Maybell and Jack Fashion Week

Today we got little hoodies for Jack and Maybell.  You may be one of those people who think "I'd never put my dog in clothes".  If so, to you I say "Lighten up.  My dog has a pink sweater.  It's cute and hilarious."

Flight to Orlando

I'm on the plane now - headed to an Agile Conference in Orlando Florida.  I left first thing in the morning, and the trip started off, well, not so good.  When Jen was dropping me off on the tarmac some hick in a huge truck who was dropping off his mom got upset at Jen and I for taking too long to say goodbye.  Jen and the redneck got into a verbal altercation, and I thought Jen was going to take his head off. 

Turns out his mom was right behind me in the ticketing line.  It was going to be awkward.  I went ahead and acknowledged it by saying something like "well, I'm glad that didn't get out of control".

She said "I know, he was very angry with you."

Unable to resist the urge, I said "It must be wonderful to have raised a boy who knows so much about how everything in life should work".  Luckily, she was good-natured about it.

"I know!  That's exactly how he is!"  She said.

 

This morning I was teasing Jen that since I'd be flying all day (I boarded my first plane at 9:35a and will land at around 5:30p Portland time) I should just go ahead and start drinking to make the whole thing fly by.  It's the kind of teasing I do to acknowledge the fact that what we worry about when our spouse goes on business trips is that they will have fun as party animals every night while we're stuck at home.

Unfortunately, the guy on the plane next to me for my flight to Dallas had exactly this strategy.  He smelled of alcohol, presumably from the night before when he later confessed that he had gone to the "titty bar".  He had two cranberry and vodkas during the flight.  He was incredibly good looking with perfectly straight, white teeth.  This was a professional necessity since he's a dental equipment salesman.  Despite the fact that I have so little in common with a dental equipment salesman from Houston, we had a long conversation throughout the flight.  This was an example of a time during which I was a "good listener" - a term used for people who let people who like to talk talk without interrupting them.  Good listener == back conversation ender.

 

Dallas Fort Worth is huge, but I made it to my connecting flight and here I am on the plane waiting for Orlando.  This flight has been far less eventful. 

Non-Working Sundays

I've gotten into a terrible habit of working over the weekend during the last few months and I'm trying to break myself of it.  Originally I was just trying to get a jump on the week but unfortunately I started to add work into that time-slot and as time went on it just ended up being a way that I could increase the time I had available to work.  Well, no more.

The only problem is that since I decided to stop working during the weekends I feel guilty Sunday nights, when I feel like I should be panicking.  So I've decided that instead I'm going to try to get into the habit of updating the blog and keeping in touch with my friends & family.

In terms of running I'm trying something a little different now.  My friend Adam let me borrow a book called Daniels' Running Formula.  Prior to this I'd been doing training off of Hal Higdon's website, but I'd like to increase my speed and I wasn't finding that simply jumping up from Novice programs to intermediate programs was really doing anything for me.  What I really hated was the speedwork in the Higdon program.

The great thing about the Daniels book is that he talks a lot about the physiological aspects of running, such as how the body systems respond to different training and why runners do different kinds of training.  He explains some running concepts that someone like me, who came to running as an adult, wouldn't have had an opportunity to learn.

With the help of the book I've identified that the purpose of my training now should be to be to build a base of weekly mileage that will help me get my cardiovascular systems improved and avoid injury later down the line when I start doing more challenging workouts.  At the moment I'm running about 16 miles per week.  I run 5 times a week, with a long run of 4 miles on Sunday and 3 mile runs Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Sat.  I'll be doing this for the next two weeks, after which I'll increase my mileage.  I've started to suss out my plan here if you're interested.

As far as Halloween goes the kids were both with their other parents this weekend so yesterday Jen and I headed down to the beach to have a date night.  We brought our new/old little dog Jack along with us and he was absolutely adorable on the beach - so cute.

We decided to spoil the dogs and picked up a bounty for them at Petco on the way home.  I am now officially the kind of person who has a dog that needs a coat.  And I don't care at all.