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Showing posts from September, 2013

Weekend Update (9/26/13 to 9/29/13)

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Happy Monday!  I hope you guys are doing okay.  We had a busy weekend in Connecticut.   We had my daughter Hannah’s tenth birthday party at the house Friday night, for which I took Friday off from work.  Friday was therefore a busy, chaotic day getting ready for the party, but that prep time was worth it because the party itself went really, really well.  We had seven girls over, plus our two, and honestly, I think they spent almost the entire night screaming with excitement over one thing or another.

Tennessee Titans vs. New York Jets Preview

Is it weird that the most interesting game of the season--at least for me personally--is a Jets game?  Who'd'a thunk it, right? Official NFL Preview: NY Jets @ Tennessee Titans

Review: Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy #6

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There's a lot going on in the Marvel Universe right now, both in the comics' (616) universe and the TV/movie universe.  Now, the comics and the TV and movie properties don't share continuity, but the stuff that happens in one tends to inform the stuff that happens in the other, so that if we want clues to what might (might!) happen in some of the future movies, one of the better sources we have is the comics.  With that in mind, Marvel re-booted the Guardians of the Galaxy  (GotG) early this year, either to feed--or perhaps merely to gain advanced profits from--the hype surrounding next year's GotG movie. Either way, I personally love the Guardians, and I've been reading the new book ever since it started.

On Swimming Faster: It Never Gets Any Easier

I know I shouldn't complain about getting older.  In the first place, because I have friends and classmates who aren't getting older because they're no longer with us.  Secondly, because it's true--up to a point--that you're only as old as you feel.  Thirdly, because I'm not old.  I'm forty, which is maybe not twenty-two, but it's also not particularly close to retirement, either.  And finally, because most of the time I feel pretty good.  I stay active, and I still have an active, fulfilling athletic career, and most of the time, the highs are a lot higher than the lows.  That's more that a lot of folks can say. But.  A week or so ago, I wrote about trying to swim faster and get back into a little stroke work , and at the time I wrote that, I figured it was gonna be an uplifting experience.  I figured, hey, I'm in decent shape, and this is gonna be a fun.  Get back into the glory days a little bit, no problem.  It'll be AWESOME! Wrong.

Pictures from Hannah's 10th Birthday

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Yesterday was my daughter's tenth birthday.  We took her out for hibatchi, and tonight we have something like a dozen 5th graders coming for a Superstar-themed birthday party.  Given the chaos on Metro-North these past few days, I even took the day off, so that I could be sure to be here rather than getting stuck in the nearly five-hour commuting Hell that I went through yesterday. Hannah, Sally, and Emma at the hibatchi place last night. Hannah LOVES hibatchi.

This Week's Picks (NFL Week 4)

I don't know who's following this, but if you're interested, then so far, so good.  Last week, I took the Giants (Even), Lions (+1), Bears (-1.5), and although the Giants failed in magnificent fashion, I still came out 2-1 with the help of those other teams, and that let me take a two-game lead over the other guys in my office. Winning is better than losing, of course, so...  Huzzah! So here're this week's picks:

Spoiler Alert! Agents of SHIELD

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After reading a ton  of reviews online, I finally watched all of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD  last night. I'd tried to watch it Tuesday when it came on initially, but the kids' school had it's Open House Tuesday night, and Hannah's math teacher ran a little long.  Bottom line, I didn't get home on Tuesday until well after eight o'clock at night, and as a result, I only caught the last half of the show. So.  First thing I gotta say is that the show itself was about as good as I could've been expected. I mean, they had to introduce a ton of characters and the over-arching ideas of the show--and by the way, I'm surprised by how blatantly the show is essentially a redesign of  Fringe --and that left only a little time in which to have an actual episode of TV.  You figure, that pilot was really a half-hour of what the kind of thing that the show will be once it gets going--a weird police procedural--along with twenty minutes of backstory and a little de

Random Pics from My Instagram Account

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These are a few random shots off of my Instagram   account.  It's an open question whether any of these qualify as art. This is the East River and Manhattan's Upper East Side as seen during my ride home last week.

