Running AND Dice!

Two birds, one stone.

So I've gotten my fat and lazy ass back into running again. After more than a year "off", I've managed to get back on the bandwagon and started doing some regular running again. At the moment, I'm working on doing four or more instances of 3 miles around the park in our neighborhood. Its an added bonus that Krissi gets Piper out in the stroller to go around, so I have excellent company.

I've also been keeping my gaming bug going, lately with some Play by Post gaming. I'm running a few games, and playing in a couple as well. Most of the games are full, but if you're interested, email me, or create a login on RPOL.net and rMail me at xjermx.

I'm running a Vampire the Masquerade game, and a pair of Horror games, as well as some Houses of the Blooded. I'm also playing in a Labyrinth Lord game, a couple of "free form" games, and a Vampire the Requiem game.

Small update

So I've been pretty quiet on here. Its not because there's nothing going on, but simply because I've been feeling lazy and haven't had the urge to come type on here. It comes and goes, y'know?

In brief:

My D&D game continues to go very well. I'm having a blast with it, even though I've gotten lax again about posting summaries. I'm still very much enjoying 4e. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have any quibbles with it, but we're all having a great time.

I'll hopefully be making somewhat frequent entries on my new other blog here. That blog will be dedicated to all things related to the upcoming addition to our little family. For a variety of reasons, I'm going to have two blogs now, this one, and the one related to baby things. If I was even more scattered, I'd have one for gaming, one for general stuff, and one for baby stuff, but I'm not THAT crazy!

Running: In the tank. I was just hopping onto my training schedule, late, when we got the bad news that Krissi's job was cutting her hours back to 60%, which is a pretty hefty pay cut for us. So we've tightened the belt, and will not be buying a new pair of running shoes this year, or registering for the marathon. Disappointing, for sure, but I'll look forward to next year. Meanwhile, I've been totally off the wagon, and its taking its toll.

I'm sure there is other stuff going on, but nothing comes to mind.

I'll be back when I have more exciting stuff to share!

Roundup

So... I haven't had the blogging bug lately, it seems.

On the running front: things were good for a week or two, then late last week I got de-motivated, and didn't run on thursday, saturday or sunday when I should have. I got back on it this morning with 8 miles, and it was a good run, and I'm glad I did it, but I can't say that I enjoyed it. Just not feeling motivated. I'm really quite lazy at heart, you see.

I need to get my ass in gear and do my session writeup for D&D for this past week.

I got together with Michael and Kelly and ran some Jedi in the Vineyard the other day. I started to do a longish, somewhat detailed writeup, but I got two or three paragraphs in and then got tired of writing and busy at work. In brief: it was pretty cool. I like the "* in the Vineyard" system, but its pretty tricky. I said the other day that every time I run it, it feels as though I've just donned a super shiny and sleek and awesome space suit, and that its about two sizes wrong and stiff in some uncomfortable places, and just needs to be broken in and grown into. Enough analogies. Moving right along.

I have kinda been in a computer gaming funk - like some people are with books, I'm never not in the midst of playing some computer game. I played a few real time strategy titles, before dusting off my copy of Fallout 2 and cranking it up. Such fun! (I'm serious. Fallout 2 rocks.)

I'm sure there are some other things that I'm forgetting about, but that's my roundup for now.

Running Roundup

So, I'm off to a pretty good start with my running.

As I mentioned, I've taken to getting up early and going out for a run.

Last week, in addition to my semi-disastrous 3.5 mile run, I managed a 6 on Tuesday morning, an 8 on Wednesday morning, another 8 on Friday morning and a 4 on Saturday.

I had a long run scheduled for Sunday, and I got up at 6AM and hit the streets in the light ran and cranked out 12 miles in 2:07. I'm pretty pleased.

Running in the Morning

So after my hard-learned lesson, I endeavored to get up early, before 6AM, and go for a good 5 or 6 mile run.

I made it to bed after some hard core rock band drumming last night, around 10:30. I oozed from bed this morning when the alarm rang about 5:40. Got my running gear on and hit the streets. It was just starting to get light out, so I wore my bright yellow reflective vest, figuring that being clipped by an inattentive driver would not be a fun way to start my day. I did a little bit of brief stretching before, but it took about 5 minutes and half a mile for my body to get warmed up and my legs to stop complaining. It felt hot and muggy out, but in truth, it was around 75 degrees.

It was a really good run, I cranked out 6 miles in 57 and a half minutes, without too much difficulty. I'll be curious to see how it affects my energy level today, whether I'll be good all day, or totally crashing around 3pm.

