excellent..
Dec 27, 2006
taking bets
they come in threes, right?
1. James Brown
2. Gerald Ford
3. ???
MY bet: Margaret Thatcher.
What's your bet?
the comment board is open..
-steve
1. James Brown
2. Gerald Ford
3. ???
MY bet: Margaret Thatcher.
What's your bet?
the comment board is open..
-steve
Dec 18, 2006
taco hell
my wife's mother has this thing that she watches the news on TV too much, and always wants to warn everyone about something she saw. In this case, taco bell. so the day I arrived in California two weeks ago, she calls. I answer the phone.
"steve, I just wanted to let you know about the taco bell thing.. it seems that the food is poisoned and there's mayhem and destruction everywhere. so don't eat there."
"Well, you have nothing to worry about. I haven't eaten at Taco hell in three years and I'm certainly not going to break that streak while I'm in CA."
"oh, ok that's good - "
"because why would I eat taco bell, when I have real dirty mexican food on every corner here?"
(she laughs cautiously)
"and when I say dirty mexican food, I mean that the food is made by dirty mexicans, that's why it's so good.."
At this point, my wife picks up the extension, and I hang up.
Fast forward one week. I'm in the car, and my wife receives a call from Jean, her sister. Apparently, as soon as our little conversation was finished, Jean gets a panicked call from her mother, who was absolutely horrified that we were eating dirty mexican food in california. Poor Jean had the burden of calming her down.. and wasn't too happy about it.
All I know is that DMF was really friggin' tasty, and my wife and I had it nearly every day.
Postscript - we returned to the east coast, sleep about 20 hours, and then take a ride up to vermont. Skiing at Killington, my wife decided that she'd like to join me for a ride up the gondola to the top for lunch. She had chili in a bread bowl. Make a long story short - the 30lbs of dirty filthy mexican food we consumed in the last two weeks caused no problems whatsoever - but that damned Killington chili put her on the toilet for two hours.. with a lot of pain to boot.
"steve, I just wanted to let you know about the taco bell thing.. it seems that the food is poisoned and there's mayhem and destruction everywhere. so don't eat there."
"Well, you have nothing to worry about. I haven't eaten at Taco hell in three years and I'm certainly not going to break that streak while I'm in CA."
"oh, ok that's good - "
"because why would I eat taco bell, when I have real dirty mexican food on every corner here?"
(she laughs cautiously)
"and when I say dirty mexican food, I mean that the food is made by dirty mexicans, that's why it's so good.."
At this point, my wife picks up the extension, and I hang up.
Fast forward one week. I'm in the car, and my wife receives a call from Jean, her sister. Apparently, as soon as our little conversation was finished, Jean gets a panicked call from her mother, who was absolutely horrified that we were eating dirty mexican food in california. Poor Jean had the burden of calming her down.. and wasn't too happy about it.
All I know is that DMF was really friggin' tasty, and my wife and I had it nearly every day.
Postscript - we returned to the east coast, sleep about 20 hours, and then take a ride up to vermont. Skiing at Killington, my wife decided that she'd like to join me for a ride up the gondola to the top for lunch. She had chili in a bread bowl. Make a long story short - the 30lbs of dirty filthy mexican food we consumed in the last two weeks caused no problems whatsoever - but that damned Killington chili put her on the toilet for two hours.. with a lot of pain to boot.
Dec 15, 2006
the gastrointestinal properties of a tommyburger
Vince: "You mean you've never had a tommyburger with chili?"
Steve: "What's so special about the chili?"
Vince: "It is the nastiest stuff you'll ever lay your eyes on.."
Steve: "..and?"
Vince: "Grease just drips off this crap.."
Steve: "..and?"
Vince: "I once just saw them open up a 1-gallon can of the stuff, and the inside of that can looked like a toxic waste dump.."
Steve: "..and?"
Vince: "It is just amazingly good. You have to try it."
