Kumbaya

Morning weigh-in: 180.5#, 12% BF

 

Really cool time last night at Porters, hanging with a big chunk of the old Which Brew crowd, as well as the usual people I see on a more regular basis (no names, to protect the guilty). Some nights I might just sit like a bump on a log, and exchange maybe 5 words with my neighbor, but things were way more conversational last night; it was a hard-core interactive evening. Jazz combo, "meet the brewer" schwagfest with Stoudts Brewing (we came home with a tee shirt and two pint glasses), a Reuben, and some Stoudts oatmeal stouts: a winner all around.

 

I hit the gym before that, but I hit it so hard -- I really upped the ante on those lower-body plyometrics -- that I had to quit early. Did a little shopping, looked at smartphones and found out (from the Best Buy counter girl, no offense but not the most reliable source) that the Droid is not the way to go internationally. (I'm still leaning toward the Droid, but I was a little disappointed last night, then even more conflicted/confused when I ran into someone at Porters who has one, and loves it enough to get rid of his Blackberry.) Also hit Mal-Wart for trip related under-necessities. Socks, Spider Man pajamas, you know the drill...

 

The lights are charging, and tonight I am doing a road ride before ending up (most likely) at Brew Works.

 

The Plan, Man: I am going to do the Wilderness 101 once again this year (so sad, something to prove), and also Allamuchy and (most likely) Big Bear. My plan originally was to start that "Time Crunched Cyclist Program" regimen in February, continuing that through early April, regrouping for a month or two, then hitting it again for another 8 weeks before the W101. However, I do not think I'm ready to start real training, and the next two weeks off will not help things... My current, rethought plan is to do base work through April, just miles miles miles in the bank, then start the TCTP in May and run it for about 12 weeks, up to the W101. With the extra base work, I might take on the more aggressive of the training regimens offered.

 

This also gives me a chance to run more. I agreed to run a half-marathon with Anne and some others, and I need to get in some real training for that too.

 

Dammit, I also want to go skiing! Maybe it'll get cold again when we get back. Mud season sucks, I think I have cabin fever.

 

 

Black Bird Speaks

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 179.5#, 13% BF

Morning weigh-in (Thursday): 180#, 12% BF

 

Feeling a little better, blues are starting to fade...

 

A Public Service Announcement (for anyone struggling with pairing Garmin devices, and resorting to Teh Google): I got a Garmin accessory for Christmas, a pedal-cadence monitor which communicates wirelessly with my GPS. Before they can do that, however, the two units have to establish a communications link. The process is called "pairing," and it's sort of like the units get introduced to each other: you hold the GPS near the monitor, with no other monitors or GPS units nearby, and they do the rest. (Once the devices are paired, they automatically recognize each other, and will work together even in the presence of other accessories/devices, or other riders with similar GPS units.) There is one "undocumented feature" though: the airwaves have to really be quiet when you do this, and more specifically, the units will not pair if there's wi-fi around. Well, we have wi-fi throughout the house, and so do all our neighbors... I spent about a week fiddling with the cadence monitor, replacing batteries and pressing reset buttons etc, no luck until I came across a forum comment that warned about the wi-fi thing. I found a spot down the street where the airwaves were quiet enough, and two seconds later they were paired. Piece of cake! -- and they have been playing together flawlessly ever since. Each new toy brings disquieting news though, and now I think my cadence is too low...

 

Down to the wire: I was getting nervous about our visas so I checked online yesterday -- they'd been approved and were on the way back to us, and when I got home the package had already arrived. Whew! Except for packing (and one more confirmation with the hotel) we are now ready for Russia. Well, except for the language thing... I'll be bringing a camera but no laptop, so posting may be sparse for a bit -- though I might pick up a new smartphone (the Droid has been catching my eye lately), especially if I can get one I can use internationally. We shall see.

 

Last night was the wake for Deb's stepdad. I carpooled with Lori, and met a few friends (Eric & Kris, Greg, Janna & Eric) from the old Masters Swimming days, but otherwise it was mostly Deb's relatives and neighbors. Deb seemed to be holding up OK. Pretty sad, he had pancreatic cancer and it took him out rather suddenly.

 

Tonight is the gym, then over to Porters. This morning was beautiful, with the predawn frost colors, and the crows all fleeing their epicenter along the river.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hive Leptosouls Give Virgins Instant Sex...

...and busy times make for sparse blogging, even if there's more to blog about in busy times.

 

What's up? I am super-busy at work, I just went through a weeklong feeding frenzy -- last weekend was all about the quest for pizza, and then there was comfort food midweek, and Brew Works and Blue Sky and yadda yadda et cetera through this weekend -- and some friends are dealing with the loss of parents  (hence the comfort food), and in between I just don't seem to have time to really sit still and think, and when I do, I have other things to think about than blogging. (There's also this: though I do tend to chronicle my life here, I had a few posts that were getting too diary-like, lists of events, food I ate and so on, that I abandoned and deleted. That wasn't and isn't the direction I want to go with this, even if that's where it seems to trend most of the time.)

 

The weight: I didn't check it for the past few days, but I'll get back into it soon. It's probably not good, but not radically bad either; it had been hovering around 180 for the past week, and I'd guess that's where it is now. (I have to say though, that except for the past few days, I have been keeping track: I found a few sports/fitness/coaching sites that let me record my workouts, weight, etc, which I've been playing with, and these posts here were originally a just a substitute for that kind of thing. I'll probably keep it up here for the sake of completeness, or OCD or whatever...)

 

Reading: Just finished Solaris, which was good but not nearly as earth-shattering as the hype. I'm just at the beginning of The Cyberiad, which already seems better.

 

Viewing: We watched Memento this weekend, which I hadn't seen since it was on the big screen. Still good, still loved it (Anne's verdict: good, but kind of creepy), and I think I took home a little more of what actually happened.

 

Memento Mori: I saw on MTBr that the 10th anniversary of Dalerider's passing was the other day. He was sort of the Brian of that crowd, in the sense of being the friend and benefactor to a whole community, and I met him once when the real Brian, offended by a bad MTBr review of the Jim Thorpe trails, organized a weekend gathering -- Brian threw down the gauntlet in the form of an invite, "to see the real trails," and Chris aka Dalerider1 did the organizing. It was a real blast, and he was a cool and honest person, one of many who were there that weekend. In some ways it seemed like "holy cow it's been ten years already?" but in other ways that gathering -- maybe the summer of 1999? -- seems like it was on another world.

 

Tonight is the gym, then I'm skipping Tacos & Brews night. Tomorrow is a wake.

 

The Reference: "Hive leptosouls give virgins instant sex. Leptosoul experiences can be tiring and trying." It's a quote from The Godwhale (which I read in maybe 7th grade, and in some ways it's the only book I ever read), a mnemonic for a sequence of amino acids. It's funny what stays with you...