Case of the Mondays

Yeah, yesterday was a total case of the Mondays. Most things that went wrong did. Never got into a groove. Etc.

I did go for a 3 mile run, but again, Mondays. Blah. Tired achy run. End result was I managed about a 9:45 pace, and I'm taking Tuesday off. Forget it. I'm probably already hitting close to the 'overtraining' mark.

Blah. As I alluded to yesterday, I had some new beers this weekend.. That's what happens when the local grocery store expands and gets an awesome beer selection. I had even made a loose promise to myself that I'd "cut back". I got in there and was like an alcoholic a kid in a candy store. Here we go:




First up was Southern Tier's Pumking. Holy cow.
This came in a big bottle, perfect for sharing with a friend. It's like pumpkin pie in a bottle. Very strong flavor, lots of good spice. My friend said it best. It's a great flavor, but you couldn't pound one after another.
I thought it was a good beer with great aroma. The carbonation and head were moderate and appropriate. It's a good after dinner beer, and certainly one to enjoy early in the evening. I'd follow it with something else, though.



Next up was Beck's Oktoberfest. It's a wonderful German style beer, that has a good malt flavor. Not an overpowering malt, but appropriately balanced. The color was nice and dark, as well.

Follow that up with:

Saranac's Octoberfest. It was the third new beer of the night, and it didn't stand out as much as the Beck's did in the Octoberfest category. The color was lighter, the flavor was not as strong. There wasn't much of a head, and limited carbonation.

Thinking that it may have just been the fact that my taste buds were tapped out, I tried the Saranac again the next night. It did better, but again, probably not my favorite in the Octoberfest category. (That award probably goes to Harpoon.. although a good Sam Adams draft is always in the mix).

(Yeah, and wow. Some of those pictures look pretty bad.)

Got some other treats up my sleeve and down the hatch, but we'll save those for another day.


So, the running total for last week was 19.2 miles. The drink total was *ahem* probably a bit higher. I'm always hoping for a more miles than units consumed. (One could say, "run more miles" or "cut back on the drinks". But.... they each have their own set of challenges)

Oh well. Keep on rockin, everyone! (I say that like there's a zillion people reading this. Hehe)

Knew I forgot something

Blah. I knew I would forget something when I started writing.

How about those Jets? Whoo-hoo!

Rambling post

Friday night was week 1 of the dice baseball games. I wound up going 2-3. Interesting game, very fast paced. I was glad that the people I was paired up with weren't totally hardcore about it, as some of the guys in the league are.

Saturday, I went out for a run about 3pm. It was in the low 70s and was really really humid. Disgusting. I wound up doing 4.5 miles, and was absolutely drenched at the end.

Sunday, I went out for a little over a 5K.. Dunno, probably 3.2 miles. I left the Garmin at home as it was sprinkling a bit, and I've already had enough issues with the speakers. (Although, the speakers seem to be coming back to the land of the living. Go figure).

Both runs were decent, I felt pretty good. My legs just felt tired, but a good tired. Not a painful sort of tired. As I've been banging out about 5 runs a week the last couple of weeks, I think that should be expected.

Saturday night/Sunday morning a case of my bad sleeping reared its ugly head. This has been happening a lot lately. Essentially, I go to sleep for a half hour to 45 minutes, and then I wake up entirely uncomfortable. My legs are tweaked, every muscle is tight. I can't go back to sleep, and I usually get up and watch TV for a few hours. Talk about a waste.

Although Saturday night wasn't a complete waste. I watched the second half of Darkman II: The Return of Durant and the first half of Darkman II: Die, Darkman, Die.
I always liked the Darkman movies. I hadn't seen them in a while, so it was kind of fun.

But, back to the sleeping thing. I don't know if the leg action is related to my running. I don't know if running helps it or hurts it. I worry about the latter, that my muscles are tired and tense and then go nutso in the night. Sigh.

