Dead Blog

I haven't given up on my blog or anything, but the motivation is definitely lacking these days. There isn't much new going on and I'm not going to spend all my time blogging about work. I already think about work too much, I don't need to be doing it on my free time at home either.

On some positive notes, Casey is growing up fast. She has hit many milestones that I've neglected to talk much about. In short, she is becoming quite a handful. Getting into things, climbing things, and generally doing all sorts of cool stuff on her own. Most nights I get to come home to her running to me screaming "Daddy!", as we proceed to have a fun laid back evening. There are still challenging moments between her and Megan, but for the most part they have a lot of fun playing together. In short bursts at least.

Megan in the meantime is learning new stuff every day and having a great time at her preschool that she started this fall. She can count to 6 in Spanish! Last weekend she got to bring home one of the school pets for the weekend, Rosey the guinea pig. Everyone had fun taking care of her and holding or petting her.


The first snow this weekend was a bit of a shock, but the realization that I'm done running outside for the year is finally starting to sink in. It didn't help that just last week I was running outside all week in 50-60 degree weather. It sort of made me forget that it's actually the middle of November. After spinning out and doing a complete 360 on the road this weekend driving to the gym, I was quickly reminded that it is in fact, winter.

Reality Check

Getting through the candy haze of Halloween made me stop and realize something. I've completely lost track of what I eat on a daily basis, and have damn near zero self control anymore. It's a harsh reality to face, but it's important. I topped the scale this morning at a whopping 192.5, which is easily 10 lbs over where I like to be. With Thanksgiving right around the corner and Christmas after that, it isn't going to get any easier.

Instead of trying to put it off until the New Year, I'm going to nip this in the bud right now. The easiest thing for me is to simply flip the switch back to "off", as in "off-limits". No more excuses like "Well, I'm running 25 miles this weekend..." because, quite frankly, I'm not! I used the marathon training as an excuse to fall off the food wagon. Time to get back on.

With any big swing like this, there has to be a little give and take. Just saying a ton of stuff is off limits won't work, because if I don't reward myself in some other way, it will back fire. So I'm going to put diet pop back on the menu and enjoy my one unhealthy indulgence. To counter that, I'm going to take coffee off the menu, which although not high in calories, was a "gateway" drink for me. Because I can't drink coffee black, I have to put the equivalent of 6 teaspoons of sugar in it via artificial sweetener. This in turn makes me crave sweets throughout the day. And of course, the remainder of the off-limits list includes the basic "no wasted calories" crap, which is everything from candy, to snacks, to free food at work, etc.

The first week will be hard, but if I can get into the swing of some new habits before Thanksgiving hits, I'll be in good shape to limit my food intake over the holidays. Once I've got that all under control, I can shift my focus to my eventual goals of weight training. I've been sent a few ideas in email and been doing a little research on my own. I think I'll have a good plan come New Years.

Halloween... check

Halloween this year went well. Megan went as Iron Man and Casey was a cute little Monkey. Sadly I didn't really get many pictures this year, although I'm sure I can dig up a few from various times this month. I think there must have been about five different Halloween events we did this year, some more successful than others.

This years I actually stayed in, and let Andrea take the kids around the neighborhood. Despite doing all the years prior to this year, I feel like I am still ahead because this was the first year of having to take both kids out. Andrea did fine and the kids collected tons of candy.

On the health front, I still haven't started any new habits. It's in the back of my mind, but that's the problem. My brain is so busy thinking about work all the time, I can't find the motivation to put in extra effort figuring out a good new exercise routine. However just thinking about it out loud at least motivated me to spend a few minutes on google. Hmmm... maybe I can come up with something to start in the next month or two.

Still letting my evenings be mostly taken up by World of Warcraft. Being the good crack dealer that I am, I've got two different people at work to restart their accounts as well. Time will tell how long we all keep it going this time. Usually for me it just amounts to how long I can have fun doing semi-new stuff mixed with the same thing over and over. Eventually though, the semi-new stuff starts to wear off and the only thing left is the basic Skinner Box. The new expansion coming in Dec will extend the semi-new stuff for quite awhile.

Work is progressing as best as it can at this point. I'm very afraid that in December I'll be working weekends and evening simply because I am so invested in this project. My desire to see it succeed is officially higher then any thing I've ever done at any job. This is probably a bad thing, because any time I've ever invested personally in a work related thing, it's come back to bite me in the ass.

The Two Dreaded W's

Okay, so it's been a long time since my last post. At least I didn't wait a full two weeks! My lack of posting has come because of two W's: Work and World of Warcraft. Maybe that is three W's.

If you're a frequent visitor to my blog, you should recall that I've been mentioning off and on about my "big ideas" at work. Although I came up with the ideas well over one and half years ago, it wasn't until this summer that things really got off the ground. It started in May with the first opportunity to share my ideas to the right audience, which lead to a series of further meetings up the chain until I finally reached high enough to the decision maker level. Next thing I know, my ideas are picked to go full steam ahead as the next big project, and I'm given the opportunity to lead the project. Pretty exciting stuff. The flip side is that, it basically means I am always thinking about work. All the time. I mean, all the time. I've gone running more than a half dozen times since the marathon and every single one has been consumed with thoughts about work.

Mostly I'm working out technical problems in my head. Redesigning a major portion of 10 year old software isn't exactly straight forward. To add to all this, is the timeline. What I would have wanted 4-6 months to complete, I'm being asked to do in 3. Stress? Maybe. Okay, yeah. Just a little. On the plus side, I got to more or less pick the team by hand, and they are all very excited about doing something totally new and working with the latest technologies. It should be a rather fun (albeit stressful) couple of months.

Sometime around the beginning of Sept I started up a new WoW account. In part because the marathon training was coming to an end and also because I was winding down some other games I had bought. I honestly tried to squeeze as much gaming out of the single player games I had. In the end, the coming back to WoW ended up being a lot of fun and there is a new expansion coming out in a month. This has got to be like the 4th or 5th time I've come back to WoW after a year long break. We'll see how long I last this time.

Moving On

As much as I'd love to leave my marathon post up forever, it's time to put that event behind me, tucked away in a small list of things I'm truly proud about. Life keeps moving forward no matter how much you want to revel in today.

Good or bad, every experience can be positive as long as you learn from it. What did I learn from my marathon experience? I learned that with proper preparation, good planning, and hard work you can accomplish something you otherwise might not have. And as always, a little good luck doesn't hurt (good weather).

So what's next for Shawn? There are two things on my mind lately. First is my family, and specifically Megan. She's 5 years old now! I can't even begin to explain how weird that feels just saying it. Her birthday was last weekend, and it was a blast. Big thanks to my Mom for putting together such an awesome Spiderman theme birthday at the last minute. But Megan's having a tough go of things right now, particularly at night after I get home. We fight a lot, mainly about outside time and her running off or going into neighbors houses without telling us. It's been very frustrating and we've had a few big fights that I feel absolutely horrible about.

So despite any personal goals I might have for the next few months or how much my job is going to get in the way (next post will be about that). I think I've decided what's next for Shawn. It's going to be all about Family, starting with date night this weekend for me and Andrea and building on more Daddy and Megan time, better communication, and helping teach limits. Nothing too hard right? Basic parenting stuff? But parenting is like anything else. You need proper preperation, good planning, and hard work. Time to put those lessons learned to good use.

18 weeks - 38 seconds

Two apparently completely unrelated times. But for me, they are tied directly together. 18 weeks of training. Week in and week out. Not a single day skipped, not a single mile left out. I did all sorts of running I've never done before, speed training, distance training, heart rate training. The end result? Reaching and exceeding my goal by 38 seconds.

