I bought a few CDs last week, in response to a BMG music club "featured selection" I was interested in. Brief thoughts on the purchases:
Megadeth - The System Has Failed
This album could have been recorded a decade or more ago, and in this case this is a compliment. Megadeth has of late been somewhat fickle; I haven't bought their last few albums and the singles I've heard and/or downloaded have been ok but not great. This album is solid in the way their older stuff was. Maybe that's a step backwards for them, but as far as I'm concerned I'm happy to have one more album of heavy old school Megadeth thrash-like metal. Thumbs up for fans of the genre :).
Modest Mouse - Good News for Poeple Who Like Bad News or some such long title
Meh. I got this on a whim and it's, well, acceptable. I'm not going to write home about it, but I'm not going to rip it out of my rotation. I get the feeling if I was in the right mood I would enjoy it more but I'm not sure I'm ever in that mood. Neutral rating.
Ramones - Anthology Hey Ho Let's Go (2 disc "greatest hits")
How did I get this far in life and never buy a fucking Ramones album? I don't know. But I did, and this was a great set to rectify this with. Solid gems, many of which are already well known due to radio play, but I'm excited to finally "own" them. Plenty of songs I haven't heard a lot, or even at all, too. Awesome, thumbs up for anybody who claims to enjoy rock music in any of its stylings.
While I'm throwing out reviews, I'll mention an album I "rediscovered" the other day I sat down the other day and listened to David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" and was very pleasantly surprised. Good stuff; I feel like a little piece of my musical background has filled itself in. Thumbs up but probably not for folks who don't already have a soft spot for 70s-epic rock songs.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Race Report: Holyoke 10K. My first!
The weather forecast was perfect for a run; 45 degrees and sunny.
We were on the road by 9, and by 10 had reached Holyoka MA, site of the 30th Annual Holyoke St. Patrick's Day Parade 10K Road Race.
Our first stop was to retrieve my T-shirt and timing chip. Already the place was alive with runners, gray haired fit-looking men, tall thin brunettes in ponytails, college-aged guys who clearly spent more time lifting than running ... and more. Everybody was represented.
We soon met up with Steve & Brenda and their 3 kids, and we strolled around the area. This is a huge event; last year over 2400 runners completed the race. It's the first day of a 2-day St. Patrick's event that culminates in a huge parade televised nationwide on armed forces television. In other words, the town was hopping. Runners, spectators, and support crew were everywhere. It felt really surreal to be walking around in full running gear and be smelling the hot grease smells you normally associate with fairgrounds. Sausage vendors, french fry carts, vendors of cheesy Irish toys; you name it, it was there.
And it was all green, of course.
First we watched the kids run their "fun run" race; a couple hundred feet through the actual finish line we'd all go through later. Then we milled about some more as the crowd grew thicker and more diverse; music playing from a half-dozen directions at once, Irish drinking songs being the order of the day. A crowd gathered in the outdoor area near a bar, enjoying a few lunchtime Guinesses and getting ready to cheer us on.
I was getting antsy. My stomach wasn't really settled; I hadn't eaten lunch, I felt off-kilter. I never run at 1:00; always either first thing in the morning or a couple hours after a light breakfast. It was a weird time for me. The kids were getting antsy too; they knew they had a long afternoon ahead of them, with a lot of waiting.
12:30. The call came out. "Runners to the starting line." We ambled over there, and hundreds of others followed. Over the next half hour more and more runners would crowd behind the starting line. Nervous snippets of conversation, folks catching up with each other, talking about the race, talking about running, talking about family. A group of high school girls formed in front of us, wearing shirts saying, "Kiss me if you catch me." Steve joked that he'd sprint ahead and trip them so I had a chance to test their pledge.
The sheer variety of runners was amazing. The sun beat down on a motley crew of single-minded individuals from a thousand backgrounds. 12-year old kids giggled nervously, grandfathers stretched calmly, and we shifted our weight from foot to foot and wished we had worn shorts.
When the starting gun fired, it took us all by surprise. No announcements, no buildup, just "bang!" As an event chopper buzzed the crowd the elite runners took off at an intimidating pace. A few hundred people back, we slowly shuffled our feet for a hundred yards until it opened up enough that we could begin an easy jog. We ran past Jess who was watching the kids, waved with stupid grins, and took off.
Right away, I knew the pace was too fast. We were pounding the pavement, keeping up with everyone around us without a problem. My breath was coming fast and heavy, but my legs were fine. "You'll be fine once your muscles loosen up," Steve assured me. I wasn't so sure. When we passed mile one, I knew I was right: it had only taken us 10 minutes. I had never maintained that pace for more than 3 miles before.
At the first water station, I grabbed an ice-cold plastic cup of water, gunned it, and tossed it aside like a true runner. I must admit, that felt pretty cool.
It felt even cooler to be part of this huge mass of runners, filling up a city street with poice barriers keeping traffic away. On the sides of the route, like spectators at a parade, random onlookers cheered us on, some calling names, others just shouting encouragement. I'll comment more on this later; it's a memory that will last forever.
Soon, the hills started. Or, I should say, hill. The middle 2.5-3 miles of the race is one long uphill. Sure, it has steeper and almost level sections, but it's a hill. And running the second mile in only 11:00 did nothing to make the hill easier. Add to this that I had never drank water mid-run before, and I felt like the whole glass of water was still sitting at the very base of my throat, ready to be puked up at any instant.
I was in real trouble, a fact which I tried to express to Steve without much success. I had developed a cramp in my side in the middle of the second mile, and after running with it for about a mile I knew it was going to really mess me up. That and the puke-feeling was too much. I slowed down. "I think I need to walk for a second." Steve refused. He grilled me. Where did it hurt, what was wrong? "Just change how you're running." I tried what he suggested, and it helped a little, but after less than a minute it was overwhelming. "I'm serious," I said, and dropped to a walk.
I hated to do it. I knew I could do this race without walking. I knew it. But this was too much to handle. I was walking; walking fast, but walking. And so early in the race. I was discouraged, but the pain immediately lessened. After only about ten seconds I got back into an easy jog pace. The cramp was loosening, and then it was gone. I sped up a little, but there was no way I was getting back into a 10:00 pace, not up that hill.
Even at 48 degrees, the sun was HOT as we climbed the hill. It was a real labor. I can't remember what time it was when we passed 3 miles, but I was seriously questioning my sanity and my decision to even take up running at that point. I knew I was halfway done but I was so much more than halfway drained. Still, the hill's end was close, or so I kept hearing. I just knew that if I had 3 more miles of that hill, I was going to die.
But they were right. By mile 4, things had changed. Gravity was working for us, not against us. Steve kept trying to get me to speed up, but even with the hill helping me I couldn't really get it going. Still, I was stunned by the time: 4 miles in around 45 minutes, give or take. At this point, I realized something: even at my slowest run, or even a brisk walk, I could finish this race in around 1:15, my earlier goal. This flipped a switch in my head, and the mental weariness began to melt off a little. Of course, the physical weariness was getting stronger. While the cramp and nausea had subsided, I had been running long enough where my body was starting to tire. My knees were sore, my feet were starting to ache, and the repeated shock of hitting the ground, especially down hill, was echoing in my head.
