Running Shoes / Bike to Work

I got my new running shoes in the mail yesterday. My current running shoes have 395 miles on them and the rubber is almost gone now on the toe. I am going to see how far I can push them but I am expecting they will make the end of this week is about all. The expected life of running shoes is 300-500 miles and though some people have to just trust this and replace their shoes as they don’t show the wear. For me the wear is so evident that I can see it and know they are worn out.

Last night I went out with my running club again for my run. We did 8.5 miles in 90 degree sunshine. I was again beat when I got home. Running in the heat is not a good thing for me as I sweat so much I look like a mop. I have to keep to morning running when it is cooler during the summer.

We accepted a person for my rental last night. This takes this worry off our plate and we should sign the lease with her tonight. At a time when most rentals grab anyone and offer special offers of a month free or lawn services etc to get a renter I have been very fortunate. Again my house rented and I have one renter moving out 1 day and the new ones moving in the next with no down time. My other rental is up at the end of next month I will see in a week if I have to start looking for another renter for that house. I hope he stays another year.

Today was bike to work day. I took advantage of it for the first time. I biked through 2 locations and had a bagel and coffee and chatted with other people out biking. One of the stops I hit happened to be a bicycle shop sponsored and I got my bikes gears adjusted. For the first time in 2 years I can change into all gears. It even rode better afterwards. I still have to get some cleaner and do a little cleaning on the shifting mechanism to finish it out.

4 Championship Games in June

Another totally kids sports filled weekend. We started out Saturday morning with my daughter at Swim Team. She competed in her events as normal except for the final free relay as we wanted to take her home for some rest before the rest of the day of softball games.

Our first game was at 1:30 at our own City Park ball fields. They are great fields to play on with actual dugouts that make for fun games with the kids. The best part of this game was there was a team from a near by state that played us the first game. We got to play someone we had never seen before. We beat them and then had a few hours off. We played again at 6 and 7:30pm for two more games that night. In the 6pm game we had acquired enough runs that the other team could not win with the 10U rules and the other coach decided to let my daughter take a shot at pitcher. She got in and threw 3 pitches fielded the ball herself and threw the last out of the inning at 1st base. What fun these girls are all having.

Sunday we went into single elimination bracket play. We again had our first game against the Blue Jays. This was fine and they tried to mess with our batting with different pitchers but we hit everything they gave us and won the game sending them home early. We had an hour off and then our next game we came back all sleepy. At the end of regulation play we were tied and went into overtime inning. Again we tied and went into a second overtime inning. We finally won the game but it took its toll as it was now over a 2 hour game in the heat.

We headed into the championship game for the 4th weekend in a row against another team that was in their 1st championship game. The mental stress of the Blue Jays and the double overtime game took its toll and we lost taking 2nd place in this week tournament. It was actually fun watching this other team get a win like this as you could see their excitement and they even wanted a picture of both teams intermixed at the end of the game. THAT IS GREAT SPORTSMANSHIP!

Sunday was also a first for me in my running. I went out that morning for my run and while making some turns on the paths in our town I ended up on the longest run I have ever completed. I did 13.1 miles or a half marathon distance. I even did it in 30 seconds under 2 hours which is a goal I have. Now I feel I can register for a ½ marathon and do it in under 2 hours. After that run and the full day on the ball fields in the sun I was wiped last night and was out cold all night. I did force myself out of bed and put in 5 miles this morning to boot.

Needless to say I am moving kind of sluggish today at work on a bunch of laptops I have to get set up for training in a couple days. I will get them ready though.

Fun at Work

The hiring manager for Dumber at my new job asked me today if I was going to install anything on his pc to cause him problems. Like some message for him to report to the conference room for some problems he caused in the system. I said I was seriously thinking about it especially since I am the ring leader for the GET DUMBER CAMPAIGN.

One of the guys here decided to pull a prank on another new employee. He told her that the reason she could not see the information was because she needed a tester monitor and to go ask the IT department. That is me. Well we set her straight and he was just laughing hysterically at his prank.

Being a new person myself I decided to help the other new people pull one back on this guy. I had just purchased 4 new VOIP phones for us new people. In the boxes were some End User Agreements. I gave one to each of the new people and then went to this guys phone and looked at the MAC address and then asked him for his End User agreement. One of the new gals then said I have mine what didn’t he respond to the email to get his set up? I said I guess not and left to go check it out and for the new gals to pick on the guy a bit.

