The Roof is on Fire

A rainbow that was visible from my driveway recently.

Unlike previous years, I specifically decide NOT to make a blog post on the actual day of my birthday. Instead, my birthday has come and gone, I am now 31 years old. Tonight, I had the family over for some order out food and ice cream cake. Little did I know, the visit would have much more going on then just my birthday...

If you've been watching the news at all tonight, odds are good that you've seen the story about an apartment complex in Burnsville that is currently on fire. Click here to view the story on KSTP. What you might not know, is that this is the apartment complex that my brother Scott, wife Val and their roommates live at!



Thankfully everyone is safe, and the actual apartment they live in is pretty far from the heart of the fire. Odds are the apartment they are in is fine, perhaps with smoke damage depending on how bad its traveling through the building. Right now I'm mostly worried about their two cats, who are stuck in the apartment. I really hope they are okay!!

We tried to enjoy dinner here as best we could, and Scott and Val were in good spirits all things considering. To think that they are moving out of those apartments in just one month!! And to have this happen, what are the odds? In my brothers words, "Hey, it was my day off, something bad had to happen." They might stay with my Mom tonight, I don't know if they will let people back in tonight. Even if they do, there still might be smoke in the building that would make it very hard to stay there.

I'll post tomorrow with updates on the situation, I told them to call me tonight with any updates. They just left about 20 minutes ago and were planning on stopping by to check out the situation. I guess putting out the fire was hampered very much by the 90 degree weather today, making it hard for the fire fighters to do their job. More updates tomorrow!

Busy, full, fun, not over yet!

Title sums up my weekend! Took today off as my "birthday" day off. I'd imagine most people tend to take a day off for their birthday, I know it's become more or less standard for me. I think companies should just institute a policy where everyone gets to take there birthday off as a bonus holiday.

Friday night we dropped Megan off at Grandma Gayle's to go see Oceans 13. For the most part, another crappy sequel. I'm starting to think this year of sequels is going to just end up being the year of flops. Saturday was mostly relaxing for me. Andrea attended a "Growth Track" class at River Valley Church. I really don't know much about it. Overall she said she was glad she went, so she must have enjoyed it. Then we visited my sister in law at a fund raiser she was working at, outside Sam's Club in Apple Valley. For the 2nd time, she is doing the Breast Cancer 3-day 60 mile walk. They were able to raise an amazing $2,000 dollars!

Sunday was jammed packed as some old college friends were in the area to go to the MN Zoo. They stopped by with the newest addition to their family, 6 week old Mackenzie. We enjoyed a nice grill out for lunch and caught up. Their older daughter and Megan warmed up after a little bit and had a great time together. After that, we attended a birthday party for a boy in the Mom's club. Very full day, especially for Megan who ended up sleeping through the birthday party! She woke up at the end to get some ice cream.

Here are some pictures from the weekend, and a very cute picture of Megan in her "new" chair. Apparently this chair belonged to Andrea when she was growing up.



Megan definitely likes new babies... No I'm not hinting at anything, and don't ask us!



The girls playing together after a little bit of getting to know each other.



Enjoying some goldfish crackers together.



Megan in her new rocking chair.

Off again on again

Made it through this week relatively unscathed. Had some late night meetings at work on the first half of the week, but I was able to weasel my way out of having to attend them today/tomorrow. Worst part of the week was having to go 3 days without a run, and in hind sight, I guess that's not that big a deal.

Once again I find myself struggling with blogging... It feels like all my posts lately have been filled with fluff. A little bit of "I did this, I did that, Megan's growing up" yadda, yadda, yadda. Not really posting about what thoughts are occupying my brain on any given week.

Obviously work occupies my thoughts a lot, and I of course have those fears about posting too much about work. Especially posting my "real" thoughts about work... Last thing I'd want to happen is to get fired because of my blog. I worry about getting fired for enough other reasons, last thing I need is one more.

Then of course are my thoughts about my health and exersize, which I feel like I've just beat to death. Who wants to read about the fact that I'm constantly struggling with my stupid 180 lbs weight goal, or how I go up and down 5-7 lbs every week. I could post for hours about how frustrated I get sometimes with healthy living, how I get so pissed off when I make bad decisions. But who wants to read about me complain about all that crap?

Finally of course are all my thoughts about my family, my friends, life, happiness, and the rest of it all. If you can't tell, I basically stopped posting about that stuff. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm afraid of sharing my honest thoughts. I know that I've become a very different person over the last year. I've become more judgemental, I seem to have less patience, and sometimes I worry that I've become a bitter person.

I'm 30 years old, turning 31 shortly. What the hell do I have to be bitter about? I don't know... But still, some days it just seems like I just don't really see any good in the world.

There and back again

So much for weather predictions! All that doom and gloom rain, and Saturday morning turned out to be perfect. The run was awesome, felt great the whole time. Even better, Megan and Andrea were waiting for me at the finish line!



Turns out the numbers were in alphabetical order, so I was number 8. Normally the lowest numbers are reserved for the competitive runners, so it was funny to see such a low number. What was REALLY funny, was somewhere around mile 10, we ran by a couple of young kids, probably 7 or 8 years old. The one boy looks over to his friend and says, "Look, there's number 8!" like I was some kind of special runner. We got a good laugh out of that.



This was also my first awarded "medal" event. Kind of fun to get something like that... Normally all I have is the race bib which I usually throw away at some point. Maybe I'll keep the number 8 around for awhile. This race was dedicated to Megan, so I got a picture of her wearing the medal. The rest of the weekend I pretty much wasted away, playing World of Warcraft. Maybe even a tad too much... But hey, sometimes excess can be fun too.

Sunday morning I talked with my Mom who had some bad news to share. My uncle Jeff has been fighting liver cancer for awhile, and the initial treatment was not effective. Today he is starting chemotherapy. I don't have a good sense of how serious it is right now, probably because no one wants to think about some of the possible outcomes. All we can do is think positive, and hope the chemo does it's job. My thoughts go out to Jeff, and the rest of my family during this tough time.

What was that?

Oh yes, blogging. Something like that... I just never really got motivated to blog this week. Mainly because I've been playing more World of Warcraft, but also because I haven't had anything interesting going on.

Truth is, I've not been in a very good mood this week. Is it possible for someone to get the summer blues? I don't know... I'm just trying to stay focused on my goals for now and try not to worry about it.

Right now, I'm just worried about rain in the morning for the half marathon. I don't want to run in the rain, but I'll do it if I have to. Anyway, maybe I'll report about it on Sunday. In the meantime, enjoy this cute pictures of Megan.

Megan got some new summer PJs recently.





Megan doing head stands!

All Good Things

Must come to an end! The weekend was pretty good, probably the only bad part being the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I ended up seeing it Friday night with my bro and posse. This was by far the worst of the 3 Pirates movies, and overall just a horrible flick. The best part was when the goddess in human form morphed into a 40 foot goddess in human form. Ashton Kutcher's line, "Wow, that is one Super Hot Giant Alien!" from Dude, Where's My Car immediately came to me. (which was probably a better movie). I recommend Ask a Ninja for further analysis of the Pirates movie.