Official chip time: 3:29:22

When I started the race, I told my buddy who was about to finish his 6th marathon, that I honestly couldn't say how important reaching my goal was to me. This was my first marathon, I had no clue how I would feel at the end. Turns out, reaching that goal was a huge thing for me. I feel so lucky to have everything come together so perfectly. I can honestly say that if it wasn't for the near perfect weather, I probably would have fallen short.

The first part of the race was exactly what I expected and hoped for. Around mile 8 I sunk into my groove, running 14 straight miles with a pace variation of only 7 seconds (7:45-7:52)!! My family all saw me during this time, speeding along at my strongest between miles 14-16. Exactly at Mile 18, I had a minor scare, as my left plantars (good foot) had a huge twinge. Luckily, I had experienced this during training, so I knew it wouldn't be something to worry about, but I did have to adjust my stride for a little bit as the kink worked itself out.

Mile 22 is where the real fun began. This is where you make a final large uphill climb to Summit Ave. I made the climb in a solid 8:20 pace, which was great. I started down Summit easing back into my 8:00 goal pace, finishing mile 23 at 7:58. I was tired for sure, but at no point during this did I feel any type of "wall". However, somewhere between mile 23 and 24 is when the "weird" stuff started happening.

Weird is the best word I have to describe it, because it wasn't painful and it didn't seem to slow me down. First, my legs muscles felt really loose. The sensation scared the crap out of me initially, because I didn't know what it was, and I had never felt anything like it during training. Were my legs going to give out? Could I finish the last few miles? Next, they tightened up, so I figured they were cramping. This scared me even more. Cramping up legs could be the end of my running and I'd have to hobble across the finish line. I pushed it all out of my head and focused on keeping my form, landing softly, and I slightly slowed my pace back around 8:10. If this was my "wall", I wasn't going to let it stop me now.

The stuff going on with my legs combined with the final small uphill on mile 25 hit me hard, and I slowed to an 8:30 pace. After rounding the corner and seeing he final stretch, everything melted away. I honestly don't know if it was the downhill motion that fixed my legs or the pure mental side of knowing the finish line was just around the corner. But once I started that decent, my legs were feeling normal again. I sped up again, letting gravity do most of the work. As I entered the last few hundred yards, to my left my family was there, and Megan was cheering me on. It was the best feeling ever. I checked my watch: 11:29am. Holy shit, it was going to be close. I pushed harder. I could see the clock but I didn't have glasses on so I couldn't see the time. Did it say 3:29? Did it say 3:30? I got within 10 feet and saw the clock read 3:29:50. I had done it! I yelled out a victorious "YES!" and charged across the finish line. If you watch the video of me crossing the finish line, you can just make out the little yelp.

What's Next?

Obviously my thoughts this week have been focused on the Marathon tomorrow. But even with that, in the back of my mind is that nagging thought that won't go away. What's next? What goals will I set for myself next on the fitness front? I still don't know exactly what the plan is.

Originally I had this grand scheme of finishing the marathon and then finding a personal trainer to help me learn weight training and just go with that as a 2 year goal. But financially right now it doesn't make sense to be spending money on something like that. I still want to get into lifting, but I'm not sure the best way. Maybe a few hours of Internet research is in order.

Anyway - Marathon - focus Shawn - no distractions. I'm ready for this, and I'm ready to hit my goal. Years of healthy living, discovering running, tons of races and training, all leading up to this. Will I be a one-and-done person? Never to run another Marathon in my life? Not sure... but for now, just need to focus on tomorrow. And then focus on one mile at a time, one step at a time.

Feel free to track me online - yet another way to watch my progress tomorrow. Click the picture/link below and it will take you directly to a map of my progress.


Not that I think anyone reading this is going to come cheer me on, but if you do, here are some spots I expect to be, at various times:

9:04 AM - W. Minnehaha Pkwy and W. 50th Street
9:36 AM - Cedar Ave, south end of Lake Nokomis bridge - Lake Nokomis
10:00 AM - E. Minnehaha Pkwy and Minnehaha Ave
10:56 AM - Summit Ave and S. Cleveland Ave - HOME STRETCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11:28 AM - Summit Ave and Cathedral of St. Paul - FINISH DOWN HILL!!!!!

Thrill Seeker

I like that I have an adventurous daughter. I like that Megan and I have been on roller coasters together. Megan doesn't seem to have much fear when it comes to trying new things, and long term, that's a positive quality to have in my opinion. In my experience, it's always my fear of something that prevents me from doing something cool.

What I don't like is how that fearlessness translates into a 5-year old. It means she has no fear going down the street, to walk head long into other families going-ons. It means she wants to explore and meet and play with all the kids on her block (of which there are quite a few now in her age range). But mostly it means going places without telling Mom and Dad, thus we get scared because we don't know where she is. So until we get that figured out, it's back to the drawing board. No more alone time outside until we get those limits and restrictions being followed consistently.

However, on the positive side, having an adventurous daughter translated into an AWESOME fun time at the Renaissance Festival! The last time we went was back in 2008, so Megan would have just been turning 3. I think it was a much bigger experience for her this year, and hopefully the start of a longer tradition.

Oddly enough, the little fairy girl at the entrance handing out magic stones was there again this year. We made our rounds, stopped at a few shows, but the big draw for Megan this year were all the crazy activities and rides. Megan wanted to try it all!

We came across a reptile display, and a huge boa was out. Everyone was crowded around, and the gal asked if anyone had any questions. Megan was quick to ask if snakes were mean.

After the snakes, I saw a climbing tower. I thought we'd give it a shot, and Megan got super excited. Next thing I know she's climbing up this thing like a crazy monkey. She could have kept going higher, but then looked back to realize how high she had gotten and wanted to come down.

She also had an awesome time on a human powered horse swing and jumped on the back of a guy who said he was a bench. Megan laughed and told him he wasn't a bench, but he insisted (don't worry, I made sure she tipped well).

But the kicker was the bungee cord trampoline. I was honestly worried about it, but Megan had a killer time. In fact, she had so much fun she insisted I let her do it one more time. She went even higher the second time. Check out this video:



I think we will be going again next year.

The Big One

I've been hinting about it for a few weeks now. Mentioning my summer training, a different "style" of training, and my first attempts at interval training and speedwork (strideouts). So what is the big mystery? Can you guess?

Yes, I decided to train for and run my first marathon this year. The Twin Cities Marathon to be exact. Why did I keep it a big secret? I honestly don't know. I didn't even tell Andrea until a week before I started the training, despite the fact that I had signed up months earlier. I suppose it was because I hadn't fully decided why I was running a marathon yet. Was it just to see if I could do it? Was it for some bigger reason? I wasn't sure.

In the end, I've come to terms with why I'm doing it. And that will remain my special secret, and my special source of motivation while I'm out there. I've trained really hard this summer to not just finish a marathon, but RUN a marathon. I would consider my goal aggressive for a first time marathon. I also am confident that as long as there are not huge factors against me, I can achieve it.

Huge factors include: weather & injury. Weather is out of my control, but injury isn't. And tonight, after a 5 mile strideout session, I've developed one heck of a shin splint. I'm trying to remain calm. I've healed quickly in the past. Tomorrow is a rest day. Should I skip my last long run Sunday? Maybe... I'll see how it feels then. My buddy says it's a pre-marathon phantom pain. But it sure does hurt for being a "phantom".