Shortly, after this guy comes to me and is sure that he never got the email. He had searched his emails completely and swears he never got it and if he is missing important all employee emails he is worried. We let him sweat a little and I gave him an extra User Agreement. He was thankful I had an extra for him and I told him I was taking care of it for him. Later in the day he found out the reality of it and was laughing that yep he had been gotten back. Lots of people had a good laugh.

This morning was breakfast day. MMMM eggs, and muffins for all. I really like Fridays. This was followed by getting to work on setting up a new wireless network for our training laptops. Was kind of a fun job with 13 computer all on a desk and was just working around in a circle putting them all on this network.

New Running Shoes

Yesterday nothing happened for me. Was a normal work day followed by a personal client to visit after I got off work. I did buy a new pair of running shoes online though and saved $15 over the cost of buying locally plus no shipping or tax so more like a savings of $20. My new shoes are the Asics GT2110 in green. I think they will be cool ones to follow my current yellow ones I am only a week away from retiring.

I ended my day with a Father’s Day visit to my dad. Since I was in softball tournament all weekend with my daughter I still needed to go see my dad. They we of course very happy to see me for the evening. Caught up on what they are doing and had dinner with them.

This morning I spent at the pool with my daughters swim meet. She got a new personal best time on a couple of her swims so we are hopeful she will make a state qualifying time soon.

I get to work at noon to hear that Dumber has accepted and will be starting here on July 10th. Now I get to set up a pc and phone for him to use. I can’t wait to find out what happens when he gives his notice and what Addroc does. I am hopeful that Addroc doesn’t know I am here and was the one responsible to pull their newest IT love out from under them. I am hopeful for some Bottle Caps begin being delivered weekly with dumber now coming here to work. LOL.

Winning State on Father’s Day Weekend

What a weekend. It started with an early rise for a 1 hour commute followed by a 1 hour warm up for an 8 am softball game for my daughter. This game was again against that same team the Blue Jays that beat us twice last weekend to win that tournament. Well once again we walked their players with some poor pitching and they won again. We then played another team and though we kind of in the back of our minds wanted to lose to this team playing our girls in the wrong spots we still won it. We wanted to lose so we could face the Blue Jays again that same day when their only pitcher would be tired. It didn’t work out. And we played 2 other teams and won both of those games.

Sunday came and with us again still in the winners bracket we had a late start of 12:30pm. So I enjoyed the early morning with a 10.5 mile run in a new area I had not yet ran through. It was a pretty run with the river running full and the shadows of the morning stretching along the road. I returned home to a couple of fathers day presents of which was a new blender so the kids and I of course made smoothies.

We again headed to the softball field for the rest of the tournament. It was the same as the weekend before with us and those Blue Jays in the winner’s bracket facing each other again. Winner of this first game gets a 2 hour break and then plays for the championship. With it being a double elimination game this first win is critical as the championship game the other team has to beat you twice to win. Last week the Blue Jays won. This week we WON. Yes our girls played like the champs they are. They were batting machines with almost every girl getting hits. The score this time was 9-5 not the normal 1 run differences we had seen in the past. We go on break and the Blue Jays play another game to get a chance to come at us again. And, that is just what they did.

The Blue Jays were back for the Championship game and they had something to prove. For the most part they only have 1 good pitcher and an awesome catcher. They also like to at age 10 cheat. They picked up on our bunting signs and this time tried to play a slow change up pitching girl. This can change the game and when your team is used to a certain speed of pitch for their timing and a slow change up pitcher comes in it can really mess up the batting.

It was sort of working for them as our bats were flying to fast and when we did get a hit it was to the infield and they put us out at first. They were up on us and winning this game 3-7. We were thinking we are going to the second game but we were home team and got one more at bat. Time on the game had expired and we had to bat and get 5 runs to win or play the second game.

We got a couple runs in and had girls on 2nd and 3rd base with 2 outs in this inning. Things are not looking too good. My daughter is up to bat and she has been in a little bit of a slump and is not the top batter on the team, though she does okay. So now the pressure is on though and what does she do but hits a double bringing in the tying run. WOOHOO. Our next girl gets up and is thrown out at 1st. We are going into extra innings. They take the bat and we put them out with a 3 up and 3 outs. We come up to bat and in a bad running move get tagged out but that was our first runner and the batter made it to 2nd base so we still have a runner on and 2 more outs. Our next gal gets a hit and brings in the winning run. We showed those Blue Jays and we are State Champions as this was the State Tournament.

What a great father’s day.

Margaritas for Birthdays.

