Who Can Run 6.43 Miles? This Guy!

My training schedule calls today a day of "rest" and so far I am resting like crazy. My feet are currently in slippers, my coffee cup is currently full, and my running shoes are currently sitting unused in the closet. I am amazing at rest days. But I did do my first long run of this training season on Sunday. The plan calls for six miles, but I had to add on a .43 to make it an easy loop. The 6.43 loop went great. I wanted to finish in under an hour and was able to meet that goal.

One of my favorite parts about long runs is the chance to listen to A LOT of music. I look forward to making a new playlist tailored to the length of my run. I used to drop thousands of songs into a single running mix, but I always ended up hearing some songs WAY more than others. So I've started making new mixes each week. But I could always use some help in picking songs. I wanted to turn that help around and hopefully help others come up with some new song ideas. At the bottom of the blog is my ongoing playlist. I won't delete songs out of it, but will add more to it as I make new lists. The one thing I love almost as much as making playlists is looking at what other people put on theirs.

Runner's World has a pretty good collection of various playlists here, but I like to think that (even with my amateur running skills) my professional running playlist creation skills are better than any elite distance runner.

p.s. let me know if the auto-start for the music player is driving you nuts.

p.p.s. that awesome accordion photo came from here

Day Eight - Rest

Total Mileage - 15.43 miles

The First Step to 26.2 Miles

My friends and I used to dominate the Wildflower Triathlon as a relay team. Nicholas was our swimmer, Lander was the cyclist, and I was the runner. We always did the half-ironman, meaning I ran a half-marathon (13.1 miles) in the insane May heat of central California. Every year I would vow to run another half or to try a full marathon before the next Wildflower. Some years I even signed up for them, but ultimately flaked for very good reasons despite what my wife thinks. This year is going to be different.

I just signed up for the San Francisco Marathon (and when I say just, I mean like two minutes ago) and am planning on seeing the commitment through this time. I have plenty of training time, plenty of research time, and really no excuses. My official 18-week training course (via the wonderful Hal Higdon) doesn't start until March, but now I have a couple months to get back into running shape. So I'm off right now to take the first running step to completing the marathon seven months away.

Day one - Three Miles

Total Mileage - Three miles

Creepy or Awesome?

My vote is awesome, but I understand that my vote doesn't really line up with everyone else's vote most of the time.

So why post this borderline creepy album cover on December 8, 2009? What's the significance? Is there a backstory? No. No, there is not. I'm just knee deep in MBA finals and needed something to distract myself with after competing my fourth round of practice tests. My Executive Leadership (seriously, it's a real class) course has a practice exam up with 140 multiple choice questions. One Four Zero. So while you gaze into the eyes of my mustached hero I'll be plowing away through answers A), B), C), D), and E).

Friday the 13th

When asked by my wife this morning what day it was I proudly responded "It's 11/11!" She kindly corrected me that that was two days ago. After a few more moments of serious consideration I figured out it was Friday the 13th. I usually don't care much about a Friday the 13th, but being unemployed this Friday the 13th has already seen a few strange occurrences.

1. I got up before 9:00 am.
2. I showered before 2:00 pm.
3. I brushed my teeth before 4:00 pm.
4. I haven't watched any Californication episodes.

If I can keep this up I'll almost be back to a normal schedule in no time. Maybe I need the threat of Jason Voorhees constantly hanging over my head every day.

Black Friday Shmack Schriday

If I pull into a Safeway parking lot and see someone with their little table stationed in front of the entrance, I'll use the other entrance. If someone is stationed there as well, I'll go hungry. I didn't come to Trader Joe's for a newspaper subscription. I came for ginger snaps. But as the Holiday wave begins to gain steam and rush toward shore I'm bombarded with more and more and more people peddling needless crap or asking for donations. As Black Friday approaches my regularly panhandlin' free suburbia is slowly being infiltrated by people looking for handouts. Little do they know that I'm living without a paycheck.

Due to this lack of funds and a childhood fear of bums, panhandlers, and the entire population of our nation's homeless, I tend to shy away from situations where I may have to say anything to anyone I deem may be trying to get something from me. But I was accosted yesterday on my way into a store. A woman came up to me and she looked normal enough. No crazy mismatched shoes, or nicotine fingers, just a nice lady. She said excuse me and stuck out her hand. The sight of her extended hand immediately put me into the defensive. I must have looked it because she then told me she wouldn't bite. To which I kindly responded, "You better not bite or we are moving into a whole different level of awkward interaction." She then introduced herself and asked if she could get some money for her daughter (who was nowhere to be seen) and herself. I said, "Sorry. I can't help," and quickly walked away.

