If I’m not mistaken, I never shared how our final sessions with our trainer went. I believe the last time I offered an update was in May. So we have some ground to cover.
Our final three or four sessions were focused on strength and then power. The strength weeks were pretty straight forward: heavy weights for low reps, generally 4-5 sets of only five reps. I have to admit the testosterone kicked in during these weeks as I started throwing some heavy weights around (or more correctly struggling to gently move them from a resting position) and I was feeling pretty good about myself.
I’m kind of fascinated by the coming copyright wars. That may be a bit dramatic, but there’s no doubt that the digital age and the explosion of the Internet are ripping apart all the current copyright laws. The old media companies take their heads out of the sand only long enough to entrench themselves deeper in the old system and maybe punish both their customers and the agents attempting to help ease their path into the new age along the way.
I’ve been searching for reasons to continue to pay attention to the Royals between now and the beginning of football season. It would be easier to spend my evenings listening to the Cardinals or Red Sox or Dodgers or some other contending team so the nights were full of entertainment rather than misery. I must admit, though, it is kind of like an auto race at this point. I’m just watching for the accidents.
Part Two of the B. girls update.
L.’s full of tricks, too.
She’s crawling like a mad-girl, all over the place and getting fast enough to be dangerous. A week or two ago you could put her down on the floor, run to the other side of the room and get something done. Now, she’s on your heels the entire time. I had to pick her up and move her back to the living room three times tonight when I was doing dishes.
A long-overdue update on my crazy daughters, part one covering M. and C.
The last month has been dominated by swimming lessons and a new gymnastics class for the two big sisters. Each class reinforced much of what we already know about M. and C.’s personalities: M. is cautious to a fault while C. has no fear of anything physical.
For example, it took M. over three weeks of the four week swim lesson class to finally put her face in the water consistently.
There’s not much to talk about that hasn’t already been covered on the real Royals blogs. The team sucks - this weekend they managed to not score when Bannister went 7+ giving up only one run and lost, scored nine runs the next night and still lost by six, then were shut-out again on Sunday - and at times it looks like some of the team is giving up. I was listening to games over the weekend and you can almost predict when someone is going to boot a room-service ground ball or toss a potential inning-ending double-play ball into right field.
Note: I had to hang on to this for a couple days after the Royals ripped off three straight wins. Fortunately, between losing in Detroit last night, trading for Ryan Freel, and keeping Tony Pena, Jr. on the roster, things are quickly getting back to normal.
Not much to say about the floundering Royals. Their cold streak turned into a cold month, into two cold months, and now they’re officially right back where they’ve been for most of the decade.
Even a long-time Casey Kasem fan like me was surprised by this news. Not the fact that he was retiring his countdown show(s), but that he was still even doing a countdown.
Casey Kasem ending his run on radio this weekend -
“Hosting various versions of my countdown program has kept me extremely busy, and I loved every minute of it,” Kasem, 77, said in a statement. “However, this decision will free up time I need to focus on myriad other projects.
Books completed: Road Work - Mark Bowden Redemption Song: The Ballad Of Joe Strummer - Chris Salewicz Eleanor Rigby - Douglas Coupland
Books in progress: Best Music Writing 2008
09-9 - Road Work - Mark Bowden. Mark Bowden is one of the best long-form journalists we have right now. He is most famous for Black Hawk Down, his book upon which the movie of the same name was based, and for his recent The Best Game Ever, about the 1958 NFL title game.
So much for last year’s Wimbledon men’s final being unmatched. Sunday’s Federer - Roddick final was pretty damn epic as well. The 16-14 fifth set was one for the ages and the perfect ending to a fantastic match.
Yet, I kept thinking it didn’t quite match the drama of a year ago. Last year had the rain and the race to beat darkness. This year had perfect weather and an open roof.
Give a 13-year-old a Walkman for a week and see what happens.
I remember my first Walkman well. It was actually a knock-off, since those early Walkmans were quite expensive. And it was the obvious knock-off: had some crazy decals on it and, worse, a pull-out antenna for the AM/FM tuner. But I loved that thing.
Giving up my iPod for a Walkman
When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed.
As I’m sure you can imagine, I’ve been thinking about Michael Jackson the last few days.* I’ll have some thoughts on the self-proclaimed King of Pop eventually, I promise. That third kid really is affecting my blogging, no?
(Yeah, yeah, Farrah died too. And Billy Mays and Ed McMahon for that matter. I was about two years too young to really get the Farrah thing back in her prime. I remember a neighbor who was a couple years older being very proud of his Farrah poster and me thinking, “She’s pretty and all, but what’s the big deal?
Normally this time of year I’m busting out my NBA Draft review, Bill Simmons style. In fact, that was how version 1.0 of site began.
I’ll mix things up a bit this year. I’ll admit I’m not nearly as interested in this year’s draft as in the ‘08 selections. Some of that has to do with the fact there are no Jayhawks in this year’s draft where there were at least 50 in last year’s.
Yeah, so the trip was pretty spectacular.
Good friends in Michigan put this trip together, and of the nine or so couples they invited, six ended up heading to Cabo together. We knew two of the couples. One of the couples we didn’t know lives here in Indy; the other in San Francisco (half of that couple is a KU alum). What about couple #6? Well, they are newlyweds and we’ve known the bride for years, but the groom was new to us.
We have returned from Cabo, tanned, somewhat rested, and very happy. We had a great time and agree this was probably our best vacation ever. We arrived home at midnight last night. S. had to be at work first thing this morning; the girls and I had to leave for swim lessons shortly after. So no time to ease back into the normal routines at all.
Combine all that with a fussy baby who demanded to be held all day today, and I'm quite tired.
I may get another link or two posted before we officially depart, but this is your friendly reminder that Mrs. B. and I will soon be departing for a few days south of the border. We’re heading to Cabo San Lucas, where some friends and quite a few beers are waiting for us. It’s going to be a fairly quick trip; we get in mid-afternoon on Thursday and will fly home Sunday.
I've lost track of the number of times I've received an e-mail from someone who happens upon the blog that goes along the lines of this:
Dearest Blogger,
I recently found your wonderful weblog and have enjoyed it immensely. I especially enjoyed your recent post about potty training your daughter / watching a sporting event on your couch / the old lady who annoyed you at the grocery store. I was so moved by your work that I would like to reimburse you for the enjoyment you provided me.
Great weekend, sweeping the Reds with two of the games in beautiful, standard definition television on my local cable provider’s FSN feed. As hard to imagine as it may be, Luke Hochevar’s performance Friday night may be as impressive as any of Greinke’s this season. Then again, I think the Reds were giving him a lot of help. As good as he was, 80 pitches to get 27 outs implies some guys were coming to the plate with less-than-ideal game plans.
I thought we were done with stuff like this. The best thing about the Royals this decade is at least the failures have been epic and when you read a list of the most epic, it’s bound to make you laugh. A little.
For some reason I couldn’t sleep after this loss. You’d think I would no better by now, even after all the promise of April, and not treat another June loss by a .
This is one that I may regret posting later on. Remember, it is all in good fun.
Stay-at-home parents face many perils. Some are common across gender lines while others are specific to stay-at-home dad or moms. As a stay-at-home dad, I worry that people think I’m just taking a day off when they see me out with the girls, probably over-correct the girls' behavior because I don’t want anyone saying “That wouldn’t happen if their mom was around,” and struggle to feel comfortable with the social aspect of being a parent during normal working hours.