Is The Elkhart Project making the city look too bleak? They’re going to start featuring more positive stories. Glad to hear it. The one about the abandoned meth lab houses depressed the hell out of me.
Month: May 2009 (page 5 of 7)
Take this essay about dating a foreigner and replace all the references to Frenchmen to Aussies. That’s pretty much my life ‘lo these nine years. (“What do you MEAN you’ve never heard of The Little Rascals? WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM??”)
Goonies Reunion Video. That’s great! They’d hadn’t met up since they did the commentary for the DVD eight years ago. Chunk looks super cute now that he’s grown up.
In the great spirit of Cat in Lime Helmet, we give you Dr. Amy Jones in a Pomelo Helmet.
Yeah, she’s probably going to kill us in our sleep.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Today was my third running of the Sydney Mother’s Day Classic 8K. (Previously: 2006, 2008.) There were a few new challenges this year: I’m heavier than I was the two previous times I ran it; I’ve been doing more strength training and a lot less running miles lately; and I was running this one on my own, without anyone else to pace me. It was also the culmination of a week of pretty intense busy-ness, and I hadn’t had much time to worry about race preparations. Despite my protestations, Snookums insisted on coming along to support me. (He’s the best.) My goals were simple: to run the whole thing without stopping, and to finish in under an hour. At 7:30am the gun fired and we were off.
 
It was already sprinkling when the race started, and it continued to drizzle down the whole time. It was nice though. I settled into my pace quickly. They’d changed the course from last year and it meant a lot more turns and switchbacks. There were still plenty of hills, but they were much shorter and didn’t kill you so much. I realised I felt pretty good. I was happy to pass my nemeses, the Peaky Striders, pretty early on. Because I was on my own, I listened to Steve Runner’s podcast from the Boston Marathon as I went. I got lapped by the winner as I neared the halfway point, but I didn’t mind because the rain had stopped and a beautiful rainbow appeared at the turnaround. It was glorious. I feel like I ran this entire race with a smile on my face. I kept an eye on my pace just to make sure I was going to meet my goal, but I didn’t feel any particular need to push hard. I kept getting passed by people who were going flat out, and then five minutes later I’d chug past those same people who were now walking to catch their breath. My mantra was “slow and steady.” I actually laughed as I climbed the biggest hill for the second time, wondering why I thought it was so difficult before. Finally were was only one kilometer left to go, so I did my best to pick up the pace. I saw Snookums about 200m from the finish line. “I did it!” I croaked to him. “I haven’t stopped!” And suddenly I welled up like I was going to cry. I put my head down and sprinted as best I could to the finish line. I crossed in 57:37 (according to Runkeeper), but that included that time it took me to get to the start. So call it 57 minutes. Not a blazing time by any standard, but given how much fun I had and now easy the run ended up being, I’ll take it. I’m feeling much better about my chances for posting a fast time at the Bay Run in a couple months.
Thanks to everybody who sent me supportive messages before and after the Race. And extra special thanks, of course, to the Snook, who never complains about getting up at 6am and standing in freezing cold drizzle for 2 hours just so I’ve got a friendly face cheering me on at the end. That’s worth more than a race medal to me.
Edited to add: Official race times have been posted. I finished in 57:01, which was firmly in the back of the pack. Still, a fun event!
Made it. I’ve cleared three of my five hurdles for the weekend and the end is in sight. Our Guild Meeting today was well-attended as usual (30 again!), with several visitors from other groups. I’m happy to say that meeting prep is getting easier now that I know what I’m doing. My “Welcome to the Knitternet” presentation went over so well! Which is funny, considering the technical nightmare I had in getting it ready. Half an hour before I left the house, the Snook and I suddenly realized that we didn’t have a monitor adapter for my MacBook to connect to the projector. So we had to install Keynote on his MacBook Pro and transfer over the presentation. I thought I was set then, but once I got to Customs House JP and I quickly realized that we were still missing a crucial connector. Fine, whatever, I decided to just use the PC in the meeting room… except I had no way of getting my presentation off the laptop. No one in the room had a USB stick. So I spent the first hour of the meeting surreptitiously SMSing the Snook while he tried to upload the files somewhere I could grab them. With about five minutes to spare, I was literally on my hands and knees crawling around under the meeting room PC on the phone with the Snook when I suddenly found a monitor connector lying there. “Hey,” I said. “This one looks just like the white one I left at home on the coffee table. HOLY CRAP, IT FITS.” Yep, the very connector I needed was just lying loose on the floor in the corner. Laptop was quickly plugged in, projector was switched on, and the whole setup worked PERFECTLY. I don’t even think the majority of the members realized there was a problem! The universe came through for me, for once.
I definitely need an early night. I’ve got to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to run an 8k race, from which I go straight to Morris and Sons to teach the second installment of my sock class. And then I’m going to have a massage, make carrot cake cookies, and drink a beer. Sounds like a plan…
Busy.
It seems like every six months I always have one weekend that is just a nightmare of stress and deadlines. Right now I’m juggling a Spec of Monstrous Proportions at work; normal preparations for the Knitters Guild meeting on Saturday; special preparations for the Internet Workshop I’m leading at the Guild meeting on Saturday; the Mother’s Day Classic 8K Run on Sunday morning; and the second installment of the sock class I’m teaching Sunday afternoon. Crazy, huh? So don’t be surprised if blogging is light for a couple days…
Donkey basketball was definitely something that happened in my part of Indiana. Probably still does!
Geek Girl Dinner in Mordor
The next Geek Girl Dinner Sydney has been announced… and it’s at MICROSOFT. I used to drive by that office every day on my way out to North Ryde when I worked at Epson. It’s this big curving black monolithic THING, like the eye of Sauron. And next Thursday, yours truly and the Snook will walk in and hope the eye of Bill does not turn upon us. (Snookums is all excited about the Lego and the Xbox.) Stay tuned to see if I can tweet from my iPhone without it blowing up in my hand…