Chi-City

Yeah, me and Kanye this weekend in Chi-city baby. I'm so freakin' pumped for Chicago. I'm a little bummed that I have to squeeze in a 26.2 mile run for my first trip out to Chicago, but I'm thinking we'll be able to pack enough in the first couple of days that it won't be no thang. I get to see two of my best friends. I don't have to be in stinky Utah.

I can't even really say that. Utah has been pretty good to me so far.

I had my first marathon dream last night. I dreamt that it was somewhere tropical, and Mike Reid and his roommates were all in the race too. The route took us along the beach, and then into a Super Walmart-sized supermarket. We ran along the inside wall by all the frozen food, and had to complete about 16 laps. But the store was still operating and people had to redirect their routes, and Doug was there and started having Mike and his roommates just skip out on running all the laps, and I was pissed because I had done the work to get in shape for the full marathon and thought it was lame that they were going to finish ahead of me because I refused to cheat. The worst part, however, was that running by all the frozen foods made my muscles feel so sluggish and I felt like I could barely move, so I was doubting whether or not I could finish the dang thing.

It was one of my most frustrating dreams ever.

I've heard other people mention that "training marathon is the best thing for your body, running one is the worst." I bought into it until I started training for the marathon. Is it really that much worse to run 40 miles in a week, with a long run of 20+ than just running the full 26.2? I ran 22 miles a couple of weeks ago and it hurt like hell when I was done, but I was playing soccer two days later and back running, so is 4 more miles really going to kill me?

Some people can either just handle the impact or they can't, I think. Not necessarily that they can't sustain the pain, but some bodies just can't sustain that kind of pounding. I generally think that if you're feeling a good amount of pain during the training, the marathon is going to be just as bad. If you're not feeling that so much, then I don't think the marathon is going to do you any worse. I read a guy's blog who runs 17 miles a day. Dean Karnazes, the Ultramarathon Man, runs a hundred miles or more at a time and has no ill effects.

Also, a lot of the soreness that you develop and fades away during marathon training beyond the expected muscles soreness is all the impact soreness you feel. Achey feet, knees, etc. When I started going beyond 15 miles, I would get incredible soreness on those bones on the outside of the knees, but not anymore. I had terrible shin splints when I started out, but that went away after about a month. I thought that kind of pain would be chronic, but your body learns to handle the impact. It's amazing how resilient the human body is. And I think eating right has a huge part in recovery, obviously. You can't minimize how important that is.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about the running.

I'm excited for deep dish. I'm excited for the Art Institute, like probably too excited for that part. I'm excited for the parks, the tours, for Wrigley...for everything. I'm excited to not have to set aside 3-4 hours for long Saturday runs. I'm excited to get this thing past me.

Week 17

Yeah, I guess I missed another week somewhere in there. The taper is so weird. I hardly run at all now. I did eight miles as my long run on Saturday on a treadmill. I'm surprised it was my first time on a treadmill.

If you're training for any kind of race, I'd have to say that training on a treadmill should be a last resort. The difficulty of running in such controlled conditions is nothing like running outside and on the road, not to mention boring. I did the full eight miles in under an hour, which is a quick pace, but the air wasn't as thin as it is outside. Conditions aren't as dry. It's just completely different.

I played soccer on Monday. I'm going to run for the first time this week tonight, and then run a couple miles in the morning, and then I guess I'm ready for Chicago.

I'm way pumped about getting to visit out there. I'm sure I'll have plenty to say post marathon.

Go Dodgers! Go Rays! Go Not Red Sox!

Yup. Again. But, did you all see that last play? Here is an interesting article from ESPN about how pissed the Angels are about the whole thing.

This is what happened. Angels had a man on third with one out, and they were going for a suicide squeeze, meaning that the batter was going to lay down a bunt and the runner was going as soon as the pitch was thrown. As it turned out, Aybar whiffed on the bunt, leaving Reggie Willits completely stranded and in a pickle between third and home. Jason Varitek was running up the line to tag out Reggie Willits, and lunged at him to tag him out. He applied the tag and had the ball, but as he fell down the ball came loose. So the Angels are pissed about that call.

The thing is, this isn't like football where the ground can't cause the fumble. If a runner heading into home collides into the catcher, and the catcher drops the ball at any point during the play, then the runner is called safe. In another example, if an outfielder runs down a ball in the outfield, makes the catch, but runs into the fence and in that collision the ball gets dislodged, then the official ruling is that it's not an out.

Apparently there is no definitive rule on this play, but it seems like a legitimate gripe that the Angels have about the play. And they are seething.

Here are some of my quick observations on the Angels:

