"Aaa-aaahhh! Eight forty seven Jean-Paul! Wake up! Wake uuuuup!"
I should have been updating much more often then I have, and this whole summer's already gone. Well, I'm heading out to Palo Alto tomorrow to see some old family friends, and as usual I only contribute something when I'm procrastinating, this time from packing. There a few things to note (my living set-up, a brief recent relationship, etc.), but my favorite recent event came from a 5K this past Saturday. I hadn't had a reason to wake up before noon since May, and this thing was got cracking at 8 in the AM, but I had to make it. For one, it was being run through some streets that I walk all of the time and I wanted to get a different perspective on my surroundings (as well as enjoy the blocked-off streets). Also it was being run to benefit a guy needing a kidney transplant and, considering my health insurance situation, it's not a bad idea to stockpile good karma. I'd met the guy's sister the previous night at the bar here at the waterpark, and she said not to worry about the start time, that it would be set for around 8:20. She was absolutely right, but like the lazy bastard I am, the snooze button kept getting pressed until 8:13. Here's the basic monologue after that:
"all right, gotta crawl out of this cocoon...mmm, water...where's my checkbook?...aww crap, these don't have by address or name on them....gotta write all that down...all done, now...these sweats don't have pockets? oh well, time to get the shoes...man, where did all these cobwebs come from?...screw it, i'm using the pot scrubber to clean these"
So by the time I get up the hill and sign in, it's 8:40 and some people are already nearing the finish. I signed in, donated the check, signed a waiver, got the number pinned on (#133) and took off. Well, "took off" in a really quick walking sense, because the shoes were already getting to be a problem; I'd had to glue the sole back on in October and it felt like it was coming loose again. Anyways, I ended up being terribly late and not catching up to anybody, being left to engage in quick banter with the non-lazy bastards that I passed on their way to the finish line. The shoes held up enough for jogging, but my lungs were probably in worse shape (note: never stay up drinking until 3 am before these kinds of events if you're over 25).
After managing to matriculate on down the course and finally hit the one mile home stretch, I noticed that I was definitely the last one and the firefighters were impatient to take down the roadblocks. As I hoofed it down the road, I also noticed that the lady handing out water was gone, and a bit further up the ambulance was gone too. My ass was on its own. As the final downhill stretch neared, my feet were dying and it became a question of them vs. pride. I decided to try and leave public embarrassment behind for the rest of that morning and picked it up to a slow jog. The final 60 or so people at the finish saw me nearing and they started to yell encouragement. A couple of them even pulled out the tape and I managed to break through it without getting it tangled around my legs like a bullwhip. I guess the moral is: Don't be a lazy procrastinating s.o.b. or you'll end up looking like an ass and probably damaging your appendages to boot. At least now I finally have another t-shirt to put rival my moth-eaten Sun Herald Brett Farve shirt for loungewear supremacy (it's an intense competition).
Well, it's time to take my own advice and get back to packing way more than I'll need and looking for a last-minute gift that I should have put aside hours ago. Gah.
"all right, gotta crawl out of this cocoon...mmm, water...where's my checkbook?...aww crap, these don't have by address or name on them....gotta write all that down...all done, now...these sweats don't have pockets? oh well, time to get the shoes...man, where did all these cobwebs come from?...screw it, i'm using the pot scrubber to clean these"
So by the time I get up the hill and sign in, it's 8:40 and some people are already nearing the finish. I signed in, donated the check, signed a waiver, got the number pinned on (#133) and took off. Well, "took off" in a really quick walking sense, because the shoes were already getting to be a problem; I'd had to glue the sole back on in October and it felt like it was coming loose again. Anyways, I ended up being terribly late and not catching up to anybody, being left to engage in quick banter with the non-lazy bastards that I passed on their way to the finish line. The shoes held up enough for jogging, but my lungs were probably in worse shape (note: never stay up drinking until 3 am before these kinds of events if you're over 25).
After managing to matriculate on down the course and finally hit the one mile home stretch, I noticed that I was definitely the last one and the firefighters were impatient to take down the roadblocks. As I hoofed it down the road, I also noticed that the lady handing out water was gone, and a bit further up the ambulance was gone too. My ass was on its own. As the final downhill stretch neared, my feet were dying and it became a question of them vs. pride. I decided to try and leave public embarrassment behind for the rest of that morning and picked it up to a slow jog. The final 60 or so people at the finish saw me nearing and they started to yell encouragement. A couple of them even pulled out the tape and I managed to break through it without getting it tangled around my legs like a bullwhip. I guess the moral is: Don't be a lazy procrastinating s.o.b. or you'll end up looking like an ass and probably damaging your appendages to boot. At least now I finally have another t-shirt to put rival my moth-eaten Sun Herald Brett Farve shirt for loungewear supremacy (it's an intense competition).
Well, it's time to take my own advice and get back to packing way more than I'll need and looking for a last-minute gift that I should have put aside hours ago. Gah.