Biking and Boozing

A coworker of mine invited me out this weekend for some biking and bar hopping with a small group. I guess it's something they used to do back in college, since biking while intoxicated is completely legal. I didn't really know where we would be biking, but he assured me it was all really nice trail areas.

I arrived at the designated starting point in St. Louis Park off Minnetonka Blvd. From there we hopped on some trails, that I have to assume were part of the Grand Rounds. At one point we were riding along (and faster then) a coal train. I think we then went past Cedar Lake and ended up at our first stop, Old Chicago. There everyone loaded up on beer and I filled up my water bottle. :-)

Back on the trails, we did another few miles and went around Lake Calhoun and ended up at Applebee's. We stopped there for dinner, a couple perfect margaritas and more beer. (water and diet Pepsi for me!) After dinner, we headed out again for another hour or so of biking and ended up back where we started.

All said, we did 19 miles, which I thought was awesome. Although there were 2 long breaks, I wasn't even tired the way I get after doing the hills around my house. It made the biking so much more fun, even though it was kind of warm out. It also confirmed my suspicions about hills sucking. I think the next step will be to give up on the south suburbs, buy a bike rack for my car, and always drive somewhere for longer bike rides on the weekends!

After doing 19 miles and still feeling pretty good, I'm convinced I can do the 30 miles for the St. Paul Bike Classic. (with another month or so practice) So I signed up!

Behind door number 2

A NEW CAR!!!

Now before you say, "OMG Shawn I can't believe you let your wife buy an AVEO, the cheapest car known to man." Let me explain something - Andrea likes small cars. Her progression of cars looks like this:

Renault Alliance -> Dodge Omni -> Geo Metro -> 2005 Aveo (with only 8400 miles on it!!).

Her new car even has a CD/MP3 player! It was a really good deal since it was slightly used at a Nissan dealer. I think they were just happy to get rid of it. The sales guy ended up telling us he made a mistake and had priced it as a 2004 used Aveo when really it was a 2005. We kinda believed him, simply because the price was much lower then standard Kelly Blue Book value. I think it will be a good little car for Andi, and it will really give us both piece of mind when she travels to Iowa in August by herself for her week long conference.

I've also posted a review of the Kung Fu Hustle DVD coming out soon. I highly recommend checking it out! (my review, and the DVD)

Bad Luck Good Luck

Tonight's post was supposed to be about my first St. Paul Saints baseball game. I was going to take pictures, post interesting commentary, etc. Instead, it gets to be about my luck, both good and bad. The plan for tonight was to have Andrea pick me up from work downtown and we would then head over to Midway Stadium for the Saints game. Pretty simple right? Well, it started out okay. Andrea picked me up, and we headed towards the ballpark.

Just last week, Andrea was complaining about the A/C in her car not working. Next time I was in her car, the A/C was working fine - okay, so maybe it was a fluke? On the way to the game, the A/C stopped working again. Hmmm.. odd. Oh well, its a nice day out, roll the windows down and go on. Waiting at a left turn light, smoke started coming out of the hood! So we quickly pull over to a side road and pop the hood. The engine was obviously overheating, the coolant boiling over (not from the radiator, but from the coolant tank). So this is where you are thinking, "Oh man, that's some bad luck."

No, this is Shawn you are talking about. My wife calls me "charmed", my family thinks I'm insanely lucky. I've always called it, "Things always seem to work out for me." So as we are standing there, looking at this overheated engine, 2 guys walk up to us:

"Hey, what's up? We just got off work at the repair shop down the street, what seems to be the problem?"

They then spent a few minutes pointing out the problem, which ended up being the cooling fan not turning on. (so either a temperature sensor or a fan motor) More importantly, they let us know about a couple car shops within a few blocks that were open until 8pm. What were the odds? Who knows, maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket tomorrow. Anyway, thanks again you 2 random car mechanics, for helping us out and reminding me that perhaps Minnesota nice still does exist.

