kapgar

I want to ride it where I like...

As I type this, Katie's asleep on the couch. We're supposed to go run some errands and get some stuff done, but we just got back about an hour ago from a 20-mile bike ride up and down the Fox River Trail. 

We had beautiful weather and it was a gorgeous ride, save for the point where you ride past the sewage treatment plant in Batavia. If you weren't feeling hunger pangs before...

But Katie's now completely wiped. I know she's getting tired on our rides when she starts to lean forward with her forearms on the handlebars instead of her hands. Never a good sign. Thankfully that didn't happen until about mile 18. 

She did take a few pictures. Sadly my PowerShot is in the shop with a busted zoom dial. But Katie took some (one of those times when Facebook readers should click through to view the photos)

Do I wake her up? I know we've got a lot to do, but I'm not suicidal.

I'm so stoked about this little gem I ordered. It's an official Invaded! coffee mug for Avitable's 2009 Halloween party. 

This thing is truly a work containing both fine craftsmanship from the folks at Zazzle.com and the artwork of Dave from Blogography. 

 

Unlike most coffee mugs, the design is not raised at all. It is so protected by ceramic glaze that there is no way to accidentally damage the logo without destroying the mug. And it's a heavy-duty mug at that. This is my favorite coffee mug second only to the kick-ass Jack Skellington mug that Katie bought me down at Disneyworld last year.

Kudos to Adam, Dave, and Zazzle on a fine product.

And no, I'm not receiving any sort of compensation from Adam, Dave, or Zazzle for this shameless plug other than warm, fuzzy feelings. I can't even go to the party. I'm just going to have to celebrate with my mug.

*sniffle*

The birds will still be singing...

I have a confession to make, after a few months trying to transform into a runner, I crashed. I crashed hard. No, not a literal accident. Just the figurative "wall" that runners tend to hit. But it still hurt bad.

There was a while there that I was doing pretty good. Constantly attempting to increase the distance that I was running. At one point, I actually hit five miles. For the first time since the summer after my freshman year of college, I ran five miles straight.

Since that day, I have not run more than a mile and a half again.

Physically, I'm not entirely sure why it happened, but it did. Any time I attempted to run, I got winded way too quickly or my body just couldn't move. That so-called "groove" I had during the monster run just would not come back. 

Mentally, I saw myself getting worse. I watched (or read) as people I knew were running longer and longer distances at shorter and shorter times. I kept thinking "Why not me? Seriously, why the fuck not me?"

As a result, I got frustrated and I ran less and less. I think I got stuck in the whole "you lost the race" mindset and gave up. I still worked out, but not nearly as much and running was a once or, maybe, twice-a-week thing I would do that did nothing more than bum me out even more.

Yesterday, though, my brain had a breakthrough. After giving away an hour and a half of my life to Guitar Hero III (yes, I still enjoy playing that one solely because of the mix of songs on it), I decided I just needed to go out and run. 

Screw how long I go. 

Screw how far I go. 

I just needed to go.

And I did.

I'm not sure how long. I'm not sure how far. I don't know how it compares to those of you who are runners... and I don't care. I just know that it was more than I've run in months. And it felt good. And I need to capitalize on this feeling. 

Screw medals.

Screw finish lines.

Screw mentally competing with all the people I know who are runners.

I need to do this for me.

I need to do this for my health.

I need to do this for Katie.

I need to do this for our future family (no, that's not a veiled announcement).

So, nothing personal against those of you who are competitively running. I'm happy for you and I wish you all the best. But I need to stop paying attention to what you say and write about. I need to stop gauging my success on how I compare to your efforts. That's the wrong way to live. 

I need to do this for me. My own rules. My own standards. 

And I need to just be happy that I'm doing something. Something that, hopefully, will result in a longer and happier and healthier life.

Life is just too damn short to worry about keeping up with everyone around me.

On a lighter note. I found this gem of a video via Google Reader. 

A musician named Jarbas Agnelli found a picture of birds perched on a series of five suspended cables as birds are wont to do. But instead of just disregarding the image, he and his musical mind decided to see if there was any compositional value to how the birds were sitting.

Check out what he discovered. It's pretty amazing, really.

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

Originally posted at Superhero Journal. Well, that's where I found it, anyway. Via Google Reader.

I want to ride it where I like...

