9 years come and gone

Yesterday was our 9 year anniversary. Just like the last few years, it's standard procedure for me to mention that. At least this year the blog title is a little more creative than "9 years".

We enjoyed a nice long (and huge) dinner last night, at a place called Rudy's Redeye Grill in Lakeville. Andrea had been there one other time, but I had never been there. I came up with a short list of a few places and Andrea picked this one.

The food was awesome (I had left overs tonight!), but boy did we eat too much. This was coming off last weekends all you can eat buffet night at Mystic Lake. Needless to say, I was 192 on the scale this morning, which is about 10 lbs more than I'd like to be.

I'd really like to stop the whole bouncing up and down and feeling like I have constantly be "working off that last meal". In light of that, and our anniversary, and the new month, I came up with a list of 10 "No" items. For the most part, I'm against "negative" approach to changing eating habits, but I think for now this is what I need. I've become to complacent about my eating habits, and it's time to get back on track. And sometimes just saying it out loud helps. So in no particular order, 10 things to JUST SAY NO!

1. No snacks at work. That includes Salsa Thursday, snacks on the Snack Master, or free anniversary treats.
   
2. No ice cream. This one's gonna be tough, but needed.
   
3. No candy from my Mom's house.
   
4. No random snacking at my Mom's house. (if you're reading this Mom, help me out here!)
   
5. No fried foods when eating out. That includes french fries, breaded chicken, mozzarella sticks, etc.
   
6. No "all you can eat free" items when eating out. You know what I'm talking about... chips & salsa at Mexican places, bread sticks at Olive Garden, cheddar bay biscuits at Red Lobster...
   
7. No eating Megan's left overs when we go out to eat.
   
8. No after dinner/late night snacking.
   
9. No pizza at D&D sessions. Just best to say no, since I can never stop myself from having 5+ pieces.
   
10. No over eating after really long runs. (No over eating, period!)

I already broke 2 of the above rules just tonight, so I'll have to start first thing tomorrow. That sounds like a good plan!

Tomorrow night I head up to downtown Minneapolis for dinner and a Gopher football game at the Metrodome for my friends bachelor party. It should be a good time, if nothing else my good friend who joined my D&D group is going to be there, so we can talk about D&D the entire time if the bachelor is too busy talking with all the other family that will be there.

I got nothing

I so wish I could do a brain dump right now. Too much crap on my mind and I can't seem to organize a single coherent train of thought. I told someone at work this week how running was the one chance where I could "think about nothing" and he didn't think it was possible. Now all I can think about is how nice that time can be... It's a big part of why I've become addicted to it.

So intead of fight it, I suppose I'll just post about running. Around mid June, shortly after I did my first half marathon race of the summer, I started getting some pain in my left hip. It was a deep pain that would feel worse after running, but better while running. Afterwards, sometimes even walking would cause sharp shooting pains to run from my hip area down my leg to my knee.

I was a tad worried to say the least. I goggled various possible issues and came up with a few possibilities, the worst of which would have been a problem with my sciatic nerve. (symptoms sounded very similar) Eventually I just went with a solid 3 days of resting with light runs and it sort of went away but was always nagging me and got significantly worse with fast pace runs.

Fast forward to last week and my 16 mile run. I took the opportunity on that run to pay close attention to my body. I had already made a deal with myself that if my hip started to act up I would call off the run, because the last thing I wanted was to do serious damage. But I ran that 16 miles and not only did it end up feeling great but it was at a very good pace and with very little after pain.

What changed? Well, what I came to realize was my stride was uneven. I found that I was pushing off with my left foot for the majority of my forward motion. The end result was that over time, I've been putting a lot more wear on that area. It also was the cause of more blisters on my left foot. I couldn't figure it out why my right foot never had blisters!

With a conscious effort, I tried to even out my stride and push off with both feet equally. The result was no more pain, the blisters on my feet are going down, and I'm feeling much better. Last week I decided to experiement and see if it made that much of a difference. I ended up running 5 days in a row, all decent distances and paces. By the end of the week, I had no significant pains. Problem solved!

