EXTRA EXTRA! Read All About It!

"Country Mike" Runs a Race and Lines Up Next to Two Women Who Are More Interesting than He Is

It is usually not good to have your picture on the front page of the Local News section of a major city's newspaper. Your picture is usually run next to a story about how you just got caught for a string of bank robberies, were murdered by a roving gang of juvenile transvestites on crystal meth, are a sleezy politician who tried to make-out with George Bush, or are at the center of some scandal.

So it was a bit unsettling to be all cozy in our bed this morning, reading the Sunday paper, open up the Local News section and BOOM! see my picture. Allow me to explain.

Yesterday I ran the Frozen Half Marathon in St. Paul, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran a nice story about it.

The story is on the front page of today's Local News section, below the fold. The bulk of the story is about two women who are going to be running in a marathon in Antarctica next month. Pretty cool.

One of the women has lost 150 pounds over the years, thanks to running, and is now a Boston marathon qualifier. She was also featured in the Star-Tribune during the week leading up to last October's Twin Cities marathon.

And if you do get the paper, you will also see there is a picture of the two ladies lined up next to me. Minutes before the race they kind of budged their way to the front, which people often do. Usually this is kind of annoying, but when I saw they were having their picture taken, I realized they were somehow part of a story. The picture is not on the web version of the story.

But click here to read it. You'll be glad you did.

As an aside, I did set a PR the at half-marathon yesterday. Seeing as I've only run three, this is not that big of a deal. Click here for the results.

The close reader of the results will note that I missed winning the 35-39 age group by only one place! And the closer reader will also note that even though I was only one place behind my age-group winner, he did happen to be 62 seconds ahead of me.



Emily snapped this picture of me with about a quarter of a mile to go. If it looks cold out there, that's because it was.

Next up: Training for Grandma's Marathon. Unfortunately, this morning I woke up with a slightly numb right butt cheek. Not good. It can be a hallmark sign of piriformis syndrome. Either way, I can still train through it, if I'm smart.

I sure hope I can keep training. I need all the training I can get. My goal is to break 2:50 at Grandma's, and then I can say I'm almost as fast as this guy.

Winter Magic

Minnesotans, I have found, believe the ways to stay warm in the winter are more fun than the ways to stay cool in the summer. Of course, I have a clan of Texas relatives who will tell you otherwise. Floating down the river, cold beer, swimming at the lake... Sure all of these things are fun. But I am learning to enjoy the winters here in Minnesota (ten years later) and have found that there are a lot of fun ways to stay warm. Best of all, most require you to be physically active. Consider...


Squirrel hunting.




Running.




Hiking.




Bird watching.




Biking.




Hockey/Skating/Broomball/Boot Hockey/Any Other Ice Sport That Requires Balance Skills That My Cerebellum Is Obviously Incapable of Providing




Ice Fishing On A Frozen Lake (notice, I said most, not ALL activities to stay warm require physical activity). I blew this photo up, hence the poor focus. For those of you not from Minnesota, that big blue auger is how you punch a hole in the ice so you can fish. Seems like heavy machinery to operate, considering how much beer drinking you do while ice fishing.




Snowmobiles. Okay, I know these are cars on a bridge, but it's the closest picture I had of snowmobiles. And really, aren't cars and snowmobiles really one and the same? They are to me.




Cross Country Skiing and Snowshoeing




Playing with Your Toys. Be it a football, snow softball (those crazy kids and their false sense of invinvibility), snowballs, or in Pancho's case, a shitload of stuffed animals. He has this habit of taking one toy outside each time I let him out to chase squirrels (real or imagined). Then he dumps the toy on the deck, and leaves it there. As a result, by the end of the week, all of his toys have piled up in the same spot outside. He then wanders around inside all week, wondering where the heck all his favorite toys went. Dogs are kind of stupid.





And last but not least, staying at home...




...and drinking beer. Did I mention that not ALL warm activities require PHYSICAL activity. One man's winter den is an ice fishing shanty, while another man's is a room with a TV, a wife, and a DVD player.