I had a similar issue Sunday night, but I skipped the TV thing and was able to fall back asleep after lying there for an hour.

Saturday night, I had a host of new beers. I'll save that post for later today or tomorrow.

One of the local places to watch concerts is shutting down, so that just stinks. Kind of bummer news on the weekend. They'll be open for a little while longer, so I'm debating trying to squeeze one more show in. GWAR is going to be there.. I've never seen them. Maybe...

I was glad to see Mike Mussina win his 20th game yesterday. Good for him. Last year was a long and arduous year for him. To bounce back and get 20 wins, that's just awesome. It will be interesting to see if he hangs it up on a high note, or if he goes for a 2-3 year deal in order to win 30 more and get to 300. If he does sign on, which team will he sign on with? So many questions.

Well, I really should get to work. I'll be back later..

Couple of mid week runs

Went out Wednesday for an unknown amount of distance. It was somewhere between 3 and 4 miles, but my Garmin wouldn't hook up with the satellites for a little over a half a mile. I even set it up to pick up a signal before I started running, but to no avail. I was perturbed. It was a completely clear evening.

It was a nice run, apart from that. It was dusk when I left, so I dug out my reflective vest and threw that on. No sense getting run over.. By the end of the run, it was certainly needed. At night, I try to stay where there are streetlights and sidewalks. It doesn't always happen, but it's a goal. 90% of my night running has at least street lights.

I'm debating joining the gym for the winter months. I wasn't too fond of running in the cold and dark last winter. My wife certainly wasn't fond of it either. I remember the first 'night' run I had, right after the daylight savings time switch. She was walking in the door as I was getting ready to leave. She said "Where are you going?" 'Running' "It's dark!" 'yeah. I have my vest on.'

The dark doesn't really bother me. I just don't like putting on layer after layer to stay warm. The gloves and the hat and the jacket. Blah.

We'll see.

And, I went yesterday for a whopping 4.25. I managed to maintain a 8:59 pace overall as well. I think my legs are finally getting back into shape. My calves felt tired, but not painful as they did last week.

Tonight is an off night so I can go play dice baseball. I should be running again on Saturday, though.

Keep on rockin'!

Dice Baseball

So, last Friday was the draft for the local 'dice baseball' league.

I spent a couple of hours this morning working on the stats and crunching the numbers, and have come up with this lineup, based on the team that I drafted:

1. PeeWee Reese (SS) - .202
   
2. Enos Slaughter (OF) - .22
   
3. Jimmie Foxx (1B) - .236
   
4. Eddie Collins (2B) - .241
   
5. Duke Snider (OF) - .221
   
6. Dom DiMaggio (CF) - .221
   
7. Gabby Hartnett (C) - .213
   
8. Pitcher..
   

The batting averages are the success in the local league, not necessarily their lifetime stats.

My starting pitcher rotation is:

1. Sandy Koufax
   
2. Warren Spahn
   
3. Bob Gibson
   
4. Clark Griffith
   

Relievers are:

1. Dave Guisti
   
2. Wilbur Wood
   

Rounding out my bench are:

• Bobby Murcer
  
• Joe Gordon
  
• George Scott
  
• Manny Mota
  
• Roger Maris
  
• Lou Pinella
  
• Eddie Yost
  

So, my team is centered around pitching and defense, rather than running ability and offense. I'll see if the mantra of 'good pitching beats good hitting' holds up.

I've never played this before, so it should be an interesting experience.

On a side note, my wife just realized this morning that this will be occurring every Friday night, as opposed to once a month as she thought. Oops. Sorry dear..

Harpoon night

Last night was Harpoon night at a local pub. There were Harpoon drink specials, tastings, and giveaways. Woot!

I started out with the 'Octoberfest' of Harpoon, one of my favorite Octoberfest beers.

I then had a Spaten Oktoberfest, a Bavarian-style beer. Not as flavorful as the Harpoon Octoberfest. Drinkable, but not as good.

