Who Ordered So Many Damn Spoons? Who Do I Have To Talk To Around Here So I Can Get A Knife?

Irony:Sitting in front of the TV, watching 90 minutes of The Biggest Loser season finale, while mindlessly eating mediocre chocolate snowmen that some kid gave to me at work today as a Christmas gift. I would have been eating some caramel popcorn that had clumps of chocolate in it (another gift from a different kid), but Emily didn't bring those to me because the popcorn "had too many wrappers around it," and would therefore be too much of a pain in the ass for us to open. I like the way Emily thinks.

Snuffalaffagus Gone Country

Cuy Clark's last album from 2006, Workbench Songs, has a song called Analog Girl.

Click here for the lyrics (you may have to scroll past a few ads at the top of the page).

Does such person really exist anymore? If she does, she probably doesn't live in Minneapolis.

Dude, Where's My Platoon?

I wonder if between Sunday night and Tuesday night, I set Netflix history. Specifically, I think I may have had two movies, side by side in my queue, that are unrivaled in terms of how different they are from one another.

On Sunday night, Emily and I watched this movie.

Then on Tuesday night, I watched the next movie in our queue, which was this gem.

So the question is, can anyone match this pair of movies in terms of their polar opposites? The only stipulations are that no more than 72 hours separated the viewing of the two movies, and that you didn't watch any other movie(s) between the two movies.

If you can top my movie pair, I'll send you my own copy ofthe hard-to-find DVD, Gandhi: The Animal House Years.

Keep Tahoe Blue

I finally got around uploading my digital photos to the computer. Emily already posted about our trip to Lake Tahoe in October. We went there to see our friends' wedding. It was a lot of fun. I gambled. We drank some beers. We went for some hikes.

A good time was had by all. Here are some pictures from our trip.

The first two pictures are from the shores of Lake Tahoe. The resort we stayed in had access to the beach. It was startling just how much of the shore is private property. Some friends of ours actually went for a swin the lake. And by "swim" I mean they jumped in for 20 seconds, got out, huddled by the fire, and told how cold it was.




The next two pictures are from a hike we did at Snowflake Lodge.



The last four pictures are from our hike along the Tahoe Rim Trail.

There Goes The Neighborhood

In early November, or more accurately from early November to mid-November, a friend of mine from high school stayed with us on and off for about ten days. It's a long story, but he was stationed here as part of his job. And it's an even longer story to explain why part of his job entailed having a Penske moving truck parked in front of our house while he was here. I was just happy to have another crazed Spurs fan to hang out with.

But one morning Emily took Pancho for his morning walk and found that my friend's moving van had been tagged with graffiti.



It is kind of funny that his van got tagged. But it is not so funny that such an elaborate paint job occured in front of our house. Kids/gangstas these days...

I Have Measured My Life With Grand Slam Breakfasts

This afternoon at work I was talking to one of those twentysomething crazy college kids. Part of his story involved a late night sortie to Perkins on a Friday night. And that got me to thinking about restaurants like Perkins. Is there a name for this genre of restaurant? The Diner Chains? You know the ones I'm talking about: Perkins, Denny's, Bakers Square, Jim's, Village Inn...

So far as I can tell, for a restaurant to be included in this group it must have at lest seven of the nine following traits.
-Open 24 hours a day.
-Breakfast served at all hours.
-Has to be a chain or franchise.
-Wide range of desserts, especially pie.
-Standard, dutiful hamburger and sandwich menu.
-Bright, low hanging lights.
-Utilitarian seats, booths, and tables.
-Laminated menus with lots of pictures.
-Nicknames for their menu items (i.e. Grand Slam Breakfast, The Perkins 7)

It seems to me these restaurants fade in and out of our lives. Here's the stages I've come up with.

Stage I The Home Cooking and Fast Food Phase. Birth to five. Kids are too young to really enjoy restaurants outside of saw dust nuggets, er chicken nuggets, marketed with the help of a clown and shitty plastic toys from China.

Stage II The Introductory Phase. Age five to 11. These restaurants are a special treat at this age. A nice place to get an awesome breakfast or lunch. As a kid I used to frequent the Denny's by mom's bookstore. It was a great place to eat breakfast or have breakfast food for my lunch. It was also a big deal if we got to go to Jim's for lunch and get what, in retrospect, is a very standard hamburger.

Stage III Hiatus #1. Age 11 to 15. During this age kids are too busy with school, sports, or other hobbies. Also the palate becomes a little more refined so there is now a wider range of places a kid will want to eat at. This combination of schedule demands and a refined palate leads to fewer trips to Denny's or Perkins.

Stage IV Keep The Party Going Phase. Through high school, college, and the immediate years after college, these restaurants serve as great gathering place post-moive, post-party, post-barhopping... You don't go there for the fine dining and ambiance, so much as for the fact they are open late and you can get pancakes at 2 a.m. Dude!

Stage V Hiatus #2. The Boring Grown-Up Phase. Welcome to me. If I am going to spend my money going out-to-eat, it sure better be with good company, over good food. So breakfast and lunch at Bakers Square is out. Also, my Friday nights usually end by 10 p.m. when my Netflix movie is over. So a late night run to Perkin's is out.

Stage VI Stage III Revisited. This is for all you parents who have kids aged between five and 11. They want to go to Denny's for breakfast. You take them.

Stage VII Hiatus #3. This is when your kids have outgrown stage III. Once again, you have no reason to go to Village Inn.

Stage VIII The Blue Hair Phase. I don't know why, but I always see senior citizens at Perkins. Maybe the food is easy to digest. I guess I'll find out for myself in 35 years if all goes well for me.

Dirty Dog

There are many subtle (and definitely not-so-subtle) differences between living in San Antonio and living in Minneapolis.

One subtle difference is, in Minnesota, you have to drain and turn off the water to your outside water faucet by the end of November. If you don't, you may have some frozen pipes to contend with.

No one loves this cold-weather-living tidbit than Pancho. Like most four year old males, he HATES baths. I give him occasional baths in the bathtub during the winter but it makes a huge mess. Such a mess that I prefer him to be a little stinky rather than subject him to water torture (or at least that's how it feels to him). He gets so scared in the bathtub when I rinse him off.

So Pancho may miss the trips to the lakes and swims in Minnehaha Creek that summer brings. But he also really enjoys winter, and the lack of baths that it brings. Next weekend will probably be Pancho's last bath for many months.

Rant Emily is Sick Of #893909

Is anyone else bothered by the commercials Visa has been running designed to make the use of cash seem obsolete, old, and lame? These ads have been bothering me for a long time. I know Emily has seen them, because she has been listening to me rail agaisnt them everytime we see one.

Well apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way. Click here to read exactly why these ads bother me. It mirrors the rant I would have written, only the link provided is written in a much more concise and informed fashion.

The ad that really bothers me is one that features the New Orleans Saints. The ad shows a bunch of football fans in New Orleans marching around alive and well. New Orleans is back! Life is good!

Nevermind that New Orleans' post-Katrina population is less than 60% of its pre-Katrina level. Apparently we are all supposed to feel things in New Orleans are going GREAT because they have a pro football team. So New Orleans is now some feel good story just because it has pro sports and conventions. Doesn't that trivialize and gloss over the fact that city has a long way to go before it can be put back together again. Or the fact that in 2005 freaking corpses were floating in the streets?

END RANT HERE

Holy Crap!

My sister sent me a link to one of the craziest football plays I have ever seen.

Click here to check it out. I promise, even if you're not a football fan, you'll be glad you did, if only to hear how excited the guy doing play-by-play gets at the end.

Only in Division III football could something like this happen.

Even if you are not a sports fan, and don't know the difference between a lateral pass and a ladder, you shoud watch this play. Case in point, my sister probably never knew what a lateral pass until she saw this play (it features 15 laterals).

And because this blog is all about me, I should add that the team featured in this play is Trinity University in San Antonio, less than two blocks from where my mom lives. It is also where my sister works (hence her knowledge of this play). And its campus was one of Shakie's favorite places to roam aimlessly.

