I hate when I'm right

Long week. 48 hours of work long. Not that I'm complaining... ah who am I kidding. Of course I'm complaining. What frustrates me the most when putting in higher than normal hours, is the raw meaninglessness of it. (at least I think that is a real word) Not so much that extra hours don't get some extra work done, help meet some arbitrary deadline, or even help some coworkers out. It's the fact that regardless of how much work gets done, there will just be more after that. Some new project, some new ridiculous deadline, and even more demands from the "business". It's never gonna end until I retire, so wtf is the point of extra hours now? And on the flip side, why should I complain about more work? Isn't that exactly what I want? A job that pays out until I retire?

In other news, D&D has it's claws in me deep. If I'm not working or spending time with the family, I'm thinking about D&D. I have about a years worth of storyline in my head already, written in a way that will allow for everyone to play an equal part. Gone are the days where I thought about plot lines specific to one or two players. I see the plot as a function of the entire adventure and the whole group, and that if everyone is equally involved and engaged, there will be high level of interest in keeping the story moving forward. Idyllic isn't it?

Truth is, it's still harder then hell to get people together. No matter how hard I try, or creative solutions I come up with, it's always going to be like pulling teeth. My hope is my new campaign will grab ahold of the players like an episode of Lost, and have them wanting to come back every other week to see what the next episode has in store. Lofty goals, but at least they are goals centered around fun and creativity. Not work and meaninglessness.

Anyway, it's been awhile since I posted any pictures, so I figured it was high time to get some up. I'll see if I can't get back into this a little more regularly. More pictures, less complaining.

I can't get enough of her in pig tails, makes her look so cute.



Today we had a Mom's Club picnic. Nice turn out, but I wasn't in much of a mood to socialize. I just hung out with Megan and snapped a few pictures. One of her playing Ladder Golf and another on a park ride.

What a Week(End)

It's going to be hard for me to find much time for blog posting in the next few weeks. Between work and my one other hobby (Dungeons and Dragons), there isn't much spare time left. Work is going to start effecting my mental health here soon enough. I think I'm detached enough to not let it bother me much this round, but time will tell.

My number one fear is just dealing with those problems at work I can't solve. I mean sometimes, there are technical challenges that I'm not able to solve. I'm no super genius expert in this area of programming, I merely know enough to muddle my way through for the most part. When push comes to shove, often times I find myself in a pure trial and error state. "Hmmm well try this, maybe that will work. Nope, okay well try this. Nope, hmmm." Sometimes I'm lucky, sometimes I'm not. When will my luck run out?

In other news, this weekend was GREAT! Saturday we had a company picnic at the MN Zoo. Since I could get 4 free tickets, and we already have a Zoo +1 membership, I got my whole family in for free. The Zoo was PACKED unlike anything I'd ever seen before, but we managed to make the most of it. We got a free lunch and Megan got to spend some time in the inflatable jumpers, one of her favorite things.

Today Megan and I went to see Kung Fu Panda. I figured it had been quite awhile since our last attempt, and I wanted to see how she would do. It went just awesome. She sat through the whole movie with no problem, and did signs for every animal that came up on screen! (except for the Mantis) The rest of the day she was doing Panda signs (at least, our version of Panda). Tonight we did a little park time and ended our evening with a trip to DQ.

Megan also picked up a bunch of new words this weekend including "Old" and "New". She can say the words and do the signs for them both. It's hard to tell if she actually understands the abstract concepts behind words like these, so we are doing our best to encourage her use by explaining what they mean. Hopefully it's sinking in!

Warp Speed

Didn't even realize it was nearing a week between posts. This weekend went just as described, and it kept me busy. Thursday night I ended up jumping the fence to hit the local high school track so I could calibrate my watch. My ninja like skills served me well. Friday we saw two movies, the new Hulk and The Happening. Hulk was okay, better than the last one but not worlds above. The Happening kind of sucked.

Suck might be too strong a word, but if I had known it was just a 90 minute movie about creative ways to commit suicide, I might have skipped it. Maybe people are too hopeful that M. Night Shyamalan films must be thought provoking. This movie was just a long Hitchcock episode. I think the tie for best suicide method was between the zoo keeper who fed himself to the lions (LOL at the special effects/physics on that one), and the guy who turned on the large lawn mower and laid down in front of it. Gotta love that crazy "act of nature" that disorients you, but still allows you to get creative!

Got my exercise in over the weekend, over indulged all weekend as well. Not only did my Mom get us the free night at Mystic Lake Hotel, but she ended up winning a few hundred dollars Saturday morning while going there to pick up the room keys. She was nice enough to throw in a little bonus money to pay for our dinner that night.

Back to the grind today, and a few long weeks until next month. Not quite sure yet what time off I'll take around July 4th, but definitely some. Hopefully some of the movies coming out this month and next will clear my memory of the not-so-good and mediocre ones so far this year.