Saturday I helped a friend move in the morning. It went great, very fast and easy. Worst part was that we could not fit the queen size box spring into the upstairs at the new place. Mom was watching Megan that afternoon while Andrea was out to lunch with a friend, so when I got home I went for a quick run since Megan had just went down for a nap. I enjoyed World of Warcraft the rest of the day!

Yesterday was typical lazy Sunday. More World of Warcraft and resting. We ended up watching "The Prestige" last night, which I also did not enjoy that much. I thought the ending was too stupid and/or not well built and unconvincing. Sure, I can suspend belief as much as the next person, but a movie has to do it in the right way for that to occur.

This afternoon, Andrea and I enjoyed a quick lunch date while Mom watched Megan again. We originally had plans to go all fancy because we have a $20 gift certificate to McCormick & Schmick's. Turns out they weren't open for lunch today, so we just went with Major's and DQ for dessert!

Thought I'd end today with a recent picture of Megan waking up in the morning:

Shrek, Weekend, New Goal, OH MY!

The 4 day weekend has begun! And off to a great start. Last night I ended up wussing out on a planned bike ride with Steve because I couldn't handle the cold, and ran inside instead. This morning however, was perfect weather for an outdoor run and I was able to get an excellent 9 miler in.

After that, we got ready to do an early showing of Shrek 3 at 10:30am, before Megan's nap. She got really bored half way through the previews, who doesn't? Eventually when the movie started she got very excited and sat through the first 20 minutes or so. We thought she would have sat through it more, but alas, the possibilities to explore a giant theater were just too much. Anytime Puss'N Boots came on screen she would stop and just start clapping and smiling. Overall, I think she had a good time, but still not quite ready to sit through a whole movie. If we do it again, we will try to time it differently, to go during a "low-energy" point of Megan's day, so she might be more apt to just sit and enjoy the movie.

Lastly, I can't say enough good things about Ben, the creator of Buckeye Outdoors, the new online exersize logging web site I am using. I was able to dump all my run data for this year into an Excel file and send it to him, and he manually loaded into his web site for me! So now I have a years worth of data for the world to see. Me? Show off? I don't know what your talking about.

The thing I noticed was the total milage for the year. Seeing that total lead me to finally nail down a new goal for the year. My first thought was 1000 miles total for the year. Nice round number... but I realized that would be a little too easy to achieve. I'm already half way there and not even half the year. And since the whole point is to set the bar higher to push myself, I've set a goal of running 1200 miles in a single year. I think I can do it, but it's going to require a continuious level of running. But it's exactly what I need to keep me motivated, as lately I've found myself wanting to just quit in the middle of runs.

Time to play some World of Warcraft... I could be in the processing of being sucked back in!

Short Week FTW

I'm really glad this week is only 4 days. I'm taking Friday off to enjoy a 4 day memorial day weekend. Nothing too big planned for the weekend. Shrek 3 with Andi and Megan on Friday, then I'm helping a friend move Saturday morning.

This morning started off on a bad note, and not just because it was Monday. First, my alarm wasn't set because I screwed up so I was up 20 mins late. Then to top that off, I had a not-so-good feeling which has developed into a full blown cold tonight. If I'm lucky, it might be a short lived cold that I can shake off by the half marathon on June 2nd.

Speaking of that, I thought maybe I'd just post here and personally invite you, yes YOU, reading this post, to come out and cheer me on for my first half marathon. I've never had anyone come out to cheer for me, so why not you? If you want to, here is an offical link to the course maps. Below is my home made trace of the course... it's a little odd, I'm not even sure the whole thing is paved.



You may have also noticed a new item on my side bar, which I shamelessly stole from Poignant Irrelevance. That is the theme of my blog after all, nothing original here! Just a cool little tracking program that shows all my runs. (and eventually bike rides...) I'm not sure if I'm going to go back and fill in all this years worth of data, maybe if I all of a sudden come across 2 hours of spare free time. Stranger things have happened.

On the topic of free time, I did get a Dungeons and Dragons session in this weekend. We finished the large "epic" adventure that I had put together over a period of a month back in, oh I don't know, Feburary? It took 3 sessions to get through everything I had planned, which technically speaking was only 1 more then I thought it would. Too bad those 3 sessions took place over 4 months. Not quite sure where it will go next if anywhere, time will tell.

Gotta go put the Megster to bed now, and try and get some decent sleep myself.

In Loving Memory

Today's post is a short message in honor of my Father, Michael David Anderson. 16 years ago today, he passed away from a heart attack. I never even memorized the exact date until a few years ago. If you asked me why I didn't know the date, I don't think I could even say. It's strange to think that I've been alive for more years without him then with.

I may not even be remembering this correctly, because I've learned that my memory around that time is very disjointed and sometimes totally wrong. After his passing, there was something that my brothers elementary school did in his honor. They planted four trees for him in the front area of the school. I believe it might have been a boy scout troop that actually did it. Those trees are still there, and to this day they bring a smile to my heart and remind me of my Dad every time I drive by. I may not think about him every day, but at least once a week, and I still miss him just the same.

Knows What She Wants

Yesterday ended up being quite the annoying day at work. I was in a very foul mood on the way home from work. To top things off, my right ankle was bothering me all day so I decided to skip my run and spend 2 days recovering. I needed something to take my mind off everything, so by the time I got home I had resolved to make everyone go to Best Buy with me while I picked up a copy of Pan's Labyrinth, which just came out.

After arriving, we basically just let Megan run around for awhile. She was in pure heaven. First she ran up and down the rows of big screen TVs, then around digital cameras, and finally into the car stereo section. She was just laughing and smiling up a storm, really having a great time. Eventually I had to corral her up so that I could actually browse some stuff, and we wandered over to the PC Video Games.

Megan did not want to be held, so I had to put her down before she threw a fit. Just as I did that, I recalled that a Shrek 3 video game was coming out. I glanced over at Andrea as Megan ran off down the aisle at mock 10. Before I could finish saying, "Hey Andi, there is a new Shrek game coming out, maybe we should look for it?" Megan had stopped, grabbed a box off the shelf, and was running back towards me with a copy of the new Shrek video game in hand!!

It was just priceless! Not even talking yet, but she can pick out a video game she wants! I ended up buying it for her, even though it's not something she can really play yet. Maybe she will grow into it. I have a feeling that going to see the Shrek movie next week will be a very enjoyable experience.

The Adventure Continues...

As we got back to the hotel on Saturday afternoon, the weather was shaping up to be perfect for a run. In the end, I decided to drive back up to the Gooseberry area so that I could run on the paved portion of the Gitchi-Gami State Trail.

A combination of the great weather, the new location, the awesome scenery... all contributed to one of the best runs I've ever done. From start to finish, I just felt great the entire time. The end result:

Duration: 1 hour 58 mins
Distance: 14.06 miles
Ave pace: 8'26" / mile
Ave heartrate: 164

14 miles is the farthest distance I have ever run. It's amazing what a change of pace can do to help push yourself. Is that level of running something I can do regularly? Heck no... I was pretty damn sore that afternoon, and the next day. It was tough walking up and down stairs! But it was a good sore... by today, my body felt good enough for a 5 mile run.