YAWN

Well, another World Series is about to pass. Over the past three years, this is what has happened....

2007 Boston beats Colorado 4-0

2006 St. Louis beats Detroit 4-1

2005 Chicago White Sox beats Houston 4-0

2004 Boston beats St. Louis 4-0

So in other words, over the past four years the World Series Winners have won a total of sixteen games, while over the past four years the World Series loser has won a total of one game.

To quote Nothing Ever Happens On Mars (from Waiting For Guffman), "Boring. Boring. Boring."

This year the World Series has been especially disappointing because the regular season was so exciting. There were a lot of great individual milestones (not just Barry Bonds' home run chase), some exciting pennant chases, and some magical teams to watch.

So the one game playoff between the Pardes and the Rockies before the playoffs series even started was probably the peak of the season. Everything since then has felt like a slow march towards the inevitable: the crowning of the Red Sox.

So I'll put a wrap on the season with two final thoughts.

1. People who dislike the Yankees with their ungodly payroll and arrogance, should have equal disdain for the Red Sox.
2. The Twins were disappointing this year, and I predict they will disappoint even more next year.

Conversation With Emily #980

Tomorrow morning I plan on playing a one-on-one basketball game with a friend of mine. We'll call him The Newlywed. Full court one-on-one, that is. Full court one-on-one to 300. Full court one-on-one to 300, counting by ones.

Obviously, this game alone is reason enough to write a post. But this post is about a conversation Emily and I had about this upcoming, non-so-much anticipated game.

Emily: So, is anyone going to watch you guys play the game?

Mike: God no. Me and The Newlywed playing basketball? Do you have any idea how ugly this game will be?

Emily: So who will be shirts and who will be skins?

Mike: No one.

Emily: What do you mean? You said it was going to be ugly.

Oh snap.

R.I.P. Little Buddy

This dog, Shakie, has been in one house or another of mine (or my family's) since 1992. His story is long, sweet, and sometimes very sad. But all in all he lead a good life. My mom had to put him down last week. And thanks to her, his life post 1994 was stable and happy.



I don't believe in heaven. So I sure don't believe all dogs go to heaven. But I wish like hell they did. Cripes. If only some dogs got to go to heaven, or a a select few went, Shakie would be pushed to front of the line to have his back scratched by St. Pete and let inside. Shakie was that sweet of a dog.

I'll write more when I'm emotionally equipped to do so. But much thanks to my mom for giving this dog a real home and a good life.

Libertad Fries

Emily and I spent last week in Lake Tahoe. I won some money betting on the Colorado Rockies and Cleveland Indians. And I broke even playing video poker.

And by "break even" I mean I drank a "free" beer for every $5 I spent (and lost) in the video poker machines. All told I had four "free" beers over two nights.

So if I ever get around to it, I'll get some pictures of our trip up on this blog. Just as soon as I get motivated enough to get the pictures uploaded to the computer.

In the meantime, one of the most blogworthy parts of our trip occurred early on. We flew into Sacramento, got our rental car, and then headed east to Tahoe, with only one thing on our mind: when can we eat?

So we came to some Sacramento suburb called Roseville. Since there is a suburb called Roseville here in the Twin Cities, it was only logical we stop there in quest of food.

We found a strip a mall and before you can say "Shitty Dodge rental car crossing four lanes of traffic at once, just to make a left hand turn," I crossed four lanes of traffic to make a left hand turn in our shitty Dodge rental car.

Why, you ask, did I put my wife, myself, and our shitty Dodge rental in peril?

Del Taco.

Admittedly, I've never been to Del Taco, but the name was so absurd and promising at the same time, we had to go.

And Del Taco did not disappoint. It was a step above Taco Bell, and better yet, everything had a Del in the name. McNuggets? McShake? That's freaking annoying.

But it's all about presentation. Change that to Del Nuggets. Did somebody say Del Shake? I'll take two of each please.

But that wasn't the best part. The true surprise came when I ordered some Del Value Menu item (I believe I had Del #6) and I got some French Fries to go with my tacos.

How awesome is that? DEL AWESOME! That's how awesome!

Is this what all them fancy people mean when they talk about "fusion cooking?"

So I went to the Wikipedia entry for Del Taco, expecting there to be a mention about how you get fries with your Del Burrito, but for some reason it has yet to receive any mention. Click here to see for yourself. Sure the entry dances around the fact that it has burgers AND Mexican food, but it needs to say outright, "YOU CAN GET FRIES WITH YOUR TACOS!!!!"

Yo Deets! are you out there? I did your freaking "two things about me quiz." It's about reciprocity. So get over the wikipedia and fix that Del Taco entry. The people need to know you get fries with your Del Chimichunga!

The Deets Is As The Deets Does

The Deets suggested I'd be the most likely to follow through with his request to this...

JUST TWO THINGS
Send this back to the person who sent it to you and the rest of your friends!

Okay, so he received it as a chain e-mail and turned it into a post. And I feel obliged to do fill out the list, since he said I would. Plus, you know how I love my lists.

Two Names You Go By:
1. Rocco
2. Funny Mike

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. A North Face jacket. Emily bought one for me last year and has one that matches mine.
2. t-shirt commemorating the San Antonio Spurs as champions of pro basketball in 2007.

Two Things You Would Want (or have) in a Relationship:
Either I'm not smart enough to answer this question or it is simplifies relationships too much. Either way, I can't answer it.
1.
2.

Two Things you Like to Do:
1. Run with friends.
2. Go out to eat.

Two Things You Want Very Badly At The Moment:
1. The swelling on my tongue to subside. I bit it so badly this morning that it looks bruised.
2. To be able to sleep in tomorrow, which I won't.

Two Things you did Last Night:
1. Hung out with a friend at the C C Club until it closed.
2. Made chocolate cookie bars, and as a joke spelled "S'UP BRAH?" in chocoloate chips on the bars. Then as I drove over to my friend's house with these bars I passed a car that had a vanity plate that read "SUP BRA." Weird, right?

Two Things you Ate Today:
1. Some of those "S'UP BRAH?" bars.
2. Leftover "Ropa Vieja." Cuban food cooked by aforementioned friend (not actually "old clothes").

Two People you Last Talked to:
1. My mom.
2. Nathan.

Two Things you’re Doing Tomorrow:
1. Working
2. Folding laundry

Two Longest Car Rides:
1.Iowa City, IA to San Antonio, TX in 1994 (driven solo)
2. San Antonio, TX to Los Angeles, CA 1980 (my mom drove that one solo). I sat in the backseat and acted like I was hosting my own version of Tic Tac Dough the whole time.

Two Favorite Holidays:
1. Thanksgiving
2. Grandma's Marathon

Two Favorite Beverages:
1. Beer (domestic)
2. Gatorade

Two Things About Me that you may not have known.
1. I was born in Illinois.
2. I was kicked out of Cub Scouts in third grade because I wouldn't take my bike helmet off during a den meeting because I kept insisting to the den mother, "It's my thinking cap."

Two Jobs I have had in my life:
1. US Postal Letter Carrier
2. Dude who kept the 60 foot salad bar at Souper Salad fully stocked with fresh fruit, vegetables, salad accessories, and dessert.

Two Movies I would watch over and over:
1. The Usual Suspects
2. Buckaroo Banzaii

Places I have lived:
1. New York, NY
2. East Liberty, IA

Two of my Favorite Foods:
1. Enchiladas
2. English Muffins

Two Places I’d rather be right now:
1. Next to Emily, who is in New Orleans until Wednesday for work.
2. In a time machine so I go back twelve hours and re-eat the croissant I was eating when I bit my tongue so badly. Only I wouldn't bite my tongue the second time around.

Two people I think will respond:
1. I don't think two people read this blog.
2.

Since this is a blog, copy/paste, and fill in your own answers in the comments. Let me know if you partook in the fun.

