Update (9/27): This didn't warrant a separate entry, but just wanted to add that I was able to succesfully run 5 miles yesterday and the knee feels pretty good today, so that's good news.
Well, the good news is that I succesfully completed my 20 mile run, and actually did it in less time than it took me to run 18.8 miles (3:52 vs. 4:01), due mainly to having absolutely perfect weather (mid-60s and overcast) and not having to contend with any real hills. The bad is that starting around mile 15 my knee started acting up on me but it was still bearable so I plowed through to the end. I figured I would take a few days off and then get back to it. I have been waiting the last 10 days to blog about the success of my 20-mile run and how positive I was feeling about the marathon on the 7th because I wanted to make sure my knee was going to bounce back. Well, I'm still waiting. It's not that the knee is in pain all the time; after the first 2 days it's actually been fine during my normal, everyday activities. But when I tried to go run last Thursday I could feel it start to ache about half a mile in and then again on Monday right around the 1 mile mark. I think a lot of it is that I'm supremely sensitive about it now because I know that any setback at this point is going to mean missing the marathon, and I can't think of anything worse than that after I've gone through all the hell runs. I've still got another 10 days though, so I'm not worried . . .yet. The only thing that is disappointing is that I haven't been able to get in my last 2 10-mile runs, and at this point I've already accepted that those aren't going to happen. In the grand scheme of things, though, the extra 20 miles wasn't going to make a big difference one way or the other. Also, I have been substituting by exercising on the elliptical machine to at least keep up my cardio. Going to do another hour/hour and a half tonight and then try to get back to running on Saturday with a quick 3 miles and then (hopefully) Sunday I'll be able to do 5. If I get those both in I will be back to feeling pretty optimistic again.
So it's come down to the home stretch for the Cubs, and while it still is looking good for them it was looking a lot better 2 days ago when they had a 3.5 game lead (it's down to 2 now). I slept right through when playoff tickets went on sale Sunday morning at 9:00, but I have been thinking about ponying up the extra cash and buying them off of e-bay. However, I can't help but think that I am jinxing them everytime I go search through the listings. Ah, the joys of being a Cubs fan; having the feeling that every little mundane action you do somehow has this grand effect on the team's performance.
In other, semi-related news, I did receive my $3000 check from Bodog on Monday night (it's related because that's the only reason I am considering buying Cubs playoff tickets). So as long as the check doesn't bounce I can officially declare my drunken evening a roaring success!
Have the 10-year high school reunion this weekend. Looking forward to it but of course I have a whole lot of competing thoughts on the matter: 1) wow, I'm old, 2) I hope it's not ridiculously awkward, 3) I hope I don't get ridiculously drunk as a result of the afore-mentioned awkwardness, 4) hopefully, the people that I don't recognize also won't recognize me. Overall, I'm sure it will be a good time. I'm looking at it much like how I view going to a wedding: something you look forward to when it's a long ways away, then as it gets closer you see it as more of an obligation, but then you go and end up having a really good time. That's the hope, anyway.
On the day that the Bears officially made the switch from Grossman to Griese, how long before the Orton chants start? Just asking.
About halfway through Fiasco now. Newsflash: books about the Iraq War are depressing.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
No Mas
So last Saturday I head out to my dad's in Tinley Park to do my long run. I have to do 17 miles, and he says he knows this 8-mile loop that we can do twice and then I can run a little extra to get to 17. He'll ride the bike along side me while I run. Sounds great. Then we get about 4 miles in and realize that, in fact, it is actually a 9.4 mile loop. So my 17-mile run turns into 18.8, which would be fine except that prior to that the longest I have ever run in my life is 14 miles. Well, to make a long (and I do mean LONG) run a short story I did survive and actually wasn't in too much physical pain. However, I immediately started thinking about how I need to run even farther this coming weekend and that made the mental pain close to unbearable. I really just want to fast-forward my life to Sunday at about 1:30 when I will be finished with it and it's quite depressing to be sitting here on a Friday morning and wish that most of your weekend was already over with. The good news is that after this weekend my training is pretty much done. I do have a couple more 10-mile runs but I no longer dread those as I once did. For the most part it will be just getting healed up and praying that I don't get a freak injury that knocks me out of commision and renders all this training useless. I do know this, though. If somehow I don't get to run the marathon in 3 weeks, that will just be a life goal that doesn't end up getting met because I am absolutely NOT going through this crap again.
