Time To Move On...And Remember The Things Worth Remembering

It is finally time to start getting real about this Warrior Dash race I have next month and actually try to run faster every day as opposed to 'i'll just go run around for a half hour and call it a day' exercise thing I've been doing. It's good that I'm running, but aimlessly prancing around does not training make!

But, another reason I've been 'running' and not 'training' is that in order to use the stopwatch function on my watch I would have to clear the times from my marathon; something I've been hesitant to do. It mostly stems from me not being able to throw away anything...ever...EVER.

But if I want to be serious I have to start running for time again and for that I need my stopwatch! So, in order to save the times I'm gonna post them here so I will have them forever! Because we all know that the Internet is the dusty back closet for everything, and the world.

Acadia Marathon 2011:

Mile 1: 9.49.57

Mile 2: 10.17.19

Mile 3: 10.14.53

Mile 4: 9.26.22

Mile 5: 9.43.88

Mile 6: 10.24.98

Mile 7: 9.42.92

Mile 8: 9.46.69

Mile 9: 10.27.47

Mile 10: 10.25.40

Mile 11: 10.09.47

Mile 12: 10.51.32

Mile 13: 10.31.01

Mile 14: 11.15.03

Mile 15: 11.03.96

Mile 16: 13.08.21

Mile 17: 11.15.79

Mile 18: 11.00.21

Mile 19: 11.21.54

Mile 20: 11.39.34

Mile 21: 12.08.40

Mile 22: 12.24.94

Mile 23: 12.39.45

Mile 24: 13.19.04

Mile 25: 18.13.89

Mile 26: 11.34.05

Mile 26.2: 2.44.12

Total time: 4 hours 55 minutes 38 seconds

And now that it is saved for posterity I can go run...for time!

Finally...the 8th

So I did work all day Tuesday and into the night. Worked a bit today too, but not as much as I should have.

And now we're going to whine about something else...

I finally have all of the Mahler Symphonies on my iTunes!!! This is something I've been trying to do forever and today I thought I was going to complete my dream. But first, as with everything, a little story.

Freshman year of college I was introduced to Mahler by playing French Horn in my University orchestra's performance of Mahler's 4th. It was a moving piece of work, a little obscure considering I was used to hearing only about the earlier composers, but it came to define the semester and year for me. When ever I hear it I am transported back to those confusing, exhilarating, stressful, and fun days of freshman year.

Since then I had found that my parent's collection contained most of the Mahler symphonies, including a version of his unfinished 10th. They are great to listen to because they are long and they take their time and the first four connect together very well (read as: sound the same).

I was lacking the 6th and 8th. So this year, since I wanted to be able to listen to all of them I asked for the 6th and 8th as birthday gifts, with the caveat being that of all the things I wanted for my birthday, those two recordings were the ones I wanted the most. I got the 6th, but not the 8th.

I had really been looking forward to the 8th the most because of its nick name "Symphony of a Thousand". The sheer audacity to perform such a large orchestration excited me and I've been waiting to hear what such a large group would sound like. I got the 8th for Christmas...best gift ever, aside from the books I also received.

So today, in some down time, I decided to add the CD of the 8th to my iTunes. Well, I tried to at least. My CD drive on my laptop is... temperamental. It likes to work when it feels like it. I've never really experienced an electronic with such personality...lucky me.

Being so close to finally having the complete collection and then being foiled by the silliest hang-up was infuriating! Clearly causing me to be unproductive for the rest of the day.

But now, a little past midnight, I've finally massaged the drive into working and have the complete 1-10 collection!!! I can't wait to listen to it all together for the first time! I put off listening to the 6th until I had the 8th because I wanted to listen to the full evolution of Mahler's composing.

Truly the next few days will be aural heaven.

:-)

Aim For Glorious Plans And When I Was Batman

The wonderful thing about Tuesdays for me is that I have no class, so I can spend the whole day working on other things.

Now stop laughing.

This is especially important now as I plan to make a huge dent in both a section of my thesis today, but more importantly (read as: the lower hanging fruit) I plan to do most of my work of my lab class today which will mean only a little work for me to do later. Planning ahead and all that good stuff.