Here are the splits for my 16 miler:

2:14:16 Total
1- 8:34
2- 8:45
3- 8:36
4- 8:40
5- 8:27
6- 8:15
7- 8:17
8- 8:19
9- 8:13
10- 8:05
11- 8:13
12- 8:09
13- 8:09
14- 8:24
15- 8:41
16- 8:17

The Friday Post

I did want to get more then one post up this week, but it just didn't happen. Main reason was that I had a D&D session on a week night this week (Thursday) so I was busy preparing for that most of the week. It went pretty well, I have a old friend joining the group which is great, and I still think the new 4th edition is going to be some long term fun.

I'm home alone tonight because Andrea and Megan are down visiting Grandma and Papa B tonight. I thought about checking out Tropic Thunder, but in the end just wanted a quite night to myself. Granted I ended up doing about an hour of work but oh well. I also wrapped up some D&D and got my runs uploaded, which I had been slacking on for awhile.

Some big things coming up in the next few weeks, from our 9 year anniversary to Megan's first day of pre-school. I haven't decided yet how I'm going to do that, but I think I will just come in late to work that day so I can be home when they come to pick her up. I have NO clue how she might react... she will either be totally excited and not even care about jumping on to a bus and going away, or she will be totally freaked out. I think Megan has some parts of my personality, and extremes is one of them.

Anyway, here is one of the videos I captured from last weekend I just wanted to share. This is right after our long bike ride and Megan was ready to go home. While I was packing up the bike and such, she wandered over to a bench to relax for a bit. I joined her and she told me she was ready to head back.

Great Escape

Sometimes challenging, sometimes fun, sometimes rough. Overall, great weekend away from home and work. For now, I'll just give some highlights and pictures. I'll try to post a few videos later in the week.

The drives up and down weren't bad at all, with Megan sleeping most of the way both times. Thursday was just relaxing and dinner, nothing too exciting. I was given some T-shirts and a small welcome goodie bag. Megan dug into that right away.



Mom and Megan exploring the rest of the "special room".



Friday morning I woke up and prepped for a new personal distance best. I ran a solid 16 miles, the farthest distance I've run. 2/3rd marathon distance... but still no marathon plans so don't ask! While I was running, Andrea was entertaining Megan at the various "kids" stuff the resort had to offer. We also did a LOT of swimming over the weekend. Megan couldn't get enough.



Saturday morning, Megan and I went on a bike ride together. We were out for about an hour and a half and did 18 miles. I think she enjoyed it, but it's so hard to tell. She is still asking for "more bike" or "bike ride" every now and then, so it must be a positive thing.



Saturday afternoon Megan took a nap, which was a nice break and gave us a little time to just relax and read. Saturday night we got local high school girl to come babysit Megan in the hotel room, so we could do the "formal" dinner without her. The resort makes all the arrangements and you just meet up at the front desk. It went okay, but Megan was crying when we got back to the room. The sitter said she just started crying before we got there, and... knowing Megan I was inclined to believe her.

Biggest highlight of the weekend? Megan has started using 3-word phrases a lot. Things like, "Mommy here now" and "Green car there". Not to mention a slew of new words over the weekend. My favorite was what we decided to call the hotel room. Instead of just calling it "room" or "hotel room", we started calling it the "special room". It stuck, and Megan was so cute when she says it. So next time you see her, make sure to ask her about the "special room".

Where to begin

How about let's begin this vacation shall we!? 5 days off... Seems like a lifetime since I've had a long break. The worst part is I'm sitting on 120 hours of time off (3 weeks!) and even more in personal days and sick time. Why can't I just get sick more? Sucks being so damn healthy all the time...

So tomorrow we head up north, to the company sponsored vacation at Maddens resort. This will be my third year at Maddens, although the first year with this company. Funny how things work out like that. This will also be our first long vacation with Megan. I have high hopes that it turns out to be a fun weekend for everyone, but I do worry about Megan not having enough to do. Andrea is out looking for odds and ends to help out with that.

