Welcome to August and in keeping with what I always perceive as the hottest month in the year, the temperatures and humidity in Milwaukee are scorching. I have never done well in hot temperatures and it hasn't gotten any better with age. Thank goodness for air conditioning.
Northwestern Mutual's annual meeting started last weekend and ran through last week. We started off with running in the 34th Roots and Wings 5K/10K road race (in case you are curious, Roots is the home office folks and Wings are the field sales force). Jo and I opted for the 10K and turned in respectful times although we continue to get slower each year/decade. But we came across the finish line together and not the last people to do so. The race consists of just Northwestern employees, the sales representatives and their families. With all of that they had over 7,000 runners/walkers participate - quite a showing for one company. Afterwards Jo had some meetings to attend and I biked home. Then later that day, we got to enjoy an evening at the Milwaukee Zoo where the zoo is only open for the annual meeting attendees. It was a great way to see the zoo without all the usual crowds. Plus the event was on Sunday evening so you got to see the animals late in the day when many of them are more active - plus I think it was close to feeding time. We particularly enjoyed watching the elephants use their trunks to eat and the bears are always fun to watch. After having too much food and way too many
Sprecher root beer floats (they were free and it is one of the best root beers I have sampled), we headed home for some rest before the Monday morning opening event.
The opening of the annual meeting for Northwestern Mutual is actually on Monday and is open not only to the headquarters and sale representatives, but also their families. The theme is to summarize the last year's accomplishments, lay out the plans for the upcoming year, and enjoy a little entertainment. At the end of the morning's event the CEO interviewed Aaron Rodgers the quarterback for the Superbowl winning Green Bay Packers. It was interesting to hear Aaron talk about the effort needed to bring together a season long set of victories. Later that week, Northwestern brought in Earth, Wind, and Fire for a free concert for everyone - see photo. It certainly took Jo and I back to our college days hearing those old songs. So quite a week for all the Northwestern Mutual folks, especially those that had to plan it all.
The rest of my week consisted of continuing to work on the painting/wall paper stripping project. This project is going to take months, so you might as well get prepared to hear about it a lot. Especially, with how much I love painting and removing wall paper! To relax a little, we spent the weekend at Lake Geneva with our good friends John and Linda and their family. The weather cooperated by being hot and as you can see we enjoyed using their jet skis and overall just lounging in the lake. The water temperatures was perfect for cooling you down without being too cold.
As you can tell once you get older you want something to keep you afloat rather than having to continue to tread water. Also the rope we are all holding was so we wouldn't have to swim after the boat which was also drifting. We were soo lazy that day. Anyway, it was nice was to decompress from the week and we were sad when it was time to come home Saturday night. On Sunday in the interest of keeping the economy moving forward, in spite of the inability of our legislators to come to an agreement on the debt, we bought new lights for throughout the house. We found many of the current fixtures to be on the dim side and wanted to get more light in most of the rooms. So we purchased about 15 new light fixtures that I'll need to hang once they arrive. Always seems to be a project just around the corner.
Northwestern Mutual's annual meeting started last weekend and ran through last week. We started off with running in the 34th Roots and Wings 5K/10K road race (in case you are curious, Roots is the home office folks and Wings are the field sales force). Jo and I opted for the 10K and turned in respectful times although we continue to get slower each year/decade. But we came across the finish line together and not the last people to do so. The race consists of just Northwestern employees, the sales representatives and their families. With all of that they had over 7,000 runners/walkers participate - quite a showing for one company. Afterwards Jo had some meetings to attend and I biked home. Then later that day, we got to enjoy an evening at the Milwaukee Zoo where the zoo is only open for the annual meeting attendees. It was a great way to see the zoo without all the usual crowds. Plus the event was on Sunday evening so you got to see the animals late in the day when many of them are more active - plus I think it was close to feeding time. We particularly enjoyed watching the elephants use their trunks to eat and the bears are always fun to watch. After having too much food and way too many Sprecher root beer floats (they were free and it is one of the best root beers I have sampled), we headed home for some rest before the Monday morning opening event.
The opening of the annual meeting for Northwestern Mutual is actually on Monday and is open not only to the headquarters and sale representatives, but also their families. The theme is to summarize the last year's accomplishments, lay out the plans for the upcoming year, and enjoy a little entertainment. At the end of the morning's event the CEO interviewed Aaron Rodgers the quarterback for the Superbowl winning Green Bay Packers. It was interesting to hear Aaron talk about the effort needed to bring together a season long set of victories. Later that week, Northwestern brought in Earth, Wind, and Fire for a free concert for everyone - see photo. It certainly took Jo and I back to our college days hearing those old songs. So quite a week for all the Northwestern Mutual folks, especially those that had to plan it all.
The rest of my week consisted of continuing to work on the painting/wall paper stripping project. This project is going to take months, so you might as well get prepared to hear about it a lot. Especially, with how much I love painting and removing wall paper! To relax a little, we spent the weekend at Lake Geneva with our good friends John and Linda and their family. The weather cooperated by being hot and as you can see we enjoyed using their jet skis and overall just lounging in the lake. The water temperatures was perfect for cooling you down without being too cold.
As you can tell once you get older you want something to keep you afloat rather than having to continue to tread water. Also the rope we are all holding was so we wouldn't have to swim after the boat which was also drifting. We were soo lazy that day. Anyway, it was nice was to decompress from the week and we were sad when it was time to come home Saturday night. On Sunday in the interest of keeping the economy moving forward, in spite of the inability of our legislators to come to an agreement on the debt, we bought new lights for throughout the house. We found many of the current fixtures to be on the dim side and wanted to get more light in most of the rooms. So we purchased about 15 new light fixtures that I'll need to hang once they arrive. Always seems to be a project just around the corner.
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