Hotober

Well the TC10 came and went. I ran a 59:30. The close reader will note that this way off my high goal time. I went out as fast as planned, but by mile three it became obvious that the heat and humidity would not allow for anything under 58:00. By mile five I knew the only goal left was to break 60 minutes. And I did that. It just wasn't my day.

I am glad I went out aggressively. I haven't done that in awhile. Also, given the context of the day (it was so very hot), I am satisfied with my time.

I placed third in my age group which speaks more to being in a weak age group (most 35 to 39 year-olds get slowed down by daddy duty) than anything else.

But this guy kicked ass. Maybe he'll get around to blogging about it. And this guy set a PR in the 5k and has already blogged a little about it.

Saturday, October 7 was a brutal, brutal day. The good people at Down the Backstretch do a great job of addressing the pattern of hot, too hot, Minnesota marathons. Click here to read more.

DtB also did a nice summaary of the TC 10. Click here to read it. Oddly, they neglected to cover my 71st place finish. Where's the love? I was only 13 minutes behind the winner Abdi Abdirahman.

But I love the quote below from the story. It comes from the winner of the race and pretty much sums up how we all felt that day.

Said Abdirahman of the conditions: "I didn't expect this to be this bad. It was horrible. It's one of those things, you can't control the weather. It's out of our hands. I was on good pace for five or six or seven miles but then it just got worse and worse."

And on a bigger scale, the furnaces that defined the Twin Cities and Chicago Marathons have generated a lot of publicity and debate in the running community.

There seem to be schools of thoughts emerging.
1. Marathon organizers need to do more to protect its runners. This would include the opinion piece listed above from DtB, as well as a piece Frank Shorter wrote for the NYT. Click here to read it.

2. Marathons are not meant for eveyone. Marathon organizers therefore need to screen its runners before letting them run.

Just like some people can't make a basket from twenty feet out or throw a perfect forty yard spiral, not everyone should think they can run 26.2 miles. Click here and here for more.

As someone who has just finsihed coaching a class for beginning to very experienced marathoners, I actually side more with the second school of thought. However, I do not believe lowering the time limit or having prequalifying standards is the solution. An inexpeirenced 3:30 marathoner is more likely to run himself into harms way than a veteran 5:30 marathon, in my opinion.

Rather, the culture of marathoning has to change. As a running community we need to get the word out that running a marathon is not just an individual decision, but a commitment. It is a lifestyle. Before someone plunges into running their first marathon, he or she should several half marathons first. I would recommend getting two years of base running in. Get to the point where you can easily run 45 miles per week. I don't care how fast you go, just how far, as you build base.

But now there is big money in marathons. You can market them as an experience. Something you can say you did, like take a guided tour up Mt. Everest or go bungee jumping.

To say that there has to be time standards for someone to run any marathon smacks of elitism. But to portray the marathon as "an experience for everyone and anyone" trivializes just how much work and sacrifices have to be made to run one safely. And there is where the health risks start.

Bring It

So I'll be going to be in bed in about 30 minutes and waking up six hours later.

Tomorrow (Sunday) is the Twin Cities Marathon and I'm participating by running the ten mile race and then watching the marathon.

We are exepcted to a LOW of 64 degrees tomorrow. And some thunder storms to go along with that. Ugh.

But that weather won't affect us ten milers as much as the marathoners. I wish those guys the best, of course. That is the beauty of a marathon. You pour your heart and soul for one race that is so dependent on things you can't control. It's a good life lesson: there's no guarantees. Make the best of what you have in front of you that day.

But I'm just a ten miler tomorrow, so there is no need no wax philosophical about such an easy distance.

Here are my goals:
Low Goal: Sub 60
Medium Goal: Sub 59:00
High Goal: 57:20

I'm going out hard both guns blazing after that high goal. I hope to open with a 5:45 mile.

Rant #83482

I can't stand commercials with animals acting like people. I blame CGI and the Super Bowl for the mainsteaming of this style of TV advertising.

This evening during 30 Rock or The Office there was some ad with a bunch of monkies riverdancing. Really? Is that the best our creative talent, earning six figures can do?

I left the room half way through the ad. I did this in part out of protest, but also to get some more food. So I don't know what the ad was about. But it doesn't matter. Cheetas doing the macarena. Horses high fiving. Penguins riding their Harlies to Sturgis. A squirrel farts and points to the squirrel next to him to pass the blame. It took me 30 seconds to come up with those ideas. They all suck, but some hybrid of these ideas will air during our next Super Bowl. When will it stop?!?!?!

Maybe rather than boycotting Caribou, I can boycott all businesses that run these ads.

And I know that if I had Tevo this rant would die a quick death.

As an aside, I give both The Office and 30 Rock three out of five stars.

Bye Bye 'Bou

Over the years I have devoted a few posts to the trivia questions you can answer at Caribou Coffee. For those with poor memory and not from the Twin Cities, here is a review. You go into Caribou, order your drink, and if you answer their trivia question correctly, you get ten whopping cents off your drink.

Only a hyper-competetive freak would worry about these questions, see how many consecutive questions he can answer correctly, and argue with the cashier when he or she tells him his answer is wrong.

Hey, that would describe me. Just click here or here if you need a refresher.

So we'll call President-On-Currency-Gate and CapeHornGate STRIKE ONE against Caribou.

So about six months ago, I went into the Caribou in Highland Park on my way to work. The trivia question was "What basketball legend is used as the model for the NBA logo?" Awesome I think. My streak is up to seven. Here's what went down after that.

Me: I'll get a large light roast, and the answer to the trivia is Jerry West.
Cashier: Ooooooh... sorry (all sympathetic like). It's Pete Maravich.
Me: No it's not. It's Jerry West.
Cashier: I know. Everyone keeps saying that, but it's Pete Maravich.
Me: Everyone keeps saying that because it's the right answer.
Cashier: Sorry.
Me: Pete Maravich played for LSU and the New Orleans Jazz and he died young. His nickname was "Pistol Pete." Jerry West's nickname is "The Logo." There's a reason he has that nickname.
Cashier: Sorry. I can only go by what the card says.
Me: Then you should change the question to "What random basketball star from the 1970s is on this card?"

And, yes I know I should have let this go about two conversational turns ago. I'm holding up the line. I'm arguing over a dime. I really only want to get my consecutive correct answers streak up to double digits again. And well, I'm being an asshole.

So I relent. Pay my extra dime. But I'm keeping score here. That's STRIKE TWO on Caribou. I swore off Caribou trivia after that ugly episode. After that even when I knew the answer, I wouldn't participate. I just don't need the stress in my life.

And then on Monday I went to Caribou with two crumpled dollar bills in my pocket. I ordered my usual large coffee and was charged $2.03. Say what?

Cashier (not my enemy from logogate): We raised our prices over the weekend.

Well, Caribou will haveto reach that coveted price point without me. I had to go out to my car and get a dime from the change holder.

A buck ninety-three for coffee? No problem. But more than two bucks? Not unless I'm going to sit down with friends to enjoy the conversation and atmosphere.

So they upped their price a dime. What is it with me and dimes at this place?

But think about this. The dime discount for trivia has been in effect since I moved here over 11 years ago. A large coffee was around $1.50. It was worth your time. So their trivia discount should be proportional to their price increase. Is fifteen to twenty cents too much to ask?

I guess so. Over $2.00 for black coffee. STRIKE THREE.

I usually buy coffee at the coffee shop once or twice during the weekdays and once on the weekend. Now I am going to make sure I make my coffee at home five to six days a week. And if I do have to buy coffee during the workweek it will be at SuperAmerica. It only costs $1.06 there.

And they don't have trivia.

Zero to Awesome in 60 Seconds

Johan Santana struck out 17 Texas Strangers this afternoon.

Click here to see just how awesome he is. This link leads you to footage of his 17 strikeout pitches, shown in one minute. I would pay $500.00 just to be able to throw Johan's slider. Just for one day. Just to know what it feels like.

