amkean pronunciation

2011-11-05T09:33:00.001-05:00

powderhorn park

2011-11-01T06:30:00.001-05:00

On Saturday, there were these three men hanging out in the park on a day when it was too cold for most people to really be hanging out in the park. Although the 2 liter bottles of soda on the picnic table they were using were notable, the most salient thing going on with them for me was the radio they had blasting the Greg Kihn Band's "Breakup Song."

"Breakup Song" includes the parenthetical "(They Don't Write 'Em)", but I imagine even that won't help most people remember which song this is. It's one of those songs that you'll know it when you hear it, though. There are so many songs like that from the 70's and 80's especially where I know the whole song but I don't know the name or the singer. I like doing those songs for karaoke. "The Breakup Song" is recognizable for the often repeated phrase "they just don't write 'em like that anymore." It wasn't that long ago when I was first able to parse the words in the phrase instead of just knowing it phonetically. The song also has the "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba" part.

Anyway, I hope those guys enjoyed their day off in the park. I think people just hanging out is maybe third on the list of what park people are doing. Hanging out ranks above birdwatchers and below team sports players and dog walkers. It might be below regular walkers, too. There's ultimate frisbee practice there all late summer and fall. Ultimate is probably fun, healthy, and inclusive, but my visceral reaction is not positive, perhaps because of my experience with ultimate in college.

The UNC club was just being started by nerds who named the team "The Dark Side," and I went to one practice, I think. Then one of the nerds connected to the computer I was on doing whatever the IM equivalent was of that time. I did not have a positive reaction to this interruption. Also, he was in the same computer lab I was. I knew who he was, but he didn't know me. So now ultimate is ruined for me for life, and I started playing a new real sport, one with a ball, because almost all real sports have balls, not frisbees.

What's the quote I think from the ESPN book about what makes a sport? Cardiovascular output and some form of defense?

running prefs

2011-10-31T06:30:00.002-05:00

We ran the Monster Dash half marathon on Saturday, and I said that I wouldn't be doing any more Team Ortho races. I had signed up for the series last year, which included Saturday's race, and so I was already financially committed for Saturday. I made my proclamation as we were waiting in traffic to park to get to the start. They won't miss me at their races, which are enormously popular. I really have enjoyed the small races I've run, without the hassles. Like getting a parking ticket while running in to packet pickup. I missed the sign that said "No parking 4-6pm" because the parking meter said "enforced until 4:30." I thought the timing was terrific since it was 4:45, but it turns out the timing couldn't have been worse. Had I been a little later, I would have seen all the vehicles there with parking tickets because the whole block got them. Instead, my 10 minute window was when the ticketing occurred.

Yes, we're watching and enjoying "American Horror Story."

running, lately

2011-10-08T07:52:00.001-05:00

We ran Twin Cities marathon on Sunday. I hadn't run this marathon in 10 years or something like that, because I thought I could only run one marathon a year. This thinking might be true for me if I want to do a good job in a marathon. I'm not sure that you even really need to train for a marathon if you start out able to run a few miles without collapsing and don't care how long it takes you. People can run farther than they think they can. Running fast is another story, however. I've moved toward accepting the "just participating" position with running, but it's difficult. Lots of good runners don't think they are trained for a marathon because they would like to run a good marathon.

As far as winter runs go, the Securian half marathon in January was always a good one, save the inexplicable mixup this year where they placed the turnaround for the out-and-back course too soon. I can't comprehend how that mistake gets made, since the course would be something would would know about a long time before race setup begins. Well, we all PR'ed at the 11.7 mile distance. Team Ortho, whose races are geared toward those who favor participation over speed, has the Polar Dash after the new year. I would recommend Team Ortho races to new(ish) runners. There are lots of choices for Thanksgiving and Christmas runs. Kenyon, Minnesota puts on a 5k in February. Hopefully they will close the course to traffic this year so I don't have to run around moving cars on the route. I did Rocky's Run last November, which is a cross country race. That was a good, small race with a good long sleeve tee. I can't figure out how to register for it right now, but it's on November 6. I'll probably do it this year. If ever there were a race to run barefoot, that would be the one.

