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.

Facebook Final Decision

Final is such a strong word. Who knows what the future might bring. Maybe in 10 years the only way to get a job is to be on Facebook. And cars might fly. So one of the last few people I knew that wasn't on Facebook finally joined, giving me pause to actually consider it again. I thought, hey, I'll join Facebook, and just post links to my blog and people can come here.

Then I read an article in Time magazine about Facebook and that helped me solidify my decision to stay away from it. I could say a bunch about privacy and the way Facebook makes it convoluted for average people to keep their information hidden, and all the other shady things that they do, but I don't have much to stand on in the privacy argument. I have a public blog where I do basically the same information sharing with the world.

Naw, for me, it's about the money. You'd have to be sorta clueless not to realize that Facebook generates millions of dollars in revenue. Sure, the CEO spouts off about information sharing making the world a better place, and all this peace and love type crap, but really it's just all about the Benjamin's. I spend all day at work putting more money in someone elses pocket then my own, why would I want to spend my free time doing the same damn thing?

The funny part is that even I made money off internet advertising. The year was 1994 and I was a freshmen at college. I had a college website up with questionable content, and was approached by someone to put adds on my page with click-through revenue. I made $400 bucks in a single month at the peak. You'd have thought I would have turned that into my own empire. Instead, I was contacted by the college Chancellor and told to take my web site down or face legal action.

So no, I'm not going to contribute to some stupid advertising revenue generating crazy machine, no matter how many other people join. If I want to keep in touch with someone, I'll email them. I'll call them. I'll invite them over for dinner. Now I just have to hope that by the time my girls grow up, Facebook has lost it's uber importance with the teenage crowd.

Bring It

Scorcher this morning. I didn't start my run until 8am and it was already muggy as heck. I pushed out a solid 13.5 miles, focusing on keeping my heart rate at a specific level despite the humidity. Recently, I actually paid good hard cash to get my VO₂ max and Anaerobic Threshold numbers measured in a laboratory. Maybe it's a little obsessive, but I've only got so many hobbies. Might as well spend money on the things I enjoy.

With Casey turning one in just a few days, I find myself once again thinking about the way I perceive the passage of time as I get older. (and for the record, it speeds up - a lot). Even last night we had some friends over for dinner and Andrea was commenting how everything speeds up once you become parents. It's so weird, and so true.

I think it has to do with the "new factor". It's like when you go on vacation to a new place. The vacation seems to fly by because every day you get to experience something new. Parenting is the same way. Virtually every day is a new experience, or... more often a new challenge. There might be short periods of "sameness" but they are rare. The sum of all this hard work is that time seems to fly by, and I sometimes have to look around and remind myself how I got here.

Today I was looking through pictures of Megan from year 1 to 2, and I forgot how much more change is coming. I'm looking forward to two kids that can play together instead of having to protect Casey non stop. Hopefully Megan will get past that phase soon too. And of course, having two kids that sleep through the night in the same room will be a huge bonus for everyone in the house once that happens.

I posted once before about how my life recently felt like a roller coaster. I think if I had to adjust that now, I'd say that I've survived the first big down hill. It was scarier and harder then I would have liked, but here we go. Bring on the next crest and some more crazy ups and downs. I'm ready for it.

Work or Play

Tomorrow at work is a big presentation. It's finally the chance to get my big idea off the ground. Not that I think it will go anywhere, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take right? I thought about how I could plug in to work tonight, and do some more tweaking on the presentation. I realized instead that work will go on. Changing a few words here and there isn't going to have any impact. In fact, in a lot of ways, the outcome is most likely already determined. Not in the "all future is predetermined" sort of way, but in the sense that either this big idea is going to noticed by the real decision makers or it won't. And if it doesn't, then hey, I gave it my best shot.

Instead, I decided that more play would be better for me tonight. Just got done dancing around the basement with the 3 loves of my life, listening to fun dance tracks for the last 30 minutes, and it was great. As the song goes, "Dance... even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room." Great advice, I'd highly recommend it.