We thought maybe we could walk the remaining 3-4 miles to the ballpark, but in the end, the Applebee's at the end of the block seemed more inviting. Andrea had already been walking all day at the Minnesota Zoo. We called Mom to pick us up, and left the car in the shop over night. Tomorrow? Car shopping for Andrea!! Mommy gets a new pair of shoes! (or a new car, as the case may be)

Most Excellent Adventure

I was looking back at my previous posts and I couldn't help but notice a pattern. I tend to post twice a week, once during the week and again on Sunday. I think the main reason is that most of the week is pretty mundane, and I have nothing really interesting to post. Seriously, who wants to read, "Today I got up, went to work, came home, exercised, watched some TV and went to bed." Oh well, too late, you just did.

Anyway, today I wanted to write about my most excellent bike ride. I've been psyching myself up for a much longer bike ride then anything I had done yet - starting with this weekend. Unfortunately, it was so hot that I was only able to get 2 small rides in on sat and sunday. Then when it rained all last night I was really bummed out. So when the weather was saying tonight was going to be high 60's with nice cloud cover and low humidity, I got really pumped up. I decide I would ride from my house to Blockbuster where my brother was working. That way, I had a destination in mind (which helps me) and I would also have an excuse to take a break midway through. I did 12.5 miles, and it felt great! Although my left leg just barely started to cramp up as I was getting back home, I really felt like I could still do another few miles. I learned a couple of really useful things on tonights ride:

• Hills suck. I think all my previous rides contained too many hills which just end up killing me and making me too tired to continue. Tonights ride was mainly east/west, and only contained a few minor hills (with one major hill at the start when I was fresh). Going north/south from my house is too hilly.
  
• Temperature/humidity levels have a huge impact on my endurance levels. Less sweat = ride longer = feel better. And everything I've read says that exercising longer is better for you then exercising harder.
  
• I can do longer bike rides over more level distances, and hills suck.
  

I'm pretty sure that over an hour period I could easily do a 15-20 mile trek over paved mostly level paths. The other reason it's cool to know I can ride farther, is that I've been thinking about maybe driving to a few other bike paths in the area, like the Gateway state trail or portions of the Grand Rounds trails that go near Lake Nokomis. Another thing I'd like to try is the Paul Bunyan trail when I goto Madden's Resort in August for our company weekend.

If that wasn't enough links for you, I'm even considering registering for the St. Paul Classic Bike Tour! Remember when I said I'm either 0% or 100%? Ya, this is me being 100%.

Texas No-Limit Hold'em

This morning I had a little chat with my scale. Normally it just kinda nods and tells me good job, keep up the good work, and we go our separate ways. But this morning, it just wouldn't shut up. It went on and on, giving me this long convoluted motivational speech. I didn't want to be rude, so I stood through the ramblings until it was finished. And just like some sucker buying from an infomercial at 2am, I bought into it's little speech. It convinced me to go biking today, on one of the hottest and humid days of the summer! So I mapped out a 6 mile loop and at 11:30am, the hottest part of the day, I headed out. It was a good ride, and I'm glad I did it. The only mistake I made was bringing gatorade instead of water - half way through it just became WAY to sugary and I couldn't drink anymore even though I was thirsty. I love this new Gmaps Pedometer that I found, my friend Steve also uses it and mentioned it on his blog as well. I just wish I had a way to check hill levels prior to a ride, because those things can kill me. I live basically on the top of a hill and any direction I go leads to massive up and downs.

Last night I ran a Texas No-Limit poker tournament at my place, nothing to big. Just a $30 dollar buy in with the top 3 going home with money. After 2 months of planning, mass emails, and date changes I was able to get 5 other guys over (for 6 total). I'd say not a bad turn out for my first hosted tournament. Maybe I can get even more next time. I think everyone had a good time, I know I did. I went out 4th, so I didn't win anything, but it was a really fun way to go out. (I had the hand until the very last card was flipped - always exciting!) I have to admit, it was damn funny watching a bunch of us 30 y/o guys getting tired and worn out by 11pm. After it was over, someone mentioned how back in the day, we would have all been pumped up after something like that and been trying to figure out what we would do with the rest of the night. :-)

One last thing, I'm not even going to bother with a full review of Alexander - Director's Cut DVD that comes out on August 2nd. Seeing DVD's before they are released is a little benefit of having a brother that works at Blockbuster. The movie is just so bad it doesn't even warrant a full review, suffice to say I would have been much happier to live my whole life without having to see Colin Farrell's nut sack.

