Reading last week’s issue of The Economist, I had an odd realization:
How exactly does one write about censorship of the press?
Another one for the philosophers to debate, I suppose.
Monthly archives for January, 2007
An observation
As I rode to work this morning on my packed bus, I saw something that gave me a chuckle: a stack of hot-off-the-press Willamette Weeks sitting out in front of Sassy’s, a divey SE strip club. How appropriate for this city. The moment someone opens a brewpub strip club in this city is the moment it reaches critical mass and implodes upon itself. The whole region might implode if they roasted their own coffee, too.
Tonight I’m going to dinner with my Mom, though I always have trouble thinking of a good place to go around the Trade Center. It’s not that there aren’t good places to go, it’s just that I tend to fall into the trap of going to the same places. Fernando’s Hideaway, Paddy’s, Lotus Room, Rock Bottom, etc. My Mom probably wants Fernando’s, but I’m not sure yet where I want to go. Fernando’s is nice, but I can get a free pint glass at Rock Bottom–as if I don’t have enough pint glasses already. I’m actually running out of room for them in the space I have allocated, but that won’t stop me from buying more.
At some point between washing my dishes and putting them away the rubber gasket of my blender disappeared. I remember washing it, I know I would have put it on the drying rack, but it was nowhere to be found after that. I found my one missing running sock when I did laundry on Sunday, so at least I know they didn’t run off together.
Meetings and phone calls and computers, oh my. Time to get to work.
Yawn
I’m having sleep problems again. Monday morning I woke up to the sound of my alarm through the fog of morning insomnia, and I felt like it never really passed throughout the whole day. I don’t remember waking up in the middle of the night, or tossing and turning, but all I know is that I was in more of a haze of sleepiness all day than I normally am. Thinking perhaps that the beer I had with dinner had disagreed with me, I decided yesterday evening to not have a drink, and since I was staying up until 11 PM to watch the new “Studio 60″ I figured I’d drop right off to sleep. I was practically dozing during the show, so afterwards I climbed into bed and…lay there until 12:30 AM.
How utterly obnoxious.
Last Thursday night was a Beloit alumni get-together, and it was nice to be surrounded by some fellow Beloiters for an evening. I only knew one of the people there–a freshmen who lived on my floor my senior year who inherited my much-loved couch–but I recognized a face or two. There was even someone there who graduated the same year as I, but I had no recollection of her whatsoever. We probably even had a class or two together since she was a History major! Crazy. I thought I knew everyone from my class, even if just by face. Guess some people were more reclusive than even I. I also met an alum who runs the Portland Brew Bus, which takes groups of people on tours around the city to Portland breweries for sampling. Another alum used to be the brewmaster for Portland Brewing Company, and now is in charge of all brewing for PBR in China. When the conversation started turning towards beer, my ears perked up, obviously.
Speaking of college (and…uh…drinking, I guess), on Saturday night Hanne and I decided to do a little reminiscing about our college years, and so we told stories and had a few good laughs about the more…interesting…times of our higher education. More importantly, I showed her the one talent I picked up in college that won’t fade with time: blender drinks! I whipped up two blender-fulls (is that even a word, hyphenated or not?) of my specialty, though since there wasn’t any fruit in season I couldn’t do it right. I had to settle for the old standby of the Andrew Special. Heather’s been imitating my habits a lot lately and calling them “Andrew Specials,” so I had to emphasize that that particular drink was Andrew Special #1. Andrew Special #2 is a sandwich, chips, and beer (though to be exact, it has to be a certain kind of chips and sandwich), Andrew Special #3 is lime juice, cranberry juice, and tequila. I love categorizing my life! I have to come up with Andrew Special #4, but I have a feeling that’s going to be something from McMenamins. A Garden Commie, hold the secret sauce and pickles with fries on the side, perhaps? I’m so predictable. Now I need an Andrew Special #5.
On the plus side of my night of blenderizing with Hanne, I discovered just how much vodka I used to put into those drinks. I finally pulled out my Pyrex measuring cup and poured the right amount of shots into it, then looked in horror as I discovered that each blender full carried a full 1 1/4 cups of vodka. Oog. That might explain a few things.