So, what is your favorite way to stay warm in the cold?

Question for the Masses

And by masses I mean the three of you who read this blog.

The question is, do I revive this blog? Or do I put it out to pasture?

Does this Dog Make My Neck Look Fat?

Last Sunday Pancho and I went for a light jog around Lake Nokomis. I took my camera along because it was snowing and wanted to get some pictures of my favorite part of the Twin Cities running trails. And for you locals, that would be the stretch of Minnehaha Parkway between Minnehaha Falls and Lake Nokomis.

In addition, Lake Nokomis was hosting the national pond hockey championships and I was hoping to get some good pictures. But I have learned I don't do to well taking pictures of things that move. Especially when they're on skates and zipping around like ten Tasmanian Devils.

So at the end of the run, I decided to take a picture of Pancho and me. With all respects to Charles Schultz, happiness can also be a cold puppy.

Novel Sentence?

A fun game I used to play, before I married someone who found my fun games to be very annoying was, "Is This A Novel Sentence, Or Not?" I have a friend, we'll call him The Doctor, who insists that it is irresponsible to claim a sentence you say or wrote is novel, and has never before been produced in the history of time. He is, literally, a math genius, and believes that statistically speaking, the probabilty is always present that any sentence you create has been created before. If you try to make up a sentence, he will provide you with a context for that sentence.

Now, anyone who took Linguistics 101 will know that one of the defining features of language as opposed to any other form of communication is that a single language utterance/gesture/production (i.e. a sentence) can be infinite in length. Also, the possible language utterances/gestures/productions (i.e. sentences) one do are also infinte. Therefore, there are infinity sentences that have never been said.

Even so, The Doctor says we have no way of knowing which oddball sentences have been said/written before, and which ones have not.

I offer the follwoing sentence: "The only difference between a lampshade and the space shuttle is Max Headroom." This is a properly construced English sentence (though quite awkward) and therefore, according to The Doctor, I cannot claim it is novel. He believes the probability that someone else has produced it is just too high.

And on to my main point: I just got off the phone with a friend of mine. We'll call him Zandypants. During the course of our conversation, Zandypants said, "Yeah, fuck my art shanty." The context of this sentence is not relevant. Trust me, it made sense in context.

But this was a historic statement in that I am pretty sure it is a novel sentence. How can anyone have possibly said this before?

I could argue that Zandypants' desire to have his art shanty, er, fucked, is novel and therefore backs up my claim that because there are infinity unsaid sentences, and we can say with confidence that no one else has uttered such a request. I mean seriously, an "art shanty?" Wanting one's own art shanty to have sexual relations? Give me a break; that is a novel sentence. How about a little dose of common sense, The Doctor?

But this claim alone could support The Doctor's argument that there is a context for every single possible sentence, given that this one occured. So it is therefore impossible to claim that any sentence is novel. I don't agree, but I do appreciate the logic.

Who is right?

Snake Farm--It Just Sounds Nasty

Snake Farm--Well it pretty much is.

If you grew up in San Antonio, you spent a lot of your childhood going north on I-35 out of town. This is because this is how you get to New Braunfels, the Guadalupe River, and Austin. And this means you spent a lot of time driving past the Snake Farm outside of New Braunfels.

I went the Snake Farm once, in high school with some friends, and we all agreed that was one time too many.



And this summer Texas singer/songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard put out an album called Snake Farm. And the lead track shares the album's name. So I asked to get this album for Christmas, and my brother-in-law Jake came through.

The first thing that popped into my mind was, "The Snake Farm has been an institution since 1967 and it took almost 40 years for someone to write a song about it? That's surprising."

Many of Ray Wylie Hubbard's song have a blues quality to them, which means these songs often get stuck in your head. The song Snake Farm is one of these songs. But the beauty is, in this case, I am not annoyed by having his songs in my head. Rather, I just want to listen to his songs more and more.

Click here for the lyrics.

So I played this song this morning at 7 a.m. as I was eating my breakfast and have been hearing the song in my head ever since.