I figure I'll need to keep this up while its ridiculous hot outside, so maybe for a couple of weeks. I'm slightly terrified about the marathon in December, and I desperately want to train adequately. I'm technically already behind, and off to a slow start. I'm going to push it, while being careful not to overdo it. Wish me luck.

Marathon Training, and Learning Lessons about Running in the Heat

So, because I have very little proficiency with formatting html tables and junk, here is a link to the schedule that I'm going to be working on for the St. Jude marathon in December.

http://www.marathontraining.com/marathon/m_sch_2.html

To provide a legend, Week #1 is, well, now.

By the way, it is hot around here.

I went out for a run two Sundays ago, the 27th of last month. I planned to do 8 miles. I got 5 cranked out before I was just to spent to continue running. So I walked the remaining three. It was just ridiculously hot. And it was about 10:30 or 11 in the morning, so the sun was nice and high. Made it home in time to get a heat induced migraine.

Yesterday, I set out to get a run in. Of course, I did not wait for any time that did not qualify as The Hottest Part of the Day. It was about 2pm when I set out, and I only really planned to do between 3 and 5 miles. By my turn around for 3 I was feeling pretty good, so I pressed on, and made it to the turn around for 5 miles. I headed back, and then the sun kinda opened up on me. It was somewhere between 100 and 105 degrees. Walked about a mile or a mile and a half of that. Made it back in time for a migraine, again.

So the lesson that I have learned is this: Do not run in 100 degree heat in the middle of the day. (Moron.)

This still leaves me though with needing to crank through miles and miles, and its still August here, and the weather has apparently not gotten the memo about my training schedule. There is a gym just around the corner from my house though, that does month-to-month membership. So I may do that, just until its a little more survivable outside.

My MapMyRun

MapMyRun.com is a cool site that lets you track your exercise and such!

Here's my page:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/user/108521354121/xjermx

I'm going to keep up with it as a train for the marathon, end of this year. Woo!

Woo! (Youth Villages 5k Run)

Finally posted times for the Youth Villages 5k, which I did last year, and this year.

http://www.besttimescct.com/results/YV08.txt

I did it in 24:17, which is my best time for a 5k, and I'm more than a little pleased with myself.

Woo!!

Half Marathon and other stuff

Did the St. Jude Half Marathon yesterday.

Briefly it went well, I finished, and did it in about 2 hours and 15 minutes. Maybe a little less, but results aren't up yet.

edit: 2:10:48

It was cold in the morning, but Maddie and John and I were up early and in Memphis. The weather was turning out great, and there was a huge fantastic crowd. I started in a slower pace group, and moved up, making a good pace, but trying not to overdo it, since I needed distance. The run was fantastic, we wove through downtown memphis, before heading up to the Memphis Zoo and Overton Park. The crowds along the sides were great. The weather just got better and better. I was in shorts and a long sleeve sports shirt, and I wished a little that I'd worn short sleeves instead. The miles flew past, 1, 2 and 3 like blinking, 4, 5 and 6 before I knew it, and soon I was past the 10k mark. At about mile 8 I was certain that a half marathon was all I needed this year, and I'd stamped out any foolish thoughts about taking the corner for the full marathon. By miles 9 and 10 I could feel the ache in my muscles, though I continued to maintain my speed. Shortly before mile 11 it began to get difficult. Half-second muscle spasms started to hit my calves, and my left knee started bothering me. I began to anxiously look ahead for mile markers. I stopped once or twice briefly, to rub my calves, and jumped right back in. The spasms started coming a little more quickly, and I changed my motions a little, trying to keep the muscles from seizing up. Then the muscles in my feet started cramping as well, and the knee pain, which came and went, got worse. This all sounds pretty bleak, and for the record, I dont mean to be so much complaining, as reminding myself for next year so that I'll prepare better. Anyway, right around mile 12 my foot wigged out and completely cramped, and I stopped for a second, since I couldn't really run on curled toes, and as soon as I stopped, my calf muscle cramped as well. I panicked for a half second, afraid that I'd have to walk/hobble the rest of the way. After a moment though, I hopped back in, and kept running. Made it to the finish line, thoroughly spent. My legs were so tired and aching, but my feet hurt. I still have some pain in one foot when I walk on it. I think I may have bruised it, or that the cramping and running made the muscle angry with me.

Anyway, the summary is, in truth, that it was a great race. I needed to train more for it, and it is unfortunate that I am a huge lazy slacker. The weather was fantastic, the runners and crowd was great, and I had a blast.