This past weekend the weather was absolutely beautiful out, though still a bit chilly. I’m willing to put up with a little chill when it’s bright and sunny out. It was frigid Sunday morning, 50 degrees in the afternoon, and then it was back to frigid by 6 PM. Hanne and I took advantage of the weather and took a run together on the waterfront. It was nice to have some company while running, and I helped motivate her into jogging a bit further than she normally would. She made it a full 3 miles or so, though when she stopped to rest I took another lap around the bridges and ended up with about 6.2 miles myself. It felt so good to be outside again. I’m going to go for a run after work today, and it’s just never the same on a treadmill. I know I keep saying that, but after weeks and weeks of indoor running, it’s still astounding me how much better it is outdoors.
After nearly a year and a half in the backseat of my car, I decided to move some of the beer bottles I’d been saving into the basement of my house. I figured that the longer they stayed in my car, the longer I’d put off actually doing the brewing, plus I was getting tired of the rattling and I knew that they were affecting–however slightly–my gas mileage. Great idea, right? Finally get moving on this project that I began thinking about two years ago, clean out my car a bit? Yeah, so I pull the box out of the backseat of my car, and…well, do you know what the sound of 20 22oz. bottles crashing down to the ground sounds like? As it turned out, the bottom of the box wasn’t fully closed. Apparently, when I put the box in the car I just folded the flaps over each other, though I have zero recollection of doing something so boneheaded. I rarely do.
CRASH.
Glass all over my driveway. Under my tires. On my shoes. Everywhere. I managed to salvage about five or six of the bottles, but the rest were a total loss. On the plus side, it just so happens that I have one or two or twelve or fifteen replacement bottles sitting in my closet, awaiting their return to a grocery store. I have plenty of bottles to replace their fallen brothers, but really, I remember what a pain in the ass it was to clean the labels off those damn things in the first place. Plus, that’s a buck in bottle deposits I won’t get back. Bah!
Hanne found the whole thing hilarious, but I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of laughing at it. Yet.
I get paid tomorrow, and it’s going to be a kickass paycheck. I got a raise at my performance review, plus they’re making it retroactive to January 1, so I get “extra” money carried over from my last paycheck, plus I managed to somehow work 97 hours this pay period. I have no idea how. I didn’t stay late or work weekends, and technically, I’m short hours since I had a snow day and a couple of hours from the next day subtracted when the office was closed during our freakish snow storm. All I know is that I’m broke today, but tomorrow I won’t be. I love payday. I have no grand plans for my money besides the usual paycheck expenses (rent, student loan, credit card, and a much-needed trip to the grocery store), but it’ll be nice to not have to count my payments for awhile.
That’s it, I can’t think of anything else. If I’d write more often, I wouldn’t have to try and cram a week into a single entry.
Full belly, empty mind
When you have certain habits on specific days of the week, it does both good and bad things for you. Good: you don’t necessarily sit around wondering what to do. Bad: the opportunity to be spontaneous fades a bit. Good: days pass more quickly. Bad: days pass more quickly. I’ve found when I have regular habits on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, my weeks tend to pass a lot faster than they normally do.
My regular Wednesday night plan is a few drinks and dinner at Barley Mill since it’s all-night Happy Hour, though since I’ve been seeing Hanne I’ve omitted my reading of the “Willamette Week” at the same time since she’s usually accompanied me.
I tried to watch the State of the Union address last night, and thought I managed to completely finish it I wasn’t sure what I had just seen. It was an hour-long speech of utterly unremarkable comments. The State of the Union shouldn’t be an opportunity for the President to pat himself on the back, but rather a time to say “Here’s what’s broken, this is what I want to fix.” I’m happy that environmental issues were towards the beginning of the speech, which means that maybe for the first time in six years the President has finally started listening to a few environmentalists. God knows someone needs to. I don’t care about his reasoning to cut oil reliance and explore alternative energy sources–he could have stood up there and completely denied the existence of global warming, for all I cared–as long as those steps are taken.
