Couching Tiger, Skeet-shooting Dragon

I was going to celebrate the successful conclusion of the Couch to 5K program by taking my sofa outside and hacking it apart with my sawz-all, but one of the cats was sleeping on it, so I took a nap instead.

So now the question is: what next? I mean, clearly I have mastered jogging. I could use a little work on my falling on concrete technique, but as far as I know that's not an Olympic sport (although it's just stupid enough that it might have been added as one...).

I'm thinking maybe mountain climbing. Small, small mountains. Nothing over about eight feet. And I'll need a well-cushioned surface below.

If that doesn't work out, maybe I'll go with skeet shooting. I can say "pull" or whatever it is that you're supposed to yell. (I might need to look up a few details first.) I should probably warn my neighbors before I start shooting, but they've been really understanding in the past.

Or maybe I'll just try to extend my jogging distance a bit...

Falling

The penultimate week of the Couch to 5k experiment suffered a slight setback when I tripped and fell flat on the sidewalk, tenderizing my knees in the process. The good news is that there were no witnesses (one of the advantages of running at night) and I was already back on my feet and walking again by the time the police car drove by a couple of minutes later. For the record I would like to state that doing a pendulum swing straight down onto the sidewalk causes much pain. I was forced to consume a lot of ice cream to get over it.

Anyhow, Jojo the Enforcer was in town this weekend along with her daughter, Mary-Kate Olsen. (I don't really understand how the genetics worked out in this situation...) My parents also drove up for the weekend, so there was a partial family reunion, and my little niece only ended up with a slight bruise when she tripped and slammed her cheek into the coffee table. (See, we're related.)

Jeff managed to not light the propane grill on fire this time, so the entertainment wasn't quite as good, but other than that it was a pleasant weekend.

Thoughts of the Day

Here are some random thoughts from today:

- It's amazing how many days start with me saying out loud "What did I just step in?"

- I love my dogs, but why do I often wish the dogs were a little more like the cats, but I never wish the cats were more like the dogs?

- I send a lot of email to my boss consisting of forwarded messages where I've just added "La la la la la" because I can't deal with the stupidity of it all.

- I've officially named my dogs in aggregate the "stalkerazzi". They need to learn how to nap or something.

- Based on how much time it took me to clean up the back yard today, I'm feeding the stalkerazzi entirely too much food.

- Why does my work computer hang for ten minutes when I lose the VPN connection? Is this really the best they could come up with? I'd reboot it, but that usually takes about fifteen minutes. I guess slowing everything down is one way to make everything secure -- I'd certainly never steal that thing.

- Why does the VPN connection always go down when I have about two minutes of work left to do?

- If I throw the laptop through the window, can I write the repairs off as a business expense? Does that require a special form?

- Apparently manually ending Outlook to try to speed up re-establishing the VPN connection is not a good idea. Now I get to reboot after waiting ten minutes in the first place.

- Can I get the two minutes of work that I need to do finished within one hour? It's looking doubtful.

- Listening to podcasts while running works well as long as it's something that I find interesting enough to grab my attention. The podcast from The New Yorker about the ethics of using confidential informants worked well.The podcast about stranded prepositions not so much.

- If I ever have episodes of syncope and you need to raise my blood pressure, showing me the Windows XP logo will probably take care of the problem without any additional pharmaceutical intervention.


I think I'll go watch another episode of The Closer while I wait for the laptop to boot...

Simply Dashing

Now that I've made it to the part of the "Couch to 5k" program where I'm not supposed to be taking walking breaks anymore, I finally put the sensor in my shoe and hooked up the iPod to see how close I am getting to the recommended distance.

See, you can either run a set distance or run a set time. Theoretically they should be close. In this case, a 25 minute jog was supposed to be about 2.5 miles. I know that's actually not that fast, but I had my doubts that I was even hitting that mark.

So imagine my surprise when my iPod reported that in 25 minutes 7 seconds I had traveled 3.77 miles for a pace of 6.39 minutes/mile. I mean, if I'm going that fast when I feel like I'm plodding along, maybe I should really train and blow everyone else out of the water during a real race.

Or maybe I should follow the directions in the calibration section of the user manual.

Anyhow, twenty-five minutes is a long time to think about things, and you might expect that I would come up with some real insight during that time, but here's a pretty good approximation of my thoughts as I make three laps around my section of the neighborhood:

- "If I lost another ten pounds this would be easier and probably better for my knees."

- "Hah, I avoided that branch at eye level that I always run into."

- "Ugh, it's probably only been about two minutes."

- "Why did I eat all that junk food an hour ago? That was a mistake."

- "Hm... bread. I love bread. Maybe I should bake some bread when I get home. I deserve it."

- "Seriously, how long have I been running? This is taking forever."

- "I'm not buying any more cookie dough. I don't need stuff like that."

- "Hm... cookie dough. I wonder if I have any left in the refrigerator..."

- "Dammit, that branch is going to put my eye out someday. I should bring some gardening shears with me next time."

- "Only one more lap. Thank god."

- "Is this section uphill? I've never noticed that before."