Bloody Show

Last night started out a bit weird. As I got home from work and sat down to enjoy my latest edition of PC Gamer magazine, I found that reading was difficult. It started with little blotches around what I was reading. I could see the word I was looking at but it was getting hard to see any words around it. I chalked it up to being tired and put the magazine down and headed up stairs to enjoy a nice salmon dinner Andrea had prepared. As dinner progressed, so did my vision problem. Eventually it got so bad that I couldn't see my hand moving 6 inches out and 6 inches down in front of my face. I tried to remain calm even though I was sort of freaking out. As we headed out to child birth class it finally started to go away, but it was replaced by a massive headache. It was then that I realized, I've just experienced my first migraine! Luckily it was minor and I was able to get through the rest of the night. I could still feel a dull pain this morning when I got up, but I think for the most part the worst has passed. Now the question is, why would I get a migraine like that all of a sudden?

I know you are dying to know what I learned in child birth class this week: The Bloody show, soft bowel movements, and diarrhea. All the best parts of child birth! I just don't think Andi needs 8 weeks of constant reminders of the pain and ugly parts of childbirth. I think everyone pretty much knows that it isn't an easy process, but what good things in life are easy?

At one point we separated by sexes to do an exercise. We had to make list of "Joys" and "Concerns" about everything, from before, during and after childbirth. The first thing the guys put on the "Concerns" list was Money. Interestingly, the second thing on the "Joy" list was - Time away from work. So I asked this room of about 12 guys, how much time everyone was taking off work? The answers were, "1 week", "2 weeks", "a few weeks". When someone asked me, and I responded, 2 months, the entire room basically looked at me and said, "WHAT?", "How can you do that?", "2 months?! NO WAY!". When I mentioned FMLA, they basically looked at me like I was crazy because "that's unpaid!" It must suck not being financially responsible.

Or as my brother would say, the cheapest bastard he knows.

In other news...

Something else I wanted to share with everyone. It seems that my body is reacting to some of the changes I've been making. I've lost those initial 10 pounds you always end up losing really fast after make drastic changes to your calorie input/output.

I've actually been floating around 300 for a year or more now and this is the first time I've actually had noticeable weight loss. It's motivating to see results already. I don't have any particular weight goals in mind, but I have decided that if I can lose another 10 pounds by October, my reward will be a membership to Lifetime fitness.

I've been trying to figure out why I think I will be successful this time. The answer I've come up with is Choice. Intellectually, people are usually aware of the bad choices they make, I know I am. Yet I would continually make choices that were bad for my health. What I've come to realize is that it wasn't the individual bad choices that were guiding my actions, but the overall choice to NOT CARE about my health. I think for the first time, I've made the choice to BE healthy, and the rest of the day to day choices just sort of fall into place. I know it sounds cheesy, and a lot like a quote from the Matrix. (Choose the Red pill or the Blue pill?) But it works for me, so I guess that's all that matters.

Now I just need to figure out where all these damn ants are coming from! I know I eat at my computer a lot, but it's pretty clean right now. No food leftovers, no pop cans, etc. STUPID ANTS!

The Reunion

Well, I survived. After a nice hour and half drive down to Lafayette, we met up at Laura's parents house in New Ulm before heading down to George's Bar. Of all the things I wasn't looking forward too, awkward conversations, having to repeat my job description 20 times or getting through the evening without a stiff drink. None of them compared to what we were in store for. After arriving to George's bar, my worst nightmare was confirmed - THERE WAS NO AIR CONDITIONING! To say it was "hot" inside would be an understatement. It was dripping sweat while not even moving hot. It was completely unbearable. On the plus side, the sweltering heat made for a good excuse to leave rather quickly.

Andrea was just glad to see her old friends and she said she had fun. I told her she owed me big time for having to deal with that heat and being that uncomfortable. Only one person told me I looked like Kevin Smith, bonus! On the drive home she told me I'd never have to go to another one - I'll get to stay home with the kids. WOOHOO!!



