What Day Is It?

I forgot how quickly you get disoriented from the rest of the world when you stop going to work. Not that I mind, Megan has no concept of weekends, why should I!? This first week has been going great. Megan is handling the change very well, although I honestly don't have a lot of things to compare against. Her general attitude is happy to see Casey, concerned for her well being, and loves to hold and touch her. In car rides, if Casey cries, Megan is the first to say "It's okay Casey!" I think the hardest part will be getting Megan to understand why she can't be physical with Casey at first.

I've managed to get two runs in this week, which has been great. Sleep wise, I seem to be okay, and Casey seems to sleep very well so far. Maybe too well, as Andrea has started to wake her for feedings instead of waiting for Casey. This will help Andrea as well as Casey regulate feeding patterns. But for the most part, we both feel "normal" in terms of rested, and that's a big change from our previous sleep deprivation and not leaving the house for 4 days.

Casey's post-birth time is overall much more relaxing and enjoyable, then stressful and tiresome. I've been kind of more hands off, both because my role right now is to manage Megan during the day, but also to let Andrea roll with the feedings. I know this sounds "lazy" on my part, but I do think I was a bit too intrusive with Megan. I realize now the importance of these early weeks for Andrea and Casey to find their "groove" with a routine.

We've also been getting meals all this week from the Apple Valley MOMS Club. That has been so great, so thank you so much everyone. Last night, in a rare occurrence, we even got to enjoy a quiet evening meal with just the two of us. Casey and Megan were both napping. A small calm in the excitement of this week, it was just awesome.

A few more pics for today:

Megan being her silly self.


Megan just loves to hold baby Casey.


As promised, a few pictures of Andrea as well.


More of the three gals.

Quick Pics

Casey and Andrea are napping for a bit (Megan is pretend napping), so sneaking a quick second to get these pictures up. I realize there are none of Andrea yet, that happened more by accident. Hopefully more pictures or more of my blabbing later in the week.

Casey, a few hours old.


Close up, no flash.


Our first visitors, Andrea's parents were watching Megan since Sunday.


Grandma B and Casey.


Just Megan being happy... if only that was how she ACTUALLY has behaved over the last 48 hours...


Me and my two daughters, isn't Megan photogenic?


Megan and Casey close up, no flash.


And finally, back home today...

The Adventure Redux

I'm running on borrowed time right now, having slept maybe 2 hours out of the last 36. My brain isn't firing on any cylinders for the most part. I should be in bed but I needed to unwind with some food. I forgot my camera at the hospital so I'll just keep this short:

Name: Casey Gayle Anderson
Born: May 25th 2009. 2:55pm
Weight: 9 lbs 1 oz (wow...)
Length: 21 inches (same as Megan!)

The short version: inducement still took a long time. Although overall shorter time span than Megan, in most ways (physically and emotionally), this delivery was tougher. They say that every birth is unique, and that I believe now. But the whole "second child is easier" is not always true.

In the end, everyone is doing great and baby and Mom are both in as good a shape as can be expected. By the time I left the hospital with Megan, Andrea was officially unhooked from all equipment and IVs. Hopefully she will manage to get some sleep over the next 12 hours, it felt pretty selfish coming home with Megan. We'll head back up tomorrow after Megan's preschool. More to follow!

First Hot Run

Tonight I did a normal run outside, 7.25 miles. I didn't bother to look at the temp before I left, because I didn't really care. With the last few cold / windy evenings, I've been wussing out and running inside more than I'd like. I ran at near normal pace, and didn't quite realize how hot my body was getting until I stopped once to tie my shoe and could just feel heat radiating from inside out. On the way home the radio weather guy said it was pushing 93 degrees. I figured it was mid 80s, didn't quite realize it was that hot. Oops! Lesson learned, first hot run of the summer out of the way, I'll have to be smarter in the coming days.

Everything with Casey is going as planned, which is to say, nothing new is happening. Andrea is still feeling good but with no signs of going into labor. The next Doctor visit is Friday afternoon. I will start my leave from work on Thursday and will go along for that visit. If everything is "looking normal" on Friday, we will most likely get an inducement scheduled for the following week.

