21 posts tagged “nintendo”

The kids have effectively rendered our home PC useless.  Austin has recently started to use MySpace and shortly after, the spy ware started coming in.  I've been fighting it for a couple of weeks.  This week it got really bad.  Seems the more you try to clean it, the worse it gets.   Right now, a lot of the services won't even come up anymore.  Can't get onto the internet, not even to the IP address of my router!  Can't copy/paste, can't drag and drop, so I'm using xcopy to copy all of our music, pictures, mpgs, etc from the PC to our external Hard Drive.  Damn what a pain in the ass.  So, when I'm done with all of that, I'm going to wipe it clean and start from scratch. 

I've had a really good week running.  I've run every day so far this month.  50 miles last week, 54 miles this week.  I'd like to try to run every day this month.  I have to work on Sunday for a system upgrade starting at 6:15 am.  Hopefully, we don't take the full 24 hours that is allotted to us and I can squeeze a run in there.  My first official 5K of the summer will be next Saturday, a local, low-key race.  It's a little ambitious at this point, but I'd like to try to break 18:00 first time out.

BTW, "Alone In The Dark" sucks.  I've played it for a total of about two hours and the game actually has me turned off of it.  So, I'm glad I only rented it and didn't buy it.  I don't have to return it until Wednesday, but I doubt I play it again...

Long time no write.  Weird.  I have so much going on right now.  Kids are out of school, yet so busy.  Work was really crazy last week.  A lot of pressure and high visibility.  I've been there before though, and I made it through again.  Really didn't have much in the way of sleep last week.  Or even last night.

Storms last night left 25 gallons of water in the basement.  Apparantly we got over 4" of rain last night, and the drainage system just couldn't carry the water away quick enough.  So, that's what Mariah and the kids did this morning.  Austin is going to like an honors math program 5 days a week.  Kourtney's soccer conditioning for Terre Haute North High School starts next week, and she's still not even done with travel league until the 15th. 

Running has been going great.  I've had some really productive runs.  Although, for about 6 days now, I've had some achilles tightness.  Last Thursday, my right achilles started to hurt during my tempo run.  I finished the tempo run and it hurt pretty bad the rest of the night, and all the next day.  So that ended 102 miles in 11 days.  Ran 2 the next night in excruciating pain.  Then Saturday and Sunday, 100 minutes on the Octane.  Monday, 30 minutes Octane with 1 mile easy with Austin at his running program.  Tuesday, it felt a little better, and I ran a really quick 3.25 miles just a hair over 20 minutes with the last mile in 5:41.  Today, did 30 minutes on the Octane at lunch, then tonight, ran the same 8.5 miles as I did last Thursday.  Achilles was just a little tight the last two miles.  I had to alter my running a little bit and land a little harder on my heels as opposed to pushing off.  Range of motion is a little limited.  I started out really struggling, but even with that I was still running 7 minute pace.  On the way back from my out-and-back, I averaged 6:10 pace on the way back.  And it was really hot and humid.  Post rain.  Lots of trees down and some power lines down in Deming Park.  Pretty amazing.  It's supposed to get really hot in a few days.

Hehehehe.  Austin is doing downward dog on Wii Fit.  Never thought my 10 year old would be doing Yoga.  Funny.

I'm dehydrated.  I need to drink.  And get some sleep.  After I play some Williams Pinball on Wii.  Still trying to keep up with the French Open.  I'm two days behind.

What a long weekend.  I had to work quite a bit, but I did have time to do stuff with Mariah and the kids, and got some running in.  Saturday morning, a group of 18 of us ran 9 miles from Hawthorn Park into town to Cracker Barrel and ate breakfast together.  That was fun time.  The weather was beautiful and the breakfast was good.  I managed to get in 63 miles last week.  First time I've done that since before the Columbus Marathon training in 2006.  Sunday was a 14 mile "tempo" run done at 6:30 pace.  I was so sore yesterday, but still got in a pretty good 8 miles. Running on the trails at Hawthorn Park and Rose-Hulman helped a lot.  Tonight, I ran speed work in a light rain, although a little breezy.  3+ mile warmup, legs were kinda dead.  Then did 12x400m with 400m jog between, then 2 mile cooldown.  Not quite 11 miles for the day.  And 30 minutes on the Octane during lunch. 
Work was hectic today.  Some of it was fall out from some of the maintenance that we did on our systems over the weekend.  It wasn't very smooth.  So, I'm a little irritable today..  The French Open started this week.  I finally got to see a little bit.  I saw Mauresmo wrap up her match and watched the first couple of games in Nadal's match.  I've setup our HD-DVR to record it all.  Got to watch the remainder of Nadal's match.  Hopefully I can keep up with the tournament.