We all went and saw Krissi's performance with her theater group of A Christmas Carol, which was good. We also went and watched 28 Weeks Later, which was a sequel to one of my favorite zombie flicks. I give it an A for gore and screaming zombiness, a B for creating tension and intensity, an F for story and plot, and an overall grade of C. Then again, I'm of the belief that not every good movie needs to be done again, this time with more blood and explosions and leaps of logic. We also watched Fido, which is a dark comedy about zombies. I completely recommend it. Easy B+. To clarify, when I say A Dark Comedy About Zombies, I don't really mean like Shaun of the Dead, more like Heathers With Zombies. I could go on and on trying to accurately capture it for you, but I'll leave it there.

Further rambling,

I've been itching for a fun multiplayer game to play with my friends. I mean on the computer, really. This is my old World of Warcraft crowd. The itch to WoW keeps coming up, but I'm not particularly interested in getting back into it, both because it costs money, and because I know I'll get bored with it rather quickly. Instead, we've been eyeing some LAN Diablo 2, and I'm still sniffing around for something. I've also decided, since I like lists, and half-baked projects, to go through all of the hundred or three computer games that I have, and catalog them. Why? Well, because I like lists, and half-baked projects, and also because at times like this, when I'm having difficulty with any one computer game scratching my gaming itch, its helpful to look through the titles of old games that I've got stored away. It would be even more helpful to have a resource at my fingertips that I could consult to figure out what I wanted to play today. Anyway.

That's about it. Hope that you are well, dear reader. I'm looking forward to the end of December so that I can post a recap of the year, which seems to have flown by.

in-laws, running, and haunted corn mazes

Howdy folks,

I'm loving the shift in weather from summer to fall.

This past Saturday I slept in good and late, till 8:15 or so, then got up, got my running clothes on and set out. My handy weather-telling plugin for Firefox told me that it was 48 degrees (F) outside, and it did feel chilly, but not cold. I had mapped out a 10 mile route around the area near me with Google Earth. The run was great, great, great. I wasnt %100 certain that I would be able to do the whole 10, having mapped it in such a way that I could cut off the last bit of the run and only end up doing 8, but I made the entire 10. The weather couldnt really have been more perfect.


Before I left for the run I took my Claratin, a One-A-Day Active vitamin, and ate a half of a peanut butter sandwich (for energy- long runs on an empty stomach is bleh). This was the longest run I've done in.. a couple months. Which sucks, because if I'm going to do the Marathon the end of this year, I need to be doing way more than 10 miles. We'll see. Anyway, the run felt great. Its been my experience that somewhere around 8 miles the adductor muscles start to feel sore and tight. For the sake of clarity, its a tired sore, not really a painful sore, nor is it a soreness that prevents me from completing the run. It does slow me down a bit, and I'm sure have an effect on my stride, but I dont consider it abnormal or anything. Its just what happens when you've run 8ish miles. I managed it in just a little under two hours, which I consider to be pretty good time for me. After I got home I hopped in a hot bath for a bit, got some food, and promptly took a nap.

My running gear consists of: a pair of imitation oakley sunglasses, sunblock, a 2.1L Camelback Rogue, underarmor boxer-briefs, a pair of nike lightweight shorts, a lightweight poly shirt, my running shoes, my iPod Nano and my ID.

Going to try to put in some miles this week. There are so many good reasons that I cant do long runs during the week.. it gets dark early, its late in the day and after work when my energy level is low, there are only so many available hours in the workday to split up among work, eating, sleeping, goofing off, and running, and um, I'm not enough of a morning person to get up and run before work. Still despite my whining, I'm going to try to do at least 3 miles every night, allowing for one skip night during the week. Yay running =)


Krissi's brother, Travis, has moved down from Virginia. He's staying with us for a bit while he works on getting a job and getting acclimated to North MS. Travis is a good guy, and its nice to have him around.

The Williams-Younger-White gang gathered this weekend. We saw The Departed which was very good, I liked it alot. Beforehand we saw a preview for 300, apparently based on a Frank Miller graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae. It looks really, really awesome, like Sin City meets.. um, the Battle of Thermopylae. The gang also made it out to the Haunted Corn Maze at the AgCenter in Memphis. It was fun and spooky, and well worth the trip.

Apparently I'm linktastic today. Thanks for bearing with me.

That's about it! Happy Columbus Day!

