Tomorrow is my favorite holiday of the year so don't expect me to hold back! I'm taking my "Joey pants" with me to my parents.
Happy Gobbler everyone!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
A Posting Cornucopia
Been awhile since I've done anything but read others' posts so I'll get you up to speed on some minor things the past couple of weeks and throw in a random thought here and there.
No new fraudulent transactions in my bank account so I think those problems are behind me, that's good. Haven't received my new card in the mail yet so it's starting to push the outer limits of the time frame on when it should've been here, that's not so good. My company relocated from Eagan to Bloomington which means crossing the river on my commute every day now, that's really not good!
Went deer hunting with my buddy, Wade, last week/weekend. It turned out to be the least successful hunt we've had in the 8 years we've been doing this together. I only saw 1 deer in the 4.5 days we hunted and got the only shot of the weekend between the 2 of us. He saw more though, but couldn't shoot for one reason or another. Unfortunately mine was more of a desperation shot and I didn't hit the deer (rejoice PETA, but know I'll be back out there next year). Regardless, it was still a nice weekend/vacation just getting away and spending time with him. I've kind of neglected those friendships this year. Neglected might be too strong of a word, but I haven't talked with Wade or some other buddies as much these past few months as I have in the past. It was nice though in that it didn't seem to be an issue and we hung out like we always have and picked things up like there's never been an absence. Nice to have friends you can do that with and not have to worry about hurt feelings or needing to get "caught up". We just picked it up like there was never anything missing. Is that just a guy thing to do though? If so, I'm glad I'm one of 'em!
I did get another shot though while hunting. Friday morning I was sitting in my stand minding my own business when a little red squirrel decided he wanted to climb up one of the trees my stand was built in/on. He'd come up about 5 feet, stop, stare at me, do a little dance on the side of the tree, squeal and then dart back down. This went on for about 10 minutes, each time getting just a little bit closer. I finally got bored with him and actually didn't want him coming all the way up. I didn't want him to get too brave and make it. The last thing I needed was to get attacked by a rabid squirrel with a loaded rifle right there! So, on what turned out to be his last ascent up my tree, I carefully reached for my weapon of choice...slowly got into position...took aim...and BLASTED him with my water bottle. Direct hit! He was soaked and retreated for the day! Of all the trees in the forest he had to pick mine to assault. He was cute to begin with, but he really interfered with my napping time after a minute or two so he had to go! Hey, I have to take my victories where I can get them, it was that kind of a hunting weekend.
The weekend before that, on the 8th, Captain Cartwheel and I had a joint birthday party thrown for us. We share the same bday, but were both out of town on the actual day so Dana put together a fun night out for a small group on the 8th. CC and I started the day/evening off together by both getting tattoos. No, not the same design. I'll post a picture of mine once I get one available. It's at the point now where it's healing (which means scabbing) so it may not be the prettiest thing to show off at the moment.
I treated myself to my first tattoo for a 30th bday present after running the NYC marathon on my actual bday. After finishing the Indy marathon on my 40th I figured I better do the same thing and get another tat. I guess if you're looking for present ideas for my 50th & 60th bdays a safe bet might be a gift certificate to a tattoo shop.
Got home from hunting and had an email waiting for me from the TNT staff. They picked their mentors for the 2009 teams and it turned out I conned them into picking me again for the triathlon team! I guess I fooled the right people into thinking I knew what I was doing last season. ;) I was pleased to see that as I did have fun with it this past summer. Next season will be a little busier for me though as I'll be on 2 teams simultaneously. I'm going to run the Seattle marathon in June so I'll be on that team while mentoring and being on the triathlon team for the July LTF triathlon. Here's your warning now, I'll be actively fundraising this next time around so stay tuned for how you can donate. You can pretty much be guaranteed you'll be hearing from me. If you don't know what TNT is or may possibly want to join in, check out their site here.
No new fraudulent transactions in my bank account so I think those problems are behind me, that's good. Haven't received my new card in the mail yet so it's starting to push the outer limits of the time frame on when it should've been here, that's not so good. My company relocated from Eagan to Bloomington which means crossing the river on my commute every day now, that's really not good!
