My Schedule Was Off, I Had No Ice Cream

Good morning to all the players out there in Readerland. Ballers, I'll say what's up to you too. Pimps, hoes and scaliwags - you're on your own. Yesterday, I had great plans to go home and make the first step toward my karmic cleaning but karma tested me once again. 3 minutes before I was going to leave, the phone rang with a problem in one of the labs. Since the stuff I designed is the often the first to get tested, they assume every problem with the lab has something to do with my equipment. And most times it turns out that the problem has nothing to do with my stuff, but rather everything to do with the software folks loading effed up software. But none of you cares, so I'll stop right there.

Except to say that I assumed too much when I went up there to troubleshoot. Rule #1: ask if it's plugged in. I bypassed this step - like an idiot - assuming that they had checked to make sure the freaking thing was turned on. It was not. Thanks for calling me up there. The second problem turns out to be unrelated (as I expected) to the stuff I'm responsible for, but now my name is attached to the problem and they want me to fix it. Right, I don't even know half the words they're using. I'll be pawning that off on someone else.

So after dealing with that mess, I didn't get home until after 5:00; too late to start on my cleansing. What's a boy to do when he finds himself in that situation? Go shopping! For groceries at least. Down to only one tub of ice cream, I was starting to get nervous. Not only that, but I also didn't feel like cooking dinner, so I thought maybe I'd pick up some sushi while I was there. Two excuses - perfect.

After I picked up my rations for the week, I sat down to a lovely plastic tray of smoked salmon roll thingies. You know, the things rolled in rice with a bunch of colorful items inside - not one of which could you pick off the Surgeon General's Food Pyramid except the salmon because that's in the name. I enjoyed each and every one of those rollups until my belly was full of rice, smoked salmon, *insert unknown food products here*, and a diet Pepsi. And what better way to celebrate a full belly than a nice long after dinner run in the opressive heat/humidity.

Monday night was my day off of running, so I only did 5 miles or so in the woods. Feeling like a slacker for having taken the day off (somehow I can't convince myself that those miles counted) I thought I'd push it and do a longer run last night. What the hell, I might as well throw the worst hill in my arsenal in there too. And just in case those two weren't enough, I should probably try and keep up a decent pace too.

I was shooting for 8 minute miles, which is a little slow for me at this point. I do better than that in the woods (which is typically slower), but when I run alone I tend to find myself slowing down. I also knew that the hill was going to kill my average, so there was no sense in worrying about it. In the end, it turns out my pace was about 8:10 which isn't great but isn't bad.

Let me tell you about this hill... It's a residential road where you have to own a Jeep Grand Cherokee or an H2 to get to your house. I passed people wearing climbing harnesses, with chalk on their hands. I saw a mountain goat slip. This hill is so steep it doesn't show up on a map. Bald eagles nest on this hill. The interconnecting sidewalks and road confuse even MC Escher.

I made that hill my bitch! After I ran up that hill, it gave me $20 and a ham and cheese sandwich on rye, cut diagonally into quarters with toothpicks in each piece. That's just how I roll.

The rest of the run was fairly uneventful, except a girl walking a dog smiled at me during my cooldown walk. Picture it: I just finished 7.3 miles in my new orange tanktop, sweat pouring down my tanned arms, my long flowing hair matted against my forehead; it's a wonder her knees didn't buckle right then and there.

Truth in Advertising Disclaimer

My hair is neither long nor flowing. It's actually getting quite thin and I was wearing a hat anyway. Mmmm, and she had a ponytail.

Speaking of girls walking, Walker Girl was passing by as I strongarmed my groceries into the house, at 7:30! Not that I'm a stalker, but I've never seen her walk by that late, and never in that direction. BO-NUS! For those of you who haven't checked lately, I'm Shaq Diesel, and my arm-veins were in perfect form as she undoubtedly locked in on my form like a tractor beam in some Star Trek episode. As I stumbled into the house fumbling with the bags of produce, ice cream and sushi she gave me the old smile and finger wave combo. Check! Now if I just had the balls to chase her down. I stared like the creep I am in the hopes that she'd turn around to see if I was checking her out. What I lack in self-confidence I make up for in both creepiness and willingness to get caught looking.

She didn't turn around. Eh, it was a bonus walk-by anyway, so I considered myself lucky and carried my softened ice cream into the house.

Truth in Advertising Disclaimer II

I'm not Shaq Diesel, but my arms are mad veiny. Yummm. I hear chicks dig that, so I'll use it to my advantage.

After all that, I was ready to sit down for the night when I realized that I wasn't going to have any lunch for the next day. A simple remedy was to whip up some pasta and sauce to bring in. I've taken to making my own sauces lately, so this wasn't as short of an order as I would have liked. Plus the pots and pans were dirty, so I had to wash them before cooking then again after. But it was delicious. I even treated myself to fresh romano cheese which is much better than the stale tub of parmesan I get at Sam's Club. I've got about 3 meals worth of pasta now, so I can slack on dinner tonight and still have enough for lunch tomorrow. PlacaTAN!

Full of dinner #2, I sat down to watch Tuesday Night Fights on ESPN. I am really digging boxing lately, so that was a good way to end the evening. This kept me up late, so now I'm extra tired.

That's it. I have to go help with more problems in more labs. Then lunch.

Over and Out,
Old Coot