Hello Happy Pitbulls

Working weekend

Another weekend is gone. Why is it that time flies so quickly? Maybe because I worked half of the day yesterday. At least I stopped mid-day to take some work home so I can at least do some of the less tedious stuff in front of the TV. This morning I ran in the Nike Women's Fitness Festival 5k, which was fun! I got to see some old friends from my training program for the half-marathons, and even got some coaching along the route from my old walk/run coach Linda.

I was pretty pleased with my time on this one.  I finished in about 44:36, which is about a 14:23 minute mile according to the results web site. My half marathons I have been averaging between 17 and 18 minute miles, so this is pretty good in my mind.  The way I actually judge success in a race is that I don't come in last!  Not only did I not come in last, there were 200 people behind me!

So with that out of the way, I came home to resume review of this giant binder of stuff for work (comments are due on Thursday!). I needed to get this done before the season finale of the Sopranos. I had planned to write about that, but honestly --I'm speechless for now.  I'll have to wait for the TV analysis to come out to see if I can really comprehend all of the implications that were made left hanging open.

Okay, so not my most exciting blog entry ever, but what can I say on a weekend where I worked both days.

How can it possibly be April?

I don't know what happened, but I blinked my eyes and March disappeared. I know March actually happened because I did a lot of stuff this month:

• I ran my very first half marathon (and logged about 60 other miles of walking/running this month)
• I completed a bunch of deliverables at work (some of which are still handing on in the "to-do" list)
• I submitted time sheets for my staff and they said that March happened
• I launched a web site for my temple (I think that was in March!)
• Mike and I celebrated 7 years of marriage on the 25th (how could I not blog about that? -- we went to Nugget and picked out anniversary cards for each other, handed them to each other, got a small giggle, and then placed them back in the rack! We're "officially" celebrating our anniversary in Mexico in a few weeks).

So I know I didn't dream that March happened.

April's going to bring a lot of good stuff.

• I finally got my Passport, so I guess I'll be heading to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico this month (yes - there was concern that everyone would be going without me if it didn't show up!).
• I'll be participating in a blogging for tacos competition on InsideWoodland.com. Seriously, aren't we all just blogging for free tacos anyways?
• I'm training for 2 more half-marathons: one on May 5 and one on May 20. Yes, I may be crazy, but it's a fun kind of crazy.
• Did I mention I'm going on vacation? It will be nice to be away from the office for a week!

April's got to be better than March.

No matter how you slice it, 12 miles is a long way!

Well, I toughed it out and went up to Folsom in the wind and the rain and I was one of the handful of people from our walk training group to show up for our 12-mile trek around Lake Natoma. This was the longest training session before the 1/2 marathon which is only 2 weeks away, so having this behind me, I know I'll be able to go the extra 1.1 miles on race day.  I didn't do any running, mostly because it was wet and muddy and my feet hurt, but I finished in 3:30 minutes, which is my goal for the event.  This means, I need to pick it up at the event.  Since we were up in Folsom, there were quite a few hills, so since the race course is relatively flat, I think I'll make it.

I've had the past couple of Mondays off from work, so going to work on the Monday after a long session will be interesting.  I'm pretty sore!

In the meantime, I'm starting to see kids playing baseball around town, which means that baseball season will be here before you know it!  How killer is that???

Also - just finished watching the Oscars and realized that I need to go the Departed.  I love that Martin Scorsese finally got his statue! Last night, Mike and I watched bits and pieces of the Dollars trilogy.  Yes, I am a sucker for Clint Eastwood as well as spaghetti westerns.  To see Ennio Morricone awarded a special Oscar for his achievements in film composition was killer.  His music is amazing and really makes films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly come to life.

Super Bowl Prep

Since the Patriots failed to reach the Super Bowl this year, I'll be less interested in the game than I have been in recent years.  So, in between commercials, I plan to tune into the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet.  I'll be cheering for my favorite pup, Quesadilla, a terrier mix.

I hope the commercials are better than last years!  That's what I really tune in for.

Baths are completely underrated

While listening to NPR this morning, I heard an interview with Amy Sedaris who was pimping her book, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence.  It made me realized that there's lots of books I need to read.  Like everything that her brother, David Sedaris has written.

In the meantime, I spent the day listening to NPR and Sirius and all sorts of things and when I was winding down, I thought, "Gee, I should take a bath."  Not just because I ran/walked for an hour this morning and was pretty stinky, but also because I had all this bath stuff (salts, bombs, etc.) that I never use and it was just time.

So I did, and it rocked, and now I'm relaxed and I smell good.

So, probably TMI for you out there, but it beats a whole entry about doing laundry and paying bills.

Everyone is satisfied

There's a hush of satisfaction over the Happy Pitbull home. 

First of all -- all the laundry is done and put away.  That's giant.

Then -- I finished all of my assignments for my web design class and uploaded all of the files for my final project.  Now I get to sit back and wait for my grade (and comments, I guess).  Mission accomplished. 