I returned yesterday from a 12-day trip to California. I had hit most of my spots for food that I can't get in New York - Albertos, the dirty mexican food (dmf) chain, el nortena (now called taco fiesta), the dmf spot outside my parent's condo in san diego, el campion in san juan capistrano, the cleanest, highest-quality best-tasting dmf you'll ever find, and of course, la tiendita in san clemente, formerly known to me as "hole in the wall taco shop" but not anymore as san clemente has gone country club and a sign in the window says, "we proudly brew diedrich coffee." I also ate at el pollo loco 4 times, a dmf spot near vince's house in palm springs, in-and-out, farmer brothers, and a new favorite spot (in vegas) for unlimited amounts of sushi.
I had been putting off tommyburger, and I had to finally get one on the day I was to leave.
steve: "um, vince - I'm looking at this thing, and.. uh.."
vince: "it looks like shit on a shingle, doesn't it?"
steve: "literally.."
vince: "did you order the chili cheese fries, too?"
steve: "thankfully, no."
I ate it at noon. on Tuesday. my flight was at midnight. it wasn't pretty..
Even now, 2:30am on Thursday, I can still feel a slight twinge as my intestinal tract is fighting the last remnants of that thing.
my sleep patterns are all screwed up, and I think I just got caught up. the night after the marathon, I was only about the sleep about 4 hours. and I didn't get more than 5 hours of sleep on monday or tuesday night either. and wednesday night was a red-eye flight, so I only got about 4 hours of sleep on the plane as that chili manifested itself in my subcockles. When I finally got home at about 2pm, I went to sleep. My wife went and got chinese take-out (the east coast equiv of dmf), so we ate at 6 and went back to sleep. Finally woke up at 2am, and my son was sleeping on the floor next to my bed. You see, his sleep patterns are all screwed up too. I picked him up, put him back in his own bed, and wrote this post.
maybe now i'll get a couple more bonus hours of sleep before waking up and packing for a trip to vermont..
Steve: "What's so special about the chili?"
Vince: "It is the nastiest stuff you'll ever lay your eyes on.."
Steve: "..and?"
Vince: "Grease just drips off this crap.."
Steve: "..and?"
Vince: "I once just saw them open up a 1-gallon can of the stuff, and the inside of that can looked like a toxic waste dump.."
Steve: "..and?"
Vince: "It is just amazingly good. You have to try it."
I returned yesterday from a 12-day trip to California. I had hit most of my spots for food that I can't get in New York - Albertos, the dirty mexican food (dmf) chain, el nortena (now called taco fiesta), the dmf spot outside my parent's condo in san diego, el campion in san juan capistrano, the cleanest, highest-quality best-tasting dmf you'll ever find, and of course, la tiendita in san clemente, formerly known to me as "hole in the wall taco shop" but not anymore as san clemente has gone country club and a sign in the window says, "we proudly brew diedrich coffee." I also ate at el pollo loco 4 times, a dmf spot near vince's house in palm springs, in-and-out, farmer brothers, and a new favorite spot (in vegas) for unlimited amounts of sushi.
I had been putting off tommyburger, and I had to finally get one on the day I was to leave.
steve: "um, vince - I'm looking at this thing, and.. uh.."
vince: "it looks like shit on a shingle, doesn't it?"
steve: "literally.."
vince: "did you order the chili cheese fries, too?"
steve: "thankfully, no."
I ate it at noon. on Tuesday. my flight was at midnight. it wasn't pretty..
Even now, 2:30am on Thursday, I can still feel a slight twinge as my intestinal tract is fighting the last remnants of that thing.
my sleep patterns are all screwed up, and I think I just got caught up. the night after the marathon, I was only about the sleep about 4 hours. and I didn't get more than 5 hours of sleep on monday or tuesday night either. and wednesday night was a red-eye flight, so I only got about 4 hours of sleep on the plane as that chili manifested itself in my subcockles. When I finally got home at about 2pm, I went to sleep. My wife went and got chinese take-out (the east coast equiv of dmf), so we ate at 6 and went back to sleep. Finally woke up at 2am, and my son was sleeping on the floor next to my bed. You see, his sleep patterns are all screwed up too. I picked him up, put him back in his own bed, and wrote this post.
maybe now i'll get a couple more bonus hours of sleep before waking up and packing for a trip to vermont..
