Some Clarification of the Previous Post

We planned on 4 nights but added another because we were all having a good time and the place was definitely relaxing. On the second day, coming back from the immaculate restrooms (or “Comfort Stations” as Walt calls’em) Liam smacked his toe on something and split the nail. He wailed like a banshee for a while but was then over it. The incident did not dull his excitement over the new privilege of walking to the restroom and back on his own.

On the morning of the third day, Liam felt sick and, after breakfast, proceeded to reintroduce his oatmeal to the world. Since he was fine later, we assume it was something he ate the night before or (one of several all-encompassing diagnosises resorted to by dumbfounded parents) “general overexcitement”.

The “moovvees” Liam refers to were shown outside every evening on a big screen right after the Chip’n’Dale Campfire Singalong. Although Erin would typically fall asleep about 3 minutes into the movie, Liam was very into these… even Bedknobs and Broomsticks but especially National Treasure… so much so that he threw a bit of a fit when we planned to skip a movie to watch the nightly fireworks from the lakeside beach across from the Magic Kingdom (I hate calling it that by the way… sounds like some elfin land in Oz where the pink bunnies can talk… but it’s more specific than my usual “Disneyland”). The show also featured a “purad” of towed floats with various lighted-up animals displayed on them.

The Coleman tent had two dividers but they weren’t very useful except just to designate areas. The “kichin” tent was a screened-in tent that we put over the picnic table. We prepared and ate food here. This proved a lifesaver since it was lovebug season and even though they don’t bite or even try to land on you their sheer numbers made me glad that Kerry bought it. Not to mention there were these crazy birds (Boat-Tailed Grackles for the Marks) that would have robbed us blind if we didn’t have the tent zipped completely up. No mosquitoes though and the weather was perfect. Great pool weather during the day and cool in the evening.

I’ll skip the part about the monorail for now although a Mai Tai at the Polynesian was brutally murdered and it was Be Cruel to Kids Day at the gate of the Magic Kingdom.

On the topic of bikes, I think this and the pool were the hit of the trip. Each campsite is in a group of about twenty sites on a loop that at any given time is a veritable racetrack for kids on bikes (and teenagers in golf carts but that’s another story). Liam was constantly doing the loop and even Erin rode around a few times making it the first time she rode on a bicycle… albeit with training wheels.





Chalk one up for Flordudu!

From Liam’s Journal

5/31/07 I went camping at Disny for five nites and six days. It was fun. I bent my nale on the secint day. I pucte on the third day in the morning. My nale got better on the fourth day of camping at Disny World. We got to wotch moovvees every nite. But on the first day we only wotcht a little bit of Peter Pan. On the fith day insted we wotcht a purad. I didint wont to do it. We have a tent that has three rooms. We have a kichin tent too. We went on a bus, boat, and the monural too. We rode bikes. There was a outside pool. Look at Liam Keough’s rite big toe. Wut do you see. There was a exirsise trale. We went on it on our biks. Erin dinit ride her bike.

6/2/07 This morning I was sad. Becas we wir leeving flordudu and camping at Disny World.

Wuss Camping

Another blog sabbatical is looming... this time only for a week. The fam and I are heading down to FORT WILDERNESS at Disney... I think it's the place that Daniel Boone wrestled a bear... or was that Davey Crockett?

Anyway, we bought a new tent... a bit of a monster but it'll be plenty roomy. Heck, we'll probably play hide and seek in the thing.

Is it me? It's me, right?

Is everyone not seeing the pic of my impressive spring below or is it just me?

So... what's with THAT thing?

I’ve got a massive spring. Yeah… a spring. The same kind of thing like a car shock or a Slinky but huge.

Wire Diameter = 1-3/16”
Free Length = 32”
OD = 7”
Pitch = 2-1/8”
# Turns » 16
Weight » 110 lbs

It’s not quite the size of some of the “hot coiled” ones here but it’s bigger than any of the ones this place has got in their inventory!

I think it is a railroad spring or a very big elevator spring but can’t quite figure it out.