The race is in 9 days, on October 3rd. For those not familiar with the TC Marathon, it starts in downtown Minneapolis, runs around the lakes where so many other races are done, towards Lake Nokomis, up along the Mississippi, and then straight over into St. Paul, ending at the Capital. Here is an interactive map link. The marathon starts at 8am, so feel free to come on down and cheer for me. I'll post more info closer to that weekend, including where I should be at various times. You can also follow my progress with automatic text updates. Just register here, using my name or bib number.

Text updates on Shawn's marathon progress! Bib number 858.

Great Race - 16th Place!

On Saturday, I had yet another race, coming off my 25k from last weekend. This time it was a 10k around Lake Nokomis, which is the best flat 10k around. It was also the location of my previous personal best 10k. I set out on Saturday to set a new PR, mostly just as a final confidence builder leading into the big race.

It was probably the smallest race event I've ever done, with only 139 registered finishers. I talked shop with a few people under a tree as we avoided some early morning light rain. The talk turned to how there were a lot of "fast runners" on this course last year, in the 5-6 minute/mile range. Another girl chimed in how a friend of hers just ran his first half marathon in 1:15. Ummm sure. That's the time of an elite top runner athlete. No first timer, I don't care how fit they are, is gonna run that.

Anyway, I went along with the banter, thinking mostly about my goal. The time to beat? 42:27. The pace to beat? 6:50 minute/mile. I lined up at the start, only a few people back. I started fast with the pack, and quickly slowed to establish my pace. It was almost like the order of how people were going to finish were set within that first mile.

During the run, I only passed 2 people and I was never passed. After mile 3, I was completely alone. I mean, COMPLETELY. The person that finished ahead of me was a full minute ahead of me, and the person behind me was a full minute behind. This was a very weird feeling. With no one to pace or help motivate me to push harder, all I had was myself.

By the end of the race, I was pretty sure I had been able to beat my time. I was only watching my pace and never the total elapsed time so I couldn't be sure. I finished 16th overall, total time of 41:52, pace of 6:46. Finishing in the top 20 of a 10k like that was pretty damn cool. It was exactly the confidence builder I was looking for, and told me that all the training this summer really has had an impact on my running.

No Pics For You!

Too many pretty pictures and videos lately, time to get back to the brass tacks of blogging. Last weekend was good, with both ups and downs. Every weekend in Sept is packed, as we try to squeeze as much fun as we can out of the final days of nice weather.

Saturday we did a Who Done It Hike, at a nice wooded park area near our house. It was one of those good in theory, bad in practice events. Don't get me wrong, the free bagels and Cliff bars were great, but the actual hike itself ended up being a bit of a chore. The "mystery" was geared more towards the older crowd (6th grade+). It just involved a ton of paper hand outs to read. I guess I was hoping for some live action stuff, with a few actors or something. We got a baby backpack for Casey and she promptly fell asleep 10 minutes in, but the hike was tough for Megan. She just wants to do her own thing and explore at her own pace. It's hard for me sometimes to shut off my stupid goal oriented brain. At one point Megan got tired, and so with 25 lbs. of Casey strapped to my back, I carried the 50 lbs. of Megan for probably a good quarter mile. That was a bit tough.

We came home and rested and then hit up a local car shop doing a customer appreciation day. We mainly just go because they have bouncers and sometimes free pony rides. This year no ponies, and it was so windy out that we cut it short. I did a short run after that.

Sunday was a 25k race for me. I had no plans on doing a speed race, as I'm all about pace now. I got down early because my schedule called for 20 miles, and 25k is 15.5 miles. While doing my pre-race run, I bumped into someone I knew, and before I realized it, we ended up doing a full second loop around the lake, which I didn't mean to do. Ended up doing 22 miles for the day after all was said and done. But more importantly, my pacing was excellent and I felt great afterwards.



Legs were a little tight on my run tonight, but things start to slow down from here on out. Slow down for what you ask? We'll, I'm sure most people can figure it out by now. If it isn't obvious, check back this weekend for more info.

Como Zoo Soo Foo!

This week has been busy and I choose to play some video games instead of blog, so I'm a bit light on posts. Last weekend we had an awesome fun labor day weekend, ending Monday with a long morning and afternoon at the Como Zoo Amusement Park. Andrea got a few end of season unlimited ride passes for a good deal.

Megan loved the swing ride, she had recently gone on one while staying with our friends over vacation. She could also go on a bunch of rides by herself, which was really cool! She just loved picking whatever rides she wanted to go on.

Casey was even able to get in on the action, doing one ride by herself and a spinning tea-cup ride with me. She was having a great time all day, check out the video of her at the end.

For the bigger rides, we just took turns with Megan. That Frog Hopper ride was awesome fun for the kids! Getting her ready for some Power Tower action in a few years. She did it 2 more times by herself.

We ended the day stumbling across a kids entertainer/juggler/magician guy. Megan quickly ran to the front row and sat down in a chair to watch. No big deal we thought, as we hung back. Next thing we know, Megan is up walking around on stage with this guy. I'm thinking, do I run up and get her off and make a scene or do I just let this play out? I mean, the guys a professional child entertainer. He knows how to deal with this right? Sure enough, he got her involved with a rope magic trick and she did okay and went back to her seat when directed. Whewww...

You know you've completely exhausted your kids when they end the day with handfuls of cotton candy that they are too tired to even eat. Now that's a great day.

Here is a cute video of Casey from the start of the morning, hanging out on one of those "insert-a-quarter" rides (that I think are actually 0.75 cents now).



And another video of us at this park area that is inside the middle of the amusement park, having fun on this zip-cord thingy. After doing it a few times, Casey held on all by herself (with Andrea walking along to catch her should she drop). She loved it!

Even More Food and Wine

Saturday morning I woke up with a minor hangover. Just enough to feel dehydrated with a mild headache. I ate a nice big breakfast, downed a couple Advil, and headed out for a morning run. 6 miles later, my headache was gone and I was feeling great. Man I love running, it is a serious cure all.

While everyone else at the resort was out enjoying the afternoon weather doing silly things like golfing or fishing, we stuck to the various indoor activities. First up was a pastry demonstration. Madden's pastry chef of 16 years showed us how she prepared various desserts we were going to have for dinner. (and then we sampled some!)

I left that presentation early to head over to the home beer brewing demonstration. Oddly enough, the night before I met Dan, the executive chef of RJ's American Grill. Just so happens Dan is heavy into home brewing. He quickly schooled me on the primary difference between All-Grain brewing and extract brewing. Basically it amounts to the difference between baking a cake from scratch or making it from a mix you buy at the store. "Serious" home brewers do all-grain brewing. Is this a new hobby I'd like to explore? Yes... at this point in my life? No. But I can clearly see sometime in the near future investing in the space and equipment for some all-grain home brewing. In the meantime, I think I might ask for a cheap intro-starter extract brewing kit for Christmas, and try to brew up some beers that would be ready by spring or early summer time.

After downing a few beer samples, we headed over to the next presentation, hand crafted chocolates! They were totally awesome, although the guy doing the presentation was a bit eccentric. We had to take our chocolate and bolt mid way through, because next up was the serious event of the day: Wine tasting!

The wine tasting was a very elaborate setup, with a large projector presentation and everything. I learned more about wine in that 2 hours than I ever knew my whole life. The wine tasting itself was 10 different wines, 5 white, 5 red. It was called a "tier" tasting, because you started out with the cheap wines and worked up to the grand finale expensive wine. And that last one was damn good, and noticeably different. There were only two samples where I drank the whole sample, and that was one of them.

