Warm Ocean Breezes

We enjoyed a few days in the warmer part of the country as we got to travel to Palm Beach for one of Jo's business meetings.  All the travel connections worked perfectly and in less than 5 hours we went from 40 degree weather to a balmy 80 degrees with a lovely breeze coming in off the ocean.  It was really nice to trade our turtlenecks and sweaters for a few days in shorts and T-shirts.  We stayed at the Breakers hotel which is right on the beach.  The meeting was the annual conference with Northwestern Mutual's managing partners and there were multiple dinners with way to many courses and very tempting fancy and calorie laden desserts.  We both will need to start diets to shed four days worth of eating too much.

While there we enjoyed a day of shopping on Worth Avenue - although we window shopped since neither of us could pay $6,000 for a dress.  Yes for the price of a car (although a somewhat stripped down one) you can own one dress that didn't even come to Jo's knees.  It was still fun to walk around and see the shops and wonder about folks that have that kind of money to burn.  We also toured the marinas to gape at the massive boats (or are they ships once they are that large? I'm not sure where the transition from boat to ship begins).  No boats with helicopters that we saw, but still several way larger than our current home.  We also toured Whitehall, the mansion that the "Founder" of Palm Beach (that was Henry Flagler for those not in the know on Palm Beach) purchased for his second wife as a wedding gift (kind of made the small strand of pearls I gave Jo for her wedding gift pale in comparison - guess I needed to think bigger; or maybe a house is the usual gift for second wives, fortunately not an issue I've had to address).  Quite a house when you figure the first room you come in is the size of our current and first house combined!  We had a lovely day and ended it with a sandwich from the local Publix grocery store - which had valet parking!!  Only in Palm Beach.

We got home on Friday and spent the weekend catching up on home chores and resting up.  Jo has been on the road for two solid weeks with the NCAA, her trip to New Orleans, and Palm Beach, so she was ready for some decompression time at home.  On a sad note, we finished the last of the Papa Del's pizza we had brought back from our trip to Illinois last October.  Now it is back to our homemade version.

NCAA Final Four

Once again we were lucky enough to attend the Final Four games in Indianapolis.  Northwestern Mutual is a major sponsor of the NCAA resulting in the ability to use the Final Four games as an opportunity to reward the hard working field representatives.  This was my first time in Indianapolis and besides the Badger's loosing the title game we had a great time visiting the city and watching some exciting basketball - especially the Badger's win over Kentucky.

The four day weekend consisted primarily of eating, drinking, talking with the representatives, and watching basketball.  It was good opportunity for me to meet more of the representatives as I continue to try and match names with faces.  But, I'll be honest my main interest was in watching the three games.  As with Dallas last year, watching basketball in a football arena leaves a little to be desired since the majority of the seats are a long way from the action, but it does allow the NCAA to pack in 77,000 fans for one game.  And pack them in they did, there weren't a lot, if any, free seats for any of the games.  It creates quite an atmosphere for the games and especially the players.

On the games themselves, needless to say we were ecstatic to watch the Badger's defeat the Wildcats.   We were able to enjoy seats that were only a couple of rows up from the floor for the game so really got to see how tall and athletic the players are up close and personal.  The Romney's were just in front of us - front row seats, if you don't count all the scorer and press tables in front.  Must say, they are a good looking couple - and Mitt definitely has good politician hair!  After the exciting win, we just had to continue the celebration with other Badger fans, so we hit a bar afterwards to revel in the victory.  Unfortunately, it was a very late night in the bar which meant for a pretty late start to Sunday.



Our nephew, Sean, lives in Indiana so we took the opportunity to meet up with him on Saturday for brunch in a town halfway between where Sean lives and Indianapolis.  We caught up with what Sean has been up to, over a tasty plate of eggs, pancakes, and sausage, as he continues to settle into his new job (about 8 months in), apartment, and town.  Seems like he is busy with a lot of hobbies, enjoying his job, and doing well overall.  




On Monday, we had a back stage tour of the Lucas Oil arena which included seeing the locker rooms and the chance to get out on the floor to shoot some buckets.  Let me just say, it is incredibly hard since the baskets sit without any depth behind them.  And that is without someone jumping in my face trying to block the shot or 70,000 screaming fans yelling at the moment I'm releasing the ball.  I only made about 30% of my shots and the vast majority would have elicited the usual "air ball" from the crowd.  Fortunately, not many others were doing any better.

All in all, it was a fun weekend but we both came home tired as there were several late nights

.

And the Building Starts

Northwestern Mutual is in the process of constructing a new office building in downtown Milwaukee.  Since the facility group, that reports to Jo, is responsible for the construction, Jo got the opportunity to see them start pouring the concrete for the building foundation.  The main building, all 32 floors of it, will sit on a concrete slab - instead of concrete pillars drilled into the soil.  One of the engineers explained that the soil conditions under the building made this ideal.  The slab was poured in one continuous pour over 24 hours.  We got to see the pour in action along with walking out onto the rebar support structure, very impressive.  We hope to soon see the building rising since it they seem to have been either removing the old building or digging the hole for a long time.

Our other fun that weekend was attending a Buck's game at the Bradley Center along with several of Jo's HR team.  While the food and environment was the usual fun, the Bucks didn't play particularly well and therefore lost by a lot.  But we did enjoy our usual mix of chicken fingers (not just for little kids) and pizza (also not just for little kids) while watching the NCAA March Madness games in the suite.  Maybe that is why the Bucks played so poorly, they were watching the game at the bench.

We also got to enjoy the last hurrah for the snow, hopefully.  We woke up to a white lawn and cold, cold temperatures again.  Fortunately, the temps are getting above freezing so no shoveling is involved.  I must admit, I am really ready for temperatures being steady in the high 50's at this point - even though that probably won't happen for another couple of weeks.