La Influenza

I have to admit, the fact that we are on the verge of a flu pandemic fascinates me.  I have done some reading on other pandemics, most recently the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918.  I don't think it is entirely fair to blame the Spaniards for all those deaths.  Had they known the benefits of regular hand washing, far less people would have died.  Today at my office, a note was posted in the bathroom instructing us how to wash our hands properly.  For the last 30 years, I have been doing this incorrectly.  If I've inadvertently gotten you sick over this time because of my stupidity, well, I'm sorry.  In addition to a step-by-step guide informing me how to sterilize my hands, our bathroom also has a big bottle of Purell between the two sinks.  It looks like this:

Not to be confused with Prell, which is only effective on the germs that hide out in the scalp.

I am not very worried about catching the flu.  While I don't consider myself to be a terrible clean individual, I have not had flu-like symptoms since June of 1998 and that was only for about 36 hours.  I was traveling in Europe on a train from Barcelona, Spain to Interlaken, Switzerland.  I was with two friends and our train had stopped in Geneva.  It was 8am and I felt really bad.  By noon, when we arrived in Interlaken, I knew that bad shit was about to go down.  As I slept on the front lawn of the grocery store, while they went in to shop for laks and Toblerones, I decided that I was going to bungee jump that afternoon even if it killed me.  By 4pm, when we were picked up by the outfit that ran the bungee jumping, I was hoping that in fact it would kill me.  That's how sick I was.  On the van ride out to the the mountain, I puked all over myself and that is why in this picture, I am wearing a vest, with no undershirt.  If you were able to check my underpants, I think you would find them a mess as well.

My two friends gave me crap for being a "downer" that afternoon.  That night they caught what I had though, and for that I will always remain grateful.  It was the sickest I've ever felt.

Gina and I went hiking this morning.  7 miles in the Fells.  It is a pretty difficult trail for running on, but not bad for hiking.  She has terrible blisters now on her feet.  About a 1/3 of the way into the hike she started complaining about her shoes.  I told her that her shoes suck and that she needs to get a different pair.  She defends her shoes like I am critisizing a person.  She told me that the shoes are fine.  "Not if they make your feet blister, they're not".  

I am going to head back to the Fells in about 30 minutes to bike.  It is really nice out.  Tomorrow I plan on heading up to New Hampshire and hiking up and snowboarding down Waterville Valley.  The mountain closed weeks ago, but I think they still have snow on the trails.  It will be interesting snowboarding in 80 degree temps.

This has been a pretty boring/slow week.  Aside from taking Patriots Day off, I've done absolutely nothing.  The crap weather hasn't really inspired me to go out and run.

Tuesday night I got home from work and made a few phone calls.  First I talked to my grandmother.  I call her about once a week, sometimes twice if she's lucky.  She didn't have any thing new to tell me and I didn't have anything new to tell her.  Tuesday was the day that they caught the Craigslist Killer.  Because the guy is from Boston, it automatically became a topic for discussion.  My grandmother asked me if I was worried.  "About what?", I asked.  It's unbelievable.  She told me that when the police caught him he was on his way to Connecticut.

Then I talked to my mom.  The exact same conversation.  "Isn't that scary?" my mom asked.  "No mom, it's not".  And do you know why it's not scary?  BECAUSE I AM NOT GIVING EROTIC MASSAGES IN HOTEL ROOMS.  I hope this guy goes away for a long long time for making me have this ridiculous conversation twice in one night.

  

My Full Endorsement

This morning I stopped at Target on my way into work.  One of the great things about not taking the train is that if I am ahead of schedule, I can stop and run errands in the morning.  Tomorrow I might stop at the car wash and vacuum out the inside of my vehicle.  I ended up buying 18 20-oz. bottles of Vitamin Water and a big can of coffee (Choc Full O'Nuts).  I never drank a Vitamin water until about a month ago and now I drink them all the time.  If you had told me two months ago that I wouldn't be drinking Gatorade anymore, I would have called you a heretic, but after that first sip of Dragonfruit (Power-C), I was hooked.

Other products I fully endorse:  Cottonelle Toilet Paper, Brooks running socks, & Reddi Wip Whippets.

This weekend will be the first one I have spent in Boston since December 13th.  That is 17 consecutive weekends spent away.  Saturday I plan on going mountain biking and might follow that up with some tequila drinking.  I'm also looking for a good bike to ride around the city so I might go bike shopping.  My goal for the summer is to get into good biking shape.  Last summer I only rode twice.  Another goal is to get in good tequila drinking shape.  I didn't do too much of that last summer either.  Some might say last summer was a failure for me, but I did other things, so it wasn't all bad.  Bill gave me a bottle of some tequila called Corzo this weekend (750ml).  I've never had it, but it looks delicious.  Monday will be my first day off since starting the job back in December.