After that all that wine, we both needed a little break so we napped (passed out?) for about an hour before dinner. Dinner ended up being a choose-your-own-adventure, with all the chefs lined up around the edges of a large meeting room. Each one was preparing their dish, and you could just pick whatever you wanted. In between the chefs was even more wine and champagne, although by this time we had both had enough. Here were some of my favorite dishes of the night:

Left: Scallops with coleslaw. Right: Sea bass with brussel sprouts (awesome!)

Left: Dan's crab cakes (best dish of the night) Right: Grouper fish (10 min wait!)

The dessert display and a picture of us prior to dinner.

Some dishes not pictured included goat, Asian salad with duck, veal, lamb chops, and prime rib. After dinner, we headed back to the room, full, exhausted, and ready to relax the rest of the night. The next morning I woke up at 5:30am for my big 18 mile run, which was the perfect cap to the weekend. We had one last big brunch where some of the chefs were back preparing even more exotic breakfast items. I stuck to some basics, although I did get a cup of a very tasty chia tea.

Vacation Ups and Downs

I like to split my long vacation posts into two posts to cover everything. After getting everyone loaded up Thursday afternoon, we headed over to my friends place in Woodbury to drop off the kids. Upon arriving, my car promptly died. We were bringing both cars over there, so they would have an additional vehicle to transport 5 kids throughout the weekend. So worst case, we had a backup car. I decided that maybe it was just a dead battery, so I quickly bought a new one and threw it in. Car started fine. Okay, problem solved. Nope. We made it as far as Anoka only to have everything electronic die again. Luckily, I quickly exited onto "main street" Anoka, and found a car dealership with a repair shop. They diagnosed my dead alternator. 3 hours and $425 dollars later, we were back on our way up north for our vacation. Not exactly how I wanted to start things out.

The blow was softened slightly when we ate a late dinner around 8pm, and realized we could pick anything off an awesome menu. I went with blackened chicken and lobster and Andrea went with lobster manicotti. We ordered dessert too because why not? It's included!

When we booked our reservation, all they had left were 2 queen beds. On the plus side, there was also 2 bathrooms! The view from our room was nice, but I think I spent a combined 5 minutes sitting out there enjoying it.

Friday was our "free" day to do whatever we felt like. We both got a little exercise in, and I did 14 miles on Paul Bunyan trail. After her run, Andrea got an hour long massage. Then we had a light lunch and just goofed off around the resort for a little while, killing time before catching an afternoon movie. Sadly, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was no longer showing and we were forced to see The Other Guys instead.

Friday night, our dinner was a cookout on the beach. There was live music, lots of free wine tasting, and the food was okay. In hind sight, we would have rather just gone back to the nice restaurant inside, all things considered. I had a few drinks and enough wine tasting to get a nice buzz going.



After dinner, we hit up a chocolate fondue and free beer tasting. A new local brewery, Brainerd Lakes Beer, had just recently become available to the public. They had two beers available, both seemed good to me although I liked the One-Eyed Pike better. Even Andrea liked it, and normally she doesn't like ales.

After a few beers and dessert, there was supposed to be "Wine Bingo" at the resort bar. Andrea headed off to bed and I headed to the bar, ordered a drink and listened to the live music. One of the band members I swear looked just like Napoleon Dynamite. It was too funny... Finally at 10pm, the waitresses started handing out bingo cards. The prize was a ginormous 3 liter bottle of wine. If you've never seen one, trust me, it's huge. I didn't win, but they were going to have games again at 11pm and midnight. I stuck around long enough to rack up a $33 dollar tab and play one more round of bingo, but by then I was wiped and had to hit the sack.

Coming later this week... my reports on running slightly hung over, home beer brewing, wine tasting, and an incredible amount of insanely awesome food.

Vacation Imminent

And it couldn't be here too soon! The last mini-vacation that we had was back in May of 2007. My Mom watched Megan for a full 3 days, while we enjoyed time up north. It was also the first time I ever ran a distance 14 miles. Oh, those were the days. This weekend I'll be running a combined total of 34 miles. Knowing me, I'll probably extend it a few miles because the Paul Bunyan Trail is some of the best running conditions ever.

For this weekend, we are going to send the girls over to a good friends. They also have 3 other kids, age range 7-11. This is great for Megan, and we know she is going to have a blast the entire time. Casey will be different story. We are confident she will manage, based on some recent interactions. It might be rough for the first hour or so but our friends kids loved playing with her, and I think they will do a great job of making her forget all about Mom & Dad leaving.

Our actual vacation is at Maddens Resort on Gull lake. I know, you might be thinking, why go there again when we've been there 3 times already? Well, because we've enjoyed it every time and why not do something you know you will enjoy? On top of that, the theme is "Food & Wine Weekend" which sounds awesome. I'll probably just barely break even on calories in/out with my 34 miles running. There is chocolate and wine tasting all weekend, meals by top chefs from around MN, and who knows what else! I'm looking forward to a Home Beer Brewing demonstration! Maybe I'll come back home with a desire to explore a new hobby.

I've even convinced Andrea that we should take some time to see a movie too. Guess what we will be seeing? That's right!! Scott Pilgrim vs. the World! Don't think the weekend could get much better. I'll give the full report when we get back.

Scott Anderson vs. the World

Okay so before I get into my advertisement for my brother and his youtube videos, I have to stress again about how awesome of a movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was. And I also need to get my 2 cents out there to let other people know they should go see it. And when I say "other people", I'm talking about any of my geek friends (I'm looking at you Steve).

I wouldn't argue that the movie has a niche audience, and so I guess I can understand why it did so bad at the box office. I just didn't think it would do THAT bad. So what separates this movie audience from your standard comic book movie? I suppose there is a certain amount of universal appeal to the whole superhero/save the world/fight the bad guys movie, that is lacking from Scott Pilgrim.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is about a slacker 22 year old kid struggling between dating a 17 year old catholic high school girl and the girl of his dreams. And then all of a sudden people start fighting video game style, and there are tons of laughs in between. I haven't laughed that hard in the theater since the famous scene from Bruce Almighty. Anyway, go see this movie if you even have the slightest thought you might like it, because it IS an epic of epic epicness.

Anyway, enough about Scott Pilgrim and more about Scott Anderson. My brother wanted to share with my visitors (aka family members) the fact that he is now posting on youtube.

Scott's YouTube Channel
Anderson Family Photos

Most of his videos are clips of 10 month old Elizabeth learning the new tricks that almost-toddlers begins to learn. But some of his videos are more.... creative? For example:

Plantars Acting Up

This week was my peak running mileage of the summer training. The extra mileage combined with the hottest and most humid week of the summer just didn't mix well. My plantars started hurting on Thursday, so I took a few anti-inflammatory this weekend. With some extra icing time, the foot is okay. Thankfully today the weather was perfect. I had almost forgot what it's like to run in good weather.

Aside from my foot hurting, this weekend was a boat load of fun. Saturday morning we took the girls to the Children's Museum. This was Casey's first trip unless you count the one time she went while Andrea was still pregnant! Everyone had a great time, and the only reason we had to leave was due to tired kids. Casey literally fell asleep the minute we left the parking ramp.

Right after that, I caught Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. This movie was down right awesome. From the intro Zelda song, to the one-liners, to the fighting, and all the video game references in between. Sadly, the box office has spoken, and this movie is a flop. That's too bad, because I enjoyed this movie more than a lot this year. I honestly would have thought this movie appealed to the video game masses out there, but apparently they were all too busy playing Starcraft 2 this weekend?

Saturday evening Casey went to church daycare where Andrea was helping out, and she had a good time with the other toddlers. Meanwhile, Megan and I hit Nicollet Commons Splash Park. The weather turned cooler around 5:30pm, but it was still awesome and Megan didn't want to leave.