Even the non-baseball fans out there should check it out. It's pretty impressive.

By the way, I found this footage courtesy of one of The Deets' latest projects. He started (or helped start?) a website called Walleye. It has Minnesota specific blogs that are shown as they are updated. Or you can view the posts that are "hooked" (recommended) the most.

It's fun and a little addicitive. But the good thing is, since it's Minnesota only, it's not like new blog posts are coming every minute or something. So it's pretty easy to stay on top of.

Cruel Ironies

Over the past week, it has become easier to process and put together what happened on the I-35W bridge. I keep kicking two very cruel ironies around in my head, and I think they are very telling.

1. A road crew was repaving the surface of the bridge when it collapsed. A real-life and tragic example of rearranging the deck furniture of the Titanic.

2. People have flocked to the Stone Arch Bridge to see the devastation of the I-35W bridge collapse. The Stone Arch Bridge was built in 1883, some 84 years before the I-35W bridge was constructed. Sure the Stone Arch Bridge never had steady highway traffic on it, but it did serve as a train bridge for 95 years. I guess we don't build 'em like we used to.

The Kids Are Alright

Thank you to everyone who e-mailed, texted, and called Emily and me last night. We are okay and so far as I know, everyone we know is okay. A professor from Emily's Epidemiology department was on the bridge when it crumbled, but was able to walk away from her car safely.

Any death from this bridge's collapse is one too many. But I am amazed at the number of people who have survived this. That being, like all of us, I am haunted by stories of people plunging into the water. Or by the divers taking down license plates of cars below the river. I lack the emotional intelligence to imagine what it is like to be a family member of one of the missing.

I haven't had a chance get near the scene of the collapse. Emily has had the opportunity but has passed. She started her new job a the University of Minnesota yesterday, and could have walked over. But she told be she didn't want to see it. It all sounded too horrible.

Intellectualizing what has happened has been a very short process for me. I get stuck on one question and can't move on: how the hell did this happen? You know the old bit: we put a man on the moon, but we can't time our traffic lights downtown, or whatever. Well, we put a man on the moon about the same time this bridge was built, but forty years later, we couldn't see the warning signs that this bridge could collapse?

I don't know if anyone is to blame. Maybe it was a fluke occurence that we will learn from, like the wind shears that brought down the Delta jumbo jet in Dallas in 1985.

And at this point I am not interested in assessing blame. But that being said, I am amazed that in the 21st century, with all our technology and oversight, we didn't see this coming.

In the meantime, outside of the bipartisan bickering and passing of the buck that is sure to happen in the coming months, I have no idea what my adopted city will be like, and how we will respond emotionally and logistically. But for now, I have been impressed by the compassion and support we have shown for one another.

Here is a link by a columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Nick Coleman. There are nuances to the article that I disagree with. Like how Coleman spends a few paragraphs hinting that Governor Pawlenty's budget vetoes are somehow responsible for the bridge's collapse, but then saying, "but you know all politicians are too blame." That is cowardly. Either have the cajones to call the governor out or don't.

And in addition, my understanding is, if you look at the budgets he vetoed, none of them had money devoted to reparing this bridge. But I do agree that there is a culture of neglecting infrastructure, as it eats up taxpayer dollars, that we need to overcome.

I think Coleman's column would have been stronger if he left Pawlenty alone for once, and stuck to that bigger point. We have been neglecting and taking for granted our infrastructure for too long. I lost trust in my government from this tragedy. And more importantly we lost lives. And what if it was preventable? What if, as a society, each and everyone of us (not just our politicians) placed an emphasis in investing in our infrastructure. And that is why Coleman's column struck a chord with me.

Democrats: We Suck Slightly Less Than Republicans

My identity as a Democrat really started to weaken when John Kerry was the best the DFL could do to take on George Bush in 2004. And when I read stories like this, I feel sick and a little panicked.

Is this the best we can do? Over 3,000 American soldiers are dead, and almost 27,000 are wounded. And over 67,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Who knows how many are wounded.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Bush tells us to stay the course. His administration has no other ideas about what to do. That is frightening. But even worse, is that the Democrats have even less ideas. A "cover your ass" censure against Bush? An "all-nighter" policy session? That's it? That's all they can do? People are fucking dying. The region is unstable. And this is the best our two major parties can do.

We need a leader to emerge. Soon. I don't care what party he or she is from, but we need a leader to step up and say...

"Let's quit bashing Bush. Emotionally it is rewarding, but it does NOTHING to help us in Iraq. Forget about feeling good, and let's collectively think about doing the right thing. It's time to make sacrifices to honor the soliders who died and those who are still fighting. Here's what we need to do..."

Now can I finish that speech I just started? Do I have any ideas? Well I have one or two. I'd start with reducing our dependency on foreign oil. Pushing for a Palestinian state. Getting the rest of the world to see that a secure Iraq is in its best interest too, even if we were the dumabasses that broke Iraq in the first place.

These aren't perfect solutions, but at least they will get the dialogue going and as a nation maybe we can collectively come up with a solution. We can find a long-term solution in Iraq, built on sacrifice and diplomacy. And whatever that solution may be, it won't involve calling Bush the worst President ever or censuring him. No matter how good it feels to do that.

We need a leader. Until then, as citizens we need to come together. Get past our partisan tribes and figure out what needs to be done. I think we can do better than "immediate withdrawl" vs. "stay the course." There has to be a nuanced solution out there. And "Bush sucks" ain't one of them.

It's Like This, Cat

We lock our cats in the basement at night. That way Toonces can be as crazy as she wants without driving us crazy. Somehow she escaped this morning and decided at 5:30 am that she really missed us.

I wish cats were more into being pleasers. I swear, if I glare at Pancho for two seconds because of something he did, that dog does whatever it takes to get my affection back. He mows the lawn, takes the trash out, and offers to take the 88 Accord off our hands.

But not so much for the pinche gato. As if her TO DO list for this morning reads like a shampoo instruction bottle, here's how the first 20 minutes of Toonces' morning played out.

1. Jump up on bed.
2. Meow in search of affection.
3. Get knocked off of bed with pillow-to-the-face.
4. Repeat.

It took twenty freaking minutes for that cat to finally give up.

But I'm no better. This became a battle of wills. Mano a paw. I was fully awake and ready to get out of bed. But I refused to get up until the cat gave up and knew it was never going to be in the bed while I was.

It's no small accomplishment for me to win a battle with an animal that has the intellectual capacity of a one-year old. But I can say with confidence that so far, on June 22, 2007, on the scorecard for the daily battle of Mike and Pancho vs. Toonces the score is...

Mike and Pancho:1
Toonces: 0

Here's to an early end to today so our score may be preserved.



One night I came upstairs to find this. For a cat with no balls, Toonces is one ballsy cat. Pancho's body language suggests he is not at all comfortable with the idea of a cat in his bed. Toonces' body language would suggest she doesn't give a damn. I feel your frustration Pancho.

Conversation with Emily #6567

This evening in our den...

Me: What are you watching?

Emily: Oh some reality show about a guy who has to choose between dating some 40 year old girls and some 20 year old girls.

Me: Seems like a no-brainer.

Emily: (ignores me) It might be so bad that it will be good. But you won't like it. You'll just make fun of it.

Me: I don't need to watch it to make fun of it do I?

Emily: {no response--crickets chirp}

Editor's Note: This is not the first time Emily has told me she was watching a reality TV show that I was not welcome to watch. I guess I am too judgmental and take all the fun out of watching the show. But I would like to add that each time this occurs, the show's premise is exponentially more absurd than the one before it.

Don't Call It A Comeback

ABRIDGED VERSION

Highlights from Grandma's Marathon 2007.
1. I ran my fastest marathon ever, 2:57:53.
2. I did not run 4+ miles in the rain at 1 a.m. post-marathon, like I did a year ago.
3. Staying and visiting with Jocelyn and her husband in Duluth, and their kick-ass kids. Do you have friends that, even if you see them as little as once a year, you are so comfortable with them you pick up right where you left off with them a year ago? Jocelyn and Co. are those kinds of friends to Emily and me.