An oh, the Indy 500 was this weekend.  BFD.  Can you tell I'm not originally from Indiana?

I saw a video of an upcoming release for the Nintendo Wii and immediately recognized the bass playing on the theme music.  It was Les Claypool from Primus.  They are one of my favorite bands of all time.  But amazing that you could hear a bass guitar in a song you've never heard before, but you recognize the sound and the style.

Neat.

Secrest out.

Congrats to David Cook American Idol.

Tonight I did a track workout with Jeff and Josh.  It was a really good workout, but I'm still recovering from Saturday's Trail Half Marathon race.  So, the legs were really dead tonight.  Guess I'm still getting over it.  I was still sore going into the workout tonight.  My legs are still twitching 5 hours later.  But!  In my race, I finished 4th overall.  Three of my running buddies finished first, second and sixth.  There were probably 14 people from Terre Haute/Brazil that made it to the race 90 minutes away. 

My car is fixed.  I brought it in Monday and it was ready today by lunch time.  The whole front end of my car looks brand new.  Shweeet. 

Wii Fit came out today.  Not so sure we're going to get it.  We did get a new TV though.  Our old one died after 14 years.  We think lightning fried the power supply...

Tired....

To the Indy Mini.  Just 4 more days.  I took yesterday off, didn't even do the Octane.  Got up and ran this morning, an easy 6 miles with Jacki Andrew.  Going to do a "light" workout tomorrow evening (i.e. 2x800m in 3:03), take Thursday off, then do my pre-race warmup routine Friday.  Tapering is so hard to do.  It's hard to let up on the training, and hard to slow down when your legs are fresh from the reduced mileage.  Can't wait until Friday for Fazoli's and Baskin Robbins three-scoop sundae (two scoops Chocolate Mint, one scoop Chocolate, with hot fudge, whip cream and nuts).

I finally got a chance to play Mario Kart Wii.  It's pretty cool.  Hopefully I'll have more time to play it some more.

Looks like our Summer Vacation to Arizona may be very, very expensive.  Gas is now $3.75 in Terre Haute.  When we figured up our costs last December, we were banking on $3.  Damn...  Not so sure it's going to happen.

I miss my Alaska kitty.  Tonight when I was putting the chairs back after dinner, I couldn't help but remember how Alaska would sit in the chair and stare out the window at the squirrels and birds.

Finally giving Metric a little bit of a break, and I've been listening to Feist and Rush some more.  Listened to Led Zeppelin I for the first time in a while. 

Today I had a really good final speed workout with jeffandrew916 and Jacki going into next Saturday's Indy Mini.  2x800m, 4x400m, and then 8x200m.  Pretty tough, but ran really well.  I got sunburned today.  Kourtney had a double-header soccer game scheduled.  Their team lost the first game 6-4, then tied the second game 3-3.  It was a victory for the girls though, as they have had trouble in the past with double-headers.  Hopefully this will be a good sign for them going into their first tournament May 9th.

Picked up my new Snakes and Arrows Live CD by Rush last week.  It is really good.  The sound quality is pretty amazing.  I'd like to see them live again when they come to Indy June 28th, but we're slated to be just getting back from vacation that day.  Tonight at midnight we're going to pick up our reserved copy of Mario Kart Wii.  So, we're going to be up a little late tonight.

So the Indy Mini is next week.  Going to let up a little as I'm going to have 52 miles this week.  Probably two easy days, one short tempo run (6 miles with 1.5 miles at race pace), then Friday, I just do my pre-race warmup routine (2 miles then strideouts).  Mariah and I both took the day off next Friday so we can go to the Expo, pick up my race packet and check out the new "Runner's Forum" store in downtown Indy.

Kourtney is doing better with her knee surgery recovery.  Today, I worked from home for part of the day to stay here with her.  She's going do go to school tomorrow.  Probably won't be very easy, but she's dying to get back to school.  Next week is Spring Break and she would have gone totally nuts to have missed this whole week.  Mariah stayed home with her yesterday, and I stayed with her today.  She pretty much did homework, watched MTV and played Guitar Hero III. 