FMG doesn't stand for what you probably think it does

2011-10-01T07:36:00.002-05:00

FMG doesn't stand for what you probably think it does

At one point in my life, around junior high-ish, I decided that the ideal litmus test for a potential girlfriend was whether I could picture hanging out with her at Valleyfair. Plausibility was no restraint in my imagination. I could imagine being on a ride with every cute girl at my school and discovered that some pairings just didn't feel right. (In no way does this mean that I would have said no to someone I couldn't picture myself with on Excalibur. The exercise was PURELY academic.) Maybe I learned from doing this that I valued personality in a potential partner, but probably not at the time.

I always say that I don't really remember junior high. That's not exactly true. I remember lots of things, lots of moments, but it's almost as if I was not quite present for those memories. I don't know that there's been a more anxious time in my life. I didn't know how to act or what to do, and it seemed as if other kids did.

At Grass, Troy F. made fun of my "Beastie Bucks" t-shirt. The school newspaper had a gossip column in which my initials never appeared. I guess the word "sophisticated" would be too much to describe the gossip column, but it was actually entertaining and funny, more so than you might think from junior high kids. I was a member of the Red Carpet Club, which helped introduce new students to the school. I don't remember getting recruited for the club, getting trained, or most anything about it except for my first charge immediately becoming more popular than me. Glad I could help. First day of Spanish class, choosing Spanish names. Steve U. shouting "I'M JESUS!" "It's pronunced hay-ZOOS, Steve."

I could go on.

This awkwardness is part of why I tried to get a job at that level when I changed jobs. For as much as people say how hard that age is, apparently there aren't a lot of openings because I didn't get a single interview for a junior high age job. It's always seemed easier for me to get along with younger kids. I don't know how much longer I want to work with a population that ignores you when you say "hello" and rejects all teaching that doesn't look very traditional (and then complains about how boring the class is).

On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have the opportunity to create a misconceptions list based on all the things that a single loud student vociferously lectures the rest of the class on. "If I say something's right, it's right," he was heard to remark last week. The week before, he derisively questioned another student about not knowing why 666 is a "bad number." "It's the devil's birthday!" he explained. They worked out together that the devil was born (!) on June 6...uh...year 6.

trenchant

2011-09-17T08:04:00.001-05:00

Another annoyance is when someone speaking to a group (usually the speaker correcting himself rather than being corrected) says something like this:

"Welcome back, guys!" [then hastily] "And girls!"

Everyone knows your warm comments weren't reserved exclusively for the males in the audience. No one was offended.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Sharing my gift for putting a finger on human nature, as always

2011-09-11T09:13:00.002-05:00

I planted the backyard garden around July 23. Since then, it's barely rained here. This is frustrating for two reasons: 1) The transplants need water to survive B) IT'S A RAINGARDEN

I really like the TV show Bob's Burgers. I get the sense that it's really, really close to cancellation, but I'll enjoy it while I can. The voices are tremendous, just a murderer's row of voice talent.

Last night at the outdoor Oktoberfest event at the Herkimer, Amy remarked on how smoky it was, even though it was outdoors. We've become so accustomed to smoke free indoor places that it's very noticeable when anyone is smoking anywhere. I know a number of smokers, but I still don't get smoking. I get being addicted to the nicotine, but I don't get public smokers. Whatever inconsiderate thing I do that I haven't thought about, I don't think it's putting carcinogens into the bodies of other people. Going back to the state fair, there were plenty of people who were smoking in the throngs. I feel like many smokers would/could wait until they were in an area where there weren't many nonsmokers to have a smoke, but the State Fair clientele has many of the people who don't really think about that. There's a difference, though, between the rude State Fair smokers and the rude Herkimer smokers. While the State Fair smokers are unrefined, the Herkimer ones are self-absorbed.

Reading the first Game of Thrones book and enjoying it tremendously. No one will get this: Now, wait...is he trying to tell us that Valyrian steel is high quality?