Frankly, the debate over the very existence of global warming–and not its potential impact–has muddled the debate surrounding the “green” movement and its political supporters. Why focus on the specifics, as long as what needs to be done gets done? Millions of non-religious people celebrate Christmas every year by carrying out its traditions, why shouldn’t those who don’t believe in the full impact of global warming not take steps to switch to energy sources that don’t pollute? I mean, it doesn’t matter in the end what you think or suspect might or might not be happening to the planet, any fool can see that the crap being pumped into the air by all the cars and coal plants is staying there. It looks bad, it smells bad, and we shouldn’t be dumping it into the air, whether it’s for those reasons or because it’s trapping the sun’s heat in the atmosphere and gradually raising temperatures around the world and causing sea levels to rise.
Call me a cynic or a fool, if you will, but you don’t have to believe 100% in a cause to act on it. I don’t know what to believe when it comes to global warming, but I’d rather err on the side of caution.
Tomorrow night there’s a Beloit Alumni event across the street at Jax Bar. I’m going to go for a run at Bally and then stop by for awhile afterwards, though I don’t know how long I’ll stick around. The event goes from 6-9 with jazz music afterwards, but I’m usually pretty beat from my run, and to be honest, I’m pretty broke at the moment and I don’t want to spend a whole lot on drinks while I’m there. Sure, I don’t have to drink, but c’mon…I’ll be in a bar that serves beer I like. There’s just no sense in not having a beer or two. Plus, it might be interesting to see if anyone I know shows up.
Speaking of alumni, I rode the elevator down to the ground floor with one of the partners last week, and he noticed my Catlin Gabel duffel bag that I’ve been using as a gym bag. He asked why I was carrying it, and so I told him that I had graduated from there…er…now ten years ago, I guess. That long already? I know my reunion is this year (though I haven’t received an invitation yet), but I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around that. He remarked that the campus was nicer than his college campus, and also that a friend of his had been trying unsuccessfully to get a child into the school for a couple of years now. Sounds like the waiting list has grown pretty long in the last ten years. Thank goodness for past opportunities.
I went to a Microsoft event yesterday afternoon, much like the one I went to in September, though this one was more of a product overview than a demonstration and technical information. I was more interested in the latter type, since instead I got four hours of “Rah rah, Microsoft!” type videos. It was more for managers than IT professionals. I did get a free copy of Office 2007 out of it, but I was hoping for a copy of Vista. Maybe at a future event. I did get to leave work for four hours, though looking back on it, I’m not sure if I would have had more fun at work alternating between bored and busy, or at the event where it was boredom interspersed with fits of discomfort thanks to the wonderful hotel chairs. 90 or so people crammed into a ballroom that went from frigidly-cold to boiling hot for four hours? How could that not be fun?
Oops, almost time to go. My favorite part of the day. Bus home, walk to McMenamins, and thus ends Wednesday.
Recuperation
I told a coworker of mine my weekend activities, and she described it as interesting. I suppose that’s an adjective I might have used, as well.
Friday night I went up to the grocery store to get some dinner and soda, and naturally, forgot my cans to return as well as two big bags of plastic bags to recycle–pretty much half the reason I went up there in the first place. I have a lot of recyclables in my apartment right now, between the wine case, three plastic grocery bags, and twelve-pack of beer bottles, the cardboard box filled with more cardboard and paper, the paper sack with plastic and metal, and the two and a half paper sacks of soda cans to return.
As I said, a lot.
After dinner, I hopped on a bus and met Hanne who got on at a later stop, and she and I walked 20 blocks to a party a friend of hers was throwing. I didn’t know anyone there, of course, but had fun nonetheless. Had a bit of beer, had some chips, talked with a few new people. Afterwards, it was long past the last bus, and instead of cabbing it back to our respective neighborhoods we instead walked the 2.5 miles back at 12:30 AM. It was very peaceful, actually. It wasn’t too cold out, it was very quiet, and we talked a lot on the way back. Good times.
Saturday night was the Fark Party I had organized, meaning it was a get-together of people who all just happen to visit and read Fark.com. Around 15 people showed, including two Farkers from Eugene and one Farker all the way from New York City–all three of which were in Portland for other reasons, but showed up anyway. The last Fark Party I organized was at the Horse Brass pub, and while that was successful, it took me days to get the smoke smell out of my clothes and skin. No smoking, no hard liquor at the Lucky Lab Brewpub this time around, but we got a decent enough turnout that I forgot all the bitching that had gone on about the location prior to the party.