Turns out there wasn't much adventure left to the remainder of the weekend. Andrea got in a run herself while I was doing mine, and we just rested the rest of the afternoon leading up to an early dinner. We did try swimming around 9pm but once again, the pool was both too cold and too crowded. Not to mention, the jacuzzi in our room was bigger then the whirlpool... in the end we just went back up to the room so Andrea could enjoy another jacuzzi and I watched some Kill Bill on cable. That was actually pretty funny in itself... The way they edited it for TV was HILARIOUS. You know the part where O-Ren gets to top of her head chopped off, and the camera pans up to reveal part of her brain? They actually edited it and extended her head to the top of the screen. The best part was Andrea yelling out, "THEY GAVE HER MORE HEAD!!!"



Sunday morning, the sun woke us up bright and early. We tried our damnedest to sleep in, but only managed to sleep until 7:30am. We stopped off at Betty's Pies to grab an Apple Pie for my Mom for Mothers day, then a quick breakfast and we were on our way home by 9:30am. All in all, it was a nice relaxing weekend. Couldn't have asked for much more.

Weekend Trip Part 1

What a great weekend!! Things got off to a good start Friday morning, as we were able to get on the road exactly on schedule. Wasn't sure if we'd manage it because I ended up not doing any of the furniture moving until the morning. But luck was with us...

Our first stop was Grand Casino in Hinckley. Turns out that our good luck was still with us, because I won $22.50 playing black jack. Andrea also "won" $5.36. I use the term "won" loosely. You see, being that she doesn't actually like to gamble, she took to roaming around the casino out of bordem. While doing so, she ended up finding a few discarded cash vouchers in machines. Hey, free money is free money! Our winnings paid for the buffet lunch where we both ate entirely too much food.

Back on the road, we arrived at Superior Shores by mid afternoon. The room itself was great, although I wasn't quite sure why we had a bird house in our room.




We had a very nice view of the lake, a jacuzzi in the room, and a DVD player to boot. (we watched Deja Vu Friday night). The only complaint about the room was the window shades. The window faced directly east, and in morning the sun made the room very bright even with the shades down. Neither of us got to sleep in much, Andrea was awake as early as 5:30am this morning. (although she did go back to sleep, it was still kind of annoying).

So being that we couldn't sleep in, we started off Saturday morning with an early breakfast at a place called Vanilla Bean Cafe. It had been recommended by a friend of Andrea's, and it didn't disappoint. We ended up going there again Sunday morning for breakfast as well.

After breakfast we went up north to Gooseberry Falls area, Andrea had never been there before. It seems like they have done a lot of work in that area for the tourists. The new visitor center was pretty impressive. We walked around, down to the base of the falls and back up.
After that we stopped at Splitrock Lighthouse but decided $21 dollars wasn't really worth parking + tour + walking around which we had already done at Gooseberry so we just headed back to the hotel.

That's all for now... Check back tomorrow for the rest of the weekend, including my report on a new personal best distance run!

Hot Run

I got a little refresher course in "How Temperature Effects Your Heart Rate 101". Here is the data, then we can analyze!

Distance: 7.45 miles
Average pace: 8'24" / mile
Average heart rate: 165

That data is from a run last Thursday around the lakes at work. Typical nightly run for me, the temp couldn't have been much more then low 70s.

Distance: 8.05 miles
Average pace: 8'41" / mile
Average heart rate: 178 !!

This is from tonight's run around the same lakes, only with the temps in the 80s. Even running at a slower pace, my heart rate was up there. It was my first real high temp run of the season, and I'm sure it's only going to get worse! Considering the half marathon is the first week of June, I better make sure I'm ready.

You might be thinking, 165 is only slightly lower then 178, what's the big deal? Actually, that difference is pretty huge. 165 is what I would consider a "comfortable" zone. I'm not sure how it compares to other runners, but it's kind of my target heart rate. Anything over that means I'm pushing myself... anything over 170 means I'm really struggling. 178 is VERY high, probably even higher then my average heart rate for the 10k.

Anyway, the point is, I have to be careful as the summer progresses. If I'm running outside in 90 degree weather, I can't be running at a fast pace, or my body is just going to freak out. It actually gives more reason to sometimes run indoors, despite my recent posts to the contrary.

Tonight we are busy packing for our trip tomorrow, and I was just taking a quick break to blog. I'm pretty much done except for picking out some DVDs (our room has a DVD player), some CDs for the car ride, and the rest of the stuff that you can't pack until the morning. We are going to attempt to get going early tomorrow to allow for a more relaxing and long drive up. I think we are going to stop at Hinckley so I can lose $40 bucks gambling and then eat at the casino buffet!

The other good / bad news is that I also have to move all the furniture around in my basement at some point tonight. That's the bad news... the good news is that the reason I need to do that is we arranged to have our ceiling fixed while we are gone this weekend!! It will be nice to come home to having that all taken care of, so I can't complain there.

I think this weekend will be exactly what both Andrea and I need. I almost wish we had planned for it to be even longer, but I know that's asking a lot. I'm sure my Mom will be in for a busy weekend as it is, watching Megan for 3 days. Not sure if I'll get a post up right away on Sunday night, so if not, have a good weekend and check back Monday for trip pictures!

Love 105?

Are you f'in kidding me? Talk about the worst thing to ever happen to Minnesota radio. The once decent channel of Drive 105 is becoming some stupid love channel. Wow... the first song I heard on the way home was the theme to Greatest American Hero. Don't get me wrong, I was a big fan of the show, but that's the last thing I want to listen to on the radio.

Things are pretty much back to status quo at work. That is, I once again find myself riding a ship with no one at the helm. Strangely, it doesn't seem to phase me as much this time around. Pretty soon it will just be "normal" and I won't even think twice about it. Pretty strange how quickly the mind adapts to its surroundings.

This weekend is our get-a-way trip to Duluth, Superior Shores resort. Sounds like we are going to drop Megan off super early Friday morning and head up right away. It should give us some time to enjoy the drive up, maybe even stop off at Hinckley for some gambling. What we do the rest of the weekend will probably depend on the weather, but no matter what it should be fun and relaxing.

Tonight, about 4 weeks late, we dyed Easter eggs!! I'm sure your wondering why we waited that long. It was really just a series of unfortunate events. First, we bought some brown eggs that wouldn't look very good dyed. When we finally got around to getting another dozen, Andrea accidentally cooked them too long and they got ruined. (the house smelled kind of funny too!) Then we just had things going on and never got around to it until now.





Megan also got a much needed hair cut today, and she looked so much better. I guess the haircut experience was not as good as our first time. In fact, it was bad enough that Andrea even talked about doing it herself next time! Oh well, maybe we will just try a different place instead.

Irresistible

What a perfect day to stay inside and relax. Too bad it's not looking to get any better... I have to admit that running on the treadmill isn't as easy as it used to be. I find that it's just too easy to stop when I get bored. At least with running outside, by the time I start to get bored, I have to turn around and run back.

I ended up going to the 10am Spiderman, and it was great. No crowd, no young kids, just a few normal adults enjoying the movie. Well... as normal as it is to see a movie at 10am. I've come to realize that my desire to see movies during the day is rooted in my dislike of crowds. Last week at the 10k, I didn't even want to get in line for the free post-race food because the lines were so stupid long. (I did end up getting in line, and it wasn't so bad).