But we were on the home stretch. As we neared mile 5, more and more people crowded along the side of the course. Kids would stand on the curb with their hands out, for us to slap as we ran by. Random folks on their porches with beers in their hands would yell, "Looking good! You can do this! All downhill from here!" Every single time this happened I smiled; those people helped more than they know.
I did speed up. Of course, so did everyone else. Mile 5. 56 minutes. Brenda said that if we managed a 4 minute mile we'd just about break the 60 minute mark. I laughed, or tried to. It was getting hard to communicate. My head was starting to hurt; I felt like I could feel my pulse in my entire scalp.
The attitude among the other racers was great, though. Folks would yell back at the spectators; we all talked about what we were waiting for at the finish. Around mile 4, someone said, "come on, 2 more miles and you can have a beer." After agreeing this was a good idea, I said what I really wanted was to lie down. A woman near me said, "No, beer's good." I offered a compromise. How about lying down with a beer?
Between mile 5 and mile 6, we poured it on. They just kept speeding up. Steve and Brenda kept pointing out where we could pass someone, kept talking about how close we were. Finally, we could see the marker for mile 6. A couple runners next to me slowed way down; I overheard them say they wanted to sprint the final .2 and needed to rest up. I think if I had stopped like that I would never have started again.
We rounded the corner, and I literally shivered all over. It was awesome. We could see the finish, the huge marker over the road. The final .2 was all uphill, but we could see the end. And thousands of people lined the final part of the course, from already-finished runners to random revelers, they were all applauding. "We finish together," Steve said, and turned on the gas. I gave it all I had.
I have never pushed myself as hard as I did right then. Every step hurt, but every step took me past a dozen or more people applauding and hollering. I could feel every heartbeat in my temples. My body was rebelling, but I wasn't listening.
We passed the finish mark together with the clock overhead somewhere around 1:09:30. My wife stood right at the finish, cheering me on, and I didn't even see her. I couldn't think about anything but how good it was going to feel to stop. We crossed the line, and we slowed immediately to a walk. "Keep going, to the back of the chute," we were told, and we moved, slowly, achingly, gasping for air.
We grasped each others' hands, we half-hugged, we took off our timing chips and walked like wounded soldiers leaning on each other towards the water table, where we drank up and tried to catch our breath. My headache went away immediately, but the pain in my feet and knee just got worse. Exhaustion caught up with me; everything caught up with me.
It's been 6 hours since then.
My feet still hurt, my knee still hurts, and I'm exhausted.
But what I'll remember forever is the way that last turn felt, seeing all those people and that finish line.
My goal for this race was 1:15, and I thought it was an aggressive but reachable goal. We beat that time by over 5 minutes. I'm not sure it was the smartest idea to keep that pace up, but it worked (this time).
They're already talking about their next race, a 4-mile in West Springfield sometime in April.
Right now I'll be thrilled just to get another normal training run in. I doubt any race will top this one, for a long time. Maybe ever.
Thanks, everybody, who helped make this possible for me. Who encouraged me or gave me a reason to keep doing it.
(and we never did catch those girls; those young kids are faster than you'd think)
We were on the road by 9, and by 10 had reached Holyoka MA, site of the 30th Annual Holyoke St. Patrick's Day Parade 10K Road Race.
Our first stop was to retrieve my T-shirt and timing chip. Already the place was alive with runners, gray haired fit-looking men, tall thin brunettes in ponytails, college-aged guys who clearly spent more time lifting than running ... and more. Everybody was represented.
We soon met up with Steve & Brenda and their 3 kids, and we strolled around the area. This is a huge event; last year over 2400 runners completed the race. It's the first day of a 2-day St. Patrick's event that culminates in a huge parade televised nationwide on armed forces television. In other words, the town was hopping. Runners, spectators, and support crew were everywhere. It felt really surreal to be walking around in full running gear and be smelling the hot grease smells you normally associate with fairgrounds. Sausage vendors, french fry carts, vendors of cheesy Irish toys; you name it, it was there.
And it was all green, of course.
First we watched the kids run their "fun run" race; a couple hundred feet through the actual finish line we'd all go through later. Then we milled about some more as the crowd grew thicker and more diverse; music playing from a half-dozen directions at once, Irish drinking songs being the order of the day. A crowd gathered in the outdoor area near a bar, enjoying a few lunchtime Guinesses and getting ready to cheer us on.
I was getting antsy. My stomach wasn't really settled; I hadn't eaten lunch, I felt off-kilter. I never run at 1:00; always either first thing in the morning or a couple hours after a light breakfast. It was a weird time for me. The kids were getting antsy too; they knew they had a long afternoon ahead of them, with a lot of waiting.
12:30. The call came out. "Runners to the starting line." We ambled over there, and hundreds of others followed. Over the next half hour more and more runners would crowd behind the starting line. Nervous snippets of conversation, folks catching up with each other, talking about the race, talking about running, talking about family. A group of high school girls formed in front of us, wearing shirts saying, "Kiss me if you catch me." Steve joked that he'd sprint ahead and trip them so I had a chance to test their pledge.
The sheer variety of runners was amazing. The sun beat down on a motley crew of single-minded individuals from a thousand backgrounds. 12-year old kids giggled nervously, grandfathers stretched calmly, and we shifted our weight from foot to foot and wished we had worn shorts.
When the starting gun fired, it took us all by surprise. No announcements, no buildup, just "bang!" As an event chopper buzzed the crowd the elite runners took off at an intimidating pace. A few hundred people back, we slowly shuffled our feet for a hundred yards until it opened up enough that we could begin an easy jog. We ran past Jess who was watching the kids, waved with stupid grins, and took off.
Right away, I knew the pace was too fast. We were pounding the pavement, keeping up with everyone around us without a problem. My breath was coming fast and heavy, but my legs were fine. "You'll be fine once your muscles loosen up," Steve assured me. I wasn't so sure. When we passed mile one, I knew I was right: it had only taken us 10 minutes. I had never maintained that pace for more than 3 miles before.
At the first water station, I grabbed an ice-cold plastic cup of water, gunned it, and tossed it aside like a true runner. I must admit, that felt pretty cool.
It felt even cooler to be part of this huge mass of runners, filling up a city street with poice barriers keeping traffic away. On the sides of the route, like spectators at a parade, random onlookers cheered us on, some calling names, others just shouting encouragement. I'll comment more on this later; it's a memory that will last forever.
Soon, the hills started. Or, I should say, hill. The middle 2.5-3 miles of the race is one long uphill. Sure, it has steeper and almost level sections, but it's a hill. And running the second mile in only 11:00 did nothing to make the hill easier. Add to this that I had never drank water mid-run before, and I felt like the whole glass of water was still sitting at the very base of my throat, ready to be puked up at any instant.