One night while living in the fabled place on 14th and Piedmont, I walked out one morning and it was perched on top of a fountain. As any of my friends that have helped me on any of my 5 or 6 moves since then can attest, it’s a heavy son of a bitch and I have no idea how someone ever got it up there.

Anyway, it was still there that afternoon, that night, and when I got home from work the next evening. So I snagged it before someone else did. Since then, it’s mostly been a plant stand and always a conversation piece but now it sits in my garage, the perfect spot for my leaf blower.

Birth of a Biker

Yesterday, I took Liam to Central Park... no, not THAT one... I'm talking about the WOTP version. It was his first time riding his bike on a trail. I was a little worried about how he would make out.

We have a horrible place here at home for becoming a decent bike rider: a steep driveway sloping to a through-street in which it's tough to see speeding cars coming over a hill. No cul-de-sac full of kids. Not even any sidewalks.

So Liam kept his training wheels for a while. One day, they broke so I took it as an opportunity to try to force the issue and took him to a local park. He was doing fine but the one fall made him swear off bikes forever: "I'll never ride a bike!" So I got new ones and put'em on.

About a year later, his grandfather got him a new bike... a big one. It too had training wheels. I took him back to the park. He rode it but he was very unsteady even with the training wheels... and he didn't like that his feet could not easily reach the ground. So I jumped at the chance to get him off those extra wheels.

"How about you go back to the small bike... but without the training wheels?" He didn't like that idea but he didn't like riding around on the tall bike either. He agreed and we took the small bike sans trainers to Florida. He took to it immediately with no falls. We rode around Ker's brother's neighborhood and even went for a mile or two on a paved bike trail. He loved it.

Anyway, back to the present. Although he'll occasionally ride the new one, Liam gets around mostly on his small bike. He's been a bit of a daredevil riding through the frontyard, off the edge of the front walk, down the hill into the neighbor's yard, etc., etc. so I figured I'd see how he would do on a dirt trail.

We ended up riding half of it... roughly a mile and a half or two and really didn't finish it only because we had to go to a soccer pizza thing. He went over roots, along steep edges, and over rocks. Once, when we stopped to take a break, he said "We should do this every weekend."

Now I just wish the new bike had gears!!!

My One and Only Viceroy

Erin had her dance recital today, something she's been gearing up for for weeks and weeks. She was a butterfly ballerina and a tapdancer in "Topsy-Turvy World". Not that we expected it, but she had no stagefright at all. After her two dances, she was in the audience with us and nothing could draw her rapt attention from the rest of the show.

Her one non-girly girl interest has surfaced in the last few months.

Bugs.

Yes, bugs. She'll pick up a a grasshopper, a caterpillar, or even a grub or a worm without the least hesitation. We got her a little kit with a magnifying glass and a wooden "cage".

I've got nothing against the girl stuff. Her dancing was the cutest thing ever and I'll tell her unicorn bedtime stories for the rest of my life if she wants me to but it's nice to see her get into something other than fairies, rainbows, and ponies.

The Face Off

All right… I think my on and off affair with facial hair has finally come to an end. A little over a month ago, I started on a goatee.

I endured the tickle phase which ends about a week or two in… this is the phase where you can’t stop noticing and messing with it with your lips. The itchy phase starts after a week and basically ends about 2 – 3 weeks in.

I made it through this. I also pushed through all the inane comments (“Hey, you’ve got some dirt on your lip.”) as well as the absolute loathing of the goat by my beloved.

But what I could not get past was the PAIN that starts 3 weeks in and is noticed mostly when trying to sleep. I like to sleep on my side and with my face against the pillow, it felt like I had a thousand tiny needles digging into my face… which is pretty much exactly what I DID have!

At one point, I was a little stressed out because of work and the fact that I wasn’t running much due to said work. So with the goatee, sleep was not coming easy. It came off because of this plus the fact that it’s a pain in the ass to upkeep. With a clean-shaven face, yes you have to shave everyday but it’s a clean sweep… like trees felled Lorax-style for a development. Easy. With facial hair, unless you don’t mind the scruffy haggard look, you have to be pretty meticulous with the razor. Maybe when I’m 50 or 60, I’ll go for one of the Civil War looks but for now and the immediate future, forget it.