[edit:]
I forgot - we caught a ripped showing of Crank. Let me just say: hehehehehehe! I dont mean to be ugly, but this was easily one of the silliest, most ridiculous movies I've seen. It was all over the top, way far out action stuff. For an action movie, it was damn funny.

Time keeps on slipping..

Man, time slides on by.

I've been in a blogging lull.. feels like there's just nothing exciting or pressing enough to talk about. I'd been in rant/gaming/running mode for a few months there, and its kinda dropped back and I feel like I've nothing to come chatter about.

But.. Here's what been going on.

Running: Bleh. I have to face that I don't know if I'm going to make the marathon at the end of the year. Grrr. I'm really bummed. I'd seriously intended to train and make it, and my training hasn't been anywhere near what it needs to be. Why? Mostly because I'm a little lazy. I'm going to to try to push myself and see if I can build up to do it, but I fear it may not happen. Bleh.

Movies: Saw 'Fearless' the other day. Enjoyed it quite a bit. It felt like a more traditional Chinese martial arts flick than Hero and some others did. It prompted us to rush out and purchase Once Upon A Time in China I, II & III. Watched I and enjoyed it, we'll catch the other two soon. Also saw 'Inside Man' a Spike Lee flick with Denzel Washington and Some Other Guy who's name I think I should know, but I dont care enough. It was pretty terrible. Not super terrible, just terrible. No other movies that I can think of in the past few weeks. On the TV front though we've finished catching up on The Office season two on DVD, and have been watching the episodes of season 3. Good stuff.

Gaming: Not flipping happening. Its frustrating. The gang has been on a tabletop kick, which is pretty cool. Runebound is a fun game, but its so long. And makes me want/not want to look for my D&D player handbook. Played Betrayal at House on the Hill, which was pretty cool too. Sometime, thanks to advice from Legomancer, I'll have to get my hands on games like Puerto Rico, Acquire (out of print), For Sale, Power Grid, Citadels, Tikal, etc.

Other stuff... hm.. ok - I've fought blogging this for a month now, I'll try to just make it a couple of sentences. I made a myspace account. I've got my brother and his wife on there, lots of friends from high school, Weird Al, TMBG.. etc... but damn! myspace is such a terribly implemented, good idea. Its just a social networking site, unlike livejournal which is a blog site that provides a mechanism for some networking. Anyway, I promised to keep this quick. Myspace sucks. I wish there was a less crappy way to catch up with old friends.

Not much else worth sharing, but thanks for stopping by!

running, Jewel, Ok Go, stuff.

Ok so, part of not posting lately has been that I've been between running and games. And since that's kinda what I talk about here, I havent had much to say.

But I am pleased to say that I managed 9 miles last week, up from like maybe 5 over the last two weeks or so put together.

It's been hot as hell the last few weeks. And its just hard to motivate myself when its so damn hot.

September is Krissi's birthday, and to celebrate we went and saw Jewel at the Horseshoe casino in Tunica. I've got some mp3s by Jewel, and I like her music, but have never called myself a big fan of hers. Well the show was excellent. She put on a wonderful performance, and her banter with the small crowd was funny and enjoyable. She's got an *amazing* voice. So the show was excellent. The Horseshoe casino on the other hand... I'm not a big fan of casinos. I can count on two hands the number of times I've been to a casino. They're okay enough to go spend a quick $50 on Blackjack or something, but they're just not a place that I'm fond of hanging out at. Well this casino merits even lower than a "meh" rating. Nearly all of the bars on the floor took only cash. And the ATM wanted like $6 just to let you get cash. It was highly annoying. Both because we almost never have cash on us, and it seems really easy for the bars to have credit card machines. Also because the ridiculous ATM fees really cheesed me off (we did not end up taking cash out, thank you very much). They wanted to charge me $6 for the opportunity to take cash out and spend it in their casino? Well no thank you.

In other news, its Labor Day Weekend! Hope you are/did enjoy yourself. We're having a few people over and making some food and entertaining people.

In other other news, I picked up Ok Go's newest album and its alot of fun. I recommend it.

*Mourn* Steve Irwin.

more running

Short post.

I'm pleased to say that I've been doing a good job of keeping up with running. Yazhi has been as well.

If you live anywhere in the northern hemisphere, I bet you know just about exactly how hot it is right now. Its fucking hot.

Despite that, I've managed to put in at least 2.5 or 3 like every other day for the last two weeks or so. Its not quite like clockwork, but the runs, even when they're hot, they feel good :)

And Yazhi has been going with me for some of them. She's such a great runner, its terribly entertaining and reinforcing for me.