We also saw the movie Wedding Crashers on Friday night. It was enjoyable, pretty funny. Check out my movie reviews section for a more detailed review.

Birthing 101

Andi and I started birth classes this week! 6:30 - 9:00pm every wed night for 8 weeks. That’s 20 hours of class. Why do I have this feeling we will be in class longer then the actual labor? The first session started out with way more medical information then I needed, I felt like I was in 6th grade sex ed. It was interesting to learn about the various positions the baby might be in prior to birth, but again - sometimes more information isn't really the best thing. All it does it give you more things to worry about, which Andrea has covered for both of us. (trust me)

There was one brochure for Dads that I read through. It mentioned something I thought was pretty interesting. It said how no one ever asks how the Dad is feeling. Everyone will always ask, "So how is Andrea doing?" or "How is your wife feeling?" This is probably because its more of a social norm to ask about the Mom and ignore the Dad. But it brings home for me how easy it is for Dads to not feel involved at all during the whole child birth process.. aside from... you know, the initial step.

And whoever decided that laying on some hard ass floor on a blanket during birth classes was a good idea, should be shot. Luckily, it was only the last 20 minutes, but it was still annoying as hell. By the time we got up, half my body had gone numb. Andi said it felt like we were in kindergarten nap time.

Sunscreen Song

Whenever I need a pick me up at work, I find myself turning to the Sunscreen Song. You know, that song that came into popularity on the radio around 6 years ago? Most people have heard it at least once, but what most people don't know is that the song is actually by the director responsible for the movies Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet (with DiCaprio), Baz Luhrmann. For some reason, I just really connected to the song. Maybe because it starts out with, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97" and I had just graduated class of '98. There is another line that I always come back to:

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

When I first heard this song, I was 22. I was also asking myself, usually on a daily basis, "Is this what I want to do with my life?" Sit in a cube, day in and day out? After 7 years in a cube, I still haven't found an answer to that question. What I have been able to do is convince myself it's what I have to do. It's what everyone has to do, and I'm not special. I may fantasize about quitting my job and, you know, walk the earth, meet people... get into adventures. Like Kane in Kung Fu. Obviously, this isn't realistic. I tell myself that cube life is just a means to an end. But... do the ends justify the means?

Who knows. The longer I wonder about what it is I want to do with the rest my life, the closer I actually get to... the rest of my life. I still might not have an answer when I'm 40, but I do know one thing. When I'm 40, my daughter will be 10 years old. For right now, that thought is comforting enough to ignore that I might never have an answer to what it is I want to do with my life.

Do one thing everyday that scares you!

Weekend excitement

Or lack there of. Didn't do much of anything this weekend. Scott came back home Thursday afternoon, mainly because he couldn't get any sleep in the hospital. He is doing better and is up and around okay. Andrea and I saw Fantastic Four on saturday morning. I've decided to create a seperate section for movie reviews, since I pretty much see movies every weekend, I figure I won't fill up my blog with nothing but movie reviews. So, you can see my reviews posted here!

My AC shut off again yesterday, again on the hottest day ever. By 6pm it was 75 degrees in my house. This just drives me nuts and put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. I finally decided to call the electric company again, the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi, I'm calling because my AC is not turning on. I checked everything they had me check before, and nothing seems wrong.
Electric company: We'll, we are controlling right now.
Me: What does that mean?
Electric company: Can you hold one moment?
Me: Yah, okay.
[3 minutes later]
Electric company: Sorry about that, we are controlling right now.
Me: Okay, what exactly does that mean?
Electric company: Your AC should be going on for 15 minutes and then off for 15 minutes.
Me: Well it doesn't seem to be going on at all.
Electric company: How long has it been off?

At this point, I wanted to say, "WHO CARES HOW LONG ITS BEEN OFF, ITS TOO DAMN HOT IN MY HOUSE!!!" I also realized, that the air had probably only been off for a few hours, so I decided to answer as civil as I could.