• Does Scot Shields always seem to give up the lead in these kinds of games? He definitely does not have the closer mentality. I feel like there are a lot of critical instances where he just blows it. I'm praying that they try and re-sign Frankie in spite of how shaky he looked throughout the series. I think Jose Arredondo is still a year or two away from being ready for that closer role. Or we're going to have to find some outside help. I'm worried that he might not get priority though because we have a lot of big contracts expiring.
• We absolutely positively must have can't lose out on signing Mark Texeira. Nobody within the organization is ready to step up, and there is no one else close to his caliber that we can get in his place. He is just about to enter his prime, and this is a guy that will give .300+ average, 30+ HRs, and 100+ RBIs, and can get walks for at least the next 5-6 years. If we have to sign him to a 10 year contract, so be it. The guy is top level talent.
• Lose Garret Anderson. Unless he's willing to take a massive paycut. He was making in the neigborhood of $14-15 million annually. Not anymore. Not worth it. Although I love his years of service, he just doesn't have it anymore.
• We don't have a true #2 pitcher on the staff. Ervin and Joe are good. They could develop into that next season if they continue to progress, but they're not it right now. Kelvim could be there if he's healthy, but he just hasn't been. He missed all of this year, and missed nearly all of 2006 too. Not sure if the injuries are related. His contract is also expiring, I think. Will be interesting to see what happens there. Will Jered Weaver ever max out on the potential he should while in college? Doesn't look like it so far.
• Did anyone else think it was an absolutely terrible idea for Willits to dive after that ball that turned into the double in the ninth? I know you can't fault the hustle, but if he would have just let that drop, it wouldn't have been anything worse than a single, and it would have taken at least an extra base hit, or two hits to get the run in. Plus, he took a bad route on that single too. He had to redirect his route to the ball as he was coming in. That kind of stuff matters in baseball, which is a game of inches. His throw was only late by a step as it was.
• Aybar has to feel awful about missing that bunt. The thing is, he had been trying to lay down any kind of bunt all series, and had missed on all of them. Oi.
• Even with all of those mistakes, when you actually play competitive sports, I don't think you point to those little things as much as other people might. While you and your teammates might recognize you missed those opportunities, everyone remembers their own mistakes as well as anybody. So when the inclination might be, he shouldn't have missed that bunt! An athlete also thinks, yeah, but there were fully 7 other innings where none of us did anything either. We should have done it then also.
• And when you're actually playing in the game, it never seems to register for them how big the game is as it is to anybody who is watching. I've heard this dozens of times from reporters who ask what it's like to play in the playoffs, Super Bowl, etc. and they always talk first about how much fun it is and they're too concentrated on actually playing the game that they don't think about all the pressure, expectations, etc. It seems like you're only really worried about that stuff if you can't have a direct impact on the outcome itself, i.e. you aren't actually playing or coaching the game.
• A buddy of mine had this on his status update on Facebook and I second it...none of you are from Boston, so stop pretending like you are. Jerks. Yeah, I'm bitter.

Whatsa Matta?

Everything. The DOW is down below 10,000 for the first time in I don't even know how long. There doesn't seem to be much bounce from the VP debate, although I don't think anyone really expected there to be much of one. Obama is outside of the margin for error on just about all of the polls.

I'm kind of glad that I'm in school and don't have to deal with the job market for another 4 years or so. Kids, I'm not gonna lie...I think if I had a magic 8 ball, it would say "outlook not so good". We are most assuredly going to be hitting a recession. Our generation has lived through one before in the early 90s, but I have no idea what it'll be like going into one as an adult.

If you're trying to time the market (which is generally a bad idea) then the next couple of weeks might be a good time to jump in. Although with the prospects of the election and going under democratic leadership on all levels, things might get worse than better.

It seems that any sort of bad news gets immediately heaped upon the Bush administration, which in turn casts an ugly shadow on the McCain campaign, whether that's deserved or not. I wonder if this comes from more than just the credit crunch, but I'm inclined to believe that seems to be the root of all these problems - not enough liquidity in the markets.

But do you know why banks started overextending themselves in the first place? It wasn't because free-market principles backfired. This post from Powerline explains it pretty well:

If it turns out to be the financial crisis that puts Barack Obama over the
top in his quest for the White House, the irony will be difficult to overstate. First, the biggest driver of the financial crisis was not any conservative policy such as the kind of deregulation John McCain supports. Rather, as Diana West argues, the biggest driver was the “race-based social engineering” that “virtually created the sub-prime mortgage industry.” The implosion of that industry, in turn, triggered the present crisis.

The operative vision, then, was leftist and racialist, not free-market. As West puts it, the social engineers decided that not “enough” minorities had homes because not “enough” minorities were eligible for mortgages. The solution was to junk the bottom-line, non-racial markers of mortgage eligibility traditionally used by banks to distinguish between good and bad credit risks -- steady employment, clean credit, and a down payment. Obama, then, is the beneficiary of the terrible failure of affirmative action style policies in the mortgage banking sector.

But the irony extends further. For it turns out that intimidating banks into making bad loans to minorities was a major activity of “community organizations” during the 1990s. And, according to Stanley Kurtz, Obama himself trained and funded ACORN activists who engaged in such intimidation.

So at least with an Obama presidency, we have that to look forward to as well. Here is the Diana West article. From her piece:

These lending practices were further institutionalized once government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, under the astronomically well-paid leadership of Fannie CEO James A. Johnson, began snapping up high-risk loans and repackaging them for sale on the world market. Johnson, whom Obama, of course, chose to lead his vice-presidential selection committee (until financial shenanigans over a sweetheart housing loan forced him out) even set a goal for Fannie Mae to buy up $1 trillion in low-income loans to ensure that, as CNSNews.com quoted him as saying, "Every American who wants to get a mortgage will have their loan approved."

Well, they did. And it didn't work out so well, did it? Such is the human cost of social engineering, whether on Wall Street, Main Street, or Red Square.

There you have it. The reference she draws to Red Square is no mistake either. This is the leadership we have to look forward to. At least the Angels won last night.

No Joy In Mudville...Again. I Hate Boston.

This is exactly why I hate the Boston sports scene. Not only because they're dominating my LA teams, but when Drew hit that home run tonight, did you catch how loud the cheering was? Did you hear the chants of "Let's go Red Sox!" because I was watching the game on tv and I could hear every one of them. I hate Boston. I hate all things Boston. I hate the Patriots. I hate the Celtics. And I hate the Red Sox above them all.

