We had a very relaxing weekend, which was a nice change. Saturday morning we got up and went for breakfast at a local coffee shop. We sat and read the paper, drank overpriced coffee, ate a biscotto, a scone, and a muffin. In the evening we settled in to watch "Bee Season". It's an interesting movie, bordering on existentialism, with forays into Catholicism, Hari Krishnaism, and Jewish mysticism. It put me into a weird state of mind at the end of it. All of the cgi was really well done.
Sunday we slept in real late. Betsey was amazing and did laundry and stuff all day while I played SimCity 4. Yes, some people still play that. To continue our movie weekend, we popped "V for Vendetta" into the DVD player. The movie is actually good, and I wish now that more people had seen it when it came out. It's a warning against an Orwellian future, spotted with explosions, fight scenes, and a government virus cover up that brings back warm memories of the X-files. I'm seriously considering reading the graphic novels that inspired the movie now.
Monday was back to the grind stone, but there was reason to celebrate. Lindsey, our good friend from Portland, who for way too long has used her advance degree to work seasonally important jobs, has finally been recognized as an invaluable asset at her current and now full time place of employment. As part of her job, she became a faculty member of Oregon State University. It does seem strange that her office would be in Portland, but there you go. Anyway, this meant she had to come to town and get an ID card, so Lindsey stuck around and came out to dinner with the C-town gang. Nate, Brian, Lindsey, Betsey, and I went down to the Fox & Firkin. The food and beer was excellent, and after we all toasted to Typhoid Mary, we settled into a great night of conversation.
Finally, progress. I have reached the point where my evening runs are slightly over 3 miles and slightly under 30 minutes. I've also started cross-training by swimming laps. I'm so pathetically out of aquatic shape that on my first go last week, I had trouble completed 3 laps (6 lengths) in the pool. Andy tells me I want to work up to 36 laps, so I've got a ways to go, but everyday I exercise I feel healthier, refreshed, relaxed, and more energized than the day before. I'm glad I've had Hood to Coast to motivate me into this lifestyle.
So it's a long post, and more frequent shorter posts would be preferable, but I have trouble justifying using my work time to post, and when I get home, I go to the gym, and after that, man I'm tired. Tonight was my night off, and I've tried to bring Cachew up to date. Thanks for reading.
2007-12-12
2007-12-02
Saturday in Grants Pass
Late Friday night Betsey and I decided to run down to Grants Pass to visit Mum and Dad. We called ahead to make sure it would be all right, and headed out early on Saturday. Lunch was served shortly after we arrived. Mum and Betsey immediately went out to get fixings to make Turkey sandwiches while dad and I fussed around with a broken oven. After lunch and fussing with the oven a little longer, Dad, Betsey and I went down to Les Schwab to get tires for Dad's car. Betsey was pretty happy to go smell tires with us.
While we waited for the tires, we watched the Beavers and the Ducks battle it out on TV. As we started watching, the Ducks started to eat away the 21 to 7 lead the Beavers had established. A fumble, turnover, touchdown? We were exasperated. I was starting to talk about how we clearly shouldn't watch, when the Les Schwab guy came in and said the car was ready. Thank goodness, any longer and we could have given the game to the Ducks.
When we arrived back home, dad and I attacked the oven again. We made good progress and thought we had everything figured out. We powered up the oven to find smoke coming from the harness. Guess we crossed some wires somewhere. Oops.
With dinner time approaching we headed out to Abby's. The place was crowded and warm. We only wanted the warm, but it would have to do. Dinner was great except for the final piece of chicken, which seemed too bloody to possibly be fully cooked.
We rounded out the evening with some games of Sequence. It's not a bad little game, but it always takes forever. BoardGameGeek says it only takes ten minutes to play a round, and I suspect they're right if I'm not playing. I take forever to make my decisions. Dad won all four games we played, one teamed boys vs. girls, and the other three heads up mum, dad, and myself. Betsey was officially out of the last three games, and unofficially on my team rooting me on.
We headed to bed early and were up even earlier to get back to C-town for 11:00. Betsey had a meeting. On the way out of town we picked up some Dutch Bros. and asked for the final results on the Civil War. Beavers won in double overtime. Excellent. I knew we needed to stop watching.
While we waited for the tires, we watched the Beavers and the Ducks battle it out on TV. As we started watching, the Ducks started to eat away the 21 to 7 lead the Beavers had established. A fumble, turnover, touchdown? We were exasperated. I was starting to talk about how we clearly shouldn't watch, when the Les Schwab guy came in and said the car was ready. Thank goodness, any longer and we could have given the game to the Ducks.
