Sunday, May 10, 2015

Mothers Day 2015

Sleeping late these days means 0730. Kids kept to their beds until much later. Card for Cindy. Mani\Pedi Gift Certificate. Hugs and such. Whatever she wants today. Turned out to be a late lunch with her Mom while the rest of us hit the theater to catch a thankfully-uncrowed showing of The Avengers.  (Fairly good flick despite some flimsy plot moments but the effects compensated.) And the  day continues as a long lazy Sunday with Liam playing his new bass and Meg alternating between her ukulele and her violin.

Life. Good.

Saturday, May 09, 2015

Enough Adventure

One pint too many last night and paid for it this morning. Most unpleasant swimming 1200 yards without a wetsuit. Then we hopped on the bikes for a HR Zone 2. 17.9MPH but only 124BPM. Then a crazy sweaty ten minute run. All three pieces. Good times with good friends. Approaching 21 weeks until The Main Event. We're probably half way there already. Will build up the rest across the next 4+ months. In the furnace of South Mississippi....


After training and getting lunch, hit the road with Kidd Maestro. Checked out some different jazz bass guitars. First music place had a Fender and a second hand amp at a reasonable price. Second place (actually our favorite) had the same Fender but a bigger selection of guitars and we were able to noticeably hear the difference between some of them. In the end, the owner (a bassist himself) convinced us to pick up an Ibanez  (that Liam absolutely loved) and a new 300W amp. Took it home and it is night and day different than his old bass. Much better sound and far greater range of versatility. So we took it back home and he played for hours, looking forward to the jam session on Monday.

Then an unexpected surprise: Nenna (Kimmer's Wife) had a kidney stone flare up and they decided to head to the ER to get it checked out professionally. They dropped off Ethan and we all hung out for a couple of hours. SUPER sweet little boy. We'd have quick, cute conversations and talk about his favorite cartoons. He decided he wanted to watch Thomas The Tank Enginer, like Liam used to. Then one by one, every except me & Ethan went to sleep. First Meg went to her room. Then Liam went off to his. And finally, Cindy fell asleep on the sofa next to me. Approaching midnight, Kim & Nenna made it out of the ER. Us boys were still awake and able to get everything packed without any drama or concerns.

That's enough adventure for one day, methinks.

Friday, May 08, 2015

Push Pull, Clip Clop

Another day and another round of wrestling with server hardware. Yesterday was bad memory. Today involved adding fiber connections. Push pull, clip clop. All done and hopefully we can migrate some SQL services off of old servers and onto these monsters. Often time easier said than done, when my corporate cohorts in Las Vegas are involved. But we'll see how it goes.

After work, met Kimmer at Rooney's for the usual Friday Night Dance. Couple of pints. BBQ Sammich. Music in the background. Conversation in the foreground. He's a good guy with a heart even bigger than his chest. Fought more battles than I can count and still comes out smiling. A good example for me to follow. And his guidance is always appreciated. Glad to have him down for a couple of weeks. We both need it.

Thursday, May 07, 2015

A Rest Day

9 workouts in 6 days and finally, a rest day.! Very happy to NOT be in the gym or on the road anywhere. 

Not that there is any rest for the wicked. Still had a full load at work: Dealing with vendors. Volunteering for a new Citrix adventure well ahead of the rest of the organization. Extinguishing numerous minor wildfires. And, as pictured, swapping out bad memory in an ESX host. Funny bit, there, after powering off the server, changing the hardware, and restoring power, my email starts blowing up. The Virtualization Dudes in Las Vegas start proclaiming, "Everything dropped offline!" Which quickly spiked by heart rate closer to 200BPM. Until they started laughing the second they answer their hotline. Of course, it was a joke. A naughty nerdy joke. Highlight of my day. 

My short-lived, greatly needed, REST day....

Wednesday, May 06, 2015

Mittwoch

Early morning workout: lots of stretching, then deadlifts and (my favorite) toes-to-bar. Only recently starting doing TTBs. They're tricky. And the taller you are, the more difficult they become. So the workout was a super set of 4 x bodyweight deadlifts and 8 x TTBs.

Evening workout: an hour on the bike trainer. Joined by Mister Kim Hall. First time we've worked out together since Augusta. Went about 18 miles in 45 minutes, then walked around the track to cool down our legs and let Kimmer catch his breath. He's still recovering from his adventures, but we agree any day above ground is a good day.

Afterwards, off to Irish Coast for some trivia. Our team, Bitch Please, came in third of three teams. Not a good night. But good times with good folks. We'll extract our revenge, next time.

Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Cinco De Tired

Another Two A Day. Did Crossfit after work. Shoulders and back and lots of sweat. Then went back to the house and ran. Sorta ran. Paced with Liam through the neighborhood. Went close to three miles. Jogged about a third of that. Tragically funny: after he started getting warmed up, his chest started getting tight. Where? Exact same spot where my chest used to get tight (for decades:) left upper lobe. How does something like THAT get passed along in the genes? Boggles the mind.

No Mexican celebrations, this year. Big meal at work. But nothing at home. Just me and Liam, Cinco De Tired.