Hello my friends!

So I originally came back to this page to listen and update my music, but decided I could pull myself out of blogging hiatus and write something. So....where to begin. I last updated in June eh? I can't even remember that far back.

In September, I started a new job at the UofM with NTS (Network and Telecommunication Services). My primary job is phone support, but half the day is spent writing technical documents and assisting with walk-in support. It's very nice to be back in academia, and I made it back just in time. There's currently a university-wide hiring "pause". But things are much slower paces and "results oriented" here rather than at RBC where everything was very "numbers oriented", which is understandable since it is a financial institution. It was a slight pay-cut coming here, but the benefits and room for growth far outweigh the difference in pay. It was a good move. High five to me.

In October, I completed my first and only marathon of my life; the Twin Cities marathon! It was a cold, wet and rather miserable day, but wow what an experience! A few of the moments that really stuck out for me were first, running past the Basilica of St. Mary and they had all of their church bells ringing and people cheering. It was SO loud and gave me goosebumps and I bounced past. Second of course was rounding the corner by the Cathedral of St. Paul and finally seeing the finish line and the massive American flag floating over the top. My goal for the marathon was to finish and I achieved that goal, but I greatly underestimated the race as a whole. The last 4 miles of the course and the subsequent 3 days were the most painful experienced of my life. I hit mile 22 and my body essentially shut down. Every step was a struggle as my back, legs and feet screamed at me to stop. But I pushed on. I don't remember my exact time, it wasn't good in runners terms I know, but I'm proud of the accomplishment.
As I mentioned, the evening after and the following 3 days were absolutely horrible on the pain scale. I was forced to shuffle everywhere I went as my legs and feet were so sore and tight. I read a rather lengthy article in Mens Health not too long after which talked about how much damage marathons do to your body, which is the main reason I'm never going to do another one. That's not meant to discourage anyone who's looking to do one, in fact, I highly recommend doing one just for the experience, but don't do it for the exercise. The marathon training is the part that's good for you. The event itself is not.

That's all for now. Till next time!

6/19 - 2.65mi , 9'28"/mi, 511 cal
6/20 - 3.87mi , 9'06"/mi, 746 cal

Long weekend of drum corps ahead. Might get a run in tomorrow evening depending on when I get home, but most likely won't get another run in until Tuesday.

Day 2?? Crap...

Ok, so a couple posts ago I declared that my marathon training had begun and I'd be posting frequent updates with my runs and weight loss etc. Apparently I'm a complete liar! I obviously haven't updated in awhile and the marathon training? Horrible! I've been running sporadically at best. A couple runs here and there, but nothing consistent. The motivation just wasn't there. I'd get home from work and decide the weather was too crappy for running or last week I worked nights so it was too late to run by the time I got home. What?? No. Those are all rediculous excuses!
Thankfully over the last few days some events have occured which have really spurred the motivation. Last Thurday I was getting ready for work and tossed on a nice pair of black dress pants only to bend over to tie my shoes and rip the pants wide open. Not much is more humbling than demolishing one of your few remaining pairs of dress pants and not having much else to wear because half of the ones you own don't fit anymore. So with the combination of that and actually having to go clothes shopping last week and buy pants one size larger it really hit home that I need to get my butt in gear. The other event that occurred over the weekend that has really been helpful to me is that it finally feels like summer outside! I feel SO good when I get back from a run and I am completely drenched in sweat. I really feel like I've accomplished something. I don't get that same accomplished feeling when it's cool and I hardly sweat. Maybe a little weird. Bring on the 90's already!! So with that...

6/16 - 2.69mi , 8'49"/mi , 517cal
6/17 - 2.65mi, 8'37"/mi , 511cal

I know these runs aren't long, but due to my slothfulness I have to start my training program from square one. The bright part about todays run is that it was my best cumulative pace for a run, even including the runs from running frenzy two years ago

Ok I'm not sure how much I've run this week since I was poor at keeping track. But TODAY I ran 8 miles!! Yeesh! That's a long run! I hit my first wall at around the 4 1/2 mile mark and another at about mile 6 1/2, but I finished strong. I was able to keep my average at around 9'30" per mile too, which is awesome. I still have a long ways to go however.

Weigh in: 252.2 Progress!!!

The first day

Ok so do you all remember wayyyy back to my last post when I was talking about my trip to Rome? Well, it's cancelled. As much as I REALLY want to go, my employment is very week to week at this point and I don't know what the future holds. So I decided to postpone that trip for now. Who knows, maybe if things look more secure in the coming months I'll re-book it.