Dec 14, 2006
race report - las vegas marathon, dec 10 - 26.2 miles
I ran my first Marathon on Sunday.. it was a helluva experience.
First let me say that I slacked on my last two months of training (oops) and it sure showed. I ran about half of the marathon, walked the other half. Net time was 6:42:38, 6:57 gross. 508th place out of 521 in my age/sex group, 5651 out of 5903 overall.
The first eight miles went by super-fast. The Las Vegas Strip, a couple of live bands, Blue man Group, Freemont Street - I thought that I was doing great. Then we went up MLK blvd to Smoke Ranch rd, then west to torrey pines road, then south 6 miles. It was about 13 miles of cookie-cutter track homes, with a nasty headwind, no crowd support, and screwed up mile markers (I thought I ran two miles between 11 to 12 and after the race, I found that I was not alone). Very demoralizing. I stopped walked through a water station at mile 12 and didn't start running again until mile 15. The second half of the race was probably about 80% walking. That's mostly a function of superficial training for about 10 weeks prior to the race, but the race conditions didn't help. Once we got to Frank Sinatra Blvd, I was running with a couple of elvi, and we were talking about how the headwind suddenly got strong at the home stretch. I could count that there were only 7 properties to the finish line - Ceasars, Bellagio, Mirage, NYNY, Excalibur, Luxor, and Mandalay Bay. It was great just to tick off the casinos to the finish - much better than trying to count cookie-cutter homes. Anyway, those properties are HUGE!! It was still about three miles, but it went by quickly.
At any rate, I finished, and I was strong at the finish line. At 320 lbs, you can't ask for much more than that. That bus that picks up DNFs kept driving by me, and boy was it tempting. My heart rate on Monday morning when I woke up was 80, 20 beats above normal..
People keep telling me how impressed they are that I finished a marathon. I don't want to take anything away from that, but I've gotta say that I am not happy at all with my performance. I traveled 26 miles in seven hours. Anybody in reasonable health can do what I did, it's just a matter of getting off the couch. So what people are impressed by is that I got off the couch - which I don't really see as particularly significant, regardless of what other people think. I would be a lot happier if I actually ran or jogged the entire distance. I would be a lot happier if I finished under 6 hours. And I could have done that, if I'd not slacked since the Staten Island half-marathon. And that's why I can't be satisfied with what I did - because I didn't do it with the excellence that I set out to do it with.
That's why I am going to run another marathon. Question is - which one?
It won't be the LV marathon again. Maybe it's just growing pains on the part of the organizers, but the screwed up mile markers, non-existent crowd and boring course really have made an impression on me. Those weren't the only problems, however - there was NO food at the finish line, the experience for my wife as a volunteer wasn't great, and there were only about 7000 full-marathon runners out there - which is really thin at the back of the pack. It is also a long way from home, very late in the season (interferes with ski season), and, most of all, I just want to try different things.
There are basically two marathons I'd really love to do: NYC is the first one. I have twice entered the lottery and twice not been picked. The other is Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) in DC. Since they're only a couple of weeks apart, I will not do both of them in the same year. I'd much rather do NYC for obvious reasons. Here's the issue: I have a guaranteed entry form for MCM, which, if I don't turn in by April, I may not be able to get into that race. I can enter the lottery for NYC in February, but I won't hear if I'm picked until June. So I either blow off NYC and plan to do MCM, or I take my chances with NYC, and if I don't get in, try to get into MCM with a normal non-guaranteed entry. If I don't get into either, I'm pretty well screwed. If I go that route and get screwed, there are a couple of alternatives that I may try - Chicago is supposed to be great, and Twin Cities apparently has amazing crowd support. But then you have to travel to get to them, and that just adds up to a pain in the ass.
In any case, I wasn't going to do any running at all this winter - just focus on skiing and relax for a while. But now I'm thinking that I may try to run a few miles once or twice a week, just to maintain some sort of cardiovascular and muscular skeletal fitness - I don't know. I do know that I can't run if I wanted to right now, three days after the race.