Anyway, while shaving my face free of the thing, I tried a few looks and searching the Net for the various names came upon The Great Goatee/Van Dyck Controversy. Apparently, what everyone calls a goatee is not really a goatee… or at least with the facial hair aficionados on the Net, it ain’t. A goatee is just the part on the lower chin that makes you look like… well, like a goat. See Shaggy, Maynard Krebs, and that guy from Anthrax.

What most call a goatee should really be called a Circle Beard which is a really dumb name. A Van Dyck sounds damn cool but I guess this is really more of a “Johnny Depp as a pirate” thing. Or Colonel Sanders. To me, Door Knocker sounded a bit lame as well at first but, you know, it really kind of looks like one.


Then I went for the classic Truck Driver. Again, to my barber-inclined pals, this is a ”horsehoe with soul patch”. But I hate the term “soul patch” and everything else it’s called. It’s just a patch, dammit.










The Chevron ‘Stache with Patch. If I was really going to keep something, this’d probably be it.
















And finally my dear friends... this is what I call the Snooty Concierge.

Please note that if these images are not showing up in your browser, its Jim-allotment has been exceeded.

Don't change any of the settings if you know what's good for you!

Mo bettah

Inspired by Mark's mo, I've decided to give facial hair a sincere go. It's not coming in as much as I thought it would but what do you think... pretty rugged, eh?

Hogfish'll go for a nice, red 8x2 every time!

This weekend we bought Liam a pretty swank tackle box… actually he paid for half of it. He needed it for his ever-growing assortment of Legos. Since Sunday around noon when we got home, he’s already spent probably seven or eight hours setting it up.

An example of the evil Kirk.

Two weeks ago I took Liam to the FIRST Robotics competition at the Georgia Dome. My company was sponsoring two of the teams so we got to go inside the massive Georgia World Conference Center where all the teams were scrambling to fine tune their robots. To get a flavor of what this was all about, check out here and here.

We had to get to his soccer game at noon so we didn’t get a chance to see much of the competition but we did get to see the teams all abuzz about the particulars of their robots.

And yes, this was a massive nerd-fest. But these guys were going nuts over every little tweek and adjustment they could do to their slapped-together erector set contraptions put together during late-night seesions poring over yellow McMaster-Carr catalogs. This is actually one of the nicer ones.

I only WISH I was this kind of geek in high school instead of the slacker-loser "style" of dork. At least they are actually doing and participating in something… something real (and that looks great on your resume to boot). The only thing even close that I ever participated in when I was in high school was Thursday afternoons playing D&D in the backroom of the ComicQuest and Games store.

And without beer even!

The Pink

Even regarding three-year olds, I guess men have difficulty understanding women. Every boy seem to be really into something and there are plenty of subjects: PowerRangers, trains, sports, Legos, outer space, dinosaurs, superheroes, I even met one kid huge into Bigfoot… not the monster-truck but the ape creature of the Northwest.

And girls? They’re into princesses, princesses, princesses… nothing but princesses. Sure, there are the Barbie princess and the fairy princesses and even a Dora princess. But c’mon! Can not girls be into other things? Sure I think trucks and tractors are guy things but why? Why do I think that? Why is it hard to fathom a girl thinking machines that can reshape hills and lift girders as cool?

One reason, of course, is that much like unicorns… they don’t exist! They’re ALL into Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, etc., etc, blah, blah… all of ’em!

Now, now… hold up… I’m sure that my absolute statements above are not true and there are, in fact, three and four-year old girls who are not into princesses.

But I’ve never met nor heard of any of’em.

And The Pink… what is with The Pink?! Only purple comes anywhere close to The Pink. And that’s not because there are only some girls who love purple the most. It’s because it’s all the girls 2nd favorite color! And, you know, I don’t think it’s only that they are copying their friends. I honestly think there is something programmed into girls that make them prefer The Pink above all else.