Me: Its been off since this afternoon.
Electric company: We will be done controlling at... 10:30. No, 11pm. No wait, 10pm, sorry, getting my military time all mixed up.
Me: Okay, so it should come back on at 10pm?
Electric company: Yes, if it doesn't then we really have a problem.
Me: Okay thanks.

Sure enough, it came back on at 10pm. I realize we don't have unlimited power and all, but damn, stop controling my AC!

Tonight Andrea and I went to a birthday party for one of Andrea's old highschool friends. It's at the Biaggi's in Eden Prairie. If it wasn't ackward enough not knowing anyone, we showed up at 7pm and it started at 6pm. At least it made it easy to just order a salad, which was cool. Next weekend we are going to Andrea's 10 year high school reunion... should be interesting to say the least.

Hospital visit

My brother Scott was sick this morning, I wasn't sure with what. I had called home to talk to him about something else and his only words to me were "You have no idea how much pain I am in right now." I was a tad worried to be honest. I messaged Val to see if she knew what was up, but she didn't know much more either. Later in the day, I find out he is going to see a doctor that very afternoon. Now, to get a male Anderson into the doctor is damn near impossible. As soon as I heard Scott had made an appointment that day, I knew something worse was up.

As hard as he can...

Turns out it was something worse. Scott had appendicitis! After a few tests and a CT scan, it was confirmed. Scott had to have his appendix removed. Although it's a common procedure, it's always scary when a family member has to go under the knife. As you can see, Scott was not in a very good mood for company. He was in a lot of pain, I'm sure it was the longest day ever. Seemed like he was just looking forward to being knocked out. He was in good enough mood to do his Christopher Walken impression, because, he had a fever, and the only prescription, was more cowbell!

The speed of this whole thing was a bit crazy. His surgery was tonight right after the tests came back. The doc said it went totally fine. He is recovering and should be home by this weekend.

On a more positive note, today is the month 7 mark for me and Andrea!! She is feeling great, and we are very excited. We still haven't got very far on the name front. Our little girl likes to kick alot, but of course, never when I'm feeling for it! Andrea wanted me to take some pictures at the 7 month mark. Here is one I thought I'd share - check back for more in the coming months!


And of course I'm sure everyone is very worried about my Alienware - it's back in working order. Rob from Decision One was nice enough to come out and replace my motherboard and wala, it's working fine again. Oh ya, one last thing I wanted to share with everyone. Last week Andrea made some of the cutest cupcakes I've ever seen, and I just had to share them with everyone. Take a look!


Those are rolo's for ears, rootbeer jelly belly beans for eyes, and the cutest little marshmellow noses!

War of the... Whatever

Andi and I saw War of the Worlds on Friday, and I felt compelled to write my first movie review. I'm going to go against mainstream here. This movie sucked. And I'm not just saying this because of Tom Cruise's recent behavior proving once and for all he is in fact, a giant idiot. This movie sucked for a variety of reasons. First off, the fact that I had seen it before. It was called ID4, staring the Fresh Prince. Now granted, ID4's ending hinged on a plan to upload a computer virus to an alien technology using a modem connection from a Macintosh laptop... but that was still way better then War of the Worlds.

Secondly, there was no plot to speak of. Okay, fine, there wasn't supposed to be much plot? Then how about something other then explosions? After about the 10th exploding [insert random object here] I was really bored. Okay, we get it, you can make a movie with nothing but special effects. We already learned this lesson from Star Wars Episode 1, 2 & 3. Two hours of explosions, a good movie does not make.

Finally, there were so many scenes that just made no sense. For example, how come after the aliens use a huge EMP device to knock out all electronics in a very large radius, a car will start after replacing a "solenoid"? Why do the aliens need to catch and eat humans? Why the hell would BIRDS fly around and land on an alien space craft? I won't even get into how ineffective their "plan" was for destroying earth. I mean, seriously, if you are an advanced civilization attempting to destroy the earth, you'd think they would come up with something better then a giant laser that kills one person at a time. Maybe they should have watched ID4 for ideas on how to destroy mass amounts of humans quickly. Or they could have just checked out my favorite list for ways to destroy the Earth.

The only redeeming quality to this movie was the fact that I saw it for free using movie passes Andrea got from work.

Rating: 2 out of 10