Yesterday I also finally got a badly need wardrobe update. Mostly it was just work shirts that I needed. It was almost exactly a year ago I got new pants that actually fit, but I never got new shirts. I've been wearing 3X-LT shirts still. The hardest part about buying new shirts was deciding between Large and Medium. (I know, my life is rough...) I just couldn't convince myself that the mediums actually fit and looked better. I kept worrying that they'd shrink and then never fit, or they'd look too tight. In the end, I was able to get past whatever mental block I had and for better or worse bought a whole slew of medium shirts.

Only problem is after getting everything out of the bag last night, it looks like they forgot to put the belt that I bought in the bag. So now I have to go back today and convince them they didn't give me my belt. Hopefully that won't be too much of a hassle...

Here are some recent cute pictures of Megan. The first is one night Megan was just playing with Andrea's hair on the couch, it was so precious. Until she started pulling her hair and slapping Andi's head... Megan hits? You bet!



Andrea also bought Megan some new PJs the other day, and they are so cute on her. This picture is from just last night, she was running around and I was snapping shots of her.

Hills Rock

For whatever reason, I've been slacking and eating a litle more then I should the last few days. I guess after the big 10k, I felt like relaxing a bit. Not to mention, after finally getting my appetite back, it was nice to enjoy some good food. I got back on track tonight with a nice run outside. Funny part is, I ended up getting a little lost and next thing I knew, I was facing a very large uphill climb.

It was the very same hill that, almost 2 years ago, made me post about how much I hated hills. That time it was on a bike. This time, it was running, I ended up really enjoying it. Sure it was tough, but it was a nice way to push myself at the end of my run.

Some bad news regarding Dungeons and Dragons. Two of my players have finals this month, so we aren't going to play again until the end of this month. Sucks to only get two sessions in the last 3 months. Guess I shouldn't complain, at least I have a group that wants to keep playing.

Looking forward to Spiderman 3 this weekend, it should kick some major ass. It's interesting that one could see the movie as early as 10am in the morning. I might actually do that in an attempt to beat some of the crowds. The risk you take when going to a movie that early is sometimes thats when the parents take all there really young kids as well.

Speaking of that, we are actually going to take Megan to a movie this month also. She has been to one other movie with us, but that wasn't for her. It was that stupid Matinee Movie that promised a "baby-friendly environment". Anyway, this time, we're actually going to take her to a movie I think she will really enjoy: Shrek the Third. Shrek (and Shrek 2) are the only movies she sits all the way through and actually gets into. She loves the Dragon and the Puss in Boots. I have a feeling she will do the same in the theater. Should be a fun time!

Trip Sense part 2

You might remember back in January, I posted about Progessive's new program called "Trip Sense". Last night we uploaded the data and claimed our discounts!!



We had a slight moment of panic when Megan pulled out the Trip Sense USB connection in the middle of uploading the data, but everything worked out okay. Andrea will be getting a slightly better discount simply because she drives less overall miles. The cool part is we can go online and see all these reports about our driving habits. From how often we go over 75 mph, to how many sudden stops or starts that we have. It doesn't really define what a "sudden stop" is, but we both had about 180 over the past 2 months.

Not only that, but you can see graphs of all your trips. Here is typical trip for me heading into work in the morning.



Here is a slightly longer trip example. This is the weekend we headed down to New Ulm in Andrea's car.



Okay so maybe it's not all that exciting, but it's still cool to think about the discount we are going to get! Not only that, but this program will be continuing so we will be getting more discounts in the future. It's nice to see something in life that actually rewards you for good behavior, as opposed to everything else that only punishes you for bad behavior.

Eight from the Gate

Right before the race started today, I came up with my slogan: Eight from the Gate. This is in reference to my desire to run 8 minute miles right from the get go. I started the morning with a 1.5 mile warm up run, and then picked up my bud and headed down to the Minnehaha falls area. There was HORRIBLE traffic. I guess the good weather brought out TONS more people then last year. Luckily, after a few last minute decisions, we found a parking spot a mile from the start. We ran down the starting area with about 20 minutes to spare.

The race was GREAT. I was feeling good from the start and around mile 3 knew that the rest of the race would be exactly what I hoped for. My goal was under 50 minutes, which I was able to achieve. My final time:

47:19 !!!

I'm super happy with that time, I had a lot of fears that due to my recent health issues I wasn't going to be able to run the race I wanted to today. But everything came together and I hit my goals and then some. What will next year bring...?

Speaking of everything coming together, we are all finally on the mend this week. Megan was given some more antibiotics for her ear infection (Augmentin - one of the main things I used to take) and is healthy as a clam. No fevers, all normal Megan all the time! Andrea's sore throat is gone and I'm feeling great. Talk about a big relief.

As for the whole water leak problem... Ugh, that's a whole story for a different post. Maybe I'll get something up tomorrow.



Today there was a huge neighborhood garage sale event. Andrea found a bunch of fun things for Megan in the early morning hours while I was running, including a tricycle!! Here are some images from our play time today.

Coulda done without that

As if this week wasn't rough enough, I come home tonight to see this:



Seriously, kick me while I'm down. I suppose it was bound to happen sometime. Nothing lasts forever right? Just wish it wasn't water damaged ceilings. I wouldn't even begin to know how to start fixing it myself. Should I just start sawing sheet rock in hopes I can get to whatever is leaking? And then even if I do, how will I actually fix it? Wait, what am I talking about. This would all require TOOLS that I don't own... Not to mention this is directly above my computers. I'd have to move it all out of the way so they didn't get covered in sheet rock dust.

I have one theory on what the problem might be. Actually, it's what I really hope it might be. You see, that long line leads directly to a shower head in the bathroom on the other side of that wall. We haven't turned that shower on in months, maybe even a full year or more. Today, that shower was cleaned. There is a high chance that perhaps the shower was actually turned on during that cleaning process, and maybe, just MAYBE, the leak is actually from the pipes feeding to the shower itself.

So why would I really hope that is in fact the problem? Because if it is, it's not an immediate concern! I would be able to ignore it for a long time... Okay, well not forever obviously. But you know, at least until Megan grows old enough to take showers down here. That's what, at least another year right?!

I have to confirm with Andrea if the shower was turned on later tonight, when she gets home from Police Academy. I'll post a blog update once I validate or debunk my theory.

No News = Good News?

No strep, no pneumonia. That's the good news. Bad news is, we don't really know what it is that is causing Megan's fever. The other good news is that she didn't seem to develop any fever symptoms at all today. For the most part, today was pretty normal although she was still much more moody than normal. It would be great if she finally turned the corner. Just in case, we scheduled an appointment with our pediatrician for this Thursday. If she's done with the fevers by then, I'm sure no more tests will be done, and we'll just never know.

In the meantime, I've had to deal with my own bad decisions. We had this coupon sitting on our board for quite awhile to get 6 free wings at Buffalo Wild Wings. So we ended up going there Saturday night. I started with just a buffalo chicken wrap, but couldn't help but order some potato wedges. They were covered in sooooo much oil, yet tasted oh so yummy at the time. Within an hour of dinner, hell even as we walked out I knew something was wrong. My body just could not handle that level of badness. I never thought I'd actually say it, but I think my body has actually adjusted to clean living?