At this point, the Harpoon stuff was in full swing in the pub, and I switched over to the Harpoon 100 Barrel Series - Glacier Harvest Wet Hop. Essentially, hops are added late in the brewing cycle to the beer, resulting in a hoppier tasting beer. This was excellent. Very smooth. The hop taste wasn't overpowering and bitter like it can be sometimes.

I decided to end the evening with a flight of Harpoon beers. The flight was 6 beers long. Started out with the UFO Hefeweizen. This is a wheat beer which isn't my favorite. Probably could use a lemon to offset the taste, but it's not something I really enjoy.

Next in the flight was the Raspberry Hefeweizen. It's basically UFO with an overpowering smell of raspberry. You can view it as a wheat beer that has been made to taste like a fruity beer. Better than the UFO, but still, not my favorite.

Thankfully, the UFO flights ended, and we went to the Brown ale. I had never had this one, and it was a very good brown ale. Almost like an Ithaca Nut Brown.

We had a 'Harpoon Ale' next. Not the traditional IPA.. This was more of an English-style ale. It was OK. Not really memorable (or maybe my taste buds were loosing their touch at this point?).

Then was the normal Harpoon IPA. Very nice IPA. No Dogfish Head, but a good and reasonably-priced beer.

Last was a Harpoon 'Dark'. That was an unexpected surprise. It was along the lines of a Dopple-bock. There was a blend of malts in it, and it was very smooth. The color was lighter than that of a Guinness, and more palatable (I'd imagine) to those who aren't used to drinking dark beers.

All in all, a good night. Cheers!

Bittersweet

So, I had to finish up yesterday's post a bit prematurely. Work called, that's what I had to do. You know how it goes.

Anybody watch the final game in Yankee stadium? The pregame ceremonies were incredible.. watching all of the Yankee greats go out on the field. I was really glad to see Bernie Williams was there, too.

It's too bad we won't be in the playoffs this year, but maybe the ownership will realize there are some issues with the team. Maybe they'll work on building a real team, rather than just putting together a bunch of old high-priced superstars.

The Jets got owned last night, unfortunately. I'm hoping with the fairly easy schedule they have over the next few weeks that the team will be able to gel.

I went out for a run, aiming to do 3 miles. My calves felt somewhat tight, as they have lately, but better than I expected. I did do some self massage on them the night before, and that seems to have helped. My route slowly lengthened, as I took a couple of extra side streets. Come mile 2.8, I felt really good all of a sudden. The run wound up being 3.83 miles.

Even though my legs aren't right after having missed a bunch of runs, I am increasing the number of times I run per week. That was one of my goals this year, which I was semi-successful at. Since I've gotten the go-ahead from the doctor to run, I've been going out 5 times every 7 days. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep that up.

Last night, I did caulk and clean the floor of the bathroom I'm redoing. The vinyl flooring near the tub is pretty torn up, so I may put a rubber/caulk hybrid strip down just to make it look nice and neat and straight. The good news was that I didn't get caulk all over (the walls, the floor, or myself). I'm getting better at doing this. Hehe

Tonight is Harpoon night, so no running (and probably nothing productive). I have a few folks to raise a pint to, and I'm going with a good group of guys to raise the pints with.

Long weekend

No, it was still the usual 2 days, but it was a long weekend. A lot going on.

I did get in a couple of runs. Saturday I banged out 3.5, and Sunday yielded 3. Both of them had my calves feeling absolutely dreadful. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. If I get a spare minute, I'll have to self-diagnose on WebMD.

Planning to go out again tonight when I get home and put in another 3. Mainly to de-stress and to disconnect for a half hour.

The bright note of the weekend was that there was a beer festival locally. It was a good time. My favorite this year was Brooklyn Local 1. That was a strong pale ale, and absolutely delicious. Other noteworthy beers were: Harpoon's Octoberfest and Left Hand Brewing's Oktoberfest. The Harpoon was at last year's brewfest, and I really enjoyed in then as well. This year's batch is just as tasty. I had never had Left Hand's stuff, and was very pleased.