Wilkommen aus Snippet Wednesday nummer googolplex! Yep, despite how the company spells it, the real way is "googol." Looks so funny, though, doesn't it?

BMX
The BMX photo shoot that I was supposed to do last Thursday had to be rescheduled due to weather and other mitigating circumstances. Blake and I moved it to yesterday, instead. And then I almost missed it not realizing that Naperville, IL, has two skate parks and I was sitting and waiting in the parking lot of the wrong one. Go fig. But I finally got there and snapped away to the tune of 147 photos worth. I trashed 31 off the bat because they were bad and wound up uploading 98 to Flickr. I'm hoping this embeddable Flickr slideshow works better than Pictobrowser isn't, but, if not, you can check them out in the Flickr album.

Boxing
I've always harbored a love of boxing, a revelation that is likely to turn my mom's stomach. And I've always wanted to take up boxing personally. Not for the purpose of fighting, but for exercise. I'm not sure you can get much more "total body workout" than that. I haven't joined a boxing gym yet, but I was pricing one near where I worked only to find out last night that it has gone out of business. Back to the point, though. Imagine my surprise when, a day or so ago, Katie tells me that she would like to try boxing as well, for fitness and stress relief. Not that I'm into the overly ripped female physique, I'm not. But something about Katie boxing is just, well... hawt.

Does that make me weird?

Sizzle
Just a few more days! Just a few more days! Until what? Until I meet my long-lost blog sis, SIZZLE! Ohmigod, we've been talking about meeting each other in person for years. Yeah, blows my mind to think about how long we've known each other too. But, yeah, it's been years. And I also get to meet NILSA! After oh-so-many Chicago-area meetups that she has backed out of, she's trapped! She's hosting this little shindig at her place and CANNOT ESCAPE! And there is also a chance that CITIZEN NEIL will be in attendance. There is no guarantee at this point depending on his schedule, but it could happen! As Sizzle pointed out to me, this meet-up will most certainly be worthy of its own post. Damn right!

Dawg
Apparently, the brother-in-law who regularly reads this blog has inquired as to why I have not written a post about his and his lady fair's new dog. They adopted recently and, by all accounts (Katie's included), he's one adorable little booger. The problem is that I'm the admin of this blog and I have not met him yet. So, Scott, when you want a post and pictures up about the li'l guy, you let me know when your schedule opens up and you're not busy littering the earth with little white pock-marked balls.

Ball... court... yours. ;-)

Wired
And in pure LeSombre tradition, I will save the last snippet for myself for when I must make the ultimate decision between the red wire and the blue one. Or is it green? Or yellow? Shit!

 

Thank you, kitteh.

But I won't heed the battle call...

Yeah, it's been nearly a week. I go on tears anymore... several days on and several days off. Oh well. At least I'm back in time to celebrate Snippet Wednesday. Wouldn't want to miss that.

Grease
In the class Katie is taking right now, they have a project where they are supposed to analyze a movie that is appropriate for teenagers. I'm not sure entirely what the analysis entails, but it's a project I'm more than willing to help with simply because it involves, well, movies. Last night, one of her fellow students presented on the movie she had watched. It was Grease. During the presentation, you are supposed to show a scene or two from the film that supports your analysis. Katie has never seen Grease and never wanted to. Last night, she walked away from having watched one of the musical numbers and said stuff to me like, "this is one of women's favorite movies? Why?" and "are we all sure John Travolta's not gay?"

I love my wife. And her disdain for this movie is the primary reason why I'm willing to forgive her for not having seen Star Wars. If she was one of those women that watched Grease repeatedly and dragged me into it, I guarantee she'd have every line from the holy trilogy memorized by now.

Running
I've decided something... running outside sucks. I don't know why, but I just can't breathe outside. Maybe it's the allergen factor or something, but everything just closes up and I can barely run about 20% the distance that I do on a treadmill at the gym. I am actually able to run five miles on a treadmill and, yet, I think my max-out distance before I feel like keeling over and dying outside is a mere 1.1 miles. I can understand the uneven terrain and inability to control your speed will have an effect, but that freakin' much??? Yeah I see no races in my future unless they start the world's first treadmill-based virtual race. Now that would be cool.