Maybe I’m wrong and it’s kind of like hip-hop. Since I’m not into hip-hop, I don’t recognize all the different genres and musical varieties that I ‘m sure characterize the category. Maybe the subtle differences between the unicorn/horse subsets, the fairy contingent (Strawberry Shortcake, Tinkerbell, etc.), and the stuffed animal tea parties are huge to my daughter, I don’t know. It’s just funny to me that the boys are into two or three of the fairly different “boy things” and basically are ignorant of the other ones but the girls are all basically into the same thing.

Those goddamn princesses!

Speaking of the finish...

I got 1:56:08 for my chip time which was better than my goal of 2hrs. I enjoyed it so I’m going to go for the full marathon next year. I’m still going for my fastest for the Peachtree and the East Atlanta 5k so they’ll be the main aims of my training but I’ll be doing long runs on the weekends.

Speaking of the long runs, it looks like I will have to finally give in and join the world of technology. Over 1.5 hours on a training run becomes B-B-B-BOOOOOORING! I spent some time in the garage the other day looking wistfully at an old Sony DiscMan, an old baseball cap, and a roll of duct tape.

Some sort of mp3 player is in my future.

The Finnish

For the final mile, I was constantly scanning the crowd for my family but not until the last few hundred feet did I finally spot them. Liam had a jacket over the orange shirt that I had been searching for but apparently Kerry had picked up a lot of freebies because they all had orange ball caps and orange sunglasses.

Although I had felt fine for the entire run, immediately upon slowing to a walk after crossing the finish line, my legs hurt. I snuck out of the throng to make my way back to Ker but later realized I hadn’t picked up a seriously nice medal. I got back in later and was sure they weren’t going to give it to me but no prob.

Then around the spot to grab bagels, apples, and bananas someone handed me a flyer for this.

Ever since I moved to Atlanta over thirteen years ago I’ve wanted to be on the roof of the Bank of America Plaza (formerly the NationsBank Building). This building that loomed at night in the pink and orange sky over my porch where I lived on Penn in Midtown… with the then new-to-me city sounds… the wind-like hush of traffic punctuated by the tale-telling car horn… and the pink and orange sky.

Then in my huge window at the overly-pricey place on the edge of Virginia-Highland where I made a sketch of the skyline and then road my bike around town to get names and addresses of the buildings… a near-impossible task before the explosion of the Net.

Then overlooking my porch once again in the Post place downtown where Liam first lived. We called it “the magic building” for some reason.

Way before Spiderman was a serious movie prospect, I envisioned a fight between Doctor Octopus and Spiderman among the girders and vaults on the roof. What could be cooler?

Anyway, I was all ready to drop the minimum $35 and sign up for the 55-story hell climb up 1378 steps even knowing I’d probably be a cripple for a few days following since I had no place or time to train but then noticed in the fine print:

At the official finish on the 55th floor, climbers will descend the elevator to the lobby exit. NO access to the rooftop or outside of the building.

Foooorget it.

Kinda wobbly, aren't ya?

Yesterday, we made the trek up from the Space Coast, a trip that, in my lone wolf days (back when I had a tricked out Camaro and a chimp sidekick), I could do in 6 or 7 hours.

This time a clean 11 hours and 5 minutes. Cool, huh?

We had two 45 – 60 minute fast food/playground stops plus a few gas/potty stops. This and the fact that there were a million other families making the Florida exodus and we all decided to meet up an hour south of Atlanta created the sluggish time… a time that by the way is NOT our worst.

But you couldn’t beat the ambiance. Liam’s perpetually wailing vetoing of every DVD (other than Incredibles) was a continuous delight. And Erin has entered the swift and deep middle currents of the river of questions that she has only been lightly exploring up until now. Typically they are wearing headphones and she doesn’t involve us but we played “Bambi” over the car system and the barrage was endless.

“Why are the hunters shooting at them?”
“Why do they want to eat them?”
"Where is Bambi's mommy?"
“Why are they [Bambi, Thumper, and Flower] three boys?”

The other night she was watching “Home Alone”: “Why is he wearing a green robe?”

