Cool Runnings

Just trying to show the ice and snow.

Did I already use that title? What if I did? Sue me. No, wait. Forget I said that. Just deal with it. I had a better idea earlier but was sidetracked by a lunch invitation. I’ll link to the blog about that tomorrow when my buddy Jay gets around to posting. He’s a professional blogger of sorts, as in he does his blogs for TheRegister-Mail, his paying gig. Therefore he’s concerned about readership and when to post so his fans won’t miss out. (No, I don’t mean that in a bad way.) I, on the other hand, write for my own pleasure and count myself lucky that anybody reads and happens to enjoy. (No, I’m not being negative or self-deprecating, just sayin'.)

Reading a bit of Mil Millington’s “Love and Other Near-Death Experiences” this morning after my run (yes, I finally ran again), I happened upon this gem that accurately describes many bloggers, myself included:

Between radio producer Keith and radio program host Rob after Rob’s on-air confession to being just a little nutty.

Rob needs to smile.

Keith: “It seems that someone who was listening last night started talking about you on one of those Internet chat things. People began to visit our webpage to listen to the archive of the show. Word spread, it was picked up by sites that do listings of interesting links, and it got mentioned in some … um, what did Danny say they were called, Jenny?”

Jenny: “Blogs.”

Keith: “That’s it. They’re like online diaries or something – nerds talking to themselves in public. …”

So, yeah, there you have it. That pretty much sums up the purpose of my blog: me, a nerd, talking to myself in public.

Anyway, whatever clever angle I had this morning kinda disintegrated while my mind was focused on making a menu selection and commenting on how cute the waitress was and pondering whether I might be able to swipe a Monmouth College football helmet from its perch on a half-wall near the entrance to Petey’s in Monmouth. I decided against the theft. I didn’t see any mini-helmets in the college bookstore when we stopped in on our way home after lunch. Maybe D2’s boyfriend will get me one for Christmas (he’s a wideout for the Scots).

I did find a flattened ball.
I left it, because it was flat
and kinda gross lookin'.

All that leaves me rambling like some sort of inane boob. Sorry, it’s all I got. Consider that I found 11 cans and an agricultural seed brochure and maybe you’ll cut me some slack. Nothing really special there. I guess I’ll have to wait for the snow to fly for kids (and adults – yes, I mean you, Phil D.) start losing their gloves, hats, scarves and other garments (anyone missing a blue 36D Victoria’s Secret bra?). Yeah, I suspect the haul will improve in a few weeks. Keep reading.

I mean, keep reading now, not just following and waiting for the next post. Hah! In downloading photos from today’s run I was reminded of a little irritation I suffered earlier this week at the hands of Dairy Queen. My disappointment earlier this fall at discovering the DQ on Main Street in my happy Burg no longer carries butterscotch was assuaged last week when D1 told me the DQ on Henderson Street had the delicious treat topping. I decided to enjoy my favorite ice cream condiment when I took D3 there after her band concert. I like the DQ Peanut Buster Parfait with butterscotch in substitute for the hot fudge.

So imagine my chagrin when the squawkbox came back with, “Is it OK if we use our butterscotch dip?” Um, OK, I suppose, if that’s all you’ve got. 

No, butterscotch "dip" is not an acceptable
substitute for butterscotch topping. FAIL!

 Well, the taste test was, to quote darling Katy Perry, “an epic fail.” The “dip” is the Magic Shell-like butterscotch concoction they use on Dilly Bars. You can read all about that here. The point is, while butterscotch Dillys are the bomb, butterscotch dip in a parfait is a bomb. The thing was nearly impossible to eat. Each successive layer of BS was a solid mass that had to be chipped and pecked at with a flimsy plastic spoon in hopes of breaking free a piece to accompany a mouthful of soft serve. Alas, it’s just not the same. So come one, DQ, bring back butterscotch topping.

Today's Stats

Temp: 26 degrees F

Distance: 3.1 miles

Treasure: 1 2012 Channel Seed Guide; 11 cans.

iPod Playlist (shuffle)

Two of a Kind, Workin' on a Full House - Garth Brooks

Wild, Wild West - The Escape Club

We Will Not Be Lovers - The Waterboys

Thunderbird - ZZ Top

Until the End of theWorld - U2

Dancing in the Dark - Diana Krall

Just Like a Pill - Pink

Tomorrow Never Knows - The Beatles

O'Sullivan's March - The Chieftans

A Love Affair Ended

Man down!