Gardening

2011-09-09T19:51:00.000-05:00

In 2008, I attended a raingarden workshop after wanting to have a raingarden for a long time. Still, I didn't act on that workshop until last April or May when I finally hired a consultant who designed a raingarden for the yard in addition to a native garden for the rest of the yard. I wanted the garden just to be environmentally friendly, mostly. Besides, I wasn't willing to put work into a lawn because it seems wasteful. Dad helped me near the end of July to excavate in the backyard on one of the most sweltering days of the summer. We got Subway and a half dozen Powerades at 3pm for lunch. The raingarden took about 24 manhours of work. A couple days later I spent maybe 14 hours over the course of a week on the front yard (larger area, but no excavation or leveling needed).

Before, north side

after

south side, before

after

here's the dry creek bed that supposedly routes water from the house to the RG

maybe I'll get pics from the front, but I'm not going to fix this formatting.

Minnesota Voyageur 50 Mile

2011-09-06T06:06:00.001-05:00

I have nothing against the kids saying "not gonna lie," but it seems as if the linguistic place for a phrase like this is when one might be expected to prevaricate. Instead, the kids will use it to start any expression of opinion. "Not gonna lie, I like sleeping." My big goal for the summer was to run a 50 mile trail race, and I did it. When I signed up for it, I thought that this would be a one-and-done deal, but I suspect that I will run another ultra race. I would estimate that I walked about half of the 50 miles, because any uphill of significance gets walked by amateur ultrarunners. These walks are a good chance to hydrate and to commiserate with your fellow runners. "Commiserate" implies that we're miserable, but there are generally high spirits in these races, except maybe towards the end. Even with wet feet from running through streams and with flies buzzing my head, I think I was enjoying myself. Actually, the flies made me just the tiniest bit insane. There were only 150 or so runners who started the race, so the runner get thinned out. I was wondering what I looked like from 500 feet behind me when I would take swipes at the air at random times. It was only the last 8 miles or so that I really felt tired. I had some cramping when I'd lose my footing a little and muscles were asked to respond quickly. To paraphrase Rilo Kiley, my legs weren't going to be taking any more requests. It wasn't significantly different from a marathon because although it was longer, the intensity level was lower. In running, you make any distance challenging. I'm really tired at the end of a 5k because I'm running much faster. I'm not, however, hiding under blankets after a 5k because I feel as cold as I've been in my life. I left the A/C going in my hotel room and the body wasn't liking it. I recovered from that, though, and made it to the Black Bear casino bar, where I nursed a Fat Tire and $5 worth of video blackjack while watching the Twins. The point is that if you've completed a marathon, I bet you could complete a 50. My favorite thing about the 50 mile (and the Afton 50k run on the hilliest course I've ever seen)? Eating while running.

oh, yeah. I forgot for a second.

2011-09-01T06:39:00.002-05:00

Having two parallel but contradictory things in one's mind: It's like when I was planning on watching TV, but the power went out. Now I have to find something else to do. Well, I can't watch TV for some reason, so maybe I'll turn on the computer. Oh, right. The only reason I'm on the computer is because the power is out, and the computer also requires power. This has happened to me when the weather changes my plans, and I'll think of a backup plan that is also nixed by the same weather that caused me to change my original plans, or when I think that I should avoid running an errand because of some traffic issue, but then plan an alternative that is affected by the same traffic.

I feel my not remembering a specific instance is making this post quite abstruse.

State Fair 2011

2011-08-30T06:52:00.002-05:00

When getting dressed to go to the State Fair, an event where you'll be seen by one of the biggest crowds in Minnesota, you might make some different wardrobe choices than I would. Maybe the family-friendly fair isn't the place to wear your shirt saying "I'll stop staring at your boobs when you stop wearing them on the front of your shirt." Yes, I saw that shirt, and no, I don't believe it makes sense either, but the word "boobs" is written extra big for attention. Why not wear clean clothes to the fair? I'm not sure if a gross, stained shirt is preferable to the option of no shirt at all, chosen by several young men, uncomfortable with the 80 degree heat. If you're going with your wife, you could wearing matching clothes, I guess. Either the exact same shirt, or both shirts advertising, say, Fox Racing.

