Fun Facts About Hades

Hades and Cerebus.
From Wikipedia Commons.

Was doing a little research today about Hades, the ancient Greek god of the Underworld.

• Hades was the youngest brother of Zeus, and one of three--along with Zeus and Poseiden--to help overthrow the titan Cronus.

• After Cronus's defeat, the brothers drew lots.  Zeus got the air, Poseiden the sea, and Hades the Underworld.  Their elder sister Gaia already held sway over the Earth itself, with the agreement that all three brothers could come and go as they wished.

Training Log: 1/6 - 1/12 (Week 2)

Between the Polar Vortex this week, the need to drive up to Albany once, and general bad weather even when that other stuff wasn't a factor, it was--again--not much of a training week this week.

The Lovell Room

This is the oldest part of the Stratford Library, built in the mid- to late-1800s. We're here for the Children's Department's Volunteer Breakfast. Sally's being honored for her work with the children's art program.

The Lovell Room, looking out towards Main Street.

Five Things on a Friday: Mostly Football Edition

Been awhile since we’ve done this, right?  

This week’s “Five Things on a Friday” is gonna be all about the Playoffs because if I’m being honest, I can’t think of anything else to write about.  Everything is either depressing or I’ve already talked about it or both.  So…

After dropping to third place following a spectacularly unsuccessful week in Albany at around the mid-season point, I rallied late, went 3-0 for both of the last two weeks of the season, and won our office pool by two full games.  I grant you that nothing was on the line, but I’m still the man in the office right now, and that has a certain charm all its own.

My friend Henry insisted that we start from scratch for the playoffs, and having no real choice in the matter, I magnanimously agreed.  But then everyone went 2-2 last week, so right now we’re all tied.

But being tied sucks, of course, so I’ll have to do better this week.

I Rode in Today

Here's what I learned:

1. Riding in temperatures at or near 20-degrees isn't fun. But it doesn't appear to be actively hazardous, either. 

2.  Riding in temperatures in the lower teens is a different story.

Yesterday was such a monumentally frustrating day.

I'm about to break one of the cardinal rules of social media: You should never complain about your life on social media.

But.

Don't fool yourself.  This blog is a carefully cultivated look at my life and the life I live with my family.  You get the version that Sally and I want you to get, and no other.  And that's fine, except that I think it tends to make things look a little too perfect, and yeah, most of the time, that's the point.  But I got a letter from one of my classmates a few weeks back that made me think that sometimes the effort is a little too successful, which is why...

Well, look.  I'm not trying to make you feel better about yourself by telling you that I had a bad day.  Odds are that you don't care, and anyway, whatever I have to say about my life won't actually impact yours one way or another.  That said, I still wanna talk about it because, bottom line, sometimes writing about it is the best way to get it out of my system.

Comic Book Movie Hype

I got both of these from Major Spoilers.

First, a new poster for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

The view from the hotel room that Sally and I got for our anniversary in Times Square looked very much like this.  To the point where I actually said to Sally, "Wow.  I'll bet this is the way Spider-Man sees the City most of the time."

A New Start

I swear, figuring out how to start a story must be the hardest part of writing one. I started working on "The Crown of Pluto" today, and for all that I managed to somehow put down about 1,500 words, it felt like it was a struggle every step of the way. 

I finished the draft of "Sneakatara Boatman and the Priest of Loki" about six weeks ago. After that, I spent some time rewriting a couple of older stories and then going back through "Priest" in an effort to clean it up before Christmas. That went pretty well, so I followed it up by dashing off a quick 5,000 words of "Elaina Emboo: A Wizard of Wanderhaven," and by the end of that, I felt like I was in the zone.  But by then I was dreaming about this stuff pretty much every night; it felt like literally the only thing I ever thought about. So I forced myself to take maybe two weeks off from writing--completely--and that was great, but now coming back feels like working a muscle that's atrophied away to nothing. 

I'm a big believer in offseasons, but I'm getting to the point where I see what Jerry Rice was driving at with his constant training regime. I mean, I know that both body and mind need rest, but man, coming back from that rest is never easy. 

Well. I got something down today, and if the words themselves aren't worth anything, I think the structure of the scenes, the way the story's started, is (hopefully, maybe) worth something. But I guess time will tell. 

Training Log: 12/29 to 1/5 (Week 1)

I won't pretend that this was some great training week.  But.  The holidays are over, and thus the offseason is over, and I therefore think it's time to start at least talking about how training is going.  Even if the training in question isn't going particularly well.

My goal all during the offseason has been to run three time per week and finish my writing projects.  The good news is that writing went well.  Running, meanwhile, has been all over the place.  Sometimes it's great, and sometimes I'm stiff, and my ankle hurts.

I don't know what to say about that except that I've had more than one doctor tell me that sometimes a guy in his forties needs to take ibuprofen before workouts to control swelling.  That's true for me, no question, but I don't always remember, so...  Well, I've been all over the place.  When I take time to stretch properly and warm up slowly, I've been at least decent.  When I'm rushed or running on a treadmill or something, it's been more of a struggle.

All this cold, dark weather...

... is getting in my head.  Argh.

Planning to go for a long run today, but we have to go to church first.  And between now and then, I've got to keep from going insane.  Right now, that feels like quite a challenge.

Yuck!

2014 Movie Calendar

I cribbed most of the data for this list from Newsrama. They listed ten movies to watch in 2014. I'm only giving you nine.

February 12 - Robocop

This may not need a remake, but the remake we're getting looks pretty good. I'm psyched.

How to Smoke a Chicken (or Turkey) on Your Grill

I've done this twice now, and both times it's come out well.  So now I'm sharing the recipe, and we'll see what you guys think.

You will need:

• A chicken or turkey, between 8 & 12 lbs.
• A kettle grill
• Lots of charcoal, preferably lump wood
• Cherry or hickory wood chips
• A disposable roasting pan
• One large carrot
• 2 sticks of celery
• Half an onion
• Several cloves of garlic
• 1.5 to 2 cups of chicken broth
• 1 to 2 tablespoons of salt
• 1 to 2 tablespoons of pepper

Goals for 2014

It's a New Year, which means it's time to set new goals.  Here are mine.

1.  Average under 8:30/mile for a half-marathon.
I've been enjoying running this year.  I'm not great at it, but maybe that's why I've liked doing it.  I don't try to hold myself to standards when I run, I just run.  Anyway, I don't know how much triathlon I'm gonna do this year, but I would really like to put together a decent half-marathon.  And while I'm not sure what a decent half would actually look like, averaging under 8:30/mile for early two hours seems like a good goal.