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.