  

Outdoorman's Paradise

This weekend Gina and I wend down to Connecticut for Easter and for Scarlett's first birthday.  Saturday was terrible weather, very rainy all day.  Gina and I went for a ride with my dad, Donna (step-mom) and little sister and stopped at Cabela's over near the UConn football stadium.  I had never been and my dad told me it is a must see.  It is a massive outdoors store with entire wings devoted to hunting, fishing, camping, & bbq.  There were a lot of NASCAR fans there too.  Anyway, I happened to stumble into the Bargain Cave and came real real close to buying a couple of stuffed horned stuffed rabbits facing each other on a mounted frame.  It was $97, marked down from $200.  The label said "damaged", but it looked in perfect condition to me.  I am very much regretting not buying it - would have totally made my cube.  Had my dad not been with me, I probably would have gotten it.  He thought it was funny, but would have punched me in the face if I spent $97 on two stuffed rabbits (even if they did have antlers coming out of their heads).

After Cabela's, we went to LL Bean (to pick up a chair) and then to Panera Bread (for some lunch).  We also saw a dead turkey in the street that had gotten run over multiple times.  It was big and gross.

Yesterday, we went down to Westport for Scarlett's birthday.  Carrie fed her a cupcake the size of her head.  I think she liked it.

The ride back to Boston sucked.  It took three hours and we didn't get home until 11 (usually takes 2, but I've done it in 1:45 driving 85 mph for the whole Mass Pike).  We tried to cheat by getting off an exit in Sturbridge and taking a secondary road for 10 miles.  We maybe saved 15 minutes, but they got stuck in toll traffic again heading into the city.  Motherfucker!  That's what I said when I saw the line of cars stopped 5 miles before the toll.  Fisher was on my lap.  I'm sure he was thinking the same thing.

Today I ran 6-7 miles after work and just made a nice fruit salad.  Pineapple, melon, & strawberries.  Those are the fruits I usually use.  Pineapple & strawberries are my favorite. 

A little richer

So I just walked into the bedroom after winning $109 betting on women's college basketball (hey, at least it's not the WNBA) to find Gina crying on the bed. Why? Because she is watching Marley & Me. She has been talking about it for months now and got the chance to pick it up tonight. We drove over to Whole Foods to pick up some fruit and yogurt. I have been eating those greek yogurts lately, the ones with the fruit on the side. They are delicious. My favorite ones are the ones with honey. How much do I like them? Last night there was one left in the fridge and it had an expiration date of 3/30 and I still ate it. And I am very picky about eating food past the due date. Of course, I gave some of it to Fisher first just to make sure it wouldn't make me sick.

We actually brought Fisher to the store with us.  He likes riding in the car, so we brought him and he sits in the car and looks at people when we go in the store.  

Tonight I went running along the Charles River.  I did about 6.5 miles.  I don't have anything too big coming up.  There is a 12 mile trail race that I'm doing in early May, but I'm not that worried about running fast, so I might just treat it as a training run.  Then in mid-June I am doing the Green Mountain Relay which is a 200 mile race in Vermont.  There are 8 or 9 of us on the team, so I only need to run 4 legs of 5-6 miles each - which I could probably do now if I had to.  Anyway, tonight was the first time in probably 2 or 3 years where I was actually passed by another runner when running.  It was very humbling.  Two runner looking guys.  I was running about a 7:00 pace into a headwind, so it definitely caught me off guard.

Today was opening day.  I would have hated to be at the game.  It is too cold for baseball.  I can deal with cold baseball when it is October and means something, but not this time of year.  If it weren't for fantasy baseball, I probably wouldn't even start paying attention until Memorial Day.  

Ok.  That is two posts in two days.  

Iceland or Montana?

Ski season is over for me.  Yesterday we packed up and cleaned the house and got our security deposit back.  Dave gave it back to us in all $50 dollar bills.  Dave was our landlord and had a drinking problem.  We watched him fall on several occasions this winter.  When I said "bye" to him he appeared to have food all over his face, as if he ate a bowl of macaroni and cheese w/o a fork.  Poor guy.  He treated us well.  Hopefully we're back next winter.

The highlight of the winter came two weeks ago when we were given permission by Dave to have a brush fire in his back yard.  He even suggested we use gasoline.  We obliged being the good tenants that we were.  Here is a video of that evening.  I suggest watching it start to finish, even though the explosion doesn't take place until just past the 3:00 mark.

I know it has been some time since I last blogged.  At one point Gina asked me why I wasn't blogging and I alluded that I was blogging on a different site about her, and not telling her about it.  She said it was "grounds for dismissal".  That is how she talks to me.  I wasn't blogging on a different site though.  Good thing.

We are trying to decide where to go on vacation this summer.  Our choices seem to be narrowed down to Iceland or Montana.  Iceland would be a much more expensive trip, so we're leaning towards Montana.  We're talking about a 4-5 day backpacking trip in Glacier National Park.  Gina is concerned about bears though, specifically being eaten by one.  We may be picking up one of these bear suits.

Fisher is doing okay these days in case you were wondering.  He got kicked pretty hard last week, around 3.30am-ish, when he decided to attack my feet.  Sometimes he sits on the dresser and stares at me in the middle of the night.  He is a little weasel.

I am going to go watch the NCAA championship now.  I am going to try and update this with some regularity.  I've received multiple complaints about my lack of posts.