So what will we do with our time between now and then? More movies! We already have babysitting lined up for Thursday afternoon, since Terminator actually comes out on a Thursday instead of Friday. WHOOT! Other than that, we don't have anything else planned but to relax and make sure Andrea doesn't have to go out in this heat much more this week. She spent a good hour with Megan outside today, and that was hard enough.

I might sign up for a half marathon for the end of the month, but a) it seems kind of selfish and b) the timing probably won't work. It's on May 30th, so if our inducement is scheduled for Thur or Friday that week, it probably wouldn't work to do a half marathon the next day. Yes, I'm a tad insane to even be considering it, but I wouldn't be me if I wasn't.

The Waiting Game

With the weekend behind us, and the "due date" over with, time to look to the next few days. As I suspected, the weekend was a pretty normal one for us. Saturday afternoon we even got another movie in, and saw Star Trek, which was awesome. I liked the cast they put together to play the various roles. I hope they make another movie with that group.

Saturday night Andrea even made it over to St. Paul for a going away party. Her old college roommate is moving to Las Vegas for awhile. Megan and I decided to have our own date, and we went to Red Robin together. She had a good time and afterwards we went to a park, where she made friends with a nice girl her age named Emma. Emma taught Megan how to climb all the way up the slides... I let it go this time cause they were having so much fun.

So tomorrow I will head in to work as normal, which is actually a good thing. Couple more loose ends I can tie up, and hand off a last few items. I'm definitely not very optimistic about where things are going at work, but none of that is within my control. We got one of those "oh shit the economy DOES suck" emails from the CEO recently. Sponsoring of corporate teams was among the various "cost cutting measures". That's right, no more free runs for me! Every time I make the mistake of reading a news paper or actually listening to the news, I'm damn glad I have a job, and I'm going to hold on to it until they drag me away kicking and screaming. I never thought one of the best side effects of not owning a TV would be how much easier it is to ignore hearing about all that shit that just pisses me off. Blinders for the win.

Casey: The Prequel

Since this year is all about the prequel movies, I figured why not have a little Casey prequel. As we lead into the last few days before official "due date", we find ourselves in pretty much the same situation as last time. The biggest difference is that Andrea is feeling much better. Much less stress, no worries about blood pressure, a picture of good health. So what next?

I know that we don't want to end up in the same boat as last time, spending 40 hours in the hospital hooked up to machines pumping drugs into Andrea that have no effects. Not that our experience was horrible last time, but we've learned what we do and don't want to happen. Andrea's next visit will be with her doctor, on Tuesday of next week (due date +2), and we will determine our options at that point. My guess is that nothing big will occur over the weekend. As a reminder, Megan's official "due date" was Sept 28th. We had our first attempt at induction 4 days later, and Megan was born on Oct 9th (due date +11). If we have the same thing happen this time, Casey won't be here until May 28th!

In the meantime, my World of Warcraft account is now expired as of last Saturday. It was a fun last hurrah these last 5 months, but time to put it away again. I'm giving serious thoughts to a new gaming PC sometime late this year or early next year, on the cusp of the Windows 7 release, which rumors are saying is being pushed for a "Christmas" type launch. This Alienware lasted well for 5 years, and although yes, older and a tad outdated, is still a nice PC. But it would be nice to have a new top end system for some newer gaming, including Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and some of the new RPGs slated for the later half of this year.

And work is going swimmingly, and it would seem that rising above the crap is working out for me, as my bosses send "kudos" emails to each other about my recent "excellent efforts" and "stepping up" to get things done on time and without issues.

For those of you keeping score at home (and you know who you are), that is an example of how you can be a cog in a machine, but you can still choose to make a difference.

Quick note: I also wanted to say congrats to my former college roomie Adam & wife Pilar on the recent birth of thier first baby girl!!

Unbelievable Luck

What a crazy night. Crazy week really. On the verge of our pending arrival, trying to wrap things up at work, and keep my head above water. Tonight was all sorts of awesome. First, I'll start with my stuff, since, hey, its my blog! Tonight was the Twin Cities 1-miler, which I again ran this year in the hopes that it would give me a spot in the Twin Cities 10-miler. My time last year was 5:51. This year, I was shooting for 5:45. I came REAL close:



Still very happy about that, being able to beat last years time. And it definitely wasn't as painful, and I might have been able to go a bit harder. The real factor was the wind (sucked hard) and oddly, I think bad air. Everyone around me was coughing very hard at the finish line, and it down right hurt the lungs. I didn't have any of that last year. Maybe downtown isn't the best place to have an event like that?

