After getting sucked into a 5pm meeting yesterday I made an executive decision to show up at George’s “late” (7pm) and do a solo run knowing well that my decision would preclude me from making the dinner I desired. Things didn’t start well as my GPS watch failed to find any satellite signals so I wound up running a modified course unaware of the distance I was traveling. I ambled about for a little over an hour, with a short uphill walk break, only to find out later that I cover little more than six miles. Funny, it felt like I was going so much faster than that…
Read Along With Me
Today’s passage from Notes To Myself.
“You’re wrong” means “I don’t understand you” — I’m not seeing what you’re seeing. But there is nothing wrong with you, you are simply not me and that’s not wrong.
To all who have helped me — Thanks.
I Hope That Chumby Is Not Made Of Fail
Two weeks with Chumby have revealed some cool features and major setbacks. I’ve been meaning to do a full review of Chumby, but haven’t had the time.
When I returned from camping last Sunday I noticed that Chumby had turned itself off. My house notoriously loses power, sometime for a good while, so I was not overly surprised. I was relieved to see that Chumby had not died and untimely death.
This morning I was stunned to wake up (on the couch) and find out that it was nearly 5:30am. Chumby has two alarms set — one for 5:15am and one for 5:30am — and unlike my cellphone (case and point, when my cellphone’s alarm went off this morning it rang the alarm bell exactly twice before shutting itself off; thanks for nothing Microsoft) has been excellent at ringing them until dismissed. When I went into the bedroom I noticed that Chumby was stuck on some initialization screen and that’s why the alarm never went off at 5:15am. I had to reboot Chumby, which for an alarm clock is completely unacceptable. If this behavior persists I will have to return to using my alarm clock and relegate Chumby to “cool, nerdy to which cannot be trusted”, much like any Windows computer even though Chumby is running Linux.
ITP Flickr Pic
Rat’s Ass (aka “Gary”) should never run for office…. This is the non-incriminating shot of bamboo ramming that I possess.
If someone would shoot me Gary’s email address I’ll get his clearance for the incriminating shot.
I Want To Walk In Your Shoes
Actually, I want to hike in your boots. I probably made this request about eleven months ago, but I never followed up on it so I will make it again.
In August I’ll be traveling to Colorado and I want to buy a decent pair of hiking boots. I want to purchase something in the coming months so that I will have ample time to break them in before my trip.
I probably want mid-height (with ankle support), and definitely waterproof. What brand to you trust? Keen? Merrill? Please let me know what brand, and model if you know offhand, in the comments. My feet will love you forever.
RealiTV Update: Top Chef
By now we know the Top Chef Cha-Cha-Cha, right?
- Wake up chefs
- Perform QuickFire Challenge with product placement
- Declare Stephanie / Richard / Antonia / Jennifer the winner
- Announce Elimination Challenge with product placement
- More obligatory product placement
- Declare Stephanie / Richard / Antonia / Dale the winner
- Tell sub-par / completely-lost chef to pack up knives and get the fuck out
For last night’s QuickFire challenge the chefs had to pair a simple meal with beer. Um, two-bit hacks like myself excel at beer dinners, how can these people stand a chance? I was actually surprised to see
- The range of beers that were represented, including things I don’t consider to be beer like Michelob Ultra.
- How many “Top Chefs” were not beer drinkers.
I don’t remember the dish that won, only that Jennifer won so that she could avenge her lesbian-lover’s outing last week (not that type of outing) because I was craving a beer for some reason.
For the Elimination Challenge the “Top Chefs” got to prepare tailgating food at a Chicago Bears game. First off, poor Aussie Frodo Mark has no idea what “American” football is and couldn’t gate a tail if it had a handle on it. Further, local products read “Chicago natives” such as Dale had a huge advantage because not only do they understand the concept of tailgating at Soldier Field, they’ve actually tailgated at Soldier Field. If you don’t think that’s an advantage then take the same food to a tailgating party in Green Bay as you do in Atlanta and you will see. Again I call out the producers for introducing meaningless challenges into the game — what’s next, a fish-fry at the aquarium?
Stephanie, Antonia, and Dale were the top three with Dale coming out on top. For his efforts he won a bbq which probably won’t fit in his Chicago apartment, a stupid replica Bears jersey with “Top Chef” on the back (yeah that won’t get his ass beaten much) and all of the man-loving he can take from Richard Dent and William “Refrigerator” Perry.
Metrosexual Ryan, who didn’t understand the concept of tailgating one bit, was deemed to be “Bottom Chef” and told to pack up his Wustoff-Trident knives, put on some Steve Madden shoes, jump into a Toyota SUV, fill the tank with $100 of gas at the local Sunoco, and get the fuck off of the show. For his final punishment Ryan was forced to put on a cheerleader’s outfit and perform on the sidelines during the game. Okay, I made that last bit up but I think that next season the Elimination Challenge should be changed to the Elimination/Humiliation Challenge.
