Kev

…does anyone care that the Summer Olympics start in a couple weeks? I know I’m having a hard time pretending to be interested. It’s really sad, because the folks that are participating have been working hard to get there, and deserve some respect and appreciation, but it’s been hard to come by.

It’s a big sponsor show, and that’s what I think of it now. Not games, not competition, not sport, not amateurs, and certainly nothing pure. I’ve seen more pictures of the Nike suit that Perdita Felicien is wearing than anything else. I’ve seen $40 “Canada” t-shirts at Roots. I see the Canadian Olympic logo on everything at work (we’re a sponsor). I read about the NBA stars from down south self-destructing, WTA members threatening to boycott the games because Germany has higher standards for team membership than others, and multiple stories about how Greece really sucks at getting ready for the games.

Gosh – all this talk about logistical quagmires and pros that make too much money sucking and bitching – that really gets me interested.

I doubt I’ll watch any of it, it’s just so full of shit. Besides, you just know that there’ll be some doping allegations at some point, which adds a layer of tarnish to everything no matter how true or untrue the allegations are.

How sad.

…and just like that, the euphoria over an amazing weekend is gone. My trainer and I decided it was time to step running up a bit, and start with some lower intensity speed work. I did my warmup, stretched everything out, and started the zone 2 run. A little bit into the run, something let go. I tried to stretch it out, but ended up walking from the Laurier Bridge back home in some considerable pain. That was Tuesday night.

It’s now Thursday morning, and despite icing my leg, it still hurts. It hurts a lot. I made an appointment with the sports medicine clinic, but can’t get in until next Wednesday. Socialized medicine definitely has its prices, one of them being the wait. I can’t walk normally, and am trying to stay off of it, but I think I did some damage to it.

Ultimate is out for the rest of the season, and if this time is like the last at all, I won’t be able to make the Marathon in November. All from one little game back in May.

Suck.

Ok, that was a weekend well seized. I had the opportunity and honour of playing with number of the folks from ÜberSküber this weekend at the Co-ed Jamboree out at UPI. I was really, really nervous about playing with a bunch of folks I had never met, and had butterflies for the first time since minor hockey.

Saturday morning was a demonstration in 143% humidity, as the rain came down soaking everything. On the drive out to UPI, we were wondering if the day would be cancelled – it wasn’t, games were on, and away we went. We all had our gear, garbage bags, fruit, and lots of dry socks in baggies. We were lucky (?) enough to have a bye first thing in the morning, so were starting at ten (ish). We got in about an hour before gametime, found our field, and started to throw, warm-up, and get ready for a loooooong weekend.

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Was cleaning out the inbox, and ran across a funny on “you might be an anti-spam kook”. If you’ve ever managed a mail server, you’ll find this humourous. If you’ve never managed a mail server, chances are you shouldn’t follow the link because you won’t see any humour in it at all. It’s very geeky.

Holy crap – coop appears to be in update-on-a-regular-basis mode again. This means I must follow suit, just in case he decides to call me on previous potshots.

I watched the Butterfly Effect on the train home the other day, and was very disappointed. I have to disagree with coop’s assessment, because punk’d is what I consider to be an entertaining show. The Butterfly Effect did not fall into the “entertaining” category. Donnie Darko is a great movie after the third or fourth viewing. It’s confusing as hell, so watch it once, pay attention, then go here and watch it a few more times (it’s been continually updated since the movie came out – that’s pretty cool). It’s like one of those stupid 3D pictures from a while back – all of a sudden “wham!”, you’ll get it.

Speaking of Donnie Darko, I thought the soundtrack was a ripoff, so I rolled my own. If you want your own, drop me a line and I’ll let you know where it can be found.

Today marks (what is hopefully) the end of my recovery period. Back in the second week of May, I tore a whole bunch of connective tissue between my solerus and my tib. It made running next to impossible, and playing ultimate on it prevented it from getting better anytime soon. I’ve given it a 5 week break from running, and a 4 week break from ultimate. Here’s hoping it’s ready for a bit of pounding again.

