Blown Taper

Blew my taper. (Not really, but it felt like it.)

It's that time of year again - Minnesota State Fair time. Normally we go on a morning and it's usually brutally hot, but this year was different. First of all, a lot of schools in the metro area started school this week which is unusually early (by law schools aren't supposed to start until after Labor Day, but districts that need more test prep time can petition to start early. Apparently our district doesn't fall into that category.) Secondly, the weather was cool, but sketchy. And "C," we went later in the afternoon. All of these things meant that crowds were light so we didn't see quite as many morbidly obese people eating gigantic quantities of fried food and sweating profusely. The number of future teenage unwed mothers/strippers/hookers was reduced as well. Unfortunately, it also meant that by the time we got to them all the animal barns were closed, so we weren't able to check out the giant swine this year (remember last year?)

The lighter crowds meant easier access to fair food. I was hungry. I ate SO much bad stuff.


The greatest french fries in the world!


Deep fried cheese curds.


Pronto Pup. This ain't no "corn dog." So much better!


Sweet Martha's chocolate chip cookies. Unbelievably good and I am such a sucker for chocolate chip cookies.


I needed some "low fat" protein. This is the biggest turkey leg I have ever seen. It was delicious.

Fewer people meant the real train wrecks really stood out. This guy was my favorite.


Sweet terry cloth polo shirt with the popped color.


Do you workout? Maybe do a lot of upper body and no leg work? And do you do all this "working out" in a sunless cave? Yeah, thought so.

And then there were these two meat-heads.

"Dude, my lats are so big I can't put my arms down by my side." "I know, right? That's why I have to wear this shirt without sleeves."

Hate to break it to you boys, you're not strong you're just fat.

Our day ended with a driving downpour. Check off another State Fair experience and another summer over.

What's Going on Wednesday

As I am sure you have all been wondering, what is going on with me? So this Wednesday I will tell you. (Thus the title of my post.)

OK, admittedly that first sentence was just ridiculous. Hopefully it's not an indication of how the rest of this post will go.

Hunting Season

The kids are back in school, so summer is officially over. With that being said, hunting season is now upon us. Or at least me. Which season you ask? Job hunting season.

I found a position that sounded interesting at a "major" corporation in town. I contacted a couple of people that I know who work in the company and networked a contact with the head of the department.

This could be a sweet job. According to the job description - minimal supervision, proofreading, writing, directing internal communications.

So I send over my resume to my friend. She sends it off to the department head and then I wait. Later in the evening I get another email from my friend. She very nicely points out that I might want to take a look at my resume. Seems I have a - wait for it...

Typo! I am applying for a PROOFREADING job and I have a typo in my resume. Not buried in the minutiae of my education or something - in the THIRD FRICKING LINE! (I spellchecked it and everything - apparently "quaterback" is a legitimate word in Microsoft Word's world. It should have been "quarterback.")

Needless to say, I don't anticipate a call back on that one.

Job hunt #1 = FAIL!

Road Trip

This weekend I am heading to Madison, WI to volunteer at the Ironman Wisconsin triathlon. On Monday MS, CS and I will stand in line to sign up for next year's race. I think we are all excited to volunteer and anxious about actually signing up for the race next year. The mere mention of it sends my wife into a tailspin of anticipatory resentment at the perceived training load I will be taking on. I am, however, not going to SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) the training for this race (as I have for others.) I am going to hire a coach and get on a program with one of the main goals being to remain somewhat happily married before and after the race.

Brush with Fame (or Infamy)

Turns out that rumors that have been circulating around the neighborhood are true. Brett Favre's daughter is going to school at the same school as my kids. She is in the same class as our neighbor's daughter - who is a grade ahead of E. It will be interesting to see which social-climbing couple tries to become fast friends with the Favre family. It's all a little "Real Housewives of Edina" for me.

Marathon Training

I am about a month away from Twin Cities Marathon. Training has been going well. The injuries and set backs from earlier in the training cycle seem to have abated. I have two more 20+ mile long runs before taper. I have been feeling good, but I am nervous about running as fast as I have been told I can for 3+ hours. I know I shouldn't make predictions about race day while in the middle of my highest mileage & intensity training block. All indications are that I can run that fast, now I just have to believe it.

Sonofabitch!

Right now I am sitting in the coffee shop and I feel a little tickle on my shin so I reach down to scratch it and WHAM! I get stung by a fricking bee! I freak out trying to kill the thing and get it out of my pant leg. Anyone looking at me would think I was having some sort of grand mal seizure and praying that I don't start choking on my own tongue. How it made it up my pant leg is beyond me. I did get the last laugh as I summarily executed it with an overly enthusiastic, rather effeminate dance on its black and yellow thorax. Take that, MoFo!

(Oh, and you will all be happy to learn that I am, in fact, not allergic to bees so you can all continue to look forward to more moderately entertaining, mostly migraine-inducing posts. Although I suspect there is at least one person out there who would just like me to go away. Mom.)