Today was the only bummer part of the whole weekend. We packed up everyone to go to swimming at the YMCA, while Megan had her last swimming lesson of the summer. Sadly, when we got there someone had thrown up in the pool so it was closed. On top of that, Megan didn't want to do her lessons so we just left. But we made the best of it, and went out for ice cream and then visited a park.

Now I just have to make it through 8 more days of work before I can enjoy a very much needed vacation...

My Journey

A few weeks ago I happened to check the Do Groove web site, and was surprised to see my picture come up on the front page (I'm the second dot!!). I shared it with a few family members and Andrea threw it up on Facebook. So what took me so long to share it here? I'm not sure I guess. I think it has a lot to do with my mixed feelings about it.

One the one hand, I am proud of the changes I've made in my life. If my story motivates even one person to make similar changes, then it's all worth it. But on the other hand, I have a hard time accepting praise for essentially screwing up my life first. I wouldn't be in this video and I wouldn't be sharing this story if I had just lived my life the way I should have all along.

There are lots of people who do exactly that. People who make health, fitness, and nutrition a part of their daily life from the get go. Those are the people who should be praised. Those are the people we should look up to. The parents who give their children the SKILLS to live healthy and TEACH nutrition. The families that know the dangers of fast food. The people that know the importance of daily physical activity. They are the ones we should do videos of and learn from.

The video itself is well edited, and I'm glad it didn't paint video games in a huge negative light. Video games were simply my primary form of inactivity, but they were not to blame. There are many types of inactivity, and which ever one is your favorite, is not the bad guy. It was my CHOICE to spend time exclusively with video games, at the expense of everything else. Choice is always the key.

I also didn't talk about alcohol and my personal struggles with alcohol. Alcohol contributed greatly to my poor health, because alcohol is 100% useless calories that your body can do nothing with. Quite frankly, I was afraid to bring up the subject during the interview. I've been sober 2 out of the last 5 years and for the most part, not done much drinking this year (but I have had some). If wine is included at our "Food & Wine" vacation weekend, you can bet I'll be enjoying some! I can freely admit that at this point in my life, I'm not ready to say I'll never drink again. But who knows, after time anything can change, and maybe some day a decision like that would not be that big of a deal.

Another thing I did not mention in the video is my loathing of fast food. Obviously I'm sure I could never have gotten away with saying how horrible McDonald's food is, or how I think fast food contributes a lot to why people are obese in this country. It would have been edited out for legal reasons. And yes, I eat fast food every now and then, but when I do, I remind myself what a poison it is. The difference is now I might eat a chicken nugget or two. I can remember how 10 years ago, I would roll out of bed hung over every Sunday morning around 11am, and then head over to McDonald's to purchase 5 or 6 0.39 cent cheeseburgers. Nothing better than starting your day out with 1,800 calories.

But that was then, and this is now. I don't think anyone realizes how much change I've really made. The visible change is only the tip of the iceberg. So if you've read this far, you've gotten a small glimpse.

The whole story, my two year journey

Generally Tired

Survived another week, and honestly, I should be more stressed out, but I'm not. Probably because I'm simply too tired to be stressed. Some of the things I've been working towards at work are coming to fruition. I've cut through the major red tape barriers and will be finally getting my ideas out to some of the real decision makers. I'm excited about that, but in some ways will just be glad to have it reach that point. Simply because I'll finally be able to say to myself that I pushed my ideas as absolutely far as they could go.

In other news, Megan has been asking me every single day this week, "Are you going to stay home tomorrow?". Constantly answering no has been pretty tough, but at least tonight I got to say yes. We don't have too much planned this weekend, so hopefully something will come to me tomorrow. It's my Mom's birthday today, and I tried calling her at least 4 times with no luck. I ended up taking the cheap way out and just texted her a happy birthday. Sunday we'll get together and have a birthday dinner of Famous Dave's.

Not much else new going on this week. The fact that it is August already is still mind boggling. It feels like I bought my "new" computer a few months ago, but it was back in October of 09!! On the plus side, it also means we are only 3 weeks away from a long needed vacation. I probably haven't mentioned that yet, so maybe I'll wait to post more details on that in the next few days.

Surprise

As I was preparing for my run yesterday morning, Megan told me she had a surprise for me when I got back. As soon as I returned, she immediately jumped up and told me she could tell me the surprise now. She had me lean in close, and whispered to me, "We can go to the Zoo today!" I looked at Andrea with a 'Did you set this up?' look on my face, and she said not at all. Well, I wasn't about to disappoint, so we got ready and headed out to the Zoo!

It started out okay, with some cloud cover and decent temps. But the sun came out and it quickly got much to hot for my taste. We enjoyed a lot of time at the new playground area, which was brand new for Casey. And then we went inside and checked out the new baby dolphin who is only 2 weeks old.

Megan is quite the climber these days. She loves those indoor climbing walls whenever we come across one. Another year or two and I think I might introduce her to belaying.

Casey enjoyed the bouncy fishes and climbing inside the turtles. She went on a few slides and found some friends to walk around with. She got a little scared when we went into the dark cave that has a big bear inside, but she was okay.

After the Zoo, we hit up a lunch at Chili's, which was okay but a little greasy. I just pigged out on the bottomless chips and then cancelled my actual order. I was still stuffed just from the chips and eating the left overs from the two kids meals we ordered. I was so full I couldn't even eat dinner later that night.

Now the trick is to get through today with out over eating at any paticular meal in order to "make up" for missing a meal yesterday.

Record Hot Run

I was lamenting to my buddy this weekend about the fact that for all my running this year, I haven't actually gotten any personal records. In part it's due to my plantars and not wanting to force another injury and also due to just a different style of training. But sure enough, I had a record this week, running in probably the hottest weather I've ever done. I think my previous record was 93 degrees, but Tuesday night was 94! It was only a 6 mile recovery run, but it might as well have been 20 miles for how hard it was.

Tonight we baby sat my niece, so my brother and his wife could go see Inception. Sadly, he came to the conclusion about the movie that I refused to give in to. Because if you assume the movie ends that way, well, quite frankly the movie just sucks. But there are just too many damn hints to that particular assumption, which means I now have to change my review of the movie and say, it sucks!

I also promised some more pictures, so I snapped a couple tonight while we were playing with the girls. First we played with play dough for awhile, which got everywhere as it usually does. Somehow it even made it downstairs on the carpet...

Then Casey started having some fun playing around in her cousins car seat. She was rocking back and forth, having a great time.

Once a week slacker

Clearly something big must be taking up all my free time, preventing me from blogging. But alas, it is just more work. Megan and I are watching Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoons in the evenings as well. We are just about done with season 2 and will be starting up the last season, maybe tonight!

I've been accused of not posting enough pictures of the kids lately, and rightly so. To counter that, I'll throw up a few pictures and a video today and see if I can't get a few more up later this week.

First up we have a couple of cute Casey popsicle shots. The one out on the deck is so dang adorable. She's just lounging in her little froggy chair enjoying that chocolate popsicle.

Couple other recent pictures, one with the grandparents and one with Casey holding my medal from my recent half marathon.

You may remember my recent post about Casey dancing to the Secret Agent man song over at a park near our place. What I didn't share is what Megan was up to during that time. Here is the full video... watch closely for what happens at the end. Somehow I don't think I'm going to have to worry too much about protecting her from boys...