My culinary lust for the tangy, slathery goodness of the much maligned McRib sandwich is well documented. Since its introduction in the '80s I have harbored hankerings for that pressed slab o' mystery meat drowned in barbecue sauce sprinkled with onions and topped with a couple of pickle slices. Even the bun is something special, shaped to fit the oblong form of the faux rib rack, dusted with corn meal and top split like it's fresh from the bakery.

Today the affair ran its course. The McRib is soured in my sight, sad to say. My body, I am sure, thanks me, even if my taste buds will lament this passing. It may have something to do with the expose about the wretched recipe behind this annual special sandwich offering. And the noticeable crunch of ... bone? ... halfway through today's lunch surely played a part in my change of heart. But there must be something more. After all, just about any processed meat product out there contains a multitude of parts and petrochemicals. And we've all crunched bone or bits of God-knows-what in fast food before. Could it be that my body chemistry finally said, "Enough!"?

Maxwell Street Jazz. I like it.
Now to find wall space.

Whatever the case, I am sure there are fans who will condemn and ostracize me for this herasy. But those would be fans of the sandwich, not the writer. My fans (does that sound a little conceited? Very well...)... My friends and readers will undoubtedly cheer my decision to part company with the dreaded conconction. Oh, I'm still an omnivore, but that means I'll eat meats and veggies, not "anything and everything."

Now, having confessed the menu of my lunch, I will tell you I did run 3 miles, though I'm sure that meal (even subtracting the final bite of McRib that I just couldn't stomach) replenished whatever calories I burned. Maybe another run is in order tomorrow. I did move back outdoors given the relatively nice weather. The wind was a bit brisk, but it was mostly comfortable otherwise.

That little move netted some change, a potentially useful bike part and another cleaning cloth. I also made a point to swing through my favorite watering hole to pick up the piece of art I bought a while back at an auction to benefit the local animal shelter.     

Today's Stats
Temp: 38 degrees F
Distance: 3.14 miles
Treasure: 1 jumbo rubber band; 1 tattered washcloth; 3 pennies (1 heads, 2 tails); 1 cellphone back cover (LG, blue); 1 clamp piece from a bicycle seat; 14 cans.

iPod Playlist (shuffle)
Broken - Tears for Fears
You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (Even Take the Dog for a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Short Comings) - The Faces
A Kind of Magic - Queen
Hey Jude (Anthology version) - The Beatles
Thunder Road (live) - Bruce Springsteen
Kingdom of Days - Bruce Springsteen
I'm Not Moving - Phil Collins
So What - Miles Davis
Canary in a Coalmine - The Police

It's sort of about running

OK, so life today kinda sneaked up and slapped me with reality. Nothing to get worked up about but I had to take care of some grown-up business instead of screwing around running and writing (wait, aren't those grown-up pursuits?).

But to make up for it, sorta, I'll share the video I promised months ago. It is me being tattooed in commemoration of placing first in my first ever 5K, which occurred in the summer of 2010. There's a lot of room for improvement if I had better editing software and more time to spend tweaking it instead of going to work and crap like that. Enjoy! Oh, and for all you squeamish types, there's no blood to be seen, but there is some good music and a funny bit at the end thanks to George Carlin.

Round and Round

The weather was crap today. Could I have run outdoors? You bet. I have before, in far worse conditions: cold, rain, snow, heat, wind, you name it. So save the "wussy" comments for another day when I've really earned the label. Today it was more a matter of curiosity. Grey skies, rain and a fall chill seemed the perfect excuse to finally experience a run on the old track in my building. 

I've explained before that my apartment is in the converted YMCA of yesteryear. It last saw use in its original capacity in the late 1970s or very early '80s (maybe I'll present that history lesson another time). Well, the track, with its banked curves at each end, resembling a mini-velodrome, is still useable. No longer wood surfaced, it has a hideous hodgepodge covering of old sculpted pattern carpets in orange and green, most of the sections badly worn. But it suffices.

I estimate the little track to be maybe one-quarter to one-third the length of the current YMCA track. I didn't count my laps, but it sure gets boring running in short ovals. It is pretty easy to find a rhythm, though, and lose your mind (in an "in the zone" sense) and just go. I relied on a nifty little pedometer my girls gave me a year ago for Father's Day. Sorry, girls, it took this long to try it out -- frankly, I was a little intimidated by the instructions. By its count I did almost two and a half miles. I didn't adjust the stride input, opting for the default 30 inches. I'll have to check that out. Based on time I think I may have done closer to three miles.