I finished a mock-up for work that I needed to get done before a meeting at 1:00.  I have two new people starting on the team tomorrow, so I wouldn't have a chance to get that done before then.  I'm not supposed to be working outside of work hours (a pact I have with Mike and with work folks to try to force me to have more of a life).  So, a couple of hours over 5 days doesn't seem so bad.

I just watched Brokeback Mountain on HBO.  I never went to see that when it was in the theater, but always wanted to. It was everything the hype made it out to be.  I missed some of it (I was doing laundry and getting things put together for tomorrow), but I'll be able to catch it later on TV.

It's always my goal to get some relaxation time in on the weekends, and I did it.  I am lounging with Zero and Fifi (they are good enough to share the couch with me).

Happy Sunday Mother Crackers!

Laundry Day and Plans for Thanksgiving Day

I know what you're thinking.  Another freaking post about doing laundry on Sunday.

Well, sort of.

I am indeed doing laundry, but I also wanted to talk about my Thanksgiving plans.  I will be doing the Run to Feed the Hungry on Thanksgiving morning.  If anyone wants to sponsor me, let me know.  Otherwise, you can also make a donation to the Sacramento Food Bank to help support a great organization that does a ton for our community.  I'll be seeing a bunch of folks from work there, and it's become a bit of a Thanksgiving tradition. 

I haven't wanted to mention this, since it's bound to jinx me, but I've been to the gym every day for the past 7 days.  Someone at work told me that 28 days makes a habit, so we'll see how that goes.  I'm trying to get back into running and we'll see if my knee can survive that.  I'm considering training for a 1/2 marathon in March (run/walk training) so we'll see.

RIP Ed Bradley

I grew up watching 60 Minutes with my parents on Sunday evenings. I remember seeing Ed Bradley cover many of the historical news events as I was growing up, and I always thought he was cool. When I heard last Thursday that he died from leukemia, I was shocked.  I learned from a NY Times obituary that he had battled the disease for many years - I had no clue.

The interview which he recently (has it been a whole year already?) did with Howard Stern, I was so impressed that he took Howard seriously, gave him the opportunity to speak openly about his work, his life, his battle with the FCC, without taking it down to the level that most folks in the media tend to do.  Strange, I guess it must be, for someone like me to move effortlessly between NPR, Howard Stern, 60 Minutes, and South Park.  It takes an open mind to appreciate the intelligence of Howard Stern.  Anyhow, I'm looking forward to hearing how Howard reflects on Ed Bradley's passing on the show tomorrow.

I'm watching the 60 Minutes tribute to Ed Bradley now, and it's amazing the history of reporting he had.  What an amazing talent.  So, rest in peace Ed Bradley.

Dog Day for Star Wars

Even though I packed in the obligatory laundry, cleaning, and work on various web sites, I spent my Sunday chilling with our dogs. I took the time to chill and watch parts of the Star Wars marathon on Cinemax from Revenge of the Sith through A New Hope. It's funny to watch a movie go from the latest in special effects back to 1977, but it's a fun nostalgic trip.  For some reason, I can't get into Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi as much as I used to, but I can still identify myself as a geek.

I am kicking myself for not picking up a Darth Vader sippy cup at Nugget last fall.  What a buy that would have been!

This weekend also marked the end of the Meerkat Manor season.  What is that?  Six episodes in a season?  I finally have resolved myself to accepting that Shakespeare and Tosca are dead, now that we've witnessed the death of Blossom (carried away by a Gosshawk) and Mozart's latest litter of meerkat pups were carried away and presumably eaten by the Commandoes.  Oh - forgive me!  What's that you say?  You don't watch Meerkat Manor?  You don't know what you are missing.

I have now expanded the list of "my tv shows" to include:

• Heroes
• House
• Grey's Anatomy
• Meerkat Manor
• The Dog Whisperer
• South Park
• The Daily Show
• Star Trek 2.0

Isn't that enough? Boy, am I a dork...

Zero and his baby

Daylights savings time is such a great concept.  I feel like it's bedtime and it's only 6:15 right now.  Mike and I took advantage of a lazy weekend and spent most of it lounging around with the dogs with dual computers and the remote control.  I have been fetching ice packs and tea or coffee and snacks for Mike while he's dealing with his back.  I managed to do all the laundry, go through all of my work papers that needed to be organized and filed into binders, and I caught up on my high value blog reading (and cleared the low value stuff out of the queue).

Around 10 this morning, I asked Zero if he was looking for his baby.  His "baby" is a rubber pork chop that he absolutely loves, but when he gets it, he carries it around in his mouth and acts very freaky.  He doesn't chew it, he acts like it's his baby and he has to protect it.

We keep his "baby" on top of Mike's dresser so he forgets about it.  Every now and then he'll get all obsessed about looking for his baby and he'll sniff and whine around the dresser.  He's been doing this all day, so we've been trying to do everything we can to take his mind off of it.

I shouldn't have said anything, but I didn't expect him to be obsessing for 8 hours straight!  What a kooky dog.