The Great Minnesota Gorge Together

After a week of licking my wounds from last week's failed experiment in blogging. I have retuned. This post has just about everything anyone could want - animals, kids, food, obesity, body parts and crop art. Enjoy! (You ungrateful bastards.)

The last week of summer is always punctuated by a visit to the Minnesota State Fair. Every year it is basically the same thing. Animal barns, kids rides and food.

Officially it's called "The Great Minnesota Get Together" but the kids and I made it a fair-food fest.

Main entrance.

The mascot.

We got going early. For E, it was too early because she had a difficult time figuring out what she wanted for breakfast so we left the house with her unfed. (I know, "good parenting," but just you wait - it gets even more impressive.)

It was a beautiful sunny day with cool temps - just a perfect day for the fair. We entered on the north entrance so it wasn't at all crowded and the food booths were plentiful. First order of business, find E some breakfast. What did we settle on? Prono-Pups. (Like corn dogs, but much better. OK - exactly like corn dogs, but they have sweetness in the batter.)

E had already finished her Pronto-Pup. F still had a little nub left. Notice also our morning beverage of choice - Sprite! (Now that is some good parenting. You will notice my wife is no where to be seen, she was working.)

From here we actually looked at some stuff. I will let the pictures speak mostly for themselves.

First up the Horticulture Building

Scarecrows made of various materials. I also like the various seed corn samples on the wall - how do they judge that stuff?

Crop Art = art made from corn, wheat, barley and any other type of grain.

This was my favorite.

I actually kind of liked these from a graphic design point of view.

On the way to the animal barns we came across one of Minnesota's finest contributions to the cuisine of the world.

My kids are "thrilled," especially E.

Then we came across the the second of Minnesota's finest contributions to the cuisine of the world.

(Try to imagine a tater-tot hotdish on a stick with cream of mushroom dipping sauce. Some of you probably have NO idea what I am talking about.)

Finally, we made it to the animals.

Sheep

I love them in their little jackets to keep their wool clean before showing.

Getting groomed.

Nuts! (or as F would say, "Nuths!")

Different nuts. (I especially like the chainsaw sculpture with the guy pondering his future while a bear sneaks up behind him to rip his head off with razor sharp claws - or at least that's my interpretation. Hey, it's "art" - I can see whatever I want.)

Cows

Thrilled kids, once again.

Pigs

Deano

Pig on the loose.

Pigs getting a shower.

After seeing where so much of our delicious food comes from we were hungry.

Hmm, what first.

Deep fried cheese curds and Icees.

E liked the curds way more then F.

E and I had roasted corn on the cob. F wasn't interested.

That was followed in rapid succession by:

Tom Thumb Mini-Donuts and

Sweet Martha's Chocolate Chip Cookies.

The fair is always good for people watching. With a mass of humanity like this:

It's not uncommon to see people like this:

This gentleman was nothing compared to the rather larger woman standing behind me at the ticket booth. Wheezing. While she was standing.

and couples like this:

I like the way the pink feminizes what could easily be mistaken for a camo blouse that matches her husband's hat and t-shirt ensemble.

All in all it was a very fun day. Can't wait for next year.

Summer Vacation

This past weekend was up and down. The kids finished up school for the year on Friday. It was a beautiful day. I rode to and from school with them as I have been doing for a lot of the last couple of weeks. It is so great to have the kids wanting to ride their bikes.

Saturday I decided to run. I was going to wait until Tuesday but I kept seeing people running and my legs were feeling good so I decided I had to go on Saturday. We ran three miles. Keep in mind this is a little less than a week post marathon. I kind of wanted to go further but I decided to do the three and not push it. When I got home I was lamenting the fact that I didn't have any speed and with a sprint triathlon coming up in two weeks I was concerned about the "sprint" aspect. I decided that if I got up early enough I would run again on Sunday. 

Running on Sunday was pretty much a sure thing. My kids don't know the meaning of sleeping in unless it's a school day and there is test. My dog is on a 5 AM schedule, too. For some reason he thinks it's playtime at that hour. Needless to say, I did not sleep late. I did piss around for awhile, let A sleep in and I watched cartoons with the kids. Finally, about 7:45 or so I decided I needed to get out and run so I woke A up (she was awake, just lying there) and headed out. My plan was to run four miles - mile one was to be a warm up, two miles quick and a mile warm down. I didn't have real high expectations for this as I had run the day before and had run a marathon a week before that. My warm up was about 7:48, the next two miles were around 6:53 and the warm down was 8:16. Way faster than I expected and it felt way better. My HR did this crazy thing. You can see the chart below. It was higher at the beginning and dropped down during the highest effort. I love that! I feel like my speedy legs are still there. Now, for some biking and swimming.