I've also decided to permanently stop working at home. It isn't really working out and I need to separate my quiet home area from my work area. This will just mean longer and more hours in lab, but that's what I did last year an it worked out just fine. Sometimes familiarity breeds contempt, but sometimes it's that familiarity that makes you feel at home...home, in this case of course, is working at a computer for hours on end.

I also has a really trippy dream last night. I was in my town and there was a snowstorm or one had just happened, but there was a layer of snow on everything and there was no blacktop to be seen. I was driving some sort of large vehicle (Batmobile) and lost control and crashed. Well, I was going rather fast and not trying to slow down.

I hit one car that appeared to be totally fine even though I'm pretty sure I should have destroyed the thing. Another car, a new Mercedes SLS was totally blown apart. All I saw was the front end and the rest of the cars was...I dunno?

Then I walk around to the grill of my vehicle (Batmobile) and notice a car stuck in it with a woman bleeding from some head wound. At this point I try and dial 911, but I'm super clumsy and keep screwing it up. At this point there are a couple of people starting to gather and wonder what is going on.

(Now this is where things are a little fuzzy) Then the people I was with and I hijack a parked snow plow and start driving up the streets to get to my house. I'm still decked out like Batman; cape and all. Then we are on one of the last streets and I'm trying to work the front plow so it doesn't steer us off the road and totally rip off the front of someone's parked car. A quick look at the shattered front bumper and it looks like a Corvette nose.

So I park the truck and get out to look and the people who own the car take a look also, and at this point I realize I'm gonna have to pay for this and start to get worried. So there is like a dozen people around this car that turns out to just be some piece of shit Chevy truck with a custom grill. At this point I calm down as I make sure the front radiators are still in place and that I didn't do any mechanical damage to the car.

Then my mother shows up (dressed like Bat Woman) in a Bat-Sled (jet powered of course) and tells me to not worry about it, and that she'll drive the truck and I should get in the sled and get everyone home.

So I jump in the sled turn it on and start leading the way back to my house. Suddenly this hill wen from a couple blocks long to like a couple hundred blocks long and there's people shooting at us (well, me since the Batsled had an open cockpit) and I have one arm up to protect my face and I feel a couple hit me in the chest and ricochet off the armor. The problem is that I'm also using my arms to propel myself up-hill and to steer. So I'm not going too fast and not very maneuverable, so putting my hand up to not get shot in the face is troublesome.

Then I hear my mom over the speaker tell me that I have the jets on minimum thrust and that I should be steering with the wheel not my hands. So I hit the jets, grab the wheel, and everything becomes SO MUCH easier! And then we start to pull onto my street...

And then I woke up.

The Extra Hour

Someone once told me that the most useful work one can do every day is the little extra they do at the end of the day. The little extra so that what ever you were working on is finished so you don't leave it for the next day.

It is this little bit that everyone tends to leave off. It isn't the end of the world to leave it behind, but it weighs on you. You'll go into work the next day and your first thought will be, "Damn, I still have to work on this?!" and not, "Boy am I glad I got that out of the way yesterday, now I can concentrate on this."

Tonight I mustered up the will power to spend the past hour-ish after the Super Bowl to work on this data gathering thing I've been putting off and don't really have time to do tomorrow either. The best part is that now I can move forward now it's out of the way.

Late nights will perhaps become a new norm this week. We shall see.

Now That You Ask, It Was A Bad Day

I went out to lunch with a friend of mine today and she asked me how my day was going. Up until then I hadn't really thought about it. Let's recap starting with the night before:

- After finishing writing the last section of thesis for the night, I went searching on Pandora for one more rock ballad to power me into the kitchen and join my house mates for some Thursday night bonding/revelry only to have Pandora fail. I reset, opened new windows, but nothing worked. So instead of being jazzed to hangout I was pissed off! Turns out the cable/Internet was down in the house...which was why everyone was not watching TV or on their computers. At least it wasn't my computer that was fucking up.