Entertainment Update

Slow week on the blog, so I thought I'd just run down a few more things I've been spending my entertainment dollars on lately. Last weekend, in part for a birthday present for my brother, we went and saw Star Wars in Concert. We had great seats, eye level with the orchestra. It was a fun experience, although I often had to remind myself I was listening to a live orchestra and not just watching a hugely over priced trailer for Star Wars. I think the only thing that would have made the experience better for me was to actually listen to it in a normal orchestra house type place that didn't have to enhance the sound with microphones and speakers.

Movie wise, I actually caught two movies this week! That's totally not normal for me. First up, I saw Predators, which originally I had no plans to see. But it was getting good reviews and I got an invite out to see it, so I thought what the heck? I wasn't that impressed. It was mostly meh, with nothing overly cool. *SPOILER ALERT* The samurai fight scene was kinda lame, and the ending with the guy covered in mud just like Arnold was too much for me. I don't care how buff he was, he looked like a stupid scrawny version of Arnold. And then when he starts yelling "Kill me, I'm here, kill me" just like Arnold, I sorta ignored the rest of the movie. *END SPOILER*

To clean out the memory of that movie, Andrea and I saw Inception today, and that movie was down right awesome (and not just because I have a thing for Ellen Page). It was 2.5 hours of enjoyment, leading up to an ending that sorta left a bad taste in my mouth. Not because it was bad, but because it required me to leave the theater having to decide for myself how it ended. Obviously that is the whole damn point of the movie, so that's why it was so awesome from beginning to end.

The other reason I liked the movie so much, is because I have personally experienced some of the aspects of dreaming they explore in the movie. On more than one occasion, I have "woke up" from a dream, only to realize I'm still dreaming. I also have my own set of "reality tests" that I use when dreaming to become Lucid. Sadly, some aspects they explored in the movie are completely contradictory to known facts about dreaming and even some scientifically proven aspects of dreaming. Examples: in dreaming, text or words on paper are rarely meaningful or constant, often containing strange letters and characters. Also, mirrors often do not work or project a distorted or incorrect reflection. This all has to do with the part of the brain that actually does the dreaming.

The other aspect of dreaming that was way off from real life studies, is the concept of the passage of time in dreams. The movie tried to sell us that dreaming takes place "faster" then real world, the deeper you go into the sub conscious, to the point where if you go deep enough, you can dream out years of time in a matter of a few "real" hours. Sadly, this is all false, as time has been proven to move at pretty much the same rate as real life in dreams, and that some aspects of doing things in dreams actually takes LONGER in the dream, then in real life. This study here basically explains it all, which is information I already knew going into this movie.

Still, just the raw fact that I love the various aspects of dreaming and my own personal experiences with dreaming so much, this movie was a huge hit for me, and I really enjoyed it.

Last Airbender Hate

The first review I read about the movie The Last Airbender was in the Star Tribune. It got 3 out of 4 stars, and so I was hopeful the movie would deliver on my expectations. I ended up seeing it over July 4th weekend, and enjoyed it a lot.

So why all the hate? Everywhere I look people are ripping on this movie. Sure, I never saw the original cartoon series (watching it now with Megan actually). Is the movie the exact same as the cartoon? No... but what [insert source material]-Made-Into-Movie is exactly like the [insert source material]?

Sure there are exceptions. Sin City? That movie is so close to the book, the dialog is line by line from the book. But that's more the exception more than the rule. Most anything else is an "adaptation". Harry Potter, Watchmen, GI-Joe, A-Team, every random comic book-made-into-movie.

Yet almost every complaint about this movie is how it's "so not like the cartoon series." I sat there watching the first episode of the cartoon going, "Wow this is just like the movie.". You can do a lot more character development and story lines with 3 seasons of a cartoon show, and no matter how you slice it, it would be damn hard to condense down to even a trilogy of movies. Hell, Harry Potter can't even condense a single book into a single movie. It has to do the last book in 2 parts! Why? Because it's a great way to milk even more money out of the fans.

Needless to say, I'm bummed that the movie is getting such a bad reception. I would have loved to watch two more in a trilogy series of this story line. Sadly, people are just making fun of M. Night and I highly doubt another movie in the series will be made.

Working Too Much

Short work week but still felt longer. I think it's these long summer days, combined with all the recent time off. Makes you just want to take more and more time off... Instead, I find myself doing just a little bit more work then I should. Getting to work at 6am and sticking around past what would be a normal day. And then finding myself logging in at night after girls are in bed doing a little more. Not really sure why I insist on doing this.

Mostly it just has to do with the basic fact that once I start something, I have to see it through to completion. Or I'm constantly thinking about it until I can get back to it. Adding to the problem, is that I have no other distractions right now in the post-evening hours. Few weeks ago I was playing Tales of Vesperia on an XBOX 360 I loaned from my brother. It was a fun game and I poured 60+ hours into it in probably a 2 week period. Not bad at all...

Right now I'm waiting for StarCraft II to be released, it's due out on July 27th, but 3 weeks is actually a long time without another side project. My running sorta counts, but it's so ingrained to my normal routine that it's hard to call it a hobby anymore. Just wrapped up a 6-day in a row series, something I've probably never done.

Anyway, where was I going with this? No clue... I guess I just need to find some more hobbies, which really translates to getting back into gaming. I've got my eye on purchasing "the new XBOX 360", once it is available in the $199 dollar version. Maybe it already is? Hmmm... time to go browsing.

Update from Microsoft: "We will offer a $199 Xbox 360 this fall. We have no other details to share at this time."

Bleh, "fall" is pretty far off, not to mention, not very exact. Thanks for nothing Microsoft!

Straight up Ass Whoppin

That's what I took this morning. I've done races with hills. I've run in bad weather conditions, both heat or rain. But when all those conditions come together in perfect harmony, along with my insistence to push myself to achieve my goals, you have a recipe for disaster. The race this morning was by far the hardest race I have ever run, and I don't say that lightly. This was the first time I ever had one of the medical staff come up to me at the finish line, as I was attempting to steady myself. For a moment or two, I really did wonder if I would pass out. But I didn't, and I survived.

I started the race out strong, and feeling good. The heat was first, with everyone sweating just standing around at the starting line. For about 2.5 miles, I stayed with the pace group, actually moving a few strides ahead of the pacer so I wasn't so surrounded by people. Then the rain started.

This wasn't just rain, it was a torrential down pour. I'm surprised we didn't hear sirens or anything. Within minutes, everything was wet. Feet felt more like lead weights, soaked with water. At one point, the course narrowed into a section about 10 feet across with barriers on each side that acted as a channel for the water. Everyone just had to grin and bare it as we ran through 2-3 inches of water with no where else to go but right through it. Still, despite that, I kept my goal going, slightly ahead of the pace runner.

Then around mile 7.5 came "The Hill". I've run a lot of hills, in fact every Sunday my run has a very big hill on it. I also live basically on the top of a huge hill, so no matter where I run around my house there are some hills to deal with. But this hill, in these conditions, and the pace I was running, was like instant death. A good portion of people around me dropped down to walks. I dug REALLY deep and finished the hill running. The pacer passed me at the top of the hill, and he was completely alone. Not a single person was still with him. I could see him ahead of me for about another mile, and then I never saw him again.

After "The Hill", I never really recovered. My body spent too much getting up that hill, and despite getting back down to my goal pace for a little while longer, I knew it wouldn't hold. The last couple miles I had nothing left, I just relied on my training to get me through, focus on one foot in front of the other. The last 3 miles were the longest miles I have ever run. I wanted nothing more but to stop running, just give up, quit, what's the point, I've got nothing left. But I didn't. One foot in front of the other. As I ran down the last length, no one ahead or behind me, I got to hear the announcer call out my name. Put my hands up in triumph and crossed the finish line.