Hook and Ladder had a table there, and I had some of the 'Lighter' beer. Not too good. Previously, I had tasted their beer and it wasn't bad. Don't know if this was a bad batch, a bad beer, a bad set of taste buds, or what, but it just wasn't doing it for me.

Tomorrow night is Harpoon night at one of the local bars, so I'll be going to that. Some brewery reps are to be there and have promotions.. so on, and so forth.

This week, I'm going to finish up the bathroom I've been working on. Working may be a bit of a loose term, as it's just been sitting there, and I haven't been involved at all. But, we may have a temporary house guest soon, so, I'm going to get cracking. Tonight will be a cleaning and caulking night, I do believe.

Pirate Friday

For those who didn't know, today is Talk Like A Pirate Day. I was fortunate enough that my old office mate sent me a meeting notice to remind me. Yarg, matey! Prepare to be boarded!

I got a new machine at work. I wanted to put Fedora 10 on it, but according to the schedule, it will November 18th before it's ready, assuming the date doesn't slip. I guess I'll throw Fedora 9 on it. Very exciting. I love new toys.

I took yesterday off and didn't exercise. Just played a good bit of Grand Theft Auto IV. We were talking about the game at lunch, and it just made me ready to play.

Tonight is draft night of 'Dice Baseball'. It's a league of ~10 guys which play the old 'Superstar Baseball' board game. Essentially it's fantasy/rotisserie baseball on a board game with players from pre-1976.. It's my first time doing this, so I'll see how I like it. The season is 10 weeks long, and it's only a $26 buy-in.

Tomorrow is a local brewfest. Looking forward to that. Should be a nice day, and it will be nice and relaxing.

Alright. I'm off.. for now. Keep on rockin!

Various strains

We'll hit two non-overlapping topics today.

I went running Wednesday in the early afternoon. Again, a lack of traffic makes it wonderful. Talk about strain. My calves were just killing me. I wound up mixing in a mile of walking into the 3.3 miles of running. It was a little over a 4 mile workout, but it was pure agony.

As a result, today is probably a rest day, unless my running buddy calls (seems unlikely). If I'm really itching to get out, maybe I'll try to get back on that horse and ride my bike again. (I haven't ridden since my incident). Still need to take the toe clips off of the damned thing.


So, the other strain. The Andromeda Strain. I watched the original version of it last night. I had watched the new remake a couple of months ago and realized I never saw the original. That quest has finally been completed.

What did I think? There were good and bad points about each.

The new one was long (it was a 4 hour miniseries, I think.). That wasn't cool. They did explain some stuff in more detail (like the pilot's mask getting eaten up). They also had more bizarre stuff, like the individual groups of the strain being able to communicate with each other.

The old one.. well, my biggest gripe was that it took them absolutely forever to get down to level 5. We really didn't need to see a half hour of decontamination processing. And what was the point of the epileptic seizures/space-outs by the lady?

The plots are very similar to each other. I wish I remember the book better, then I could compare that too.

I don't know. I think I like the newer one better. I'm not one for movie remakes, but it wasn't too bad. Either is still a one-watch kind of movie for me, though. Not bad, maybe I'd watch a snippet while channel surfing, but I wouldn't make a point to watch it again.

3 miler

Tuesday was another 3:30am day. It honestly isn't too bad... I wouldn't want to make a habit of it, but it could be worse.

I was busy until 1pm or so, and then I went and got some running clothes. We're actually almost all caught up on laundry, so most of the choices were actually clean.. that's fun!

I had the running clothes in hand, went into the bedroom, and looked at the bed and said.. "I'll lie down. Just for a second."

Bam.

There went an hour.

Then, I said to myself after waking up.. "OK, I'll get right up and go running."

After a half hour of in-and-out, I finally got up.