So here's my solution to fixing the Angels next season, because this one is just about done (people...let's be real. We're going to Boston to face the best big game picture currently in baseball. Beckett is unbelievable in the postseason, and they mentioned that they were ecstatic with his bullpen session yesterday, so don't pretend like his injury is going to affect him). We need to get rid of Mickey Hatcher. Buster Olney had a great piece in his blog on ESPN that talked a lot about it, but I've long had this hunch about him.

Okay, so I know there is a lot about loyalty, but our offense has been garbage in the postseason for four postseason years since the 2002 World Series year. The guys hack way too much, and we're not knocking out opposing teams' starting pitchers early enough to get a chance to work on the middle relief. It's what Boston has done to us for 11 games in a row or whatever ridiculous win streak they have against us currently in the postseason. Only tonight did they have any kind of patience, and you'll notice that when we started working the count, we started getting runs.

The only reason we keep Mickey around is because of that 2002 season, but it just so happened that all of our guys got hot at the same time. Olney talks about this masterfully in his blog post, but relying on batting average to carry you is highly variable and not something you can count on. We need runners on base, and that's the only thing that can have any kind of consistency, but our hitters are so impatient that we often get the other teams out of jams by striking out and giving up outs.

And please...young guys...do something. ANYTHING. Figgins started to come alive tonight, but Aybar, Napoli, Kendrick...we need you to wake up. The hits that Guerrero and Texeira are getting don't matter because no one is getting on in front of them. And without people on base when those guys come up, they're not getting the same quality of pitches that they would be otherwise.

And can we lose Anderson? He just isn't working anymore. I'm sorry. I know he gave us lots of good years, and he might be the first player for the Angels to go into the Hall of Fame as an Angel, but he's draggin'.

Oi. Go Dodgers? Or can basketball season please hurry and start, because I don't even want to talk about the Raiders.

What a mess...

This and That

• I love this time of year with baseball. And I love it even more when I'm in school because there is nothing better than having the games on for 9 hours a day, turning the volume down low, and doing my reading while the playoffs go on in the background. How about them Dodgers? Laura, you've gotta be pumped about that. I can't believe how thoroughly they are handling the Cubbies. And I was so bummed about that Angels game the other night. Up until Jason Bay hit that home run I was thinking about all the ways I was going to gloat. Then there was some hope in the eighth when Torii Hunter hit that bloop single, but Vlad being an idiot went for third and got thrown out. So instead of 2 on, 1 out, it was 1 on and 2 out. At that point we were only down one run, too. Heartbreaking. Tonight is a must win. Josh Beckett is pitching game three in Boston, and we've already been swept a couple times in the last few years by this same Red Sox team. It's a must win. BUT! Don't forget. We lost the first game of the Division Series in 2002, so there is definitely reason to still be optimistic. If we blow it tonight though, we're dunfer. Please Please Please don't lose. I promise I will go to a World Series game if we make it that far. You heard it here folks.
• Did you catch the VP debate last night? Palin was awesome. From Powerline this is John's post about it. This is from Beldar over at Hugh Hewitt. Hugh also loved Sarah's performance, but this other commentary is more thorough. The Editors at National Review loved her. And my take...I'm already in with Sarah, so my main concern I guess was how she was coming off to the undecideds. To me she felt authentic, so much more relatable than anyone else in politics. There were a couple times she got pretty fired up, but the best part was that she did it all with a smile. But not the creepy Biden smile. She seemed to have a really great sense of optimism. That's the thing that bothers me so much about the Democrats - they are so embittered. All of their commentary, all of their interviews, their punditry, it's overwhelmingly negative and just plain bitter. She did stumble a couple of times. She launched into platitudes a few too many times, especially in her closing. And I wish she could have implicated the Dem-controlled houses of congress more in the economic crises that we're facing. Liberals are so intent on blaming everything on the Bush administration, but he actually was calling for some more oversight on Fannie and Freddie back in 2003. I wish that we would attack with the same fervor the House as much as they do the Presidency, because they share at least the same level of responsibility, if not more so. Anyway...I think the most telling was the Frank Luntz focus group following the debate:
  
  
  
  
• I was reading Salem's Lot before I went to bed and it was the first time since I was kid that I actually felt spooked while reading a book. I'm only about 60 pages in, but it's so good so far. Okay...I'm going to go through the trouble of transcribing some of it here. I can't do the justice to the setup of the Marsten house, but what's happening here is the main character, Ben, is recounting how as a child he went into this old spooky house as a kid, trying to ingratiate himself with some other kids he liked, and he had to take something back from the house as proof that he did it:
  
  "At the top of the stairs I got all my courage and ran down the hall to that room. My idea was to run in, grab something from there, too, and then get the hell out of there. The door at the end of the hall was closed. I could see it getting closer and closer and I could see that the hinges had settled and the bottom edge was resting on the doorjamb. I could see the doorknob, silvery and a little tarnished in the place where the palms gripped it. When I pulled on it, the bottom edge of the door gave a scream against the wood like a woman in pain. If I had been straight, I think I would have turned around gotten the hell out right then. But I was pumped full of adrenaline, and I grabbed it with both hands and pulled for all I was worth. It flew open. And there was Hubie, hanging from the beam with his body silhouetted against the light from the window."
  
  "Oh, Ben, don't--" she said nervously.
  