In other news, if the marathon doesn't kill me I'm pretty sure the Cubs will. It's nice that they are playing meaningful baseball in September but I don't know if my heart can take it. Monday they blew a 4-1 lead and lost in 12 innings in heart-breaking fashion and then Tuesday they did their best to give up a 9th inning lead only to pull it out with a miracle double play. I was happy they won, but that didn't make the ulcer in my stomach any smaller.
It is during this time of the year that I am always starkly reminded of the difference between watching football vs. baseball. They are definitely my two favorite sports and I would probably give the nod to baseball as my #1 only because it is virtually every day for 6 months while you only get to see your football team for 3 hours a week. However, I must say that I find the two sports very difficult to watch simultaneously. A lot of people say that baseball is very slow and for most of the year I vehemently disagree. Once you get into the strategy that goes into pitch selection and how much the count matters to every batter, then every pitch becomes crucial and there's a lot of tension all the time even if to the non-fan it looks like nothing's happening. But when you're forced to compare baseball side by side with football it's hard to argue that it's definitely a lot slower. I'll have the baseball game on at the start of the inning, just as the first batter is getting ready to dig in at the plate. Then I flip over to football and see the kickoff and 22 guys running at an all-out sprint over and into each other. Then you see the offense run 3 more plays where there is just non-stop motion on the field. Maybe you even see a long run or pass or a turnover or none of that and just a punt but it all seems critical because precious seconds are ticking off the clock and the even more important strategic field position game is being waged. So then you flip back over to the baseball game and see that the same guy's still up after fouling off 4 pitches with a full count and now the catcher has gone out to hold what seems like an hour-long conference with the pitcher about pitch selection. Seriously, you start expecting a Power Point presentation to break out at any minute. It's just amazing how your perspective can change things. It's like you're driving down a normal road doing 40, and it seems neither slow or fast. But then you get on the expressway and speed up to 80 for a couple minutes. Then you go back and do 40 again and it seems like you're crawling.
I am working on another serious piece, which I was going to post today. I have come back from my break of reading fiction and finally got around to reading State of Denial (by Bob Woodward). This is the 3rd book I have read about Iraq (My Year in Iraq by Paul Bremer and The Prince of the Marshes by Rory Stewart are the others) and I already bought Fiasco by Thomas Ricks and plan to read that next. In addition to all that, I've been pretty religiously watching This Week and Meet the Press every week as well as reading The Economist and the latest GAO report on Iraq progress. So, anyway, I feel pretty well versed in what's going on over there and realized I have a lot of thoughts on the matter. So many thoughts, in fact, that I fear it is going to end up rivaling my thoughts on the national debt in length and I just wasn't up for that today. So, anyway, you can look forward to (or dread) that piece coming in the next couple weeks. I can pretty much summarize what has gone wrong over there with the following list: Rumsfeld bad, inadequate and (at times) non-existant planning, not enough troops, too much bureaucracy, money not getting to the people that needed it.
Have an excellent weekend all (3 of you)!
In other news, if the marathon doesn't kill me I'm pretty sure the Cubs will. It's nice that they are playing meaningful baseball in September but I don't know if my heart can take it. Monday they blew a 4-1 lead and lost in 12 innings in heart-breaking fashion and then Tuesday they did their best to give up a 9th inning lead only to pull it out with a miracle double play. I was happy they won, but that didn't make the ulcer in my stomach any smaller.
