Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
goin' hog wild
I went ahead and registered for the Flying Pig today. I ran 10 miles yesterday and it felt great. All day today I've been itching to go running again. Can't do that, because it's a rest day. But it's a good sign.
It's fun to have a big goal looming on the horizon. I'm really looking forward to this one. I have a hunch it'll be more fun than Austin, weather permitting. They really do up the pig theme. There are people in pig costumes and every pig pun you can imagine (all the way to the end at the "Finish Swine").
Planted peas this afternoon. Might be a week or so late, but I'm sure I'll be fine.
Heard some new jokes this week:
What do you call a row of rabbits holding hands and hopping backward?
A receding hare line.
Why did they hang the man who was dressed in paper clothes?
We was rustling.
And finally, a dirty one:
A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel in his pants. Bartender asks, "Why do you have a steering wheel in your pants?" Pirate replies, "Arr! It's driving me nuts!!"
It's fun to have a big goal looming on the horizon. I'm really looking forward to this one. I have a hunch it'll be more fun than Austin, weather permitting. They really do up the pig theme. There are people in pig costumes and every pig pun you can imagine (all the way to the end at the "Finish Swine").
Planted peas this afternoon. Might be a week or so late, but I'm sure I'll be fine.
Heard some new jokes this week:
What do you call a row of rabbits holding hands and hopping backward?
A receding hare line.
Why did they hang the man who was dressed in paper clothes?
We was rustling.
And finally, a dirty one:
A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel in his pants. Bartender asks, "Why do you have a steering wheel in your pants?" Pirate replies, "Arr! It's driving me nuts!!"
Friday, March 21, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
bad news and back on the pig
First, the bad news: The movie deal is dead. There'll be no Cross-X on Lifetime Network. Not sure why it fell through, but it did, so there you go.
On the good side of things, I'm feeling better in the leg region and back to running. And now I'm thinking I might well do the Flying Pig. I saw my sports med guy and he said it should be alright. Plus I've been talking with some folks at running groups around town and I think I should be able to find running partners who do the walk/run thing at my pace. Some are actually training for the Pig. So that's making me excited.
Still deep into the budget at City Hall. We're down to the wire, and anything could happen in the last week. The City Manager is trying everything he can to get the council to not make cuts and to dig instead into the fund balance. This despite the city getting a serious warning from Moody's, which downgraded our credit outlook from "stable" to "negative." If we wind up actually get a rating downgrade, we'll have a hard time issuing bonds and then we'll really be fucked (pardon my French, Grandma, but it's the most succinct word). All that just to score a win. It's just plain goofy. I mean, it's bad enough that we're not going to add any money to street maintenance, nor fund the 20 new cops that folks were promised when they voted in a public safety sales tax, now the dark forces are pushing for us to keep skating on very thin ice.
All that's probably a little too insidery for you, I know. Suffice it to say we're in bad shape financially, and we've got an unfireable City Manager who's working double time to make it worse. Typical KC, I suppose.
Looks as if spring might be back. For two days in a row now I've forgotten to take my jacket home from work. That's a good sign.
I planted asparagus last weekend. I told grandma and she said, wisely, "So you're planning to stay there a while, huh?"
HBO is running a miniseries on John Adams and it's great! Allie and I are totally into it. (Well, I am; Allie fell asleep last night, which is weird, because I'm usually the one who konks).
What else?
I'm going to get a ball chair for work. Some of my coworkers are a little hinky about the idea, but I believe it just might be the solution to many of my problems.
This weekend I plant peas. Next weekend lettuce, and the inside starters.
Random news. There you go.
On the good side of things, I'm feeling better in the leg region and back to running. And now I'm thinking I might well do the Flying Pig. I saw my sports med guy and he said it should be alright. Plus I've been talking with some folks at running groups around town and I think I should be able to find running partners who do the walk/run thing at my pace. Some are actually training for the Pig. So that's making me excited.
Still deep into the budget at City Hall. We're down to the wire, and anything could happen in the last week. The City Manager is trying everything he can to get the council to not make cuts and to dig instead into the fund balance. This despite the city getting a serious warning from Moody's, which downgraded our credit outlook from "stable" to "negative." If we wind up actually get a rating downgrade, we'll have a hard time issuing bonds and then we'll really be fucked (pardon my French, Grandma, but it's the most succinct word). All that just to score a win. It's just plain goofy. I mean, it's bad enough that we're not going to add any money to street maintenance, nor fund the 20 new cops that folks were promised when they voted in a public safety sales tax, now the dark forces are pushing for us to keep skating on very thin ice.
All that's probably a little too insidery for you, I know. Suffice it to say we're in bad shape financially, and we've got an unfireable City Manager who's working double time to make it worse. Typical KC, I suppose.
Looks as if spring might be back. For two days in a row now I've forgotten to take my jacket home from work. That's a good sign.
I planted asparagus last weekend. I told grandma and she said, wisely, "So you're planning to stay there a while, huh?"
HBO is running a miniseries on John Adams and it's great! Allie and I are totally into it. (Well, I am; Allie fell asleep last night, which is weird, because I'm usually the one who konks).
What else?
I'm going to get a ball chair for work. Some of my coworkers are a little hinky about the idea, but I believe it just might be the solution to many of my problems.
This weekend I plant peas. Next weekend lettuce, and the inside starters.