So, I hit the pavement a little before 3. Still, not too much traffic. Nothing like 5:00pm or anything.

It was pretty uneventful. Had to pause at one intersection so that an ambulance could go through. So, it was a bad sort of eventful for someone.

Legs started to feel tired after a mile and a half, but I was able to finish the 3. They seem a bit sore today, but I'll probably give it a shot anyways..

Oban Scotch

Went out for dinner last night (well, we go out most nights). What made this night different is that we went somewhere that had decent drinks. The restaurant has recently expanded, and has a number of good single malts available. What a great way to try new things!



Last night's drink was Oban 14 year single malt.

The feel of the drink in the mouth was just so smooth. It was like velvet. Needless to say, when swallowed, the smoothness was obvious as well.

The scotch itself had almost a fruity taste to it.. There was very little smoke in the smell. I drank it neat, and just never felt the need to add a bit of water or ice to open up the nose.

The price wasn't unreasonable, as far as scotches out go. It was $7 for a 2oz pour. A bottle on the web seems to run anywhere from $50-$77.

If you're looking for a smooth drink, and you don't feel like a really smoky scotch, this is an excellent choice.

Weekend Libations

On a wedding weekend with a couple of open bars, I had a few tasty beverages.

I started with 'some sort of good scotch, neat'. The waitress brought back the request in an appropriate sniffer glass. No idea what brand it was, but it was nice. Not very smoky, though.

I also had a 'Grand Martini', which was a vodka martini with Grand Marnier. Not bad at all. Unsure as to the type of vodka. It was smooth, though.

That was all at the "classy" joint.

The next day, we went to the "not as classy" joint, so finding neat things like that just doesn't happen. However, I was able to make do.

I sampled "Duggan's Dew" scotch, which is a blended scotch. It's similar to Dewar's. Not a bad buy for the money, which would fit in the way this joint would roll. Never had it before, so that was neat.

I also had a number of 7&7s, vodka&7s, etc. Nothing too noteworthy, though.

To throw you off, here's something new:



A Montecristo cigar. I'm not sure what size it is.. I'm guessing a No. 1. I'm not really a cigar smoker, so I don't know too much about them. (The last cigar I had was probably 10-12 years ago).

Anyway, the cigar was smooth. I couldn't really tell you what sort of flavor it had. Tasted like a cigar. Must be how my wife views beer. Hah. One of the best cigars I had in my life, though. (Again, not that I have had many).

On Sunday, I had this:



This is Wolaver's (Otter Creek) "Will Stevens' Pumpkin Ale".

The Wolaver beers are all organic. Kind of an interesting twist on beer. Both the 'Otter Creek' and 'Wolaver' brand are very good. They are typically very drinkable microbrews.

This pumpkin ale was very tasty. There's a medium head on it which disappeared fairly quickly. There was a clean pumpkin flavor. Really, the taste was like pumpkin pie. The beer also had an 'organic' taste to it. Almost like you knew you were getting nothing non-natural from the beverage. It's not an overpowering beer.. so, if you're in the mood for a beer-beer, this probably isn't right. If you want to mix it up, this is where it's at.

Morning run

Well, I hadn't run since Thursday.

This weekend, my running buddy got married.. (Congrats!) She's happy, and that's good. He's a good guy, too. I like him.

But, the wedding, the festivities, and the prep/post work consumed the weekend.. alas. No running. We'll chalk that up as 'rest' time.

Work this week starts at 3:30am. That's a wee bit earlier than I'm used to. Just a bit. sigh.

But, I went for a run during 'lunch' at 7am. I don't usually run in the morning, because my body just isn't ready. Each step seems to reverberate and ache and ugh..

However, since I'd been up for 3.5 hours, I was ready to go (apart from being tired).

The nice part about running early in the morning is the lack of traffic. Very very nice.

Last night, the winds from the hurricane came through.. gusts of up to 50 mph. Pretty noisy, trying to sleep. Nothing like the folks that felt the brunt of the hurricane though. If you've been affected by it, I hope you're OK and that things get back to normal as speedily as they can.