Grandma's weekend is such a great time for me. I love runnig. I love races. I love my friends, both in Duluth and those that I run with. I love my wife. I love my family. I love my dog. And Grandma's brings most of that together (four out six ain't bad).

Here's to Grandma's 2008 and whatever stories they will bring.

Below is a picture me of me running just before the 21 mile marker. Please keep all lame "I'm too sexy for my shirt" jokes to yourself. It was freaking hot out there.


This picture comes courtesy of Jocelyn, who said she expected this photo on my blog within the next 24 hours or she'd tag me with another meme.

Don't Call It A Comeback

THE UNABRIDGED VERSION
WARNING: This is a long, self-absorbed, potentially boring post. Oh wait that is true for 90% of the content of all the posts on this blog. So just add the word "very" to all the adjectives in that first sentence. Read this only if you are VERY VERY interested in how my marathon went.

As I wrote a year ago, my Grandma's 2006 experience was remarkable not so much for the race itself, but for what happended afterwards. I had to run four miles in the rain, less than 18 hours after finishing the marathon.

Well, this year's marathon didn't have any of that zaniness. I did, however, run my fastest marathon ever, which is much more exciting for me than any post-race shenanigans. About two months ago I was training with the intent of running a sub-2:50 at Grandma's.

Well, I ended up running a 2:57:53. So how can I be so content if I missed my original goal time by almost eight minutes? Well read on.

At the end of April I ran in the Drake Relays Half-Marathon in Iowa. At that race, I didn't really push myself until the last three miles, just as my friend Kirk suggested I do. So I was pretty fired up to run a sub 1:21 half-marathon without trying too hard. This race basically suggested I was right at 2:50 marathon shape. Things were looking good. I still had a month to train hard and I hadn't even gone for my first 20+ mile training run.

But there was this minor detail to the half-marathon in Iowa. I got tripped up at the start and fell. I reallly didn't think much of it until a few days later when I went for a long run. Halfway through the run, my right hamstring started spasming like crazy, a real painful kind of crazy. A trip to the doctor confirmed what I already knew: I had pulled my hamstring. But I hadn't put together (which he did) was that I pulled the hamstring by trying to break my fall at the Drake Relays and then getting up and running 13.1 miles at a 6:10 pace.

So the month of May was dedicated to resting and recovering. I lost a lot of confidence and my legs have felt out of sorts ever since. As a result, changed my goals and approach to the race.

Here were the three rules I made for myself going into the marathon:

Step 1. Make it to the half-way point in the marathon somewhere between 1:29 and 1:30.
Step 2. And at that point I would assess how I felt. If I felt okay, the least I could do is push myself to a sub 2:58, which would be my personal record (PR).
Main Goal: Run a negative split (which means running the last 13.1 miles faster than the first 13.1).

Let's see how I did...
Step 1: I reached the half-way point in 1:29:47
Step 2: My final time was, as I mentioned, 2:57:53
Main Goal: I ran the first 13.1 miles in 1:29:47, which means, my Texas math tells me, I ran the second 13.1 miles in 1:28:06.

Good job me!

So I am basically writing this post to brag about myself. I am not here to brag about how fast I went. Cripes. I got 174th freaking place. What I am proud of, however, is how I was able to set and reach realistic goals for myself. This race was a big deal for me.

First, I have always been able to this for any distance from 1500 to 8000 meters. However, this is the first time I nailed my goals for a marathon.

Secondly, my legs never felt right during the weeks leading up to Grandma's. And they didn't really feel loose during the marathon either. So I really had to grind this one out. My confidence and training were both compromised by my injury. So to PR under these circumstances is rewarding.

Lastly, I have a history with marathon training to set lofty goals, which is fine. But this is the first time I adapted and adjusted them to how I was feeling. In the past I would have stubbornly stuck to my original goals. The results when that has happened have not been pretty.

So my present goal is to see if I can do anything to get my legs back to feeling good again. Then I'll see what I can do at this fall's Twin Cities Ten Miler. Seems realistic to me.

The Zoo Crew

As Emily posted earlier, we got cats. She describes "getting cats" the same way one might describe getting the mumps or termites. And in fairness to Emily, she is the one who cleans the litter box, so I can see why she is less than thrilled to have them.

Fortunately for me, I have the cushy, glamorous job regarding los pinche gatos: I feed them. So the cats appreciate me as the food source and I don't have to pick up their poop. This explains why I am more forgiving of these cats' friskiness than Emily is. Actually, Nacho is pretty mellow. Toonces, not so much.

So I have a lot of catching up to do on this blog. I'll begin by posting some pictures of our two cats, Toonces and Nacho (they are sister and brother).


I think Toonces is on the left in this picture, and Nacho is on the right. Toonces is the smaller of the two. I wanted to name her Flaco, but Emily had naming rights on her.




Toonces and Nacho spend a lot of time together, be it playing, eating, sleeping, or just looking out the bedroom window wishing they were outdoor cats.




And it's good that the cats have each other. Because Pancho still commands most of our attention and definitely has the most toys.

Suddenly the San Antonio Dodgers Sounds Pretty Good

The close, very close, reader of this blog will notice the right column of this page lists books I've been reading, movies in my life, and restaurants I dine at. The absurdly close reader will note that these lists have not been updated for some time and are now obsolete.

Well, they have since been updated. One post I have been meaning to write about for some time comes from Baseball In the Lone State by Tom Kayser and David King. The obsessively close reader will remember that I was reading this book when I last blogged like two months ago. And as I said before, this book was edited by my sister. So mad props to her.

This book was a fun, easy read. But you have to be huge baseball fan to like it. Being a Texas fan, or a Texas baseball fan won't cut it. You have to be a huge fan of the sport in general.

That being said, one section of the appendix has something we can all enjoy: a catalog of all the teams have played in the Texas League. Keep in mind, this league dates back to 1888, so the odds are there were a lot of teams with ridiculous names. Even so, I was impressed by the quality and quantity of absurd names.

Here are the highlights.

Ardmore Rosebuds
Cleburne Railroaders
Corsicana Oil Citys (their spelling not mine)
Houston Babies
Houston Magnolias
Longview Cannibals
Paris Parisians
Paris Eisendelfer's Homeseekers
San Antonio Missionairies
San Antonio Gentlemen
Sherman Orphans
Sherman Students
Shreveport Gassers
Temple Boll Weevils
Texarcana Casket Makers
Wichata Falls Spudders

When I was growing up, the San Antonio team was the Dodgers. We are now called the Missions (not the Missionaries, mind you). I always thought it was funny to cram the name Dodgers onto a city like San Antonio (not exactly known for its cable cars). Kind of like the Utah Jazz. But then my friend pointed out San Antonio was no funnier than the Los Angeles Dodgers since there are no cable cars in LA either. I think I told him "two wrongs don't make a right dickweed."

I'm not sure who won that debate, but it may have been me. Afterall we were in like fourth or fifth grade, so closing my arument with the dickweed zinger was prettty powerful stuff.

First Things First

I know it's been a long time since I've blogged, so let start by getting something off my chest...

SPUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURS!!!!

My mom is a native of Akron, OH. But I will freaking disown her if'n she's pulling for the Cleveland Cadavers.

Random List #5

1. Favorite Noble Gas Argon

2. Least Favorite Noble Gas Radon

3. First Team I Ever Played On 1st grade soccer team. We were called The Recyclers.

4. Favorite Ice Cream Flavor Mint Chocolate Chip

5. Strongest Sign That I've Become A Midwesterner (aside from the fact that I have lived in the Midwest for 16 years if you include college and I love the Minnesota Twins) I refer to soft drinks as "pop" and no longer call them all "Coke."

