Ten Years Since My First Trip to Vancouver BC

Ten years ago today Nick and I met for the very first time.

We drove to Vancouver together with our mutual friends, Brooke and Van, where we promptly spent 5 hours sitting in a car in pouring rain waiting for Canadian Automobile Association to come help us with a blown tire.

U2 360 Tour

U2--what a band! On Sunday, September 20th, Nick and I went to see U2 perform at the Gillette Stadium. First we spent a long time bonding with other U2 fans.

Tightly squeezed in between other lucky General Admission (GA) tickets holders, we waited for hours to be let into the stadium. However, it was all worth it, we ended up just a few yards away from the stage. We jumped and danced, clapped our hands and sang along with the songs, watching the band perform right in front of us. U2 delivered a great performance, and we had an incredible time.

Perhaps the set list was not particularly “unusual”, but just hearing Unforgettable Fire performed live was incredible enough. I will definitely have to go to more U2 concerts, because the band did not play Bad—one of my favorite songs ever. Bono did forget the lyrics on a couple of occasions, but for me that did not take away from the quality of the show.

This concert was my fourth U2 concert, but it was only the second time I got to watch the band standing no more than ten feet away from the stage. As awesome as this concert was, my first ever U2 concert, just over four year ago, still remains the absolute best rock concert experience ever. The concert back in 2005 was a completely new experience for me, and just like this time, Nick and I got to stand really close to the stage. It is hard to imagine that we almost did not go!

I was not a huge fan of U2. In fact I was completely oblivious until in 2001 Nick made me listen to two of their albums, Joshua Tree and Actung Baby. I loved the music, but knew nothing about the band. If they were really the punks I saw on the photos of the Achtung Baby album cover, then I did not want to know.

Then, in 2005 they were coming to Boston, and I decided that I wanted to see the band that wrote One and Love Is Blindness live. As I started reading more about the band and Bono’s philanthropy work, the punk image quickly dissolved. By the time we went to the concert on May 29, 2005, I was a fan, and I was in rock music heaven. I did not want to touch Bono, unlike many people in the GA line. I did, however, want to listen to U2 all the time. I learned the lyrics. I read more about the band.

At the risk of appearing incredibly immature, I now admit that the memorable U2 concert in May 2005 became a turning point for me. I was inspired. I was not sure what to do, but I wanted to volunteer and to do more charity work. When I came back from my first trip to Honduras in 2006, people asked me if the trip has changed my life. No, it did not. I went to Honduras exactly because my outlook on life has changed.

New Yawkey Station

On Thursday the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority Board came to an agreement with the developers of the Fenway Center, a mixed-use project to be built over the Mass Pike. If approved by the state environmental officials, the construction of the first phase of the project will begin next summer.

The Fenway Center project will create new residencial, commercial, retail and shared-parking space, as well as a new full service commuter rail station at Yawkey Station.

You can find a few more details on the project and the new agreement by reading this MBTA news release.

Excited as I am at the prospect of the new Yawkey Station, I wish I knew answers to the following questions:

• Does the title "full service commuter rail station" require the station to have two platforms (as opposed to what is there now--just one)
• Would the existence of this brand new station actually affect the train schedule such that more inbound and outbound trains stop there?
• When would the construction of the new station be complete?
• How would the Fenway Project construction affect the current Yawkey Station and the Framingham/Worcester line train operation?

Boston Half Marathon

Finish: 1:55:38

Edited to add: Click on the photo for details...

I Am Running Running Running

Tomorrow morning I am running Boston Half Marathon, and of course I am excited. I have bored Nick to death with questions about what to eat and what to wear. Not that Nick knows any better than I do, but it is a huge comfort to have him tell me what he thinks.

The level of my excitement seems even greater than it ought to be before a race, if that is at all humanly possible. I attribute this phenomenon to the fact that yesterday I have confirmed my place on the 2010 Dana Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC) team. In other words, I will be running the 2010 Boston Marathon!

Of course, all DFMC team members (and there are over 500 of us) have two major challenges before them. Besides training and running the marathon (one challenge), we also aim to raise $4.4 million for the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research. Personally my goal is to raise $8000 for cancer research, and that is the second and most important challenge. Please help me achieve my fundraising goal by making a donation!

To keep you up-to-date with my marathon training and my fundraising, I am brining back my Run Helen Run blog into action--the same blog I used when I was on the 2008 DFMC team. I hope you visit it regularly so that you can participate in raffles, games and other activities I plan on organizing.

For now, I am off to bed, so that I can be well rested for the race tomorrow. If you are in the Boston area, please come out to watch the race and cheer me on.