When we arrived back home, dad and I attacked the oven again. We made good progress and thought we had everything figured out. We powered up the oven to find smoke coming from the harness. Guess we crossed some wires somewhere. Oops.
With dinner time approaching we headed out to Abby's. The place was crowded and warm. We only wanted the warm, but it would have to do. Dinner was great except for the final piece of chicken, which seemed too bloody to possibly be fully cooked.
We rounded out the evening with some games of Sequence. It's not a bad little game, but it always takes forever. BoardGameGeek says it only takes ten minutes to play a round, and I suspect they're right if I'm not playing. I take forever to make my decisions. Dad won all four games we played, one teamed boys vs. girls, and the other three heads up mum, dad, and myself. Betsey was officially out of the last three games, and unofficially on my team rooting me on.
We headed to bed early and were up even earlier to get back to C-town for 11:00. Betsey had a meeting. On the way out of town we picked up some Dutch Bros. and asked for the final results on the Civil War. Beavers won in double overtime. Excellent. I knew we needed to stop watching.
2007-11-28
Thanksgiving and Other Highlights
Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. Betsey and Lucy made pie, a lot of pie. We had a grand dinner with both turkey and ham. We played a variety of games brought to us by those Cranium games people, including Ziggity, Whoonu, and Hoopla (reverse alphabetical for no reason).
Friday was super lazy. We visited with more family around Portland, and that was pretty much it.
Saturday things started to get interesting. After dropping Betsey at the mall, I finally got in touch with Nick, and we were able to hang out again. How do two guys who rarely see each other catch up? I shared the wonders of my Nintendo DS and Mariokart. Nick proved that he still has it and raced around the tracks like an old pro. Then we met Betsey at the mall for lunch, and Nick and I terrorized Borders by finding books we were curious about. We're old now. Our terrorizing has lost some of its luster. I also had a coffee if that helps. Nick drank water. Yeah we're bad. Then we took Betsey home and went to the library. We're such trouble makers.
Saturday night it was time for fun with Betsey's friends. We went to a Lebanese restaurant, complete with belly dancers, called Yasmen. Thankfully, my wedding band was able to repel the dancer that approached me hoping my dollars would help pad her outfit. The dinner was great and the company wonderful, but my leftovers smelled strangely similar to farts. Towards the end of the night the hookah smoke got a bit thick, but at least it doesn't have the awful smell of cigarettes.
Sunday, Nick called to see if I still wanted him to go running with me. I said yes. He biked over some 30+ blocks and then was ready to go. I was dealing with a headache, sore eyes, and a foul taste in my mouth from the hookah smoke. To be clear these side effects were achieved without actually partaking in the hookah, just by being in its proximity. We had a good run. I have no times to report though because I didn't have a stop watch. Then we played some more Mariokart before parting ways. Getting to see Nick was definitely great. The rest of Sunday was packing and saying goodbye.
All and all a great Thanksgiving full of friends and family.
Friday was super lazy. We visited with more family around Portland, and that was pretty much it.
Saturday things started to get interesting. After dropping Betsey at the mall, I finally got in touch with Nick, and we were able to hang out again. How do two guys who rarely see each other catch up? I shared the wonders of my Nintendo DS and Mariokart. Nick proved that he still has it and raced around the tracks like an old pro. Then we met Betsey at the mall for lunch, and Nick and I terrorized Borders by finding books we were curious about. We're old now. Our terrorizing has lost some of its luster. I also had a coffee if that helps. Nick drank water. Yeah we're bad. Then we took Betsey home and went to the library. We're such trouble makers.
Saturday night it was time for fun with Betsey's friends. We went to a Lebanese restaurant, complete with belly dancers, called Yasmen. Thankfully, my wedding band was able to repel the dancer that approached me hoping my dollars would help pad her outfit. The dinner was great and the company wonderful, but my leftovers smelled strangely similar to farts. Towards the end of the night the hookah smoke got a bit thick, but at least it doesn't have the awful smell of cigarettes.
Sunday, Nick called to see if I still wanted him to go running with me. I said yes. He biked over some 30+ blocks and then was ready to go. I was dealing with a headache, sore eyes, and a foul taste in my mouth from the hookah smoke. To be clear these side effects were achieved without actually partaking in the hookah, just by being in its proximity. We had a good run. I have no times to report though because I didn't have a stop watch. Then we played some more Mariokart before parting ways. Getting to see Nick was definitely great. The rest of Sunday was packing and saying goodbye.
All and all a great Thanksgiving full of friends and family.