I won't gross you out with the following 48 hours after that, but last night was rough. I'm feeling better now but learned a pretty tough lesson. I can only hope that my body is back up to speed by this weekend. The weather is looking to be very nice for the run and if I one stupid decision ruins the run for me I'm going to be very upset.

I think I'm going to have to take a mulligan for April. May will be better!

Rough 72 Hours

You know that saying, it gets worse before it gets better? I damn sure hope that is the case for us, and especially Megan. The last 72 hours have not been a pleasant trip for anyone in the Anderson house. Somehow, I'm the only without a temperature right now, but I still don't feel 100% either. I have no appetite and I've had an upset stomach all day. Andrea has a fever of 100.

After Megans 100+ temp on Thursday, things have not improved. It didn't seem too bad Friday night, but by Saturday afternoon, Megan was burning up. I took her temp at 104, and we called the nurse line. They recommended kids ibuprofen. Andrea ran off to Target to get some, which we gave to her and settled her down for the night. So far Megan does not have any other symptoms that would point to something more serious. (vomiting, diarrhea, etc)

At some point during the night, her fever must have broke, because she woke up in a very decently chipper mood. Her temp was a normal 98 degrees.



By the afternoon, things started going south again. I took her temp at 102 and gave her some more ibuprofen. After that she went into the tired state and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon.



We just got done taking a semi-luke warm bath together, it was the best I could do. She didn't like it very much, but was too tired to complain. Her temp was 101.5, still high but nothing like yesterday. Now she is resting on the couch again.

Needless to say, I'm going to take a sick day tomorrow and we are ALL going to the Doctor. If I had to predict... I would say that her cold/ear infection is coming back with a vengeance. We'll probably try some more antibiotics and see if that helps.

Blog update: It's 9pm and Megan is doing great. She is laughing, active, and even ate some late night food. Her temp is 98.4, so looking very good. It's good to see her with a normal temp late at night when it is typically the highest. Still same plan for tomorrow, because I really want to make sure her ear infection/cough aren't getting worse.

Woh is Me

Despite the great weather, I took the night off running tonight to get home early. Megan came down with a 100+ temperature, so I thought it best to get home and help out. It has been a pretty rough month for Megan. She hasn't been 100% healthy since early April with the original pink eye and ear infection. This is really the first time she's been sick for this long, I just hope she starts to feel better soon.

Work is interesting as ever. And by interesting, I think you know what I mean. You know what? I'm not even stressing about it. I've found that it's time to embrace some of my own best advice: Go with the Flow. It's all about seperating the things I have control over from the things I don't. It worked in my personal life, why can't it work for my professional life?

Not much else going on this week... I don't have any plans this weekend that I can think of. Might be a slow few days on the blog. Not like my posts recently have been all that interesting. Suppose I should get some new Megan pics up soon, I just checked my camera and realized I haven't taken any in quite awhile.

Ninja Monday Vanish

Holy crap, 5 days without a post! Been awhile since I had a long break like that, guess I'm slacking. The three day weekend was perfect, just enough time for a little bit of everything: something new, something active, something fun, something relaxing!

Friday we enjoyed our trip to the Water Park of America. We dropped Megan off at daycare at 9:40am and got over to the Water Park shortly after 10am. The locker rooms left something to be desired, with $1.00 one use lockers. Other then that, the park was great! There were 3 solo slides, 2 pair person slides (on a tube), and 1 family tube ride (3-5 people). There was only a line for the family tube ride, so we only did that one twice. We did have one bad incident, when we went down together on one of the pair slides (you go on a large 2-person tube). At the end of the ride we got flung off the tube and I hit Andi in the head with my knee! I also tried to body board on the wave pool thing... very long line, but it was fun (for the 10 or so seconds before I fell off). We ended with a long dip in the whirlpool and a follow up lunch at Don Pablos.

Saturday morning I got a great 10-mile run in with my unofficial running partner. There is a chance we might attempt to run the Get in Gear 10k at the same pace together... More on that later! The weather wasn't too cold at all Saturday morning, so the run was great. Saturday night we visited some friends at a small spring get together.

That left Sunday morning for a quick trip to the grocery store with Megan while Andrea was at church, followed up with a relaxing afternoon of video games and movies. We even had a friend stop by to drop off a Christmas gift for Megan. Heck yes I like Christmas gifts in April! Who doesn't? Finished the night off with a little basketball with my brother and his roommate.

Got out for another great run tonight, the weather was awesome. I just hope that it can stay this way for the next two weeks. Just a few more runs this week and probably one practice pace run, then it's on to looking forward to my first half-marathon: The Heart of the City 1/2 Marathon.

My Wife the Cop

Megan and I are chilling alone tonight, watching Goonies. We had some turkey burgers for dinner and I gave Megan a big piece of mine. She loved it and ate it all up, but maybe she loved it too much. Because then a little bit later she had a really bad coughing fit and had a bad vomit situation. She didn't seem bothered by it, but it's still no fun. You just don't know, should you offer her more food later? Or wait to see if she gets hungry later? Oh well...

I realized I haven't mentioned why I am home alone tonight, and for the next few Wednesdays. Andrea has signed up for a Citizen’s Police Academy here in Apple Valley. Here is a news article about it from the local Apple Valley paper. Basically she gets to learn about police procedures and actually do a ride along with an officer one night. It's a totally free class and I think she is really enjoying it!

The snow this week is quite the downer, but this weekend should remedy that. Tomorrow is Friday for me since I'm taking the actual Friday off to spend the whole day inside, escaping the snow at the Water Park of America! We are dropping Megan off at day care and going straight to the park. Hopefully we will get a few hours of water slides, rafting, relaxing and swimming in, followed up with a nice lunch.

Not much else new... You may have noticed I moved my video posts over to Google Video instead of YouTube. The main reason for the switch was my Mom's work internet blocked YouTube. (but not Google Video) It does seem to be a slightly better quality too. YouTube seemed to always get the video and audio out of sync, but the Google Video posts are much better.

That's all I know for now, lets hope what they are saying about this weekends weather is true. (60's by Sunday...)

Better late then never

I know I promised a "Megan talks" post yesterday, but lazy sunday got the better of me. So much in fact, we didn't even dye eggs! Megan and I sat around in our PJ's all day, and it was great. I did at least take a shower sometime around 1pm, but quickly got back into my PJ's again. I played video games for at least 8 hours. Ahhh... so relaxing.

Today Megan is exactly a year and half old!! I know it's cliche to keep mentioning how fast time seems to be going by, but it just does. But when you think about it, that's probably a good thing. Isn't it also often said that "Time flies when you're having fun." Maybe I'm just having so much fun watching Megan grow up that it's flying by.

In honor of Megan's milestone, here is the video of her first word. Although offically we declared Megan's first word to be "up", this one is just so damn cute. It's also the first word she has used when she sees one around town. We were at Applebees once and Megan pointed and said "Ball!" and sure enough, there was a sports ball stuck on the wall. So please enjoy, Megan says Ball!

So much for that

Nothing really interesting to post about this week. Work is back to semi-normal, if one could even call it that. We've been given new direction by the business that is so Top Secret, I can't even talk about it! It's sorta like Fight Club...