Yeah, I'm sore. I did a little light stretching after the race on Sunday, but I had to drive 4 hours to my parents house that evening and really tightened up. On Monday I was a sorry creature, pretty much unable to walk. Tuesday had a lot of improvement, but I was still stiff and I had a particular pain in my left ankle. Wednesday I'm better still, but sore nonetheless. I am not supposed to completely heal for a month, and it may be that long before I attempt to run again.
A couple of notes - Excellent all-you-can-eat sushi was thought to be impossible to come by - but Vegas once again comes through, and not with a touristy place on the strip, but rather a small neighborhood place in the parking lot of a grocery store. Called Sushi-mon, it's not your typical sushi buffet - but rather everything is made to order and you can have just about any item a regular sushi-ya would have. So be sure to go: http://www.sushi-mon.com/
mt charleston is also worth going to. An hour from vegas and just beautiful. Decent restaurant up there, too. Can't wait to go back to hike to the peak.
ok, photos:
Pre-dawn start
Fremont Street
Mile 15? 16?
Mile 19?
Frank Sinatra Drive, Mile 24 (or 25..)
finish line:
First let me say that I slacked on my last two months of training (oops) and it sure showed. I ran about half of the marathon, walked the other half. Net time was 6:42:38, 6:57 gross. 508th place out of 521 in my age/sex group, 5651 out of 5903 overall.
The first eight miles went by super-fast. The Las Vegas Strip, a couple of live bands, Blue man Group, Freemont Street - I thought that I was doing great. Then we went up MLK blvd to Smoke Ranch rd, then west to torrey pines road, then south 6 miles. It was about 13 miles of cookie-cutter track homes, with a nasty headwind, no crowd support, and screwed up mile markers (I thought I ran two miles between 11 to 12 and after the race, I found that I was not alone). Very demoralizing. I stopped walked through a water station at mile 12 and didn't start running again until mile 15. The second half of the race was probably about 80% walking. That's mostly a function of superficial training for about 10 weeks prior to the race, but the race conditions didn't help. Once we got to Frank Sinatra Blvd, I was running with a couple of elvi, and we were talking about how the headwind suddenly got strong at the home stretch. I could count that there were only 7 properties to the finish line - Ceasars, Bellagio, Mirage, NYNY, Excalibur, Luxor, and Mandalay Bay. It was great just to tick off the casinos to the finish - much better than trying to count cookie-cutter homes. Anyway, those properties are HUGE!! It was still about three miles, but it went by quickly.
At any rate, I finished, and I was strong at the finish line. At 320 lbs, you can't ask for much more than that. That bus that picks up DNFs kept driving by me, and boy was it tempting. My heart rate on Monday morning when I woke up was 80, 20 beats above normal..
People keep telling me how impressed they are that I finished a marathon. I don't want to take anything away from that, but I've gotta say that I am not happy at all with my performance. I traveled 26 miles in seven hours. Anybody in reasonable health can do what I did, it's just a matter of getting off the couch. So what people are impressed by is that I got off the couch - which I don't really see as particularly significant, regardless of what other people think. I would be a lot happier if I actually ran or jogged the entire distance. I would be a lot happier if I finished under 6 hours. And I could have done that, if I'd not slacked since the Staten Island half-marathon. And that's why I can't be satisfied with what I did - because I didn't do it with the excellence that I set out to do it with.
That's why I am going to run another marathon. Question is - which one?
It won't be the LV marathon again. Maybe it's just growing pains on the part of the organizers, but the screwed up mile markers, non-existent crowd and boring course really have made an impression on me. Those weren't the only problems, however - there was NO food at the finish line, the experience for my wife as a volunteer wasn't great, and there were only about 7000 full-marathon runners out there - which is really thin at the back of the pack. It is also a long way from home, very late in the season (interferes with ski season), and, most of all, I just want to try different things.