6. Strongest Sign That I Will Never Be A Minnesotan (or "One of us" as they call each other up here) I will never ever refer to mint chocolate chip ice cream as "peppermint bon bon." You will find me using "borrow" and "lend" interchangeably before I ever say "peppermint bon bon." And for the uninitiated, there is a subset of Minnesotans who do use "borrow" to mean "lend" (as in "I'm gonna borrow him the book."). What the hell is wrong with you people?

7. Dumbest Thing I Can Remember Doing As A Kid I grew up in a very hilly neighborhood. At the bottom of one hill, on one side of the road, was a layer of loose gravel that was there for at least three years.

I always rode my bike home from school, rain or shine. As part of my grand finale of my daily sortie home, I would ride my bike to the top of the big hill. Then I would bike as fast I could down the hill, as fast as my toothpicks, I mean legs, could pump the pedals on my SX-2000 dirt bike. I would then bike through the gravel layer making sure to hit the breaks right when back tire hit the gravel. I could easily skid over 20 feet across the gravel patch when I did this.

The dumb part is that this hill I sped down was three blocks long. And the two intersections I sped through had stop signs intended for me. So for three years, rain or shine, on every school day, I took the risk of getting hit in, not one, but two intersections, all for the sake of skidding through gravel on my SX-2000. Granted, this was a sleepy residential neighborhood, but the law of averages state I should have been hit at least once over this three year period.

8. Biggest Piece of Irony In All This If I biked directly home from school, it would have been a two mile ride. But my mom had me double the length of my route. I had to bike an two extra miles out of my way so I could cross Broadway, a busy street, with a police officer crossing guard named Officer Hubbard. The danger of crossing Broadway at a traffic light WITHOUT Officer Hubbard was clearly too dangerous, so I had to bike all the way down Broadway to cross safely with officer. and then ten minutes later, of course, I was speeding through stop signs and skidding through gravel patches.

9. Number of Times I Cried In Front of Officer Hubbard One. In fourth grade someone stole my SX-2000 from in front of my mom's bookstore. Officer Hubbard was the first responding officer at the scene of the crime. When he asked me to explain what happened, in my own words, I started bawling because I could't believe my SX-2000 was gone. I don't know how he transcribed that into his police report, but he probably went something like this, "And then young Mr. Nawrocki said, 'Waaa fucking waa."

10. Biggest Reason Why I Break Into A Cold Sweat When I Think About What It Would Be Like To Have A Child Of My Own See Item #7.

Blognation: Will The Madness End?

Another link to add to the blog canon. Are you still out there Rachel? I ask because the last time you blogged there were some people who still thought Pluto was a planet and Mike Hatch would be an awesome choice for governor of Minnesota.

Anyway, Rachel got Emily and then me into blogging many moons ago. I would like to think that Emily and I have since influenced the inception of a few other blogs, including the latest entry to my links section, Life by the Falls.

So is this blog for you? Well, I would say at least one of the following is true for 90% of the people who read this blog (so that would, ummm, 4.5 people):

1. You presently live in Texas or have Texas roots.
2. You presently live in Minnesota.
3. You are a runner.
4. You take pride in your neighborhood.

If any of these are true for you, then Life by the Falls is a blog for you!

It is written by my friend Nathan and, as of press time, every post he has made is about running, Minneapolis neighborhoods, and Texas. So there is something for everyone.

Nathan has made an anonymous cameo on my blog before. Back in November I talked about the tranquility of running with a friend at 5 a.m. It all sounded so ideal at the time. What I left out of the post is that repeated running at 5 a.m. left me with too-tight hamstrings and a strong feeling of sleep deprivation. So we abandoned the 5 a.m. routine.

But the identity anonymous friend from this post can now be revealed as Nathan, since he now has a blog of his own.

Pooh's War On Pride: The Battle Rages On

I hope this post settles this debate about whether or not Pooh Bear is cute or not once and for all.

I was cleaning up the waiting room at work a few days ago. Parents will often "donate" their old books and toys to our waiting room. And by donate I mean bring their old crap that their kids don't use anymore and leave it in our waiting room for others to use. Not exactly philanthropy at its finest, but I will admit, it beats throwing these items away.

So imagine my horror as I came across this book cover.



No pants. A shirt three sizes too small to cover his beer belly. Honey all over his face and belly. A spilled honey pot on the ground. The whole scene reminds me of a few lines from James McMurtry's song, "Peter Pan."

Beer cans to the ceiling
Ashtray on the floor
Laundry on the sofa
Need I say more?

And if you look inside the book it just gets worse.




First we have to watch Pooh raid Rabbit's honey collection like a kid in a candy store. But now we have to witness this?



Three words:

Have

Some

Pride.

Home Improvements

Even the most unobservant will notice that I have changed the look and features of my blog. I have discarded my three year-old template and added some new features.

Backblog, the website I was using for comments has had some issues, as you may have noticed, over the past week. So I am going to use Blogger from now on to host my comments. The advantages are there is no longer a 200 charachter limit, and Backblog would occasionally have its problems (like it is right now). But it was a free site, so I won't complain.

One thing that was nice about Backblog was not once did I get a spam comment. So now you will have to do a word verification to comment, to keep those damn Spam comments from showing up. Also, you can log into Blogger to post, which may discourage those of you who don't have a Blogger account. But if you don't have a Blogger account, you can still comment. However, unless you identify yourself in your comment, you'll be shown as anonymous.

I also added TV Snacks, finally, to my links.

Dissertation Inspiration

One of the things I have learned in the six years that Emily has been studying Epidemilogy is that there are millions of ways to analyze and present data.

As Emily enters the home stretch of her dissertation, I suggest she find a way to present her statistics like this guy did.

It's pretty cool. Click here to see for yourself.

Back in White

Holy crap. That last post I did about the five weirdest things that happened to me was my 400th post. That's a lot of posting. However, the close follower of this blog will note that none of these 400 posts have occured over the past week or so.

Our computer was at the Apple store getting a new disc drive. This was something we planned to do in like November. Anyway, the good news is now I can play this game again. And I can get back to blogging.

The biggest news over the week that I was without computer is it snowed an absurd amount. Yesterday I went for a run with some friends, and one of the guys I was running with mentioned how snow is like cocaine for dogs.

Hmmmm, with insight like that, you figured he'd be blogging more, instead of relying on me to quote him.

Anyway, the picture below is one I snapped today of Pancho. As you can see, snow does indeed seem to make dogs go loco.




And this picture is one of the icicles hanging off our roof. Clearly we have an ice dam. I am so glad we got a new roof last year. Newer roofs have a liner underneath them keep the water from ice dams at bay.



As an aside, is roof the only noun that ends in an "f" that does not assume the "ves" ending (like "hooves" and "lives")? I can't think of any other word like it.

But, as per usual, I digress. Clearly too much heat is escaping from our upstairs. Do you think our dormers, and upstairs in general, could use some more insulation?

Seeing as how it took us over three months to get the disc drive in the computer repaired, I reckon we'll get the ice dam situation under control sometime around when we, as a nation, elect a non-white woman as President.

Back to School

Leave it to someone in the education industry to actually give me a homework assignment for my blog. So Jocelyn has assigned me to write a meme. Like she said, a meme is basically a blog chain letter. I feel like I'm back in college again, trying to get a paper done at the last minute.



But I try to be a good sport, so I will do this meme that she "tagged" me with. The problem I have with this has nothing to do with the concept of a meme. The issue I have is with this particular meme's topic: Six Weird Things That Have Happened To Me. Nothing too weird has really ever happened to me.

I have a very enjoyable but stable life. I haven't hung out with the drummer from Huey Lewis and the News in an elevator. No one has ever come up to me, bleeding from the eyes and asked me if I had a map of Idaho he could borrow. So the six weird things I can think of may seem, shall we say, less than freaky.

So you can read this post standing up. You don't need to worry about having to change your underwear when your done. And there will be no cases of slackjaw at the end of this post.

Jocelyn is a writing teacher, so she should appreciate themes. Since the bulk of my posts as of late have been about Texas and running, I am going to try to confine all the weird shit that has happened to me to these two topics. And to really suck up to the teacher, I will begin with a story that took place in Duluth.