Sketch in My Notebook: Remembering Jaynie

I write a lot .  But unfortunately, not everything that I write is necessarily going somewhere.  Sometimes my writing is more like a sketch--or a series of sketches--that capture an idea or a mood. "The Return of Dr. Necropolis" is one of those pieces.  It started out as a vague desire to write some smut, but... well, that's not exactly where it wound up. Take that for what it's worth. *** The Return of Dr. Necropolis Chapter 1: Remembering Jaynie “What are we gonna do with all that money, Frank?” Jaynie asked. “Hmmm?”  In reply, he let his fingers trail down Jaynie’s arm, across her hip, and around her body, drawing her close.  He nuzzled her.  Kissed her neck. “We could buy a new car, maybe a Mazzerati.  Or move to Paris?  Or a boat?  I always wanted to own a yacht, you know?” Frank’s kisses trailed up from Jaynie’s neck to her cheek.  He kissed and then caught Jaynie’s ear in his teeth.  Nibbled lightly.  His hand found her breast, circled he

Thoughts on the Latest (last-est?) Playtest Packet

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Alright.  I haven't had a chance to actually play with the latest--and theoretically last-- D&D Next Playtest Packet , but I have read it, and seeing as how the NY Giants are getting blown the Hell out by the Panthers right now, I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you what I thought about it. This stuff is in no particular order.

I'm trying to be open minded, but this new iOS is driving me crazy

I get wanting to up-sell your customer-base to the newest, best-est thing, but this time I can't help but think that maybe Apple has gone too far. Certainly they've gone too far for me.  Up until yesterday, my iPhone 4S met all of my phone/mobile data needs perfectly and made me happy as could be. It did social media, let me track my runs and bike rides, took pictures, sent texts...  And, oh by the way, you could use it to make calls. Plus, all of this came in a smoothly functioning, easy to use package. Then iOS7 dropped, and now my phone is suddenly underpowered and over-cluttered, and while I'm sure I'll adjust, for now, it's driving me crazy. It reminds me of when Microsoft released Vista --an OS meant to run on high-powered machines with great built-in graphics cards--straight into the teeth of a market that was moving towards netbooks that were cheaper, less powerful machines than computers had traditionally been. Because, bottom line, only a tiny sliver of

This Week's Picks (NFL Week 3)

I went 2-1 last week, successfully guessing that the  Redskins  suck and that the  Jets  aren’t as bad many would have you believe.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Jets are good, but they’re good enough that I don’t think they’re gonna get blown the Hell out of any divisional games this season. If you’re wondering, my record for the season is now 3-3, even with what you would expect from a trained monkey but a game up on the guys in my office.

Offseason Swim Workouts: Getting Faster

I’m training for the  Army Alumni Swim Meet .  The meet’s not some big deal or anything—we’re only swimming 50s and 100s—but then again, I have absolutely  zero  intention of going up there and embarrassing myself in front of my former teammates.  So yeah, I am training. Up to now, I’ve been training this season mostly with an eye towards swimming  comfortably .  I mean, it’s nice to swim fast, but the reality is that Swimming is the least important discipline in triathlon in terms of time.  For example, in an Olympic distance triathlon you swim somewhere between .9 and 1.1 miles.  For a good swimmer, that’s something like 20 or 25 minutes while a weaker swimmer may go as long as 35 or even 40 minutes.  Regardless, you then hit the bike for ~25 miles—that’s more than an hour, even if you’re a terrific athlete—and after that, you still have to run a 10K.  Which means that even if you came out of the water a full ten minutes behind your competition, you still have time to make up a

Geek's Paradise? Fox TV's Sleepy Hollow

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Sally and I sat down and watched  Fox ’s new show  Sleepy Hollow  last night.  Have you seen it?  To say the least, it was not quite what I was expecting.  When we were talking beforehand about what we were gonna watch, I told Sally, “I think it’s gonna be something like  Fringe .” Promotional Image from the Sleepy Hollow website. But no, that wasn’t it at all.