In other news, after tomorrow I'll have officially gone one full month as a vegetarian. A vegetarian you say? Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Why?? Well, it wasn't a moral objection, nor do I intend in staying a vegetarian, far from it. In fact I've already talked with some friends and we're going out for steak on Thursday night in celebration. For me, this experience was a simple test of willpower. I'll admit it wasn't always easy, but it was much easier accomplished than I figured it would be. Really, to be a vegetarian you don't always have to eat a salad or even vegetables for that fact. Hell, you don't even need to be healthy. Pasta! Beans! Fruit! Cheese! (I didn't go vegan) There are plenty of options out there. And let me tell you a little secret, those Boca spicy chicken patties are amazing!!

And now for the biggest news item of this update, in a rather impulsive decision (much like buying a Wii a couple weeks ago) I signed up for the Twin Cities marathon. A marathon??!! Yeah I know. For someone who's only run a few 5k's, a marathon is a HUGE step. But I'm committed to this. As a result of this, this blog is going to turn into my workout / weight loss blog. I'll be updating weekly with how much I've run and how muchweight I've lost. I figure if I make everything public it will assist in the motivation. Because really, who wants to be seen a failure in the public eye? Besides, it worked really well for me last time I blogged my weight loss journey and helped me acheive some fantastic results.

So here are my main goals in this realm over the next 5 months:
Finish marathon (mini goal - in under 4 hours)
Weight down to the ~200 range (10lbs a month)

I need to figure out a nice prize to myself for completing those goals. Any ideas? When I was able to accomplish dropping from 265 to 205 a couple years ago I congratulated myself with a nice big HDTV...which probably helped me gain most of the weight back, but still. It's a damn nice present to myself. Any ideas? (not a trip to Rome. Be more original than that!)

First weight in
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256.5
http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/?l=training,1757377386

Fly, Fly Away

It's done! I've placed the deposit on my trip to Rome this October. I will fly into Italy on the morning on October 5th and fly back on the 11th. I was kicking around a few other intersting ideas such as travelling to Japan or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, but Rome was a wiser financial decision and plus I'd rather do a once-in-a-lifetime trip like Kilamanjaro with someone else. I was also hoping for a longer trip, but since I don't earn paid time off at this point, longer than a week would be way too expensive.

I'm also in the market for a new Ipod right now. My Nano isn't terribly old at a little under 4 years, by I've used that thing so much the battery life is horrible on it. I lose at least half the battery on my train ride in the morning and if I listen to it on the way home, it's almost dead. which means if I want to go for a run with it, I need to plug it in and wait awhile before I can go. And my motivation drops with each minute I sit on the couch. I don't know if I want to just get an ipod classic or shell out a little more and get the shiny ipod touch. Decisions, decisions...

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

Man what a gorgeous day today huh? I felt bad for all the sucker who had to work all afternoon. After work I drug my butt outside for a run, then took an hour nap and went back outside for a walk since it was still light out. It needs to be nice like this more often!

In other news, my passport arrived in the mail yesterday so I'm now busy trying to plan my trip. I still haven't decided exactly where I'm going to go yet. I have a few ideas other than Rome I'm kicking around. But nothing final.

New Music Saturday!

I added 5 new songs to my playlist today! I hope everyone enjoys them and perhaps finds a new artist they like. I've reached the 100 song maximum on my playlist so rather than creating a completely new playlist, I'm just going to start deleting from the bottom since people probably don't venture that far down anyways.

Tonight I decided I was going to walk over to Sweeney's and have some food and drinks and chat it up with complete strangers. Upon arriving however, the place was absolutely packed! A crowded bar at 9pm on a Saturday night? Who'd have thought?! So I walked down to The Muddy Pig and...same thing. Packed. After that rejection I just gave up on the whole idea and walked home. On my way home however I saw something pretty cool. There was a guy walking 4 small dogs on leases with two unleashed cats prancing along behind the group. It was like Dr. Doolittle or something! There were probably birds following this guy too, but it was dark so I didn't see them. haha

Labores Luna

For anyone that missed it, there was a phenominal lunar eclipse last night. I snuck out of rehearsal for a couple minutes to check out out when it was at it's peak. Lunar eclipses happen much more frequently than solar eclipses, but that doesn't make them any less spectacular.



In other solar news, it was recently discovered that the Milky Way galaxy that our solar system spins within is twice as thick as previously thought. They now believe the galaxy to be 12,000 light years thick rather than 6,000 light years previously thought. That's huge! I love astronomy.