Nothing really happened on Thursday till late in the day. I was just finishing up to leave work for the day and was talking to a new gal that was just hired a couple weeks ago. We were discussing housing and she is moving to some land where I grew up. As we talked she finally asked what my last name was again and I told her. She then said well my maiden name is BLAH. I know she had the same feeling I had at that moment, A sinking feeling of OMG.

When I was like 8 year old her brother and I got into fights. In the end families kind of fought over protecting their own sons. To this day my family and her family still live near each other and don’t really speak. So a Hatfield and McCoy type relationship. We now here the children of this are working together. We will see how this all pans out in the future. I hope for the best and she and I can not let that stuff from the past bother us.

I then went to my daughter’s basketball game. She was wearing some shorts that were long and her hair in a pony tail. She looked kind of like Becky Hammon from the New York Liberty WNBA team, our favorite player. I mentioned this to my wife and she said glad you noticed as your daughter was striving for that look. I think she picked a great role model.

As for today, this gal I mentioned above is so far fine. I have been talking to her and decided to help her with a prank. A guy here at work told her she needed a testing monitor and she came asking and it was just a pick on the new people move. So I took her a plan on how to get this same guy back. I am trying to make good and create a new era between the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s.

This is the same exact thing I had to do last night. I mentioned a while ago my daughter taking the spot of another gal on the team in softball. I was also the 1st base coach and he got upset. Well we, my family, went to watch him play in a band last night. We are trying to keep harmony on our team.

I am anxious for today’s Birthday celebration at work. Each month they celebrate the birthdays with treats on one day. Today’s treats is Marg’s. Yep there is margarita mix etc in the frig for today. Drinking for anyone?

1st Swimming Meet 2006

Last nights interview was okay I guess. It was a company that will train me in financial planning. Basically it would mean I would be visiting peoples houses and helping them with their financial needs, selling life insurance, helping organize their mutual funds etc. Even though I like doing that kind of stuff not sure it is the track I want to follow right now.

I got up and ran almost 5 miles today early in the morning. I had to run early to get it in before I needed to have my daughter at the pool for the swim meet. She had warm ups starting at 6:45am so to get my shower and run in I had to go early that and the heat of the day that is the best time to run. It was still 65 degrees out at 5am.

It was great being at the swim meet today knowing that all was cool. One of the gals I work with had a son in the meet also on the opposing team so she was there also. When I got into the office everyone was asking how the meet went etc. The gal I work with was just heading out to lunch and even asked if I needed her to pick up something for me as she knew I came from the meet directly to work. Nice people.

We got an email showing our game schedule for this weekend’s softball tournament. We start out at 8am in a town over an hour drive from home against the team we took 2nd to last weekend. We are going to have to go in there fighting and show them we are the team to beat this time. Like I have said we beat them a couple weeks ago in a tournament so it is our turn again.

Another Interview

Last night my daughter had basketball practice. The coach that is doing this team said that she was the best passer on the team; although, I didn’t see it last night. I think I need to just go and hang with her outside and work on some of her skills. She looks to have slipped and the other girls are better then her now. The main thing is I know she is having fun though.

Today I have gotten quite a bit done. I again ran over 6 miles this morning and was at work at 7am. I left work and ran home to take my daughter to swimming practice which she was actually ready for. My wife is on her 3rd day in a new job herself so I needed to get her to practice. What is nice is that it is okay to go do that from here. Tomorrow I will be at her swim meet for the first time without people complaining that I am gone on flex or personal time. I just have to still get my work done. I like this.

Tonight I have a meeting for another job. I had a guy call me up that I was apparently recommended to him. So after work I have this other interview to see if I want to change. At the moment I am hesitant of this guy but I will go and meet him at the new office that is just being put in my area. He is actually based in another town.

Weekend in the mountains for Softball

Friday we left for our out of town softball tournament. It was in a mountain town that is a 4 hour drive away. The whole team made it and we had a team dinner that night taking over the whole patio of a restaurant. After dinner we all went to the hotel and let the girls all swim and have some fun till around 10pm. We think this was a problem on Saturday.

Saturday we had our first games early at 9:30am, we needed warm up time and the games were held in another town 45 minutes away. So we had to get up early. We played those games horribly and the girls didn’t move at all. We think that swimming the night before was too much for them to recoup. We shook it off went back to the hotel and rested before out next 2 bracket game we had that night starting at 5pm. When we went to those games we had recovered and won them both keeping us in the winner’s bracket going into Sunday and a late starting game at 11am for Sunday.