The weather couldn't be better. This last weekend I got my 3-days in a row of running in, with some more running tonight. It's down right scary to me how much I enjoy running now. I leave work on a night like today, and the second I step outside my heart skips a beat in anticipation at the running conditions. I signed up for a half marathon race on July 4th. I plan on running it with a pace team, which will be the first time I've ever done that. Should be interesting.

Rain Sucks

4 days straight of rain is seriously getting old. Thankfully the weekend forecast is looking good so I should be able to get some outdoor runs in. So far this week I have technically only exercised once, so I'm going to try and do a 3-day over the weekend starting tomorrow morning at 5am.

On Monday this week, I bought a new toy. Someone at work was selling it through the inter-office classifieds. It's called the WeeRide Co-Pilot:



It was only used 2-3 times by the people that owned it, so it is basically in brand new condition. I was so excited to show it to Megan when I bought it, because our neighbor has one and she has asked about riding it a few times. Then it decides to rain all week so I can't even go outside with her once! Finally tonight I get it hooked up and try it out... and it's too big! It doesn't look like it would be, and Megan is very tall for her age, but even with the seat lowered all the way, she can't get her feet on the ground. This means that even the slightest imbalance could throw her off because she would have no way to catch herself.

Needless to say, this was a huge bummer for me. I thought she'd love it and fit it right out of the gate, and that we'd even try a bike ride this weekend. Sadly, it looks like I'll have to tuck it away in the garage for this year and try again next spring. Maybe we can give it another shot towards the end of the summer, but my guess is she won't grow THAT much taller over a single summer.

Awesome Weekend

Jam packed, super busy, great weekend. Friday night, relaxed and watched Sherlock Homes. Saturday afternoon, got a babysitter and saw Iron Man 2. (Robert Downey Jr. weekend?) Saturday night, had good friends and thier three kids over for dinner. Sunday morning, made Mother's day breakfast, followed by a 13 mile run. Sunday afternoon, did a Zoo trip with the girls. Sunday night, got a last-minute dinner invite over at Grandma Gayle's!!

Whewww! It was non-stop and somehow I even took care of waking up with Casey during the night all weekend so Andrea could catch up on some quality sleep. I was a tad tired on Sunday night, but felt it was all so worth it.

Speaking of Casey, I thought I'd do a little video blog update on her. As I mentioned, we had a babysitter for her on Saturday and it went well. We may be over the worst parts of seperation anxiety! This is super exciting. In other news, Casey is learning a little sign language already, which is just awesome. She is also very close to walking, and I bet she will be going full speed within another month. It's hard to believe that she is already going to be 1 in just two short weeks.

Casey signs "monkey", which is sorta odd for a first sign.



Casey rocking out to B.o.B. with a cameo by Megan, and then some signing at the end.



And last but not least, Casey taking some of her first steps.

Confession Time

It's been a hard decision, but I think I need to come clean. I've been trying to hide it for awhile, and struggling with it, so it's time to just get it out in the open: I like all the stupid Kesha songs I hear on the radio.

There, I said it. Does it make me a horribly sick person? Maybe... but the songs are just so stupidly funny and completely catchy that I simply can't help myself. Clearly she has no talent what so ever, but the songs are just addicting. Think of me what you will, but it's the sad truth! I love the end of the one song where she goes "I like your beard". It's like she's talking just to me!

Okay, on a more serious note, I can't believe we are already into May. May for crying out loud! The year is almost half over and I don't even remember how it started! I'm enjoying the nicer weather, and so is Megan. She spends more time outdoors than inside these days, and that's a good thing. Casey is SO close to walking... I think she might be walking before her first birthday in 3 weeks.

I've been wanting to get some more "In-Depth" posts up, like I did with running and work. The next two subjects are going to be weight and parenting. Both tough subjects, but I think it would do me some good to get my ideas out. Look for those later this month.

So speaking of music - another new cheesy song on the radio that I currently like:

B.o.B - Nothin' On You ft. Bruno Mars [Official Video]

You can make fun of me if you want. It's okay. :-)

And on the note of parenting, I should go now and attempt to work on one of my biggest issues as of late: getting Megan to bed at a decent time. Wish me luck!