I also like the end of the song ("And we... you know...it's a snake farm"). Ray Wylie Hubbard is very funny.

The final thing about this song is it is a pretty accurate description of the vibe and mood of the Snake Farm. I just wish Ray Wylie Hubbard had written that song back in 1989. Then I could have just listened to his song to know what the Snake Farm was like. Instead I went and checked it out for myself and just felt kind of dirty and very depressed for about three days afterwards.

L-I-V-I-N

Is there home comfort that beats this on a cold winter night?

Jammie pants. A long sleeve shirt. A warm bed.

That's how I roll.

Random List #3

Favorite Bean Black refried.

Favorite Track and Field Event to Watch 800 m run.

Least Favorite Track Race to Run 800 m run.

Favorite Drink I Never Drink Hot chocolate.

Favorite Pencil to Paper Game Sudoku. I wish I could make like Rush and deviate from the norm here, but sudoku is too much fun.

Least Favorite Pencil to Paper Games Mazes. Sure I appreciate that some mazes are works of art, but I can think of nothing more boring or frustrating than the maze as an activity. Maybe that's because my visual-spatial skills are pathologically bad. I mean, I could probably qualify for some Occupational Therapy services. That being said...

Fictitious Person I Imagine Probably Exists That I Most Want to Meet Someone who is really into mazes. Is there someone out there who, as an adult is mad crazy about mazes? I'm talking about the sort of fella who would call himself a "maziac" and has a maize colored t-shirt that says "That's A-MAZE-ing!" Surely there is a group of people passionate about mazes in a Wordplay sort of way and constitute a maze fanatic subculture. I want to meet one of those people.

And by the way, Emily can verify, one of my most annoying (to her) habits is to think of fictitious people and ask her if they exist. Like, "Do you think there is someone out there who is really good at clapping? Like so good at it that he can pick up girls at concerts just by clapping between songs?" I think these questions warrant discussion. Emily does not. But the point is, out of all the people I have thought up, I really want to meet this maze guy more than any of the other fictitious people.

Biggest Determinant In Choosing a Fruit to Eat Ease of eating. I like the taste of pineapples and oranges a lot more than bananas and apples. But I eat twenty bananas and apples for every orange or apple I eat. This is why clementines rock!

Most Beautiful Animal Tigers.

Strunk and White Manual of Style Rule I Break Consciously the Most Frequently for My Own Selfish Stylistic Purposes Capiltalizing and putting periods at the end of a fragment.

Partying Like It's 1999

Back in the 20th century, I did a lot of cooking. A lot of it was because it was my job, but I also spent a lot of time cooking for myself. However, since then, I met and married Emily, and we have developed a routine that smacks of a traditional marriage. And by that I mean she cooks every night. But I am still a 21st century, sensitive new-age guy. So part of our arrangement is I always do the dishes.

This works out really well because Emily and I both agree she is a great cook, I tend to cook only things with meat, Emily hates doing the dishes and somehow is very bad cleaning them, and when I cook we sometimes end up eating at 9 p.m. But with Emily cooking our meals are more punctual, healthier, more varied, and lighter than if I was cooking.

But, I was inspired by Thirty Day Challenges taking place at The Deets' household in the Lake-8 Neighborhood of Minneapolis. So I am trying it out myself. I have challenges for January through April figured out, and will post them along with May and June, a la Deets, once I get May and June figured out.

But January's challenge has been to cook a Sunday meal, a huge dish that will have tons of leftovers. I failed to do this last Sunday, but did it today.

So today I made this pork chile verde recipe. I doubled the recipe.



I was skeptical of how it would turn out while the witch's brew simmered. But I remembered to give the food our usual blessing ("Hope it doesn't suck."). And the dish ended up being exactly as I hoped. The meat was tender, the sauce spicy, but not so spicy it drowned out the tangy goodness of the tomatillos. As an aside, only once have I neglected to bless a dish I have made with "Hope it doesn't suck." And, Emily will back me up here, this was the one time something I made really sucked.