After the main party, Heather, Hanne, and a guy named Jason who’s shown up at the last three Fark parties went across the street to Roots Organic Brewing and had another beer, and I learned a very powerful lesson: don’t end an evening of beer drinking with a beer with double-digit alcohol percentage. I had maybe four or five (Imperial) pints of beer at the Lucky Lab, then a half-pint of their “Strong Lager,” and then at Roots I had a half-pint of their “Epic Ale.” Good beer, but as I sat there drinking it and being mindful of my rapidly deteriorating motor functions, I realized I’d made a pretty bad mistake. Well, not that bad. I wasn’t driving, and Heather hadn’t been indulging anywhere near as much as I had. But it’s not pleasant to sit there and feel the effects of alcohol continue to hit you and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I wasn’t sick, mind you, just…too much beer. I finished my own beer, but I refused to finish Hanne’s. I had been drinking a ridiculous amount of water throughout the evening knowing I’d likely have more than my fair share of beer, so when I woke up Sunday morning I could tell I’d had too much the night before, but it wasn’t painful as the nights I don’t drink enough water. As hangovers go, that one was mostly towards the “obnoxious” end of things. I felt nauseous until I had some breakfast, and then the rest of the day I was just overly tired and not quite up to my full mental capacity. Some might say the latter of those things is what got me into that mess, but I disagree.
I did postpone a drive to Wilsonville and a drive to Hillsboro because I was too busy napping, but eh, these things happen. It was worth it, and if I had to do it over again I’d probably omit the Strong Lager but do the rest the same. But since I’m not doing it again anytime soon, it’s moot.
I started thinking today about taking a vacation this year. It was close to a year ago that Erika and I took our trip to Victoria, and I’ve been entertaining a number of ideas of what I should do. I have the money to go practically anywhere I want to, and I’ll have a good amount of vacation saved up by the time I’m ready to go, too. The world is literally my oyster, so what should I do with myself?
New episode of “Heroes ” tonight, but Hanne’s in class until 8 PM. She’s really going to have to rush to make it to my apartment by 9 PM so we can watch the first new episode in almost a month and a half. At least I have something to look forward to on Mondays again.
Good…bad…good
Days like today should be illegal in my line of work. Sometimes I’ll come in to work and just have too much fun. Aside from a boring meeting that I have every Friday with my coworkers, the rest of my day has been spent getting stuff done that I’ve been putting off, listening to good music (I’ve been chewing through my Classic Rock playlist all day), and consuming caffeine. Since one of my coworkers is absent today, I have the time from 3:30 to 5:30 all to myself, so I can play my music loudly and just generally slack off. At least, as long as I look like I’m working when people walk in. Alt-Tab, Alt-Tab!
Tomorrow night is a Fark Party that I organized, the first in about a year and a half. The last Fark Party I organized was at the Horse Brass and generally well-received, though it was crowded, smoky, and we had trouble squeezing everyone in together. This time around I picked someplace I can walk/stumble home from, the Lucky Lab Brewpub. Sure, there’s no hard liquor, no smoking, and I picked it because it’s generally close to me, but it should be a lot of fun.
Whoops, there goes my flawless day. In the course of helping my boss install a rack-mounted switch, I unplugged the entire network. The central switch that everybody connects through? I pulled the power cord out. Go me.
Still, aside form that little hiccough, it’s been a good day so far.
Post-Snow Day
What a wonderful snow day! I was up, showered, and dressed by the time I realized that I probably wouldn’t be going into work, but when I looked out the window at all the snow falling I knew I wouldn’t be going into work. I love that feeling! Sure, I could have hiked into work since I’m not that far, but if they say that they’re going to close the office, who am I to decide?
So instead of sitting in my lovely fluorescent bubble for the day, Hanne and I walked to the store, bought ingredients for a big pot of chili, and alternated watching TV and the snow falling for most of the day. It was definitely a day for laziness since we’d been granted a free day. It wasn’t nearly as cold as it had been Monday night when I walked to the grocery store to buy a sandwich for myself, but it was still cold enough that the prospect of a belly full of chili at the end of the day sounded very appetizing. Oh, and what wonderful chili it was, too. It wasn’t as thick as I would have liked, but I was pushing my luck with how long I had already simmered it, and both Hanne and I had rumbly tummies. It had three types of beans, two types of meat (ground beef and bacon), a bottle of Stone Smoked Porter beer, and a veritable array of spices. I didn’t make it too spicy, though–I can always spice it up myself. I topped it off with crumbles of a five-year-old extra sharp cheddar cheese. A perfect way to end a lazy snow day. I froze a whole container and put the rest in my fridge to enjoy this weekend while it’s still cold.