Went deer hunting with my buddy, Wade, last week/weekend. It turned out to be the least successful hunt we've had in the 8 years we've been doing this together. I only saw 1 deer in the 4.5 days we hunted and got the only shot of the weekend between the 2 of us. He saw more though, but couldn't shoot for one reason or another. Unfortunately mine was more of a desperation shot and I didn't hit the deer (rejoice PETA, but know I'll be back out there next year). Regardless, it was still a nice weekend/vacation just getting away and spending time with him. I've kind of neglected those friendships this year. Neglected might be too strong of a word, but I haven't talked with Wade or some other buddies as much these past few months as I have in the past. It was nice though in that it didn't seem to be an issue and we hung out like we always have and picked things up like there's never been an absence. Nice to have friends you can do that with and not have to worry about hurt feelings or needing to get "caught up". We just picked it up like there was never anything missing. Is that just a guy thing to do though? If so, I'm glad I'm one of 'em!
I did get another shot though while hunting. Friday morning I was sitting in my stand minding my own business when a little red squirrel decided he wanted to climb up one of the trees my stand was built in/on. He'd come up about 5 feet, stop, stare at me, do a little dance on the side of the tree, squeal and then dart back down. This went on for about 10 minutes, each time getting just a little bit closer. I finally got bored with him and actually didn't want him coming all the way up. I didn't want him to get too brave and make it. The last thing I needed was to get attacked by a rabid squirrel with a loaded rifle right there! So, on what turned out to be his last ascent up my tree, I carefully reached for my weapon of choice...slowly got into position...took aim...and BLASTED him with my water bottle. Direct hit! He was soaked and retreated for the day! Of all the trees in the forest he had to pick mine to assault. He was cute to begin with, but he really interfered with my napping time after a minute or two so he had to go! Hey, I have to take my victories where I can get them, it was that kind of a hunting weekend.
The weekend before that, on the 8th, Captain Cartwheel and I had a joint birthday party thrown for us. We share the same bday, but were both out of town on the actual day so Dana put together a fun night out for a small group on the 8th. CC and I started the day/evening off together by both getting tattoos. No, not the same design. I'll post a picture of mine once I get one available. It's at the point now where it's healing (which means scabbing) so it may not be the prettiest thing to show off at the moment.
I treated myself to my first tattoo for a 30th bday present after running the NYC marathon on my actual bday. After finishing the Indy marathon on my 40th I figured I better do the same thing and get another tat. I guess if you're looking for present ideas for my 50th & 60th bdays a safe bet might be a gift certificate to a tattoo shop.
Got home from hunting and had an email waiting for me from the TNT staff. They picked their mentors for the 2009 teams and it turned out I conned them into picking me again for the triathlon team! I guess I fooled the right people into thinking I knew what I was doing last season. ;) I was pleased to see that as I did have fun with it this past summer. Next season will be a little busier for me though as I'll be on 2 teams simultaneously. I'm going to run the Seattle marathon in June so I'll be on that team while mentoring and being on the triathlon team for the July LTF triathlon. Here's your warning now, I'll be actively fundraising this next time around so stay tuned for how you can donate. You can pretty much be guaranteed you'll be hearing from me. If you don't know what TNT is or may possibly want to join in, check out their site here.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
I'm In 2 Places At One Time
So I stopped to get some gas last night for a $1.95/gallon. The pay at the pump machine didn't seem to be working so I just pressed the "pay inside" button instead of moving to another pump and filled up. I figured the machine was being overworked with the falling gas prices finally back below $2 so it was no big deal for me to walk a few feet to pay inside.
I finished filling up, went inside to pay with my debit/credit card and was denied there too. Great, I thought. The card is starting to look a little worn so I looked at the strip on the back to see if there were any scratches or worn spots. Visibly it looked alright so the clerk tried it again. Still no go, he was telling me the card was "unauthorized". Yeah, like I don't have authority to use my own card.
I tried it in the ATM quick and got the same message there. WTF?!?! I couldn't even get it to give me just my balance so I could prove to the clerk I had the $$.
Thankfully I was able pay the old fashioned way so I wrote a check and that was that. I thought later that what if he wouldn't have accepted a check? Would I have had to clean the bathrooms until I worked off $30 worth of gas or would I have had to siphon it out? Glad those little pieces of paper are still being accepted somewhere!
So when I got home last night I pulled up my account online. Turns out there were 5 debit card transactions on there from Houston, TX made yesterday. Someone, somehow, somewhere had gotten a hold of my card # and fraudulently made 4 separate purchases at Best Buy and 1 at BeBe's. I'm not sure, but I think BeBe's is a women's department store. I am sure that I wasn't in TX yesterday and if I was I wouldn't be shopping at Best Buy and BeBe's! Thankfully this little inbred didn't wrack up too much in purchases, $283 total, but still....