Meanwhile, while I was running this silly (yes silly!) event, Andrea and Val (sister-in-law who is also expecting) were attending an new Mothers event that we got a random invite to. We honestly don't know how or why we got this invite, we only assumed it was through my work and/or insurance. Some type of work perk? Anyway, long story short, it was totally free, they had lots of things for new Moms to look at, get samples of, free appetizers and a non-alcoholic drink contest. (local bartenders trying to make the best tasting virgin drink) In addition to all that, they had lots of door prizes, a high end stroller, and a grand prize of a BRAND new crib.

So I walk in to the event just as things are wrapping up. What is the first thing I hear as I walk in? They are calling Andrea's name for a prize! No way! And so I go and sit down, and it turns out Val had also already won something! How awesome is that? But wait!

They then did the final drawing for the grand prize, and who should win? Andrea!! We couldn't believe it! Andrea was in such disbelief, she didn't even realize it was her number that was called. We are going to get a BRAND new crib from Becker Furniture! (minor drive up north, but way worth it!)

And a big thank you to my brother who made this all possible by baby sitting Megan tonight, YOU ROCK BRO!!

One of those days

I know I promised to stay positive around here, but I can't help myself. The last couple of days have felt like... Well, the best description is a quote from the movie Dogma. I'll let the picture speak for me.



Here's a fun truth: there is always going to be negative forces coming at you. Someone will always have a differing opinion. Someone will always think you are wrong. Someone will always try to make themselves feel more important/better/powerful than you. Why? Because by and large, people are typically motivated by protecting their own self interests.

Are there exceptions to that statement? Of course. There are tons of people that are nice, honest, and don't always think about themselves first. Am I one of those people? Meh, jury is still out on that one.

So when I have those days, like recent events this week at work, how should I react? Should I strike back and fight fire with fire? Should I "rise" above the shit and pretend like it doesn't bother me? Or do I honestly stop for a moment and look at it for what it is: fake negativity.

See, work is just work. Despite anything else that has changed for me over the years, I still view work as simply a means to an end. People are going to come to work, and do whatever they do, based on their own personal motivations. Maybe they sit and browse web sites in their cube, maybe they work hard, or maybe they just suck at their job. Whatever it might be, it doesn't really matter in the end. Because a job is just a job.

It's ironic to hear myself say those words out loud, when I once heard them said to me, by a supervisor I had come to hate, when I informed him why I was quitting my first job. There is probably some deeper meaning there, but I don't have time to contemplate it. Megan is upstairs alone, getting into trouble I'm sure.

The Race that Never Was

4 years ago, I ran my first ever "race" event, at the insistence of a good friend. I ran that Get in Gear in 53:28. It's interesting to go back and read that post and think about my mind set at the time. Also to read how hard it was, and to think about how far I've come with running.

As I've said before, I had set a goal for myself this year of breaking the 45 minute mark. I knew I could do it, because my very last run last year (half marathon) was virtually at that pace. And sure enough, I was able to achieve and blow away my goal. Here were my split times:

1 - 6:58
2 - 6:50
3 - 6:51
4 - 6:54
5 - 6:57
6 - 7:00
.2 - 2:04

Total time: 43:38, average pace: 6:54 min/mile. A few weird things about the run this year. For starters, I started right up front this year. Meaning, I could see the elite runner start, see the tape lines, and also see all the weirdness that happens up there. You have this small group of runners that wish they were elites, pushing foward, trying to sneak in. Meanwhile, officials are trying to keep them back. In the end, a bunch snuck through and just started at the same time. Weird?

The other crazy thing that happened was as I passed each mile marker. The person calling out the times as I passed each marker, yelled the following: "7:01!" , "14:02!", "21:03!"... I don't think there was anyone at mile 4, but then sure enough, at mile 5: "35:05!".