At work this week, they officially put out a request for volunteers to do 24x7 on-call support, specifically for the area of software I work on. Kind of funny, considering how I JUST mentioned that two posts ago. At this point, it's at the volunteer stage, and at least at this company there is extra compensation involved. But I had ZERO interest in it... I put in my 6+ years of 24x7 support, I'm not about to go down that path again. The question now is, how long until "volunteer" becomes "mandatory"? My guess? 4 months or less. My prediction is that I will be forced to on-call by the end of this year.

With the threat of 24x7 support looming, I'm trying to think of the positives. 5 days without work, with more fun things coming up next week. Got D&D lined up, and another free night out at Mystic hotel the following weekend (Once again courtesy of Grandma Gayle). After that, at the end of the month, I will be attending what in all likely hood, will be the last ever bachelor party I ever go to. (as in, I don't know anyone else that isn't married, that would invite me to a bachelor party).

I could have sworn there was even more going on this month... what was it again? Oh ya... 9 years of marriage! Almost forgot that one. :-)

Side note, after posting this blog I realized I used this same blog title back in 2005: Where to begin, 2005

Just when you thought you were safe

So work is not getting any better, and I'm trying to figure out what I can do about it if anything. Yeah, I did an hour or so of work today, so what of it? Am I lame for doing work on the weekend? Yes. But what else am I going to do? When I can log into my PC at work from home, it's really not that big of a deal. It's not like I have to actually be on-site to do work. Hell, the guy that taught me everything I know worked out of his house in Seattle. Just proof that if you are good enough at writing code, you can pretty much work from anywhere.

AD&D has only met once in the last month, our last session being July 3rd. When I say it out loud, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. I can't expect much more then once a month to be honest. Not to mention this is the worst time ever for almost every single one of my players. So I'll just be patient and who knows. Maybe come winter time, people will be begging me for something to do.

So anyway, between work stress, family stress, and self induced stress, I'm finding it hard to relax. I can't stop thinking about... (fill in the blank). One night this week I woke up at 3am and couldn't fall asleep until 4am because I started thinking about work. It drove me absolutely nuts. I just wish I had answers for everyone, and the decisions or problems they are facing. What can I say, I like to fix things for other people I guess.

In the meantime, I need to find healthy way to relax I think. Running helps, as does reading (I read a 500 page book in 5 days recently). But soon I will be out of books to read and with nothing new to focus on, might end up having to resort to something. In fact, I think right now I might fire up an old video game...

And Then Some

Long weekend, and I can't think of a good place to start. It started with a hell of a Friday. One of the managers comes over to my cubical and basically says, "We need someone to do this thing, and you're the only one that knows how. And it's probably going to require weekend work. Good? Great."

On the one hand, it's good to know I'm useful. But on the other hand, I had serious flashbacks to working at Micron and it's 24x7 attitude towards it's work force. It took everything in me to remain calm and just get it done. In the end, I was able to complete it by 7pm Friday night, and had to do very little on Saturday. Still, the feeling of powerlessness left a very sour taste in my mouth.

I tried not to think about it too much the rest of the weekend. Saturday morning I headed out for a nice 11+ mile run. Went on a completely random new trek just for something different. Andrea's parents came over and spent the afternoon with us and Megan, which was very enjoyable. Saturday night Megan and I spent some time together and went to McDee's.

Sunday I went for another shorter run, followed up with a bike ride with Megan. She had been asking for awhile, and the weather was finally nice enough. We rode over to my Mom's house, met up with Andrea, hopped in the car and hit the zoo for a few hours. Then rode back home as she fell asleep. Tonight we just putzed around the house, the only excitement was when Megan tried to eat a cup of sand.

Anyway, just one last thing to share. I did end up getting another PR (personal record) on the 10k last weekend. My official time was 45:11. Unbeknownest to me, some friends caught a video clip of me crossing the finish line.



With 45:11 under my belt, my next goal will have to be the 45 minute mark. Will I see it this year?