  "No, I'm telling you the truth," he insisted. "The truth of what a nine-year-old boy saw and what the man remembers twenty-four years later, anyway. Hubie was hanging there, and his face wasn't black at all. It was green. The eyes were puffed shut. His hands were livid...ghastly. And then he opened his eyes."
  
  And then flash forward...
  
  He lay down and let himself drift. Shortly before sleep took him, he hooked himself up on one elbow, looked past the square shadow of his typewriter and the thin sheaf of manuscript beside it, and out the window. He had asked Eva Miller specifically for this room after looking at several, because it faced the Marsten house directly.
  
  The lights up there were still on.
  
  That night he had the old dream ofr the first time since he had come Jerusalem's Lot, and it had not come with such vividness since those terrible maroon days following Miranda's death in the motorcycle accident. The run up the hallway, the horrible scream of the door as he pulled it open, the dangling figure suddenly opening its hideous puffed eyes, himself turning to the door in the slow, sludgy panic of dreams--
  
  And finding it locked.
  
  I love the detail. I love how he describes the hands as livid. Even reading it now gives me a start. It's so good. Please do something this Halloween season to enliven it for you. Or deaden it. Maybe that would be more appropriate. Mwahahaha!
  
• I miss Heath Ledger. For the record, I was all on board the Heath train before The Dark Knight. I was watching Knight's Tale last night on TV and remembering how much I love that movie. Maybe I'm the only person who does, but I just love that one. And I thought he was awesome in Lords of Doggtown. He's good ladies and gents. Or was. And he peaked in The Dark Knight
• I love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Jim Carey really sells the insecure and kind of pathetic Joel. The story is so unusual. It's really great.
• Do any of you watch Pushing Daisies? Please do. Amy turned me onto it and I'm so grateful for that.
• I love Minute Maid Fruit Punch. It's like candy to me. I cannot get enough of that 10% fruit juice goodness. I go through a gallon in three days every week.

Religulous

I just happened to catch this morning some of last night's Daily Show episode where Jon Stewart was interviewing Bill Maher, and talking about his new movie Religulous.

I enjoy Jon Stewart. I think the Daily Show for the most part is funny, but I hate the politics, and I hate that they so grossly misrepresent consevative viewpoints. It's the same reason I can't listen to NPR. And it's not that I can't listen to an opposing viewpoint, but I hate that it's so often done with so much contempt for the Right.

That's mostly what I felt after watching the interview with Bill Maher. Admittedly, a good amount of what he said was done in a humorous way, but there is so much vitriol behind the things that they say. It's one thing to disagree with the things that I believe in, but it's another to mock those beliefs so vehemently. And I can't say that it's something uncommon, or even new. This is how it always has been, and always will be.

Is it unfair to say that this is the typical view of the liberal left? Probably not. I think also that this is pretty representative of the media in general and how they view religion, and maybe Christianity in particular. This is part of what fuels the fervor behind the hatred for Sarah Palin.

Doesn't mean that it's not annoying though. For what it's worth, here's the trailer:

And here is Bill explaining his film on Larry King:

Scary Stories

As a child, I was kind of obsessed with ghost stories. I just absolutely loved them. I had all the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark books, and I read anything else I could get my hands on. I even read them in a darkened room by myself. I think the illustrations throughout those books are almost as bad as the stories themselves.

You know who had compiled one of the best compilations of ghost stories I had ever read? Roald Dahl. That guy is pretty awesome. Orson Scott Card also has a really cool book of short horror stories.

I don't know what happened, but in the years since I haven't bothered reading anything else from the horror genre. Not until recently at least.

I bought Stephen King's book, Everything's Eventual more than a year ago to read the short story 1408. I loved the story, but didn't bother reading anything else from the book.

Well I started up again. And there are some really great ones. I love how the book is billed as a "nighmarish landscape of unrelenting horror and shocking revelations" when of the 6 or 7 stories I've read, only a couple of them would really be classified as being horror. All the other ones are kind of hopeful actually.

I tried finding my favorite one so far, That Feeling You Can Only Say What It Is In French, but I can't find any full text copies anywhere. I don't think of that one as being of the horror genre, but it's still chilling. I just love that one.

King is a really, really great writer. It's easy to write him off as being an author who overproduces a tired product, but he's so prolific because he's got such an incredible and active imagination. And what's more, he has some amazing stories that don't have anything to do with horror - Green Mile, Stand By Me, and Shawshank Redemption, among others. Yup, those are all based on Stephen King stories.

I think I've mentioned his commentary before on the Passion of the Christ, but I've found the full text of the article that can be found here. Keep in mind that that particular piece comes from the master of horror. It's short, and definitely worth reading.

After some consultation, I've settled on my first Stephen King novel being Salem's Lot. I just really wanted something appropriate for the Halloween season that we're about to embark upon. And this is one of his earliest novels, and it's about vampires. I'm loving it.

I've read Bram Stoker's Dracula, and some of the Rice Interview With A Vampire series, and most recently the Twilight books. I'm anticipating, or maybe just hoping, that this will be the best of all the vampire books that I'll ever read. We'll see.

Buyer Beware!

You know what the problem with buying stuff online is? Let me tell you a little story...

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I was going to buy a Tivo because I had been spoiled the last couple of years having a DVR at my disposal. I looked online and in Circuit City and Best Buy to try and figure out what I wanted.

I settled on a Series 2 Dual Tuner Tivo. The best price I found anywhere for a new one was $150. So when I saw one on Craig's List for $70, brand new in box, I thought, eureka!