New Bat-time, Same Bat-channel

Next week I start my new hours at work; 6:00am-2:30pm. Yes, that's AM as in Ante Meridium, morning, daybreak, foreday, really really early. I can't complain too much since I sort of volunteered for the shift. It was either that or the 11:30-8:00 shift and there's no way that was happening. That's the meat of the day! So instead I'll find myself getting up earlier than I ever have. I used to have to work at 7am occasionally during college, but most of the time I lived on campus so I just had to walk there. Now, with my train ride factored in, I'm going to need to leave my apartment at shortly after 5:00. I'll have to play around a little bit and I might be able to make a faster trip if I drive to the Lake Street station and park there. It's just a matter if I want my car sitting on Lake Street all day...bleh.

Early to bed
Early to rise
Makes a man healthy
Wealthy
And wise

"God made me blind and unable to walk. Big deal!"

Tonight I somehow found myself watching Extreme Home Makeover, a show which I'd never really seen and found myself completely inspired. They were in Louisville, TN with the family of Patrick Henry Hughes, who is wheelchair-bound and blind. Other than being an extremely talented musician, he is also a very positive minded person. He considers himself, and rightly so, just a normal guy living his life the best he can with the hand he's been dealt. I can relate to Patrick in a sense. Although his is a more extreme case, we have medically the same joint issue.



Now although Patrick himself is an amazing person, almost equally amazing is his father. He works the graveyard shift and sacrifices his sleep so he can spend the day with his son at class and even doing marching band with him. If you watch the video above you can see what I mean.

After watching that video I was reminded of another father son story which is absolutely amazing. It's the story of Dick and Rick Hoyt. Rather than explaining the whole thing to you, just watch that video too....I hope I can be that type of father one day.

It's as easy as 1 2 3

Happy V Day!

I totally forgot it was Valentines Day until just now! You know, as a bachelor for every Valentines Day of my life, it's really lost it's luster since the elementary school days. We'd spend an entire day making our mailboxes for Valentines Day and you'd pass out those little GI Joe valentines or whatever was hip at the time. You knew someone really liked you if there was a piece of candy in your tiny envelope.

Cat Fancy

Imagine if you will, it's Sunday morning and upon opening your eyes for the first time that day, you're immediately assaulted by a hyperactive cat charging at your face, only you don't own a cat and you're in a strange house. Scary right? Well that's what happened to me this morning. I stayed at my friends Scott and Noelle's place this weekend down by Blue Earth to visit them and hang out. They have two cats and one extremely chicken dog. So this morning I wake up and before my brain could comprehend where I was or what was happening I had this evil little cat charging and pouncing on my face like I was it's prey! I yelled in pure terror as my adrenaline filled ninja reflexes allowed me to turn away and flip the cat off the end of the bed. I'm lying there all content with my skills when the little demon leaps up from the floor at my head again! Unable to react fast enough the second time I'm met with a face full of fur and biting. I think he knew the long-term assault he was doing with my cat allergies. I've been sniffling and sneezing all day. Stupid cats.

Boo clothes

What is it about the folding and putting away process of doing laundry that's so miserable and hated? For some reason I can't stand it! I often find myself doing a load of laundry and then letting it sit in the clothes basket, while I take out the items I need on a daily basis. Eventually the basket it empty and you get to start the process over again. I don't do that very often, but it's been known to happen. Last night I did 3 loads of launrdy and they're now in a massive pile on my couch, just waiting to be dealt with. I try to pile the clothes in a place that makes them visible, but that doesn't always help.

I hate laundry.

My night at the orchestra

This Friday I ventured as close to the sci-fi nerd hive as I've ever been. Was I at a Trekkie convention you ask? No. I was at Star Trek / Star Wars themed orchestra performance. And with George Takei as the narrator! If you don't know who he is, he was Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek show and has been in a few other shows. Most recently he was Hiro's dad in the show Heroes.

After work I found a nice quiet corner, curled up by an extremely fake fireplace (It didn't even give off heat!) and read a book for a good 2 hours before hiking down Nicollet and grabbing some dinner at Panera Bread. Yum! I had some really good chicken wild rice soup in a bread bowl.