Had a really good track workout lastnight.  Did 5x1000m in goal race pace.  I ended up going a little faster than I should have, but still in the ballpark.  3:38 to 3:42 on all of them.  3:45 is 6:00 min per mile pace, which is what I aim to run for my 10 mile race on Saturday.  And still looks like the weather is going to be nice.  Lower 50s, partly cloudy, slight breeze.

So, I'm watching American Idol with Mariah.  First time I've really sat down and watched it.  Pretty talented bunch.  I'm glad I'm not as goofy looking as Ryan Secrest.  Not quite.

Starting to get fired up for the Live Rush CD coming out April 15th.  Going to see Feist with the family April 11th.  I really wish I could go see Iron Maiden in Chicago this June.  That's way out of bounds unfortunately.  Tickets are going to be outrageous and Chicago is just expensive anyway.

OK, I was pretty dead a couple days ago running.  Today was a little redemption.  Today I did a really good workout with Jeff.  He's getting ready to run a marathon on the 29th and I'm running a 10 mile race on the 29th.  It was a fast-pacing type workout with reduced recovery time.  6x1000m on a 5 minute cycle.  I ran them all  My goal was to hit 6 minute pace for the workout. I hit them in 3:45,3:43,3:39,3:41,3:38 and then an all-out one in 3:16.  A far cry from a couple of days ago when it was all I could do to jog home on a disastrous attempt at an easy day.  The weather finally cooperated today.  8 days to race day.  Time to take it easy now.  I'm on-call next week, so the biggest thing will be not losing any sleep with middle-of-the-night support calls.  I'll be out Monday for Kourtney's surgery and I've taken Friday off for the trip to Louisville.  So, I'm only going to work three days.  I'm getting excited.  Can't wait.  We'll be staying at a place in the same town I went to high school.

Still haven't watched any of the NCAA tournament.  Playing a little Smash Brothers and GH 3 today.  Pretty cool.

Kourtney's arthroscopic surgery for her meniscus has been moved from 2:00 pm Monday to 6:30 am Monday.  Which is actually better.  If all goes well, Kourtney will probably only miss soccer through the end of April.  We'll see.  Meanwhile, I'm injury free (have aches and pains from intense training) and, uh, I still haven't got sick yet.  8 weeks until the Indy Mini.  This 10 mile race should be a good race for the Mini.

Our work is shifting from the Cubicle Environment to the Open Work Space Concept.  Some new (actually different) business philosophies that are being adopted as our company is really taking some steps to be productive and competitive.  We'll see how it works.  I'm sure that there are good things and bad things about it.  I'll probably comment (objectively) about the impending change in the weeks to come.  I'm sure that there will be some people totally against it.  Some will be opposed only because it is change, but there are some that will be opposed to it for fundamental reasons.  It'll be interesting.

We've had so much rain the last 4 weeks.  Heck, my wife even managed to get our Sorrento stuck in the mud in the yard.  NCAA Basketball Tournament is underway.  I've always been so pumped up about College Basketball and the NCAA tournament.  However, this year, I really had no opportunity to watch any basketball all season, and I haven't even got to watch a single game of the tournament yet.  Heck, I don't even know who's playing or anything.  I do know that Kentucky lost today.  My favorite team growing up. 

Tonight, Mariah took Ausin and I to eBash in town.  It's basically a game console/PC gaming heaven for gaming geeks.  I'd have to say that Austin was the youngest one in there (9) and me the oldest one in there (38).  Of course, we got a good ass whoopin' on Super Smash Brothers Brawl by some kids that were playing there.  This place has several XBox 360 consoles, a few PS3s and a few Wiis.  They charge by the hour.  We were first timers there, so we played for an hour for free.  After that it's $4 for the first hour, $6 for two hours and other rates for longer hours.  It was neat to play against other people in Smash Brothers.  They hold tournaments and such.  Pretty cool.

Didn't run today.  Still feeling a little beat up.  I bought to LPs today at Headstone's.  I bought the soundtrack to "Annie" and "Crime Of The Century" by Supertramp.

Tonight we picked up a second guitar for our Wii.  Now we can have true battles in Guitar Hero III. 

Despite running really hard this past week, my legs actually feel pretty good today.  Yeah they're a little sore, but having only put in 6.5 miles yesterday, my legs aren't as tired as the other days.  I've been averaging 8 or more miles for each of my runs lately.  Tomorrow, I'm probably going to run 10 miles in the morning as opposed to the 5K race.  Two more weeks until my 10 mile race.

This evening I got to see someone that I used to work with that I hadn't seen in over a year.  Pretty cool.

Wii gotta go