So I'm not in the Black Friday spirit apparently, but I don't appreciate people tricking me into thinking they have a simple question like "How do I get to KFC from here?" or "Where did you get that extremely good looking stocking cap?" and then trying to infest my hands with germs and take the dwindling dollars of my unemployment check.

This may come back to haunt me when the unemployment checks run out and California is still drowning in people without jobs, but until that day (when I'm in the Target parking lot asking for change) I'll stick by my guns that the boy scout selling popcorn, the guy offering free newspapers, the large lady looking for food, and the sketchy dude collecting for the homeless children's center are all out to kidnap me.

Hakuna Matata

It means no worries for the rest of your days.

Ninja-son

I just finished watching the Friday the 13th remake. This movie was amazing. My wife asked me what I was watching and my response was "The new Friday the 13th. It's awful." But even with that realization, I kept watching... and watching.

So Jason is back and still terrorizing kids who want nothing more than to smoke weed, play beer pong, get drunk, have sex (more on that in a minute), and take douche to a new level. The plot revolves around Clay who is searching for his sister who disappeared while camping near Crystal Lake. Unbeknownst to him, his sister (Whitney) is being held hostage by Jason because she kind of looks like Jason's beloved mother. In his travels Clay is introduced to a troupe of rich douchebags heading out to daddy's lake house. You can pretty much guess the rest of the story. Almost everyone dies and almost all the girls have a boob shot. Regardless of the carnage and nudity, I have three grievances with this cinematic epic.

1. The locals. During his door-to-door campaign of finding his sister, Clay meets an old lady who tells him his sister is dead. She says when people go missing around Crystal Lake, they are never found again. She goes on to say that "He just wants to be left alone, like the rest of us." The next local is a tow truck driver who tries to help one of the douchebags get away, but when he sees Jason he drives off. To the locals, Jason is like a pesky neighborhood dog. Just don't bother him, let him kill hormone-addled teens, and all will be good.

2. The boobs. Aside from seeing a set of implants within the first five minutes, then watching a girl wakeboard topless, there is only one other scene where the bra comes off and that scene tries to ruin boobs for everyone. As assumed, a hot girl is drunk and drags king douchbag into a bedroom where they immediately begin a chivalrous round of foreplay. Once that five seconds is out of the way, Bree (SFW photo here, NSFW phot here) drops the bra and is greeted with the best line in cinematic history. King douche, Trent, tells her "Oh wow! Your tits are stupendous!" But wait, it gets better. He goes on to say "You have perfect nipple placement." What is the criteria for nipple placement? I'd like to know if I have perfect nipple placement as well, but I'm not sure where I can go to get this documented. To top off the entire almost-porn scene, Trent calls Bree "dude" before they both finish up. Who are these script writers? I'm looking for a job and I think I can put one word after another. I think I may even be able to do it better, dude.

3. The ninja. Jason has become an expert in everything. He can move quickly and silently through dense forest. He can climb up to the roof with no problem. He can get from the tool shed to the house in under two seconds without a sound. He can appear in an empty room (always behind you) without you knowing. He can hit you with an ax from 50 feet away while you are running. He can shoot an arrow through your eye from 200 yards away while you are driving a speed boat in the middle of the lake. So this begs the question, what martial arts program is he enrolled in? He is the best ninja I've ever seen. He's missing the katana sword and nunchucks, but other than that he is ready to battle Jackie Chan in Rush Hour 11.

The rest of the movie is filled with dips in the retard pool as well, but those were the big three that I can't shake.

Here's a quick breakdown of everything else wrong with this movie, but not wrong enough to warrant its own section:

1. When did Jason become a miner? He has some serious tunneling skills with the network he's built under Camp Crystal Lake.

2. With Whitney as his prisoner, what did he feed her? Where is his bathroom?

3. After calling the police at the lakehouse and reporting MULTIPLE MURDERS with a pyscho on the loose, the police send one guy to take care of it. Really Crystal Lake Police Dept?! One guy?!

4. After rescuing Whitney, Clay is trying to help her escape through Jason's underground labyrinth. They pop out of one tunnel into an overturned bus. Clay gets out only to be greeted by silent ninja Jason who promptly slams Clay's face through two bus windows leaving him unconscious. But within a couple minutes he's back up and running with ONE scratch on his face. Clay must be a ninja too!

All in all, if you're looking for a softcore porn that has intermittent killings in it, this will be right up your tunnel.

Kick Push Kick Push

I was all about skating during high school and college. My friends and I read CCS like a bible, had an ongoing feud with the small town police force, and found out that the local campus cop was actually pretty awesome. We would hit the stairs at the college, the curb at the post office, the gaps at the bank, the ledge at the grocery store, the ramp's at Jeff's house... The entire town would turn into our skatepark until the police showed up and told us to move on.