Whatever. I worked up a sweat, got my heart rate up, pumped some endorphins through my cranial blob and listened to some good music. I particularly enjoyed Johnny Cash's Starkville City Jail from "The Complete Live at San Quentin." The Man in Black tells a humorous story to entertain the cons as he introduces the number and the song itself is pretty funny. Give it a listen.

Today's Stats
Temp: ? degrees F (Indoors)
Distance: 2.43 miles? 5,147 steps, 292.6 calories
Weekly Total: 8.88 miles
Treasure: Nada.

iPod Playlist (shuffle)
Sister Golden Hair - America
Walk Between the Raindrops - James McMurtry
Like No Other Night - .38 Special
Starkville City Jail (live) - Johnny Cash
Slipstream - Jethro Tull
Big Yello Taxi (Double Espresso NRG Mix) - Joni Mitchell
Oh Girl - Paul Young
All My Loving - Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe soundtrack)
Love You To - The Beatles
I've Had Enough - Lyle Lovett

Happy Anniversary to Me!

I'm sorry, is that a little narcissistic? Self-serving? Oh well. C'est la vie! (I know but one other French phrase; no wonder I got a C -- or was it a D?) Lost & Found began a year ago, Thanksgiving Day 2010. Like the first day, today is a day I'm not running, at least not literally. I'll have a quick turkey dinner this afternoon and then hustle off to work so the readers of The Register-Mail have a newspaper tomorrow when they get back from their Black Friday shopping.

I did run yesterday, though, and ran out of time to write, so it works out. The part that doesn't work out is my memory of what I was thinking at the time, what I saw in particular that might have been worth trying to make interesting. Maybe there was nothing, in which case ... no loss.

So, for lack of anything better, I'll note the irony and personal satisfaction of finding a smashed videocassette of "Survivor" in the intersection of Seminary and Losey streets. I'm not big on "reality" TV shows. I'll admit a short-lived attraction to "Dancing With The Stars" (mostly because of the hot babes in skimpy costumes). But the rest of that crap is pretty uninteresting to me. 

Decorations in the entryway at
The Register-Mail.

It was perhaps fitting that on the day before Thanksgiving, two days before the commercially official start of Christmas, I should find a Christmas tree ornament. Time to look for a tree! A Charlie Brown twig would be about right -- I have only a couple of ornaments. As for presents ... I'll post my address later.

Today's Stats (Nov. 23)
Temp: 38 degrees F
Distance: 3.25 miles
Weekly Total: 6.45 miles
Treasure: 1 gold Christmas ornament (plastic ball); 1 "Survivor" VHS tape (smashed by traffic); 1 Transformers sticker; 2 cans.

iPod Playlist (shuffle)
Nowhere to Run - Santana
Warehouse - Dave Matthews Band
You're Only Human - Billy Joel
Just The Other Side of Nowhere - John Prine and Mac Wiseman
Down To You - Joni Mitchell
Three Women - Rachel Portman (Chocolat soundtrack)
Thing Called Love - Bonnie Raitt
Ya Ya - Lee Dorsey
You're the Inspiration - Chicago (Known by D1 when she was young as "You're the Instigation")

What were you thinking?

You get the idea.

Just what runs through your mind as you're lying there in the dental chair, looking up at two masked faces, gloved hands whirling around your mouth, a bright light shining in your eyes?

1. Don't ask me any questions, please. You know I can't talk right now.

2. Hey, Doc, do you hate patients with bad breath?

3. This isn't so bad.

4. God, my jaw is getting tired.

5. Gaaak, and my mouth is so dry.

6. If I'm Dudley Moore, where's Bo Derek?

7. I wish Jennifer Aniston were my dentist.

8. Hey, Doc, have you ever slipped with that drill and shredded somebody's tongue or carved a wicked gash in a cheek?

9. I'm gonna take a photo or two with my cellphone, I hope they turn out. Hard to shoot blind.

10. How am I supposed to survive the rest of the day without chewing?

Honestly, those are all things that ran through my head this morning. A trip to the dentist isn't so bad. My grandad was a dentist, so I got used to it early. I'm sure Mom will tell you I was a big baby for a while, but I'm all grown up now. Sure, I tense and have the usual difficulties breathing and swallowing and whatnot. And my jaw does get awfully sore gawked open like that for so long. And, being in a business where everybody sees our mistakes, thus being well aware of the fallibility of humans, I do worry a wee bit that my dentist will slip with the drill some day and disfigure my handsome mug. (Then again, maybe a visible scar where my cheek was slashed would be dashing.)