Last night I met Hanne down at Barley Mill, and I was surprised to find the place a lot darker than usual. It seems that the power line on their block had some damage to it–perhaps from a car accident?–and they were almost completely without power. They didn’t have anything running in the kitchen, so it was strictly chips and salsa being served because that’s all they had that didn’t require cooking. That was a little disappointing, but I had my beer in plastic cups and munched on some chips and salsa and filled up on munchies. I had a bag of Kettle baked BBQ chips when I got back to my apartment, so I really filled up on munchies last night. That was OK, though–I got plenty of greens yesterday: I had two pieces of broccoli with my chicken and brown rice bento lunch.
I’m going for a much-needed run after work today. The chili, while mighty tasty, wasn’t exactly what my body needed this week.
Snow day!
It’s been awhile since I had a snow day, so I’m happy to report that the firm closed for the day given the snow that’s been falling since before I got up this morning. They did a two-hour delayed opening at first to evaluate the weather, but I had a feeling they were going to cancel it completely given the amount of snow that’s outside.
So here I am, drinking coffee and listening to music. I couldn’t ask for more! But wait, I will! Hanne’s classes have been completely canceled as well, so later she’s going to come over and we’re going to play in the snow and then walk up to the grocery store, where I’m going to buy ingredients to make chili for dinner tonight. I found a spectacular recipe, but if Hanne wants to eat with me I’ll have to adjust it given her habit of not eating meat. If I could find organic/free-range bacon and beef, perhaps…otherwise it’s meatless I go.
I was going to go for a run after work today…but I think this will be better. I have a day to have fun and cook, and then I can merely have a three day work week since I had yesterday off, too. I’ve heard rumors that it may not even get above freezing today, so if there roads stay icy, there’s always the possibility that I could be off tomorrow too.
But I’m not going to jinx it.
New toys all around
Whenever it gets cold in my apartment I work on my computer, for some odd reason my right hand gets colder than my left hand. Actually, a great deal colder. Most likely because I use my mouse with my right hand and it’s exposed and doesn’t get as much circulation, but with the weather outside at 24 degrees and the temperature in my apartment not a great deal higher despite my heater and a space heater running, well, let’s just say Brrrrrr. It’s been colder than usual here in the last week, and it’s only supposed to get mildly warmer in the next week. When the temperature gets up to 40 degrees, it’s practically shorts weather. Until then, I get to run my heater practically all day long because my apartment cools off so fast.
It’s helpful if I have someone around with a warm back I can warm my hands on, but Hanne’s back in class today. I, however, have the day off. I’ve never gotten MLK, Jr. Day off. Not since grade school, at least. Working for lawyers has its pluses every now and then.
The last couple of weekends–this one included, I suppose–have been pretty lazy. Last weekend I chewed through the DVD extras from the Lord of the Rings movies. Two discs of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews for each movie, so six DVDs in total. That was a lot of Lord of the Rings to absorb in one weekend, but there were a lot of interesting stories, and seeing the care the filmmakers put into crafting the movie was very interesting. My next goal–eventually–is to make it through all three movies and listen to all three sets of audio commentary on each movie. I’ve seen each of the movies multiple times already, but that would be committing another 33 hours to those movies, and my geekdom only extends so far.
I’ve bought a few toys lately, some with my Christmas money, some with my own. Chiefly amongst my new toys was a brand new 80 GB iPod to replace my aging 10 GB iPod that my Mom gave me as a graduation gift from college. It was old, it was thick, it was heavy. the drive was dying, and I could only fit 1/3 of my total music collection on. So I took Christmas money from my Mom and Grandmother and ventured down to the Apple Store downtown and laid it down along with my hard-earned (well, earned) cash and walked out with the iPod, a dock to connect to my computer, and an extra sync cable to use at work. Beautiful. I like having every CD in my collection at my disposal. A few from other people’s collections, too.
