Insidious' World

It’s been a crazy time lately.  Seems like it’s impossible to find a spare moment to catch up on the stuff I want to write about.  I really should just head to bed, but I’m going to take a couple of moments and at least write about a couple of things I wanted to talk about last time I wrote.

The first thing I wanted to talk about was a belated birthday gift from Anne: dinner and an evening with Anthony Bourdain and Mario Batali at the Paramount.  For those of you who don’t know who these guys are, they are celebrity chefs.  Bourdain has written several books and does the TV show No Reservations on the Travel Channel.  Batali is an Iron Chef on the Food Network and apparently has his own show that I’ve not seen.  He grew up in Federal Way (which apparently isn’t as big a blocker to celebrity as you might imagine) and his family owns Salumi in Seattle.

It was a pretty informal format – there was a moderator/host from a radio show I’ve never listened to, so I don’t remember his name.  He asked questions for about the first two-thirds of the show and then took questions from the audience.  I’d never really heard Batali speak before, and I was somewhat surprised that he was nearly as amusing and quick-witted as Bourdain.  Some take-aways from the evening:

• It seems like it would be a real challenge to really have an appreciation for great food without travelling.  Maybe you could do it if you lived somewhere truly metropolitan like New York.
• I’m not sure I’m adventurous enough to have the food experience that these guys preach.  I’m a try anything once kind of guy, mostly, but these guys go on and on about different organ meats and things that I think I’d have a hard time getting down even once.
• Women love Bourdain.  Several of them said as much.  Or called him sexy.  Guess the celebrity chef thing isn’t a bad gig.

The show was a real blast and I now more than ever want to check out Salumi sometime.  It is only open from 11-4, ThursdaysTuesdays through Fridays, so it’s going to be a challenge.  Thanks, Anne!

Another big thing that happened recently is that I finally made good on my commitment to buy a bicycle.   I bought it Sunday before last after talking about doing it for a couple of months and even setting a goal to get one by the end of April.  Oh, well, at least I made it before the end of May.  I love deadlines.  Especially the sound they make as they go whooshing past.

Amber snapped a picture of me and the new bike, a Scattante 560, right after the purchase.  Poor Amber endured several hours of shopping that Sunday and got to witness my Libra side as I agonized over the purchase.  It was a little more expensive than I had hoped to spend, but not excessively so – I’d already decided that I wanted something that was going to be pretty good.  I’m lazy enough that I don’t need any extra barriers to riding.  The part that really made me agonize a little was the fact that the bike was on sale and the sale was ending that day.  So I had a ticking clock to contend with.  Amber was a good sport though, and was really really helpful researching and shopping.

It turns out that riding a bike is… um… just like riding a bike.  Amber and I went for the inaugural ride that evening, a six mile roundtrip from Marymoor along the Sammamish River trail.  On this ride I learned that padded bicycle shorts, while still a very odd concept, are a must.  We did another ride this last weekend, again along the Sammamish River trail, but on this one, we rode from the Senior Center in Redmond just past the Red Hook Brewery for a roundtrip of about eight miles.  For this one I had the aforementioned shorts which definitely made for a more comfortable ride.  I’m still getting comfortable with shifting and I think I need to tweak the fit a little bit, but all-in-all, it’s going pretty well and I’m hoping to get in a lot more riding than just the weekends.  Maybe, just maybe, be ready to try a sprint duathlon by the end of the summer.

The other big event the same weekend I bought my bike was the Issaquah Triathlon Saturday morning, so I got up early Saturday morning to go out and cheer Amber on.  Despite the fact that I got up so early, it was a fun time and a beautiful day.

I hung out with Amber and her colleague Mary who was also competing in the Tri beforehand.  And I got to help them out by taking charge of some personal items that they had taken with them from the transition area to the beach.  So I was almost like a teammate.  Which is almost like I was in a triathlon.  That’s how that works, right?

Anyway, I got to watch Amber do her swim, but totally missed her in the transition from the water onto the bike as I didn’t move fast enough from the shore where I was cheering for her to the transition area/bike start.  And then somehow, despite the fact that I had the transition area/run start staked out, I missed her again as she started the run.  I did manage to catch her as she was coming into the finish, but I forgot my camera and I didn’t have her iPhone ready to snap a picture.  But I did manage to give her a high-five as she went by and watched her finish the race.  She did great and set a personal best!  A few minutes later, we got to see Mary cross the finish, and then we hung around and enjoyed some of the post race activities for a bit before grabbing some brunch.  Sadly, watching a triathlon, it turns out, doesn’t burn nearly as many calories as competing.