Running along, I saw a big downed tree branch that was all entangled in power lines. There were fire trucks and utility company trucks and such all around. The firemen were pretty nice. I made sure to move to the other side of the street, and said "hello".

I also startled one groundhog on the way back. Poor guy.

The tree branch really hadn't moved in the 2.5 miles since I first passed it.

End result was 3.33 miles in a bit over a half hour.

My legs felt pretty good, really. About what I'd expect for having taken 3 days off. The effects that I felt last week of absolute deadness in my legs were gone (for today, at least). I'm hoping it stays that way.


My Garmin Forerunner (model 305) appears to be losing it's speaker. Some searches on the web indicate that moisture gets in the speaker holes and causes corrosion. After a while, the speaker doesn't work. Right now, I get an occasional chirp instead of a tone or beep.

I'm pretty cautious with my Garmin. I don't wear it in the rain. I wipe off the back every time I go running.

Still, it has felt the ill effects of my sweat.

Seems like this should be a solvable problem. I'm not an engineer, but c'mon.

Kind of bumming, I must admit. It's not a cheap toy. At least the GPS and data tracking is still working.

Keep on rockin'! I'm hoping for a solid week of workouts this week!

Mini fartlek

Ran 3.25 miles last night.. Legs were somewhat sore and sluggish still. Midway, I decided to try a little something different to see if I could break them out of their funk.

Rather than going slow, I tried kicking it up a notch and run faster. (I'm no Usain Bolt, mind you.. We're talking about moving from 9:15 to 8:00 miles).

It actually felt better. Weird.

On the way back home, I tried to mix it up, making it a mini fartlek. Legs are still somewhat tired today, but I believe I should be able to go out tonight for another 3.

Not sure if it's the week and a half off from training, my weird running form with a broken elbow, or some unknown ailment, but I'm just struggling. Blah.

This weekend is pretty much shot for running. My running buddy is getting married (whoo-hoo! congrats!), and that will tie up most of the free time I have. It'll be fun, and I'll count it as 'rest' time. One of my previously mentioned guidelines will be followed (or should be.. or better be :) ). No blogging while imbibing.

I do go to the ortho doctor tomorrow morning, so I can see how my elbow is healing. I suspect the pushup challenge is still off limits, given the ease that a painful tweak can still occur.

Next week, I'm supposed to get up and be working at 3:30am all week. Yes, that is 3:30 in the morning. Not looking forward to that at all.

So, I'll update at some point in the future.. In the meantime.. Keep on rockin'!

A run and a break

Did a solo run last night.. a little over 3 miles.. say, 3.25. Nothing too bad. Legs were tired, but I'm not sore today, at least. The weather was really nice last night. It was cool and not raining (it had rained most of the day, off and on pretty hard).

Hoping to go out again tonight. My running buddy may be free as well, so that'd be cool.

Afterward, I finally got around to watching the season premiere of 'Prison Break'. If you haven't watched it, skip the rest of this post.

I've watched this series from the beginning. I absolutely loved Season 1. Season 2, well, it felt like it was lost. It was a "Crap! We don't know what to write about! We'll take 'The Fugitive' and add in a big government conspiracy". Thankfully, it ended.

Season 3 was good. Of course, it was about a prison break again. They didn't have the luxury of the prison schematics as a tattoo any more, though.

This season.. well. I watched the intro episode, and I'm skeptical.

Very skeptical.


We're going to watch the remaining original characters take down this huge rogue government group. OK. Whatever. We added this weird hacker guy, with this amazing hacking device.
Let's explore that, shall we?

Something the size of a cell phone that can dump the contents of any electronic device just by being within 10 feet of it. If used at a gas station, it can pick up all of the credit cards. It can apparently dump MP3 players and TIVOs.

Really?

