boston bob & yuppie pups

amazingly i have finished all of my school work for this set of classes. i wrote far more about commercial mortgage-backed securities yesterday than any sane person should, but it's done and i'm guessing it's at least good enough for my P. oh yes, the unc mba is pass/fail...

kevin has been in boston all week for some sort of work training. he was out with our friend bob last night, and i'm happy to report he made his 7am flight this morning without incident. bob works for the red sox, and as a result, knows every cool place to go in boston, and everyone (i mean everyone) knows who he is. last time we visited, i swear to you, every time we walked into a bar or restaurant, everyone yelled "BOB!" (a la "NORM!" cheers style). it was amazing.

kevin and bob tend to raise some hell when they are together, so when i talked to them last night on their way to the neighborhood pub in south boston (literally the one from good will hunting), i was thankful that we had added some cushion time today with flights in case he missed the first one. but he made it and is now hanging out at rdu waiting for me.

i'm on my way to drop the dogs off at camp. if you don't have dogs (and treat them like humans like we do), you probably aren't aware of the wonders of doggie day care and yuppie pup camp. there's an entire industry around this, which just serves to piss me off for not coming up with the idea myself. for the bargain price of one of our 5-star tasting course dinners next week, haydie & vegas are going to live it up in camp bow-wow for 10 days. if you'd like to check on them, you can do so with the web cam here. when haydie first went to camp bow-wow (pre-vegas), i was riddled with guilt like a working mother leaving her kid at day care for the first time. haydie was thrilled to check it out, and i felt like a horrible mother.

luckily i'm over that now, and appreciate the opportunity to spend a night in chapel hill occasionally without driving the 75 miles home to take care of the dogs. besides, the camp people are always trying to steal my dogs because they're so fabulous...i get the tiniest bit of smugness whenever i pick them up after a camp adventure and they're sooooo excited to see me (never mind they promptly pass out for the next 12 hours from sheer exhaustion).

so dogs are headed to yuppie pup camp, kevin is in the appropriate airport (albeit several hours early), and i'm finished with mod 3...we're flying to san jose (delta actually recognizes me as a nagel now instead of sewell - that no kidding took almost 2 years to do) and driving to los gatos tonight. we'll spend the weekend with kevin's brother and family, then our first stop is schramsberg on monday. at least 4 people have raved about how fabulous this place is. they're supposed to have an amazing cave tour and tasting and we all know how much i like sparkling wine...

curmudgeonly old man...

first of all, the word curmudgeonly doesn't get enough love. what a fabulous--yet underused--word. it reminds me of my days as a counselor at camp merrie-woode in sapphire nc. i'd make announcements during lunch and perplex the campers (and i'm sure some of the staff too) with my vocabulary. as a result, the merrie-woode SAT word of the day was born. those bitties got more than they bargained for that summer; maybe some of them even learned something besides how to do the j-stroke or make a ceramic bowl. curmudgeonly would definitely have been a stellar word of the day.

but, i digress.

as i wrap up this whole mba thing, kevin and i decided to hit california during my spring break for several reasons:

1. we both suffer from extreme cases of seasonal affective disorder. i'm originally from texas and love nothing more than hanging out in 100+ degree heat; i'm not sure what kevbo's excuse is, but he's got SAD, trust me.
2. we haven't seen kevin's brother and his family since our wedding back in 2006. the elementary-age children are likely about to start driving at this rate.
3. if you know us at all, you know we have a thing for wine.

as it turns out napa and sonoma valleys are relatively close to los gatos (home of the cali nagels). we fly across the country, see the fam, drink some wine. done and done.

kevin suggested we keep a journal of our trip; i countered back with we should keep a blog. his immediate response: "do what?" i figure we should embrace technology - i did, after all, join the ipod revolution during xmas 2006. he replied that he was, in fact, a curmudgeonly old man who hates blogs. that's my man...

so while this is "our" blog, i'm not holding my breath on any updates from kevin. i'm planning to post updates throughout our trip out west--i've gotten lots of tips and recommendations from friends, so it'll be interesting to see what we can pack into 8 days.

must stop procrastinating and do some legit school work now...