She starts out at a dead run, like a long shaggy gaited run. She's a fairly big dog and has a long stride when she's at it, so she surges ahead. Lately we've been going out of my housing complex and up the street, crossing a street and continuing along, then turning around and coming back. I've been doing between two and three miles with her, as I dont want to hurt her either with heat or distance. Halfway through the run she's still with me, but isnt so surging anymore, and runs beside me, curious about interested noises and things along the way. I should mention that she's a terrific runner with me. I run with her on like a 6' leash, but a majority of the time she just runs beside me, with slack in the leash. I've been working slowly on getting her off the leash.. letting her do short distances running beside me, not on the leash. Its going well. But anyway, when we're nearing the end of our run, she looks at every complex entrance like its our complex, and is eager to return home. She starts to drag, and instead of surging ahead, or even running right beside me, she runs behind me like I'm pulling her along. I take a camelback with cold water along, and make sure that both she and I get some cool water, but she's a big black dog, and so I worry about the heat, so both she and I are glad when we make it home. She collapses on the tile floor, and laps at water and pants heavily and lies there like.. well like she just ran 3 miles with me. But man she's SO excited when I put my running clothes on and such. Its good stuff =D

In other news, we watched the new Pink Panther movie. It was really reall funny =)

a run

And finally, running.

Got out saturday morning to do a 13 mile run, and DAMN it was terrible.

It was the worst run I've ever had, I think.

I cite two problems. I just wasn't into it. I woke up feeling completely unexcited by the run. No motivation. And the previous day we walked to and from the swimming pool, I brought no flip flops and so I walked barefoot, which was a mistake. Either the heat or the asphalt itself left the bottoms of my feet in a rather painful state. So this did not lend itself to a good run.

I'll have to work on getting some miles in this week and try the 13 again this weekend.

Bleh.

Hope you had a good 4th of July holiday. I certainly did.

Letsee.... I got alot of mileage out of Sim City 4, with the Rush Hour expansion. I spent part of the holiday being bored, going from game to book to tv to game and not really finding anything that was holding my attention. I am going to reread the Belgariad by David Eddings. I read them for the first time when I was in like 9th grade I guess. I havent been able to ready anything that's not an RPG book or a computer game manual in ages, so it'll be nice to get into these fun books. Randomly/ramblingly, I find that I just cant really get into Civilization 4. Its a beautiful game, but it's just not catching hold of me the way all of the previous Civ games have.

We saw Superman last week and I enjoyed it alot. Kevin Spacey rocks, and I was really excited about seeing him in it, and he did a fine job, but everyone else in the movie did a fine job as well. Worth seeing.

The Firecracker 5k was on the 3rd. The whole gang showed up and we ran. It was hot as hell. Race started at 7:30. I made really good speed for the first mile, doing it in (according to a fellow with a stopwatch at the 1st mile marker) about 7 and a half minutes. About halfway into the second mile though, it started getting tough. By 2.5 I was really really hoping to see the finish line, and I was thinking unpleasant thoughts about the marathon at the end of this year. It seemed to me, while running it, that my legs were no problem. I felt like I could have maybe gone a little faster, and run longer.. its the breathing that is what slows me down. By 2.5 or 3 miles I was sucking some serious wind. I rounded the corner and saw the finish line. I drew what I had left and pushed hard, finishing strong. 25:22. Man it was hot. I've certainly seen hotter days, and probably run in hotter weather, but it was muggy, the air was kinda still, and it was 7:30, so the heat of the day still hung in the air. People along the route had turned their sprinklers on into the street, which was nice. After crossing the finish line, I grabbed a cup of water and moved around all of the people and gear so that I could stand along the side, just inside of the finish area, and cheer other runners on as they came across the finish line. I saw and Beth come through, they made it 34:37 and 34:14 respectively. I somehow missed Krissi and coming across, but they joined us on the sideline as well. They both made it in 39:52. John made it in 45:02.

The 1st place was 15:26.

There is a fellow that we've seen at a couple of 5k's. He's a tall, middle aged black man who runs like a gazelle. At the Firecracker and at the Susan G. Komen 5k we saw him, in each case he finishes, then runs back along the race shouting encouragement to the other runners. He is amazing.

Here are the results.

So.. I need to work on cardio and breathing.

Yay running!

This past Saturday, Maddie and I got out early and did 12 miles. We ran from her place down Goodman Road, almost to my house, then back to her place. Took us 3 hours, give or take. It was good, and I managed some goodly speed during some of it. Though I certainly felt the tiredness and soreness in my legs, I felt good doing the whole thing. Krissi and Jason did their 8 miles and said it went well.