That night the girls played, some went to the pool again others just ran from room to room. Us parents congregated in one room and went enjoyed some beer and a fierce game of scrabble till midnight. Slurred words were not accepted but were tried to be played often.

Sunday morning I took a HIGH altitude run. This town is a mountain town and the air is thinner. I did 8 miles though with hills and felt pretty good. I found some beautiful little running trails and enjoyed the run along the river. I am glad I felt good on this run as I will be running into this town in August in a race.

We started our first softball game for Sunday at 11 and it was against a team that is very tough for us to beat. We have beaten them in previous tournaments in the championship game and it seems we go back and forth some. This tournament we lost to them the 1st game and that dropped us in the loser’s bracket. We then played a game against a team and beat them to put us back into the championship game against the team that had beaten us earlier. We would have to now beat them 2 more times to win the tournament as it was a double elimination tournament. We lost again by 2 runs and thus it ended with us in 2nd place this time. We will see them this coming weekend again I am sure and we need to come out strong on them this time.

It was then the long travel back home getting us in around 9:30pm. Unpack, and get ready for work the next day was all we had on our minds. I did get up early though and put in 6 miles this morning and now I am fatigued and my leg is wanting to cramp some. I better drink a lot of water today.

Going out of Town

Last night was some batting practice for the softball girls. The head coach hit half the girls with the ball. My daughter was hit on a finger that left her nail turning purple and a couple others were hit in the side or in the chest. We were learning slap bunting from the left side and if they don’t get the ball and knock it down they are turning into the pitch so those types of hits happen.

Today we leave at noon for an out of town tournament. As parents we filled out the brackets ahead of time to see who is going to get the closed to knowing the outcome of the game. We turned it into a $5 bet and you get points for each game you get right. Of course I have my girls winning all the way so it is the other teams I hope play the right way so I can win.

I am on the go.

Monday morning I came to work all packed and ready for my business trip. The owner showed up about an hour later to pack up the servers, other hardware and we left for our business trip. I think this ended up being a great trip as I was able to learn more about what my new company really does at the customer’s site. We installed the hardware and got all the client pc’s connected and working with our software and the whole time I was having fun.

The other part of the trip was I spent 10 hours of time just visiting with the owner. It is amazing how much you learn about a person when you the only two in a car for that long. We also discussed my being at the new company and pay. I talked him into a pay review at 6 months then at 1 year and then going yearly after that on the normal company reviews. He had thought it was only a pay review at 6 months and then yearly. So in short while talking he agreed to 2 reviews in this year to help bump my salary up sooner. To be able to talk to the owners and work that out like that is a great feeling and so different from Addroc.

I sometimes play with Geocaching as a part time game. While on this business trip I looked up the locations of a couple of caches in the town I was in. That night after working I took off from the hotel on my run and used the cache site as my destination. I got there at almost dusk and ended up muddling around in this swamp trying to find this cache. Just as I was giving up and heading back out I spotted it. Inside was a travel bug which I had hoped was there so I could bring it back with me. I have logged him as having on the website and will deposit him in a cache locally in the next week or so. This is my first Travel bug and it was exciting to finally get my hands on one.

I ended up running 9 miles on Sunday morning. I ran 4 miles on Monday morning. I ran 3.5 miles on Monday night getting that travel bug. So I was up to over 16 miles in 2 days. Since we got back from our business trip early I went swimming with the kids for over an hour. Tuesday night is my group run and I took off as normal with my running partner. We ended up going 9 miles which is normal for a Tuesday night run. The problem with last nights run though is it was over 90 degrees and sunny out when we were out running. We walked some and it was a slow run. I got home and with the extra miles I already had, the pool, and the heat I was so tired I could literally hardly move. I collapsed on the couch and slept a little only to wake stiff and sore. I crawled to bed and died for the night.

I still feel a little off this morning. I think I over did it the last couple of days. Today I think I will take as a recover day and maybe only do a small 2 mile run with my son if he wants. I need to start getting ready to go out of town again for a softball tournament on Friday afternoon. Since we live near mountains and this town is a mountain town I will get in a run up at an even higher altitude. This is also the same town I will run in a relay to in a couple months so will be a good feeling to know the running feel of high altitudes.

We Win Softball Tournament

Saturday we spent all morning at the softball fields with my daughter. They came out to play in the first game. It was great 10 runned the team. The second game was not so good as we made some errors and could not hit the ball. The third game we didn’t’ care if we won or lost it was a game for us to practice some moves and try some different things. Well it worked and we beat the team fairly easily. By the end of the day we ended up the 1st seed going into the bracket play on Sunday.