The red line clearly shows why this was the hardest run I have ever done. I ran within a few beats of my maximum heart rate for a solid 9 miles, which means for 9 miles, I was spending every last ounce of energy my body had to give. You might have guessed, I did NOT do any additional running after this bitch. Still crazy? Definitly.

Guilty Pleasures

My latest musical guilty pleasures are on somewhat different ends of the spectrum. Okay, maybe the are both catchy pop songs that would drive my brother crazy, but the artists themselves are pretty different.

First up is the new song by the oh so yummy Katy Perry, California Gurls. I liked some of her other music, and this song made me bounce around in my car. But damn, the video took it too a whole new level. And to think she was raised by Christian pastor parents. I'm sure they are proud.

It doesn't hurt that she is also basically a Zooey Deschanel look alike, who I also think is muchas hot. I liked the parody of this song that Andrea found called Minnesota Gurls. That's some good stuff, and not bad with half a million views. Grain Belt represent!

On the other side of the pop coin, is a new song called Bulletproof by someone I had never heard of named La Roux, which is just French for "The Red". I ended up watching a few interviews of Elly Jackson, and she is cool if a bit eccentric. That's prolly why I like her attidude, I mean, I'm eccentric too right? What the difference between eccentric and crazy?

Leading into another 3 day weekend that looks to be semi-busy. I'm looking forward to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Should be a good time. I also have a half marathon race at the ass crack of 6:30am on Sunday morning. I'm going to run with a pace team for the first time ever, which means I have to get there at least 30 minutes early. If I want to do a warmup, I might have to get up before 5am. Did I mention after the race I'll be doing a little more running? Why do all this? Because I'm "eccentric"... or crazy. Yeah, mostly crazy.

Food: In-Depth

4-day weekend over already? Not surprising, plenty of stuff to keep me busy. Not to mention work calling me Friday night making me do work from home. But let's not get into that shall we?

Back in April, I started some "In-Depth" posts (Running & Work), and I had fully planned on keeping them going but wasn't motivated to get more up in May. So I thought I'd try to do one before June is over and then maybe shoot for 2 more in July. Topic for today? Food and eating!

I have a shitty relationship with food, that much is a given. Like so many other things, it is hard for me to enjoy food (and specifically 'bad' food) in moderation. The best I can do is not buy certain things or keep them in my house. That's only one skirmish in the larger battle of staying away from unhealthy food.

There are a few contributing factors to areas of my unhealthy eating, but most of it all boils down to willpower and a lack of pressing need to change my eating habits. Obviously, a large amount of my eating is healthy. I've developed some routines that keep me in check: healthy oatmeal breakfast every day, packed lunch at work every day, and healthy family evening meals. Some of the problems come when I have to break away from the weekly routine. Other areas are controlling my evening meal portions (eating every ones leftovers), not snacking in the evenings, and not eating badly on the weekends.

The stupid part is that with all my running, I can afford to eat unhealthy (from a calorie intake stand point). My laboratory measured resting metabolic rate was 1,886 calories. On any given run, I'm burning between 900-2,200 calories. Running 5 days a week means that on average, I can consume 3,000-3,400 calories daily without breaking a sweat (pun intended). Yikes, do you have any idea how much bad food you can get away with eating with that many spare calories?

The killer part of that whole equation is a form of Catch-22. Am I eating more because my body needs the additional calories from running more? Or am I running more so that I can eat more? Or am I simply eating more because I can? And this is where the willpower part fails, because regardless of the answer, I should still focus on healthy calories. More fruits, vegetables, simple carbs and proteins, and less hot dogs, processed frozen foods, and random snacking on sugary/salty foods.

So what is the answer? Practically every Monday for the last year, I've said to myself, okay today I will make a change and stop snacking on random bad food. And almost every Monday by noon, my resolve has shattered as someone brings in a random left over cake from some weekend celebration (and even I've brought one in before!). I think the only answer is the one I've been unwilling to face: all or nothing. Time to put my money where my mouth is, and own up to my daily decisions and make a change. Wish me luck!

Fallacy of Potential

Running 2 miles worth of strideouts (and 8 miles total) in 90 degree weather is a good way to get yourself killed. But that didn't stop me from doing it, or from feeling like a total bad ass when I was finished. Sure, my heart felt like it might bust out of my chest, but that just means I'm that much more manly, right?

During my insane levels of physical exertion today, I started thinking about limits. More specifically, I was thinking about my limits, and how I'm always trying to push myself beyond my capabilities (and not just physical in nature). This lead me to thinking about the word "potential" and a phrase I hate, "full potential".

Why do I hate that phrase you ask? Because it is meaningless. The word potential is an adjective, meaning it has to be used to describe something else. In physics, you don't talk about the "potential" of mass. You talk about it's potential energy. The same concept holds true when talking about your own potential. Potential for what? Potential to be a good father? Potential to eat an entire pizza? Potential to run until you collapse? Don't use the phrase "reaching full potential" unless you at least augment it with a point of reference.

The whole concept of potential is hogwash anyway. Having the POTENTIAL to do anything is meaningless, what matters is the DOING. You can potentially do anything all day, and still not accomplish anything. I could potentially become president some day. But surprise! That's not going to happen. My suspicion is that the most successful, and probably most content/happy people don't even think about what their full potential might be. They are out there DOING exactly what they are capable of doing, and the concept of wondering what their potential might be, is most likely foreign to them.

For the record, I wasn't always like this. Lazy used to be my middle name and I made a full time job out of procrastination. For whatever reason, as part of my overall transformation over the last few years, I just can no longer do that. If I see something that needs doing, I do it. If I think of something I want to achieve, I set out for it. I've stopped bothering to worry about what if's, and just go for it, and see what happens. I find life to be much more fun that way.

Long Week

This was the first time in a month that I actually had to be at work all 5 days. Thankfully I survived, and next week I'm only doing a 3-day week! Nice. Aside from work, I did a couple of hot runs, and not much else. Megan was at the YMCA day camp all week, that I mentioned before. Despite having a few days of rain, she absolutely loved her time there. It was even more fun because she attented with two neighbor girls that she is friends with.

Today we hit up the Zoo, which was an awesome decision. The weather was so perfect outside, that we didn't even go inside the entire time we were at the zoo. We parked, walked through one of the outdoor enterences, and then went straight to the Zoo Farm. Casey had such a great time in the petting Zoo. I thought she might be a little scared, but she was fearless and loved touching and going up to all the goats.

Not sure what we are doing for Fathers Day tomorrow, but it will probably involve a brunch somewhere. The problem is where? Need to find a place that won't be too insanely busy as to require an hour wait, but have good enough food and service so that we can enjoy it. My brother was saying this new place in town called Wild Bill's was having a brunch thing, but I just got done reading a ton of horrible reviews. Hmmm... anyone got any suggestions? I got a few hours to decide...

NOSUP4U

I saw that (blog title) on a license plate driving home from work today. Seriously? You like a TV show reference enough to use that as a license plate? Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all about custom license plates. In fact, I've had two in my life so far. They were uber cheap out in Idaho, like $25 bucks.

The first custom plate I had was "DEIMOS1", which sorta sucked because someone already had "DEIMOS". Deimos is better known in Greek mythology as the god of fear, dread and terror. It is also (lesser known) as the first Quake Clan that I joined, and ultimately helped lead/organize the years of 95-98. You can still Google up some hold history on that Clan, including this little nugget I found. Some of the names of people mentioned in that list were long time friends. That was the peak of my time playing Quake, where our clan even beat the likes of "Thresh", who made millions playing video games and even has his own Wiki page. While a part of Clan Deimos, I went by the name NightShade, an online handle I had used since I was 15.