I went to my credit union this morning to straighten things out and they assured me that should be the last of those transactions. The Visa system, or someone, had noticed these unusually transactions and stopped all electronic payments on my account, hence why I wasn't able to use it at the gas station. It's nice to know that fraud alert system works!
When I was at the credit union and we were going through the transactions for the past couple of days the service rep was asking me about recent purchases in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin that were showing up too. Those were from my marathon weekend trip, but I bet I could've gotten away with telling her those were unauthorized too and I would've been reimbursed. Damn! I guess this is where I'm supposed to say thanks Mom and Dad for raising me to be an honest and forthright individual (yeah yeah, I know some of you are questioning that too).
I finished filling up, went inside to pay with my debit/credit card and was denied there too. Great, I thought. The card is starting to look a little worn so I looked at the strip on the back to see if there were any scratches or worn spots. Visibly it looked alright so the clerk tried it again. Still no go, he was telling me the card was "unauthorized". Yeah, like I don't have authority to use my own card.
I tried it in the ATM quick and got the same message there. WTF?!?! I couldn't even get it to give me just my balance so I could prove to the clerk I had the $$.
Thankfully I was able pay the old fashioned way so I wrote a check and that was that. I thought later that what if he wouldn't have accepted a check? Would I have had to clean the bathrooms until I worked off $30 worth of gas or would I have had to siphon it out? Glad those little pieces of paper are still being accepted somewhere!
So when I got home last night I pulled up my account online. Turns out there were 5 debit card transactions on there from Houston, TX made yesterday. Someone, somehow, somewhere had gotten a hold of my card # and fraudulently made 4 separate purchases at Best Buy and 1 at BeBe's. I'm not sure, but I think BeBe's is a women's department store. I am sure that I wasn't in TX yesterday and if I was I wouldn't be shopping at Best Buy and BeBe's! Thankfully this little inbred didn't wrack up too much in purchases, $283 total, but still....
I went to my credit union this morning to straighten things out and they assured me that should be the last of those transactions. The Visa system, or someone, had noticed these unusually transactions and stopped all electronic payments on my account, hence why I wasn't able to use it at the gas station. It's nice to know that fraud alert system works!
When I was at the credit union and we were going through the transactions for the past couple of days the service rep was asking me about recent purchases in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin that were showing up too. Those were from my marathon weekend trip, but I bet I could've gotten away with telling her those were unauthorized too and I would've been reimbursed. Damn! I guess this is where I'm supposed to say thanks Mom and Dad for raising me to be an honest and forthright individual (yeah yeah, I know some of you are questioning that too).
Sunday, November 2, 2008
I Got Faster Overnight
4:13:03 was the gun time. My chip time was 4:10:55.
I like this Daylight Savings Time thing.
I like this Daylight Savings Time thing.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
I'm Happy!
The marathon is done, Woo Hoo! My birthday isn't so we're moving on to that celebration now. Sitting here sippin' on a Guinness as I write. Ah, doesn't get much better!!
Here's what I know about the marathon (I'll post some pix later):
We went to the "expo" yesterday to pick up my packet and drive part of the course. The "expo" consisted of 6 tables with the race packets and t-shirts - no vendors, no chance to buy race souvenirs. Not exactly comparable to the TCM, but oh well, it's the first year for this race so hopefully for their sake it'll grow.
Got up early this a.m. and made it down to the start line around 6:50ish (8:00 start). Just hung out with Becca (my travel partner from MN who's originally from Indy so she came home for the weekend) and her mom. This marathon was different from many that I've done in that there were just over 3,000 runners total for both the 1/2 marathon and full marathon. Usually I'm used to there being 10,000 at TCM or 20-30,000 at some of these Rock N Roll series races. It was quite nice having the elbow room I'll say!
The weather couldn't have been any better! 47 at the start climbing gradually into the mid 60s by the time I finished, calm and sunny all morning.