And then Kerry likes to listen to music to drown out the kids a little and because I can’t stand any modern pop we typically end up with easy listening stations. About twenty minutes into a 5 mile/hour jam, I hear the Bee Gee’s “Emotion” followed by the Chicago song:

If you leave me now
You'll take away the biggest part of me
Oooooo oh, no, baby please don't go

And then that inane Spanish-style guitar bit.

It was like a night of karaoke at the Crazy Horse with Matt on a bender…

By the way

I'm having a little problem with the Photo and will correct it when I get back homeside... that is, after I spend all Easter Sunday mowing the lawn.

Even more...

At the corner, a large crowd lined the way. It’s amazing how much actually being in a race keeps you going fast… I never get even close to my race-times while I’m training… even when I try. But could I smile and enjoy the crowds even though I was feeling good? No, I had to constantly scan the lines of people for my family. I wasn’t sure where Ker and the kids were. I figured they were at the finish but they could’ve possibly ended up anywhere and I did not want to miss seeing them.

Actually, for the last four miles, anytime I saw people on the sidelines, I’d hunt for Liam’s orange shirt… not an easy task considering ING’s official color for the race was orange! I suspect this kept my mind off my running. Whenever I’m not directly thinking about exactly how my body feels the miles melt away.

At around 9-1/2 miles, we crossed Monroe into the Piedmont Park area which conjured up thoughts of Zohar, a friend of mine who once lived on the street we were on. At one house, there was a little party going on. They had set up a keg and a table with cups of PBR just like at the water stations. I briefly considered grabbing one (everything’s “briefly” at a 9 min/mile pace) but the thought of the taste of warm 8am PBR lingering in my mouth while finishing a half-marathon just did not sit well so I passed the little cups by.

We crossed the bridge into the park right by where Mark, Matt and I spent a few afternoons riding down a long hill in order to catch air at the top of an embankment… not that I ever caught any. Then past Dog Hill and Tom-Tom Circle and through the same gate on 10th that the Peachtree 10k ends. Up into the Rainbow Corner where I thought of the tasty tamarind refresca’s at Zocalo’s, the only Mexican place I’ve been to (that’s not in Mexico) that isn’t just a smorgasbord of various meat and dough combinations drowned in gruelish refried beans and melted cheese.

I ate there a couple of times after it opened with an ex-girlfriend of mine (well, she was a girlfriend then… how are you supposed to say that?) who spoke Spanish. She asked if she could wait there and was given a verbal confirmation. The day before she was supposed to start the Loaf came out with a glorious review and they were so slammed (and have been ever since as far as I can tell) they had to withdraw the job and hire someone with a ton of experience.

We ran up Piedmont past POW, an awesome place for a tall dark beer after a day at the park and the home of some tough Trivia Tuesdays. Then, right across 14th was my favorite apartment of all time. Right on the corner across from the park, two porches, one screened-in, wood floors, and a lot of room except for the shoebox of a kitchen. And cheap to boot! The only problem… no off-street parking. Woops… I already covered this and will refrain from telling the tales of the several car wrecks we saw at this place... for now.

Ok… back to the run. We went up 14th… ok, another story… right past the spot where I thought I saw Mark die. We were riding our bikes full speed toward the park and he (moronically in my opinion) jumped his bike sideways up over the jagged curve. He wrecked and in the glimpse I got flashing past him, I swear I saw his body slamming and contorting around a telephone pole. I slammed my brakes visions of him dying, screaming in my blood-drenched arms in my hyper-fast-thinking head.

But nope… he was fine.

Then a left at the theater and past Einstein’s and the joint that keeps changing then somehow we were on Peachtree heading south into the city. Past the Margaret Mitchell Place then past the site of what was once the Stein Club and is now either a gay bar or a hair salon.

The Stein Club was a great place with what we billed as the best jukebox in town (it had Mudhoney’s SuperFuzz BigMuff which is what qualified it for me) and a beer called (I think) Stein Beer with the catchy slogan “It’s beer.”

Some more on the run....

And what a route it was. Past a dozen old haunts… a story, a memory on every corner. Very cool.

At mile 1, I ran near the apartments I lived in with Kerry when we had Liam. The place had a great pool with a grill where we had a big to-do during Music Midtown 2000.

