Swimming....

I am so fucking pissed with swimming right now. The last 4 or 5 times that I have been at the pool I have been unable to get my whole work-out in and it is frustrating me. My goggles are being stupid. I have tried 3 different pairs in the last year and the 2 I have been trying out now have been leaking less than halfway through my work-out. I am not wure what I am going to do. I guess I need to suck it up and try another new pair...

So, I decided that I was definitely not swimming today and I did what I felt was a pretty good work-out for me. SInce I am doing the St. Patty's Day 10k, I thought I should focus on my running. I ran a good 5 miles on the treadmill in about 40 minutes. I think that is the longest that I have run in a number of months. I just need to keep up the good work!

McFadden's

What a crazy Friday night I had. My friend Jason won a Happy Hour at McFadden's for this past Friday night. This means that all we have to do is pay $10 and we get a bracelet that allows us to have unlimited drinks from 6-8. Who knew that rum and cokes could go down so easily. They might not ahve been the strongest drinks that I have had, but when you drink enough of them, the effect can be the same. Mucho Intoxication.

We spent about 5 hours at McFadden's and keep in mind that when a HH starts at 6, you don't have much time to have dinner beforehand. Someone made the executive decision to head to IHOP in Ballston for a little food. Who ever this executive was, gets mad props. I had some strawberry pancakes that were, at the time, the best thing that I had ever eaten!

And at the end of the night or early the next morning, however you look at it, I woke up at about 4:00 am sitting in my chair watching nothing on TV. I struggled up to bed, just to have my alarm go off a little after 6. When I got up to turn it off, after falling out of bed, I decided that I was still drunk... Oh what a Friday night. :)

Amazingly enough I made it out Saturday afternoon to do a litle bit of mtn. biking before it got dark.

In The Headlines:

A wave of animal cruelty has the World Wildlife Federation up in arms. On the first day of this new year a lion was found viciously mauled. A week later, a bengal tiger was discovered horribly beaten. While the lion only had fresh wounds, the tiger appears to have been suffering regular beatings for years.

Just seven days after that, a colt was found battered. People at the scene said it kept muttering something about not getting enough protection. Hours ago, Denver authorities found another horse, this time a bronco, wandering the streets. The horse was not physically injured, but quite dazed and confused. When asked about the incident, the hapless horse said "I was at home and everything was fine. I was about to feed my pet snake when he started choking and screaming about some sort of terrible towel following it around."

Rumor has it that the next target will be some sort of bird, a seahawk. All of the victims report trying to peek behind a giant steel curtain shortly before their incidents. As a result, the following warning has been issued to all animals:

Peek behind a steel curtain, get hit by THE BUS.

GO STEELERS!!!


In other news, here is a very strange website that was sent to me: Steelers Baby

Red Lights!!!!

There is a reason that traffic lights go red. It is so that there will not be accidents at intersections. Last night on my way home from work, I had a car that wanted to test this idea of red lights. He decided that he wasn't worthy of stopping, so he didn't.

I had just left Andrews AFB and got on the Suitland Parkway. There was 1 car waaaay up in front of me and no one behind me. I was crusing about 50 mph in my Land Cruiser when I approached an intersection with 3 green lights facing me. There were cars all stopped at the light coming from the right side, but a car was moving toward the intersection from the left. I figured he would be stopping at his red light. But no, he thought it would be great to drive right on through in front of me.

Fortunately I saw him coming, but I wasn't able to slow down quite enough and I locked up the brakes accidentally. I was headed toward the rear half of his car, (I was in the right lane out of two lanes) so I cut the wheel to the left to avoid him. Well, the LC didn't like that and it decided to spin around and do about a 180 in the middle of the intersection. All I could say to myself was "please don't roll, please don't roll, please don't roll!!" He scared the living shit out of me!!! I am very lucky that no one was behind me. Why can't people just trust that red lights are there for a reason...