I was in real trouble, a fact which I tried to express to Steve without much success. I had developed a cramp in my side in the middle of the second mile, and after running with it for about a mile I knew it was going to really mess me up. That and the puke-feeling was too much. I slowed down. "I think I need to walk for a second." Steve refused. He grilled me. Where did it hurt, what was wrong? "Just change how you're running." I tried what he suggested, and it helped a little, but after less than a minute it was overwhelming. "I'm serious," I said, and dropped to a walk.
I hated to do it. I knew I could do this race without walking. I knew it. But this was too much to handle. I was walking; walking fast, but walking. And so early in the race. I was discouraged, but the pain immediately lessened. After only about ten seconds I got back into an easy jog pace. The cramp was loosening, and then it was gone. I sped up a little, but there was no way I was getting back into a 10:00 pace, not up that hill.
Even at 48 degrees, the sun was HOT as we climbed the hill. It was a real labor. I can't remember what time it was when we passed 3 miles, but I was seriously questioning my sanity and my decision to even take up running at that point. I knew I was halfway done but I was so much more than halfway drained. Still, the hill's end was close, or so I kept hearing. I just knew that if I had 3 more miles of that hill, I was going to die.
But they were right. By mile 4, things had changed. Gravity was working for us, not against us. Steve kept trying to get me to speed up, but even with the hill helping me I couldn't really get it going. Still, I was stunned by the time: 4 miles in around 45 minutes, give or take. At this point, I realized something: even at my slowest run, or even a brisk walk, I could finish this race in around 1:15, my earlier goal. This flipped a switch in my head, and the mental weariness began to melt off a little. Of course, the physical weariness was getting stronger. While the cramp and nausea had subsided, I had been running long enough where my body was starting to tire. My knees were sore, my feet were starting to ache, and the repeated shock of hitting the ground, especially down hill, was echoing in my head.
But we were on the home stretch. As we neared mile 5, more and more people crowded along the side of the course. Kids would stand on the curb with their hands out, for us to slap as we ran by. Random folks on their porches with beers in their hands would yell, "Looking good! You can do this! All downhill from here!" Every single time this happened I smiled; those people helped more than they know.
I did speed up. Of course, so did everyone else. Mile 5. 56 minutes. Brenda said that if we managed a 4 minute mile we'd just about break the 60 minute mark. I laughed, or tried to. It was getting hard to communicate. My head was starting to hurt; I felt like I could feel my pulse in my entire scalp.
The attitude among the other racers was great, though. Folks would yell back at the spectators; we all talked about what we were waiting for at the finish. Around mile 4, someone said, "come on, 2 more miles and you can have a beer." After agreeing this was a good idea, I said what I really wanted was to lie down. A woman near me said, "No, beer's good." I offered a compromise. How about lying down with a beer?
Between mile 5 and mile 6, we poured it on. They just kept speeding up. Steve and Brenda kept pointing out where we could pass someone, kept talking about how close we were. Finally, we could see the marker for mile 6. A couple runners next to me slowed way down; I overheard them say they wanted to sprint the final .2 and needed to rest up. I think if I had stopped like that I would never have started again.
We rounded the corner, and I literally shivered all over. It was awesome. We could see the finish, the huge marker over the road. The final .2 was all uphill, but we could see the end. And thousands of people lined the final part of the course, from already-finished runners to random revelers, they were all applauding. "We finish together," Steve said, and turned on the gas. I gave it all I had.
I have never pushed myself as hard as I did right then. Every step hurt, but every step took me past a dozen or more people applauding and hollering. I could feel every heartbeat in my temples. My body was rebelling, but I wasn't listening.
We passed the finish mark together with the clock overhead somewhere around 1:09:30. My wife stood right at the finish, cheering me on, and I didn't even see her. I couldn't think about anything but how good it was going to feel to stop. We crossed the line, and we slowed immediately to a walk. "Keep going, to the back of the chute," we were told, and we moved, slowly, achingly, gasping for air.
We grasped each others' hands, we half-hugged, we took off our timing chips and walked like wounded soldiers leaning on each other towards the water table, where we drank up and tried to catch our breath. My headache went away immediately, but the pain in my feet and knee just got worse. Exhaustion caught up with me; everything caught up with me.
It's been 6 hours since then.
My feet still hurt, my knee still hurts, and I'm exhausted.
But what I'll remember forever is the way that last turn felt, seeing all those people and that finish line.
My goal for this race was 1:15, and I thought it was an aggressive but reachable goal. We beat that time by over 5 minutes. I'm not sure it was the smartest idea to keep that pace up, but it worked (this time).
They're already talking about their next race, a 4-mile in West Springfield sometime in April.
Right now I'll be thrilled just to get another normal training run in. I doubt any race will top this one, for a long time. Maybe ever.
Thanks, everybody, who helped make this possible for me. Who encouraged me or gave me a reason to keep doing it.
(and we never did catch those girls; those young kids are faster than you'd think)
Friday, March 18, 2005
Book Review: Pattern Recognition
I finished Pattern Recognition (William Gibson) yesterday, and I figured I'd write up some thoughts on the subject.
I think the easiest way to describe how I feel about this book is that I wanted to stop reading it about 75% of the way through it, knowing that the setup was inevitably going to outdo the payoff. And I was right, of course. Not that the ending was bad, just that this type of story spends so much time setting up the ending that there's no way to make it fit your expectations.
Let's back up a bit. First off, Gibson does an amazing job with immersion. Sometimes I felt he was too clever for his own good with his analogies, but this is probably my own bias and not something inherent in his writing. Other times I felt that he lingered too long on trying to make me identify with Cayce's anxiety in a given situation. It got to the point where some passages were hard to read because I was so wrapped up in getting inside Cayce's weird head. This, again, is probably just my own taste.
The next big thing going on in this book is his use of the online world in a significant story way. He talks about web forums, hotmail accounts, google, and the net culture in general in a very familiar way. I kept going back and forth on how I felt about this. Basically, he's done what geeks are always asking for; he's made an exciting story involving these elements of the online world without granting them supernatural powers. Nobody hacked into the White House web page to launch a nuclear missile or anything. On the other hand, I live this world every day of the week and it's kind of boring. So, yeah, three cheers for getting it mostly right, but the reward for that is kind of pedestrian. It's not like "wow, he got the Mafia family structure -down pat-" ... it's like "wow, he got forum flame wars -down pat-." W00t, I guess.
Meh. I don't know.
I guess the key to understanding this book is that it isn't science fiction. This is a thriller/mystery in the same way a Dan Brown book is, though I enjoyed it more. We're not dealing with the technology of tomorrow as derived on today, but rather the technology of today as a big player in a somewhat generic thriller, with the same problem a lot of thrillers have: the ending doesn't flow smoothly out of the story, and leaves you mentally trying to piece everything together, trying to make sure the rules he's set up over the past few hundred pages haven't been broken. Sometimes that's part of the fun; for whatever reason this time around I was just glad to know it wasn't a complete screwjob at the end (OMG, it's all a dream, or some such).
All in all I was happy with the book. I enjoyed it (almost) every time I picked it up. But it's not going on any top ten lists any time soon, and I'm not going to go out of my way to look for other books like it.
Fair enough?
Binary rating: Thumbs up.
