Although we got a lot of nice gifts for Hez's birthday we didn't get her one of these.
Warning: This link is frickin' hilarious!!! I hope I can teach Chili to do that!

Oh...if you are bored...give this a shot. I haven't got to play it yet but I anticipate being better at it then almost everyone... Cranium rocks, I just got the new special edition tinned game of the original. It has 800 new cards and 4 times the clay of the old one so we can all sculpt at once.

One last thing:

Not much going on here…or anywhere…

I got back on the horse yesterday, playing basketball in the am and running at lunch…and then I ran again rather rapidly this morning too! Yesterday when playing hoops I stopped really hard on my knee and it didn’t flinch and I consider that the final test. Ironman and Jingle Bell Run training is officially back on track. Hoops tonight at PClub. Saturday is dodgeball at Pooleys so if you are bored that evening head east and give us a watch! Sunday Jess is gone to Chicago so I’ll be bacheloring it…not that anyone is around to do anything anyways…

Snow is on the ground and with the temps staying low it could be here to stay. I haven’t ridden in the snow yet this winter but I did ride in some this summer.

This is in Crested Butte: I tried to ride it…got about 25% across…fell down:

Then we posed for this picture:

















Then I figured lycra would make a fun sled…I was right (and then proceeded to be cold):

This was an actual snowfall we had out there:

Riding Snodgrass with about an inch of snow (after trudging up about a mile of gunky muddy mud and playing in about 3 stream crossings, I am about 2/3 up here) was one of the best feelings ever. I was by myself…me and the mountain…the snow quieted everything down so I could hear the outdoors, cold stream crossings, perfect singletrack. Deer grazing in the fields. Broke my freehub with about half of a mile left…never bring race wheels on a mountain bike vacation. One of several trips to the Alpineer. It’s December 1st and I am ready to go mountain biking…

I wonder what Hez is doing right now?

Person of the Week- Week 3 Kirk Cameron

I miss Growing Pains...it used to be my favorite show. I always wanted to be Kirk Cameron...or more specifically Mike Seaver. The best epsiode is the one where Chrissy has to go to bed and she thinks that they put her to bed and then party when she is asleep. So Jason lets Chrissy stay up and the plan backfires when a bunch of weird things happen. Little know fact about Growing Pains is that Hilary Swank was an extra on that Episode.

Facts about Kirk:
Kirk Cameron is married to Chelsea Noble. He met her on the set of "Growing Pains", where she played the part of Kate McDonnell.

He's a vegetarian.

Kirk's sister is actress Candace Cameron from Full House who is married to Florida Panthers star Valeri Bure. He has 2 other sisters, Bridgette and Melissa.

And who can forget the Theme Song Lyrics:
Show me that smile again, (Oh, show me that smile)Don't waste another minute on your cryin',We're nowhere near the end (We're no where near)The best is ready to begin.As long as we've got each other,We got the world spinnin' right in our hands,Baby you and me, we gotta be,The luckiest dreamers who never keep dreaming.

Well yesterday wasn’t the best of days…we found out Popeye (Jess’ beloved one-eyed Boston Terrier) has the cancer. On top of that he has a heart murmur and some sort of build up on his heart. Oh yeah, all this discovered when he was supposed to have a bunch of rotten teeth removed. Basically his cancer is a Mast Cell Tumor on his butt. He’ll have to have a 2-4 inch section of his butt removed. Today they are doing cardiology tests on his heart because he might not be able to be put under to have the tumor removed. And we are trying to determine what the prognosis of recovery is. If he has little to no chance of recovery then it doesn’t make sense to do all these procedures. If he has a good chance of recovery then it will be easy to have all these done. There is a lot of gray area though so we will have to make some difficult decisions…this type of stuff isn’t cheap and we don’t want Popeye to suffer for naught. But the initial prognosis so far is pretty good, so our fingers are crossed for a complete and speedy recovery. Who knows when he will ever get those teeth pulled. So when Popeye is recovered he will have to get a part-time job! So if anyone has any ideas what an assless, 1 eyed, overweight, neutered Boston Terrier with a bad heart and bad teeth can do for employment please let me know! In all seriousness we think he will be fine…he’s been through so much already that this will be a cake walk for him! Oh yeah, yesterday that half-shaved him so he is pretty cool looking! I’ll have to try and get some photos!

Berbee Derby recap!

I ran exactly 100 miles in preparation for this race…in a 4 week span but from scratch. Most of my training runs were right around 5 miles during my lunch break at work. I felt I was ready to do a decent job…I have a lot of work to do before Ironman but for now I think I am where I need to be. I can run a 10K easily but slowly…I’d assume I could keep the same pace for about 20K.

Thursday morning was the Berbee Derby. A chance to get in a good workout before gorging on dinner! So I wake up about 5:45 and let the puppy out. Holy crap…it’s cold…and windy! Wasn’t sure how cold. I go inside, the thermometer read 12 degrees. I go on-line and see it is a high of 20 with 20-40mph winds. Great! So I eat breakfast, play with Chili and get ready. At 7:45 I decide…time to go, lets do this! I grabbed a paper and off I went. I got there and went to sign up and it was super cold. I had no idea how to dress or anything as this was my first competitive run. I sat in the warm car reading the ads for Black Friday and talking to my parents on the cell. I was supposed to bring Jess with to watch but with the weather being what it was I decided to let her sleep. I finally decided to wear windpants with a base layer of tights. I also wore a short and long sleeved t-shirt with a windbreaker. I wore two pairs of socks, a balaclava and a headband. And some liner gloves with windbreaking thin ski gloves. I was ready.

I went to the porta potty before the race as the announcer was making announcements. I get out and think about lining up…I still had like 5 more minutes. I sit down to stretch and there I see Jess (who hardly recognized me because the only skin I had showing were my eyes.) She says to me: “Aren’t you doing the 10k?” I said, “Yeah.” She said “The 10k left like 3 minutes ago.” I was like “really?” She said “Yes…you better get going.” Crap! Now I am screwed! They ended up starting early (like 8 minutes.) I guess they had chip timing though so the start and finish times were recorded. Anyways, I take off. Starting a race 3 minutes late is cool as then I felt like a rock star (although I would guess a third of us missed the start so I still got passed a plenty.) Anyways right away (with the tail wind) I felt slightly overdressed. About a mile in some guy running next to me took a digger…he wasn’t near anyone or anything and he rolled on the ground. He sprung back up and kept running…no idea what happened. Anyways by mile 2 we were going against the wind in part for the next 3 miles…which pretty much sucked. At that point the novelty of running with people had worn off and miles 2-5 were rough. Once I hit the 5 mile mark I really turned it up and started passing people again. The clock when I crossed the line said 49 minutes. I didn’t think that was possible, I was hoping for between 55-60 minutes. Turns out the clock was wrong: 58:28, 34/42 age, 470/635 overall, 9:25/mile. I thought I was going a bit faster than that…but with all the confusion and wind and everything who knows. Overall I didn’t really hit my goals but I was proud of myself for passing a lot of people and for just running this event in that weather! Also note, my friend and co-worker, Dan Nagle, was credited with a 2nd place overall finish. When I tried to congratulate him on Saturday he informed me that he didn't get 2nd and thought his time was like 39 minutes (not the 32 and change he was credited with.) For as big as this event is is sure seems kind of half-ass. Of course any event at those temps is probably half-ass...

I have the Jingle Bell run on December 10th…so we’ll see if I can do better. Unfortunately Saturday I hurt my knee playing basketball (actually while warming up to play basketball) so I took yesterday and today off from running. I will reevaluate my status tonight as I try to do something physical…hoping it is just a strain.