While I definitely have scars to prove I lived the kick-push lifestyle (I even have my 10-year-old board in the garage), I haven't skated in seven years. With all this recent free time I've thought about how great summers were as a high schooler living in a small town where everything was accessible via my deck, four wheels, and constant "ca-kunk, ca-kunk, ca-kunk, ca-kunk" soundtrack. So how does a 29-year-old (with no health insurance and terrible balance) go about getting back into skating? Should I just go down to a skatepark and begin eating shit in front of all the 12-year-olds? Should I practice my ollies in the garage for awhile? I am 100% without a skater group, but maybe if I just start kicking around my suburb I'll meet up with some other unemployed, uninsured, nostalgic skaters.

A big reason for this flood of nostalgia is Lupe Fiasco. I mean, aside from my lack of hip-hop skills, I'm pretty much just like him. We both wear glasses. We both like skateboards. We both fell and hit our face. We both got harassed by the cops. We both had girlfriends who skated (or attempted to). With all these similarities I think getting back on the board should be no problem. And once I'm back on the board I think starting a hip-hop career should be no problem.

So should I start skating again? Anyone out there want to start a posse with me?

1 in a 1,000

I'm positive that 100% of everyone I know looks at me as the coolest, most awesomely un-anxious person to ever walk the planet. But under this Hulk-like exterior sits a retarded pool of anxieties. I worry about more unimportant stuff than a six-year-old trapped in a well with no voice and only half a juice box left as rations.

One of my latest anxiety-fueled sleepless nights was triggered by this stupid movie:



While the movie itself didn't scare me when I first saw it, the idea of this happening has wreaked havoc on two outdoorsy trips since. While I was vacationing on the Oregon coast in a rented cabin I was triple checking doors, strategically hiding an ax behind the refrigerator (because, come on, what crazy-eyed hood-wearing psycho is going to check behind the fridge for an ax?), and forcing myself to stay awake in order to protect the people I was traveling with. I like the idea of my anxiety-ridden ass chock full of zero defensive training going up against a trio of crazies.

At the end of the week we all survivied, no one broke in.

My second bout of retardation happened in Colorado while staying in another cabin near the Crystal River. The place was very rustic and pretty awesome all around, except for the fact that I was sleeping on a futon directly next to a door that barely locked. Before I left on this trip I was asked what the chances of being murdered were at the cabin. I took a moment and thought about it. I was trying to come up with a number that wouldn't make me sound paranoid. So I said, "1 in 1,000."

This was not the answer my friend was looking for. So he said, "Out of every 1,000 people who stay at that cabin, at least one of them is murdered? Really?" Ok, so hearing it back made it seem bad so I upped it to 1 in 100,000. This was still not good enough though. He wasn't taking anything less than 1 in 1,000,000. While hearing that statistic (that we made up on the spot while drinking beer) made me feel better at the time, it did little for me while rolling around on a futon in the middle of the mountains.

So what's the point of all this? I think if I dip into this retarded pool every week and let everyone else know about it maybe I'll stop swimming in it all together.

On the other side of this coin, what if I start worrying about what everyone is going to think of me telling them about what I think? I need to go blog about this blog on another blog before the anxiety gets out of control.

Rose Boy Don't Care Bout You!!

Rose Boy! ROSE BOY!!! Look at me! I've cultivated this rosa berberifolia for you! It's beauty does not match yours, but I hope you will find it sufficient! I need you to come back and see my Transformers collection! It is more than meets the eye! I promise! I PROMISE! ROSE BOOOOOYYYYYYYY!!!! WHY WON'T YOU LOOK AT ME!!????

p.s. Sweet Keyboard Cat Tattoo.

I was doing some research for work yesterday (seriously) and I found this photo. I promptly sent it to everyone I know as I think it is the most hilarious thing produced on the Internet in the past five minutes.

Home Again

Over the past couple weeks (as my previous entry stated) I've been driving around the south west like a prospector lost in the hills.

The first trip was 2,359 miles. This started in San Francisco, went through Phoenix, up to Flagstaff, over to Albuquerque, back to Flagstaff via Los Lunas, then back home.

The second trip was only 1,291 miles. I flew to Denver and from there drove west through Colorado to Carbondale. From Carbondale it was on to Salt Lake City and Elko, then through Reno and back home.