How pray tell is it doing that? Have you tried pairing a Bluetooth headset with a cell phone? There's a couple of steps involved. You don't just wave it nearby. Same with a wireless network. If there's any encryption on it, there's even more steps.

Never mind that my credit card isn't broadcasting anything. I could maybe give them a MP3 player dump, with the Apple line of iPods and such. A Tivo?

OK. Forget these devices used as examples.

The uber-secret government card is just there to be dumped too? You can read it from 10 feet away? There's no encryption on this thing? Why would it be transmitting anything?

Ah, forget it.

Then, there's the tattoo. I'm glad that it's not going to be a plot point anymore, as the times it was used in the second season were a stretch.
But, he just went and got it zapped off by lasers overnight, and he just gritted through the pain? And he's as good as new now?
C'mon.

And everyone got arrested at the same time at different points in the country (and in different countries), but the government found out and brought them all together within hours? Streeeeeetch.


I did love the line about eating some "bad Mexican". My wife wasn't too amused, but that probably was the high point of it.

We'll see how the rest of the season shakes out. My wife has given up, apparently.

Punkin head

Boy, I love the fall beers. Mmm mmm good.

Today's (last night's) selection was Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale.

Dogfish Head makes some very interesting and tasty beers. At the beer festivals, I try to make sure I hit their tent at least once.

The Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA is one of my all time favorites.. Off the top of my head, I've also had the Festina Peche and Pangaea. Pangaea is interesting in that it has at least one ingredient from each continent. But, that's not what this is about...

Back to the Punkin Ale. This is a brown ale with some added ingredients. Pouring it into a glass yields only a small head. The carbonation isn't strong either. The smell has all of the smells you might associate with pumpkin pie and fall. Cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin.. The essences of all of those can be detected.

It tastes very smooth.. much like a brown ale, but seasoned quite wonderfully. It's sweeter up front, and the pumpkin comes out a bit later.

It's a bit pricey.. a 4 pack will run you $10-$11. However, it's a good introduction to pumpkin ales. I have a couple others which I'll be going over soon.





As a bonus, this is a new bottle opener my wife got me. The pic is a bit dark & grainy, but it's a skeleton arm.. perfect for fall & Halloween!

J-E-T-S

Watched the Jets game on Sunday.. woot!

It was a win, that's the most important point. Brett looked good, too. Some nice plays, some lucky plays. Good game.

Honestly, Chad Pennington looked decent, as well. Where the hell was that version of him when he played for the Jets?

Surprising note of the game.. The Jets have no backup place kicker. Really? This is football.. guys get hurt. I'm not saying they should employ two. They should at least have someone who is moderately competent when filling in. Just my two cents.

Brady is maybe out for the season, so the division is all up in the air right now.. that's exciting, at least. (Not that I'd want a guy to get hurt)

Saturday run

My Garmin was acting up.. wound up having to do a hard reset on it. Afterwards, SportTracks wouldn't import the data correctly (But the Garmin Training Center would.. strange).

I opted to just nuke all of the data on the watch and start fresh.


Since it was drizzling outside, I decided not to tempt fate any more and left the watch at home, and mapped out my run on MapMyRun.

It was a 3.11 mile run. Legs felt slightly better than the day before.. started getting tired about a mile into the run. I guess you really do lose fitness pretty quickly.

The next day, my legs were kind of tired & achy, so no running on Sunday.

Finally running again

Forgive me.. It has been 9 days since my last run.

(10 days since I broke my elbow)

Yes, I did one run with a broken elbow. Interesting times. To my defense, I hadn't yet been to the doctor to get an official result, so I'm pardoning myself.


Anyways, the ortho doctor said I could run a week after seeing her. Thankfully, I went to an ortho doctor who dealt with sport-related injuries. I never thought I would see someone like that, just because I never thought I'd view myself as a 'sport' kind of guy.

At least she didn't look at me like I was completely nuts when I asked about running after hearing my broken elbow prognosis and outlook. It was only a fleeting .5 seconds of "you freaking wacko". I'll forgive that.