Laces
However, despite my disdain for outdoor running, I must say that I do absolutely love my new running shoes. I went to an actual running store, Naperville Running Company, and got a pair of New Balance 769s. I never realized how lightweight shoes could be. And the heels are like running on pillows. But even cooler than the weight and the cushioning are the laces. Yes, laces. I love these damn things (see right; I have the silver and blue version of those shoes). Instead of being the regular or even the barrel laces that are so common on athletic shoes, these ones kinda pill out so they look like a fabric version of a dogtag chain. The purpose is to keep the laces secure without double knotting them. And they work! New Balance apparently holds the patent on this style of lace and don't sell them in stores separate of the shoes, but I have a pair and I love them. Simply because I hate double knotting shoes and sitting there forever trying to unlace them.

Book
Holy crap! I actually finished a book that wasn't either a Twilight novel or a graphic novel! Last night, I finished Dennis Lehane's fantastic historical novel The Given Day and this is probably one of my first completed books in nearly a year if not longer. My reading has been pathetic as of late. I just can't motivate myself to do it so finally tearing through this 700-page beast felt good. Sure, I was struggling at first even with this book, and, all told, it took me a couple months to finish. But the final 450-500 pages were just in the last couple weeks. So that's a marked improvement. Now I just have to write the review over on Goodreads. Next is Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth. Bought this one a little more than a month ago and I'm finally going to read it. I love Jhumpa Lahiri.

Photos
I did take some photos from this past weekend's Swedish Days festival in Geneva. And, despite being such a beautiful day, it got a little wicked that night, so I also have some photos from the looming storm. Enjoy.

As always, you can hit up the photo albums over on Flickr as well - Swedish Days 2009 and Under a Blood Red Sky.

We need some time to clear our heads...

Last Friday, I did something I haven't done in a long time. I'm not really sure why I chose to do it, but I did, and it felt great. And I'd like to encourage each and every one of you to try it. Just for kicks. Or maybe you already do it anyway.

I went for a walk during my lunch break at work. No, that in and of itself isn't the grand idea. But, instead of grabbing a bunch of my electronic crap and taking it with me for this walk as I tend to, I left it all behind. No watch. No cellphone. No camera. No iPod. I was completely unwired. And it felt great.

All I did was walk for an hour, by my guesstimation anyway.

I listened to what was around me, both natural and man-made. I paid attention to the world talking to me instead of hiding inside myself. I heard and felt things I hadn't experienced in what seemed like forever.

For the first time in a long time, I felt like one with the world around me. I was completely at peace.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the use of these devices is inherently bad. I love them all and will continue to use them. But try putting them down for a while. Don't use them. Don't rely on them. Be your own person and live on your own terms and just pay attention again. And it doesn't matter where you are... a mid-size town, out in the country, on a train or plane or taxicab, in the big city... there will always be something new. Just give it a chance. You might be amazed what you discover.

Okay, I was a bit off on my second-week running distances from my first week. That calf cramp was less a cramp and more of a muscle strain. I'm not sure why it happened, but it did. It's still a little tight, but the pain is gone thanks in part to ibuprofen and some major stretching I accomplished yesterday by hiking over severely uneven terrain while playing disc golf with my dad and his neighbor.

I haven't actually been able to run since my four miler on Thursday, although I did several miles on an elliptical machine on Friday night. Yesterday was disc golf and today I'm going to give running another go. Start a new week off right.

So let's see... Week 1 = 10.5 miles; Week 2 = 7 miles; Week 3 = time will only tell.

Where are we runnin'...

First off, a big happy birthday to my mom who celebrates the God-only-knows-what anniversary of her 21st birthday today. I'm sure she'll smack me later for that one.

And on with the show...

This morning at the gym (I took a day off from work), I was running on the treadmill. I kept going and going and told my body it can quit at four miles, but not before. I haven't run any more than three so far, but I had to give it a shot. I wanted to see if I could do it. For one of the few times in the last couple weeks, I hit my stride really early on and just went to town. I knew four miles wasn't going to be a problem. I could just feel it.

At three and three-quarters, my left calf started cramping up. I knew it was because I was probably getting dehydrated. I thought I remembered reading something on Kim's blog about how much hydration you should give your body versus the time you've run, but the details weren't coming back to me just then and I'll be damned if I can find it now. However, seeing as I was closing in on an hour of time overall on the treadmill including warm-up and cool-down walks (20 minutes longer than I'd been on a treadmill to this point) and I hadn't picked up my water bottle at all, this seemed like a pretty logical conclusion.