So I hope all this will prevent Jocelyn from docking me ten points for turning my meme in late. Away we go...

1. I ran my first marathon, Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, back in 1999. Until then, I was a former middle to long distance runner. I had never even raced anything longer than an 8k, much less 26.2 miles. Having taken five years off from running, I was unaware that polyester, in the form of CoolMax, had made a comeback. I figured if a cotton t-shirt worked for me back in college, it would certainly work for me now.

It turns out I was wrong. Cotton may work for an eight mile run. It does not work in a marathon.

One of the things that truly disgusts me about marathons is the bloody nipples that so many men get. And it turns out there are products like performance gear and body glide that help prevent nipples from bleeding.

Open letter to Lord: May all future men who run a marathon, including me, be aware of these products. Amen.

So back to 1999. I finished Grandma's in a t-shirt that happened to have the University of Wisconsin logo on it. Rookie error. I did not go to Wisconsin. I can't tell you anything about Wisconsin sports, other than they're pretty good. And I have never been to Madison for more than a few hours, where the university is. But for 26.2 miles, crazed spectators shouted "GO WISCONSIN!" at me. One woman even broke into the Wisconsin fight song as I went by.

So clearly this shirt was a poor choice. After I finished the race, I loitered about the post-race area. I was in a bad mood because, well, running 26.2 miles will do that to you. So I was getting more and more pissed off at all the guys walking around with their shirts still on, stained with nipple blood. I wanted to grab each guy and yell, "HAVE SOME FREAKING PRIDE WILL YOU??? CHANGE YOUR SHIRT!! YOU ARE GROSSING EVERYONE OUT!!!"

About thirty minutes after the race, I was sitting with Emily and some other friends, when I said I was going to get some ice cream. A friend of mine said, "Don't you want to change your shirt first?" And everyone laughed.

I assumed this was because of the damn Wisconsin logo, but you, gentle reader know better. Sure enough, when I looked down, I saw it. Two gushot wounds to the chest.

There I was, one of those disgisting male marathoners with a white shirt and bloody nipples. Have some pride.

It is a very weird feeling to look at your own shirt and realize you have become what you despise.

2. When I was in high school, my sister went to college in Rhode Island. I visited a few times, which was fun. One of the highlights was going to Boston and Fenway Park to watch a Boston Red Sox game. During one of our sorties to Fenway, a girl started shouting my name. "Damn yall," I thought, "I even got it on the East Coast. I'm such a lady's man the lasses even know me in Boston." But I turned around and it was some girl from my high school. "Not so cool," I thought, "That girl is kind of annoying."

About six years later, when I was in college, my friend and I went on a road trip during the summer. We went to a lot of baseball games on this trip. One of them was to Fenway Park. We drank a lot of beer before we got there. We sat in the bleachers and drank more beer. I tried to teach a kid how to keep score. He ended up correcting everything I was telling him. I drank more beer and decided it was time to go to the bathroom.

As I was washing my hands, I looked over to the guy washing his hands next to me, and it was a guy I went to high school with.

Fenway Park in Boston is clearly is the place for me to see how my high school classmates from San Antonio are doing. Maybe we should have our 20 year reunion in the men's restroom of the Fenway bleachers.

3. Speaking of San Antonio back when I was in college, I was running on a stretch of road on Vandiver. You know where I'm talking about. By the old Kroger that had the Ms. PacMan, the Little Ceasar's, and the check cashing place, just past the Austin Highway.

This was the summer of 1991. It was 5 p.m. in August. with triple digit heat and humidity. So all I had on was my running short, socks, and shoes.

A guy sitting on his bike on the shoulder of the road stopped me, addressed me as sir, and asked me if I had any cigarrettes.

Uh yeah, Lance Armstrong, I take a smoke break every mile. I stash my Marlboros in my underwear and I pull them out all sexy-like. You know like a sultry woman who keeps her driver's licence in her cleavage (I'm thinking of a movie like Cannonball Run). Only my cigarettes are drenched in ass sweat, but help yourself, Lance.

Fast forward to a week later: same time, same place, same attire, same run, same weather. As I was crossing the Vandiver/Austin Highway intersection, a guy in a Suburban honked his horn and waved to me. I thought it must have been one my friend's dad, so I waved back. Eventually he got through the light, and caught up to me, at the same spot where the guy asked me for cigarettes.

But this guy asked me if I had something else I wanted to give him. Actually, he wanted to give me something, and, um, well, it involved, well, what he offered carried the assumption that I was a) gay and b) into hooking up with random strangers I see at the fabled Austin Highway/Vandiver intersection.

Gross. Not for the "gay" part, so much as for the "asking random strangers who run across Austin Highway part for sex" part.

I declined, and realized this guy was not my friend's dad, afterall.

What the hell was up with the Austin Highway/Vandiver intersection back in the summer of 1991?

4. Speaking of running in San Antonio, we'll call this The Ballad of Israel Flores, as it takes up items 4 and 5.

Israel was a rival of mine back in high school cross country. His school, Edgewood, was in my district (Minnesotans call them conferences) and was part of The Lamest Race Ever Won In A Cross Country Meet In the History of Time. This historic event occured in I think 1987 and was won by yours truly.

I was a sophomore and had a pretty good chance to win the race. But only because the best runner in the district, my teammate Cuatro, was in the state tennis tournament. Even without Cuatro we had a good enough team to advance to the Regional Meet, so this was an ideal, no-pressure situation for a second-fiddle guy like me to actually win.

The first two miles of the course were very hilly, and on a narrow path that ran through the woods. The last mile was flat and fast and finished on the 50 yard-line of Edgewood High School football field.

My coach figured most of the other good runners would take off too fast, as they would be preoccupied about getting packed in, away from the lead. Our plan was for me to sit in the weeds, and really run aggressively for the second half. And I did just that. At about 1.5 miles, I started passing all the usual suspects.

Johnnie Black, look at the back of my shoes. Ortho Mendez, you are now in my rearview mirror. And then I surged past Luis Ruiz right as we got out of the foilage of the first two miles. With Cuatro gone making like Bjorn Borg, that was everone left in the race I had to worry about.

But as I came past my coach in the open field he started yelling, "You're in second place! Keep surging!"

Sure thing Coach, easy for you to say. Apparently you can yell without that nagging feeling of oxygen debt. Wait! Huh? Second place?

"WHAT? WHO?!?!?" I shouted back.

"I don't know. Some guy from Edgewood. Just go get him!"

Again, easy for you to say. Sure enough, now that we were out in the open, rather than the One Acre Woods, I could see a guy in a red unifrom running all by himself. Oops.

And that was my introduction to Israel Flores.

So with less than a mile to go, and a 200 yard lead, this race is Israel's to lose. And lose it he did, no thanks to me.

I chased after him, just enough to find that balance between running hard enough to keep my coach off my back, and not so hard that my heart would explode in the name of a race that was already decided.

So I made an ostensible attempt to catch Isreal as we entered the stadium and did our half lap around the track before running through the field goal posts en route to the 50 yard line. I was maybe 100 yards back as he made it to the goal posts, and he had 70 yards to go.

"Well played, Israel," I thought, "This was your home course, and you knew how to run it."

Or did he? Either Israel decided to run his victory lap before actually finishing, or he didn't know his home course afterall. He made like Charlie Brown and kept running around the track, after the goal posts. Edgewood coaches and fans were screaming at him to turn around and go through the goal posts.

I saw this and found my fifth gear. Like a cat, I cheaply pounced on that dying bird. I sprinted through the goal posts ten yards ahead of Isreal, who had finally doubled back, and I sprinted to the glory that was the district title for whatever district we belonged to.

So there you have it. The Lamest Victory Ever. In fact, it's a Trinity of Lameness. I beat a guy who ran 5200 meters to my 5000. I didn't even know he existed until my coach told me with less than a mile to go. And the best runner by far wasn't even there that day.