This Weekend's Challenge...

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...teaching land navigation to Girl Scouts. Looking forward to seeing how this goes. 

Race Report: 2013 Westport Kiwanis Triathlon

Sally and I did out last race of the season Sunday, the  Westport Kiwanus Triathlon .  The race is a short (very short) sprint held at beautiful Compo Beach in Westport, CT, and we've been doing it now off-and-on since 2007.  Moreover, two years ago, this was Sally’s first open-water triathlon, and she’s been wanting to come back ever since.

Triathlon Season in Review

I did my last race of the season yesterday. Not bad. Full race report is coming.  In the meantime, though, I've been reflecting a bit.   The weird thing about this season was that I finished on the podium three times and won my Age Group once. But statically speaking, those were my worst races. I scored 74.3 and 73.6 respectively according to USAT's age group ranking system.  Meanwhile, I was middle-of-the-pack at the Griskus Oly, and I got SMOKED by what seemed like nearly everyone.  But that was statistically my best race, 74.4 vs. the national field.   And my best race of the season?  The off-road Duathlon I did first. I scored a 78.2, and that one didn't even involve any swimming! So. I finished the season ranked 1040/2093 in my age group nationally with an aggregate score of 74.1. That was goof for almost exactly the middle of the pack. And somehow I still managed to qualify for both the Duathlon & Olympic Distance National Championships, though I 

DC Needs to Bring Back Stephanie Brown

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I've never been a huge DC   Comics  fan. I don't even read Batman regularly, I just try to follow the more memorable storylines when they come out in trade--usually via one of my local libraries. But I follow it enough, and back when Stephanie Brown  was Robin  and then  Batgirl , I used to pick up both of those titles on occasion on account of the fact that I have daughters, and my daughters like superheroes. Stephanie Brown as Batgirl It's not particularly easy to find superhero comics that aren't either steeped in dark-and-brooding anti-social loners or continually populated with half-naked hyper-sexualized pin-up dolls--or both!--but for awhile there, I felt like DC had managed to put something out in the form of Ms. Brown that was both kick-ass and female-friendly. Unfortunately, that now seems like an aberration in the grand scheme of things, more like an accident of fate than a conscious decision or good storytelling, to the point where the girls and I d

Since today seems to be family picture day...

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These are from the summer of 2003, right before our daughter Hannah was born. We were living in Hoboken at the time in a third-floor walk-up. It was a happy but very urban lifestyle. Fine for a couple but not so good for a young family. I found the hard-copies of these pics at my mom's place after she died, and now I've (finally) got them scanned to digital.  Enjoy!

Friday Hair Metal: Simple Man

Since we were talking about my folks earlier today, I suppose we ought to put up something that they would've liked. Dad and I went to see Lynard Skynard together in Atlanta about ten years before he died.  We had great seats, and then he surprised me by wearing ear plugs. This has been my favorite song for a long, long time.

My Parents, as Newlyweds

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Sally found this picture someplace today and left it out for me where I'd find it this evening. My folks as kids together.  My mother's last words to me were, "Love was good." I hope it was. This is my folks as young twenty-somthing's.  Dad has to be a lieutenant in the Marines, either on his way to Vietnam or just back from there.  If I had to guess, I'd say he's just back because of the mustache.  Or maybe this is during his mid-tour leave in Hawaii. My mother, meanwhile, looked the way that I know that she always looked in her mind's eye, even on the day that she died.  She was beautiful back in the day, and I know for a fact that she took pride in being my father's Beautiful Wife. *** There were a lot of things that I never really understood about my folks, mysteries that they took to their graves.  But I know that they were happy together once upon a time, and that makes it a little easier for me now as I remember them.

