so here’s the deal on europe (since i mentioned the passport the other day and have not said anything about the actual trip)….my awesome friend Chrissy is a missionary living in Dublin right now (there’s a picture of her on my fridge!). i wanted to go visit her. i also wanted to accomplish at least one goal of mine before my next birthday and since going to Europe is one of them, i wouldn’t be going 0 for 5 if i went before April. there’s the situation…so one night on IM i’m talking to my friend Lori about wanting to visit Chrissy. Lori goes to Europe ALL THE TIME. she tells me she’s already going to be in Europe (of course!) with some other friends and i could meet her at the end of March. my birthday is in April. PERFECT! so the plan is i will leave on Easter to fly to Paris, then we’ll go to London, Newcastle (for now, not final), then to Dublin to visit Chrissy. it’s going to be awesome. i have no idea what to pack. i have no backpack yet. my flight on Easter is going to be at 8:10 am (because apparently flying out at a later time was going to cost $200 more). i will be spending my birthday in Dublin…that is basically what i know for certain. so i’ll be 1 for 5 on the birthday goals. some guys get paid a lot of money for hitting .200, so i won’t be a total loser.

i will get back on a Wednesday, then i’m flying out that Friday to go to Charleston and run in the Cooper Bridge Run. i ran in the Bridge Run back in ’04 and i had a lot of fun. i love Charleston. i’ll be meeting up with my friend Scott and probably seeing a bunch of other people who i have not seen in years. hopefully two days to recover from jet lag will be enough. i’ll be using the two recovery days to also make up for not running while in Europe, so i hope my plan works.

ever since the awesome weekend at jazz fest in ’06, i’ve been on the lookout for a poster. it meant a lot for me to go that year, you know, with the hurricane and all, so i’ve been wanting to get a poster. my parents wanted to get one for me last year for my birthday, but could not find one. i scoured ebay this past year for one with not much luck. all of the auctions were basically going for the same price, sometimes higher, so it was discouraging to say the least. the other morning, when it was announced everyone would be getting that crazy tax rebate, i saw on ebay a 2006 poster for a little less than what all the other auctions had gone for. i decided enough was enough. i bought it. it came yesterday and i took it to the framer’s, so i hope to have it next weekend. i’ll post a picture when i get it back.

speaking of next weekend, i hope to be getting my new running shoes which i will hopefully start putting into service next weekend. i’ve been running a lot, and i owe a lot of it to the Nike+. i’ve logged almost 35 miles just in January alone, and there’s still a week to go! i’ve never really run on a schedule for longer than a week or two, but now i’m looking at my challenges going “my team just needs 3 more miles to be in the lead, i could do that tonight!” i feel great after i run too, which is awesome. this year will be the year i run a 10k in under an hour legitimately. right now i’m running a 5k in about 27 minutes, so the goal is within reach!

in other news, i think i’m also going to buy tickets to the rest of the Hornets’ home games and will start helping out with my home church’s youth group next weekend (but maybe the following weekend because of some football game). oh, and i talked to Chad about coaching little league baseball this year, but apparently we have to have practices during the day which would make us have to get to work at 5 am, and neither of us want to do that.