June thoughts

2011-06-23T19:57:00.004-05:00

The song "disintegration" from The Cure just came on Pandora Radio and just about made me cry because it took me straight back to those dramatic high school days when I'd retreat to my room and turn up the volume loud on my JVC boombox. The Disintegration cd was on extended repeats in that room. Angst, etc.

Re: the Minneapolis marathon.
Me (thinking): That guy looks exactly like Craig Finn, lead singer of the Hold Steady.

Yes, Craig Finn ran the MPLS half marathon. What?

I meant to get to this part of my trip, but here goes. I went to the US Army Quartermasters Museum in Petersburg, VA. I think I said I wished the people who knew how to organize a museum in Richmond would have helped out here.

I suspect that this museum was designed without the help of a professional museum-person, whatever they're called. First off, it's difficult to get to. It's inside Fort Lee, an active Army base, so you have to go through security to get inside. This barrier to entry is not described anywhere, as if it's assumed that you understand the ins and outs of going onto Army bases. The signage isn't terrific, so I just had to enter the base because it was the only option that made sense.

Upon first entering the museum, there was no welcome. No person, no sign. Figure it out.

OK, then I found my way into the main permanent exhibit. I think a good characteristic of an exhibit is that there is a clear path that covers everything. This was not the case at the Quartermasters Museum. There was really no path. I had to try to cover everything piecemeal, and then had to backtrack at the end because I missed stuff.

There were videos as parts of some displays, but they didn't appear to be carefully edited. The footage was of soldiers describing whatever they were describing, but they were recorded with a handheld camcorder most likely, and the videos just showed a soldier talking for five minutes. The interviewees weren't miked, so the audio was terrible and you could hear "The Ledge" by The Replacements in the background as well as you could hear the speaker.

The sad thing in all this is that I was there because I think logistics is really interesting. I would love to learn more about the quartermasters, but this museum fell far short of its potential.

Technology influencing art?

2011-05-15T13:38:00.005-05:00

Instead of creating, I've been consuming, and one of the things I've been consuming is AMC's newest original drama, The Killing. I like the show.

Something interesting happened on last week's episode. Here's the scene: The detectives visit a mosque to look for a guy, and take off their shoes as they enter, putting the shoes in the cubbyholes provided. They don't make it very far into the mosque, however, and the mosque guys speaks to them while they're still next to the cubbyholes. After the speaking goes nowhere, they get their shoes again, and then you see the detective has a piece of paper with a clue written on it.

While watching this, I thought, "now where did she get the paper?" I would have continued wondering but for the magic of the DVR. She didn't get the clue from the guy they were talking to, so it must have come from the shoes. Sure enough, upon watching the scene again, I saw one mosque-goer amidst the several who were coming and going during the scene slip something into the detective's shoe.

This is a very interesting directing decision for me. Conventional visual storytelling dictates that you show the detail to call the audience's attention to it. Cut to the woman inserting the slip of paper, or the character switching out the real artifact for the fake, or linger on the door that was unfortunately left unlocked. Instead, The Killing had this scene where almost everyone watching would have missed the detail. Even if someone noticed the woman reaching into the cubbys, there's little indication besides the general area that it's the detective's shoes she's doing something with.

So you're faced with the audience saying, like I did, "where did that note come from?" So my question is, was this decision enabled by DVR technology? Did the director say "they can go back and look?" Generally, I prefer subtle, and I was pleased and excited when I went back and found my answer in the episode. But the DVR is nowhere near a universal technology, so it would seem...bold?...to put an essential detail (as opposed to something like an easter egg) somewhere where most everyone will miss it if they're not looking for it.

P.S. Upon reading online reviews of the episode, it seems as if everyone is just satisfied that somehow, in the course of 3 minutes, a note got slipped into the detective's shoe. One review mentions rewinding the scene, but all the others just move on. So maybe it's not so bold, but I sure was confused when the paper appeared in her hand.