From there it was a few short blocks to orchestra hall. I'll admit, expectations were high. A few months back I came to the orchestra for a performance of Lord of the Rings music and like Friday, there was a costume contest. For LoTR there were fantasy nerds everywhere. Dwarves, elves, hobbits and wizards. Even some people who weren't "dressed up" for the contest were wearing capes and had staffs. So like I said, the bar was set high. I wasn't completely disappointed.
Here are a few pictures of contestants. I apologize for the blurriness but it was poorly lit and my camera isn't friendly. Unfortunately most of them didn't turn out.


This kid was the clear winner in my mind. He was some droid from Star Wars. It was funny, he almost rolled down the stairs on his way off the stage.



Some people who decided that tin foil on their heads was good enough for a costume contest. I was embarrassed for them.


A little storm trooper kid

After the costume contest, I walked around and ran into a couple former acquaintances from high school, Jeff and Allison. I hadn't seen them in maybe 11 years or so. They were there celebrating Jeff's 30th birthday. I talked to them for awhile and then took my seat before the performance. These movie themed shows are much more casual than a typical orchestra performance. They have a popcorn cart set up in the lobby and are selling candy and other treats and you get to bring them in with you can munch on popcorn during the performance. So I grabbed a box of Dots and took my seat wayyyy in the back and on the end of the row. Next to me was a small girl, maybe 4, then her father and another child to his left maybe 7. I was pretty impressed that she stayed quiet through the entire show. She was a little squirmy, but I didn't mind. I talked to the dad during intermission and told him how cool I thought it was, him taking his kids to the orchestra at their age. I know they'll remember it. When I was younger, from about age 5 until well into high school, my parents took me to the UofM marching band indoor concert. Especially at a younger age, I was captivated. It's not that they were very good, although I thought they were, but my parents spending the time and money to take me to an event like that was great.

Anyways, here's a few more pictures I took during the show.



Creepy? Yep. Can you guess where I took this?

Heat Wave

I got outside today for my first run since that cold snap hit like a week and a half ago. As a result, I'm 31 miles behind my pace to hit the 300 mile goal. That sucks. Plus my run today wasn't very good in itself, but I'm thinking the accomplishment is in just getting outside and doing it and not so much how fast I ran or whatever. Oddly enough Neil Armstrong popped on again after my run and congratulated me on my best mile yet...again. I don't think I really had a best mile, so maybe it's broken. Or maybe my Ipod realized how much extra motivation I need and it's going to keep abusing the quasi-celebrities to tell me how awesome I am. I'm looking forward to another gorgeous day tomorrow to get outside.

Friday was Christmas redux for me. I bought my parents tickets to the MN Orchestra for their Christmas present and the performance was Friday. The show title was "John Williams and beyond" Not sure why they even felt the need to have John Williams in the title because of the hour and a half performance, the two songs of his they did took up about 10 minutes. I enjoyed all of the songs they did, especially the Close Encounters of the Third Kind medley and Pirates of the Carribbean. They did an 18 minute piece from the movie The Red Violin. Man, that was bizarre.
I'm really considering going to the orchestra performance next Friday when they do "To Boldly Go..." They're doing Mars, Jupiter and Venus from Holst's Planets, Claire de Lune, Duel of the Fates along with some other Star Wars and Star Trek music. Anyone else want to go? Plus they have George Takei narrating! He was Sulu on Star Trek and Hiro's dad on Heroes. PLUS there's a costume contest! muahaha!! I am SO going.

The other part that made it Christmas-like Friday was I got my Christmas present from my brother. He'd originally ordered the item back in November and it didn't show up in time for Christmas, so he mailed it off as soon as it got to him. Ok here's the thing, I love my brother to death, but I REALLY don't want the present. Let me rewind a second. You see when he and I were little, we used to watch this cartoon called Robotech. We were both into it, collecting toys, books, tapes everything. It was one of the things he and I meshed with. One thing you have to know about my brother is he's very nostalgic. He hold onto his childhood very well and has a whole collection of old toys and junk he remembers as a child. Well, every year for Christmas and my birthday he gets me some sort of Robotech thing. Last year he got me a figurine thing which is fine. I have it sitting on my desk here at home. This year he got me some massive Robotech bookends! Bookends?? These things are massive! I have no place to put them so right now they're in my closet. I feel bad.

On bad driving

I've always prided myself on my driving prowess. I'd considered myself a very attentive and skilled master of the gas powered carriage. I've never even been close to getting into a car accident and have only been pulled over once about 7 years ago. My record is clean. The past few days however, has been anything but my normal skill.

