Some Personal Summer Goals

Summer is right around the corner (thankfully), and since I will have a bit more free time with no school work to do, I want to set some goals for myself to do before classes start back up again in the fall.  Here we go:

1. Stretch almost everyday - highly needed as I don't stretch at all now, and it will really help my running.
2. Strength training two to three times a week - again needed, as I do almost nothing now and it will help the running.
3. Core workout at least three times a week - again needed for running.
4. Read at least five classic books - I have a Kindle now, classic books are free, so I want to try and read at least five of them.
5. Set up a linux server in a virtual machine to test out future media center (yes, I am a dork).
6. Play and all the Metal Gear games again, Uncharted 2, Castlevania: Lords of Shadows, Little Big Planet 2, L.A. Noire (if I pick it up), Super Mario Galaxy, and some other games I am sure I will add to the list (and yes I am still a dork).

Those are the main things for now, will be putting the list somewhere on my blog page, and will mostly likely be adding to it.


"If by "like the Loch Ness Monster," you mean "totally exists and is awesome," then, yeah, it's like the Loch Ness Monster." - Marshall

Still busy...

With exactly two and half weeks of classes left, I am extremely busy.  One huge project to help finish, one paper to help finish, two presentations, one final paper, and tests to study for.  While I am not looking forward to all this work I have left to do, I am going to power through, because it will all be over for this semester soon, and then it will be off to Europe.  I will also have exactly two semesters left to go and I will finally be a college graduate.  Then I will have to start doing the real world thing.

In running news did 17 this morning through Boston and along the Charles.  I really love running along the Charles, and will miss it when we move.  I know I can always just drive into Boston and go running, but it just isn't as convenient.  I was also surprised and how easy the 17 felt, and how running that long just didn't seem to take much time.  Back when I was in high school I hated going out for any run that was over 6 miles, and now I could probably run 6 miles while half asleep.  I am hoping that all this training will one day eventually turn into a Boston qualifying run, as that is my ultimate running goal.


"Come on, I came back for you, Ted. I penguin-suited up to show you the error of your ways. And to score Hula Girl's number. Check and check." - Barney

Been Busy...

...and lazy.  Since my last post, lots has happened, mostly good things, and one really sad thing (more on that later).  Between now and then, went to two birthday dinners, a dinner with my fellow "dalies" runners (people who post on the runners world forums that are great runners, and who provide support to each other), and watched the Boston Marathon.  Though I have lived in the Boston area for the past three years, I normally watch the race on TV, mainly to see the elite runners race.  This year, I decided to watch the first half of the race on TV, and then walked up to the course and watched the race.  It was awesome watching the elite runners go by in real life, and then to watch many of my fellow runners out there tearing it up.  Took lots of great pictures, and already looking forward to doing it again next year.

The only thing that I didn't do this past weekend was race the 5K on Sunday.  This was due to hearing the unfortunate news that the mother of one of our good friends passed away early Sunday morning due to cancer.  It is an extremely awful thing to have happen to someone who is one of the most wonderful and caring people I have ever met.  My heart goes out to their entire family.

The Top 5 Reasons...

....why I run.

5.  Spring and Summer + Women runners.  If you don't think that is a good enough reason then you don't really understand the mind of a man.

4.  The challenge of it.  I completely enjoy the mind of body experience while running and racing.

3.  Stress reliever.  Even when I am trying to think about things I need to do during a run, or some piece of homework, I can never concentrate on anything for to long, and thus feel much more relaxed afterwards.

2.  Because it was one of the sports I was really good at.  I am okay at other sports, but I was a much better at just running races.

1.  Racing.  I absolutely love racing, and even though I am not as face as I use to be, I still enjoy getting out there and racing against people.

"The problem is you can't do any of that couples stuff unless you have someone to do it with! And the only way I'm gonna find that someone is by going out and doing stupid singles stuff with Barney! ... but, man, when I find her, we're gonna have some bad-ass wine tastings" - Ted

Resting...

...my right ankle because I decided to mildly tweak it during the soccer game Sunday night.  Of course I would have hurt myself on the very last night of the season, in a game that didn't matter, and barley doing anything just happened to catch my foot wrong.  At least I didn't completely sprain it.  Will see how much this messes up my weekly mileage.