Needless to say, there is a sad thing about this entire event. I run the best 10k in my life, probably my first ever personal record that won't be an "easy" one to beat, and what happens? My official time is not posted on the web site. All results are in, and I'm not on them. What is that about? I signed up the day after the race opened. My bib number was 160, and I was wearing my damn chip. No official time. Is there a refund? I want my money back.

Where did April go?

Just a combination of factors making this month fly by, work being the biggest factor. For whatever reason, it's hardly bothering me that much. Maybe it's just the bigger thoughts about baby Casey arriving any day now that are keeping me occupied. We haven't done a whole lot of planning, but I guess we figure we know what to expect this time around, so we aren't worried. As long as Andrea gets her hospital bags ready to go and we have a solid plan for what to do with Megan, I think we will be fine.

I've been enjoying the weather, the outdoor running season has begun full swing. Been running some fast paces lately in preperation for the Get in Gear 10k this weekend. I'm hoping the good weather of this week holds out long enough to last through Saturday morning.

Megan has been doing awesome, enjoying school and all the other activities Andrea plans for her. She started swimming lessons a few weeks ago, which she has really enjoyed. She needs to work on putting her face under water, but follows other directions well.

Looking forward to the start of the summer movie season with X-men coming up soon. Here is the full list of movies I'm dying to see in 2009:

May 1st: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
May 8th: Star Trek
May 21st: Terminator Salvation
June 24th: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
July 15th: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Aug 7th: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

There are a few comedies this year I'd also like to see, but they end up lower on the priority list. The above list are the ones I will see for sure, no matter what, even if Casey is born that weekend! (the 3 in May) Although this list might not compare to 2007, The Year of the Movie, it's still good list.

Adventures in Viruses

For a long time, I've prided myself on my lack of ever getting a computer virus. Not that it's super common to get one, but I've never purchased anti virus software or gone out of my way to setup personal firewalls, etc. The most I've ever done is run Spybot, which apparently has been good enough. Until now.

I came home Thursday night and sat down to launch World of Warcraft only to be presented with a very strange error message. Couple googles later, and I was already in panic mode. Few more checks and it was clear I had a pretty bad virus. Task Manager disabled, registry editing disabled, and generally negative behavior on most applications.

I'm no hacker expert, nor am I that versed in manual combat of viruses. I tried a few things, eventually found ways to get into both my task manager and registry. Both were pretty fruitless efforts. This virus was very strong and keeping itself alive, and keeping me from doing anything that might even give me a chance. It completely destroyed the Safe Boot portion of the registry, so that wasn't even an option. (I tried a manual restore of the Safe Boot registry, and it worked... but the virus was resident even in Safe Boot)

I ended up buying Norton Antivirus, which I sort of wish I hadn't. It was a giant waste of time, (and money?) as this virus laughed at Norton. Eventually Norton was detecting it's own files as infected. It was quite clear I only had one option left: Reformat.

So, 48 hours and 2 reformats later, I'm finally back up and running. World of Warcraft is currently at about 50% installed. The experience was interesting, especially when I ended up in a Norton Antivirus chatroom with some random dude from India, who then proceeded to say they could fix all my virus problems for the low low fee of $99.99. Yeah, I passed on that.

After all was said and done, we really only lost ONE thing, and it's my fault for not backing it up. Andrea had been recording our spending habits for the past year and a half on this one excel file. In my haste of backing things up the first night, it was the one big thing I missed. Hopefully it won't dissuade her from keeping it going in the future, as I think it was very useful for us.

Blog titles are overrated

When I mentioned not having any cold symptoms, I had no idea that the next time I would be posting is after just starting to get over those symptoms. Basically the day after my last post I finally got sick. I don't know why I thought I might avoid it. I'll blame wishful thinking.

So last week was sort of tough. I'm not gonna whine about it, just state the facts. I had to put in over 50 hours of work, which was basically working until 9-10pm Tue-Thur. Nothing really more to say about it, other then, well, it was tough. Andrea and Megan were real troopers and both helped to make the hours I had to work from home bareable. Despite the fact that they were buying pizza and/or subs every night for people on-site, I never stuck around for that and worked the extra hours from home.