My total mileage was about 3,650. That is the equivalent of a coast-to-coast road trip. How did I only manage to hit six states in 3,650 miles? Coast-to-coast I would have doubled that number. I did see some great parts of the country and got to spend a lot of time with some great family, but I also discovered the fact that I am not cut out to be a trucker. Sure they get to eat at all those great truck stops and wear awesome hats and frequent "gentlemen's" clubs and honk their horns at little kids, but I can pull all that off in my little Civic around the Bay.

ROAD TRIP!!!! (no thanks)

After a trip from San Francisco to Phoenix to Albuquerque to San Francisco last week and a trip from Oakland to Denver (via plane) to Carbondale to Salt Lake City to Reno to San Francisco this week I am officially done road tripping for the summer. After this week is over I'm losing my car keys. Holy crap.

Plus my road trips did not contain any Tom Green, huge car jumps, prostate exams, marijuana frat parties, scoring with a very experienced large lady at said frat party, or a naked Amy Smart. I might be more apt to keep my keys in hand if one or any of those popped up on my travels through the West.

Hee

This Macaque wins at life.
He's been helping me write my list of goals, but needed a break from the tedium.

Megan Fox Don't Care Bout You!

Megan! MEGAN! Look at me! I've cultivated this rosa berberifolia for you! It's beauty does not match yours, but I hope you will find it sufficient! I need you to come back and see my Transformers collection! It is more than meets the eye! I promise! I PROMISE! MEGAN!!!! WHY WON'T YOU LOOK AT ME!!????

Taylor Swift Featuring T-Pain

Oh Taylor Swift, you are hilarious. This is the most hilarious thing I have ever seen. I will pass it to all my friends and let them know of its hilariousness with the hopes that it becomes viral further rocketing you into the stratosphere and millionaires.

And T-Pain, I'm extremely disappointed in you.

The Unemployed Goal List

To do:

1. Make coffee - check

2. Finish list of goals -

3. Profit -

Why Billy?!

I once LOVED the Smashing Pumpkins. I thought everything Billy Corgan did was next to godliness. I lived and breathed Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness when it came out. I still own and prize The Aeroplane Flies High box set (and I still listen to it). But with Billy's increasing rage against fans who want to hear some Smashing Pumpkins songs in lieu of the crap Corgan is trying to pass off as Smashing Pumpkins songs and his apparent selling-out to TNA (really Billy?) he's quickly falling from that special place he has held in my heart for so many years.

Fellow Hi Liners, I give you exhibit A:

Happy Anniversary!

I'm ready for my cake please. Today is my three-week anniversary of being unemployed! Isn't that exciting? But who knew that being unemployed is almost more work than being employed. Between job searching, unemployment, COBRA (what level of Dante's Inferno was COBRA conceived on?), 401k rollovers, and my new house frau duties I'm busier than I ever was in the 9-to-5.

In an effort to keep some kind of money rolling in I took an odd job from my wife's uncle. He is an antique car collector, although none of his antique

cars are in running order. What he needed was someone to drive to Phoenix, then to Albuquerque, then back to San Francisco. So he says to himself, "Who do I know that doesn't have a job?" And the answer was me.

So I take him up on his offer and hit the road. The first day was no sweat. 11 hours in a car to Phoenix wasn't bad. The next day started off as no sweat. Six hours in the car to Albuquerque (with a 4:00 a.m. departure) wasn't too bad either. After picking up said uncle at the Albuquerque airport, picking up a U-haul trailer, and then picking up an antique jalopy from a pack of good-ol-boys 30 miles south of Albuquerque we finally hit the road home. As we're driving the uncle keeps commenting on the trailer's amazing fishtail abilities. He thinks it's just the speed we're going (who doesn't go 75mph with a loaded car trailer behind them?). Around 20 minutes later a women pulls along side us and starts yelling and pointing at the trailer. We pull off the road to find out what her fuss was about and discover that one of the trailer tires has blown. The fishtail mystery is solved.

I did not get a picture of our actual blown tire, but it looked something like this one I found on another blog.

Now begins the downhill slide of our story. We wait for U-haul's emergency service to bring a new tire. Three hours later we're fixed and back on the road. Three hours of sitting on the side of Interstate 40 in New Mexico. Most fun ever! We get back to Flagstaff at midnight, get lost trying to find the hotel, attempt to barter with the late check-in clerk for beer (unsuccessfully) and promptly fall asleep.

I had never been so ready to be out of a car in my entire life. 

Welcome to the Hi Line

Welcome to my home away from home. I used to live on the actual Hi-Line in North Central, Montana, but now I just go there vicariously through my blog. Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to stay as long as you want. The Hi Line is always open and I'm usually here watching bad movies, listening to awesome music, drinking room temperature coffee, and planning my next campaign to retain my seat as mayor.