I went to purchase the item from the guy and it was just as he had said. The box hadn't even been opened yet, and he seemed to have a legitimate reason for selling it. But the box didn't have a model number anywhere, and of course, the Tivo packaging doesn't feature anything that isn't available, so I didn't know what it was lacking.

Excited, I come home and unwrap and begin to hook up the new addition to his electronic friends TV and DVD player. Not until after I had almost everything set up did I see on one of the booklets that it's the Single Tuner, not the Dual Tuner. If you've had a DVR then you realize how much of a convenience it is to be able to record something on one channel while watching something else on another. It's huge. But I thought to myself that I could deal with it. And as I'm about to complete installation and plug in the ethernet cable into the device I noticed that it only had a phone jack, or a USB connection. Eff.

Now I have to buy a USB adapter, but I didn't want a wireless adapter because we don't have a network setup in the house. We plug in directly to the wall and I didn't want to have to get a router too. The problem now is that nobody even sells wired USB adapters because it's pretty much outdated, so again I'm going to have to resort to online shopping to find what it is that I'm looking for.

I made sure to look on the Tivo website for the right kind of adapter that would be compatible with my Tivo. I settled on one of the D-Link variety because that was the cheapest I could find, and would get shipped the fastest. The problem now is that there is the D-Link DUB-E100 A1 and A2 that are compatible, but not the A4 or B1. Well at the store that I'm looking at, it doesn't specify which it is, it only says D-Link DUB-E100 and nothing else. I was anxious just for my Tivo to start working so I made the purchase, ignoring the lesson I should have just learned with the purchase of my Single Tuner Tivo.

It got here yesterday. I plug it in and...it's not compatible. I look all over the packaging to see what version it is, and only on the manual that comes with the device inside of the box does it actually say it's the B1 type that's incompatible. The great thing about electronics is that you can't really return opened computer items, particularly when you're buying from online merchants.

At this point I could try again, go for a different adapter and just make sure that it's the right one. But I thought I would start poking around on the Tivo website and some other forums to see if I can just find the Dual Tuner for cheap and not even bother with the adapter.

Turns out that on the Tivo website there are refurbished boxes for only $80. I called this morning to see if I could switch the service over to a new box and just get one of those. The guy on the other end says, "Tell you what. I'll do you one better. How about a brand new Dual Tuner Series Two for $70?"

So I thinks to myself, "are you @#$%&! kidding me?!," but what actually came out was a sheepish, "Yes, please."

I'm an idiot.

MxPx In The Venue

Mike Reid and I went to a concert Friday night with the express purpose of seeing MxPx and Lagwagon. I hadn't been to this place (In The Venue) before in Salt Lake, and I had heard good things about it, plus these are two bands that I really enjoy live.

First, the show took us a little while to get there. Turns out that my concert buddy had his first real test of the school year and he didn't do as well as he liked. As a result, I ended up just dropping by his place because he hadn't called me back yet, and I found him in his darkened room, lying on his bed in a pool of self-pity. We didn't end up making it up to Salt Lake until about 8:30pm.

It took us a little while to find the place because it didn't actually have the name listed anywhere on the outside. I was supposed to have tickets reserved for me by the PR person for MxPx because I was going to be writing a review for them. Turns out they weren't there, but luckily for me I had bought tickets previously. We saw Mike Herrera from MxPx outside the venue, but didn't talk to him because we were unsure that was his name. When we got in, it was basically a bar with a corner stage that had metal poles right in middle of where the pit would be. The sound was bad; the people running the show couldn't seem to accomodate any of the band's requests. The lights blinded the lead singer, and the microphones for the backups seemed to be switched.

Lagwagon themselves were good. Joey told some stories that were pretty entertaining. Guitars, bass lines, drums are all really impressive with them. As Lagwagon wrapped up, Mike and I started to get excited for MxPx to get on stage. As it turns out, the lights came on, people started filing out and that's when we realized that we had missed MxPx. So we were especially glad that we didn't stop Mike to talk to him because he had already finished by the time we ran into him.

In any case, I don't think there is anything more fun than live performances. The energy that you feel at a concert, or watching anything on stage for that matter, is just so unique. It's authentic. There's no editing. People hit their notes or they don't, but they almost always do, and I think that's what makes it worthwhile in the first place.

Also, Tat opened up for both of the bands. Obviously we didn't hear anything from them, but I visited their Myspace page following the show and they sound pretty decent. Plus the girl is hot. They had a pretty cool sound, and in the wake of Paramour, it sounds like they will have an audience here in the states.

*Photos are actually from the same show that we were at, which is kind of cool. Pulled them from the MxPx website directly.

Bored As Hell And I Wanna Get Ill

That looks more like a roman numeral "III" than Ill, huh? Kinda funny.

So yeah...that's basically what I've been feeling for the last 4 weeks. I can't believe I've been here almost 4 weeks already. Almost one whole month. Crazy. Not that it has passed quickly, but not that it has gone that slowly either. Time has just been meandering.

I haven't been blogging as much, but I think that's not due to time constraints, but mostly two factors: I feel guilty that I'm not doing my homework, and I feel like all my blog posts are journal type entries. I've been following all the same politics, sports, current events, etc. but I just feel like talking about my day or what I'm feeling and that doesn't seem to be all that interesting. Or is it? I don't know, but that's really how I'm feeling these days about my blogging. So then I end up not writing anything at all, and that bugs me. It's funny how much it bothers me when I don't post.