Random news. There you go.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
update
I know. I need to get more in the habit of posting. It's just I'm so busy with work, when I get home all I want to do is rest.
Allie and I are feverishly planning all sorts of remodeling, with our kitchen being the top priority. A lot of you have seen our kitchen, so you know this is much needed. For those of you who haven't, our kitchen has been half gutted for the last several years after one of our cats climbed up into the drop ceiling and made a home there. We were fine with it until we started to smell the piss she was leaving on top of the cabinets above the sink. So we yanked those out, along with the drop ceiling. Since then, we've been existing with cheap wire shelving and no overhead lighting. Meantime, the crappy old cabinetry that remains is starting to fall apart.
So it's time.
Our current plan is to order hip and affordable cabinets from Ikea and then pay some handyman to install them.
In other news, I am getting ready to try indoor propagation for the first time. No, Allie and I are not backing down on our pact not to have kids. I've ordered tomato and pepper seeds, and I've bought some flourescent light boxes, and I'm going to start the seeds indoors, rather than buy transplants at the nursery come May.
I got bit by the seed catalog fever, though. I wanted pretty much every exotic varietal they had, so I wound up dropping $110 on what is likely way more seeds than I need. Any of you close-by friends want tomato plants? I should have some in a couple months.
Work is going pretty darn good. It's budget time, and this is where pretty much everyone in the city would agree that Funk has what it takes to do the job right. Only problem is we have a council that's nervous about making the tough choices, and a city manager who is actively campaigning them to not make the tough choices. On the other hand, we've got pretty much the entire business community, the neighborhood groups and the chief of police on our side. So we're thinking our odds aren't bad.
But here's the deal. If we don't prevail, and the current budget proposal goes through, the city's going to start running out of money by summer's end. And then we're going to make damn sure the council and city manager own the mess. Again, we'll have all the community powers that be chiming in with us as we say "We told you so."
But, hopefully it won't come down to that.
Lastly, running. I've had some pain in my achilles and have had to back off. I did some research online and found that tendinitis can be quite debilitating. Some folks on forums I've read claim to have been out of commission for many months. Hopefully I will avoid that by stopping running early, and by doing exercises aimed at strengthening the muscles around the achilles. I've also been doing a lot of other strengthening exercises, which are supposed to lessen my chances at injury.
Meantime, I'm going to get a good bike, which I've needed for some time. And it's looking like things might finally warm up around here, so that I can ride fairly regularly.
As a result, the Flying Pig is off. I'd like to run a marathon in the fall, probably New York or Minneapolis, but I'm going to wait and see how this tendon thing plays out. I'm also considering holding off on doing another marathon until next year, and instead building myself up toward one even more slowly, by training for a 5k, then 10k, then half marathon first.
I'll keep you posted, obviously. And I'll try to post more regularly.
Allie and I are feverishly planning all sorts of remodeling, with our kitchen being the top priority. A lot of you have seen our kitchen, so you know this is much needed. For those of you who haven't, our kitchen has been half gutted for the last several years after one of our cats climbed up into the drop ceiling and made a home there. We were fine with it until we started to smell the piss she was leaving on top of the cabinets above the sink. So we yanked those out, along with the drop ceiling. Since then, we've been existing with cheap wire shelving and no overhead lighting. Meantime, the crappy old cabinetry that remains is starting to fall apart.
So it's time.
Our current plan is to order hip and affordable cabinets from Ikea and then pay some handyman to install them.
In other news, I am getting ready to try indoor propagation for the first time. No, Allie and I are not backing down on our pact not to have kids. I've ordered tomato and pepper seeds, and I've bought some flourescent light boxes, and I'm going to start the seeds indoors, rather than buy transplants at the nursery come May.
I got bit by the seed catalog fever, though. I wanted pretty much every exotic varietal they had, so I wound up dropping $110 on what is likely way more seeds than I need. Any of you close-by friends want tomato plants? I should have some in a couple months.
Work is going pretty darn good. It's budget time, and this is where pretty much everyone in the city would agree that Funk has what it takes to do the job right. Only problem is we have a council that's nervous about making the tough choices, and a city manager who is actively campaigning them to not make the tough choices. On the other hand, we've got pretty much the entire business community, the neighborhood groups and the chief of police on our side. So we're thinking our odds aren't bad.
But here's the deal. If we don't prevail, and the current budget proposal goes through, the city's going to start running out of money by summer's end. And then we're going to make damn sure the council and city manager own the mess. Again, we'll have all the community powers that be chiming in with us as we say "We told you so."
But, hopefully it won't come down to that.
Lastly, running. I've had some pain in my achilles and have had to back off. I did some research online and found that tendinitis can be quite debilitating. Some folks on forums I've read claim to have been out of commission for many months. Hopefully I will avoid that by stopping running early, and by doing exercises aimed at strengthening the muscles around the achilles. I've also been doing a lot of other strengthening exercises, which are supposed to lessen my chances at injury.
Meantime, I'm going to get a good bike, which I've needed for some time. And it's looking like things might finally warm up around here, so that I can ride fairly regularly.
As a result, the Flying Pig is off. I'd like to run a marathon in the fall, probably New York or Minneapolis, but I'm going to wait and see how this tendon thing plays out. I'm also considering holding off on doing another marathon until next year, and instead building myself up toward one even more slowly, by training for a 5k, then 10k, then half marathon first.
I'll keep you posted, obviously. And I'll try to post more regularly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