I think the easiest way to describe how I feel about this book is that I wanted to stop reading it about 75% of the way through it, knowing that the setup was inevitably going to outdo the payoff. And I was right, of course. Not that the ending was bad, just that this type of story spends so much time setting up the ending that there's no way to make it fit your expectations.
Let's back up a bit. First off, Gibson does an amazing job with immersion. Sometimes I felt he was too clever for his own good with his analogies, but this is probably my own bias and not something inherent in his writing. Other times I felt that he lingered too long on trying to make me identify with Cayce's anxiety in a given situation. It got to the point where some passages were hard to read because I was so wrapped up in getting inside Cayce's weird head. This, again, is probably just my own taste.
The next big thing going on in this book is his use of the online world in a significant story way. He talks about web forums, hotmail accounts, google, and the net culture in general in a very familiar way. I kept going back and forth on how I felt about this. Basically, he's done what geeks are always asking for; he's made an exciting story involving these elements of the online world without granting them supernatural powers. Nobody hacked into the White House web page to launch a nuclear missile or anything. On the other hand, I live this world every day of the week and it's kind of boring. So, yeah, three cheers for getting it mostly right, but the reward for that is kind of pedestrian. It's not like "wow, he got the Mafia family structure -down pat-" ... it's like "wow, he got forum flame wars -down pat-." W00t, I guess.
Meh. I don't know.
I guess the key to understanding this book is that it isn't science fiction. This is a thriller/mystery in the same way a Dan Brown book is, though I enjoyed it more. We're not dealing with the technology of tomorrow as derived on today, but rather the technology of today as a big player in a somewhat generic thriller, with the same problem a lot of thrillers have: the ending doesn't flow smoothly out of the story, and leaves you mentally trying to piece everything together, trying to make sure the rules he's set up over the past few hundred pages haven't been broken. Sometimes that's part of the fun; for whatever reason this time around I was just glad to know it wasn't a complete screwjob at the end (OMG, it's all a dream, or some such).
All in all I was happy with the book. I enjoyed it (almost) every time I picked it up. But it's not going on any top ten lists any time soon, and I'm not going to go out of my way to look for other books like it.
Fair enough?
Binary rating: Thumbs up.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Seven Days
My first race is March 19, 7 days from today.
Today was supposed to be my last "long run" before the race, but the snow outside kept me indoors and the treadmill started squealing at 3 miles, so a short run it was. Oh well!
I conserve energy and keep my legs fresh this week by running short runs only, including a speed drill Monday and some nice slow recovery runs Wednesday and Thursday.
In other news, sitting in a silent house sipping a cup of coffee, watching it snow, your body simultaneously beaten and refreshed by a run and a hot shower ... does it get any better?
Today was supposed to be my last "long run" before the race, but the snow outside kept me indoors and the treadmill started squealing at 3 miles, so a short run it was. Oh well!
I conserve energy and keep my legs fresh this week by running short runs only, including a speed drill Monday and some nice slow recovery runs Wednesday and Thursday.
In other news, sitting in a silent house sipping a cup of coffee, watching it snow, your body simultaneously beaten and refreshed by a run and a hot shower ... does it get any better?
Thursday, March 03, 2005
SW III Trailer, March 10/11
In a perfect world, the news that a new Star Wars Episode 3 trailer was debuting on March 10 (on TV, 11th in theaters) would be no big deal.
Instead, I mentally start counting down.
Damnit, it's like a reflex. I can't even control it.
Instead, I mentally start counting down.
Damnit, it's like a reflex. I can't even control it.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Training snapshot
Still working on 10K training. Steve says I'm worrying too much about this but it's hard for me to not be competitive, even knowing I'm "competing" against myself.
Snapshot of my last few runs:
Saturday: 6 miles in 90:00
Monday: 3 miles in 30:00
Wednesday 4 miles in 44:30
Tomorrow is a slow 3 mile recovery run, and Saturday I will probably do 5 miles with Steve.
Snapshot of my last few runs:
Saturday: 6 miles in 90:00
Monday: 3 miles in 30:00
Wednesday 4 miles in 44:30
Tomorrow is a slow 3 mile recovery run, and Saturday I will probably do 5 miles with Steve.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Running, Eating, and Playing Games
Ok, I gotta update more often.
On the home front, things are going pretty well. My mother is getting more and more stable, which is really good to see. Let's just hope it continues.
Thursday we played Munchkin with our friends Clint&Kate, and it was a rocking good time. Friday we grabbed some Chinese food and veg'd out in front of the TV.
Saturday I got in a 6 mile run, slow as hell but I finished it. Today I'm supposed to 3 miles fast, and I'm looking forward to it being done and over with in a much quicker time :). I am NOT looking forward to running 6 miles again this weekend.
Saturday evening we got dinner out using a gift certificate we got at XMas from (again) Clint&Kate. It's always nice to eat out on a gift certificate, because you have an excuse to indulge yourself. We hit Borders after dinner and just browsed around. I bought a couple of books (I'll post about them as I get into them), as well as the new Tori Amos CD. This is the second new CD I've bought in 2K5 (first was U2's new one) after a substantial drought. Feel free to interpolate re: crackdown on file sharing, but really I've always bought the new albums by the select few artists whose work I consistently admire.
I say that, but then again this is only the 3rd U2 CD I've bought. Meh.
Sunday we got a lot of "have to do this" work done in the first half of the day. Homework, bills, housework, etc. I still have to get my car inspected, feh. Do that today I guess (no real choice :) ).
Over the weekend I also got in some good World of Warcraft time. My Warlock is L28, and I got up to 24 with my Mage playing with Clint. Good times! Still, the server Clint and I play on was down all day Saturday and into Sunday, and my primary guild server had a 30 minute queue Sunday night. So I spent a fair bit of time playing where I didn't want to be, feeling frustrated.
On the home front, things are going pretty well. My mother is getting more and more stable, which is really good to see. Let's just hope it continues.
Thursday we played Munchkin with our friends Clint&Kate, and it was a rocking good time. Friday we grabbed some Chinese food and veg'd out in front of the TV.
Saturday I got in a 6 mile run, slow as hell but I finished it. Today I'm supposed to 3 miles fast, and I'm looking forward to it being done and over with in a much quicker time :). I am NOT looking forward to running 6 miles again this weekend.
Saturday evening we got dinner out using a gift certificate we got at XMas from (again) Clint&Kate. It's always nice to eat out on a gift certificate, because you have an excuse to indulge yourself. We hit Borders after dinner and just browsed around. I bought a couple of books (I'll post about them as I get into them), as well as the new Tori Amos CD. This is the second new CD I've bought in 2K5 (first was U2's new one) after a substantial drought. Feel free to interpolate re: crackdown on file sharing, but really I've always bought the new albums by the select few artists whose work I consistently admire.
I say that, but then again this is only the 3rd U2 CD I've bought. Meh.
Sunday we got a lot of "have to do this" work done in the first half of the day. Homework, bills, housework, etc. I still have to get my car inspected, feh. Do that today I guess (no real choice :) ).