2007-11-22
Happy Thanksgiving
This year we're spending Thanksgiving with the Mathews and Christmas with the Catchpoles, so we're hiding out in Portland and watching and helping with the preparation. There's not too much exciting to report because nobody has arrived yet.
I did manage to get up early enough this morning to go running. I estimated a two mile run on Google using the map measurement tool and then took off for a run. When I got to the end of my run, I knew something was up because my time was too good to be true. As soon as I had finished my cool down walk and stretching, I used the measurement tool again, but this time using more and more carefully placed waypoints. My run turned out to only be 1.8 miles. That was a little disappointing, but my time still looked good. A time of 15:19:43 meant that I had run approximately an 8.5 minute mile. So I'm still showing progress, and honestly, if I can just maintain 8.5 for an entire 10k, I'll be super happy.
I did manage to get up early enough this morning to go running. I estimated a two mile run on Google using the map measurement tool and then took off for a run. When I got to the end of my run, I knew something was up because my time was too good to be true. As soon as I had finished my cool down walk and stretching, I used the measurement tool again, but this time using more and more carefully placed waypoints. My run turned out to only be 1.8 miles. That was a little disappointing, but my time still looked good. A time of 15:19:43 meant that I had run approximately an 8.5 minute mile. So I'm still showing progress, and honestly, if I can just maintain 8.5 for an entire 10k, I'll be super happy.
2007-11-21
Hood to Coast
We've been hesitant to post anything until our wedding pictures were available, but clearly that's not a working strategy for having a blog, so I'm going to break the ice. I'll be running hood to coast in a 12 person team in 2008. That means I'll be running 3 10k legs over 36 hours.
I've been training up for a little while now, but my 2 mile time is still just sitting at around 19:25. In January, I'll be running my first competitive 10k run in Turner Oregon of all places.
So, if nothing else, I'm going to track my progress and running times here, at least until the wedding pictures are up on a website. Nobody is more frustrated than us about the picture website, believe me.
Peace,
Myles
I've been training up for a little while now, but my 2 mile time is still just sitting at around 19:25. In January, I'll be running my first competitive 10k run in Turner Oregon of all places.
So, if nothing else, I'm going to track my progress and running times here, at least until the wedding pictures are up on a website. Nobody is more frustrated than us about the picture website, believe me.
Peace,
Myles
2007-08-20
Just Jibing
One of the few things I bothered to pay extra for while we were in Antigua was a sailing lesson. Betsey was feeling tired, so she napped in the room while I went and risked my life. I went to meet my instructor, whose name was Owen.
Owen was a local guy with a nice disposition, and I swear you looked at him and you could hear a little Bob Marley playing, but that could have been the radio. I introduced myself and I could tell right away that he was way cooler than me and way more fit, so I was glad Betsey was safely back in the room and not tempting him with her good looks. I didn't want any incentive for him to get me in an "accident". I don't think he was a bad guy at all, but I mean, who would blame him.
Owen and I went down to the beach and pulled a Hobie Cat HobieWave boat into the water. He took a short amount of time teaching me the basics of sailing, the ideas behind tacking and jibing, and then Owen tightened the sail and we were off. He told me that I should never jibe out on the open ocean as I would flip the boat. If I got better, then it would be okay. I knew I wasn't cool enough.
It was great fun out on the ocean. The boats travel surprisingly fast. A big pelican flew along side of us and then passed us as if to brag, but there again they fly faster than you would expect. Owen took us out a little bit and had me execute a tack and go back towards the beach. Once in the cove, I would jibe. He took me through this three or four times and then started to mention something about me giving him blood pressure. The next time in the cove he jumped off and said you're fine now. I had about 20 minutes of instruction at this point.
Uh, Okay. If someone had shown me how to drive a car for 20 minutes and then handed me the keys, I'm pretty sure I would have wrecked right off the bat. There's a lot to internalize, and that's with growing up around cars. Here I was given a completely foreign mode of locamotion and told I could handle it after 20 minutes. I wasn't feeling too confident.
Well, not wanting to look like too much of a wimp, I took it out to sea, turned around, came back, and maybe did that a couple more times before calling it quits. When I pulled up to the beach, Owen looked at me oddly. He seemed surprised I was done already.
"You were doing alright."
I told him I might do more tomorrow. I paid for my lesson and gave him a decent tip. I told him it was for his blood pressure medication. He laughed and taught me an island sign that meant from the heart. I knew I was cooler now.