In other news, started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, at the request of my wife, and must say that despite the slow start, it is interesting and seems to be picking up.  I also picked up a copy of Darkly Dreaming Dexter this past weekend, which is the basis for the show Dexter.  The entire show, and I am assuming book, revolves around the central idea of what is right and what is wrong.  Is it okay for Dexter to kill people, as long as they are people that commit the most heinous crimes and have gotten away with it, or is it wrong because not only is it against the law and against some peoples morales, but he is also satisfying is deeper need to kill?  Those questions mixed with the dark humor of the show make it extremely good.

Now as promised, summer movie preview.  I am however, going to do the short version of the summer movie preview.  I had planned on writing more about these movies, but I don't have that kind of time to spare, so instead I will be quick.

May 6th
Thor - I actually don't know much about Thor, but I will be going to see it because it ties into the ongoing Marvel  comic book movie franchise going on right now.  Plus, Natalie Portman!

Something Borrowed - no idea, some chic flick

Jumping the Broom - again no idea what this movie is

May 13th
Bridesmaids - I don't know much about this, but apparently Judd Apatow is producing, so I am sure it is funny as hell.

Priest - No desire to see this movie, unless I hear good things about it, which I am sure won't happen.

May 20th
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - I was done with the last Pirates movie, and while Johnny does an awesome Jack Sparrow, I don't need another Pirates movie to prove to me that he can do it.

Midnight in Paris - No idea what this movie is about either, but it is a Woody Allen movie so will probably try to see

May 27th
The Hangover Part 2 - 100% go see.  I just hope they don't try to push for a third, as I don't think the formula can work again for another movie.

Kung Fu Panda 2 - Yeah I think I will pass.

June 3rd
X-Men: First Class - Just because it is the X-Men I will check it out.

June 10th
Super 8 - Haven't seen anything on this movie, but it is a J.J Abrams flick, so may check it out, will see how good the previews are.

June 17th
Green Lantern - Because DC rocks, and so does the Green Lantern, going to see.

Mr. Popper's Penguins - No idea, will have to check out the previews

June 24th
Cars 2- Pass

Bad Teacher - No idea, but Jason Segel is in it, so could be a good comedy.

July 1st
Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Okay besides the title being close to the same name as a Pink Floyd album, I am really interested to see where they are going with the Transformers franchise after the last movie was so so.

Larry Crowne - No idea, but Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.

July 8th
One Day, Zookeeper, and Horrible Bosses - Basically fillers between Transformers and Harry Potter, which is a bit surprising figuring it is July, but hey who knows, maybe one of them might actually look good in trailers.

July 15th
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - Besides the fact that I still think that they should have made just one movie for the last Harry Potter installment, I of course will be going to see this.

Winnie the Pooh - While Pooh is cool and all, passing.

July 22nd
Captain America: The First Avenger - Marvel's second big summer comic book movie, and looks like it is going to be a good one.

Friends with Benefits - While the plot sounds exactly like No Strings Attached, I will still go see it because while no Natalie Portman, we get Mila Kunis!

July 29th
Cowboys & Aliens - I may go see this in August when the summer movies have died down some, but I really don't have more than a passing interest in this film, and that is due to Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford being in it.

Crazy, Stupid, Love - Steve Carell's summer movie, will have to decide on it when I see the trailer.

The Smurfs - While I loved the Smurfs as kid, I think I am going to have to pass on this.

And then we hit August when there is a bunch of movies that might peak my interest with the right trailer, but nothing worth writing about at the moment.


"You dumped a porn star? Friendship over. Friendship over!" - Barney

Good Weekend

So I must say it was a good weekend.  It was Master's weekend, and for those who think watching golf is boring should have seen today's round.  There were eight to nine players all either tied for the lead at one time, or within striking distance.  The lead went back and forth, and it might be a cliche, but every shot matter.  In the end there was a new Masters champion, Charl Schwartzel from South Africa.

It was such a nice day out today, that decided to grill out this evening.  This required me to clean out the grill, but totally worth it.  I love grilling out, I could do it all year round if it was only a little warmer around here in the winter time.

Also finally got a new pair of running shoes yesterday, which was pretty much a necessity at this point as I am sure I was pushing somewhere between 800 and 1000 miles on my last pair of shoes.  This is of course way to much, as you running shoes typically last 300-500 miles.  I also needed new jeans and socks, and also ended up with a few new shirts so all and all not bad.

I haven't forgotten about my summer movie preview, I will be working on that for later this week.  Now time to wait around for my last game of indoor soccer.  I am not to happy with whoever decided to schedule games at 10:30 at night, but it is the last one, which is good.

It's going to be legen...wait for it...and I hope you're not lactose-intolerant cause the second half of that word is...dairy! - Barney

Wednesday...