Over the weekend I also got in some good World of Warcraft time. My Warlock is L28, and I got up to 24 with my Mage playing with Clint. Good times! Still, the server Clint and I play on was down all day Saturday and into Sunday, and my primary guild server had a 30 minute queue Sunday night. So I spent a fair bit of time playing where I didn't want to be, feeling frustrated.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Days gone by
Damnit, I let a whole week go by without posting here. The whole point of this was to force myself to write more stuff down. That only works if I stick with it, right?
To be fair, I had an excuse. My mother was back in the hospital for a week after a medication change didn't go as well as hoped. She's doing okay now and is back home, though. My wife had a severe cold and I had a severe case of "playing too much World of Warcraft."
And now I have a severe case of "need to get some work done" so I'm gonna cut this short.
To be fair, I had an excuse. My mother was back in the hospital for a week after a medication change didn't go as well as hoped. She's doing okay now and is back home, though. My wife had a severe cold and I had a severe case of "playing too much World of Warcraft."
And now I have a severe case of "need to get some work done" so I'm gonna cut this short.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Musical Memories
Lately I've been listening to entire artists or albums rather than just leaving winamp on shuffle. Yesterday I went on an Iron Maiden binge, for example.
Today I browsed around until I stumbed onto an album I hadn't heard in years: Angel Rat, from Voivod.
Of course, there's a story behind this album.
As a high school student, I didn't have much in the way of musical experience. I ended up finding a college radio station out of Amherst College, where a late night DJ had a program called Disneyfist. I still remember this!
One late night while listening to Disneyfist, I dialed in and won this album. This was a major pain in the neck; I had to somehow get to Amherst and pick it up and had no car. I got it, eventually, and hell if I wasn't going to listen to it!
At first, I didn't really enjoy it much. But I didn't have as much music then as I do now (heh) so I ended up listening to it a dozen times or so and it really grew on me.
I eventually bought another one of their albums, which had a cover of Pink Floyd's Astronomy Domine, which cemented my decision that the band was something cool. I had never heard the original of course, and didn't until years later when I borrowed a Best Of album from my mother.
The story spirals out from there, of course, and it gets far less interesting (if possible).
But the entire story, and threads reaching out from it in dozens of directions, slowly filled my mind as the album progressed (peaking when the title track started). I can even summon up the smell of my bedroom when I had the album (and listened to it over and over) -- the cheap overstuffed living room chair I used as a computer desk combined with the odor of candle wax.
And that is why I love music. It's not that I particularly love this album, or this band. But how else could I so clearly summon such concrete memories of a time 15 years or so in the past?
Go buy an album and listen to it. Sometimes random shuffle just isn't the right thing to do.
Today I browsed around until I stumbed onto an album I hadn't heard in years: Angel Rat, from Voivod.
Of course, there's a story behind this album.
As a high school student, I didn't have much in the way of musical experience. I ended up finding a college radio station out of Amherst College, where a late night DJ had a program called Disneyfist. I still remember this!
One late night while listening to Disneyfist, I dialed in and won this album. This was a major pain in the neck; I had to somehow get to Amherst and pick it up and had no car. I got it, eventually, and hell if I wasn't going to listen to it!
At first, I didn't really enjoy it much. But I didn't have as much music then as I do now (heh) so I ended up listening to it a dozen times or so and it really grew on me.
I eventually bought another one of their albums, which had a cover of Pink Floyd's Astronomy Domine, which cemented my decision that the band was something cool. I had never heard the original of course, and didn't until years later when I borrowed a Best Of album from my mother.
The story spirals out from there, of course, and it gets far less interesting (if possible).
But the entire story, and threads reaching out from it in dozens of directions, slowly filled my mind as the album progressed (peaking when the title track started). I can even summon up the smell of my bedroom when I had the album (and listened to it over and over) -- the cheap overstuffed living room chair I used as a computer desk combined with the odor of candle wax.
And that is why I love music. It's not that I particularly love this album, or this band. But how else could I so clearly summon such concrete memories of a time 15 years or so in the past?
Go buy an album and listen to it. Sometimes random shuffle just isn't the right thing to do.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Welcoming Steve home
Thursday, we went to the base to welcome Steve home, which was an interesting event. It was a pretty subdued occasion, only like a dozen soldiers were coming home, so even with a full family there to welcome each one you're not talking about a mob or anything. But it was definitely memorable.
To set the scene, we're inside, in like a big garage- or cafeteria-type room (concrete floor, tall ceiling, bare walls, and a garage door leading in). There are maybe 12 tables set up, and a big table with coffee, kool-aid, and pastries (manned by USO volunteers). You've got fifteen to twenty family groups here, toddlers with "welcome home daddy" signs and older parents looking kind of serious. You've got Marines in camo milling around talking to the families. There's this sort of "everything is normal, how's the kids, how about those Pats, lousy weather today, eh" vibe going on, which slowly erodes as time passes and people realize how close they are to seeing their loved ones again.
Then I was able to witness a cool event; I heard one person tell another "they're almost to the front gate." This got repeated through the crowd until I heard (seconds later) someone say, "They're in the parking lot!" It was like all the pent up energy keeping the crowd near-silent came to a boil and everybody was chattering and moving around to get ready. There are all these flashes going off as people took pictures, and this look of deadly seriousness started to appear on some of the women's faces. "My husband/son/whatever is about to see me and I'm locked in" kind of look. Hard to describe.
When the garage door opened, the whole crowd started clapping. The bus pulled in and as the door opened the applause got louder and people started hooting and whistling. Marine after Marine stepped out and got swarmed by their loved ones.
Steve got out, and his two sons threw down their signs and charged him. I actually got off a picture of him on his knees with his two boys in his arms, his daughter and wife a couple steps away running towards him. It was a magic moment. Seconds later, all four of them are totally burying him and he's practically hidden from everyone else. Finally they let up and he gets to shake hands and hug everybody who was there. Maybe 10 minutes of "hi, thanks for coming" "welcome home" "we missed you" etc went by, and then Brenda pushed him into the minivan and they drove off.
And we went home. It was kind of surreal, because you had all this anticipation, all this emotion, and then it was over. On an intellectual level we knew he was home, but something about it didn't feel solid, because the event itself took place at a weird spot.
This was cured on Saturday when we went back out there and spent a few hours with him and the family just shooting the shit. It was a relaxed time, and it sort of re-established the fact that he was home and things were returning to normal.
Welcome home, Steve. We missed you!
To set the scene, we're inside, in like a big garage- or cafeteria-type room (concrete floor, tall ceiling, bare walls, and a garage door leading in). There are maybe 12 tables set up, and a big table with coffee, kool-aid, and pastries (manned by USO volunteers). You've got fifteen to twenty family groups here, toddlers with "welcome home daddy" signs and older parents looking kind of serious. You've got Marines in camo milling around talking to the families. There's this sort of "everything is normal, how's the kids, how about those Pats, lousy weather today, eh" vibe going on, which slowly erodes as time passes and people realize how close they are to seeing their loved ones again.