I powered through the final quarter mile and dropped my speed for a cool-down walk for the final 10 minutes. As I scarfed down the water bottle I had with me, I could feel the cramp abating for the most part. Still there now as I type this, but not nearly as bad. I also now know what to expect when I do this again.

Even with my four miles today, I'm behind on the pace I was at last week. On Sunday, Katie and I ran only a mile as a warm-up for a day with the weights and we had very little time on Monday, so we only got two miles in. Then we took Tuesday off and she worked out solo on Wednesday since I had a softball double header. But I would like to run again tomorrow and Saturday and see if I can improve my overall weekly distance... if I can work out this damn cramp and figure out how to effectively hydrate during my run without stopping. Help? Anyone?

BTW, I just revealed to Katie on the phone that I ran four miles. I think I heard her cursing me under her breath. Might've been a voodoo chant.

Sometimes The Onion's video posts are on fire, and sometimes they're not.

The one that came in via iTunes this morning though, and considering my enjoyment of hockey, is completely EN FUEGO!

I just hope embedding it here at the size that The Onion defaults to doesn't screw with the margins of my page. Oh well. We shall see.

NHL Tries To Woo Fans By Increasing Scoring With Bigger Nets, 3-Point Line

Tell me the story, tell me the legend...

I've seen it over at Avitable as well as on Renagerie. Maybe it's been elsewhere, too, and I've just forgotten so feel free to leave the links to your own similar posts. But I'm now going to attempt one of my own Two Truths, a Lie, and a Pizza Place. Oh, the pizza place is no longer in the game? Whoops. How about Two Truths and a Lie, then?

Simply put, read the following three statements and tell me which one is bull.

1. My earliest verifiable memory comes from when I was five years old and we had just moved to Lexington, KY, and I found a box labeled "Kevin's Toys," broke into it and found my old Battlestar Galactica ships, and played with them while watching Sanford & Son on TV. I still swear that show was based on my next-door neighbors.
    
2. I have only ever broken one bone in my life. I was playing catcher on my Little League baseball team and the kid running the bases ran into me to avoid being tagged out at home. The ball popped out of my glove on impact and it broke my rib as I fell on top of it. My team was more upset about the fact I dropped the ball than they were concerned about the fact I was writhing in pain. And nothing happened to the kid from the other team as punishment for running me over in LITTLE LEAGUE. His coach congratulated him, in fact. I never played baseball again.
    
3. Barring secondhand smoke, I have never once smoked a cigarette or joint my entire life. I never wanted to smoke a cigarette and have never been given the opportunity to try pot. Strange how that works out.

So which is bunk?

I'm not going to use my blog to set fitness goals as Stacey is now so willing to try. Not only do I then have it in writing and know when I fail, but I know you all will call me on it as well. However I will use it to announce personal achievements! Why not, right?

Well, this past week, I ran a total of 10.5 miles over the course of four days. 2 on Monday, 2.5 on Tuesday, and 3 on both Thursday and Friday. And Katie ran an unofficial 5K yesterday at the gym. Woo hoo! We're getting there.

Oh-oh-oh-oh-operator...

"Mom, do you ever get that, er, not-so-fresh feeling?"

"Yes dear. Every Snippet Wednesday."

Swing
I'm up at bat. The guy in front of me in the lineup just belted an in-the-park homerun. I have to keep up the momentum. If I strike out, the side is retired. I hate being the one to end an inning. It sucks. I've done it before, but I don't want to do it again. The first pitch drops way short of the plate. Ball 1. The second pitch is sailing right where I like it. I can feel this one. I know it's going to fly the second I make contact. I pick up my shoulders a little bit and start to lift my lead foot. The bat begins its movement through the air. I can visualize exactly where in the air the bat and ball will make contact. A split second from now and... my alarm goes off. Dammit.