- I then awoke, a little late, to a hangover. The result of mixing that shot of whiskey into my 4th beer no doubt. That just put a huge damper on the day cause I kinda felt like crap and hadn't really planned on feeling like shit all day. Some nights you just go into it knowing 'well shit, i'm gonna feel like crap in the morning...oh well, let's have fun!' and that's ok, because you plan on it and the hangover acts like a stamp from a club. A little reminder that you did have fun, but there's always a tax.

- Then I found I had three parking tickets for leaving my car in a student lot for the past few days because of the snow. There is money I won't have anymore!

- Then while driving into town for lunch I nearly skidded out of control into an intersection. It was one of those 'i'm being dumb and this will totally be my fault because i'm dumb' moments. i may have been going a little fast down a hill on slushy roads, but I thought I would have enough traction. NAY! The laws of physics said to me, so I did the only thing I could do: I beached myself on the nearest snowbank. The crossing guard saw me and literally face-palmed at my obvious fuck up. One minute of slick rocking and I got Opis free to...

- ...find no parking anywhere! Between the snow and construction crews there was no where to park. I ended up driving around for ten minutes just looking for a spot. No fun.

So when my friend asked me how my day was going, I was inclined to say good or fine, the normal canned response, but after thinking about it for a few seconds I had to say that my day wasn't going well at all!

Cabin Feverish

Spent the last two days inside working on my thesis. Yesterday went well. Today was slightly less productive.

I now remember why I would work in lab and leave my laptop there: my home has to be the safe place fro, my thesis. Getting up walking three feet and working is awful. I need need need to work from lab tomorrow.

But the weather is soooooooooooo shity! I know, suck it up bitch, welcome to winter, but really this is almost too much to deal with. I really can't stand being couped up in my house all the time working. Working sucks and I would rather be doing ANYTHING ELSE!

Tomorrow I have to start really working...more like work consistently. Monday I dicked off, yesterday I made graphs, today I wrote about graphs, tomorrow I will have to do some combination of that. I also have to do real work this weekend, which I can do since I will be here at University as opposed to visiting people...damned ice storm!

But it should be good. I'm on track to hit 2 out of 3 goals for this week so that's cool and with the weekend I should be able to make up for that lost third.

I just really have to get the fuck out of my house.

Budget Review: January

One of my resolutions for this year was to make, keep, and stick to a budget. Let's see how I did:

- Groceries: I went over budget on groceries for a variety of reasons. The first being I tried to buy a month's worth of groceries in a day and then needed to go back constantly to buy things that were perishable. Additionally, buying in bulk doesn't work as well when things can go bad. Some of the things I bought I still have though, so I see January as more of a pantry building month. As such I am increasing my February budget by a modest $25 to match my new buying schedule, which I intend to buy every week instead of every month to hit more sales, increase my variety of food eaten, and to buy perishables weekly.

- Booze: Surprise, surprise! It is possible to buy a month's worth of booze in one outing and stay under budget! That being said, I will also be buying booze on a more weekly or bi-monthly basis so that I can give myself a bit more variety in my purchases. I also don't think I need to have as much money budgeted for booze, so a -$20 reduction for this month.

- Gas: Only filled up once. I had budgeted for two fill ups, so I'm good on that one. -$10 reduction based on most likely driving habits over the next few weeks (it's a short month after all).

- Entertainment: $0 dollars spent. this was to be my "going to the movies" fund with the idea of one movie a weekend or if there was a concert on campus I would use this part of my budget. I never did any of that soooooooo, yeah. No change for this month since this ends up being where the "Other" category takes it's money from.

- Going out: I only went over budget by a little bit on this one so I am confident that I don't need to adjust this category.

- Rent: Flat rate, no further comments.

- Utilities: This was a tricky one because I hadn't anticipated our electric bill o be as much as it was, so this ended up going over budget. I increased this for this month, but hopefully it won't have to be changed again.

Other: the stuff you don't budget for, but an interesting category all the same because it shows how much "extra" spending one does every month. The thing about "Other" is that you can plan for it, but it usually only happens once so it's not the end of the world.

So, all-in-all, I'm increasing my budget for this month by $15 to accommodate the more realistic spending habits as identified last month.

Until next time!