Anyway, there are worse ways to start a Monday. Work, for example.

Back from the chair relatively unscathed, I headed out to redirect any pain sense to my knees and shins. What did I think about as I ran? Oh, same as above.

 Today's Stats
Temp: 47 degrees F
Distance: 3.2 miles
Treasure: 3 cans.

iPod Playlist (shuffle)
Sleepwalking - Lyle Lovett
Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead - Warren Zevon
Where Has My Little Dog Gone - Discovery Toys (From the kids' collection)
KT177_3 - Wav file (You are ugly and stupid and you smell bad. Everyone thinks so.")
Have Mercy - Richard Marx (Cool video with some owies thrown in)
Poor Poor Pitiful Me (cover) - Jackson Browne
We Shall Be Free - Garth Brooks (Awesome video with my man John Elway!)
By My Side - JJ Grey & Mofro
Start the Apocalypse - Robert Kral ("Angel" TV series soundtrack)

Don't smoke 'em if ya got 'em

So, yesterday was the Great American Smokeout. How many of you quit? For good? Hopefully for good? Just for the day? Skipped the afternoon smoke break?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Well, those of you who did -- and we'll just leave it positively eternally done -- congratulations! I know it ain't easy. But who said life would be easy? Yeah, right. Nobody. Well, I don't know, maybe some schmuck out there trying to sell something. Even your mom, as much as she loves you and wants to bring you comfort, won't BS you about that.

So the Smokeout came to mind as I loped through Hawthorne Center and came upon a half-full pack of smokes discarded in the grass. At first I thought maybe somebody ditched 'em for the Smokeout, rather than chain-smoke the rest of the pack in the minutes before midnight struck. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) My immense powers of deductive reasoning later told me that the sticks were too wet to have been that fresh. I know, Monk and the chaps from "Psych" got nothin' to worry about with me on the job.

In a strange confluence of events my run took me through the Walmart parking lot where I spotted an array of security cameras on a light pole. What's so strange about that, you ask? Well, in this age of a growing Big Brother, nothing. The strange confluence is more the connection I made between the cameras and the smokes/smokers. My first thought was how much potential there is for us to be spied on by somebody (cue Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me"). 

Later I free-associated the spy cams and the Smokeout with a couple of movies: first, "The Bourne Identity," then "Cat's Eye." The first is obvious. But remember the vignette in "Cat's Eye" based on the Stephen King short story "Quitters Inc." from "Night Shift." James Woods signs up with "Quitters Inc." to kick the habit. Their methods are guaranteed. They know when you've stolen even a puff, and you'll pay. Or your family will. Yeah, I think their methods would work.

Well, enough of spies and smokes (funny, the convicted spy gets his last cigarette just before the firing squad).

Today's Stats
Temp: 39 degrees F
Distance: 5.25 miles
Weekly Total: 11.9
Treasure: 1 lavender bandana/scarf; 1 pink scunci; 1 Grizzly tobacco can; 22 cans. (The bandana will come to some use, perhaps as a dust cloth. The scunci goes on the trade table. The damned tobacco can is like the cigarette boxes I pick up. There's just got to be a use for it, if I only I can discover it.)

iPod Playlist (shuffle)
I Forgot to Remember to Forget - John Prine & Mac Wiseman
Pursuance - John Coltrane
Splendid Isolation (cover) - Pet Yorn
I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You - Alan Parsons Project
Shoot to Thrill - AC/DC (Awesome song! Just makes you feel like a rockin' badass.)
Close to the Borderline - Billy Joel
Summertime - New Kids on the Block
Fran-Dance - Mile Davis (Live at Newpot)
Wine Snacks - Ryan Adams (studio chatter live in the XM Studio)
A Dios - Santana
I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie
Time and Time Again - Counting Crows
Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of - U2
Veracruz - Santana
Floating Back (live) - The Call
The Crazy Cries of Love - Joni Mitchell