Sunday because we were the 1st team we didn’t have a game till 11am. With that information I took the morning to get in a good run and did 9 miles. Was a fairly slow 9 miles but in them I basically attended an old car, car show. There were old coupes, and 55’s and 56’s and trucks, you name it parked at all the hotels along the route I decided to run. Was really cool as I ran from hotel to hotel and then browsed the car shows. Even some people were out polishing their cars so I could visit with them and learn. Was a beautiful blue sky morning and I enjoyed the time.

We started our first game in the second runner to get to first base I tried a tricky move and sent her to second. Well needless to say she was tagged out and right off the bat we were on 2 outs and the game barley began. Well, I learned and we adapted and put in a new thing for the girls to watch so we could be sneaker yet. We ended up winning the first game and moved straight into the next game. There we were a little tired and hot and it was a close game. But with lots of water we ended up winning that game also.

Woohoo we moved into the championship game right after that game finished. Yes, you are catching on. We played 3 back to back games in 95 degree sunny heat on a dirt ball field. The girls had to be getting hot as I know I was. The championship game was against the team that had beat us on Saturday and they were out get us again. It has kind of become a small rivalry with this team.

I have to brag here a little about my daughter. She played very solid today at 2nd base. She was at the right bag every play no matter if it was hit right, left or bunted. She also scooped up some great hits and put the runners out at 1st with ease. She also was a hitter today and might be coming out of her slump. She had some great hits that brought in runners for RBI’s.

So back to the championship game. We won it 4 to 0. This team was not happy but this time we came out on top. We will face them in again next weekend in the next tournament. Our tournament next weekend is a road trip. We will travel about 4 hours west of where we live to a small town. It is a great weekend trip and I am looking forward to it.

Now for the rest of my Sunday I am going to shower and then pack for my road trip with the boss tomorrow for an overnight work trip. I am taking my laptop so I will probably post tomorrow evening while hanging at the hotel.

Smartass??

I was sent this little picture today and it made me think of Dumber and Dumbass so I am posting it.

Friday morning breakfast was make your own burritos day with, meat, eggs, potatoes, salsa etc. Sure was a welcome food this morning.

I can feel yesterday’s activities still haunting me today. The water skiing yesterday has made me sluggish and sore in the shoulders today. Even my short 4 mile run this morning was sluggish and not wanted. I know such soreness should not be complained about.

I keep looking out my windows at my buggy and wishing I was out riding with the air in my hair and the sun at my back. Okay, I know I can do that tomorrow but for my slow thoughts today it sure looks good.

Today though is a busy day. I had so much stuff to get done before most of us in the company head out of state on an install of servers for customers. I will be headed out on Monday morning to return on Tuesday night for my part. I am looking forward to the short trip with the owner. He is a pretty nice guy and easy to get along with.

I had one of my renter’s give me notice of them leaving in 30 days. So have to get signs up and ads out in the paper to get the house re-rented. I am not worried yet but I am posting it at one of the highest prices for the going 4 bedroom houses locally. I hope I get some people biting soon out of the gate. I always hate this time in the rental market. Sometimes I think I should just quit it but I do make money at it so I keep going. Well I put out the signs at noon and within an hour we had a call. So we are hopeful to try and get this done and rented soon.

I was sent this little picture today and it made me think of Dumber and Dumbass so I am posting it.

Working and Lakeing

I saw today that Dumber has another interview another step closer to moving from Addroc. That might be a good thing as they might decide that he is the vendor this next time to delay payment to.

I just got a call that my buggy is running pretty good and should pass our emissions tests for our state. I will pick it up tonight and see how it runs. It now has the 2 barrel progressive carburetor. It should run efficient when just easy use and when I stomp on the gas peddle I should get more power out of it. Woohoo.

Today there is a lot of commotion in the office with all the work and there is a bunch of guys here working on installing new desks for the new people. It really does not matter to me much as I am sitting here in my swim suit ready to go to the lake. It is blue sky and warming up nicely so I have high hopes of a good day.

The day was wonderful at the lake. Did some skiing and beer drinking with great company. Then came down for softball pictures for my daughter and went and picked up my buggy. It ran pretty darn good coming home. A great day for almost everything.

The one downside to today was one of my renters gave me notice they will be moving at the end of the month. Dang after 3 years I was used to them being there. Ohh well start looking for new renters I guess.