Around 3, I ran through Inman Park, site of many a fun festival. Actually, the Inman Park festival has always been my favorite… much quieter than the Piedmont Park Arts and a lot cooler than the Va-Hi one. As I ran past one tree in the middle of where the festival is located, I remember standing next to bike by it many years ago with blood streaming down my leg. I had flipped over the handlebars on my bike while negotiating car traffic on the way to the festival.

Running along Euclid, I passed the house where an ex I met on the Net (back when that wasn’t really something you readily owned up to) had lived.

And, then of course, Little 5 Points… one of the places that first attracted me to Atlanta and site of several stories (“Ashim Takes the Heinz Ketchup Taste Test” at Yacht Club, “Seabolt Misplaces Her Eyewear” at Groove Park) plus a lot of great shows at the infamous StarBar and The Point. For probably 5 or 6 years, I got all my Xmas gifts for people in L5P.

We ran past the Carter Center and down Freedom Parkway up to the awesome view at Boulevard then a 180 and along the whole parkway to Ponce…then past the aforementioned Fellini’s and into Virginia-Highland.

But then instead of hitting the Majestic/Righteous Room intersection at Highland, the route snuck around behind Va-Hi (where I always used to park on Friday and Saturday nights) and emerged where Neighbor’s holds its post-mountain biking, Purple Haze-soaked patio afternoons. Left onto Highland and past it’s infamous row of bars… Dark Horse, Atkin’s Park… both home to many a lost night… then up to the “official” corner of Virginia and Highland where I spent Sunday afternoons for many years at the Taco Mac, or simply “Wings” as I’ve always called it.

Universal Joint

Hey all… sorry for the intermittent start. I’m in Orlando and just finished a 3-day tour of the Universal parks. Because of yet another one of Kerry’s aunt’s contest wins, we stayed at the Royal Pacific Resort, which is a pretty nice hotel done up tiki-style on a grand scale. It’s within walking distance of the parks… although of course they have a boat shuttle as well as a bicycle rickshaws for the action-challenged guests.

I have never been a theme park person… well, as an adult I’ve never been one… but I have married myself into a complete family of Disney-o-philes so have learned to bear and grin it. Besides, anything my kids are into I’m into.

For one day, the one ride (the Pteranodon Flyers) Liam kept talking about wanting to go on had a wait of 75 minutes every time we’d check. Typically, we’ use the FastPass thing that came gratis with the hotel stay but for some reason it was not available on this one.

A word on the FastPass… I’ve got to give Disney kudos on their system. You have to schedule everything down to 1/4-minutes and you’re sprinting all over the park but anyone can get it. At Universal, you pay an additional $30-40 per person (on top of the $700 you’ve already budgeted for Cokes, food, parking, intermission, etc.) and you traipse right by the teeming horde and up to the front. Personally, if I’ve been sitting in a 120 degree sweating mass of flabby tattoed flesh for an hour and a half with the kids screaming and jumping on each other and some polo-attired quartet waltzes up and gets in right in front of me without even taking a pause on their cell phones, I’m gonna be raging, capitalism or no capitalism.

Anyway, I had promised Liam I’d take him on the Pteranodon Flyers even if the wait didn’t die down so I did and spent 65 minutes with the same group of people all doing the same thing, sweltering in the heat and listening to the same damn jungle music, for a 30 second pretty calm ride. Oh well, even after Terminator, SpiderMan, and a bunch of water rides, Liam says it was his favorite so it was worth it.

The last time I was at Universal Studios was probably a year or two after it opened in 1990. A friend I had dated a few years prior in California found my number and looked me up to see if I could show her around Orlando. We had parted on an amicable, long-distance-relationships-don’t-work basis so I thought it would be pretty cool to see her. Unfortunately, college life in California had turned her into a crimp-headed cheerleader-type and we no longer had much in common. After a few days of driving her around Orlando and spending time and money with someone I didn’t want to be with, a hot day of standing in lines at Universal did not improve things and I parted ways with her and grabbed a cup of Anchor Steam in the San Francisco-themed area of the park. It was one of those beer moments in which suddenly everything is all right with the world and the beer you are drinking is the most delicious and satisfying thing you’ve ever partaken of.