Then I was able to witness a cool event; I heard one person tell another "they're almost to the front gate." This got repeated through the crowd until I heard (seconds later) someone say, "They're in the parking lot!" It was like all the pent up energy keeping the crowd near-silent came to a boil and everybody was chattering and moving around to get ready. There are all these flashes going off as people took pictures, and this look of deadly seriousness started to appear on some of the women's faces. "My husband/son/whatever is about to see me and I'm locked in" kind of look. Hard to describe.
When the garage door opened, the whole crowd started clapping. The bus pulled in and as the door opened the applause got louder and people started hooting and whistling. Marine after Marine stepped out and got swarmed by their loved ones.
Steve got out, and his two sons threw down their signs and charged him. I actually got off a picture of him on his knees with his two boys in his arms, his daughter and wife a couple steps away running towards him. It was a magic moment. Seconds later, all four of them are totally burying him and he's practically hidden from everyone else. Finally they let up and he gets to shake hands and hug everybody who was there. Maybe 10 minutes of "hi, thanks for coming" "welcome home" "we missed you" etc went by, and then Brenda pushed him into the minivan and they drove off.
And we went home. It was kind of surreal, because you had all this anticipation, all this emotion, and then it was over. On an intellectual level we knew he was home, but something about it didn't feel solid, because the event itself took place at a weird spot.
This was cured on Saturday when we went back out there and spent a few hours with him and the family just shooting the shit. It was a relaxed time, and it sort of re-established the fact that he was home and things were returning to normal.
Welcome home, Steve. We missed you!
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Dy-Nast-Y?
What a weekend!
Superbowl Sunday, obviously, was the highlight. I ran 5 miles in the morning and came home to watch the Pats step up BIG TIME. Go Pats! We'll be telling our kids (if we have kids, heh) about these years, I tell you.
Saturday was a more laid back day, lots of food preparation, TV watching, and video game playing. Not bad at all!
Along those lines, I have some random thoughts for you:
Superbowl Sunday, obviously, was the highlight. I ran 5 miles in the morning and came home to watch the Pats step up BIG TIME. Go Pats! We'll be telling our kids (if we have kids, heh) about these years, I tell you.
Saturday was a more laid back day, lots of food preparation, TV watching, and video game playing. Not bad at all!
Along those lines, I have some random thoughts for you:
- Jess's brother Steve is on his way home; he should be back on US soil by now and perhaps home this weekend!
- Season One of 24 was groundbreaking, but a little weak at the end (to me).
- I still can't wait to start Season Two.
- Shrek 2 was still entertaining even the second time around.
- "Roving Rally" just doesn't have the same ring that Victory Parade does.
- WoW is still fun; I'm creeping up on having 4 or 5 L20 characters. Silly me.
Friday, February 04, 2005
It's Friday, and nobody wants to work. Discuss.
Ah, lunch break. Work beckons, but does so very weakly. Like a tiny little insect under a big glass dome.
So, for your pleasure, here are some random tidbits.
So, for your pleasure, here are some random tidbits.
- I ran 3 miles today, bringing my weekly total to 13. This is the most I have run in a week, ever, so I feel pretty badass today.
- I am scheduled to run 5 miles on Sunday. Not sure how I'll do that, though. Treadmill? Home? Gym? Or outdoors? I need to find a 5-mile outdoor route if I'm going that way. Either way, 5 miles is most definitely a distance record for me.
- I heard from my brother for the first time in 8 months. Eight months! Evidently he's alive and mostly well, and has changed religions again (LDS evidently doesn't just refer to that Star Trek IV joke). Very interesting.
- Jess's brother Steve should be home from Iraq within a few weeks, maybe even two weeks. Here's hoping for a safe and uneventful series of flights home.
- My 2 all-day classes got canceled for next week. Hmm, I guess this means I can call Charter and get them to bring me HDTV!
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Midweek Braindump
Sorry about that long post last time, got carried away. Today's is just a random mess.
I still have no HD cable; I emailed Charter and they haven't responded. I'll have to call them and do this the old-fashioned way. Damnit, join the 21st century, people.
The external HDD is working out great, though. Having all my music at my fingertips at work, no CD-swapping ... it's a beautiful thing. I'm hearing music I haven't heard in ages, because I just don't listen at home as often as I used to.
Steve should be coming home from Iraq in a couple weeks. Step one in that process is done; he's been moved from one place in Iraq to another. In about a week, he gets on a plane for California. A week or so after that, he should be home. We're all looking forward to that.
I still have no HD cable; I emailed Charter and they haven't responded. I'll have to call them and do this the old-fashioned way. Damnit, join the 21st century, people.
The external HDD is working out great, though. Having all my music at my fingertips at work, no CD-swapping ... it's a beautiful thing. I'm hearing music I haven't heard in ages, because I just don't listen at home as often as I used to.
Steve should be coming home from Iraq in a couple weeks. Step one in that process is done; he's been moved from one place in Iraq to another. In about a week, he gets on a plane for California. A week or so after that, he should be home. We're all looking forward to that.
Monday, January 31, 2005
Monday Update; The Geek Has Won
My inner geek boiled over this weekend. He took over my body, demanded by credit card, and wouldn't stop until the stores closed.
What actually happened is that we did a first run at figuring out our taxes. Normally, Jess works but makes substantially less money than I do. This causes her taxes to get withheld at a lower rate, so I end up having to withhold more to make up for this. Except she barely worked last year, so our refund is going to be a nice little injection of cash. We decided that while we couldn't afford to go crazy with it, we could allow ourselves to buy a few things.
First on my list was an alleviation of my computer's growing pains when it comes to storage. This is an entirely separate issue (or, as you might say, "a whole nother thing"), because little did I know how much goddamn progress the HDD world was making in my absence. PATA, SATA ... these aren't specialty drives anymore; evidently everyone has them. Well, my ancient motherboard (which I thought was still fairly up to date) doesn't support them, so I either had to buy a controller card with the drive or buy an older tech drive. I found a nice fat normal EIDE drive over at Circuit City on sale for the same price as drive + controller elsewhere, so I decided to just buy the drive. I also grabbed an external HDD, which I'll use for offsite backup, to listen to my MP3s at work, and to alleviate the process of swapping out one drive for another when I do the upgrade (later today).
But, yeah. While I was at Circuit City is when the inner geek took over.
See, I've been lusting after HD TV for a long time. I've been telling myself I wasn't going to upgrade until I could do it right -- redo a room as a home theater, get a 40"+ screen, etc. Well, who knows when that will ever happen? So I started looking at CRT HDTVs which would fit into our current entertainment center cabinet (can't justify spending on LCD). Not a lot of options, especially in 16:9 sets. There was one questionable 30" set which put the speakers under the screen instead of on the sides, which might have fit. But it had a really shoddy reputation (shoddy as in "I returned 3 of them before I gave up and bought a better one"). The other problem is that 27" range 16:9 TVs give you a fairly small screen for watching 4:3 content (say, standard cable, which is what Jess spends a lot of time watching). As much as it pained me to admit it, I was probably going to be better off getting a 4:3 set.