As if the added work hours weren't enough to keep me busy last week, I was also attempting to get ready for a Dungeons and Dragons session as well. Somehow I found some time to do that, although not a lot. The session was a lot of fun, but I'm getting a little worried that the system is too combat oriented. That isn't actually a bad thing if everyone enjoys that aspect of gaming, and for the most part it seems like everyone does. As long as I weave an interesting story around the combat sessions, people have a good time. So that's all that matters really.

Coming up this week are hopefully my first series of outdoor runs (aside from the silly 30 degree race in March). I have to prep for this years Get In Gear 10k. I have a serious goal of hitting the 45 minute mark, which I feel short of last year by 17 seconds. I know 17 seconds doesn't sound like a lot, but at that pace, it is huge. I'll keep everyone posted on that, and in the meantime, hope for some good weather on April 25th!

Didn't win the lottery... but!

Apparently there is an appliance virus going around our neighborhood. Last night our neighbors called us up to ask if they could cook a couple frozen pizzas in our oven, because theirs wasn't working. I said sure, if we could come over and dry a load of laundry! Never thought I'd be swapping appliance use.

The good news however, is that today the dryer repair guy came and was able to fix our dryer for free under the service plan we have! Almost as good as winning the lottery. But seriously, it's good to finally have all the appliances working again.

The weekend was pretty mellow like I thought it would be. The coolest thing was just a visit to the Zoo Megan and I did. We visited the Farm Babies, which honestly was just a visit to the Farm Animals. We did see one baby cow, but Megan was too busy playing on the tractor to notice. She did like the baby chicks, and said those were her favorite.

Megan and Andrea are still getting over some pretty bad colds they got after coming back from vacation. It's been a rough week during the nights with Megan. Her inability to breath causes her to wake herself up and subsequently, us. Last night was the worst, as she had such a bad coughing fit she ended up throwing up in her bed. Hopefully they are on the up swing, as of now I have no real symptoms. Will I dodge this bullet?

Astronomical Odds

I know I promised no more negativity, but I just have to share this one. The night before we left on vacation, our washer blew up. Water coming out the bottom and all over the place. I even faked my handy man skills to verify it wasn't anything "simple" like a busted or leaking hose.

Long story short we replaced the washer last week after we got back from vacation. I'm 90% sure that the appliances we have are the originals that came when the house was built in 93, which would put the washer around 16 years old. That's actually typical life for a cheap washer. But then what happens? 2 days later, our dryer dies as well. The inside part stopped rotating.

What are the odds that both appliances just decide to break within a few days of each other? I don't know the exact percentages, but it has to be pretty small. Needless to say, I bought a couple lottery tickets today.

We do actually have some coverage on our dryer, so we will have someone come look at it on Monday (for free) and see if it is "fixable" for cheap. If it isn't (which I suspect it won't be) we already have another purchase lined up. Just lots more motivation to live here for a bunch more years, which became our plan sometime earlier this year anyway.

One funny thing about this whole thing was when I was cleaning the area under the washer before the new one arrived. I'm sweeping it up and I notice an item of clothing behind the dryer. I figured it was just something that had fallen back behind there, so I sweep it out only to discover it was a pair of women's underwear that definitely did not belong to Andrea. How long had that been there? Too funny.

Pictures from Wi Dells

Considering we didn't really do much this weekend, Sunday ended up having enough distractions that I didn't get a chance to go through pictures. Finally got around to it this evening.

Since our weekend was mostly about Grandma and Megan, figured I'd start with a post of the two of them.



Megan checking out the cow with 6 legs. This was at Ripley's Believe it Or Not attraction. I've been at one before so I sort of knew what I was getting into.



Another picture from Ripley's.



After Ripley's we went to this very cheesy... I don't even know what to call it. It wasn't a fun house, it wasn't a scary house... Just a weird collection of things with a very weird tour guide. My brother and I tried to make the best of it.



The third day, Megan and I spent a lot of time at the dry park. (sadly, no pictures of the pool areas turned out due to humidity). We had a great time climbing around and going down all the slides.



More climbing action.



Enjoying a cold drink after an morning of climbing.



Random shots while walking around the hotel. We bumped into the hotel mascot.



And a nice fireplace... random, yes. Good picture, yes.



Last night at the hotel, Megan reading a book with Grandma.