I was actually going to pick it up the day after Christmas, but I knew that MacWorld was starting on January 9, so I waited to see if Apple was going to introduce a new iPod or lower the prices on existing models. It turned out that they introduced the absolutely beautiful iPhone instead, so I went with what was currently available. I want an iPhone, though. I don’t want to pay $499 for it, nor do I want to be locked into a two-year Cingular contract again. Perhaps I’ll wait until the second generation of iPhones to fork over more cash to Apple.
In lieu of an iPhone, though, I decided it was time to replace my two year old cell phone and I purchased a new Sony-Ericsson W810i off eBay. I don’t get locked into another Cingular contract by doing that, so I can switch carriers if I like even though I paid a little more for the phone than if I bought it through Cingular.
With my Dad’s chief Christmas present, I bought myself a beautiful stainless steel cookware set from Sur La Table. I’ve been collecting random pots and pans for the last few years, but I’ve always wanted a stainless steel set. I couldn’t afford the one I really wanted (mostly because it clocked in around $1000 for the set, but you get what you pay for), but this one comes in a close second. I was going back and forth between the set I got and a high-quality non-stick set, but a salesperson convinced me to go with the steel set instead. It’s so much shinier, too! I got a coupon for 20% off my next open stock cookware purchase, and with Christmas money from my aunt, I went back to Sur La Table today and get myself a large stockpot. Between my coupon, my Christmas money, the $0.05 left on my gift card, and that it was already 30% off, I got a pretty good deal. I used the leftover money to get myself something I’ve needed for quite some time: a professional-grade cutting surface. My white plastic cutting board wasn’t cutting it anymore, so to speak.
With this new set, I can get rid of some of the cookware I have, but I have a feeling I’ll keep some of it around. I have a nice saucepan that I’ve used since college, a decent non-stick omelette pan, and a largish non-stick skillet I’ll probably hold onto. I hung all my new cookware above my sink on the hooks I’d been using for mugs, and my kitchen looks a little nicer now.
I can feel the cooking bug creeping back into me. I get this way every now and then when I start looking at good cooking stuff, and it’s ridiculous how excited I get. “Oooo, I can use this to make cornbread!” What the hell? I’ve never made cornbread in my entire life, except from a box. It’s going to be all I can do not to buy something else I don’t need when I go down there, but fortunately, my coupon is only good for a single piece of cookware, not the whole purchase.
I have enough on my credit card right now without having cooking stuff I don’t have room for on it, too. But hey! They raised my credit limit again! I can buy a Hyundai with my credit card now.
Since Hanne’s a vegetarian, I have trouble coming up with things I can make for her since I enjoy using meat in my cooking, but I’ve managed to wear her down on a few of the meals I like making in which she’s agreed to eat meat if it’s organic/free-range/etc. I told her it was doubtful that I could find organic or free-range prosciutto for use in the ragu I’m going to try and make next weekend, but she said that was just fine since I’m such a good cook. The power of the Dark Side truly is great.
I’d cook something special tonight with my new cookware, but I think I’d rather walk up to the grocery store in the cold and buy myself a sandwich and some chips. I already have beer from John’s Marketplace to consume with my sandwich–I made a pilgrimage and paired the beer I bought with the pizza I made for Hanne Saturday night.
I’ll just keep an eye out for organic prosciutto while I’m there.
In with the new
This time of year I seem to write less and less, and in fact, going back and looking at my archives to remember what year I got a particular gift for Christmas is usually a waste of time since I don’t write until days or even weeks after the holidays, and I subsequently neglect to mention various things. It’s not that I have no desire to write, it’s just that I…have no desire to write. We’ll call it laziness and just tuck that away in this pocket here for safekeeping.
I had every reason to be lazy this year, too. I took the week between Christmas and New Year’s off and did very, very little. I got up late, I played games, I watched TV, I sampled wines and beers, and I just generally lazed around the apartment. It was a nice break from work, even if I wasn’t off in some exotic locale or even at the beach for a night or two. I just needed some time away from work to unwind and not have to think about the daily stresses of cantankerous lawyers and their equally-edgy assistants pushing towards a deadline. Every day there’s a new deadline.