Thankfully the week went by really fast since I had Monday off. The bad news is come Wednesday, I woke up sick. After avoiding it for almost 2 weeks, I get sick now... WHY! If it's the same thing Andrea and Megan have, I'm going to be hurting soon. My plan is to rest today and tomorrow, and come Monday really start to run it out of my system.

The best news from this week is that tonight we are playing Dungeons & Dragons! It's been 6 weeks since our last game so no one will even remember what we were doing last time, but it should still be fun. The funny part is I'm still way ahead thanks to all that prep work I did back in Feb. I've had to do zero prep for tonights session which is nice. I'd like to see them get through the current adventure tonight, but odds are it won't happen.

Come Sunday we will be dying some Easter Eggs with Megan! Not sure how involved Megan will be this year, I don't want to make a huge mess in the kitchen. It will still be fun, and I'll get a bunch of pictures. Also tomorrow I'll be posting up a little surprise video... Megan talking! (sort of)

Over the River

And through the woods! Monday morning Megan and I headed over to Great Grandma and Grandpa's house in Minneapolis. We had a nice little visit, my Aunt and cousin where there also. My grandpa recently bought a digital camera, which is weird considering he doesn't own a computer. I'm not quite sure what he does with the pictures, I assume he must take the memory card in and get prints created directly from that.

My cousin, being the technology savvy wiz that she is, recorded a video with my grandpa's camera. It occurred to me that whatever cuteness was on that recorded clip would basically never reach the light of day. Long story short, I stole my grandpa's camera so I could get the images and video off of it. Here is the result, run time 1:42.



And some pictures from the morning... Megan went crazy up and down the stairs. Wore her out pretty well!



Megan smiling at her Easter bunny present that she got from Grandma and Grandpa.



Other then that, today went pretty well. For those of you curious about the work situation, as usual I blew things out of proportion. Not only was the problem found, it wasn't even in an area I have direct responsibility over. Thus I did not find the problem. (although my "best guess" from last week turned out to be correct...) But that is exactly why I was stressing so much - not having the knowledge / ability to find the problem on my own. For whatever reason, I have very little faith in other people sometimes. Maybe it's just because I've never had a job where I felt like someone had my back. Most of the time it just seems like everyone is too busy watching their own back. The use of the acronym CYA (Cover Your Ass) in the business world may seem out of place, but it happens more then you'd think.

No Jokes

Our weekend was very relaxing. We arrived at Andrea's parents house and spent a few hours there with Megan, and then headed out to check in to the hotel. Upon arriving, we found a large mass of people in the pool area. At least 20+ people and kids all hanging out, along with tables full of food, drinks, cupcakes, etc. No big deal, right? I'm sure things would clear out by the time we got back in the evening...

We headed into downtown New Ulm to kill some time. Stopped at Country Loft because we heard they had really good fudge there. We ordered a few pieces and they were soooo yummy. After that we went to see a movie... I hesitate to say what we saw, but you have to realize we only had a choice of 3 movies, and the other two were cartoons. (and I've already seen TMNT!) So we saw Blades of Glory. It was pretty bad, but it had a few laughable moments. After that we enjoyed a nice big dinner at the Lamplighter.

Upon returning to the hotel, it was to the same huge crowd of people in the pool area. Did I forget to mention that we had a pool side room?? We tried to delay as long as we could (9:30pm) to try and get some swimming in, but it was still crowded. There were actually kids JUMPING into the whirlpool and splashing. We didn't stick around very long...

Other then that, the weekend was great. The only bad part was Andrea still feeling like crap. So today she headed to urgent care to see whats up. Turns out she has BRONCHITIS!! No joke! Luckily she went in early enough that she was able to order and pick up some antibiotics all today before everything closed. Now both the ladies in my life are sick and on medication. The fact that I'm still well is a miracle. Talk about dodging bullets.

One Two Punch

Pink eye and ear infection. Not exactly the thing you want to hear a day before vacation. Megan had been more moody then usual all week, including some weird night time crying and needing extra soothing for bed, etc. She has been sick with a cold (along with Andrea) for probably the last week and half. Thursday I came home and noticed that one of her eyes looked a little darker then the other, and seemed to have a film / wetness to it.

Andrea took Megan in to the doc the next morning, and sure enough she has both pink eye AND an ear infection all at once. When it rain it pours. We have to do drops in her eyes every 3 hours and amoxicillin twice a day for the ear infection.

Andrea's parents have still agreed to take Megan for us today and over night, so we can enjoy the night off at a hotel in New Ulm. Megan did actually sleep all night last night (from midnight till 8am) so maybe she is feeling a little better. In the meantime, I'm going to try and enjoy my 3-day weekend as much as humanly possible.


Andrea got a free medium pizza from Old Chicago for her birthday, so we went there and Megan got a balloon!


So thats why none of my DVDs will read anymore...


I just liked this picture, Megan looks so cute!

One day at a time

I thought I'd made it through the worst part of work last week, but this week isn't turning out any better. Thankfully I have this weekend to look forward to, and a 3 day weekend at that. I need to stop having these worst case scenario thoughts. I'm sure I'm not at risk of losing my job at this point, but it constantly worries me. Right now our software has been found to have serious performance issues over the previous version in high volume stress tests. Why? I don't know... Maybe because it's had over 1.5 years of untested code changes? And what if the performance issues can't be resolved? Someone, somewhere is going to point fingers and need someone to blame. And then what if 1.5 years worth of development dollars get thrown out the window? That can't just happen without consequences. Ultimately I'd expect that falls on the shoulders of the project leads and project managers, but some days... I just wonder.

It doesn't help that the one time I did survive layoffs back at my first job, it was only worker drones that got laid off. Not a single management person was let go during the mass lay-offs. This was completely the wrong approach in my opinion, but who knows how companies make those kinds of decisions.

Enough about work... way back on October 8th last year I posted about how I ran over my bike with my car after the last ride of the season. I finally got it into the shop and had it looked at. The good news is that the frame wasn't bent like I originally thought. The bad news is that the wheel was in fact completely ruined. Replacing it is going to run me about $120 bucks. Sucks, but at least I don't have to buy an entire new bike. I shouldn't complain, I think Steve has gone through multiple tires on his bike.

Now I just have to figure out what kind of biking things I want to do this year. I think I want to do some more transporting of my bike to places and enjoying long miles of scenic paved bike trails. Things like the Gateway State Trail or maybe the Sakatah Singing Hills? Of course, there is also the possibility of going up north to the Paul Bunyan State Trail for a really long ride. 70+ miles of paved paths.

Vacation... soon?

Might remember back in Nov, I was talking about vacation planning. Or in my case, lack of. I've been at my job for 9 months and I've used zero hours of vacation time. This must be some kind of crazy record for me. It's not like I haven't had any breaks. I had three floating holidays I had to use at the end of December or I'd lose them (they don't carry over year-to-year). And I've taken sick time here and there. Now I'm looking at having to use 5 days of vacation time before June, or I lose those also! (vacation goes year-to-year of your hire date... don't ask, its complicated)

Anyway, the point is, we got some fun things coming up. This weekend, we are going down to New Ulm for an overnight trip. Andrea's parents will be watching Megan for us. In April, we are going to go spend the day at the Water Park of America. Courtesy of free tickets provided by Andrea "Free Stuff" Anderson. Then in May, we are going to head up North for a romantic weekend get-a-way at Superior Shores. For that weekend, my Mom is going to watch Megan for the entire weekend! Should be interesting, she says she is going to Megan proof her house before then, but really - can anything be fully Megan proofed?