Richmond the next

2011-04-20T05:59:00.003-05:00

I used my first full Richmond day to go to museums. Indoor stuff. I went first to the National Park Service Tredegar site, where I had the place to myself. "Do you want to see the movie?" "Obv." That's exactly what I said, as far as you know. There's not a ton of great stuff at this site, but some good overview maps and videos.

Next to the NPS site is the American Civil War Center, a private museum. I paid the admission and spent maybe 15 minutes inside. There's a thematic unity to the museum, looking at the motivations of homeland, union, and freedom. There were videos that I didn't watch because I didn't want to take the time, and they seemed inauthentic. They weren't reenactment videos, just multicultural people standing around talking about Civil War issues. So it was kind of a flop, but the Quartermaster museum in Petersburg might want to consult with them about museum cohesion.

The exception to the indoor stuff was my morning visit to Hollywood Cemetery. Again, they were using the off season to do construction, but I was still able to see the graves of Jeb Stuart and Jeff Davis. Not to mention James Madison and John Tyler.

I went downtown to the Museum of the Confederacy, whose name makes it sound rednecky, but is actually one of the best Civil War museums around. It's engulfed by the VCU hospital complex, and there was much fanfare for the then Final Four-bound VCU basketball team while I was there. I parked in the hospital ramp and walked the wrong way so that I went around a superblock to get to the museum. It was there I realized I had forgotten my podcast in the car, but I figured out the short way back. I'm guessing the podcast is the same that you could rent at the museum, but it was informative and better than just looking and reading. I took the Confederate White House tour, which was okay. The tour guide was dynamic.

Intro to Richmond

2011-04-17T19:41:00.003-05:00

The civil war sites in and around RIchmond were less crowded than the ones that were farther away from metropolitan areas. This seems to not make sense, but I think it's one of those things were if there's a tourist attraction in your own town, you know that you can visit it anytime you want, so you may never actually visit the place. The sites are really, really spread out as well.

I changed hotels in the trip south, and it was a bit of a downgrade. Still nowhere near "sketchy," but the Fredericksburg hotel was a really good deal. I really like hotels. I like being the boss of a place and feeling like it's a special night, and I can order out food and channel surf. One of my favorite hotel stays was when I got stranded by bad weather in White Plains, NY. I was forced to do nothing. Loved it. Watched "Joe Millionaire."

Upon first arriving in Richmond, I went to Cold Harbor battlefield. The earthworks there are awesome. As the ranger said, "we could use them today if we started fighting again, God forbid." The whole time I was there, I had Cold Harbor and the novel/movie Cold Mountain conflated in my mind. I've never read the book or seen the movie, but I was wondering how the book related to the battle and if it was worth reading from a historical standpoint. I took the absence of the book in the park bookstore to be a "no." However, because the two aren't related as far as I know, I have to withdraw that conclusion. In and around Cold Harbor are other battlefields from a different campaign, the Seven Days. Because I wasn't following that one, I didn't go to those sites. This caused me a little anxiety in that I was there, I didn't know when I would return, but I wasn't seeing these battlefields. I got over this by imagining that I could return someday.

I spent a few days in Richmond, and it was good planning to get Cold Harbor out of the way in that first evening as opposed to just going straight to the hotel.

Spotsylvania Court House

2011-04-14T05:59:00.003-05:00

Luckily, my feeling of being alone at the national parks was ended when I drove up to Manassas. Not only were there plenty of cars in the visitor's center lot, but my tour seemed to be coinciding with a boys' lacrosse team outing. Although half of the team were wearing kepis and I wouldn't mind having them in class for a day to see what it's like when your kids value school, my estimation was that the trip to a historic site wasn’t decided by majority team vote. The chaperones/coaches asked questions, but the kids were just staring or starting to whisper on the tour that was the whole team and me.

I only spent a few hours in Manassas. I had finished my driving tour in the morning, and then did the podcast tour. I found the Manassas battlefield to require the most imagination, so I didn't stop at every point on the field. Also, there are modern busy roads going through the park unlike the park-only roads at other sites. From Manassas, I hustled to the Chancellorsville visitor's center, where I got the driving tour cd so I could get an early start the following morning.