It is during this time of the year that I am always starkly reminded of the difference between watching football vs. baseball. They are definitely my two favorite sports and I would probably give the nod to baseball as my #1 only because it is virtually every day for 6 months while you only get to see your football team for 3 hours a week. However, I must say that I find the two sports very difficult to watch simultaneously. A lot of people say that baseball is very slow and for most of the year I vehemently disagree. Once you get into the strategy that goes into pitch selection and how much the count matters to every batter, then every pitch becomes crucial and there's a lot of tension all the time even if to the non-fan it looks like nothing's happening. But when you're forced to compare baseball side by side with football it's hard to argue that it's definitely a lot slower. I'll have the baseball game on at the start of the inning, just as the first batter is getting ready to dig in at the plate. Then I flip over to football and see the kickoff and 22 guys running at an all-out sprint over and into each other. Then you see the offense run 3 more plays where there is just non-stop motion on the field. Maybe you even see a long run or pass or a turnover or none of that and just a punt but it all seems critical because precious seconds are ticking off the clock and the even more important strategic field position game is being waged. So then you flip back over to the baseball game and see that the same guy's still up after fouling off 4 pitches with a full count and now the catcher has gone out to hold what seems like an hour-long conference with the pitcher about pitch selection. Seriously, you start expecting a Power Point presentation to break out at any minute. It's just amazing how your perspective can change things. It's like you're driving down a normal road doing 40, and it seems neither slow or fast. But then you get on the expressway and speed up to 80 for a couple minutes. Then you go back and do 40 again and it seems like you're crawling.
I am working on another serious piece, which I was going to post today. I have come back from my break of reading fiction and finally got around to reading State of Denial (by Bob Woodward). This is the 3rd book I have read about Iraq (My Year in Iraq by Paul Bremer and The Prince of the Marshes by Rory Stewart are the others) and I already bought Fiasco by Thomas Ricks and plan to read that next. In addition to all that, I've been pretty religiously watching This Week and Meet the Press every week as well as reading The Economist and the latest GAO report on Iraq progress. So, anyway, I feel pretty well versed in what's going on over there and realized I have a lot of thoughts on the matter. So many thoughts, in fact, that I fear it is going to end up rivaling my thoughts on the national debt in length and I just wasn't up for that today. So, anyway, you can look forward to (or dread) that piece coming in the next couple weeks. I can pretty much summarize what has gone wrong over there with the following list: Rumsfeld bad, inadequate and (at times) non-existant planning, not enough troops, too much bureaucracy, money not getting to the people that needed it.
Have an excellent weekend all (3 of you)!
Friday, September 07, 2007
A (Drunken) Night's Tale
So I know that you all have barely been able to contain your excitement awaiting my next post to see what incredibly inspirational and life-changing story I had for you. OK, so probably not, but I'm going to tell you anyway.
So exactly two weeks ago we had our corporate summer outing, which took place on one of those lunch-time cruises that leave from Navy Pier. They're fun, but the only thing that's relevant about that to this story is that it meant that I started drinking while on board at about 1:00 and then got to leave work immediately after we docked at 2:00. I met some of my friends that I used to work with at HSBC for a happy hour over at Sidebar on Lasalle. Well, Christy was on her way to St. Louis for the weekend so I knew I had nowhere to be and as a consequence happy hour turned into about happy 6-hours. As I stumbled my way out of the bar and into a cab at around 8:30, I was feeling pretty good and decided that it was time to place some drunken phone calls.
Earlier in the week, my brother and I had kicked around the idea of him coming up and us going to see Superbad together so I decided to give him a call and see what the plan was. Turns out that his flight back from Charlotte Thursday night had been cancelled and he had spent the night on the floor and waited through 3 flights before finally getting home at around 6, so he wasn't in much of a mood to head right out to the city. This all seemed very logical to me, but I was in no mood for logic so I calmly presented him with his options. He could either come down to the city, or he could opt to stay home. However, if he opted to stay home I vowed to call him twice per hour to tell him 1) what I was doing at the time 2) how drunk I was; and 3) how much he sucked for not coming down and seeing Superbad with me. He carefully weighed his options and wisely chose the route that avoided future drunken phone calls (I suppose the idea that he could have simply turned off his phone did not occur to him). Anyway, he gets down to our place at around 10:30 and of course he is completely sober so naturally we need to have a few beers together before leaving to see the movie. I'm not sure what exactly it is (most likely alcoholism), but somehow when you're drunk and someone sober shows up and starts drinking you instantly feel like you're sober too and need to drink at their pace. Of course, in actuality that's the last thing you need to do, but again we're not dealing in the realm of logic at this point.