Laziness

The last several days, other than my great trip out mtn. biking, I have been very lazy. I am not sure what is going on... Last week I was trying to get back into the habit of going to the gym and getting back into shape, but that seemed to be coming unraveled...

But not anymore, because I made a point of going to swim last night and I am hitting the gym for some intense cardio this afternoon. I am going to get back on the wagon! It helps that my dogs are on vacation with my parents for a while, so I don't have to worry about letting them out right after work.

Long Live # 66!!

This is a sad day in Pittsburgh. Mario Lemieux decided that he was going to retire from hockey for the second time. I think his decision makes sense, based on his physical condition with his heart and his age. Nevertheless, I am sad to see him go a 2nd time. Thanks for all the memories 66!!

Edit: And here is a good article from the Post Gazette about the retirement.

Cool Planes

I was talking with someone the other day about different kinds of cool airplanes. This was partially in reference to Jimmy Buffett's planes, since he certainly has/had a bunch of them. The first is Jimmy's Grumman Albatross, the Hemisphere Dancer.

I am shocked to say that I have not been to Margaritaville Orlando before, where the Albatross is located at the Lone Palm Airport. Below is a picture of it in it's current location. I think it is a must for me to make a trip to Orlando to see this the next time that I am near Orlando. This is the plane that he writes about flying on his trip in A Pirate Looks at Fifty.

Another cool plane that I found is not actually a plane anymore, but rather a boat. It started life as the first pressurized cabin plane, owned by Howard Hughes, but has been transformed into a boat. It is currently located at a dock near you in Ft. Lauderdale. It can be rented out for events also! Jimmy saw the boat while he was cruising around Lauderdale and wrote it into his first novel, Where is Joe Merchant and also a song from his album Banana Wind. Here is a picture of the boat in its current state.

One of these days I would love to have a cool plane like one of these. Or is it a cool boat like one of these? I guess its both! If you guys know of any other cool planes or boats, let me know!

Step 3: Complete!!!!!!

Pittsburgh's Going to the Superbowl!!!!!!!

Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!!!! I am still in shock right now! I can't believe that the Steelers are headed on to Detroit. I had a feeling all along that this would happen, it is just so perfect! I feel so happy for the Bus. This is everything that he has wanted and he is on his way to getting it. I am just soooo happy right now it is unbelievable!! The next two weeks are going to be crazy waiting for the BIG GAME!!!

Back on the Trail

After a nice lazy day off yesterday where I slept in, went to the dog park, and caught up on my TiVo, I decided that I would be a bit more active today. I woke up pretty early for a Saturday and headed out to go mtn. biking with some DC Tri Club folks. This was going to be the first mtn. biking I had done in a while, other than the quick trip I had at Thanksgiving. I was hoping to go to Schaeffer Farms in MD, because I know it very well, but I heard it was closed, so we headed to a new place for me, Rosaryville.

I was glad I went for a number of reasons, but the top two were the fact that it was a gorgeous morning with the temperature about 60 degrees. Yes, it is the 21st of January!! The other reason is that this trail is very close to where I work! When the days start getting longer, I might just have to make it a habit of going for a little ride after work! What a great set-up. I would love it if this weather stuck around a bit longer so that I could head out to the trail again! It was nice to get back to it!

Cowboy Mouth!!

One of my favorite live shows that I love going to is Cowboy Mouth. I was introduced to them by an ex girlfriend at Mardi Gras about 6 years ago. They have so much energy and put on such a great show!! They were here in DC for New Years Eve, but unfortunately I was not, so I missed them. Who knows when they will be back?? Anyway, I have had one of their songs stuck in my head lately: Lovers or Friends.

Are we lovers or are we friends
And can we ever be both again
There's a feeling here
That never ever ends



All good things must come to an end sometime... That is the case with me an AD.

Browns Fan

There was a funny story that came out yesterday afternoon. In the Steelers-Browns game on Christmas Eve, a Browns fan who was disgusted with the 41-0 score that the Steelers had put up, decided that he would run out on the field! He didn't get very far because back-up linebacker James Harrison decided to take matters into his own hands and slam the guy into the ground and hold him for the police to come get him.

