So lots of stuff happened in the past two months. Went to Christmas in Illinois with Juli and her family. that was fun and interesting and cold.
My step brother John is fighting with lymphoma pretty hard core right now. Coming to the far side but needs a donor.
I joined an OC Biggest Loser club. Started counting points ala weight watchers. We shall see how that goes. Realized I needed to start running and swimming more since my triathlon is up in less than 2 months.
Won an xbox 360 in a programming contest. Trying for a laptop.
hmm I think that is about it. I’ll post more as the time goes on.
So went swimming Tuesday morning and that started up on my weird shoulder injury. Then played hockey last night at the clinic at Anaheim Ice. The clinic was really good. Derek and I hit it up and before the start we were talking to one of the coaches about working on slapshots. Well more Derek than me. The coach said we can always grab someone and work on it so we figured we would. Well after the initial drills when we do the break out into different drill sections one was set aside by the coaches for individual shot coaching. That was pretty cool. We set it up and I learned a little bit more about slapshots. Derek had it down by the time we finished our station. There weren’t a lot of adults around so we basically had no breaks for an hour. It was good. Learned a bit and I hit a goal through the stick side hole on the static goalie which I was pretty proud of. Think I am going to make a shooting goal in the garage at some point to practice more.
after Derek made a comment about sharpening his skates before the next game. I said lets just do it now. So we hit the store up and got them sharpened. While that was going on, Teemu Selanne walked in. Apparently his kid plays on the team and he was just hanging out. So I walked up to the counter and said, I’d like a puck and a pen please. Teemu looks over and says Oh I have a pen. I look back. I’d like a puck please. So Derek and I got autographed pucks from Teemu. Pretty cool. I think Derek even got one for Eric’s bday present cause Eric is pretty crazy about Teemu. So that was pretty cool.
I don’t get to play hockey til the 3rd now. Which makes me a bit sad but my shoulder and Knee are wondering why I am living such an active lifestyle now. So a little break I am sure will be fine.
I am going to swim on Thursday but mainly so I can get my stroke looked at and videotaped. Which will be pretty cool. After that probably taking off til the new year as well. See if I can give my shoulder some break and get it back to healthy.
Saturday I fly back to Illinois with Juli for their Christmas. It will be an experience. Juli is very very excited. I am wondering what the chaos is going to be like. I am looking forward to it. It will be cool to see her family again. I haven’t had a white Christmas in a very long time so that should be fun as well as long as I stay warm.
So had a great three day weekend with Juli in Vegas. Left thursday night to head out to Loma Linda then we got up and rolled out there to get to Mandalay bay by 2 so we could watch the UCLA girls take on Stanford.
They ended up losing 2-1 in overtime which sucks. So the weekend started out as a downer. Juli got her race packet. The interesting thing here was that right next to packet pickup was the Cowboy Marketplace. It seems there was a PBR week going on while we were running the race on sunday. They had a lot of cowboys and a lot of interesting people dressed up as cowboys. So some good people watching this weekend.
Saturday had Juli doing pre race prep and homework while I worked on some comp programming and watching the college football playoff series. We had a chance to go out to lunch to get my favorite wrap over at the bellagio sport book. Oh buttermilk Chicken Wrap how are you so good. On our way out we found out there was a chili cook off at the Monte Carlo (where we were staying.) The free event was probably a little surreal since no one goes to vegas expecting Chili. Each of the hotels had a bunch of chef’s prepare their brand of chili along with the contestants. The two we liked the best were Bellagio’s Kobe Beef and black bean chili and Circus Circus old school chili where it was just meat spices and sauce. The last made the tastebuds feel the spice and heat. Plus they gave honey soaked corn bread with it. I am a sucker for good bread. It was a nice chill day. We went out to olive garden for a pre-race meal that was scrumptious. How do they make their bread sticks so good?
Sunday had us up at 5:15 so we could get to the race start by 6:00 since it started at 6:15. There were a bunch of running elvii along with fireworks and bands. It was a pretty well done event. Juli ran well. She didn’t PR but then again she didn’t train with PA school and all. We met my friend Bree for Sushi on the way out of town. Good to catch up and see her since she had moved to Vegas a couple years back.
I got home around 8 which was just enough time to have leftovers from Olive Garden and prep for hockey at 1040. The game was good. A bit rough, my knee feels like someone took a sledgehammer to it but it is functioning atm. I had two goals. The first as a teammate said,”I don’t know who was more surprised that the goal went in the goalie or Chad.” I threw it on net and it went 5 hole on him somehow.