- "Hm... cheese. I love cheese. Cheese and bread together. Maybe with some cookie dough."

- "Ouch! My eye!"

- "Yay, I made it."

Deep thoughts. Yep.

The Grand Tour

This week Mike and the Albinos came up to the Bay Area to visit.

They did the whole San Francisco Pier whatever-the-number-is sightseeing, along with the tour of the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield. Apparently there were a lot of obese people touring the candy factory. Go figure.

Jeff (along with Mike) barbequed some chickens with beer, only temporarily lighting the entire propane grill on fire in the process. They claimed that the non-charred part of the chickens was excellent. My veggie burgers were just fine.

They even built a tree house, although it's more like a tree deck with two support pillars that go down to the ground. I'm a little worried that the support pillars, which are sitting on a foundation of two bricks stacked on the dirt, will be a little unsteady after the next rain, but I suppose that even if the whole thing sags it's unlikely anyone will be seriously hurt since the platform is only a little over five feet off the ground.

K-Poo even made it back from China for the occasion and was remarkably coherent for someone who had just flown across the earth and hadn't slept for 48 hours.

Unfortunately the whole weekend was completely ruined when Mike confirmed that he also remembers the movie theater (there was only one theater) in Rolla, Missouri showing Silent Running as part of the children's summer movie series. Apparently I'm the only one who thinks that's crazy. The children's summer movie series was a weekly event where they showed things like Don Knotts movies (a la the Apple Dumpling Gang series) and the old Batman films during the day.

Silent Running is not a film I would show to a child. Okay, actually I wouldn't show it to anyone since it was made in the 70s and was pretty terrible. But I would especially never show it specifically to children. It's a dystopian nightmare, and people are being killed off throughout the whole film. By the end everyone is dead with the exception of one robot. Why would they think that belonged in the series?

Mostly what I remember about the film (aside from the scene where one of the robots is killed) is that the people whose whole purpose in life was to keep a bunch of plants alive couldn't figure out that the plants were dying because they weren't getting enough light. Even as a seven year old I knew that was stupid. I guess the movies being made today really aren't any worse than they used to be.

Whatever.

It Pains Me To Say This

I had to bump my running plans by a day on Friday because I was having these weird sharp pains just under the left rib cage and it hurt to walk so I figured that running was out of the question.

I realize that normal people probably don't get irritated by pain just because it throws off their exercise program. Normal people probably actually take these things seriously and consult medical professionals. I never claimed to be normal.

My diagnostic plan (for pretty much everything) is to wait and see what happens. If I drop dead from it (outcome #1), well, at least I haven't spent long suffering, and hopefully someone will notice before my animals die of starvation. If it gets better (outcome #2, which has been how it's worked out so far) I haven't wasted any time being poked and prodded by people I don't know. And if it stays the same (outcome #3) then I know that I probably won't drop dead from it any time soon and the diagnostic approach continues.

Yes, yes, I'm aware that there are a few logical flaws in my plan, but at least I'm not clogging the emergency room with my visits.

Anyhow, it was better for a while on Saturday and then the pain showed up again the minute I started the five minute warm up walk. I decided that I'd ignore it and keep going as long as I could, which turned out to be a great idea. It's easier to ignore the general discomfort of running and lack of oxygen when you're thinking about sharp intermittent abdominal pain. It was my best run ever.

So against my better judgement I googled my symptoms today. We all know that's a bad idea and yet everyone does it. I've decided that I probably don't have pericarditis or a dissecting aortic aneurysm (see diagnostic outcome number 1). I think my legitimate rule-outs would include heartburn, gas in the colon (which mentions that the treatment is to "sit in a chair to rid the colon of the trapped air"), or stomach ulcers.

Whatever. If you need me I'll be sitting in my chair...

Just a Gigolo...

Couch to 5k continues, and the couch is certainly beckoning loudly. I may have to go apologize to the people on my route who lived near the spot where I realized my walking time was up and I had to go back to jogging. I might have said something mildly profane in an outside voice...

Anyhow, yesterday I actually left my house and went to a barbeque. Is the world ending?

Ngoc made some really excellent food for 80 people. Technically there were only six of us plus her family, but I heroically ate at least ten servings. It was only polite, after all.

My ex-cubicle-neighbor Jon was there, acting as the sous chef. He also brought his world-renowned deviled eggs (because, you know, there might have been a shortage of food otherwise) and I heroically ate some of those as well.

(It's possible that my definition of the word "heroically" needs some work. I realize this.)

Speaking of Jon, we were discussing his status now that he's not getting paid to sit next to me and come up with terrible puns all day. Jeff was going with "on sabbatical" or "retired". Jon might also be termed a "house husband". I say that since his wife is now the only one earning a paycheck that he's really a gigolo. It's not often I get to use that word. The good news is that Jon has a sense of humor about this sort of thing. Also, he could probably find a job in about five minutes if he wanted to since he has what the kids might call "mad skillz".

Anyhow, I eventually rolled out to my car at the end of the day and drove home, secure in the knowledge that I would never need to eat again.

Then I got up this morning and ate ice cream.

Yep, I'm an adult. I promise...