Apparently, Betsey had tried to get my attention from the balcony while I sailed. I was a little preoccupied to notice. I was excited when I came in and she said she'd seen me. I asked if she'd taken pictures and she got quiet. Apparently I looked so good, she had spent all her time trying to get my attention and never thought to take one. That's pretty much what I was going for, so I didn't mind too much.
So that's my sailing adventure. If you took a look at the Google map of our vacation, you can get a good idea of where I was sailing and Betsey's vantage of the entire area from the balcony of our room.
Owen was a local guy with a nice disposition, and I swear you looked at him and you could hear a little Bob Marley playing, but that could have been the radio. I introduced myself and I could tell right away that he was way cooler than me and way more fit, so I was glad Betsey was safely back in the room and not tempting him with her good looks. I didn't want any incentive for him to get me in an "accident". I don't think he was a bad guy at all, but I mean, who would blame him.
Owen and I went down to the beach and pulled a Hobie Cat HobieWave boat into the water. He took a short amount of time teaching me the basics of sailing, the ideas behind tacking and jibing, and then Owen tightened the sail and we were off. He told me that I should never jibe out on the open ocean as I would flip the boat. If I got better, then it would be okay. I knew I wasn't cool enough.
It was great fun out on the ocean. The boats travel surprisingly fast. A big pelican flew along side of us and then passed us as if to brag, but there again they fly faster than you would expect. Owen took us out a little bit and had me execute a tack and go back towards the beach. Once in the cove, I would jibe. He took me through this three or four times and then started to mention something about me giving him blood pressure. The next time in the cove he jumped off and said you're fine now. I had about 20 minutes of instruction at this point.
Uh, Okay. If someone had shown me how to drive a car for 20 minutes and then handed me the keys, I'm pretty sure I would have wrecked right off the bat. There's a lot to internalize, and that's with growing up around cars. Here I was given a completely foreign mode of locamotion and told I could handle it after 20 minutes. I wasn't feeling too confident.
Well, not wanting to look like too much of a wimp, I took it out to sea, turned around, came back, and maybe did that a couple more times before calling it quits. When I pulled up to the beach, Owen looked at me oddly. He seemed surprised I was done already.
"You were doing alright."
I told him I might do more tomorrow. I paid for my lesson and gave him a decent tip. I told him it was for his blood pressure medication. He laughed and taught me an island sign that meant from the heart. I knew I was cooler now.
Apparently, Betsey had tried to get my attention from the balcony while I sailed. I was a little preoccupied to notice. I was excited when I came in and she said she'd seen me. I asked if she'd taken pictures and she got quiet. Apparently I looked so good, she had spent all her time trying to get my attention and never thought to take one. That's pretty much what I was going for, so I didn't mind too much.
So that's my sailing adventure. If you took a look at the Google map of our vacation, you can get a good idea of where I was sailing and Betsey's vantage of the entire area from the balcony of our room.
2007-08-09
The Fruits of Your Nagging
OK, here are the much-awaited honeymoon pictures. The album's mainly composed of shots of us...or one of us...or sand.
Hope you all enjoy vicariously visiting
2007-08-08
Pictures Arriving Soon
Hello,
Betsey assures me we can get the pictures up in the next day or two, so in advance of that, I thought you might like to learn more about where we went. Antigua is a beautiful little island in the Caribbean. The Google map I made outlines everything about our visit from the Airport, to the resort, and back. Zoom in and use the satellite view for a closer detailed look. Just click the links on the left to have it center on the point of interest. It was pretty easy to make the map because we never left the resort. It was so nice to just stay there, relax, and enjoy all the good food.
Betsey assures me we can get the pictures up in the next day or two, so in advance of that, I thought you might like to learn more about where we went. Antigua is a beautiful little island in the Caribbean. The Google map I made outlines everything about our visit from the Airport, to the resort, and back. Zoom in and use the satellite view for a closer detailed look. Just click the links on the left to have it center on the point of interest. It was pretty easy to make the map because we never left the resort. It was so nice to just stay there, relax, and enjoy all the good food.
2007-07-30
Bless You!!
Welcome to our place on the internet where we will try, not that hard, to keep you up to date with what's going on. We'll post the occasional picture or story from our life here. There may be times where we post a lot. There will be quite a bit of time where we post hardly at all.
The first thing we need to do, so I'm told by everyone, is get pictures of the wedding and honeymoon up. We'll work on that. We're both pretty lazy when it comes to that kind of thing, but we don't want you to feel left out, so we are trying. Honest.
The first thing we need to do, so I'm told by everyone, is get pictures of the wedding and honeymoon up. We'll work on that. We're both pretty lazy when it comes to that kind of thing, but we don't want you to feel left out, so we are trying. Honest.
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