And here is the weird part. After the awards ceremony, I walked past some guy from another school. "Man! Awesome job!" Evidently he was running the race too, and had no idea just how cheap that victory was.

5. That was my sophomore year. By the time I was a senior, Israel many opportunities to avenge his loss. With the playing field level (i.e. he doesn't spot me 200 meters), we had some pretty good races and I'd guess we were pretty even. But then I was hit with shock and devastation when I read in the paper one night that Israel Flores was shot and killed in gang related violence near Edgewood High School. This completely conflicted with the Israel I had known for over three years.

This was awful. I talked with my friend Cuatro and my coach about it. I talked to my mom about it. We decided the best thing to do was just to send flowers to the family and not do anything more grandiose. The pain was palpable.

But then my coach called me 48 hours later and told me my rival, Israel Flores the runner is alive and well. Sadly, another Israel Flores, a football player was the one who was shot and killed. It turns out Edgewood had not just these two, but three Israel Floreses. So it was with a lot of guilt that I felt relieved that one Israel Flores was okay, even if that another one's life had to end so tragically and unnecesarrily short.

And it was strange all year to race Israel, and try to beat him every time I faced him, after mourning his death, Tom Sawyer style, for 48 hours.

6. In college cross country on the Fridays before a big race, we'd go for a casual three to five mile jaunt around campus for practice. We called these Campus Loops. Sometimes we'd run through the library. Or the dining hall. Or the dorms.

One time Soul Asylum was on campus to do a Friday night show. So as part of our Campus Loop we ran through the buidling that housed the hall/lounge where they'd be playing that night. Soul Asylum happened to being doing their sound check as we ran by.

The lead singer, I want to say his name is Dave Pirner, saw us and said into his microphone, "Hey look. It's the jogging team."

So there you have it. Six weird things that have happened to me in Texas and/or while running. I hope I get a better grade on this than I did on most of my college essays. And I hope it was a little more interesting.

Conversation With A Kid With Asperger Syndrome #1

At work I see a lot of kids with Asperger Syndrome and some high functioning autistic kids. The bulk of what I work on with these kids is social skills. If you want to know more about Asperger Syndrome, wikipedia has a pretty good entry about it.

Or you can just go to Silicon Valley and meet the locals. Then you see the syndrome up close and personal with every person you meet. Even cheaper, rent Napoloean Dynamite. That movie is an outright celebration of Asperger Syndrome.

Anyway, here is a conversation I had with a high school senior today who has Apserger Syndrome.

Kid: "What did you do this weekend?" We have worked long and hard on how to start a conversation using an appropriate question.

Me: "Well let's see. It was pretty cold, so I stayed indoors a lot. I watched some movies and the Super Bowl of course."

It is now the kid's job to ask a follow-up question based on what I said. As you will see, he jumped the gun and transitioned to what he was dying to talk about. But at least he used a transition. It was a clumsy transition, however. We are still working on how to smoothly transition from one topic to another.

Kid: "Hmmm. Hey speaking of TV, do you watch Family Matters?"

Me: "Wait. I thought we were talking about my weekend. You need to find a smoother way to get to your topic of choice. and be patient." All the while, I'm thinking, "WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!? Family Matters? Was that the show from like 15 years ago with Urkel? Well my question was about to be answered.

Kid: "I know. I know. Sorry, but I couldn't help myself. It's just there is this show Family Matters, and it has this guy Urkel and he is HILARIOUS!! He's SO FUNNY!!! He's a genius."

Me: "Excuse me. Did you just say Urkel is a genius?"

Kid: "Well a comic genius. Can I show you my impersentation of him?" This is progress. Last month he would have broken into his Urkel routine without asking first. Now he knows better.

Me: "No."

Masters of the Obvious... UNITE!!

I am about to leave for work. How many times do you think I will have to talk to someone about how cold it is today? I'll keep track, but I'm guessing it will be 21 before it's all said and done.

Because, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, it's kind of cold today.

Random List #4

Favorite Cereal Cinnamon Life

First Job I Ever Had Bagging groceries at the HEB on Broadway (now a Central Market HEB) in San Antonio for $3.35/hour. I had to wear a bow-tie and a red and white pin striped short-sleeved shirt.

Pets I Had As A Kid
Six different dogs of varying lifespans: Tigger, Puppy, Lobo, some black dog who died young, Max, and Shakie.

Five cats all with long lifespans: Mama Kitty, Don Gato, Gatsby, Hairy, and Mr. Kitty Man.

Five ducks who ate all of our grass in the backyard: Two white ducks whose names I forgot, a nasty South American duck named Koa, and two ducks that were the spawn of Koa and the white ducks. As a result, they had black and white spots.
They were named Stealer and Moo. Skunky and Spot were two other ducks but they died young at the mercy lf Lobo's teeth.

One lab rat: Squeaky.

First Concert I Ever Went To Flock of Seagulls--several years AFTER they were relevant for their song I Ran.

The One Thing I Went To As A Kid That Is More Ridiculous Than A Flock of Seagulls Concert Pro wrestling, repeatedly.

Favorite Board Game I Never Get To Play Balderdash.

Least Favorite Game I Always Seem to End Up Playing Boggle.

Animal That Freaks Me Out the Most Octopus

Most Pointless Food Corn-Nuts

Fact About Me that Surprises People the Most As youngster, probably right around when I was three, my family lived in Manhattan for a year or so. I don't remember much about it, but I'm pretty sure it was the Manhattan that is in New York City.

A Banana On The House

Someone very very closely associated with this site has a new website. He puts the name of your website on a banana, if self-promotion is your thing.

Luckily, I must have friends in high places. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across my very on blog being being publicized on a banana. Click here to see for yourself. It's more fun than a barrel of monkeys. You don't know how many times I have typed and deleted that lame joke, before deciding to include it.

Now before the good people at banananame.com come knocking on my door to collect some money, let me just say I have a plan to repay Mr. Deets for the free publicity. I have a specific idea in mind. But I need to be in the right place to do it. So I will find a way to return the free publicity. It's just a question of when, not if.

Did I Leave the Iron On?

One last post of Lake Nokomis, and then I'll be done until July with mentioning that lake on this blog. Why July, you ask? Because that's when the lake gets so hot, all the fish die and wash up on shore. Hard to imagine that scene, since right now the lake looks like this...



Mister Wizard, I ain't. So exactly how the water froze as a shelf of ice, hanging over the land is beyond me. But this is how the north shore of Lake Nokomis looks right now, and will until spring. So you have plenty of time to check it out for yourself.

But back to my reason for even talking about Lake Nokomis. I spend many Sundays going for an easy run around this lake. Since Labor Day, I have probably run past the northeast beach 15 times.



However, it wasn't until last month that I ever actually read the sign. And since then, it's always made me laugh. And if you read the sign for yourself, you will just how easily I'm amused.

I took these pictures yesterday, when it was somewhere between zero and two degrees with the wind chill. Tonight we have a windchill of -7.

I like to think that on a night like tonight, somewhere in south Minneapolis there is a teenager who had a summer job as a lifeguard on Lake Nokomis. As he watches American Idol, or updates his myspace page, he thinks to back to the glory of summer, when the lake was warm and he had an easy job.

As he sips on his hot chocolate, spiked with Bailey's he swiped from his dad's liquor cabinet, he thinks of his last day on the job, Labor Day.



Let's see, I took the buoys and rope out of the water. I cleared off all the benches. I cleared the beach of debris. I wiped down the lifeguard chair. My cushiony seat, sunscreen, and whistle are in storage. The rowboat is out of the water and I turned it upside down, with the oars INSIDE the boat this time. I don't want to make that mistake twice. Yikes was Peterson mad at me. But why do I still have this nagging feeling that's been with me for the last four and a half months?



OH CRAP!! I don't remember changing the sign on the beach to say BEACH CLOSED! Shithouse mouse! Or whatever it is kids say these day when pissed off. Old Man Peterson is never gonna hire me again!