So random energy saving tip of the day from the folks over at Lifehacker (I think everyone should subscribe to the Lifehacker RSS feed/blog, some great stuff, though most of it has to do with stuff you can do with technology).  Instead of doing laundry by colors, apparently you should do it by the weightiness of the fabric (they said type of fabric, but I think that is confusing).  So basically instead of separating by whites and colors, you should instead put lighter fabrics in the same pile, like t-shirts, and heavier fabrics in another, like towels, regardless of the color.  Then when you do laundry, you wash everything in cold water, thus not wasting energy to heat up water.  When drying, the lighter clothes will finish faster, saving you on drying costs.  Though I do have to wonder if that gets negated on the fact that all your heavy clothes are either going to need to take longer to dry, or separated into smaller drying loads.  I guess that would also depend on how good your dryer is.

Enough talk about laundry.  Registered for classes this morning, which is good, had been nervous about getting into a class since Monday, since the school does rolling registrations and it was almost full already.  I do know people, however, that did not get in, and it has brought up a whole slew of issues regarding the scheduling of IT classes at the university.  Though I should be fine, it is looking more and more like we as IT majors are going to have to band together to discuss the issue with the dean.  Yep, we are going to have geeks and nerds banding together to go talk to an even bigger geek and nerd.  But in all seriousness it needs to be done.  The fact that our classes are only offered during the evening, and not even every semester, is really hurting those of us who either changed are major or transfered into the school with no major requirements done.

Had a great workout this morning.  9 miles with 5@HMP (half marathon pace for those that don't know).  I actually didn't think I was going to hit my paces given the warm up miles were slower than normal, but was surprised with how easily I got up to 8 min mile pace and quicker during the last few miles.  Also the rowers are back out in full force, so hopefully the warmer weather is not far behind.

Oh the Masters start tomorrow!!!!


"Hey, where the hell is my...oh! OK. Introduction to Contract Tort and Restitution Statutes from 1865 to 1923 is not a coaster! Ted! I'm jeopardizing my law career so you can throw, not one, not two, but three parties for some girl that you just met who's probably not even going to show up. I mean, where is she, Ted, huh? Where's Robin? Hi. Hi, Robin" - Marshall

Top 5

So instead of writing up on my summer movie preview (still going to sometime this week, promise) I instead decided to start a little feature called my top 5 ... whatever.  Totally stole this idea from a decent John Cusack movie High Fidelity, though there his top 5 lists always dealt with music.  Instead I will be doing my top 5 all time favorite movies, games, books, songs, etc.  I will try to do this at least once a week till I run out of ideas for top 5 lists.  This week I am going with my top 5 all time favorite books.  I might also add that my comments on any of these lists may not be all that insightful, just how I feel about the items on them.

#5
Dune - Considered one of the greatest science fiction books ever written, the entire Dune series is absolutely fantastic.  More than just a book set in the future with cool technology, the amount of detail and thought Frank Herbert put into his universe is staggering, and has few equals.  Surprising not all that action filled, Dune touches on issues of ecology, leaders, and the human condition, all while veiled behind what is essentially a revenge story.  Also did I mention that is set in the future, and is just plain awesome.

#4
Once a Runner - There is no way I could make a list about books and not mention Once a Runner.  It is the best book about running ever written (despite what a few runners might say), and is a constant source of inspiration for me.  While not the greatest literary work, Once a Runner constantly reminds me that you have to work to accomplish your goals, even when you are worn down and feel like giving up.  The few runners that don't like this book normally complain that the audience for the book is only elite runners due there being many references to workouts and races that only elite runners can run.  These few runners are missing the point.  Any runner at any level can experience many of the same hardships and trials that the protagonist, Quenton Cassidy, goes through.   This book is not about being able to run at the elite level, but how one goes about accepting challenges in their life and how they handle them.  The lessons in this book go beyond running, as there are plenty of things in life that require us to work hard to achieve.  As quoted from the book "the trial of miles, the miles of trials."

#3
Great Expectations - By far my favorite Charles Dickens book, I have read this book at least five or six times in my life.  There is just something about Pip's ultimately failed quest to become a gentlemen and win over Estella (sorry if I just ruined the book for anyone) that gets me every time.  I could probably talk about all the literary themes at work in this book, but I prefer not to think about them.  Instead I just let Charles Dickens do his thing, which is tell a really great story.