Miles
Well, that's one athletic fantasy that went bust, but my running has improved. After getting severely worse. A few weeks ago, I reported to a few people that my lazy ass had hit the mile and a quarter mark running on a treadmill. I did that a few times in a row and I had set a goal of keeping a certain distance for three runs before increasing it. I went in to begin the fourth run after that distance milestone, but all I could do was a mile. Three times I did only a mile, and then I had one really bad day where I could only get a mile done by running it in two half-mile spurts. I was starting to get bummed out. As I'm wont to do when exercising, I started feeling the desire to give up and began to use the elliptical machine instead. Then it hit me, I was trying to go too fast. Slow it down. Live the old "slow and steady wins the race" maxim, after all, I'm not actually in a race. So I dropped my speed a bit last Thursday. Not too much, but apparently enough for my body to feel the difference. I was back up to a mile and a quarter last Thursday, mile and a half on Friday, mile and three quarters on Monday, and I hit two miles yesterday! This is the first time I've run two nonstop miles in five-odd years. Dude, this is nice! Eventually I'll pick the speed back up, but I need to condition my body to get used to the physicality of running first. Then I think it will all fall into place.

Chuck
[Only very minor spoilers for people who haven't seen the finale of Chuck yet]
"Guys... I know Kung-Fu." Okay, I loved the finale of Chuck on Monday night. Whether this is just the season finale or the series finale remains to be seen. It is a bubble show right now. But Katie and I enjoy the hell out of it and would love to see it return. C'mon NBC, make it happen.

Vienna
Sorry if the title of this post gave you an earworm of Falconian proportions, but that song came up on shuffle on my iPod while at work yesterday and made me very happy. It has been stuck in my head ever since. Even this morning, after waking up, it was the first thing signaling that my brain was indeed awake. Hey, there are far worse songs to have stuck in your head than Falco's "Vienna Calling."

Filthy
I've been tracking some of the responses to this outbreak of Swine Flu (which has now supposedly made its way to the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago) on the Web and I came across a site from a health department in Wisconsin that had a picture of a big ol' sow right on the page. I began to feel sorry for the poor guy and, for some reason, Vincent and Jule's debate about swine from Pulp Fiction popped in my head. I don't know if anybody else out there has already done it or not, but I became inspired and created the following. Miramax, please don't sue me. It's all in fun. Really.

Hey, I'm not the only one having a little fun with Swine Flu.

Okay, time for work.

The price of gas keeps on rising...

It's weird, but you would think that a snippet or bullet post would be easier than a regular post. But these last two weeks have been difficult finding stuff to fill in the holes for Snippet Wednesdays. To think I'd have to take a break to recharge from what should be a gimme day of blogging is kinda unnerving. I shall power forward.

Lost
No, not the TV show. Actually, it's a reference to the fact that I'm pretty certain I've lost some weight! Why just "pretty certain"? Because I don't weigh myself, too arbitrary a means of measuring success when getting in shape, IMHO. I prefer to measure based on how my clothes fit and how much of a workout I can continuously do and not die. I'm pretty certain I've lost weight, though, because I was able to tighten my belt one more notch without sucking in my gut. I've never been on this belt notch before. I'm finally giving the nearly worn-out hole a bit of a break (wow, that really sounds bad if you have no context). Oh and I'm up to one mile of running consecutively. May not sound like much, but it's a big deal for me. And I've kept it up for the last two times I've gone running. Woo hoo!

Fridge
Dammit, why won't our fridge close anymore? It used to be that anytime the door was open, it would automatically swing itself shut. Now it swings to within an inch of being shut but won't finish the job. And there's nothing in the way obstructing it at all. Stupid fridge. Yeah, I just got up after that last snippet to close it... again.

Gas
Y'know? I've always been kinda curious. Now I know. Plus, it's a cool T-shirt. I want one. Just for the reaction.

Effects
While I was at the gym last night, I saw the strangest commercial regarding a lawsuit against the company that makes a drug called Requip. The drug is meant to abate tremors caused by Parkinson's Disease and Restless Leg Syndrome. However, the side effects of the drug are what is at issue in this suit. I thought I'd heard about nearly every potential side effect out there... constipation, dry mouth, difficulty sleeping, irritability, et al. But the one at issue here takes the cake... compulsive gambling. Apparently there is a big problem with people who take Requip becoming compulsive gamblers. I think I just solved the world's economic woes. The government just needs to spike water supplies with Requip and what little remains of our hard-earned cash will be cycled back into the economy via excessive gambling! It's brilliant! Move over, Tim Geithner! There's a new treasury secretary in town! And he's got a plan that will work!

Fools
Happy April Fool's Day. Yeah, I got nothin' this year. Sorry to disappoint. Actually I did think of something last October I was going to do for April Fool's Day, but I have since forgotten it. I knew I should've typed it up as a draft post. Dammit.