This Week's Picks (NFL Week 2)

Fucking Shanahan. I can accept that the Ravens  maybe aren't as good as I thought they were or that maybe the Denver Broncos are better than I thought they'd be.  But RG3 and the Redskins in general looked like absolute shit Monday night, and for that, I blame Mike Shanahan .  Not only was his star quarterback out of sorts after not having played the entire pre-season, his team was also totally unprepared for the spread offense.  And, I mean, c'mon!  It's not like it was a surprise what these guys were gonna do out there.

Wednesday Notes: Reviewing the Stuff on my Pull List

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I’ve mentioned this before, but in case you missed it, I’ve been working on a new short story for my girls.  However, I’ve belatedly come to realize that it’s not gonna be ready in time for my older daughter Hannah’s birthday later this month.  So I think what I’m gonna do is get the first part ready—essentially, Act I of the larger piece—and polish it a bit, and have that  for her birthday, and that’ll hopefully give me enough time to finish the rest of it by Christmas, hopefully without turning the writing process into a mindless slog.  But right now I feel like the intro needs some more work, and I’ve still got to plot out the development of Act II…

Sunset at Montmajour

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The New York Times yesterday reported that a museum in Europe just announced that it has found a new, previously-undiscovered Van Gogh called Sunset at Montmajour. 

Leaving Manhattan

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The East River, from my afternoon trainn as it leaves Manhattan.

Sally and I Gave Blood Today

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I only bring it up because when the girl took my pulse, it was 46.  That's a personal best.  So despite the fact that I've been feeling fat and unmotivated for weeks now, I'm obviously not in quite as poor physical condition as I've been feeling.  On the flipside, though, my blood pressure was 120/88, which is a bit higher than normal.  Seems unlikely that both of those were accurate at the same time, but who knows? *** As I type this, the Titans are up 10-2 on the Steelers at the end of the 3rd Quarter.  The Titans' defense is having its way with the Steelers' O-Line, which is good, but the Titans' offense hasn't been real good as yet, and Tennessee also gave up a Safety on the very first play of the game.  Not sure how that happens since I was giving blood during the early part of the game, but apparently the Kick Returner came across the goal line, decided better of it and dipped back into the End Zone where he  was tackled  took a knee, thus giv

Trolls Gonna Hate

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If you've not heard, the rumors swirling around the Internet yesterday said that Marvel might be looking to cast  Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackoff as Captain Marvel in some future film. The cover for Captain Marvel #1 So naturally, the topic came up at the comic shop this morning.  And one of the trolls sarcastically says, "I thought Captain Marvel was a woman now."

Dystopian Renaissance

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In many ways, the current economic and political climate reminds me of the 1970s.  Continual crisis in the Middle East coupled with gasoline price spikes, a series of recent political leaders who haven't lived up to their promise and who come across as shadows of those who came before, a good bit of latent economic misery along with a kind of formless fear about the future of the country, a long war in the recent rearview mirror tainting the nation's approach to foreign policy and engagement...  We haven't got consumer price inflation much, per se--at least not when you correct for the "volatile" prices of food and fuel--but capital asset price inflation is rampant on a global scale and equally destructive in the medium to long term.  And more to the point, no one seems to have the balls to take the steps that everyone seems to know are necessary in order to get it under control. There's more, I'm sure.

Life Is So Weird...

You know how people say, "Oh, you'll never use all that weird math in real life.  They're just teaching it to you to teach you how to think."  Nothing could be further from the truth. I was a European History major.  But so far today, I've used two different kinds of trigonometry.  First, in a discussion of shifting phase angles and polarity in regards to standards conventions versus practice in the replacement of a large and expensive piece of equipment.  Second, when I had to figure actual loading on a large transformer, and our typical power factor assumptions weren't exact enough.  The first instance was by far the more complicated of the two, but it was also a largely theoretical discussion that required only the application of basic concepts to understand what the Hell my boss was trying to tell me.  The second one required real math , although I grant you that it was only a combat application of the Pythagorean Theorem. But still... Anyway,