I’ve discovered I’m not a big fan of cardio machines. Six days a week over the last four weeks I have used elliptical trainers, stationary bikes, and stairclimbers for cardio, and I much prefer running outside. The whole not going anywhere, and having to stare at the same people in the same gym has become pretty tedious, with a couple of scenic exceptions from some of the ladies who work out there. That kinda crosses a line though, so I avoid sneaking peeks as much as possible. Translation – I’m really hoping it’ll be good to get out running tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning is a standard workout, which will be a welcome change from yesterday. Why a welcome change? Well, yesterday was new and improved excercises, all of which were hard. I had gotten to liking the workouts being moderately easy, now they’re back to hard. Whatever happened to maintenance mode? One of Jenn’s other clients coined a very appropriate name for her workouts: Jennicide (as in that’s what her clients commit). It’s not that bad, in fact it’s very good for me, but here I was thinking I had gotten the hang of this whole “workout” thing, and Jen starts me on a new program that has me sore 24 hours later. Ah well, that (scarily) is why I pay her.

I’ll be running a wee jog of 30 minutes tomorrow, and I’m not allowed to jog more than 4km in that 30 minutes. That’s a pretty slow pace, but we’ve got to work back up to where I was eight weeks ago, which will take some work.

In any event, it’ll be good to get back out. Here’s hoping the damn thing is healed. Now all I have to do is convince myself it’s ok to play ultimate again, too.

Fark‘s NY Post Photoshop Thread is un-fucking believeable. It’s awesome. Spend the time, check it out.

From BoingBoing.

I mean, c’mon… $45.00 for a bunch of runner ups? I’m not really sure who anyone is trying to kid here, but if people are actually gonna pay for these network-made *cough* stars *cough*, then they should buy me a case of beer instead.

Reality TV goes lower than I thought possible.

Well, my vacation is now over. It was a great few days, with some exceptional company. I’ll add more about it later, but today is the start of getting back on the horse (not to mention the third quarter of the year), which includes updating this thing once in a while. I’ve decided to make a few changes, and they all come into effect today.

First, there’ll be almost no booze for yours truly from now until Labour Day. I reserve the right to imbibe two alcoholic beverages per week, but am going to try and keep it below that from now until September 3rd. I have been drinking wayyyyy too much beer over the past few weeks, so working out combined with a diminished running regimen has made the battle against caloric intake vs. use break-even at best (and I’m being charitable on the break-even bit). Why is it that Canada Dry and Schweppes don’t sell their diet tonic in my neck of the woods, anyways?

Second, I finally listened to everyone and stopped running and playing Ultimate for a few weeks. I haven’t run or played since June 27th, and plan on keeping it that way until the 14th/21st of this month. Sucks, but I would like to be able to run pain-free again, and I suppose the only way that’s happening is if I take care of the damn thing by letting it heal.

Third, I’ll be taking the nutrition component of my training schedule seriously. This has been my biggest “oopsie” of late, with a few to many trips to Mickey D’s for a breakfast bagel in the morning. So, starting today, I’ll be planning meals, tracking everything I eat, tracking the calories I burn, and avoiding fast food & restaurants like the plague. Assisiting me with this tracking will be a great little program I stumbled across a couple years back. Check it out, it’s got a 30-day trial (but be warned, tracking this stuff can be labour-intensive and a royal pain in the ass).

Finally, I am getting back into investigating the job market. I’ve been where I am now for almost two years, and have very little to show for it in the way of personal development. I’ve learned how a hierarchichal management functions (it doesn’t), but beyond that I have had zero chances for growth in any direction. I’ve scheduled a meeting with my boss to discuss options, but I think it’s time to move on.

Those are my four changes I’m going to start making today. By making them I hope to drop another 20lbs., get to running 65km a week, and be well on my way to a new job/development path by the end of September. Nothing like aiming high, no?

Oh yeah, and I’m gonna complete that frigging email upgrade, too.

…the migration is finally done. There will be garbage collection until the end of July, and then I get to eBay a ton of old Compaq shit. thousands of websites, over a hundred thousand mail accounts, and thousands of domains moved. It’s been a challenging project on a number of levels. The hard part is over, and maybe, just maybe, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t a freight train.

I’d “huzzah!” for a while, but I’m too tired. It’s off to bed I go, and I truly despise the Internet right now.