The interesting aspect of this last picture is what happened yesterday. Megan is skilled enough to know how to turn on my digital camera and look through pictures on it (when in view mode) or take pictures with it (when in camera mode). Yesterday, she scrolled through the pictures and saw the above picture. She says, "Grandma and me reading Puff Puff, Toot Toot." It was interesting to me that Megan remembered the exact book she was reading with Grandma a full 5 days earlier from the picture of the event. Or did she recogonize the book and just state what she was seeing? It could be either or... Interesting!

Back to the Basics

Here we are, 2 1/2 weeks since my last post. It was by choice, no complaining this time. In this world of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and all the rest, blogging will soon be just another lost art form. Nothing lasts forever.

Blogging can be as easy or as difficult as I feel like making it. Like a lot of things, it's just how you approach it. Sometimes I just need a new approach to see things for what they are. My blog is like that... It's been a place for me to share different things at different times. What I share and how much I share always seems to change over time.

So here we go, back to the basics of what this blog started as. A place to share interesting tid bits about my life that others might be interested in. I can't promise things won't change, but at least for awhile, I can promise a few things. No more bullshit posts, no more negativity, no more ramblings about things that piss me off.

I thought I'd start off with the big news of the last 2 weeks. We finally came to decide on a name for the new baby! That name is Casey Gayle Anderson. Interesting how it all worked out really, but aren't names always like that? We talked briefly about spelling variations, but Andrea likes the traditional the best.

The other big stuff recently was our family spring break vacation to Wisconsin Dells last week. It was from Sunday to Wed. It was fun for the most part, with usual family interactions plus a little extra for good measure. The important part is the Megan had a blast at all the water parks and a huge climbing indoor play park. I have 75 pictures to go through, I'll post some of the better ones tomorrow.

I blog. A a dog licks himself.

Coming up on 4 years of this silly blog, makes me wonder why I've kept it going so long. At first it was for me, then it was to post pictures of Megan, then it was to bitch. But for the most part it's always been for me. My own little exaggerated sense of self-importance. The truth is, I blog for the same reason a dog licks himself. Sad? Maybe.

This week isn't getting any better. Work sucks, but no longer do I feel there is anyone to blame. I can finally see the machine for what it is. No one is at fault for being a part of the machine, it's how we all collect a pay check. Be a part of the system, don't fight it. (please, no comments about how I can choose to do something else, change jobs, find meaning in a job, etc.) Still, some days it feels like I'm the only one motivated to do better work simply because I like income. And because of the fact that I want to make a product that sells well, the customers like, and that helps generate more revenue, (so I have more chance at increased income) I'm the bad guy for pointing out obvious bad things. Yeah! Go me! I'm a team player!

I'm not even going to get started about the weather... I signed up for this stupid 10 mile run this weekend, and it's like 5 below out side. Why did I sign up? For the free T-shirt... Hey wait, I just picked up the shirt today. Why run in the cold? Motivation is slowly slipping away.

Aside from that, last Sunday was awesome. It was probably the best day I've had in quite some time. It wasn't without it's down sides as well, but whatever. I enjoyed Watchmen VERY much, and need to see it again. It was the best movie I have seen in quite some time. Anyone that doesn't like it should read the comic, then see it again. If you still don't like the movie, then you probably just don't like the story (or the comic).

Here's a new one. Megan just fell asleep in my arms while writing this post. Did I just bore her to sleep? Quite possibly... It's 7:30pm, or technically 6:30pm prior to day lights savings. Somehow I have this odd feeling that putting her in her bed to sleep right now is going to be an all time back fire. Who needs sleep anyway, it's overrated. See you at 2am Megan!

And the week shall prevail

The good: Ran 3 days in a row this week with no pains, and by the third day, I'd say I am 100%. Good to feel better finally, especially since I ended up signing up for a 10 mile race for next week. At first I wasn't going to do it, being this early in the year, but it's paid for by my work. Too hard for me to pass up a free run and T-shirt.

The bad: The dark cloud that formed at the end of Feb has yet to pass. Is it that time already? It's usually around once every 6 months. Looking back I think I made a full year this time. It's hard to talk opening and honestly about all the things that have me down right now. Such a mixture of many things, most of which are too private to post about here.