If all these little mini vacations weren't enough, I've even got one more planned just for me. I'm heading out to Boise at the end of October, all by my lonesome, for a 4-day weekend trip. I think it will be great to just see a couple of my old friends from back there. The other big reason I want to go back to is run a solid half-marathon along the Boise Green Belt. No specific event in mind, just running the thing I had access to for 5 years and never even used. To think I lived no more then a quarter mile from this wonderful running location all that time... I try not to have any regrets, but sometimes it's so hard not to.

Speaking of running, on a more positive note, I got outside today for a great run. It would have been a crime not to, with this great weather. I thought it was supposed to be cloudy and rainy today, not sunny and awesome! Bad news is that the battery on my distance monitor died, so I had no idea how far/long I was running. Here is the loop that I ended up running. It was great except for the fact that for the first 4 miles, I had the wind to my back the entire time (little did I know). The way home was a bit rough, but I managed. Now to relax and enjoy the rest of today!

Friday Night Party

Involves Megan sitting on my lap while blogging and watching Harry Potter 3. Good enough for me! This weekend couldn't come soon enough. Pretty rough week at work... although I put 46 hours on my time sheet, it was more like 50 hours at the office. Guess I shouldn't really complain, first long hour week since I've been there.

Got outside for a great run tonight, gotta love the 60 degree sunny weather. Running outside is SO much nicer then running on the treadmill. It actually feels easier, I can run faster and not get as tired, not to mention it is not as boring. Don't know if I'll get out again this weekend, but I've got the itch now. Spring won't be here soon enough.

The rest of this weekend should be loads of fun. I'm only NOT at TMNT right now because Andrea had some plans for tonight, so Megan and I are home alone. Hopefully I'll catch it tomorrow afternoon. Then I'll be getting my bike into the shop this weekend so I can get it fixed for the summer of riding. Tomorrow night is dinner with the family at Applebees.

Come Sunday morning, I might be running a D&D session. I'm still waiting for a phone call if one last person can show up. I think it will be fun, and a nice change of pace to do a morning - afternoon session, instead of our usual night time - 3am games. Maybe everyone's mental faculties will be working a little better from 10am to 4pm.

Gotta go now, time to get Megs ready for bed. In her PJs at least. She's been staying up pretty late recently. Past 10pm for the last week for the most part. Might still be a fall out from the time change, it's hard to say.

Time for Change

It's weird how after I get home from work, in my head, it's the next day. It's Thursday to me, even though its not. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it? Wait, what was this post going to be about? Oh ya.

I originally bought my mp3 player back in Jan of 2006. After I got it, I put 26 songs on it. For 15 months, my mp3 player had those same 26 songs on it. 400+ miles of running, unknown number of biking miles, all to those same 26 songs. Yesterday, I finally changed the playlist. Now it has 46 songs on it, all different from the original 26. Right about now you might be wondering, who cares?

Cause sometimes I feel like my mp3 player is a metaphor for part of my personality. Change is good, right? Tonight, the new music was a great energizer to my run. It felt great... so why did I settle for the same 26 songs for 15 months? It's not my lack of music interests... Maybe partly my lack of available mp3's. (I only have 1.6 gig of music, not exactly a lot) But really I think it's just that I don't go out of my way to seek out new things as much as I should. I'm not saying I need to be going out buying things or taking extravagant vacations to exotic locations all the time, but I think it might do me some good to focus on the things I do enjoy and build on them to keep things interesting.

Btw.... TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES THIS WEEKEND!!! WOOHOOO!!

Embracing the goddess energy within yourselves...
will bring all of you to a new understanding and value of life.
A vision that inspires you to live and love on planet earth.

Like a priceless jewel.. buried in dark layers of soil and stone.
Earth radiates her brilliant beauty... into the caverns of space and time.

Perhaps your are aware of those who watch over your home.
And experience it as a place to visit and play with reality.
You are becoming aware of yourself as a game master.

10 Pointless Questions

Ahh, the lazy Sunday strikes again. Actually I did do a short work out this morning, but been relaxing the rest of the day. Recently, Megan must have screwed up the channel memory on our TV, because I couldn't channel up/down through any channels. I went ahead and told the TV to re-memorize the available channels. After doing this, I went through to find any that needed to be deleted, only to find 10 channels worth of On-Demand that are playing movies. There is really no reason I should be getting these, but for some reason they are playing. Available today: Passenger 57, Departed, Revenge of the Sith, Curious George (Megan and I watched that!), RV, and even.... Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl!! How long will it last?!? Considering I don't even have a cable box, it might just be around for awhile...

Anyway, on to the 10 pointless questions promised in the title:

1. If you could live forever, as a normal young healthy person, would you?

2. What would you do if you won the lottery?

3. If you could know what really happens when you die, would you want to?

4. If you could know the exact date and cause of your death, would you want to?

5. If you could take a pill that made it so you never had to sleep, but it would take 5 years off your life expectancy, would you?

6. What would you do if you knew the cure for cancer or AIDS?

7. If you could have a DVD of your entire life, would you watch it? (btw, I had this question in my head long before the movie Click came out)

8. Would you want to be able to read peoples thoughts, if it meant everyone else could read yours?

9. What would you do if you could travel through time? (aside from attempting to cause a paradox)

10. If you could be given all knowledge of how the entire universe came into being, how it works, and operates, would you take it?

TGIF

Okay so Friday is still another 3 hours away, but it's close enough. We ate at TGIF tonight and it was yummy. I had a french fry appetizer with some french fries as my main course. I'm a little french fried out needless to say. I just brought the sandwich I got home to have for lunch tomorrow. We dropped Megan off at Grandma G's, aka Casa De Chocolate. Now I'm kinda sick off M&Ms and Hershey bars. Can you say lots of exercise this weekend? I CAN!!

Andrea and Megan are heading down to New Ulm tomorrow night to spend the night with her folks. So Friday night I'll just be exercising until I'm sick of it, and then a long run Saturday morning. I actually got a long run outside on Tuesday this week when it was 60 out, but now this weekend isn't looking to be as nice. Bummer.

Here are the promised pictures of Megan...


This first one was just cute, although hard to see, Megan is wearing a pair of cat ears that Andrea bought for Halloween. Hmmmm wonder where those ended up, hopefully Andi got them put away.


I thought this one was funny, Megan throwing out gang signs.


I'm not sure if she just had her eyes closed, or actually had started to fall asleep in this position. I'm gonna guess she was actually asleep like this and that's why Andi snapped the picture.


Finally, Megan playing in her new booster chair. She loves just sitting in it for some reason. Recently she's figured out how to strap herself in! Too bad she doesn't know how to get out yet. Or is that a good thing...? J

Happy p Day

I had once considered myself quite the math buff, yet I had never heard of PI day until today. And I call myself a geek!? Thank god I still play D&D, it's the only thing I got left to hang on to my geekdom. Although there is a good chance I might give up on that too...