There are basically two marathons I'd really love to do: NYC is the first one. I have twice entered the lottery and twice not been picked. The other is Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) in DC. Since they're only a couple of weeks apart, I will not do both of them in the same year. I'd much rather do NYC for obvious reasons. Here's the issue: I have a guaranteed entry form for MCM, which, if I don't turn in by April, I may not be able to get into that race. I can enter the lottery for NYC in February, but I won't hear if I'm picked until June. So I either blow off NYC and plan to do MCM, or I take my chances with NYC, and if I don't get in, try to get into MCM with a normal non-guaranteed entry. If I don't get into either, I'm pretty well screwed. If I go that route and get screwed, there are a couple of alternatives that I may try - Chicago is supposed to be great, and Twin Cities apparently has amazing crowd support. But then you have to travel to get to them, and that just adds up to a pain in the ass.
In any case, I wasn't going to do any running at all this winter - just focus on skiing and relax for a while. But now I'm thinking that I may try to run a few miles once or twice a week, just to maintain some sort of cardiovascular and muscular skeletal fitness - I don't know. I do know that I can't run if I wanted to right now, three days after the race.
Yeah, I'm sore. I did a little light stretching after the race on Sunday, but I had to drive 4 hours to my parents house that evening and really tightened up. On Monday I was a sorry creature, pretty much unable to walk. Tuesday had a lot of improvement, but I was still stiff and I had a particular pain in my left ankle. Wednesday I'm better still, but sore nonetheless. I am not supposed to completely heal for a month, and it may be that long before I attempt to run again.
A couple of notes - Excellent all-you-can-eat sushi was thought to be impossible to come by - but Vegas once again comes through, and not with a touristy place on the strip, but rather a small neighborhood place in the parking lot of a grocery store. Called Sushi-mon, it's not your typical sushi buffet - but rather everything is made to order and you can have just about any item a regular sushi-ya would have. So be sure to go: http://www.sushi-mon.com/
mt charleston is also worth going to. An hour from vegas and just beautiful. Decent restaurant up there, too. Can't wait to go back to hike to the peak.
ok, photos:
Pre-dawn start
Fremont Street
Mile 15? 16?
Mile 19?
Frank Sinatra Drive, Mile 24 (or 25..)
finish line:
Dec 3, 2006
dead yankees (and other dead people)
about a month ago, i visited a cemetery to see some dead yankees..
lou gehrig, so loved that they named an always-fatal degenerative neurological disorder after him..
babe ruth, the only person in history known to have partied harder than keith richards..
billy martin, famous for not getting along with veteran players, burning out young pitchers, and drinking too much..
dead yankees weren't the only famous people at this cemetery (actually two cemeteries right next to each other)
tommy dorsey
ayn rand (Frank O'Conner was her husband)
sergei rachmaninoff
lou gehrig, so loved that they named an always-fatal degenerative neurological disorder after him..
babe ruth, the only person in history known to have partied harder than keith richards..
billy martin, famous for not getting along with veteran players, burning out young pitchers, and drinking too much..
dead yankees weren't the only famous people at this cemetery (actually two cemeteries right next to each other)
tommy dorsey
ayn rand (Frank O'Conner was her husband)
sergei rachmaninoff
Dec 2, 2006
sitting at jfk..
well, my flight was scheduled to leave at 7:45pm. It's now 12:33am, and I have about another hour before I can leave. Now I didn't see it personally, but I hear a bunch of people repeating first-hand accounts of a tornado-sighting outside. A friggin' tornado hits JFK - that's pretty cool. While I'm here waiting to get out - not so cool.
It all adds up to 9 hours in the Jetblue terminal at JFK. complete with a wife and kid and $10 beers. But I will say this - jetblue effin rocks for making their JFK terminal a free wireless hotspot. I am fine passing the time on the internet - I even got a little work done. But it is a strange sight... people are sleeping in the middle of the floor - it's like we're a bunch of refugees.
12:36am.. well, that killed 3 minutes. back to google reader..
It all adds up to 9 hours in the Jetblue terminal at JFK. complete with a wife and kid and $10 beers. But I will say this - jetblue effin rocks for making their JFK terminal a free wireless hotspot. I am fine passing the time on the internet - I even got a little work done. But it is a strange sight... people are sleeping in the middle of the floor - it's like we're a bunch of refugees.
12:36am.. well, that killed 3 minutes. back to google reader..
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