Sony to the rescue! Last year they introduced a 27" 4:3 HDTV set. Feature-packed, reliable, and dead sexy. Best of all, it fit in the room. I read up on it recently and saw that Circuit City was selling it at 10% off AND offering interest-free financing for 2 years if you bought it. With a price tag of 800 (including tax and extended warranty, which I usually skip but with an HD set it seemed worthwhile), that meant I wouldn't even need to use my tax refund; I could just pay it off at my leisure. What's funny is that I think I did the same thing with the TV we are replacing, back in '97. I think it cost about this much too.
To cap off this orgy of capitalistic outlay, Jess told me she wanted to sign up for NetFlix. Come again? Turns out she loves to watch DVDs with the subtitles on while running on the treadmill, and she's burned through the movies she cares about at home and would love to have a steady supply of them coming in. Well, yeah, sure! Done! Welcome to NetFlix. She's going to cancel her Curves membership which will more than balance out the price of NetFlix (because she never goes anymore and will be using the treadmill instead).
I'm sure the sticker shock will hit me soon enough. For now, I'm basking in the electronic glow of it all. I now have all 9,000-something music tracks at my fingertips at work, I have a 250 GB HDD waiting to be installed at home, and I have a TV which looks pretty goddamn good if I say so myself. Now I just gotta call Charter and get my HD cable set up. More geeky goodness on the way. I might even take the HDD I'm replacing out of my home system and try and put it in my TiVo. If only this TiVo could handle HD. Ah well ... looks like something else to geek out about later.
Oh, and if you're a thief trying to figure out my address so you can steal all my new shit, please don't.
Thanks.
What actually happened is that we did a first run at figuring out our taxes. Normally, Jess works but makes substantially less money than I do. This causes her taxes to get withheld at a lower rate, so I end up having to withhold more to make up for this. Except she barely worked last year, so our refund is going to be a nice little injection of cash. We decided that while we couldn't afford to go crazy with it, we could allow ourselves to buy a few things.
First on my list was an alleviation of my computer's growing pains when it comes to storage. This is an entirely separate issue (or, as you might say, "a whole nother thing"), because little did I know how much goddamn progress the HDD world was making in my absence. PATA, SATA ... these aren't specialty drives anymore; evidently everyone has them. Well, my ancient motherboard (which I thought was still fairly up to date) doesn't support them, so I either had to buy a controller card with the drive or buy an older tech drive. I found a nice fat normal EIDE drive over at Circuit City on sale for the same price as drive + controller elsewhere, so I decided to just buy the drive. I also grabbed an external HDD, which I'll use for offsite backup, to listen to my MP3s at work, and to alleviate the process of swapping out one drive for another when I do the upgrade (later today).
But, yeah. While I was at Circuit City is when the inner geek took over.
See, I've been lusting after HD TV for a long time. I've been telling myself I wasn't going to upgrade until I could do it right -- redo a room as a home theater, get a 40"+ screen, etc. Well, who knows when that will ever happen? So I started looking at CRT HDTVs which would fit into our current entertainment center cabinet (can't justify spending on LCD). Not a lot of options, especially in 16:9 sets. There was one questionable 30" set which put the speakers under the screen instead of on the sides, which might have fit. But it had a really shoddy reputation (shoddy as in "I returned 3 of them before I gave up and bought a better one"). The other problem is that 27" range 16:9 TVs give you a fairly small screen for watching 4:3 content (say, standard cable, which is what Jess spends a lot of time watching). As much as it pained me to admit it, I was probably going to be better off getting a 4:3 set.
Sony to the rescue! Last year they introduced a 27" 4:3 HDTV set. Feature-packed, reliable, and dead sexy. Best of all, it fit in the room. I read up on it recently and saw that Circuit City was selling it at 10% off AND offering interest-free financing for 2 years if you bought it. With a price tag of 800 (including tax and extended warranty, which I usually skip but with an HD set it seemed worthwhile), that meant I wouldn't even need to use my tax refund; I could just pay it off at my leisure. What's funny is that I think I did the same thing with the TV we are replacing, back in '97. I think it cost about this much too.
To cap off this orgy of capitalistic outlay, Jess told me she wanted to sign up for NetFlix. Come again? Turns out she loves to watch DVDs with the subtitles on while running on the treadmill, and she's burned through the movies she cares about at home and would love to have a steady supply of them coming in. Well, yeah, sure! Done! Welcome to NetFlix. She's going to cancel her Curves membership which will more than balance out the price of NetFlix (because she never goes anymore and will be using the treadmill instead).
I'm sure the sticker shock will hit me soon enough. For now, I'm basking in the electronic glow of it all. I now have all 9,000-something music tracks at my fingertips at work, I have a 250 GB HDD waiting to be installed at home, and I have a TV which looks pretty goddamn good if I say so myself. Now I just gotta call Charter and get my HD cable set up. More geeky goodness on the way. I might even take the HDD I'm replacing out of my home system and try and put it in my TiVo. If only this TiVo could handle HD. Ah well ... looks like something else to geek out about later.
Oh, and if you're a thief trying to figure out my address so you can steal all my new shit, please don't.
Thanks.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Brief Movie Review: The Butterfly Effect
I've had a lot of success lately with enjoying movies by setting low expectations. This was no different. For whatever reason, I had knocked this movie down a few notches in my mind as a cookie-cutter thriller, maybe a sort of weird knockoff of Final Destination.
Hmm, yeah, not at all.
This movie was fairly smart, dark, almost edgy in a few spots. Overall I'd recommend it, warts and all. It wasn't perfect; the writing at times seemed intentionally dumbed down and the cliched behavior at times was a bit much. But through it all the movie was imaginative and engaging, and really what more do you want?
On a binary scale, this receives a "yes." On a broader scale, it would tend towards the low end of above average. Enjoyable but probably not worth putting aside something you know you'll love.
Hmm, yeah, not at all.
This movie was fairly smart, dark, almost edgy in a few spots. Overall I'd recommend it, warts and all. It wasn't perfect; the writing at times seemed intentionally dumbed down and the cliched behavior at times was a bit much. But through it all the movie was imaginative and engaging, and really what more do you want?
On a binary scale, this receives a "yes." On a broader scale, it would tend towards the low end of above average. Enjoyable but probably not worth putting aside something you know you'll love.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Fitness Foolishness
Ok, enough geekiness. Back to running! While I keep finding reasons to eat badly, my exercise is managing to keep up (barely!).
Some kindhearted folks over at the Cool Running Forums convinced me that while I may need to build aerobic capacity and base mileage, I need to occasionally mix it up with a little speed. Just once or twice a week. I'm going to take their advice, if for no other reason than that it keeps me more interested.
My current 10K training schedule has two short runs a week, one medium run, and one long. The long and medium I will run at my recovery pace (70% reserve heart rate) and my two shorts I will run faster. How much faster? I'm not sure. Today I just set a pace and didn't worry about my HR. It ended up between 85-90% of reserve HR, which is probably a touch too high. Aiming for 80-85 is probably smarter.
In other news, 24 is still good (great), SG-1 chose what I felt was a mediocre episode to come back from their break (though SG:Atlantis was badass), and while Amazing Race is finishing up, Survivor is coming back. My TiVo gets no rest.