Unfortunately, I have to get up early tomorrow, so this will have to tide you over for a while.  Some possible upcoming topics:

• Running update
• California, here I come

It’s been a long time since I’ve actually managed to make a post, but that probably isn’t any surprise to my loyal readers.  Time just seems to fly by and the next thing I know it’s been a month since I’ve managed to blog.

Last week was a great week, and I promise to get to everything I want to talk about, but I’m going to save most of it for later.  To whet your appetite, though, I will write tonight about one of the of the highlights of the week.

Wednesday night, my sweetie, Amber, had a surprise destination planned for us, so I picked her up at her place and we headed to 21st and Union.  Which as it turns out is the location of Central Cinema, a movie theater that I’d never heard of.  It’s not the place to see the latest Michael Bay masterwork, but it’s a truly fun place to see a movie.  It’s a small theater and the seats are benches big enough for two people, maybe three if you are really cozy or very small.  The bench in front of you has a small shelf table attached so you have a place to put your food and drinks.  And this place has more than just the standard movie theater fare, mind you, so it’s good to have that table.  Their menu includes beer and wine, and some very tasty sounding food.  The stuff we had was really good, especially the pizza diabolo.

The movie that we were there for was Casablanca, which is probably my favorite movie of all time.  There is just so much great dialog – even if you’ve never seen it, I’d be willing to bet that you know lots of lines from Casablanca.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock.  Maybe a rock in Africa.  Under a bigger rock. 

It was a great time.  Thanks Amber!

Okay, I don’t really consider myself a coffee snob.  I honestly can’t tell the difference between Colombian or Kenyan.  I put cream in (not a lot) and sometimes even some sugar.  I drink lattes from Starbucks.  But, when I'm visiting my parent’s place in sunny (today, anyway) Seminole, OK, I become the resident coffee snob.

There is a reason for this.  It’s their fault.  No, I don’t mean it’s their fault that the nearest Starbucks is approximately 25 miles from their house.  I understand that they have very little control over Starbucks expansion plans.  No, it’s what they brew and how they brew it.

Typically, they buy about the cheapest coffee they can.  They go at least one step up from the generic can with COFFEE stenciled on the side, but they are getting Folgers or MJB.  If they saw the difference between what I pay for a pound of coffee and what they pay, they’d probably want to update their will as I certainly couldn’t be trusted with the family legacy.  I can live with that.  Like I said, most of the time, I can’t tell the difference between different varieties.  The real problem is the fact that they don’t follow the directions.  They use only a fraction of the specified amount because, in their words, “the coffee is too strong.”  This should be read “the coffee tastes like coffee, not hot brownish water.”

To further sin against proper coffee preparation, I discovered today that because I’d been getting up later than everyone else, I was getting my coffee ration from the second pot.  “Why is this important?” you might ask.  Because, as it was revealed to me today, they reuse the grounds from the first pot to brew the second!  I love my family, and hate to publically criticize them, but I’m not sure where this practice comes from.  They didn’t use to do this.  They can certainly afford to use fresh grounds for the second pot.  Maybe they are nostalgic for the days of war rationing.  I don’t know.  All I know is that if I want a decent cup of coffee, I’m going to have to dump theirs out and brew my own.

I’ve mocked Starbucks for their new instant coffee, but now I’m thinking I may have to drive the 25 miles to get some.  At least it’s a sunny day for a drive.

Yesterday I flew to Oklahoma to visit the family for the week.  While I waited in a sleep deprived state for my early-morning flight, I found myself pondering the nature of airports.  I’ve probably written about this before, but there is something about airports that seems disconnected from the real world.

For example, time doesn’t really seem to exist there.  Or if it does, it’s a weird airport version of time.  One that allows you to drink at 9:00am.  Not that I did any drinking yesterday morning.  Really.

For another example, people are dressed in everything from shorts and t-shirts to parkas.  It’s like all kinds of weather intersect at the airport.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone wandering around in a space suit.

Today I ran 4.22 miles - further than I've run yet.  The training interval was run for 10 minutes, walk for 1, and repeat 5 times, for a total of 55 minutes.  This has been the run I've been dreading, so I'm glad it's done with and I survived.  Or at least mostly.  I've got an annoying blister and I'm not sure how the knees will feel tomorrow, but I'm chalking this up as a success.

I'm going out tonight to celebrate my friend Suzanne's birthday (happy birthday, Suzanne!) and I'd intended to ride my exercise bike before going out, in part because I've been eating out a lot the last couple of weeks, but thanks to wonderful Seattle traffic, I don't have time to bike, stretch, ice (bad knees are annoying), shower, and be ready to go on time, so instead I'll be writing about all the eating out I've been doing.  This counts as exercise, right?