Lets rewind to Monday. Tacy and I are driving along Washington Ave at the UofM on a nice fresh coating of snow. As I'm driving, some crazy guy takes 2 steps into the road and then changes his mind. I'm concentrating on this guy as we drive past not knowing if he was going to make another run into the street or not. However, with me looking off to the side, the car in front of me is stopped and waiting to turn left. High pitched, deafening screams erupt from the passengers side of the car and our lives flash before our eyes as my anti-lock brakes kick in and I go sliding past the car and down a cross street to the right. Mere inches to spare.


Accident averted! Success! But still. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Now fast forward maybe 10 minutes. We're in the Orchestra Hall parking garage (which is still in the stone age and doesn't take cards) and again I'm looking off to the side for a parking spot when screams erupt from the passenger side. Granted we were only going maybe 2 mph at that point, but it doesn't take much to draw panic screams from this girl. Abrupt stop, but again accident averted! Success!



Fast forward again a few hours. Wynton Marsalis concert is over and we're cruising back along Washington Ave towards the UofM and the light ahead of me turns yellow. I make every attempt to slow down and stop at that light, but no go. The car was not stopping so we went right on through. I'm pretty sure we made it through most of the way before it turned red, but still. On a normal day I would have stopped. I don't remember if she screamed that time or not, but most likely yes.





Seriously, I'm not a bad driver! I just had a bad driving day!

Running Wild

Tomorrow Mike and Derek and I are starting another weight loss competition. The weigh in will be tomorrow night and the competition will run until April 30th. For you mathematically challenged folks out there, that's 110 days or almost 16 weeks. The last competition was nearly 2 years ago and I completely decimated the competition. I don't remember what my weight loss total was at the end of the competition, but at the end of that summer I'd gone from 265 to 210. 55lbs! I don't think it's reasonable for me to expect the same results, since that was pretty extraordinary, but I'm going to try REALLY hard to maintain anything that I lose. Although I hope I win, I also hope we all achieve some sort of success in this competition. I don't know if I have any pictures of my skinny self, but I'll take a chubby picture of myself soon and then try to do a new one every month for progress.

As a side competition for myself , which happens to coincide perfectly time-wise, I've set a goal on my Ipod to run 300 miles in 16 weeks. I know that sounds like a LOT, but it's really not bad. It boils down to a little under 19 miles a week and since I don't plan on running every day, about 3 miles a day if I do 6 days a week. I think I'm going to do the 3 mile days for now and then as I get back in the groove of running, I'll increase the distance and lower the days.

Tonight however, Mr. Neil Armstrong talked to me on my Ipod after my run congratulating my on my best time for the 1 mile yet! 7 min 8 sec! Go team!!

Destination: Adventure!

Maybe it's been the weather, or my natural restless spirit, but I've been spending the past couple weeks trying to figure out a vacation that I can take next Fall. I've been to nearly 45 of the 50 states in the US, but other than a short border hop to Canada a couple times, I've never been anywhere outside of the US. So I'm setting my sights international. Right now I think I have it narrowed down.

Italy


This one is fairly obvious. My archeology degree was focused on ancient Rome (along with Greece and Egypt) so a trip here would be utterly fascinating to me. To stand in the Roman Forum where Julius Caesar himself once stood or where Marc Antony and Augustus gave their speeches to sway public opinion in their favor would be amazing. I almost can't put it into words. If I were to travel here I would probably try a tour package with some group. I guess the downside of a trip like this is it's expense. I'd be looking at roughly $2500, plus 8 or so days off of work and since I don't earn PTO, days off of work = lost money. But a trip like this is priceless right?

So those of you who have your passports, do I really need to go to the county courthouse where my birth certificate is and get an embossed copy of it in order to get myself a passport?

Backing the wrong team

I'm going to have a longer and more entertaining post in the next couple days, but I thought I'd share this.

This past weekend I finally broke down and bought myself the HD DVD add-on to my Xbox 360. I'd been holding out for a long time since I was nervous about the outcome of the format wars between Blue-Ray and HD DVD, but I had some Christmas money to spend and it seemed like a good time. I mean, Universal Studios and Warner Bros were on board and Paramount joined the HD DVD party last summer. Things were looking good! Well, I picked the wrong time I guess. Warner Bros defected a few days ago, giving Blue-Ray their full support and a current 70% market share of the movie industry. With the Warner Bros move, Paramount is setting itself up to pack it's bags and move to Blue-Ray also, which would be the final killing blow to the HD DVD camp. As much sway as Microsoft and Toshiba have, I don't see them being able to keep this sinking ship afloat.

I guess the good news is I'll be able to pick some HD movies up in the bargain bin in the coming future.