I feel this place that I'm living in - Provo - is Provo in name only. It's definitely not the same place for me now that it was from 2001-2004. My apartment is not my home; it feels more like a hotel. I feel like a transient here. And you know why? Because home is about the people, and the people that I enjoyed this place with during those years are all gone. It's weird to go to places now and have so many memories about every single restaurant, movie theater, street, building, nook and cranny that I see.

I went to see Ghost Town by myself today (which was really entertaining, by the way. I went at Kent's suggestion on his blog) at the Provo Town Center mall and the first thoughts I had as I got over there were about the last movies I saw there with other people. I saw XXX with Dave when we were just killing time one day. I took a nap during Guess Who with Dave and Caitlin, maybe Greg was there too. I saw Wimbledon with Becca and her friends there. She and I also saw How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days there near our first Valentine's day together, and she wrapped her arm in mine.

Being here has made me think a lot about her. Everything that happened in the last two years that I lived here was all about her. I didn't expect that to come up so much. And I hate admitting that. I guess that's pretty personal, but it's the truth.

I play intramural soccer on the same fields, but the experience is so different. I don't have post-game chats about how the game went with Dave. We don't get Pizza Pipeline anymore. I have maybe one person that I feel like I can just call up or text when I want to grab something to eat. I have a bunch of acquaintances here right now, but very few friends. Usually it's the other way around for me, and that's how I prefer it.

What's that line at the end of A River Runs Through It? "I am haunted by waters," I think. I'm haunted by these ghosts. Normally it's fine. The ghosts are always there, but you don't notice them when you're not by yourself so much. I know it's just a matter of time before I find some people that I click with, but it's weird in the meantime knowing I'm on my own. Not just knowing, but really feeling it.

Anyway, if you've bothered to come this far through this dreary post, below is the trailer. The movie is really funny. I laughed out loud, a lot. And I was by myself doing that in a theater full of people. You know what was funny? Being in a movie and hearing audible gasps at the two F-words and G-damn in the movie.

Week 15 - Let The Taper Begin!

I'm trying to remember if I did all the runs last week or not. I think I missed a day. It was the second short run. That's right.

Okay...so highlights...first short run was fine.

Medium-long run was okay, but I did it way late. I think I started at about 11:30 pm and ran 7.6 miles. I covered in just over an hour. It was up to the temple, but not up and around the temple.

The long run. This was the long week. I decided that I was going to run an hour and a half out, and then just come back on the same route. Regardless of how far it ended up being. I assumed that would be put somewhere around 21 miles, given that I ran the 18.8 miles in 2:40. I wasn't sure how I was really feeling for the week, and I miss another run again, even if it was only a short one.

The forecast for Saturday was supposed to be rainy. And it rained lightly for about 10 minutes during the run. When it started to happen I was already at mile 15 or so. At that point I really didn't care if it would have rained hard the whole way back because I knew that I had less than an hour of running left.

Running for time almost made it easier on me. I didn't have to worry at all about my route, or the length. It sounds dumb, but in trying to figure out routes, it can sometimes take me more than an hour to plan everything out and make sure that I'm covering the distance, that I know where I can drop of my gatorades, etc. This time I just planted two in the same spot as I did last time, and I just decided that I would keep running up the canyon trail until I reached that time goal.

I got up to Nun's Glen Park, which is where we used to start longboarding when we'd go down the Canyon. Greg and Dave know where that is, but probably didn't know the name of that place until now. It was about 11.1 miles to get out there in exactly 1:30. I was feeling okay, but didn't know how much longer the run back would take me.

I didn't have any problems with anything. I was mentally there for the run. I got a sufficient amount of rest. Pretty crazy, but for the hardest run besides the marathon, I think I was in the best place I could be mentally, better than any of the other long runs I had ever done. So that felt pretty nice. I didn't forget this time to put on Body Glide on my armpits and nipples. On that 19-miler two weeks ago, I had totally forgotten to do that. The result? Chafed and bloodied right nipple. Poor little guy.

What's kind of strange is the bursts of energy that seemingly come out of nowhere. From mile 13-17 I was feeling great. I felt like my pace was strong, and I felt like I had all the energy I would need to finish the run strong. That happened at a couple of different points. From about 18 on, I was kind of dragging.

The hard part with this route is that the two toughest hills are on the way back. Going from University Ave. up to the temple is actually pretty steep, even if you're not going up and around the temple. And then finishing at my house is hard. It's on an even level with the top of the temple.

I got passed up by a couple of people on my run this time around, but that happened after only mile 18. I had never been passed up on my runs by anyone, so that was a little disheartening, but at the same time...I had already run 18 miles!

On the last hill coming up to my place, another guy had passed me. That last hill was really killing me. About halfway I couldn't stand listening to my music anymore. I had never hated it more. So I pulled out my earphones, and shut off my shuffle, but the climb up the hill felt so long, and each step felt so arduous. I ended up counting my steps just to occupy my mind until I reached the peak. 160 exactly from whereever it was that I started counting.

I finished it all. I was a little surprised at how far I had gone when I had mapped it out. I was even more surprised by the time of the run. I ran the whole 22.2 miles in 3:05, meaning the second half only took my 5 more minutes than the first half. Again, I have no idea how my pacing can be so consistent because I don't do anything to keep monitor it.

With about 2 miles to go I could start to feel the beginnings of cramps in my calves. The annoying part was that I was actually really attentive to making sure I was loaded up with all my nutrients. I had multiple multivitamins, plenty of calcium, and had a couple of bananas. I was reading elsewhere that sodium depletion can be a problem too. I think that might have been the case because I could actually see grains of salt all over my skin.