This I did, and I was done with the Chancellorsville tour and back to the visitor's center before it opened. The young female park ranger who helped me the night before at Chancellorsville (who I had previously met at Fredericksburg that first day) told me that because it was the slow season, I could watch the video on demand the next day instead of having to follow the "every half hour schedule." The 40 year old male ranger the next morning did not offer the same deal, so after I entered the building at 9:03, I had to wait until 9:30 for the show. There was a countdown clock on the wall.

Every site has a video. Most sites have some sort of theater. It's clear the videos aren't produced centrally because they vary widely in content and tone. Some are like watching Ken Burns. Others feature re-enactors. Some are clearly outdated. James Earl Jones and Richard Dreyfuss were two recognizable narrators. One of the Appomattox videos has a clear positive spin, as in "everyone was now friends again" type of vibe. Sometimes the videos cost money, and some are free. Sometimes they're included in admission cost, although not every site charges. One exception to the video rule was Cold Harbor. No video there. That only might have been the smallest center I saw, though. The closed captioning wasn't working on one screen, which meant that I wasn't distracted by the words which I CANNOT HELP READING.

On to Richmond, and I did the Wilderness and Spotsylvania tours on the way, although at Spotsylvania, I encountered the other problem with off-season travel. They were doing a controlled burn in the park, so much of it was off-limits. They didn't mention this when I bought the driving tour, not that I expected them to, but it would have been nice. In many of the visitor centers, there was maintenance work going on. The interpretive labels were gone at Spotsylvania. I'm guessing all this will be done for the summer season.

Spotsylvania was the hardest site for me to imagine. I never really got my bearings, partly because I could only see a little section of the battlefield. There were lots of cars parked in one spot, the Bloody Angle, where you'd expect to see tourists, but all the cars were personnel. This was the story the entire trip. When I drove to Catharine Furnace on the Chancellorsville site, I saw another car parked there. Inevitably, this was a local runner. I could count on this happening with rare exceptions. It would be really good running at those parks.

Fredericksburg

2011-04-11T06:00:00.002-05:00

The way spring break was supposed to go was that I would get away from the extended winter here in Minny by traveling south, and by the time I returned, spring would have arrived. The temp wasn't too bad once I got back, but the first morning I woke up in Virginia, there was snow on the ground.

Concerned about the ability of Virginians to avoid running into my car with a bit of snow on the ground, I changed my plans for my first day and stuck around Fredericksburg. Off season park rangers are generally very happy to see you. I went to the park office first thing after a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, and talked to the rangers a bit.

In the basement of the F'burg museum, there's a relic from a tent that Henry H. Sibley designed. I had never heard that the namesake for my high school and the first governor of Minnesota invented a widely used tent. This is because there were two Henry H. Sibleys in the same era, one Yank and one Reb. I took a picture of bizarro Sibley's grave marker.

I did more trip advisor research on my lodging for this trip compared to last year's trip. This meant sacrificing character for increased peace of mind that friends of the housekeeping staff wouldn't be hanging out in my room when I was gone. The Battlefield Inn has its charms, but sometimes predictability is okay.

The Fredericksburg podcast tour is excellent. It was the first one I listened to, and the best one. I did the driving tour of the battlefield as well, but the walking tour gives you the sense of the most famous part of the battle.

Much imagination is required for all these battlefields, because they don't look much like they once did. Parts are preserved pretty well, but I'm talking about the big picture. Unlike at Shiloh, there are people living there lives right there on the battlefield.

It was on my first day that I fortuitously went to the Chatham house (because it was on the driving tour; I might have skipped it otherwise) and found myself the only tourist there. I got a personal tour from the Milwaukeean ranger, who kindly provided me a list of Civil War sites I ought to see during the rest of my travels.

