, since david beckham arrived here, i've been wanting to at least see one game. chalk it up to my affinity for the movie 'bend it like beckham' or just the fact that not everyone has an opportunity to see him play, either way, i was super excited.

the only annoying part of the evening was when security would not let me in with the big camera because they said it was 'too professional.' please people! i'm posting pic on facebook, not espn.com! we had to walk all the way back to the car to deposit the camera, and as we had parked in the very farthest lot to ensure a timely escape, it truly was a long walk!.


the game did not disappoint! beckham scored the first goal for the evening, and alison and i enjoyed getting caught up while watching the fancy footwork on the field. sadly, without my big cam and it's high speed shutter release, that fancy footwork was a little too fast, and most of my pics came out blurry. nonetheless, we certainly enjoyed the game and our time together.


today was stake conference, and it was wonderful! our stake has two singles wards and a midsingles ward, so the family wards met for the first session and the singles for the second. the beauty of this was that i have some friends in the other wards who i (again) haven't seen in months. and they were all in one place!

the speakers were all on point (which is rare in a two hour session), but every message was powerful and poignant (is that redundant?). and after i had been edified by the spirit, i had the opportunity to reunite with some of my favorite californians.

all in all, i really needed this weekend. it was the first time in a long time that i have felt really connected to the spirit and to my life. it has been extremely difficult traveling so much, and this weekend reminded me that i need to make more effort to stay connected and to be engaged.

a note on the new template

those of you feed readers won't know that there IS a new template, but for those who do, i feel the need to explain a little bit.

i started seeing this template around sometime late last year/early this year and loved it, but since i had just updated mine, i decided to wait. but, because great minds think alike ;), my virtual friend tamara used the template on her 31datesin31days.com website which details her fun and successful dating experiment, and which has been previously mentioned on this blog.

not wanting to be a copycat, i decided to put it on the back-burner. but it's been seven months now, so i'm hoping she won't mind!

happy saturday everyone!

it's so nice to have a weekend at home! already this morning i've made a quick trip to old navy, stopped by aaa to pick up my international driving permit (me driving in germany should be interesting!), and dropped off my audio book at the library. it's silly how fulfilling these mundane tasks can be when you actually HAVE a saturday morning to run errands! hope you're feeling equally productive and grateful :D

chicago

chicago has and will likely always be one of my favorite us cities, despite this last trip having been a bit of a rough one. much of it can be attributed to my still being sick, and the rest to the unfortunate timing of everyone having hit their limit.

the co-workers i was traveling with are some of my favorites, but we are all tired, have been traveling too much, and really just want to be home. as a result, we ended up taking our frustrations out on each other during the show, which, in some cases, was not pretty.

the good news is that we genuinely like and respect one another, so in the final hours of the trip, disagreements were resolved, fences mended, and all will proceed as normal.

despite the turmoil, we still managed to enjoy chicago. when i arrived, it was in the middle of the filming for oprah's season premiere, an outdoor concert kick-off that shut down michigan avenue. my hotel was very close to the action, which, despite my best efforts otherwise, turned out to be as close as i could get!



after setup on the following day, and after most of my co-workers had arrived, we all headed out to have our own kick-off of sorts-pizza!

giordano's is a chicago pizza staple, and one i've never had the pleasure of enjoying before. we, of course ordered the stuffed crust pizza and enjoyed every single bite of it. i'm drooling just thinking about it. mmmmmm.



the following evening, i dragged along the group for another adventure i'd never experienced before - the willis tower (which was, prior to july 28, known as the sears tower). the building is the tallest in the united states, and as the elevator rose the 103 stories, a video indicated when we were passing the heights of other well known buildings....the empire state building, the eiffel tower....it was actually quite interesting!





the highlight of the sears tower is 'the ledge'. the ledges (there are actually three of them) extend about 4 feet from the skydeck at 1,353 feet up. the glass, as it turns out, is only 1 1/2 inches thick, although can somehow hold 5 tons of weight. as you might imagine the experience made for some great photos. :)



we arrived in time to get some daylight photos, enjoy the setting of the sun, and watch the city lights come alive. it was absolutely beautiful.



on friday morning, i offered to take my co-worker julianne, who has never been to chicago before, to see a few landmarks.



we took the subway down to the museum campus, which includes the field museum, the aquarium, the planetarium, and soldier field - all of which are incredible facilities. i love the way the campus is laid out, and had there been more time, i would have enjoyed wandering through them again.



since time was limited however, we opted to start walking back along the lakeshore, stopping first at buckingham fountain, which was even more impressive than i remembered it.



we also, of course, stopped at the giant bean in millennium park and took fun reflective photos.

the following, and final day of the show, was fairly quiet. that is, until vicki missed her flight. most of the team was heading out on saturday evening, and had checked out in the afternoon. as such, my room turned in to the camp out spot, as they staggered their airport departures. julianne and vicki were the last to leave, and i had been encouraging that they do so for 20 minutes before they actually took my gentle nudging.

for vicki, that 20 minutes turned out to be the difference between being able to check her bag. and since she couldn't check her bag, she was stuck. so, very frustrated, and clearly overwhelmed, she headed back to the hotel for a slumber party with moi! i had a room with double beds and vick and i are close enough that it made more sense than her picking up another room night.

we enjoyed dinner, came back and ordered dessert from room service before calling it night. we headed to the airport together on sunday morning and she was able to make the first standby flight out, while i was enjoying a row to myself on my direct flight. probably the smoothest travel leg i've had yet!