But I digress. I think Emily liked the chile I made Sunday, just not as much as I did. But as you may predict, she found it a bit too meaty and greasy. What a pansy-ass Minnesotan she is. I'm joking of course.

And the best part for me is, tonight Emily has to clean up the kitchen and wash the dishes.

Putting the Balls Back In Football

Each sport has its image problem. Most are plagued by some combination of steroids, recreational drugs, prima donnas, spoiled gigillionaires, corrupt judges, and criminal behavior. But soccer not only has all that to contend with. It also has the issue of its players acting the biggest damn sissies this side of men's synchronized swimming. It looks like FIFA is finally admitting this is a problem.

Click here for the whole story.

Here is some of the text.

At this World Cup, the deplorable habit that involves players staying down for no apparent reason after minor collisions, thus causing frequent breaks in play, was increasingly in evidence," said the report of the FIFA Technical Committee.

Hasn't this been going for, I don't know, decades? But I guess I shouldn't complain. At least now maybe they'll find a way to put a stop to the drama queen behavior.

Life Is Beautiful

Last night Emily came home from our neighborhood wine bar with a friend of ours, DC. I had opted to be anti-social for the night and watch the Dallas Cowboys playoff game at home and by myself. For those of you who are not one of my parents or sisters, you may not appreciate the degree to which I used to live and die by the Dallas Cowboys as a youngster. Imagine my crazed love for the Spurs and multiply that by ten, and that is how much of a Cowboys fan I was.

But last night, Emily and DC came in and watched the last three minutes of the game with me. And if you don't know what happened, I'll just summarize by saying it was a wacky game and a wacky ending. The Cowboys quarterback completely choked and fumbled the ball at the end and lost the game for the team.

Anyway, my point to all this is how little I cared. DC, who is a big Colts fan and knows way more about sports than I would have imagined kept saying she felt bad for me and Tony Romo (the guy on the Cowboys who choked at the end--not the guy who owns a chain of barbecued ribs restaurants).

I mean I was disappointed and I'm sure I said, "Oh crap" or something. But that was it. Apathy and perspective sunk in immediately. I mean I didn't even feel bad for Tony Romo. Hero or goat, he is still being paid obscene amounts of money to play a game.

The bottom line though is last night's game did not affect my emotional well-being at all. I still have a great house, have the best wife ever, a good job, live in an awesome neighborhood, have a quality family, family-in-law, a good group of friends, and I am healthy. If Tony Romo bobbles a snap on field goal attempt, that doesn't change any of that.

Of course the real test of this newfound, healthy perspective will happen in May. That's when the Spurs begin their playoff march.

The Visual Elite Need Not Reply

This question is for all you contact lens wearers who use the microwave frequently. Which would be easier for you to give up for life? Your microwave or your contact lenses? Or how about your cell phone vs. your contact lenses?

For me, in either case, it's definitely contact lenses. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that contact lenses are among my top ten valued inventions of the 20th century. I also need the car, the airplane, the internets, the furnace, the air conditioner, the gas stove, the CD, the running shoe, and the computer. You give me those things and my contact lenses, and I could do without the tv and all them moving pictures.

Random Thought #6701

Who exactly is it that buys nudie magazines from the airport newsstands?

I have a routine when I fly that began when I regularly flew between Des Moines and San Antonio in college. To this day, I always go to the ATM, take out my requisite cash for the trip and then go buy a Sports Illustrated. Reading this magazine is pure indulgence so I save and savor it for when I have to fly.

Not surprisingly, Sports Illustrated is with all the other "men's" magazines, like Car and Driver, Muscle and Fitness, a lot of sports magazines, and, on the top row, a collection of nudie magazines that would make the Encyclopedia Britannica proud, in terms of comprehensiveness and organization.

And part of my routine is to marvel over all the selections and how one goes about choosing one magazine over another. Are the differences between Playboy and Penthouse as subtle and nuanced as the differences between Running Times and Runner's World (or Newsweek vs. Time)? Or are the stakes higher and more polar? Is it like choosing between FOX news and, well, anything else besides FOX news?