Monday evening I went out and did 6, and I managed it in 62 minutes, which puts me at a hair over 10 minutes to a mile, which is a speed I'm pretty happy with. It was a rather tough speed though, and was by no means an easy run; though it was good.

Maddie and I are going to try to do another 6 tonight. She wants to do it in 60 minutes, which is an interesting challenge.

I'm a tiny bit nervous about the upcoming 5k. I've promised myself to do it in 25 minutes or less. That's a hair over 8 minutes to a mile, which is a fast pace. I'll just have to bust it out and fall out after the finish line =)

Firecracker 5k

Hello Reader!

On July 3, I will be participating in a 5k (3.1 mile) race. It is the St. Jude Firecracker 5k.

I've done 5K's before, but I have never solicited pledges from people. Well, this time I am. I am also going to try to do the race in under 25 minutes. I have done a 5k in about 28 minutes before, but this will be a new challenge for me.

I would invite you to support the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital by making a pledge! Any amount is welcome, a dollar or whatever you would like to give! Anything you can offer will make me all the more excited about this race.

Check out the website for the race.

If you would like to pledge, please email me at xjermx@gmail.com and I will gladly supply you with info.

Also, bear in mind that I'll be doing the St. Jude marathon in December, and I will be taking pledges later for that!

Thanks! And after the race you should be able to check the results and see if I made my 25 minutes.

Weekend Wrapup

So this weekend came and went.

Maddie and I were up before 6AM on Saturday for a 10 mile run. It was good, but long, and by the end my feet and legs were tired of being picked up and set back down. It took us about two or two and a half hours. It was good though. The weather was great. I shook the sleepy right off once we hit the street. I felt rather fast, and was ahead of most of the run. But I'm certainly not disparaging my running partner. She did a fantastic job on the run as well. In fact, possibly better than I did, as my shin is a little sore at the moment, and I'm fearful that its the onset of a shin splint.

Saturday afternoon was a continuation of John and his dad building a gazebo behind their house, and I was recruited for part of this. Also Maddie and John were throwing a Farewell party for Todd, the DM for a long-running D&D game that all of us have played in at one time or another. So some excellent food was prepared, and people showed up, and there was some socializing and enjoyment. Todd brought over a game called WildLife, which was a great deal of fun. We played two rounds of it, Todd winning the first, and Keith winning the second.

Sunday there was much running of errands and lounging about. Krissi and I ran around town, visiting Maddie at work, and doing a bit of shopping. We picked up some Xbox games, which is always super fun. We got The Godfather, Prince of Persia (3): Two Towers, and Halo 2 (which I owned previously, but lost the CD for). Jason came by and he and Krissi did their walking excercise bit, and we ate and played xbox.

forgot about running

I completely forgot. I meant to mention (mostly for my own record keeping) that Maddie and I managed an 8 mile run this past weekend, on Saturday Morning. It went very well I think! I did 3 miles with Yazhi on Monday and boy was it hot. I'm going to do 3-5 on Wednesday and Friday and plan to do 10 this weekend.

not forgotten

Hello Reader,

I have not forgotten my blog, I have simply been too distracted to get on here and do any real posting.

I'm sure there was some stuff I meant to post about in the last week or two, in fact I started a post last week, but never finished it.

We *did* go see Thank You For Smoking. It was very entertaining. I recommend it.

This past week I went to Montezuma, Indiana for business. My boss and I drove up there Wednesday afternoon and I got a tour of the mill up there, and we came back Thursday afternoon. Six hours each way. It was a long trip, but I got to meet the folks up there and see the operation.

The big thing that is coming up is our backpacking expedition. Krissi and I, as well as Maddie and Jason are going to go backpacking along the Buffalo River out in Arkansas this coming weekend. The kind of backpacking where you carry food, sleeping bag, tent, water, filter, and all the other stuff you need to live in the woods for 3 days straight. It'll be alot of fun to unplug for a bit. I'll be keeping a journal and reposting here for my (and your) entertainment.

This past Saturday, Maddie and I hit the pavement at 6AM for a seven mile run. It was a little exhausting. But it was super good. That same afternoon we packed up our full camping packs and set off on a test run. We did a two mile walk with them, and actually setup camp in a little park, just to test everything out. It went pretty well, and I'm glad we did it. It gives me a solid idea of what to expect. I'll be able to trim down what I'm carrying a little.

If there is more exciting stuff to share, then I've forgotten about it for the moment.