I think that is part of the main reason I haven't been posting much in general. Why bother blogging if I can't really share? I mean, my day to day life is far from exciting. Down right boring for the most part. And I'm certianly not clever enough to come up with interesting whitty blogs about observations on life. (especially when most of those observations are of the negative type)

So where does that leave me? Not sure... Somewhere between trying to enjoy my time with Andrea and Megan, gaming with one of my old best friends from years ago, spending time with my brother and sister in law to see Watchmen this weekend (just finished the novel).

In the end, maybe it is simply just the next phase of my life looming over me that has me brooding about the future again. I'm excited of course, but at the same time seeing the crest of the wave. Am I ready for it to hit? Am I going to be able to ride it, stay on top, and not get buried? Will my current situation hold out long enough to support the ones that need it the most?

The unknowns. They always get to me, because in my mind, it's best to consider all the negative outcomes first. If you assume bad things will always happen, then even the most mundane of good things can seem like the best thing in the whole world.

Snow way!

The last thing I would have expected today was 10 inches of snow. But that's MN for ya. People were bailing ship pretty fast at work, everyone rushing to work from home. I jumped on that band wagon quick and left at 2pm. Decided to skip my run and just come straight home. On the way home I saw 4 cars in the ditch, and one car directly behind me that spun out and almost turned completely around. He stayed on the road and no one behind him hit him, but for a split second I thought he was gonna side swipe my rear end.

My run yesterday started out very positive. Initially, no pain, felt pretty much like a normal run like I had hoped. 2 miles in, and my muscle just spasm'ed again and it felt the same as over the weekend. Sore, but I could run on it, so I finished out 6 more miles. Not recovered yet apparently. Maybe the forced day off today is a good thing.

Andrea's birthday is this weekend, I don't really know what we are doing yet. Maybe she's waiting for me to figure something out, but that probably won't happen. (Hint: Andrea, you should just plan something or tell me what you want to do!) She is going out with a friend tomorrow night, but other then that we have no plans this weekend. Might be a video gaming, running, generally sloth filled weekend.

Sarah: the song I posted recently is by "Over the Rhine", and its called "The Poopsmith Song". Here is an amazon link, you can find lots more from there:

The Poopsmith Song

Phyiscal recovery, mental recovery

I'm running again, but it wasn't without some serious pain. Last week, I had to take the entire week off. I was able to manage some elliptical. It just hurt too much to run. (no, it wasn't my friends fault, he shouldn't feel bad). Not being able to run put me in a generally bad mood all last week.

This weekend I managed 8 miles on Saturday, with two short runs (5.25 and 6 miles) on Sunday/Monday. Saturday I popped a few Ibuprofen prior to the run, and I think that helped. But that was the only day I did that, the others I could manage. Tonight was a rest day and tomorrow I'm hoping is the real start of normal feeling runs. It will probably still pinch a little bit, but it doesn't feel anywhere near like it did last week. Lesson learned? No back lifting without serious care.

So the physical side is healing, but the funk that kicked in has yet to pass. I've been trying very hard to ignore the head lines these days, but it gets harder by the minute. The world at large just seems to suck, and you watch and listen as it sucks the soul out of the people you love and care about. At what point do you just throw your hands up and yell, "Fuck it!"

Fuck Circuit City and $4.7 million dollar executive bonuses for the "Wind Down Incentive and Retention Plan".

Fuck Merrill Lynch Executive Bonus Investigation

Fuck Cash4Gold and it's entire stupid scam.

Fuck the society that continues to convince people that they need to buy more shit, and a free market economy based on credit and money that doesn't really exist.

Fuck the government and it's screwing of hard working, honest people, due to the fuck tard mistakes of banks, people with bad credit, and idiots that buy things they can't afford.

Fuck a system that is going to make us all poorer, as inflation rises, our money becomes worthless, our retirements accounts zero out, and our social security money simply vanish.

Fuck my new mortage loan bank for trying to screw me out of $46.38 for a simple error they easily could have just handled or contacted me about.

Most of all, fuck me for being a poorly informed, non useful contributor to all the negativity out there. As if there isn't enough all ready.