Giving up. Such an interesting concept. Probably the single easiest thing one can do. I think Office Space said it best. "Well you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Just take a look at my cousin, he's broke, don't do shit." I remember posting about quitting as one of my first posts. Turns out it was actually my 6th post ever. In going back to read the post, I found an anon comment from someone who had physical withdrawal symptoms (headaches, vomiting) from quitting online games. The comment came almost 10 months later, so I had never seen it until now. Interesting. Almost makes me want to go through all my old posts...

In thinking about all the things I've given up on, video games, food, drinking...(although that last one is arguable, especially considering what happened just last weekend) I wonder if maybe I've taken things a little too far. I did all this under the motivation of becoming a "better person". But what does that even mean? Have I become so obsessed with certain things that I've completely lost sight of the simple pleasures?

And in spite of all that, I find myself having thoughts of giving up on even more things. And I'm not just referring to D&D here. I'm talking about things that some small part of me still cries out that they are worth fighting for, worth holding on to. I want to listen, really I do... because the last thing I want is to give up on so much that I no longer have anything to look forward to. Not that I think it will ever get that bad, but sometimes it feels like I'm pretty damn close.

I know, I know. Why does every damn post have to be so serious/dark/brooding? Who knows... I guess because it's my blog damnit, and I'm taking it back for me! If that makes me the asshole, well it's probably not the only thing... On the plus side, I have some pictures of Megan ready to go for tomorrow so this post won't even sit on top for 24 hours. You can thank me later.

Choppin' Broccoli

She chopUUNNN!



It's pretty cool that Megan actually likes to eat healthy food. Oh sure, she loves cake, pizza, and cookies, but she will also ask for broccoli and even brussel sprouts. Especially the brussel sprouts, she will point and ask for them until she eats her fill. I even caught it on video for proof!



I'd post more but it's 11pm and I need to get some serious sleep. I've got to be in at 6am tomorrow to have some things done by 8, which means I'm basically getting up at what used to be 4am to get to work... Or something like that. I can hardly do the math required to figure that out.

A Brief History of Time

I have no clue how this post is going to turn out, so bare with me. Recently, work has been pervading my thoughts. From my nightly runs to my weekends at home, it's getting annoying! Work has not, and SHOULD not be something that invades my home life. This got me thinking about why I would let work get to me like that, which lead me to thinking as I often do, about what's really important to me, and where my priorities are. Finally, this lead to thoughts about how those priorities have changed over time and so I decided to actually put a list together in my head.

1994-1998: College Years
Top 5 Priorities during this time period:

1. Grades/School
2. Andrea
3. Drinking
4. Friends
5. Everything else (mostly Mario Kart)

Not much to say about college years, 'cept that there are times I miss many aspects of college. I tried to squeeze in as much self discovery as I could... When I was sober anyway.

1998-2004: Stagnation Years
Top 5 Priorities during this time period:

1. Work
2. Everquest
3. Andrea
4. Drinking
5. Everything else

98 started out with me living by myself and having nothing but work, and I poured everything I had into it. In the long term, it helped me be good at what I do. But I call these the stagnation years because, as hard as I worked, there was very little growth on a personal level. I drank every weekend to fight the monotony. With all my time spent on Everquest, and Andrea working mostly nights, I often wonder if I could have found more productive pursuits. But I try not to regret my decisions... I made some good friends and we had some good times. I'm actually heading back to Boise in October to visit people, and looking forward to that.

2004: Year of Shock
Top 5 Priorities during this time period:

1. Andrea
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Work
5. Everything else

Moving back to Minnesota in Nov 03 was a much bigger shock to my persona then I realized at the time. I look back now and realize that moving back was a major catalyst to all the change in my life. Being around my family again made me realize how important they were to me. Friendships found there way back into the top 3 as I did my best to reconnect with everyone. I took a solid 6 month break from work as it dropped far down my list of priorities.

2005-2006: Rediscovery Years
Top 5 Priorities during this time period:

1. Andrea/Megan
2. Family
3. Shawn
4. Friends
5. Everything else

2005 started off with the news of impending fatherhood. It was also the start of my year of sobriety. Two interesting things stand about my priorities during this period. First, it's the first time I actually showed up on my own list, and second, it's the first time work went off to the way side. I think that is why I ended up in a dead-end job for 2 years without realizing it. I refer to this period as a self discovery time, because I still see two distinct personalities between pre and post 2005.

2007+: Year of ???
Top 5 Priorities during this time period:

1. Andrea/Megan
2. Shawn
3. Work
4. Family
5. Everything else

Which brings us to today, where I find work is constantly struggling to move up to the #2 spot in my priority list. It's important to me to succeed, but only so far as it helps me achieve my personal goals. What I dislike is when the desire to succeed causes me to think/worry about work outside of work, and it can be a constant struggle. On the plus side, I'm very happy where I'm at and with my current priority list. I think I just need to keep the top 3 in balance (a.k.a. keep work in check) and the rest will just work out.

Two's Day

Not much new to report, or should I say, not much I want to post about right now. Instead I'll just say how much fun was had on Saturday with all our things, and how Sunday we all just sat around enjoying a relaxing do nothing day. Here are some pictures of Megan from the weekend.


Playing with Grandpa B and the basketball. Swoosh!


Megan got a new outfit to wear, so we put it on right away, before she out grows it!


She thought this was a fun game, to get her head stuck in the stool... I let her figure out how to get out. :-)


Hard at work at the computer... She's playing this game if your curious.

Between here and there

Somehow I survived this week? I'm not even sure how... between the lack of exercise, the long nights at work, the snow storms... This week was really a downer. Yet here I sit on Saturday morning after my morning run feeling much better. If there is one thing this week showed me, it's that how tightly my mood is currently tied to my exercise / activity levels. That must mean something good, but my brain is too damn exhausted from this week to analyze it much more.

Work highlight this week... So I'm sitting in a meeting with the Project Lead, the Quality Assurance Lead, and myself. We are going over potential problems in the software, and in discussing something the QA Lead makes an off-hand comment, "Well you guys would know better then me on that one, it's your code." The Project Lead responds jokingly, "Well, at least 1/3rd of the people in this room know the code." He was of course, referring to my knowledge of the code. Not bad for 8 months... Now to just survive the next 8! HA!

Today is pretty busy, although a small lull right now gave me time to blog. In about an hour, Grandma B & Grandpa B will be arriving to visit Megan and spend the afternoon here. I'll be out running a few errands while they are here. Then tonight we will be dropping Megan off and Grandma G's, and Andrea and I will be going out for a nice date night.

First stop is this new place in Apple Valley, down off Galaxie called Luxury Sweets. It's sorta her post birthday present, since I didn't have time to really get her anything and she couldn't even leave the house on her birthday. We will be getting their specialty, Getati's!! I can't say if I've ever actually had an official Gelati, but I'm sure they will be mighty tasty.

After that we are going to head to the movies and see Zodiac. The hype says this movie should be pretty good, and I'm up for a good thriller. Only two things that kind of stick out... first, it's 160 minutes (2 hour 40 mins!) long. Second, since it's based on true events, you pretty much already know the bad guy gets away / doesn't get caught? It might be kind of rough to sit through 160 minutes of movie when you already know the ending...