In any case, we head out to see an 11:30 showing of Superbad. The lights go down in the theatre and suddenly, now that alcohol has been removed from the equation, my body is finally able to get a message through to my brain that due to the 10 hours of non-stop drinking it is actually quite tired and now that it is dark it will be assuming that it is bedtime and act accordingly. An epic, but ultimately fruitless struggle to stay awake plays out over approximately the next 25-40 minutes (that's the best I can estimate) and the next thing I know my brother is waking me up to tell me the movie's over. Disappointed, but refreshed from my nap, we head back to my place where I begin drinking again (naturally) while playing him excerpts from The Muppet Show (Season 2) on DVD (which are kind of funny all the time, but really funny when it's 2:00 A.M. and you've been drinking for the better part of 13 hours). Finally, at around 2:45 my bro takes off to go home since he stopped drinking at 11:15 before the movie.
At this point, any sane, logical, rational being would have simply called it a night and gone to bed. So of course I did the only thing that made sense to me at the time: started gambling online. Now, this is hardly the first time that in an inebbriated state it has seemed like a good idea to me to gamble online. And pretty much uniformily the story is the same: played for a while, was up briefly, then lost it all. I had set aside $500 to load up my betting account for football season at bodog and decided I might as well get started on losing it. Of course, the problem is that there tends to not be a lot of professional sporting events being played at 3:00 A.M. (I am hoping to organize a professional curling league in Zaire to correct this problem, but I digress). Fortunately (or unfortunately) bodog has prepared for that contingency by offering online casino games 24 hours a day. Well, I have had some bad experiences playing blackjack and pai-gow poker, so those didn't really interest me. But I had only played craps a little before, to mixed results. I went through the first $100 in about 10 minutes and then loaded up with another $150. I went back and forth for about the next 45 minutes and after an hour I found myself up about $100. What occurred over the next 20 minutes pretty much defies description (mainly because I can't remember it all that clearly). The upshot of it was that during that time I did not roll a single 7 (in case you haven't played craps before, that's a very, very good thing). After a few minutes I had every number covered and was slowly but steadily increasing my bet. During the last 5 minutes, I do remember that I had over $1000 total on the board (I know because that was the table limit and it wouldn't let me bet any more) and was winning around $200 every time I rolled the dice. When I finally did roll the 7 I had to instantly double and triple-check that I was actually playing on a "real money" table because I was up over $5000. It was indeed amd I really was. I think I sat there in disbelief for about 5 minutes waiting for it all to sink in. Then, of course, I decided to push my luck. Over the next hour I gave about a grand back but still quit with my account at just over $4250 and a night's profit of over $4000. The next day I cashed out $3000 and am now using the rest for football betting. Of course, I haven't physically received my check yet so nothing's real until that happens but from every indication I've gotten (from other gamblers) bodog is legitimate. The check takes a month to a month and a half to come, but you will get paid.
In any case, I guess the moral of the story is: just because you're too drunk to stay awake during Superbad doesn't mean you're too drunk to luck your way into $4000.
And yes, I'm available to speak at children's parties.
So exactly two weeks ago we had our corporate summer outing, which took place on one of those lunch-time cruises that leave from Navy Pier. They're fun, but the only thing that's relevant about that to this story is that it meant that I started drinking while on board at about 1:00 and then got to leave work immediately after we docked at 2:00. I met some of my friends that I used to work with at HSBC for a happy hour over at Sidebar on Lasalle. Well, Christy was on her way to St. Louis for the weekend so I knew I had nowhere to be and as a consequence happy hour turned into about happy 6-hours. As I stumbled my way out of the bar and into a cab at around 8:30, I was feeling pretty good and decided that it was time to place some drunken phone calls.