I did get a few things accomplished, though. I bought a new game for the first time in ages and played it for a number of hours. Not nearly enough to put a dent into it (average playtime to make it through the story alone, I’m told, is upwards of 70 hours, and I’m hovering around 10 or 11 with ample time not participating in the story), but enough that it took up time. I took three items to a frame shop down the street to have them framed and had to bite my lip from screaming when told the price to frame all three ($300…good thing they’re on a three-week wait). I ran errands. I generally did very little, and that was the whole idea of taking those days off. I enjoy days where the most complicated thing I need to do is figure out what I’m going to have for dinner. For awhile, at least.
I did particularly enjoy being able to run outdoors again since I had the days free, even if it was in the mid- to high-30′s all week. I bundled up, braved the cold for the first 5-10 minutes, and by the time I was well into my second mile, I was pretty warm. It’s only been a couple of months since I last ran outdoors, but I’d forgotten how much more challenging it is than a treadmill, both from the perspective of how it affects joints as well as how much easier it is for me to run. Last year I started a regular regimen of running on December 31 (OK, so the end of the year before last)–outdoors–so I know I can do it if I put my mind to it. I’m keeping my Bally membership for the time being, however, primarily because I’m getting off work an hour and a half later than I was on December 31, 2005, and it’s still dark when I leave work in the evenings.
But I ran three times in the cold, so hopefully that will be enough to wet my beak until I can do it again on a more regular basis. You know, when I don’t need to wear a slicker and/or reflectors.
2006 has drawn to a close, and there are a number of things I could ruminate about, but I think I did a lot of that last year. 2006 wasn’t the best year I’ve ever had, though it wasn’t among the worst by far. Maybe just parts of it. I had my highs and my lows, that’s for certain. My relationship with Erika ended rather abruptly, though not unexpectedly. I got a new job. I spent my first calendar year in my own apartment. I bought a lot of stuff. I drank a lot of beer. It was generally a good year with a few downpoints.
And my New Year’s resolution? Cutting back on the alcohol a bit. I haven’t been overdoing it by any means, but if I want to take off a bit of the holiday pudginess that gathered around my midsection, I’ll need to cut back a bit. Should be easy enough–I tend to overdo the beer and wine at the end of the year anyway, so it won’t be cutting back, rather, just re-establishing the status quo of alcohol intake. I didn’t really gain any weight this year (compared to me weighing 15 pounds more than I do now exactly a year ago), but I can tell I expanded a bit. I guess my slowly-dwindling leg muscle mass is just relocating to elsewhere.
2007 should prove to be an interesting year, I think. My 10-year high school reunion is this year. Ten years! I’m a bit curious to know what some of the other people from high school have been up to in the last ten years even if I don’t remember the names of half of them, which is no small feat given that I graduated in a class of 40-odd people.
And speaking of reunions, at least of sorts, I signed up to go to a Beloit event here in Portland. I’d been watching the Alumni website to see if they were going to have any sort of alumni event in Portland anytime soon, and fortunately they’re holding one right across the street from me at a bar I go to on occasion. All to easy. I’ve never been to any of the Beloit regional alumni events, so I have no idea what to expect other than a few beers.
Christmas was a very muted affair in the Self household this year. Christmas Eve dinner was at my sister’s, Christmas was at my Dad’s as usual, and my Dad’s birthday was at Vincente’s Pizza here in SE. I just wasn’t in a very Christmas-y mood this year, and it didn’t seem like anyone else in my family was, either. Or maybe I’m just transferring my own feelings to them. Not decorating my own apartment helps to not put me in the Christmas spirit, as did not going to any Christmas parties aside from ones where immediate family attended. I got a number of good gifts, I gave a number of good gifts; the specifics really aren’t necessary, though I wasn’t disappointed with anything I got as has happened on occasion in the past.
After a week and a half break, here I am, back at work and a little dazed to be back into things again. On the other hand, when you wake up at 4 AM and read for a couple of hours before you even get out of bed, what do you expect?
I’m going home, making some soup or pasta for dinner, and popping in the 4th season of “Scrubs” on DVD. I’ll go running on Tuesday when my eyes aren’t drooping. Besides, my calves are still a little sore from the last of my pavement runs on Sunday.