Today is the first Monday of summer vacation for the kids and it couldn't be more of a disaster. OK, I am probably overreacting, exaggerating, overstating, unduly pessimistic. The day (and most of the past weekend) has been gray, rainy and cold. This morning it was thunderstorms and 49 degrees and now it's gray and about 51. Being cooped up in the house with my monsters damn near drove me bat-shit crazy. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my kids, but they are fricking LOUD! They actually have been playing well together for long stretches at a time. (Right now E is repeating, "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy..." Hold on while I stuff a sock in her mouth.) 

Around 1:30 I needed to get some coffee and the kids needed to get out of the house so we walked up to Caribou Coffee. I told them to grab their Nintendo DSs so they wouldn't be completely bored. All I wanted was a change of scenery for about a half hour. E wanted a decaf mocha and two chocolate covered espresso beans - the girl is only 9 - but I gave her what she wanted because she ordered it herself. F just wanted water and he got all shy and wouldn't order but he did eventually upgrade to a Triple Berry smoothie, which he inhaled. 

I am not sure why they look so surprised.

E is reading a book by a local author who sets the plot in real locations around Minneapolis. One of the places that a lot of action takes place is Quang Vietnamese Restaurant. There was a lot of talk about Strawberry Bubble Tea. It's funny because not too long ago I was reading a blog post about bubble tea (I can't find the post - tell me if you wrote it) and was able to explain that the bubbles were tapioca - by the way, that is some good stuff! I basically had three dinners because E and especially F didn't eat all their soup, so I had to help out. I love Vietnamese food, but I don't have the most adventurous family so I never request it - maybe this will change their minds some. 

E and strawberry bubble tea.

So that is the poop on me lately, kind of random and only mildly interesting or entertaining. I hope this isn't an omen for the rest of summer vacation or I will surely lose my mind in the first month.

Waiting for the other fin to drop

Swim day number three and feeling unbelievably good. So, I am waiting for something to go bad. It doesn't always, but I usually don't feel this good this early on. It's Wednesday so it's IM day. There were more people in the pool today after the long weekend. I hit the vast majority of the intervals and even shortened some because they just seemed too long. Total yards of about 2,700 in about 50 minutes. I really LOVE being back in the water. For a long time I couldn't even be near a pool, I was so burned out by years of training. I love the meditative quiet time that is only interrupted by my gasping for breath and occasional dry-heaving. I really can't wait for summer when we are in the 50 meter outdoor pool and doing regular open water swims. (Although, right now that seems further away as we just got more snow, ugh.) 

Reliving Summer

It is even colder here now, so I am looking for more escapes.  I found a montage/recap video from the Summer Olympics that has been satisfying some of my need for warm memories.  Hopefully, it will help you a little bit, too.  

What a difference a day makes

It is always easy to forget the adage that tomorrow will be better, especially when for the last six months my lack of employment has clouded my perceptions.  But boy, let me tell you, the last twenty-four hours have seen some radical improvements in aspects of my world.  (Unfortunately, not in the employment arena.)

Yesterday morning was cloudy, oppressively humid and warm (76 degrees at 5:30 AM) for this time of year (in my opinion). It was a running day and we ran three miles, were so sweaty and overheated and miserable (especially me) that I suggested we pack it in and get coffee.  So we did.  Yesterday was also the first day of school - F is in first grade and E is in third.  We got them on the bus with no problems and everyone was excited.  A went to mass with the kids and when she asked F how it was going his reply was "I hate it!  It's boring!"  A pointed out that he had been in school for all of an hour and a half and an hour of that was mass.

By noon the temp was about 80 and still humid but it started to rain.  In the span of about an hour and half the temp dropped 15 degrees and the humidity was cut in half. F came running off the bus yelling "SCHOOL IS AWESOME!"  I ran 17 1/2 miles this morning in perfect fall running weather - 50 degrees, sunny, breezy, low humidity.  And I start teaching this evening.  

What a difference a day makes.

This Could Be a Long Summer

I certainly hope I have never made it sound like I think taking care of the kids is a piece of cake, but as I have found out in the last couple of days, it is damn hard work.  I am good with the day to day stuff - eating meals, getting dressed, teeth brushed, etc., but finding stuff to entertain them is hard to do especially when they have scheduled activities like tennis or swimming or soccer.  I am not a creative activity planner.  I feel guilty if they watch too much TV or play on the computer too long, but can't seem to find stuff for them to do to fill an hour or so between activities.

(Hold on a second, I have to hike up my skirt and touch up my lipstick.) 

There isn't a mother in history who has an ounce of sympathy for me, I know.  I certainly have to give A. more credit for keeping the kids occupied.  That, and I need to get a job soon, so I can get some rest.

R2-D2: Fashion Consultant

E. asked F. to help her pick out something to wear this morning (mind you - this has NEVER happened before). E. begrudgingly agreed after I pointed out he could dress her in the silliest outfit he could find. They were spending a lot of time in E's room and when I went to check on them, E. was holding up a potential ensemble and asked, "What about this?" F. replied "Boop, beep, boop, boop, beep." E. explained that R2-D2 was helping her figure out what to wear. F. replied "Boop, beep, beeeep." This is setting up to be a long, creative summer.