The gun went off so we did too. It was actually a pretty uneventful race. I held a decent pace initially, but not too fast. Felt good, relaxed and in control. The first couple of miles were in downtown Indianapolis and then we moved out to some of the residential neighborhoods. The course took us through some "iffy" parts of town, but a mile or two later the view did a 180 and we were looking at some posh houses. I hit the half way point (mile 13.1) at 1:57. There was little time to celebrate because even though that's on pace to finish sub-4 I knew the 2nd half would probably be slower. We wound through Butler Univ., the gardens at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and headed back to downtown. The main road leading us back to the finish area was a 4 mile straightaway covering miles 21 to 25. The unfortunate part of that was the downtown buildings never seemed to get any closer. The bigger they are, the further away you can see them and the longer it takes to get there. Could've been just me at that point too though.
The 2nd half did turn into more of a struggle around mile 18ish, but I tried to keep chugging along. The buildings eventually did get closer, I made a few more turns along the course and finished in 4:13. Although I only got 1 Tier of Happiness (see last previous post) I'm hanging my hat on that it's the fastest marathon I've run this year and my 2nd fastest ever. Not bad for a 40 year old, right? Holy crap, I'm 40 now!!!
This morning was kind of funny. I came down to make my breakfast and Becca wished me a happy birthday. I had to think for a sec because I actually forgot it was my bday, I guess I was too focused on the race.
Becca and her mom were awesome this morning. Not only were they at the start that early with me, but I saw them at 4 other spots along the course as well as at the finish line! And unbeknowst to me Becca made signs too! Thanks ladies!
Even though I didn't hit all my goal times I am content and happy with how things went. I think I need to reevaluate my race day nutrition though because there were some iffy moments along those lines. Physically I felt as good as you can trudging along for 26.2 miles so other than doing a little more strength training I think my training schedule is getting there.
Well, off to get another Guinness. That's my last race of the year so let the off-season and my decade of 40something begin!
Here's what I know about the marathon (I'll post some pix later):
We went to the "expo" yesterday to pick up my packet and drive part of the course. The "expo" consisted of 6 tables with the race packets and t-shirts - no vendors, no chance to buy race souvenirs. Not exactly comparable to the TCM, but oh well, it's the first year for this race so hopefully for their sake it'll grow.
Got up early this a.m. and made it down to the start line around 6:50ish (8:00 start). Just hung out with Becca (my travel partner from MN who's originally from Indy so she came home for the weekend) and her mom. This marathon was different from many that I've done in that there were just over 3,000 runners total for both the 1/2 marathon and full marathon. Usually I'm used to there being 10,000 at TCM or 20-30,000 at some of these Rock N Roll series races. It was quite nice having the elbow room I'll say!
The weather couldn't have been any better! 47 at the start climbing gradually into the mid 60s by the time I finished, calm and sunny all morning.
The gun went off so we did too. It was actually a pretty uneventful race. I held a decent pace initially, but not too fast. Felt good, relaxed and in control. The first couple of miles were in downtown Indianapolis and then we moved out to some of the residential neighborhoods. The course took us through some "iffy" parts of town, but a mile or two later the view did a 180 and we were looking at some posh houses. I hit the half way point (mile 13.1) at 1:57. There was little time to celebrate because even though that's on pace to finish sub-4 I knew the 2nd half would probably be slower. We wound through Butler Univ., the gardens at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and headed back to downtown. The main road leading us back to the finish area was a 4 mile straightaway covering miles 21 to 25. The unfortunate part of that was the downtown buildings never seemed to get any closer. The bigger they are, the further away you can see them and the longer it takes to get there. Could've been just me at that point too though.
The 2nd half did turn into more of a struggle around mile 18ish, but I tried to keep chugging along. The buildings eventually did get closer, I made a few more turns along the course and finished in 4:13. Although I only got 1 Tier of Happiness (see last previous post) I'm hanging my hat on that it's the fastest marathon I've run this year and my 2nd fastest ever. Not bad for a 40 year old, right? Holy crap, I'm 40 now!!!
This morning was kind of funny. I came down to make my breakfast and Becca wished me a happy birthday. I had to think for a sec because I actually forgot it was my bday, I guess I was too focused on the race.
Becca and her mom were awesome this morning. Not only were they at the start that early with me, but I saw them at 4 other spots along the course as well as at the finish line! And unbeknowst to me Becca made signs too! Thanks ladies!
Even though I didn't hit all my goal times I am content and happy with how things went. I think I need to reevaluate my race day nutrition though because there were some iffy moments along those lines. Physically I felt as good as you can trudging along for 26.2 miles so other than doing a little more strength training I think my training schedule is getting there.
Well, off to get another Guinness. That's my last race of the year so let the off-season and my decade of 40something begin!
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