-9:23:00 0 miles

I'll be waking up at 4:30 tomorrow and MARTA'ing downtown for my marathon. 48 degrees predicted tomorrow but only a 20% chance of rain. Here's hopin' it doesn't rain!

In here - everything I need

Ok, I planned on keeping mention of them to a minimum but I’m going to be at the Fu Manchu show Tuesday night at my old hangout The Earl and, gosh darnit, I’m pretty excited about it. I don’t get out much anymore so I’ll probably letting loose a little. Especially since I could give a rat’s ass about being cool anymore. I’ve been listening to their stuff pretty steadily during my marathon training for the last year and and I’m conditioned to using the songs to get me up a hill, to catch up and pass another jogger, or just to keep me going when everything else is trying to make me for-the-love-of-God just STOP, why doncha?!!

So some jumping around and a little headbanging is definitely on the agenda, the question is to what extent… especially since I plan to be comfortably ripped. Will I be the old rocker dude getting “down” and inspiring chuckles and snarky comments or will I be the flailing freak air guitaring up front being given plenty of room and embarrassing the band?

A cheeseburger, hold the patty, hold the bun, add a potato.

My lovely wife is right now consuming a concoction made up of mashed potatoes, shredded cheese, ketchup, mustard, a dash of tabasco, and a Claussen whole dill on the side.

Mmm mmm... makes my mouth water just writing about it.

Sure and Begorrah!

For St. Patrick’s Day, I limped around all day at work with a green shirt, green tie, and an aching back enduring the “How’d the interview go?” and “Hot date?” jokes. After work I picked up a dozen green cupcakes and a 6-pack of Smithwick’s and we had the ritual corn beef and cabbage. I enjoy the occasional Guinness now and then and Harp is so-so but I’m not a big fan of Irish beers in the US but this Smithwick’s stuff is pretty damn good. Finished off the day reading "Tim O'Toole and the Wee People" to the kiddies.

Considering the fact that, as far as I know, I’m of 100% Irish descent and I love to drink beer, you’d think I’d be huge into St. Patrick’s Day but, no, I’ve never really celebrated it much and usually considered it a “touristy” kind of thing whatever that means. But I may as well face the fact that it’s going to be a big thing in my life… my wife is a red-head and has the name of a county in Ireland… my daughter’s name literally means “Ireland”, and my two sons are Liam and Finn.

Bottoms up!

The Ravaging Scourge of Aught-8

Last Sunday, I felt pretty crappy all day. I was a little wary as Liam currently had a case of strep throat and Erin had gotten over a cold. I wasn’t really sure how bad it was because I was loaded up with ibuprofen because I had threw my back out the previous day idiotically lifting a massive box of Time Life books that I grew up with.

Turned out it was a bad’un but got back to normal yesterday. That and the back thing though has stole a vital week of my marathon training. Oh well… I can’t think about it too much because now Erin’s sick AGAIN plus Kerry, who I figured was infused with super-prego-immunity-boosting hormones is now ill too!

Lame!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Don't worry.. I've got plenty to write.. just been busy, feverish, running, in excruciating pain, chasing after the kids, all the usual...

I will get to it Friday night.

And I'll blog a little too.

-013 Kalrez or Perlast if You're on a Budget

It was 9:30 pm on a drizzly Friday night and I was just settling in, beer in hand, to writing up a blog featuring Weezer and the Replacements when Kerry sent me out on a food quest.

She could not bring herself to eat anything in the house and only a grilled cheese sandwich and onion rings from Steak ‘n Shake would end her craving. The pickle on top of the grilled cheese was the coup de gracie.

Oh my God, Omaha.

Monday afternoon, I forsook all judgement and boarded a plane headed once again for Omaha, that beguiling temptress of the Midwest. That night, since I didn’t know anywhere else to go, my cow orker and I went to the same fancy brewpub joint I was taken to last time I was in southwest Omaha (SWOM?). And ended up there again the next night.

After getting back to our lovely hotel with an enchanting view of a cement plant, I endeavored to relieve the boredom. It was only 10pm and we didn’t have to be at the customer’s until 9 the next day so I talked the guy I was with into wandering across Cornhusker Avenue to Wally’s Place, the only time I’ve ever seen a convenience store / bar combination. I’ve seen Burger King’s and Subway’s conjoined with gas stations but never a full-fledged trucker bar complete with a huge aquarium over the rows of liquor. To get to the bathroom, you’d walk past the jukebox then along the big gulp soda station, past the beef jerkey display, and through what I seem to remember as an entire aisle devoted to gummi bears and their assorted kin.

The next day, after a groggy start, went smoothly and we arrived at Eppley Field (the “world’s cleanest airport” according to the plastic urinal screens) well-ahead of schedule. The first hint of something amiss was that our flight had a half-hour delay due to a malfunctioning sensor or something. No big deal. But then it was delayed another half-hour. Then an hour.Then every hour it would be delayed another hour.

We ended up sitting at the airport for over five hours until they finally cancelled the flight and put us up at the Sleep Inn just south of the airport and separated by the Omaha Correctional Center by two parallel rows of ten foot fence topped with comforting loops of razor wire. When the shuttle dumped us on the curb and sped off into the night, the lobby was a mob scene.

When we finally got up to the front desk, there were two rooms left and word on the street was that there were few rooms if any to be had in the nearby hotels. Since there was still a crowd behind us, we decided to share a room.

But we forgot to make sure it had two beds. And it didn’t. No problem but he volunteered to sleep on the floor which would help to avoid some of the jokes back at the office.

The next day was another one of BlackBerry e-mails and calls interspersed with half-attempted crosswords and sudukos then a flightout (finally!) at 1pm. On the plane, I heard about what sounds like a cool place that I’ll have to check out if I ever have to go back to Omaha… and I suspect I will.




To continue with the “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” motif, the next day, on the UPS tracking website, Kerry found out that the sneakers I had ordered had been delayed due to “TRAIN DERAILMENT”.

Sigh.