And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood – decent
Current Music – Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Drive-By Truckers — “The Righteous Path”
Website Of The Day – Yesterday I picked up a new skill in learning how to set up my phone to receive Twitter “tweets.” If you want to know what you can “unlearn” so that your brain can handle new skills check out Obsolete Skills.
Exercise (b)Log – running, 6 miles
Monthly Foot Mileage – 35 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Mode Of Transportation To Work – My car
Monthly Marta Rides – 0
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 17 (17)
April Goals
1) Run no fewer than 75 miles
2) Ride no fewer than 100 road miles
3) Ride Marta no fewer than ten times (five round-trips)
4) Read at least one book
5) Make my bed every day
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
You know, if the show actually happened the way you described in the last paragraph, I’d start watching immediately!
That and you made me laugh out loud this morning. (“Yeah that won’t get his ass beaten much.”) Good stuff, good stuff.
Nice. I’m guessing that’s what I’ll look like when I lose all my teeth . E-mail is ratsass@onin.com — kind of obscure, huh.
That email address is so obvious I never would have thought it to work… I will email you “The Best-Of” tonight.
For trail running I use KEEN just because it has a wider toe box but many of the companies make good trail shoes, Montrail, Brooks, INOV-8, etc.
For hiking I would just use a good trail running shoe (some are Gortex) unless you’re going to be doing some backpacking (with weight) then the brand I like is Asolo, otherwise you really don’t need a beefy shoe.
Awesome suggestions Sally. Thanks.
I’ve got decent trail running shoes, I’ve been thinking about getting more support for my photography hiking (which adds weight) and potential “primitive” camping.
Yeah, R.A. does kinda look like an old man beatin’ kids off his front porch with a broomstick: “I’ll get yas, you little whippersnappers! now git on off my property!”
>potential “primitive†camping??
How will you ever get the keg to the campsite???
>>potential “primitive†camping??
> How will you ever get the keg to the campsite???
Camelbak filled with beer. 😉
I can vouch for both Asolo and Zamberlan boots. Zamberlan is my latest and they are fantastic. Both are available at REI, of course. As for model, your best bet is probably to head over to REI and try them on.
Nalgene bottles perform extremely well for transporting tequila, wine, etc. to your campsite.
-Randy
I just threw out all my Nalgene Bottles….potential warmful plastics….anything with a number 7. Not sure if there’s any truth to it or not but……
Oops: I meant to say Harmful…not warmful….but couldn’t figure out how to edit! 🙂
Only The Master has editing powers!!!! 😛 (actually, I don’t know why that is)
Dane Bramaged was talking about that #7 plastics thing at Black Rock. I deemed it a conspiracy put out by the bottle manufacturers in order to get us to buy new ones. If they were really dangerous they should be forced to allow us to trade in our #7 bottles for “safer” plastics.
Isn’t everything out there potentially harmful these days?
Sal – no dinner menu planned tonight either…….(Allan is working, and I tend to eat crap when I’m by myself). We will start again next week.
I think the deal with #7 plastics is the jury is still out. The reports I have seen all say that there is a potential problem but nothing proven yet. #7 seems safe for short term use (6 months or so) but once they are worn out they need to be replaced. I usually strike this as conspiracy crap but I’m actually following this story. It will be interesting to see what the test findings are.
I don’t have any suggestions for hiking shoes, but I thought I’d let you know about Steep and Cheap. It’s a “woot-off” style website that only sells deeply discounted outdoor gear. Only one item is sold at at time, and that items stays on the main page until it is sold. I check it several times a day and regularly find cool stuff.
http://www.steepandcheap.com/
Martha- I just figured the “heavy camera equipment” was a dodge and the new boot were really for hauling the keg… which I’ll fully support when we all go “primitive” camping.
-FP
She mentioned something to do with the nalgene bottles releasing a chemical similar to estrogen. This made me happy as I have been waiting for puberty for over 22 years now. Bring on the nalgene!
Most of what I have seen about the ‘harmful’ effects of nalgene have been birth defects in mice…so unless your name is Mickey and your are planning out popping out a litter of pups, I say drink away!
primitive camping = a keg of bud and no cream for my coffee
dunno about RA, but I’d rather not have my pic featured … keep it at the hash and all that. If you weren’t there, you can see it next year. Or taste it, as the case may be (Martha)
No worries Niplets, I will respect your wishes. I posted the group shot on the ice because there were so many involved and no body parts were exposed. Gary’s shot was too funny and non-incriminating, so I felt okay with putting it up.
The issue with the bottles has to do with bisphenol-A (or BPA). If you have a young child, you’ve probably heard more about it than you want to. The #7 bottles are polycarbonate, so I usually use the opaque #6 polypropylene bottles for beverage transport… they don’t contain the evil BPA 😉
-Randy
No worries WLB, I liked the last 3, but I could see where it was all leading … :^\
Is the term ‘case and point,’ or ‘case IN point’?? man–i prolly have been sayin it wrong for a long time!