Earlier in the week, my brother and I had kicked around the idea of him coming up and us going to see Superbad together so I decided to give him a call and see what the plan was. Turns out that his flight back from Charlotte Thursday night had been cancelled and he had spent the night on the floor and waited through 3 flights before finally getting home at around 6, so he wasn't in much of a mood to head right out to the city. This all seemed very logical to me, but I was in no mood for logic so I calmly presented him with his options. He could either come down to the city, or he could opt to stay home. However, if he opted to stay home I vowed to call him twice per hour to tell him 1) what I was doing at the time 2) how drunk I was; and 3) how much he sucked for not coming down and seeing Superbad with me. He carefully weighed his options and wisely chose the route that avoided future drunken phone calls (I suppose the idea that he could have simply turned off his phone did not occur to him). Anyway, he gets down to our place at around 10:30 and of course he is completely sober so naturally we need to have a few beers together before leaving to see the movie. I'm not sure what exactly it is (most likely alcoholism), but somehow when you're drunk and someone sober shows up and starts drinking you instantly feel like you're sober too and need to drink at their pace. Of course, in actuality that's the last thing you need to do, but again we're not dealing in the realm of logic at this point.
In any case, we head out to see an 11:30 showing of Superbad. The lights go down in the theatre and suddenly, now that alcohol has been removed from the equation, my body is finally able to get a message through to my brain that due to the 10 hours of non-stop drinking it is actually quite tired and now that it is dark it will be assuming that it is bedtime and act accordingly. An epic, but ultimately fruitless struggle to stay awake plays out over approximately the next 25-40 minutes (that's the best I can estimate) and the next thing I know my brother is waking me up to tell me the movie's over. Disappointed, but refreshed from my nap, we head back to my place where I begin drinking again (naturally) while playing him excerpts from The Muppet Show (Season 2) on DVD (which are kind of funny all the time, but really funny when it's 2:00 A.M. and you've been drinking for the better part of 13 hours). Finally, at around 2:45 my bro takes off to go home since he stopped drinking at 11:15 before the movie.
At this point, any sane, logical, rational being would have simply called it a night and gone to bed. So of course I did the only thing that made sense to me at the time: started gambling online. Now, this is hardly the first time that in an inebbriated state it has seemed like a good idea to me to gamble online. And pretty much uniformily the story is the same: played for a while, was up briefly, then lost it all. I had set aside $500 to load up my betting account for football season at bodog and decided I might as well get started on losing it. Of course, the problem is that there tends to not be a lot of professional sporting events being played at 3:00 A.M. (I am hoping to organize a professional curling league in Zaire to correct this problem, but I digress). Fortunately (or unfortunately) bodog has prepared for that contingency by offering online casino games 24 hours a day. Well, I have had some bad experiences playing blackjack and pai-gow poker, so those didn't really interest me. But I had only played craps a little before, to mixed results. I went through the first $100 in about 10 minutes and then loaded up with another $150. I went back and forth for about the next 45 minutes and after an hour I found myself up about $100. What occurred over the next 20 minutes pretty much defies description (mainly because I can't remember it all that clearly). The upshot of it was that during that time I did not roll a single 7 (in case you haven't played craps before, that's a very, very good thing). After a few minutes I had every number covered and was slowly but steadily increasing my bet. During the last 5 minutes, I do remember that I had over $1000 total on the board (I know because that was the table limit and it wouldn't let me bet any more) and was winning around $200 every time I rolled the dice. When I finally did roll the 7 I had to instantly double and triple-check that I was actually playing on a "real money" table because I was up over $5000. It was indeed amd I really was. I think I sat there in disbelief for about 5 minutes waiting for it all to sink in. Then, of course, I decided to push my luck. Over the next hour I gave about a grand back but still quit with my account at just over $4250 and a night's profit of over $4000. The next day I cashed out $3000 and am now using the rest for football betting. Of course, I haven't physically received my check yet so nothing's real until that happens but from every indication I've gotten (from other gamblers) bodog is legitimate. The check takes a month to a month and a half to come, but you will get paid.
In any case, I guess the moral of the story is: just because you're too drunk to stay awake during Superbad doesn't mean you're too drunk to luck your way into $4000.
And yes, I'm available to speak at children's parties.
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