3 Years of Blog

By any estimation, 3 years is quite a long time. 9.375% of my life! Considering how many other things I've quit, changed, or no longer spend time on, it's actually a big deal that I'm still blogging. Perhaps I do it now just out of habit. 90% of the time I don't feel like I have anything that insightful to share anyway. The other 10% I'm either posting pictures or rambling incoherent negative bullshit.

Speaking of negative bullshit, tomorrow is my birthday! My Mom was kind enough to remind me, that 32 years ago tonight, she was in labor. Does that mean technically my birthday spans 2 days, since I just wasn't born until the next morning? By that measurement, Megan's birthday lasts like 2 weeks!

32 years young...? Never would have guessed that at 32, I'd be in the best shape of my life. I kinda wish I had more time to explore other active type things. For example, recently I've been thinking about fond memories of martial arts class as a kid. I honestly can't even remember how old I was, yet the memory of the dojo, the discipline, the respect... All powerful stuff. But then I think, "When the hell would I have time to do martial arts? And how much money would that be?" I'm so cheap, I wouldn't even spend $5 dollars to eat at a company picnic today. (aside from the fact I don't like Brats).

Enough of my rambling for now. Tomorrow night we'll all go out for my birthday dinner. And then I'm taking Friday off to enjoy a long weekend. My Mom was once again able to get us a free room at the Mystic Lake Casino hotel. (way to go you gambling fool!) As a birthday present, she is going to watch Megan over night on Saturday so Andrea and I can enjoy some time. Hopefully an early morning bike ride Friday and a long run Saturday. Sunday - rest & recover from the weekend of fun.

Good Run, Good Weather

Despite the crack of thunder moments before the start of the race, and the dark clouds coming closer, the weather held out this morning. Only a few drops of rain around the mid point of the race. By the end, the sun was shining and overall great running conditions this morning.

Before I get into describing the rest of my 1/2 marathon run this morning, it is important to make a note about this particular course. This course has got to be the easiest 1/2 marathon out there in the Twin Cities area. Why? Elevation. Take a look at this graph:



That's elevation on the y-axis, distance on the x-axis. As you can see, you basically start at the top of this huge hill that you never have to go back up. (until you walk back to your car, which sucks). So from that perspective, I take my time with a grain of salt. I'm very happy with what I got, but at the same time, I'll have to "do it again" to prove it to myself.

My time was around 1:38:20, which is a solid 7:30 pace, the same as my 10k pace. I had not planned on going that hard, but it's funny how the mind and body can sometimes work together to trick each other. Here is what happened:

About a week ago, I felt like my pacing watch was off. It was recording shorter distances for locations I've run many times and knew the exact distances of, and it was saying my pace was much lower than it felt like. I figured I should calibrate it soon, especially before the race this morning, but just never got around to it.

The race starts out, and I'm constantly checking my watch, running an 8 minute pace. (my original goal). Around mile 2.5, I asked fellow runners what their paces were. I got everything from 7:00 to 7:30. Obviously I was running faster than an 8 minute pace, but I just went with it. Every time I got slower then 8 minute pace on MY watch, my brain said "go faster, you need 8 minute pace", and my body responded. I guess my decision to not calibrate my watch helped me run faster. Weird?

The moral of this story? Setting goals can be tricky. On the one hand, a goal is needed in order to strive for something. On the other hand, set a goal too low or too high and you might miss the opportunity to achieve more than you intended...

Word of the Day: Newb

As previously mentioned, Megan is learning new words all the time. Earlier this week, I accidentally taught her an important word: Newb. (added wikipedia link for all the newbs out there) I wasn't even trying to get her to say it, she just repeated it after hearing me say it while talking. Hmmm... maybe I should stop swearing so much?


I also had to post this part of the clip too... If you listen close, you can hear Andrea in the back ground yelling "I'm not counting that as a word!!!"


In other news, Megan used the potty for the first time tonight! It's all thanks to a single book: Once Upon a Potty. She couldn't get enough of this book for the last 3 days, and what do you know!

Every Beginning has an End

Don't worry, I'm not ending my blog or anything like that. Just a simple saying... it's probably been around or used for a long time. (nothing original to be found here!) It might also invoke images of that horrible third Matrix movie where The Oracle says something along those lines.

No, it just happened to be an offhand comment made by Andrea tonight. She probably had no clue that my first thought when hearing it was the Matrix. The fact is, despite the cheesy-ness of the saying, I like it. It's one of those sayings that is kind of hard to argue with given what we observe in the universe around us.

From a more simplistic stand point, it just reminds me that life is about a collection of beginnings and ends. For a long time, I looked to the past aspects of my life and lamented over the things that I missed / no longer had. I think that I've finally got past that and can see things in my life that have "ended" being just as valuable to me as all the other new "beginnings".

In other words, who I was is just as important as who I am, and who I'm one day going to be.

Have I lost you yet? Good. Me too.

The other reason I like the saying is the pessimist in me. No matter how bad things might get, those things will have an end too.