I quit the day early in order to get my veggie chili mac and watch basketball. I moved seats at the bar to get closer to the HDTV, and the one guy watching the game wanted an assurance that I wasn't cheering for Kansas vs. VCU before he decided if he was going to be hostile or not.

weekend update

2011-04-09T18:27:00.003-05:00

My student considered my spring break activity of visiting battlefields to be the lamest, and that was before she learned that there weren't any actual battles going on in the year 2011 when I was there.

A macro overview of what's been going on:

During spring break two weeks ago, I flew into Charlotte, stayed in Huntersville, had breakfast in Chapel Hill, and supper in Fredericksburg, Va. Battlefields I visited: Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Richmond, Petersburg, and Appomattox. Touring during the offseason is nice. I was the first person to Appomattox the day I went, I was often the only person in the park buildings. No worries about traffic or crowding. On the downside, there were no special programs. Only one building was closed for the season, though. I returned to Huntersville in time to attend the Rush concert in Greensboro. My first time seeing them, although in high school they were playing across the street at Target Center while I was watching Primus at First Ave. Les Claypool asked us "Why aren't you over there? No, seriously! It's Rush!"

I just joined the Ed Bearss appreciation society on FB. A new thing this year was that I downloaded podcast that gave battlefield tours. This offset the problem of not having as many tours in the offseason. I didn't have any Ed Bearss tours like I did at Vicksburg, but the park rangers I listened to were very good.

What else do I talk about on here? I was not happy with the end of the college basketball season. If the favorites hadn't been knocked out, I wouldn't have the disappointment I experienced through the simulation heuristic.

Bowling league ended. Softball starts Wednesday. We did not win bowling.

Running has been going differently. I've been doing speedwork consistently, following a minimalist protocol. I feel like I'm in decent shape except for not running for two weeks around spring break, but I don't know if I can run the three marathons I've signed up for this year without doing mileage. I would have won a race this year, albeit a small town one, but I went the wrong way once I took the lead. The brain wasn't working correctly. After spring break was where my training regiment went off the rails last year, so we'll see how it goes from here.

Obviously, the writing isn't going great. It's so much easier to follow a physical regimen which has a distinct outcome and finite ending time than to write. If I go running, I know that every step is getting me closer to the finish. With writing, there aren't short-term wins.

I plan on making my first bike ride of the year tomorrow in addition to visiting St. Cloud. Nine weeks still summer.

2011-01-01T01:58:00.001-06:00

brother ali afterparty vip woo

2010-12-31T21:41:00.001-06:00

yes, that is a RAINBOW wristband which gave me all contents on table gratis

2010-12-24T17:49:00.000-06:00

N.C.

2010-12-04T10:26:00.002-06:00

I had a good visit to North Carolina. We did the usual Huntersville things like Brixx, the singing bears, Regal Cinema (Harry Potter), Fox and Hound, and burritos (I got Salsarita's at the airport). The kids were really fun. We went to the Ren Fest and saw the Ren Fest version of professional wrestling--the jousting tournament opening round.

The Carolina festival is comparable to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. The N.C. state fair is significantly smaller than Minnesota's, but the Carolina Ren Fest is almost as big. It's the same feel with some of the same attractions (vegetable justice, Tortuga Twins, but no Puke and Snot). It was nice to go since the river stymied my attempt to visit the Minnesota fair.

It was not a good weekend to be a Carolina fan. Friday night I was with the local Carolina Club to watch Minnesota beat UNC. I kept saying "there's no way the Gophers win this game because they're the Gophers," but then they won. Then they blew a 10 point halftime lead to Virginia. Anyway. We got to Chapel Hill early Saturday to see if the football team could fare better against NC State. Alas, no. I also got destroyed in Bags/Cornhole before the game because I just think I'm a mediocre athlete with the coordination bit.

Speaking of athletics, the running has slowed with the wintry weather of late. And I can't find the shoes I want for sale in my size. I did finish the book "Born to Run" which is motivating and reinforces my drive to run an ultra. You have to run to do that, though.

2010-11-20T11:44:00.001-06:00

2010-11-20T09:45:00.001-06:00

2010-11-19T18:03:00.001-06:00

birkdale