The judge who sentenced the guy could have given him 30 days in jail, but decided on a much more fitting sentence. He will spend only 3 days in jail, but in football, they are 3 important days, Superbowl weekend! He will not be allowed to see or hear the game. he will also not be allowed to attend any professional football games for 5 years. I think it is a great sentence!

Love Monkey

Did anyone watch the new CBS show Love Monkey last night??? It was the Pilot episode. I used to be a big ED fan, until they took it off the air. I am still waiting for them to come out on DVD!!!! But because of ED, I became a huge Tom Cavanagh fan. When I heard that he was going to be on a new show, I was really excited!! CBS has been promoting this show the last month during their football games and all the clips looked good. And now after watching the first episode, I think I am going to really like the show. I think they did a good job with the cast. I am looking forward to the whole season!!

Plus, I love monkey's too! :)

Hines Quote

Here's a quote from Hines that I can identify with!

"It went from an all-time high to an all-time low back to an all-time high." -- Pittsburgh wide receiver Hines Ward on the closing minutes of the Steelers' win.

Step 2: Complete

Wow, Wow, Wow, Wow!! The Steelers are headed to the AFC Championship game 2 years in a row!!! The finish to that amazing game on Sunday was waaaay too close for me. I think my heart stopped a little bit after the fumble. I could have been pronounced legally dead... But thanks to the Football Gods, I survived! I think Big Ben had it right, the Steelers were going to need their A+ game to beat the Colts B- game, and that is exactly what happened. The Steelers came out firing on all cylinders, making big plays, and stopping big plays. Through 3 quarters, the Colts were held to 3 points. Who would have guessed?? Whether it was the great game plan that the Steelers had or the "rust" from the Colts, the dominate team won the game!!

This is the way that the game should have ended, with over 5 minutes left, my boy Troy made a great read and intercepted a pass from Peyton, to all but seal the game. As he was getting up to run with the ball, it popped out, but he recovered the fumble. However, the moronic referee, Pete Morelli, decided upon review of the play that it was an incomplete pass. According to the NFL head of refs, Morelli ruled incorrectly and the ball should have stayed in the hands of the Steelers. Thank God that this idiotic ruling did not change the outcome of the game! That was just one example of the terrible officiating from this past weekend.

I am not sure whether the Football Gods were looking down at Vanderjagt and exacting their revenge on him for his many stupid kicker comments or whether they were exacting revenge on Morelli's terrible call. Maybe Joey Porter was correct, Morelli pulled a Pete Rose and had money of the Colts, but either way, we are going to Denver!! I am feeling pretty good about our chances next Sunday. Even though the Broncos will be able to watch the tape and see some of our schemes, I am hoping that we can return Plummer back to his roots as "Jake the Snake!!"

And for any of you who are dying to know where I watched the game, I stayed at home with a bunch of friends and had a good time. I decided against waking up early and going to the Pour House in lieu of going to the gym to work off my nervous energy on the bike. I am looking forward to another great game next week, GO STEELERS!!!!

Back to the Pool

I got an extra hour off on Friday because it was the Friday before a holiday weekend, so I decided to put it to good use and go to the gym and swim some laps. I swam once while I was in FL, but before that, it was like September since I had been to the pool. I could definitely tell that it had been a while, but it felt good to get back in the water. Now I just need to make sure that I keep up with it!

Then after my swimming, AD and I went on a double date for Restaurant Week. We went to a really good place that I will definitely go back to, even though it is a bit pricey. Maybe I should save it till Mom and Dad come to town! Oh yea, the place is called Oceanaire. I highly recommend it!

Where to watch...

the Steelers - Colts AFC Divisional playoff game on Sunday afternoon. Normally I always watch all the Sunday games at my house during the season because of my DirectTV package, except the games I go to and the Monday night games. However, the weekend, since the game is obviously televised nationally, I am thinking about going to the Steelers bar in DC, the Pour House, to watch it with a whole bunch of fellow Steelers fans.