I was able to finish fine, but my calves seized up worse than they ever had. I tried to do my normal post-run walk around the block, but couldn't make it more than a couple hundred feet before I had to lay on my back and pull my knees up. I sat in that position for about 30 minutes on the grass on the side of the street. I couldn't stand, much less walk at that point. I had never hurt that much following a run.

All in all, I'm feeling really pumped about everything. The pace on that long run is about 8:20 miles, which I think is better than I had ever done for any of the long runs, at least the ones 15+ miles. If I can maintain that pace, that puts me at about 3:40 for the full marathon. Again, I need to not get ahead of myself and worry too much about time. Just completing is the goal for now (although if I'm being honest...I'll probably be at least a little disappointed if I don't finish under 4 hours).

So...now the best part besides actually being done with the marathon - the taper. I ran 8 last night. I'm gonna run 4 tonight. I missed a run earlier this week. I've had a muscle in my quad that has been experiencing a ton of tightness, so I thought it might be better to take another day off. I think the problem is associated with when I hit my knee into the turf in a soccer game a couple of weeks ago. Incidentally, I had another game earlier this week. The soreness in the knee/quad isn't any consideration when I'm running, only when I'm done and stretching afterward. I think I'm going to be bump up the long run of 12 miles this week from the normal Saturday, to tomorrow, Friday, so that I can play in a soccer tournament this weekend. Woo!

But I've got my plane ticket. I've got my hotel reservation. And I'm not missing anything significant for that weekend. I'm so looking forward to Chi-town and getting to hang with Dave and Caitlin and finally get this thing over with.

Woo!

Thriller!

I don't know what my problem is, but the last couple of days I'm obsessed with dance stuff. Like so obsessed. If I could just spend my days perfecting Thriller and dancing like JT and MJ, I think I would be the happiest person ever.

I just noticed this, but that last post was number 500!! Can you believe that? In a year and a half I've cleared that number. I'm ridiculous.

I just found out another friend of mine occassionally jumps onto my blog, and my reaction to hearing that is always the same - I immediately feel a small sense of embarrassment. It's funny.

Anyway...so this is how I hope to dance someday:

And I'm really surprised that this is still available online, but I guess it's been only a few days. Oh, just kidding. But you can go to the link of the dance part of Thriller through this link here.

I just found this website that provides an excellent Thriller tutorial.

Lastly, I've decided I'm going to read a Stephen King novel to get in the Halloween mood. A friend of mine suggested Salem's Lot. Anyone else have any input?

I'm going to write a real post one of these days. Be blessed!

A Brief Me Update

Things up here are alright. You know what's weird? I thought I would feel more homesick. Mostly what I've been feeling is a little stressed at times, but mostly bored. A little lonely. I can handle Utah when I know it's temporary, even if it's a kind of long temporary.

I ran into a friend on Sunday at church, and he was the first person that I've known personally, that's in my age group, that has gotten a divorce.

School is good. I'm still managing to spend a lot of money, but luckily I'll be doing some additional work collecting data for a study that I'm working on with one of my professors that should eventually turn into a publication.

The best news I think (besides the marathon stuff, I'm way excited about all of that) is that I've got my thesis committee chair lined up. And I'll actually be doing the work on sexual harrassment, which at first sounded boring to me, but after reading some of what he's published in the last couple of years it's actually really interesting. And it relates great with some of the stuff that happened at work over the last year or so. Yes, including when the African dude asked me out. He's developed a nI2S scale - I'm Too Sexy Scale, and part of my job over the next year or so will be submitting that for publication. I'll talk more about what I'm actually studying later, and I promise that it's actually really interesting. Hopefully I'll be able to convey it well to you.

This time last week I was really stressing about everything in this program, but somehow I got all caught up, my chair, my topic, everything lined up perfectly. My favorite part after I was done talking to Dr. Ridge this afternoon, was that I noticed on his wall that he had some framed tickets of games from the 1991 World Series, including the classic Game 7 between John Smoltz and Jack Morris. We talked about baseball for about 30 minutes. I never thought I'd have that conversation with a professor of mine, and the best part is that I'll be working really closely with him over the next several years. I'm really excited about that.

Plus! I got in contact with a professor from the Political Science department, and he does work in political psychology, and I'm meeting him tomorrow to talk about some possible research topics. So I'll be able to do this stuff in addition to my thesis/dissertation work.

I can't believe how well things line up sometimes. It really amazes me. All this stuff fell into line within the last several days, and for the last couple of weeks I wasn't sure if anything was going to line up right for me in this program. Anyway, I count myself very blessed.

Tidbits

Amy steered me into this article today. It appears in the LA Times of all places, and is a great op-ed on Proposition 8. Very well written, and the best part? It argues the right perspective, but it comes from a self-proclaimed liberal.

Today in my stats class for some reason my professor just started playing all these videos featuring the safety dance. I kind of loved it.

I wish the Conan O'Brien video allows for embedding, but here's the link.

And below is the actual video. This was actually about ten minutes out of my class today. It was so great.

Week 14 & 15 - Here I Come Chicago!

Here I am, and it's week 15. My last long week of running, but I need to talk about last week first.

I was pretty on last week, I'm not gonna lie. I had a 4+ miler on Monday and felt like I really attacked it. I'm surprised at how quickly I feel like I've acclimated to the environment here for running. I ran the 4 in under 31 minutes. That's about as good as I was doing at home, plus I've got hills to deal with here. It's amazing to me how aggressive my approach can feel on some of these runs. Sometimes I'm just trying to get through it, and others I feel like I'm taking that run and bending it over my knee and showing it who's boss. I'm boss, bro.

