Franken Wins

I guess I can finally go to sleep, since the November election appears to be over now. Though maybe I should wait until Al takes office, just to be sure.

Good Kitty

I picked up the cat after work on Monday. She is underweight and had a cough, and wasn't eating much, so I was worried. I didn't sleep well the first night, but that's mostly because I figured I left something dangerous lying around in the house that she was going to get into.

I think she just needs a little time to recover from being at the shelter. She started eating all of her food yesterday and her cough has gone away. The shelter tells everyone to take their new pets to a vet during the first few weeks regardless of their condition, so I took her in this morning. The vet said that everything looks great except for being a little underweight. He was particularly impressed with her confidence. She's not shy and once she's scoped out a place makes herself at home. When she was being poked and prodded she made her displeasure known by meowing (not hissing), but didn't fight to get away.

I have to think of giving her a new name. Her shelter given name is "Sassy" but that doesn't sound like a name a guy would give his cat.

Cat

I think I may get a cat soon (tomorrow?). Maybe this one:

Garden Update

I guess it's been five or six weeks since I decided to start a vegetable garden. Well, not everything is dead yet, but it's well on its way. You may remember the picture of the seedlings I started indoors, and how I didn't feel like thinning them out. I've learned my lesson now. A few weeks ago, they all started dying off, so I did two things. I took the stronger looking ones and planted them in the outdoor garden. The rest, I thinned out so that there was only one or two seedlings per pot. Two weeks later, the ones I put in the outdoor garden are barely hanging on (but still alive), and everything that I left inside is dead.

One nice thing is that the plants I planted outdoors initially due to laziness are still alive. There are a ton of cucumber plants and many watermelon plants. I can't tell what's going on with the carrots. I'm not optimistic, because while they are half a foot tall now, they haven't grown hardly at all in the last few weeks. But at least there's still something green.

The pepper plant I bought is still alive, and did something very exciting the other day as it produced a flower. But, the very next day the pedals had fallen off and what's left doesn't look like it's going to turn into a pepper.

Like I said earlier, I'm glad anything grew at all, and didn't put much effort into it. I have enjoyed it though and am a little embarrassed at how much time I've spent looking at the plants after I get home from work. Even if it doesn't work out this season, I'm thinking I will try harder next year.

Trivia

I somewhat randomly joined up with the old trivia team a week last Wednesday. I just felt the urge to go, and when I showed up the whole old team was there. Everyone had quit some time ago and only one of us was still going on a regular basis, but this night everyone was there. Weird! I wasn't much help at all, but we did manage to kick serious ass, winning both the first round by a few points and the second round by over ten. The beer prices had annoyingly gone up since I played their last, but our $110 in winnings was enough to cover everyone's tab, so I was happy. I went back this last Wednesday but we got humbled... severely.

Storm

I'm writing a blog post finally because I've got nothing better to do. The power is out due to a thunderstorm so I can't waste my time on all that stimulating educational TV I watch every night. I can't do the other needed stuff around the house because it's dark. So, I am typing away on the laptop.

Right before the power went out, I was checking Twitter to see what people had to say about the weather. I've gotta say, even though I've been on Twitter since 2007, it's only recently that it's become, unexpectedly, useful. I find out things first through twitter than anywhere else now, it seems. For instance, a few weekends ago, I found out about the twenty something inning UT game (only at 18 when I found out) through Twitter and paid attention to it the rest of the night. Now I browse local tweets all the time to see what everyone's up to around here. Tonight, right before the power went out, I used it to check where the tornadoes were. Apparently, I'm being surrounded by them (and hail), but the wind at my house really hasn't picked up and I haven't heard any hail, so I guess it missed me.

I have AT&T U-verse for TV & Internet. The wireless modem plugs into the wall via RJ-11, but needs AC power. I thought it might be interesting to see if I could get online while the power was out, so I ran an extention cord from the modem to the AC inverter in the car. That powered up the modem, but AT&T must also go out in a power outage because it wouldn't connect. It was a fun exercise though. I think I'll try it again right now... nope, still out! No life line for me!

Well, the storm has passed now but the power is still out. I guess I'll work on a few more entries so you'll have something to read for a couple of days.

The Idiot Gardener

Huh? Yeah, somehow I've started a vegetable garden. I figured I'd try to do it with as little effort as possible, and be happy if anything green at all came out of the ground, nevermind the vegetables. Since I have little grass in the backyard, I figured a minimal effort try would be just to dig a few holes, throw in a few seeds, and see what happens.