After being in DC for over 8 years, you would think that I would have been there to watch a game or two, but I haven't. I feel terrible even admitting to that... But it is what it is. The question of the day/weekend is, what should I do? I am turning to whoever is reading this for advice. Should I stay in the comfort of my house and watch the biggest game of the year, or should I find some fellow fans where I can cheer or be miserable with them? Let me know what you think!!

A good trip to the gym

I finally had a good trip to the gym and got a good workout in. It definitely showed me that I am out of shape though. My warm-up turned into the first part of my workout. Hopefully it won't take me too long to get caught up to where I am feeling better about it. I never get on a scale except at the gym, and since I haven't been there for a while, I didn't know how much I weighed. Well, I have gained 5 pounds since I last checked. That might have something to do with why I am out of shape!!

I guess it wasn't the gym...

I though that maybe the fact that I was working out made me feel a little sick last night, but that doesn't seem to be it. It must have been the lunch that I had. I came home from the gym and cooked some dinner, some rice with a bit of left over chicken that I had grilled. Nothing out of the ordinary. Shortly thereafter, I began feeling sick again and it lasted all the way through Boston Legal. I decided that if I fell asleep, then maybe I would be ok. That seemed to work until about 2:00 int he morning when I woke up and had to run for the bathroom. Fortunately I made it. So much for lunch and dinner.

I am feeling a bit better now, but not back to normal. The only reason I am at work is because I had an important meeting this morning, that I was a bit late to. Now I am waiting for an email that needs a response today before I can go home and lie down. Hopefully I'll be better to try the gym out again tomorrow!

I attempted to workout....

For the past several months I have been extremely lazy in terms of my workout schedule. You know the holidays... lots of family time, lots of food, and lots of drinks. It starts with Thanksgiving and goes all the way through New Years. Well, if I had any motivation, I am sure that I could have kept up with things and stayed in shape. Unfortunately that did not happen. While I was in FL enjoying the fabulous weather that we had, I felt like I would rather sit at the beach and read and relax rather than go biking or running or swimming. I feel terrible saying that, but oh well. :)

I just signed up for a race in the beginning of March, the St. Patty's Day 10k, so now I have something to look forward to and train for. I also saw that a few triathlons that I am looking forward to have set their dates. So all of that, leads me to why I only attempted to workout today. I had some really junky fried food for lunch today which was not really what I wanted anyway. So about 3:00 this afternoon, I could tell that the junk that I had eaten was not agreeing with me. Of course it had to be on the first day that I was going to start going back to the gym...

I got home from work and I was feeling a bit better, so I decided that it would be a good idea to go workout. I thought I would warm-up on the bike, let me repeat that I was only going to warm-up! I decided to push it a little bit after I felt pretty warmed up, but after a few minutes, I felt awful. Even worse than I felt this afternoon. I decided that the smart thing to do would be to call it quits and come back on Thursday. That and maybe its a good idea to skip the fried foods at lunch time...

Jimmy B in St. Barths

Jimmy B. singing up a storm before a small but adoring crowd.


I just read that Jimmy B was down on St. Barths for the holidays. I knew I should have gone a little bit further south than FL to celebrate the New Year! I am sooo Jealous!!! Mark my words.... One of these days I will get to a small show where Jimmy is singing. Here is the re-cap from one lucky person:

We could see that Jimmy B was indeed standing in with the band. He'd apparently been singing for nearly three hours, and was cruising through some Bob Dylan material. As you can imagine, a good time was being had by all.

After he finished playing, Buffett stood around for about 40 minutes happily talking to anyone and everyone. Just a regular guy.


Lyrics you wrote 30 years ago can be a little embarrassing later in life. ". . . I go for younger women, lived with several a while . . ."