So, Friday was a week, and I was jonesin' to get out there. I'm sure my wife appreciates the fact I can go out now, so I can run off my extra steam.

I did 3.07.. my legs started feeling pretty sapped of energy pretty quick. About .6 miles into the run, as a matter of fact. I got to the midpoint of the hill near home, and decided to do my cool-off a bit early, and just walked it home. No sense hurting myself.

Feel fine today, leg-wise. Looks like it's drizzling out there, but I'll probably head out in an hour or so for another 3.

Keep on rockin'!

Candlebox

Checked out Candlebox the other night. Totally awesome show.

There were two warmup bands. First was 'The Kings Royal'. The singer of this band must have thought he was Jim Morrison reincarnated. He wasn't. He was toasted like Jim was, but that's where the similarities ended. The band just wasn't doing it for me.

Second was 'Small Town Sleeper'. They were tight. Played well together. Didn't provide a lot of excitement, though. Not a bad band, just nothing memorable. Good to listen to for a warmup.

Then.... Candlebox. I remember listening to them in the 93-94 timeframe.. very good album. I really liked 'Happy Pills' when that came out in 98.. They had been quiet as far as I know until recently. I haven't picked up their latest album, but certainly will now.

The singer, Kevin, can belt it. Holy cow. The energy he brings is just intense. Awesome. They played a mix of old and new stuff. I wasn't too familiar with the new stuff unfortunately. They did play old favorites like "10,000 horses", "You", and "Far Behind".

The crowd really got into it too, what little crowd there was. People complain about not getting big acts to go to. If you don't fill the joint up, don't be surprised if they don't come back and others don't come. I mean, it wasn't even close. Probably just under half full. I was expecting wall to wall people, it being Africa hot inside, etc. Nope. Plenty of room to move around, easy to get a beer, etc.

But, it was an excellent set by an excellent band. Check them out if they're ever around you.

Keep on rockin'! I know I was!

War and Peace

Last year, I picked up a copy of 'War and Peace', brand new, for a buck.

That's a lot of pages for a buck.

I've been reading it this year.. slowly. Well, my injury put me in a place where I had nothing else to do but finish it up. So, I did. Finally.

Not my favorite book, but it grows on you after the first 800 pages or so..

It was kind of a weird format at the end. Tolstoy would mix in some of his op/ed on history and leadership when I least expected it. Felt like I should get credit for the lectures.

It's done, and I plan on never reading it again. But, at least I can say I did read it.

I've started reading Stephen King's "From A Buick 8" now. Should be done with it pretty quickly. Seems to be an easy read.

Dark Side Of The Moon

Got home last night and was greeted with a message that I needed to come in for a second MRI. Apparently, since I couldn't straighten my arm last time, not all of the images could be taken.

So, I scheduled an appointment for 9:45 that night, and off I went.

I opted to listen to Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side Of The Moon" during this scan. Great album, of course. Only made it halfway through before the scan was done. Oh well.

MRI machines are interesting. Why the heck are they so loud? Heh. Strangely enough, I find it kind of relaxing in them. (Obviously, I'm not claustrophobic.) They pipe music in to me (whatever I request), I just have to lay there, and no one can get ahold of me. Sweet!

Of course, if there was something really serious going on, I probably wouldn't have the same sentiment.

Today is a company picnic.. one of those few bright spots in the year. It's been years since we've done this. Pretty cool. Hoping to leave early and go get a haircut, too.

Ramblings

Not too much to report right now.

It's difficult typing with one mitt. It does limit the household chores I can perform, at least. :)

The 100 pushup challenge is over for now. Can't bear any weight on that arm for now. I'll probably lose what little muscle mass I had, and have to start anew.

I can resume running on Friday, so I won't lose too much there, hopefully. My running buddy has been pushing on without me.

I like 3 day weekends. All weekends should be like that.

Keep on rockin'!