#2
The Dark Tower Series -  Okay, the entire series is seven books, but I can't mention only one of them.  Stephen King's magnum opus, and his fairly successful attempt to write something on par with Lord of the Rings. A great mix of science fiction, fantasy, westerns, and horror, the entire series draws you in.  What is amazing is how King is able to intertwine characters and stories from most of his other books into this series.  Okay, with seven books, all of them getting progressively longer, it probably wasn't all that hard.  For being seven books long, you are fully engrossed from start to finish, as is the way with Stephen King books.

#1
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - When I was a kid I had a very active imagination.  So when I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (yes I am counting more than one book again) for the first time when I was 12 (and every year since), I was instantly drawn into Tolkien's world.  While The Hobbit is really just a children's book, it is fun and adventurous and is important to the overall series.  As for The Lord of the Rings, I can't even begin to describe the joy I feel while reading this book.  And I am apparently not the only one as The Lord of the Rings is the number two all time best selling novel (beat by a A Tale of Two Cities), and was the second highest selling book of the last century (beat only by the Bible), which is highly impressive since it was published in the 1950's.  And if you don't feel like reading the books, the movies do a good job of telling the story (though not a fantastic job, can't win them all).



Also something I decided to start, ending with a How I Met Your Mother quote, because frankly the show is just awesome, and of course, highly quotable:

"It's physics Marshall, if the bottom bunk moves the top bunk moves too." - Ted

Lazy Day

So I was typing up my summer movie preview, but it was going to take some time and I am just to lazy to finish it.  Will finish it sometime this week.  I have been lazy the entire day, didn't even work on any homework.  Of course I don't have anything due anytime soon so I could get away with it.  I am sure I will be busy the rest of the semester so am enjoying the free time.  Spent a good part of my day playing games, mostly Risk Factions on the computer.   For anyone that enjoys Risk, Risk Factions is a bit of a different take on the classic game (though you can play the classic version), with different world maps, different rules for holding certain territories, and quirky armies.  Now I am just waiting around to go play some soccer.  I must say that playing indoor soccer kind of sucks.  Besides the fact that I haven't played soccer in awhile, playing on a small field with only 5 players to a side is a bit of a challenge.  It is extremely fast paced, and almost any small mistake you make will cost you. Still it is soccer, so I can't complain to much.  Would love to play outdoors though.  Alright enough of this blogging business, time to change and spend a few more minutes with the wife before I have to leave.

One Year

One year ago today I asked my lovely wife to marry me.  It has been a very busy year, with the short engagement, wedding, plus school and running stuff.  So to start my day off, like last year, I got up and went running.  This time, however, I did not come home and give Karina a diamond (I am now sure I will hear something about that).  I really do have the best wife in the entire world, and I couldn't imagine spending my life with anyone else.

In other news, I finally canceled, closed down, whatever my MySpace account yesterday.  I had read an article earlier this week that MySpace has actually had like 10 million accounts closed already this year, and I am pretty sure it is going to be a lot more by the end of the year.  I figured it was time given the fact that I couldn't tell you the last time I had even been on MySpace, and it was time for it to go, no need to hang on to it.  Kind of like digital spring cleaning.

And lastly for the day (because running 15 miles will make you tired and lazy), if you haven't seen it yet, The Hangover 2 trailer is out and can be seen here.

Fools Day

So it is April Fools Day, and while I have read about some great tricks online (my favorite of course being all the ones you can do to someones computer) I have not partaken in the annual trick people day.  Google of course provided another great joke this year, the Gmail motion guide being particularly funny.  What was not so funny was of course the weather today.  It snowed, it rained, it was windy, it was freaking annoying is what it was.  While we didn't really get a lot of snow, it was snow none the less, and I was really hoping not to see anymore till towards the end of the year.  The weather also caused me to miss my run today, since I already have a long run tomorrow, I will be making up some miles on Sunday.  I was really hoping to go over 40 miles for the week as I haven't done that in a long time, but may have to settle for 40 even.

Other than the weather it was a pretty uneventful day.  Did some homework, and let me tell you writing about information security for a class that is not my information security class is a bit of an overkill.  I know one thing, by the time this semester is over basics of information security will be so ingrained in my head that I may even have to write and implement a security policy for home use...  I did get a chance to watch A Boy and His Dog today, which of course is about a boy and his dog.  Well it is about a boy and his dog in a post-apocalyptic world.  Not bad if mid 1970's science fiction movies are your thing.  I know that really doesn't say anything about the movie, but I am tired right now, and when I am tired I get lazy.

On a side note, the Red Sox's lost today.  Just putting it out there.