Hines and Troy

Here are a few quotes from Hines and Troy following the game on Sunday:

"The torch never left," Ward declared. "They won one game, we finished with the same record. They won the AFC North, but, when it counted in the playoffs, I guess we kind of got the torch back. Cincinnati's our home away from home." after the Steelers won (in Cincinnati) for the seventh time in the past eight games.

Then, after a third-down incompletion, safety Troy Polamalu gave the Bengals new life by shoving a football into the face of Bengals center Rich Braham after the play. "That was just plain stupid," Polamalu said.

Polamalu also questioned his state of mind when he intercepted Kitna late in the fourth quarter with the Steelers ahead by 14 and threw a lateral pass in Bengals territory to teammate Chris Hope. "Another foolish play," Polamalu said. "I didn't play very smart."

Step 1: Complete

What a great weekend for football it was for pretty much everyone I know!! It was capped off by an incredible Sunday night. Step 1 of the Steelers road to Detroit is complete. We knocked off the Bengals in a crazy game that I had to watch in 2 parts. I was pretty nervous about the game all week and into the weekend. With the Steelers being favorites on the road in the playoffs, that is something that doesn't happen often. I thought it might be too good to be true. But it wasn't.

Unfortunately there were a number of injuries at the beginning of the game for both teams. Even if an injury will give your team an advantage, you never want to see a Pro-Bowl caliber QB like Carson go down like that. I was happy that we were given a break by not having to face him, but that doesn't mean I wanted him to be injured or that I don't feel bad for him. And I certainly don't think that Kimo hit his knee on purpose.

After watching the Panthers roll over the Giants, I was all ready to watch the Steelers do the same to the Bengals. However, that's not exactly the way the game started. After receiving the kickoff, the Steelers didn't do much on offense and turned the ball right over to the Bengals. Then several plays later, Carson got hurt. Jon Kitna came in a did a good job of helping the Bengals jump out ahead. I didn't feel like the Steelers were playing a very good game in the first half. They weren't running it and the defense was giving up some plays. However, the score was only 17-14 at the half, we were only down by 3!

I was given a ticket to see Les Miserables for Xmas this year from AD. It was for a Sunday night show in January, not realizing that the playoffs would interfere with this show. Thanks to TiVo, I was able to watch the first half plus a few minutes of the game live, go to the show, and then come home and watch the rest of it! It worked out perfectly that right as we were about to leave the house, the Steelers scored and took the lead. I could watch the show in peace, knowing that we were on top. Then when I got back, I watched the Bengals get shut-out the rest of the game. It was fabulous!!

Again, since we were the 6th seed, I am really worried about going into Indy to play our next playoff game, step 2 on the road to Detroit. I think that the game we played in Indy earlier in the year will be a big help for us. In addition to the lack of playing time that Indy's first team has seen lately. However, with a team like Indy, I am not sure the rust will make a difference for them. Here's looking forward to another great Sunday next weekend!!

Go Steelers!!

*On a side note, I think the Football Gods were looking down on Carolina because of the first game of the season that they gave to New Orleans and then the extra home game that NY got.

Fast Willie Parker!!

This is a great article in the Post-Gazette about Fast Willie. It talks about where he came from and how he has helped the Steelers become a better running team. Way to go Willie, here's to a successful post-season run!!! Go Steelers!!!

Back to the Grindstone

Well, another fun Christmas vacation has come to an end and it is back to work. I feel like during this trip the weather was the best that it has been for a long time at this time of year. I got to sit on the beach or by the pool basically any day that I wanted to. It was great! I miss FL already. Oh well, back to the usual routine!

Dec. 31st

I had a good New Years Eve! Got all dressed up in my Tux again, wore my new champagne bow tie, and had a good night with a big group of 14 of us. We had a great dinner, did some dancing, and then we watched some nice fireworks courtesy of Mr. Trump. The party ended pretty early and we decided not to go crash any other parties, so we headed home. AD and I then went down to the beach and sat for a while enjoying the sound of the waves roaring in. It was a wonderful way to bring in 2006!