Some kindhearted folks over at the Cool Running Forums convinced me that while I may need to build aerobic capacity and base mileage, I need to occasionally mix it up with a little speed. Just once or twice a week. I'm going to take their advice, if for no other reason than that it keeps me more interested.
My current 10K training schedule has two short runs a week, one medium run, and one long. The long and medium I will run at my recovery pace (70% reserve heart rate) and my two shorts I will run faster. How much faster? I'm not sure. Today I just set a pace and didn't worry about my HR. It ended up between 85-90% of reserve HR, which is probably a touch too high. Aiming for 80-85 is probably smarter.
In other news, 24 is still good (great), SG-1 chose what I felt was a mediocre episode to come back from their break (though SG:Atlantis was badass), and while Amazing Race is finishing up, Survivor is coming back. My TiVo gets no rest.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Have Some Snow
Good 20 inches here.
Pics:
Also, new pointless picture of me at my desk, playing World of Warcraft.
Pics:
Also, new pointless picture of me at my desk, playing World of Warcraft.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
All Geek
Ok. This update has nothing to do with running. I promise.
First off, let's talk World of Warcraft. It appears my friend Clint is buying a copy. His conversion is complete. Of course, now when he finds something to hate about the game, it'll be my fault. Oh well.
I had an interesting party experience the other night, when my L16 hunter was joined by a L16 Rogue for some partying to finish a few quests. One thing I noticed is that my lack of secondary tradeskills (first aid and cooking) really bit me when it came to downtime. When soloing, a little extra downtime is no big deal. But in a party, your group mates are patiently waiting for you to regen ... ugh. Oh well. So, yeah. Time to powerlevel my tradeskills. Figure I can fish for a while, cook the fish, and then when I'm bored to tears go kill humanoids, get cloth, and make bandages. *yawn*
Of course, if Clint doesn't play on the same servers I already have characters, I might need to spread myself even thinner among different places to play. Gah!
Ok, switching gears to another geeky subject, let's talk about TV shows. Bear with me; it's geeky. Friday night the Sci-Fi channel will start showing us SG-1, SG: Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica every week. My TiVo might just catch fire from all that activity in one night. Add to this my weekly Huff, Amazing Race, 24, Lost, and Alias and we're up to 8 hours of TV a week not counting sports. This could be some kind of record for me. I'm serious. I'm not sure I can take it. How the hell am I supposed to watch this much TV and still keep up all my WoW characters? Not to mention I've got this pesky Real Life I'm supposed to be living. WTF?
Clearly, something has to give.
I vote work.
First off, let's talk World of Warcraft. It appears my friend Clint is buying a copy. His conversion is complete. Of course, now when he finds something to hate about the game, it'll be my fault. Oh well.
I had an interesting party experience the other night, when my L16 hunter was joined by a L16 Rogue for some partying to finish a few quests. One thing I noticed is that my lack of secondary tradeskills (first aid and cooking) really bit me when it came to downtime. When soloing, a little extra downtime is no big deal. But in a party, your group mates are patiently waiting for you to regen ... ugh. Oh well. So, yeah. Time to powerlevel my tradeskills. Figure I can fish for a while, cook the fish, and then when I'm bored to tears go kill humanoids, get cloth, and make bandages. *yawn*
Of course, if Clint doesn't play on the same servers I already have characters, I might need to spread myself even thinner among different places to play. Gah!
Ok, switching gears to another geeky subject, let's talk about TV shows. Bear with me; it's geeky. Friday night the Sci-Fi channel will start showing us SG-1, SG: Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica every week. My TiVo might just catch fire from all that activity in one night. Add to this my weekly Huff, Amazing Race, 24, Lost, and Alias and we're up to 8 hours of TV a week not counting sports. This could be some kind of record for me. I'm serious. I'm not sure I can take it. How the hell am I supposed to watch this much TV and still keep up all my WoW characters? Not to mention I've got this pesky Real Life I'm supposed to be living. WTF?
Clearly, something has to give.
I vote work.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
More Running?
I know I said this blog wasn't about running, but I seem to end up posting about it a lot. I even specifically said I needed some geek credibility after my last post, and here I am talking about running again. Sorry.
This morning I decided to do a little experimentation on my HRM training. First off, I skipped my morning coffee (rather, I delayed it until after my run). Second, I allowed myself about 3-4 bpm of wiggle room from my computed recovery ceiling. If my HR spiked within that zone, I watched it ... as long as it fell within 10-15 seconds, I didn't stop to walk. If I stayed at +3 or higher for longer than that, I did a walk break.
The results were spectacular. I maintained an average pace of 15:00 instead of 15:30 like my last couple workouts. My HR didn't go above 150 until after an entire mile of running, and even then it would hover at 152-154 for a few seconds and then drop back down to 148-150. It wasn't until well into my second mile that I started needing to take walk breaks, and the walk breaks were measurable in the dozen-seconds zone. Overall I probably only took 4 walk breaks instead of the ten or so I took the last few workouts, with considerably less disruption on my average pace.
So, yeah, the coffee will have to wait until post-workout, I guess.
After I finished my run I decided to try and test my HRMax by doing hill intervals on the treadmill. I did 3 intervals at 12:00 pace on a 10% incline. I know that may not sound that intense but I was near the limit of my capabilities there. My HR got up to 192 on the third interval and I called that close enough. My body feels like it's still recovering.
10K Training Progress: 2 workouts down, 33 to go. 5.5 miles down, 117 to go!
Maybe I'll write a post about World of Warcraft or something soon. Gotta get all this jock out of my system.
(PS 24 still awesome)
(PPS Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica all have new episodes this Friday. Is that geeky enough?)
This morning I decided to do a little experimentation on my HRM training. First off, I skipped my morning coffee (rather, I delayed it until after my run). Second, I allowed myself about 3-4 bpm of wiggle room from my computed recovery ceiling. If my HR spiked within that zone, I watched it ... as long as it fell within 10-15 seconds, I didn't stop to walk. If I stayed at +3 or higher for longer than that, I did a walk break.
The results were spectacular. I maintained an average pace of 15:00 instead of 15:30 like my last couple workouts. My HR didn't go above 150 until after an entire mile of running, and even then it would hover at 152-154 for a few seconds and then drop back down to 148-150. It wasn't until well into my second mile that I started needing to take walk breaks, and the walk breaks were measurable in the dozen-seconds zone. Overall I probably only took 4 walk breaks instead of the ten or so I took the last few workouts, with considerably less disruption on my average pace.
So, yeah, the coffee will have to wait until post-workout, I guess.
After I finished my run I decided to try and test my HRMax by doing hill intervals on the treadmill. I did 3 intervals at 12:00 pace on a 10% incline. I know that may not sound that intense but I was near the limit of my capabilities there. My HR got up to 192 on the third interval and I called that close enough. My body feels like it's still recovering.
10K Training Progress: 2 workouts down, 33 to go. 5.5 miles down, 117 to go!
Maybe I'll write a post about World of Warcraft or something soon. Gotta get all this jock out of my system.
(PS 24 still awesome)
(PPS Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica all have new episodes this Friday. Is that geeky enough?)
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