And this seems like a strange place to contemplate this because I'm in an airport, not Sex World or SuperAmerica.

And this brings me back to my original point. Who on God's green earth is buying these magazines in the airport? And why? They have been there for as long I have been regularly flying, so clearly there is a market for Playboy in the airport, otherwise they would have been pulled from the shelves a long time ago.

Is there a whole sub-type in the Annoying Traveler category that I've been missing here? I mean we've all had to sit by any of the following: screaming baby, smelly man, obese person, grunter/snorer, the conversationalist, Mr. Cell Phone, and (this one was new for me on the last trip) a girl with a small dog/rat in her purse.

But has anyone had to sit by "the crazed porn addict who can't go two hours without seeing a naked lady so he had to buy a Penthouse from the Lake Woebegone Newsstand in Terminal C of the MSP Airport"? Because I haven't. Have you ever sat next to someone who spent the whole flight from Chicago to Denver studying the dimensions of Miss February's centerfold? Again, I haven't. So if Porn Addict is indeed a new kind of Annoying Traveler, I have yet to meet him.

So I ask again, who in the hell is buying all these magazines? And why?

Texas Rules: Reasons # 218937-218943

Although The Deets and He Who Follows Four Seasons would like you to believe otherwise, I really did grow up in Texas. Sure I was born in Illinois and spent a year or so in Manhattan when I was wee, but my formative years are purely Texan. Here are some pictures of my trip back home with Emily.

One of my sisters lives with her family in St. Hedwig, a town (for lack of a better word) about 15 miles east of the San Antonio metro area. One day my brother-in-law should start his own blog and he can tell you tales like "How to Kill a Rattlesnake With Your Wife's Honda Civic." Until then, these pictures will have to suffice.



How to catch a Minnesotan Golden Gopher: lay a cow spine on a prickly pear near some barbed wire. This picture looks posed, but it's not. I think a dog must have dragged the spine across the prickly pear patch and left it there.



One of these scoundrels is the likely Spine Dragging Culprit.



The white gunk residue on the prickly pear is actually NOT white residue from deodorant. It is a critter.



One of my brother-in-law's three horses. My sister also has a pinto, but we didn't get a picture this time around. Oops.



My senior year of college, a housemate of mine had a puppy. He thought it was a good idea. The eight other people thought it was a terrible idea. I was one of those eight. The dog, pretentiously named Shakespeare (not by me) had epic battles with me back in the day about his role in the house.

It's a long story, but after I graduated my mom actually ended up with the controversial dog. She was only supposed to have him for a year. Well, one rattlesnake bite, one seizure disorder, and 12 years later, Shakespeare (or "Shakey" as my family calls him--less pretentious) is still living with my mom.

He looks and walks like a grandpa, but he does still enjoy life, as you can see here. I am shitting you negative, he is actually chewing on the jaw bone of a pit bull. How the pit bull jaw ended up in his mouth is also a long story.




Home of Da Smoke BBQ is a barbecue shack (a literal shack as you can see) outside of St. Hedwig. Everything besides the church, VFW, post office, and feed store can be considered "outside" of St. Hedwig. Home of Da Smoke had some of the best barbecue I've ever had. I had ribs, pork loin, candied yams, fried okra, corn bread, and sweet tea for less than ten dollars. And that is reason #218943 why Texas rules.



Here I am being a tourist in my own state, with Emily and all that food I just wrote about.

Happy Holidayz Yall

Emily and I are making like Santa and flying to San Antonio tonight. We get in just before midnight. We'll be there until Friday. So Merry Christmas (or Happy Christmas to Matt and Anna).

If anyone wants to know what Christmas in Texas is like, ours will be something like this.

The Most Horrible Post I've Ever Written

I know I have ranted against Winnie the Pooh for wearing a shirt and no pants in the past, but I can't let it go. Why do people think this bear is cute? Seriously. Try it yourself. Next time you're getting dressed, put a t-shirt on and nothing else and look at yourself in the mirror. It's truly horrible.