Aaaaahhhh…

Yesterday, I decided to not to buck tradition and in a rare free moment, I veered over to the San Francisco area and found the same kiosk of yore. They had Bud and even Sam Adams (Boston?) but no Anchor Steam. The guy gave me a few tips but neither panned out. One place was even called “The San Francisco Beer Company” but no Anchor Steam. So I walked away without a beer…

…from that section. I grabbed a $5.50 AmberBock from a spot near the current meeting place. Not quite a solid beer moment but I'll take it.

Spring Has Sproinged

Yes the trees are in bloom but last weekend was more like the official opening of summer. Sitting on the deck, on a broiling Sunday afternoon looking over a freshly-mowed “lawn” (if you can call the celebration of botanic natural selection we have a lawn) while E and L splash around in our kiddie pool… you can’t get more summer than that.

We spent the previous afternoon intown first to pick up my pre-race package for the ING half-marathon I was running the next day then to have dinner with a bunch of friends, two of which had a new baby boy and one visiting from L.A. on his way to a Bachelor Party in Miami. We occupied three tables on one of my favorite porches in Atlanta, the Fellini’s on Ponce.

For over two hours the kids were great, I restrained myself to only one beer, Matt and Travis enjoyed the view, and a rollicking time was had by all. We headed home where I immediately fell asleep.

At 4:30 the next morning, I was up getting ready for the race. Kerry had decided to drive me down since they were probably going to have to get up early anyway to get down in time to see me finish. We put the kids in the van at the last second but Liam was awake for the whole ride.

The Run
As seems to always be the case in these things, the start was a madhouse. The marathon had a lot of ammenities I hadn’t seen before on the 10k’s: a place to drop of stuff while you run is a great idea, and they had setup places on the route that would track your time using a chip you strapped onto your shoe. They had that on the Peachtree too but this one would send messages to a phone with the info. This way Ker and crew knew roughly when to expect me.

Good info when the actual start time is anyone’s guess. I had no idea where to go to start the race and no one else in the massive throng squeezed onto the streets next to Underground seemed to either. I ended up on a side street off Peachtree, likely way behind the “official” group for my expected time but there was no way to move up. So I waited until about ten minutes after the clock start of the race and then the crowd just started flowing en masse. Another 5 minutes and I was passing under the Start banner and started my watch.

It was probably a good thing I was in such a crowd. Usually I start off too fast and feel like crap for the second half of a race. This time I went slow and even when I had a little room to breathe I made myself keep a steady pace. It worked out pretty well because I felt pretty good the whole time.

Except when I had to take a leak.

I had drank a lot of water all the previous day and some on the ride down but when I got out of the car a half hour before the start, I should’ve brought some water because I didn’t get a drink until mile 2 where I grabbed a cup from an outstretched hand. There was plenty of water on the route but if you aren’t looking for it ahead of time, you can be half past the station when you notice… too late to jump in the crowd gathered it.

Anyway, around mile 5 I knew I was gonna have to go. Actually I’ve always known I would have to sometime during the race but wasn’t sure how the accommodations would be. I had passed several port-a-let areas, each of which seemed to throw in a two-to three person wait… docking up to two minutes from my time is something I really did not want to do. The other option presented itself several times… I saw a few guys run off into the bushes but I also did not want to this. I know it’s a run and all but I don’t like to piss outside in a non-wilderness area on someone else’s property… even a park or roadside.

On Freedom Parkway, I thought I had found an answer. The area immediately around a giant concrete cover (built to protect cars from ice falling from the cables helping to support a gigantic communications antenna) was a wilderness of litter, graffiti, and bum shacks and I figured I would see a good spot. But I basically wussed so kept on running.

Finally, at about 7-1/2 miles, I saw a girl running from a hidden port-a-let behind a bank on Ponce de Leon so I went for it. I had to wait for one person but it was definitely a good choice and I only lost maybe a minute total. And the rest of the route I felt great.