The second custom plate I had was "GRIMDAR", which if you didn't notice by now is the URL of this blog as well. Grimdar Hillmover, to give the full name, was my persona in the online game Everquest. My profile picture? That's artwork someone did for me of my online dwarf character. I've posted before about the time I spent in that game, and there is even an official record of it on the interwebs, 365 days 19 hours 55 minutes. I've never mentioned what exactly I did during that time. For the majority of the time, I was a Guild leader, meaning I had to organize and orchestrate online raids, bringing together 40-70 people, to work together to achieve goals. My more enjoyable memories are the numerous conventions I went to where I met all these people in person, that I spent so many hours with online. Those were some great times, parties, and events I'll never forget.

It's weird looking back on that time in my life, where a video game was so important to me. Where work and home life were just things that got in the way of that next online challenge. The scary part is that no matter how much I try to deny it, there is always going to be a small part of me that misses it. When I think about what exactly it is that I missed, it's boils down pretty quickly to one thing. I was somebody important. I was a "leader", I was respected, and people honestly looked up to me. Whether it was my skills in Quake or my strategic planning in Everquest. People knew who I was, and in my own little world/mind, I was famous.

I remember very well walking around one of the Everquest conventions with my little name tag around my neck, and someone came up to me, so excited to meet the actual Grimdar. They related a long story about how I went out of my way one day to help them out and they never forgot. It's probably the closest I'll ever feel to being a celebrity. And it was a good feeling, and one that is not easily forgotten.

Slow Blog Week

There wasn't much going on this week, and I couldn't find the time to blog. Instead, I found the time to use one of the new templates available on blogger. I had been thinking about a new look lately, and I like how this turned out. I didn't like how my header graphic looked, so I just removed it for now. I'll be trying to find some new header image to put up there. It's just way to plain right now.

I was off work today, because I always try to take one off around my birthday, mostly as a present for myself. Tomorrow is my actual birthday, and oddly enough, we have absolutely no plans. Maybe I'll just find a way to pass the day away with video games. I haven't mentioned it before, but I currently have my brothers XBox 360.

Today is also special for a different reason, as it marks the anniversary of my blog. This is going to be my 5th year of blogging, which is quite a long time. I never thought I would have kept it up this long, but here I am! People talk about blogs and blogging as if they are the "fax" of the internet. Meaning completely outdated, serving no purpose, and "Who the hell still blogs?". Me baby, me. Screw you Facebook and Twitter.

We decided to take the girls over to Edinborough Park, which is kind of funny. Because apparently it has been exactly one year since I took Megan last, which was one year before that. So... at least we're consistent?

This evening, we attended a free concert at a local park we go to often. They are doing free concerts every Friday night for the rest of the summer, so we will probably go to a bunch of them since it's just down the road. There was supposed to be food vendors, but a bunch backed out at the last minute because they were afraid of bad weather. But it turned out to be a very nice night for playing in the park while listening to music.

Here are some videos from today. First up, we have Megan and I shooting baskets.



And another video, this one of Casey dancing along to the live band doing the song, "Secret Agent Man". This song will forever make me think of Chuck E Cheese.

Rainy Day Fun

We did our best to make lemonade out lemons today, as we had all these out door activities planned and it was raining on and off all day. Started the morning out with a visit to the YMCA Day Camp Streefland. Megan is going there in two weeks for a week long day camp, and they were having an open house so I thought it would be a good time to just visit and get her excited about going. It worked out well and we had a great time and a free lunch of hot dogs.

After that, we headed over to Primrose, where Megan attended for a month last year. I never talked about it much at the time, but basically we needed some extra help that month and daycare provided us with that. Primrose was also having an open house, and they have the BEST open houses. Once again, they didn't disappoint. Bouncers, petting zoo, pony rides, kids ferris wheel, face painting, and more food. They did take money for "tickets" but it was super cheap, and I had no problem doing that.

In other news, something cool that occurred recently that I didn't even mention. Megan has officially graduated from ECFE speech class! Not that I didn't think she wouldn't, but it was great to get that stamp of approval from the professionals. They put her through all sorts of tests, not just language and speech related, and she did fine on everything. I have absolutely no regrets of removing TV from my house, even if it wasn't a factor in her improvements, I'm sure it didn't hurt.

At 2 and 1/2, we were just getting Megan to say a few words and had started in on sign language. At 1 year, Casey knows well over 10-12 signs, and can already ask for the things she wants (through non-verbal communication). I've learned the hard way how much of an impact parents have on their kids in the early years. I can freely admit that I failed Megan in the early years of her development, and I have no problems owning up to that. And to anyone that might try to sugar coat it, or try and tell me kids can develop at different rates, I will gladly call bullshit, because I've experienced first hand what a difference we as parents can make for our kids.

If there is one thing I have learned, is that making mistakes is always the best way to improve yourself. How come I can never seem to just skip the first part, and not make the mistakes in the first place?

Insane Luck

Apparently running during rush hour in the suburbs is a bad idea. I drove home expecting to hit the treadmill due to rain, but by the time I got near the house, the rain had let up. So instead, I went into the gym to change and go running outside, between 4:30pm - 5:30pm.

I was almost hit at stop sign intersections three times. Each time the person was totally clueless and coasts right into the crosswalk section of the stop sign in question. Once I had to completely stop or get hit, and the guy finally looks up and notices me. I'm standing there with my arms up in a questioning manner, as if to say, "WTF dude?". His window was down, and he goes, "Oh sorry buddy."

This just made me even more angry, because it made me think of the Dane cook skit, where he talks about people calling you Pal or Buddy that are clearly not your buddy. Fast forward to 3:45, and you'll see what I'm talking about. I kept my mouth shut and continued on. I finished the run and made it home safe. But I think I'll be keeping my after work runs to paths and lakes, and no more rush hour sidewalk running.

Beat the Heat

What an awesome start to the 4 day weekend, and it's only half over! Friday we decided to try something new, and took a trip out to Como Zoo. Believe it or not, this was something new for the entire family. I've been to Como Zoo before, but probably not in 20 years or more. It was hot, but we enjoyed seeing the unique animals like giraffes, zebras, kudus, and ostriches. Casey had a blast, and at the end Megan and I went on the Tilt-a-Whirl which was mad fun. The only bummer was that the polar bears didn't arrive until June 3rd! We missed it by just a few days. We've decided to make a return trip for the polar bears and the dragon roller coaster.

Today was another hot one, with a high of 90 degrees. I did an 8 miler starting at 7am, and was still soaked when I finished. After that was Casey's official 1st birthday party. Tons of food and cake, I'm still full. Casey slept through the first half of the party but had fun once she woke up. We keep our birthday parties pretty low key, but I'm thinking we might do something bigger for Megan's 5th later this year.

After the birthday party, we even found time to sneak away and catch a movie, curtiousy of baby sitting by Grandma Gayle. We saw Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. We both enjoyed it, it was not a movie to be taken seriously. It delivered on action, small amount of plot, hot female lead, and some fun twists and turns along the way.

Megan all dressed up, ready for the party.



I can't auto-fix the red eye in this picture, or Casey ends up looking like some sort of alien.



Another cute shot of Casey, with me hiding in the background.



Eating her birthday cake, and loving it.



Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler with some rain possible. Going to get my first real long run of the year in, and start as early as I can handle in order to get out before it gets to hot. Need to work off all that birthday cake and other horrible amounts of calories I consumed today. Still trying to get back down to 180 before the summer ends, and so far, I've not come close.