The only thing that rivals this is a man wearing running tights and no shirt.

I have had this rant for a long time. I mentioned to a friend in college once, who was on the cross country team with me. So one day, after practice, we were all done showering and getting dressed to go to he dining hall. With no fanfare or announcement, my friend began getting dressed "Pooh Style." He put everything on but his pants and skivvies. He had his socks, shirts, winter jacket, and backpack on, but was still bare-assed. There is a universal order to how we all get dressed for a reason. It was both one of the funniest and most horrifying things I have seen.

And this makes me realize I've had a pretty sheltered life.

Random List #2

Favorite Movie About High School Kids Dazed and Confused

Favorite Breakfast Food that I Always Forget to Order Waffles

Lowest Score I Ever Got On A Test Negative 15 on a 7th grade Spanish test

Most Recurring Dream I'm in college/high school and running in the National/state cross country or track meet and I forgot to train all summer and fall (how I therefore qualified for said meet is only logical in a dream)

Favorite Muppet Animal

First Thing I Ever Stole A piece of caramel from the Brach's bin at Waitz' Model Market at age six. One of my older sisters busted me and made me spit it out. For some reason, I complied.

Last Thing I Ever Stole I used to "borrow for the evening" lots of bikes in college on Friday and Saturday nights, as did half the campus. I tried to return them from whence they came in the morning, but I guess this still counts as theft.

One of My Biggest Act of Hypocricy I would angrily confront those whom I caught "borrowing" a bike I either owned or had "borrowed for the evening" myself.

Coveted Job I Least Covet ER Doctor

Most Idiosynchratic Pet Peeve The sound of chalk on a chalkboard. In this era of PowerPoint, this is probably now an obsolete pet peeve, but it made it very hard for me to focus in high school. For all you young kids out there, back in the late 80s teachers still used chalk and a blackboard.

Random Thought #78912789243

Anybody else out there remember Zork? Damn that was a sweet game. My boy Matt the Hatt and I spent many hours playing that game in junior high, drawing maps of the Zorkworld and trying out different ways to get all those freaking treasures.

After you read that paragraph, it should come as no surprise that in junior high I wasn't exactly a "ladies' man." And the fact that I still pine for Zork should make it no surprise that I have never really been a "ladies' man." Actually, I believe you kids today call it "being a player." Or is it "playa'?" No, that can't be right. "Playa" means beach in Spanish.

But I digress. I don't think we ever did solve Zork in its entirity. That asshole thief kept on stealing our shit and killing us.

Sure Matt and I weren't at the Galaxy Movie Theater every night chasing girls that wouldn't like us anyway, like some of our peers were. But still, there were and are worse computer games out there to burn your off your childhood.

Paper Clips

Last night I watched a documentary, sent to me by my friends at Netflix, called Paper Clips, Directed by Ken Burns it ain't. But who gives a damn? The story is remarkable. You don't need Homer to spin this yarn to make it good; the story tells itself. See what you can do to get my friends at Netflix to send the movie to you. It is 80 minutes of your life well spent.

Blognation: You Can't Stop It; You Can Only Hope to Contain It

I have added two more blogs to the links section. The first is The Deets. The Deets is another one of those crazed south Minneapolitans who writes about Jucy Lucys and random shit. Kind of like this blog, only better. So no sports and more concise writing.

The Deets also has a technology blog , www.technologyevangelist.com . To me, it's like reading a foreign language, but there are a few tech savvy folks out there who frequent this blog who may enjoy it. But for me, cripes, I understand more of Matt the Hatt's French blog than I do reading Technology Evangelist.

The second blog added to the list is Pounding the Rock. On the surface, this is a San Antonio Spurs basketball blog, but it is still worth reading. It is very funny and well-written and I would say about a third of the content is non-basketball related. And even the basketball stuff is funny enough, it's worth reading if you are a non-Spurs, non-sports fan. And in the interest of full disclosure, it's where I found the Brent Barry commercial. To summarize, SPURS RULE!!!