One of the reasons I've been eating out a lot the past week or so is that March is Dine Around Seattle, a great way to try new restaurants and have some great food at really reasonable prices.  The participating restaurants offer a $30 prix fixe dinner menu and several offer a $15 lunch menu.  This time, I made it out to four restaurants, three of which I'd not been to before.  I went to Andaluca and 0/8 Seafood Grill for lunch, and Eva and Ponti Seafood Grill for dinner.  Ponti was my hands down favorite this time, with Eva second, followed by 0/8 and finally Adaluca.

My menu at Ponti was:

• Slow Roasted Tomato Caprese Salad
• Seared Petrale Sole
• Theo Moelleux au Chocolate

The food was excellent, and I was surprised to find that the Caprese salad was possibly my favorite dish out of all of the menus I had this Dine.  Unfortunately, my writing has been interrupted with a phone call, so I must cut this short and head out to tonight's celebration.  More to come... (if I remember)

Today was officially day two of running since the St Pats Dash.  My run today was 36 minutes - nine reps of running for three minutes followed by walking for one minute.  Interestingly, I appear to have picked up the pace (Eric, my running partner lets me set our pace) since the race and today I appear to have set a personal record.  In the 36 minutes, we ran 2.94 miles for a mile pace of 12.24, which appears to be more than a minute faster than my best pace.

I'm a little sore tonight, but not too bad.  The real test will be how the knees feel tomorrow.

Some of you are probably familiar with the saga of my running program I started back in January, but just in case, here's a quick summary. 

My friend Eric and I started a run/walk program back in January designed to get you tuned up to do a 5K in 13 weeks.  Everything was going pretty well for me up until about week five, where I started having pretty bad problems with my knees.  So, among other things,  I had to slow down the training (Eric was kind enough to slow down too), start some specific exercises and stretches, and go to physical therapy twice a week to correct the issue (still doing this for at least another week).  This derailed my running program, but not entirely, so Eric and I were able to run in the St. Pats Dash last weekend.

The St. Pats Dash was my first ever race, and after my knee problems, my goal for it was twofold:

1. Finish the race - didn't matter if I walked part of the way, just wanted to finish
2. Be ambulatory afterward

Not exactly lofty goals, but I'm happy to say they were achieved.

My girlfriend Amber, my friends Eric and Anne, and I all carpooled to the race.  I'm pretty sure I got up the earliest that morning (5:30am) but I might have gotten more sleep than anyone.  More annoying than getting up that early was the realization when I got up that it was snowing.  Yes, not only was I doing my first race on bad knees, it was snowing!  At least Amber and Anne were there to cheer us on and share in the hypothermia.

Despite the weather, there was a huge turn out and it was pretty crowded.  When our wave started, it started in fits - we started walking, then get up to a jog for a few steps, then stop, and then the process would repeat.  It was definitely a bit before we really got going.  Of course, as things got going, people started to spread out, but it was still kind of crowded throughout the race and there was much weaving around folks.  Don't get me wrong - I got passed plenty too - but to give you an idea, according to the race site, the course was approximately 3.7 miles.  According to my Garmin, I ran 3.88 miles.  So there was definitely some sideways back and forth going on.  Either that or the organizers lied.  Or the Garmin is less accurate than I think.

Overall, things went well.  The cold really didn't bother me too much until after the race.  The course had some slight hills, nothing too bad, but enough that you could feel them, especially if you hadn't really done any hill training.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to run the whole way, but we definitely ran most of it.  We'd run for 10 minutes, then walk for 2, then run for 9 minutes and walk for a couple again.  I didn't really keep track, but I think we probably averaged 9 minute run intervals with 2 minute rest intervals.  According to my Garmin, my time was 52.32 minutes with an average pace of a 13.32 minute mile.  The official

I really want to thank everyone for supporting me in this.  I couldn't have done it without the support and encouragement.

This morning, Eric and I restarted our training program, so we will hopefully be in shape for the next race - the Kirkland 5K.

As some of you already know, I have someone new in my life, Amber.  We’ve been seeing each other for a couple of months now, and I’m probably overdue on introducing her to my loyal readers here (both of you).  Amber is sweet, smart, funny, beautiful, and a million other wonderful things.  Unfortunately, I’m not a good enough writer to do her justice.  I’m very happy that she is part of my life and I’m sure that you will be hearing more of her in future blog posts.

Make the craziness stop!  I went to see Watchmen last night and when the movie let out, it was snowing (to my surprise) and the roads were covered and slushy.  No more snow!

I'm about to leave to pick up Phil at the airport and hoping that the roads won't be too icy.  The street in front of my house looks wet, but you never know, could be ice.

Spring, where are you?