Thursday Headlines

Split Senate Panel Approves Giving Obama Limited Authority on Syria . Despite this, what I read yesterday is that Sen. McCain (finally) pointed out that the President's plan, as it's currently consituted, doesn't actually accomplish very much.  He therefore threatened to pull his support, which is interesting, because if he does that, the Senate resolution will likely fail. I myself am not much of a proponent of the proposed strike, but I can at least agree with McCain that if we do strike, we ought to strike in such a way as to accomplish something meaningful and begin planning for a transition of leadership in Syria.  But the problem there, of course, is that the rebels aren't a monolithic entity, they're a bunch of semi-aligned militias.  And if we've learned anything from Iraq and the Arab Spring, it's that these guys don't tend to play well together once they've achieved their initial goals. In Bloomberg’s City of Bike Lanes, Data Show, Ca

Commute Report, 9/4/13

I usually put this out on Twitter , but there's way too much today.  I don't know if it was the weather, or if school being back in session is making people crazy, or what, but I must've seen every kind of vehicular, cycling, and pedestrian insanity today. Seriously. Every kind I can think of.  Running red lights, backing up on a one-way street, turning right (or left) directly in front of or behind me, surprise parallel parking, stopping in mid-intersection...  And that was just the cars. Two cyclists ran red lights and almost hit me, a few were riding the wrong way on one-way streets, and one refused to hold his line in a narrow space so that I almost hit him!   And nearly every pedestrian crossed the street without looking, mostly in the middle of the street despite New York's many, many crosswalks.  *sigh* Truly a crazy, crazy day.

This Week's Picks

For the second year in a row, the guys in my office are doing a little football picks pool. No money, just pride--and maybe a few beers--at stake at the end of the season.  Still, we're all competitive bastards, so the thing was a riot last season.  My Week One Picks: 1. Baltimore (+7.5) at Denver. First off, the Super Bowl champs are getting  points?  More than a touchdown?!  That's crazy. I mean, I don't think they're gonna repeat or anything, but they'll certainly play better than that in the first game of the season.  Also: I'm picking this as the year that Peyton Manning's game really starts to degrade. He's not a young guy, and no one really talks about him being the best in the game anymore. That trend rarely reverses.  2.   Titans (+7.5)  at Pittsburgh. Ross Tucker picked the Titans as the second worst team in the NFL this year in his first Power Rankings this week, but all the actual Titans fans I know seem to think the team is better than anyon

Suite Madame Blue

Heard this yesterday.  It's been one of my favorite songs since I discovered Styx as a senior in high school.

Were You Looking for Something?

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'Cause I got nothin', seriously.  I've been reading Erin Evans's Brimstone Angels: Lesser Evils , and it had me in mind of putting up some kind of D&D Next homebrew for Tieflings today, but honestly, I just haven't quite got the dedication for it. My copy didn't have this cover.  This cover is MUCH better than the one that comes on the Kindle Edition of this book. Always put the protagonist's face on the cover.  Is that so hard? Instead, I've been working on the next Sneax short story for my kids for the past few days, and that's taken pretty much all of the writing effort I've got to spare. On the plus side, though, I put down a bit more than 800 words on the train this morning.  That aint' bad.

This Morning's Run and Last Week's Tri Training

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Sally and I ran a little more than three and a half miles this morning at a shade under 8:50/mile pace.  That's not important for any particular reason, but I can't think of anything else to write about this morning, so there you have it. This is Stratford's running trail.  It was on our route this morning.

Untappd!

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Untappd.  The social network for beer. The brewers at the Weed Beer Festival kept asking me if I was on Untappd .  So yeah, as of yesterday I am. Problem is, no one else  that I know is on there, so I have ONE friend, and it's the CT Beer Trail guy from Twitter .  Big sad face.  I feel like a loser. So.  All you guys need to go on Untappd right now and "friend" me.   Do it.  Right now.  What are you wainting for?