Twice I attempted to run the 10 mile, and the first time I got caught up watching some intramural soccer games while on my route. I watched for so long that I got completely cold and my muscles were rigid, so I stopped by Mike's on the way and he gave me a ride to finish it off. By that point at least I had already run 6. I did the same thing the next night, but rather than wuss out, I just picked up and started running even though I had stopped in colder evening weather for at least a half hour. Both times were pretty good, and thankfully, I didn't have any of the same bowel problems as I did the week prior.

Week 14 was a stepback week so the long run on Saturday was only 14 miles. I'm doing a terrible job these days at getting to bed at a decent time prior to these long runs. Nevertheless, I've still been able to turn in some good strong runs and have decent pacing. I have been feeling affected the last couple of weeks, however, by the lack of sleep on these runs. The last two weeks I've been running 14 and 19 miles on about 5 hours of sleep. Can't do that anymore.

Thanks again to those with suggestions for the cramping. I upped my intake of calcium with the calcium-fortified orange juice, popped even more multi-vitamins, had two bananas, and I didn't feel a thing after the run on Saturday, which is SO nice. It makes a huge difference making sure my electrolytes are up, I'm well-hydrated, and I have sufficient levels of calcium, potassium, and magnesium. It's kind of cool learning about those.

I'm not really going to get into week 15 running yet. But this week I booked my flight and today I booked my hotel reservation, so it's official. This week is the last long week of runs - 40+ miles, with a 20+ miler tomorrow. Yikes. But after tomorrow I get to taper, which I've been looking forward to for so long.

So there's only 23 more days until race day! I'm so excited to get to hang out Chi-town. I'll have to see if my boy Kanye is gonna be around that weekend.

Before You Freak Out

It has been a crazy couple of months in the financial world. A number of banks and brokerage companies have fallen or taken huge hits, the stock market has fluctuated pretty violently. But I came across this post by my favorite money guy, Larry Kudlow. I'll include some excerpts:

We can fix this. If nothing else, that’s the message I hope readers take away from this column. Of course, the “this” is the run on the world banking system. Stock markets have plunged globally, gold prices have shot up, and U.S. Treasury-bill rates have plummeted to 10 basis points, the lowest since the 1950s.

We’re witnessing a desperate flight to safety by investors. Folks are running away from financial assets and financial institutions simply because confidence has disappeared.

Well, it’s time for some perspective. The world is not coming to an end. The stock market has tumbled, but it’s still over 10,000. In late 2002 it was 7,500 and in mid-1982 it was 750. Are things really that bad?

With home prices falling, foreclosures and defaults are at the root cause of the run against all manner of mortgage-related bonds held by the banks. But as investment guru Don Luskin points out, foreclosures today are less than 3 percent. During the 1930s they were 50 percent. Or how about the unemployment rate? Today it’s 6.1 percent. Back in 1982 it was near 11 percent and for most of the 1930s it was over 20 percent.

As the oil bubble pops the underlying inflation rate is somewhere between 2 and 3 percent — quite unlike the double-digit hyperinflation of the 1970s. Home prices themselves have fallen between 10 and 20 percent, but they’re still about 50 percent higher than at the start of the decade.

And there are constructive policy measures that can help fix the market’s problems. Investor Zachary Karabell writes persuasively in the Wall Street Journal that “mark-to-market accounting in the aftermath of the Enron scandal makes no sense at all.” Many banks have taken huge losses on mortgage-backed securities and their derivatives because the SEC insists on mark-to-market. But Karabell asks: Why knock down these bond values, sometimes by as much as 100 percent, when the underlying home values embedded in the mortgages have only dropped 10 to 20 percent? And in the long run, the housing market will recover, as it always does.

The pessimists are now talking about the end of capitalism or a permanent decline of America. I don’t believe that for one moment. Specific regulatory reforms can get us out of this fix. And most of all, policymakers must maintain the low-tax, low-inflation, open-trade formula that has propelled this nation’s economy and produced so much prosperity for so long.

I say, never sell America short.

And then today Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, came out with this statement regarding government action to soften the blow of some of the most recent events. And the market has responded in kind - I think the market dropped about 800 points, only to rally in the last two days and take back what was lost earlier in the week.

The economy is going to be okay, but there are still some rough waters to navigate.

Police Beat

I sat down to eat my chicken bowl with veggies from Teriyaki Stix and I picked up the Daily Universe and read these gems:

• Sept 11: BYU police received a phone call complaining of a band playing music too loudly at 10:30 p.m. in the Foreign Language Housing. The police arrived and the band was quiet.
• Sept 12: A custodian reported screaming near the MCKB at 4 a.m. The screams were later discovered to have come from a female student sprayed by a sidewalk sprinkler.
• Sept 13: Police responded to a call reporting suspicious characters at the OIT construction site on the south end of campus. Upon arrival, the suspect were discovered to be construction workers.
• Sept 14: Concerned resident reported a suspicious male student in Helaman Halls at 1:30 a.m. The student was knocking on ground level windows of John Hall and then holding a cardboard mask up to the windows. When the police had arrived, the suspect fled.

Tell me you don't miss reading those. Very high on the unintentional comedy scale.

Ninja Parade!

Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again

Man, I love The Onion.

Difference Between Harry Potter and Star Wars

I thought this was clever, and kind of surprising (courtesy of BSPCN):