I ended up putting in a little more effort, but not a whole lot. I cleared whatever was on top of a patch of my backyard (dead grass I think), and ended up digging somewhere between 6 inches and a foot to loosen up the soil. I found both my old phone line and my cable line while I was doing this (good thing I use neither and I know where my U-verse line is buried). I picked seed types that didn't have to be "started indoors" (too much work!) and planted three rows of watermelon, carrots, and cucumbers. After two weeks, I've got a ton of cucumbers coming up (middle of picture), a few watermelon plants (bottom of picture), and no carrots:


But then I really wanted peppers and started seeds indoors anyways. With way too many seeds for the starter thing that I bought, I ended up putting too many seeds per pot. Being pessimistic about the whole process, I didn't expect anything to happen, but now I have pots with up to eight plants sprouting. I know I need to cut back all the extras and just keep one or they'll all die, but I'm tempted to just keep the whole bunch and see what happens. I don't want to kill any of them yet! Besides, I do have some pots with just one or two sprouts and those should survive if the others die off. How many do I really need anyway? These plants are bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, and tomatoes:



I also bought one pepper plant from Home Depot and planted it. It hasn't died in the week or two since I got it, so I'm happy about that.


I really won't be disappointed with how this turns out. I'm seeing green stuff everywhere so this has already exceeded my expectations.

Hot to Trot 5K

The Hot to Trot 5K was a week and a half ago, and was the last race of the series. That Saturday was miserable, similar to the Round-Up 10K: humid. I expected as much and the only goal I set was just not to walk. I was able to do so, but i had my doubts during the race. Since I'd been sick, I hadn't ran much the week before the race, though I did run pretty hard at the full moon hash the night before. I ran the Hot to Trot a few years ago when it started at the Hula Hut, but this one was held at the Chuy's near William Cannon (one I didn't even know existed). I liked the course which is partly why I was able to run the whole way. It didn't have much change in elevation, but I could handle the gradual uphill the first mile and needed the gradual downhill the second mile. I maintained an astonishingly steady pace at 7:49/M +/- 4 sec, with a little kick the last 0.1 mile, finishing in 24:29.

I'm happy with how I did. Like I said, I just didn't want to stop, and I can't handle that kind of weather. It was good to finish at a faster than training run pace and I wasn't shocked or disappointed that I couldn't match my previous 5Ks. Unfortunately I haven't been running or back to the gym since, though it will happen soon.

The finisher party is in another week or two and it should be fun talking to others about the various races in this series. I'll be getting a finisher t-shirt, but no word yet if beer will be available!

Texas Round-Up 10K

I've been doing a lot of blog composing in my head but nothing ever makes it online. It appears one person is curious with how I did at the Texas Round-Up 10K. Well, it sucked. It really sucked. It was the weather. It wasn't too hot, but it was plenty humid which just kills my running ability. I kept things at a good pace the first two miles, somewhere in the 7-8 min/mile pace I imagine, but then I had to stop and walked a bit. After that, it was walk/run/water stop the rest of the race. My 5K time was at 26:20, so about what I'd been doing for my training runs. The second 5K was a lot slower and I ended up finishing in 58:05. To add insult to injury, the Governor beat me by just 22 seconds! I liked the course. Some of it was very familiar (the drag, Dean Keaton, Capitol/DT area), but it was nice change of pace to run through the east side.

My Garmin was dead, which seems to happen sometimes when I leave it on the charger too long. This might be a blessing in disguise because at least now I can't go back and review how much walking I did. The two guys right behind me in the ARC sprint series rankings moved ahead of me. Now I am over two minutes behind the next guy, and the guy after me is 20+ minutes behind me. So, while I don't have to worry about falling down in the rankings again, with only one 5K left to go I don't think I'll be improving my ranking either.

Overall the sprint series has been good for me. I mean, I wouldn't have run any of these races except the Capitol 10K otherwise. I'm glad the first three races went so well, and I'm not going to beat myself up too bad over this last 10K or the next race. Running in the humidity is just something I can't do very fast. I doubt I'll do well at the next 5K this Saturday, not just because the weather, but I was sick for most of last week and haven't recovered any exercise routine yet. Hopefully I will run a little bit today and tomorrow in preparation. After that comes the sprint series party, where I'll get a free gift and hopefully some free beer too (wishful thinking)!