Geekfest Wrap-Up / Taramazing Race

 I’ve been seriously slacking on my bloggess duties, but here’s a little rundown of this past week:


Geekfest ’10:

I was able to escape the clutches of Geekfest ’10 for one night last week, when I took the train from Silicon Valley up to San Fran to meet my favorite dynamic duo Heidi and Micah for a fabulous sushi dinner in Sausalito. Heidi was a long-jumper/sprinter extraordinaire UW and tutored me through my first Art History class (which I got an AB in). I never approached art the same way again thanks to her :-). She’s now in law school (complete 180), or as I like to call it “Phase 2 of 3 of her diabolical plan to take over the world…Elle Woods style.” Which leads me to her now husband, Micah, works on developing super secret government projects (was the FBI on our tail last week?). Together, they’re no doubt formulating some plan to rule the entire Bay area, one wine tasting at a time. Anyway, the sushi we had was unreal and I cannot wait to go back to San Fran again sometime this summer (with Laura and JT$ to see JT’s sissy...yes it’s happening) as I find I always contemplate moving there after visiting.

Overall, the conference was a great learning experience and I found I knew much more than I thought I did, which was very comforting. I guess all this BS I’ve been spewing isn’t actually BS, who knew?

Tara’s Bday

I’m sorry Tara, but I’m going to say it to the entire blogosphere: Tara turned 30 this weekend! Yay! My lil big sis who used to chase frogs down the river in her suspenders and giant plastic glasses is now Dr. Clack: 30 year old. I’m so thankful that after all these years our families are still so close and supportive of one another. Both sets of parents even came out for the Taramazing Race on Saturday night, which was coordinated by Katie and complicated by Drew and myself (she was the real brains behind it all). The night started out at Salukis (our fave neighborhood spot) where about 40 of gathered for apps and some pre-race drinks. 5 or so teams were then formed and were given a set of directions for the evening’s 2 hour race around the city. Each team had a list of 30 of Tara’s favorite places/things around Chicago and a camera. The team who was able to make it to the most places on the list and take a picture as evidence won free drinks for the night. You also earned a point for every place you stopped at and took a shot, which my team thought would be our competitive advantage (also we were the only team who actually ran around the city...I was sore yesterday...). There was also a prize for Most Creative Picture; our team had both awards in our sights. My team, the “Reverse Cowgirls,” was comprised of JT$, Luke, Casey, Ben, and Shaker, who comprised the best dressed team in the race (no contest). The dudes all had on matching brown army surplus jumpsuits, JT & I had on spandex and various other pieces of flare. The scariest pic by far to get was in front of the scary Candyman church in Cabrini (T Clack loves the movie) and our team ended up winning Most Creative Pic, but it’s not really PG-rated, nor R-rated for that matter. So instead the pics below are from Cabrini. At the end of the 2 hours, everyone had to promptly meet at Maeve in LP for cupcakes, some za, and even more drinking. We all put in a good 8 hours of drinking that night…all for a great cause!

Love ya Tara!