The second I tied the game so it was cool. I got the puck in front and just started shooting it til it went in. I did have a couple of misses where I was in front of the net ready to go but the puck was in the air tumbling by the time it got to me. I am not good enough to put a body in front and knock the puck down. It was a good game but my allergies and head feel like they need a nice rest from my relaxing weekend.
So we were up baking til 11 on thanksgiving eve. And by we I mean Juli cause she rocks and made marshmellow brownies for the kids, apple pie for her mom’s dinner and two pumpkin cheesecakes for my dinner. I should have asked Lesley to be more specific cause there were only 8 adults so 2 cheesecakes were complete overkill. The leftover half is still in my fridge is a testament to that.
We got up early and drove down to the Turkey trot in dana Point with my mom. My thanksgiving tradition. The new part was that I was going to run the 10k along with Juli. It was going to be an interesting start. Then finish up with walking 5k with my mom. I started out pretty good there were several times when I looked down at my garmin and saw that I was under 10 min miles. There were also several times after the halfway point where I wasn’t under 10 min miles. I finished with a total time of 1:05 which wasn’t too bad at all. It equates to a 10:20 mile or 5.8 miles per hour. Definitely a good run for me. Now I just got to get good enough tat I can do that after a swim and a bike by March. Should be doable I think. Juli cranked it out in 55 minutes or so, she wasn’t thrilled with her time but was ok with it. She has a big 1/2 marathon on sunday so is working towards that. My mom called it after half way through the course so we didn’t do the out and back at the end. Her hip was hurting her so we called it early. She had to go to work so juli and I rolled up north for a shower and Linner at her parent’s place.
We got there around 12 and had a delicious meal. Then rolled to dinner at my dad’s at 330 and had delicious meal there. Overall a lot of good food and hanging out.
Friday had me working and then we went to the Vine with my mom, rick and Camille and Camille’s mom. So the 6 of us had a great meal. A little expensive but delicious. for our thanksgiving with our mom. They had abalone as one of the appetizers and I figured I’d try it out. It was pretty darn good. not sure how much it cost cause I just saw the final total when figuring out the bill but they were worth it.
Saturday had Juli and I running up to UCLA to watch the girls play Portland. It was the quarter finals for the NCAA tourney. Their record at home is something like 61 consecutive wins or something crazy like that so i have never actually see them lose or even be behind in the scoring. So I figured it would be the same of them just running over the Portland girls and Juli and I celebrating with the coaches afterward. I think everyone was shocked when the Portland girls scored at the 2nd minute of play on their first shot. I also think it made every UCLA girl pissed. They didn’t let another shot at the goal til the 82nd minute. At which time they had scored twice once by a deflection of a defender the second off of a wicked close in shot by Cheney. They missed a chance to finish the Pilots off with a PK in the second half but it went off the top bar. Either way they won. It was a good victory and they are going to play Stanford on Friday at 5pm. The tricky bit there is that Stanford has given them one of their two losses of the season.
Juli and I will be watching on a tv in Vegas while we hang out waiting for her race.
Sunday was pretty chill. We watched Planet 51 with her nephews and niece and just hung out while she did homework and I fiddle with the computer and watched football. We both exercised. She did another 10k while I did 2 miles at that 5.8 pace on a treadmill. I got to get farther than 2 miles it seems to be my training block. It will happen just got to get used to it.
My mom retires today. My brother and I are taking her to the wind and sea for dinner celebration.
crazy weekend. very busy. I would say next weekend will be a relaxing one but we are going to Vegas for Juli’s race. So it will be fun but more travel involved. Ahh such is the life.
So I am happy and sad for tomorrow. I have been working on keeping my carbs low. Hasn’t been perfect but it has worked out for the most part. I am down 6 lbs and have crossed the 220 mark a few times. though now I am bouncing around 220 rather than 225 which I am ok with. Just got to keep working on caloric restriction to make sure I can get lower than 200 at some point. So I am happy cause tomorrow is the end of the diet. though I think I am going to try to keep the diet up after wards and just not go crazy on food especially bread.
I am sad cause I am running the turkey trot tomorrow morning at 7 in Dana Point. 10k. Farther than I have ever run before and I haven’t done a great job of prepping myself for it. If I were to swim a mile I would be happier since I definitely am prepped for that. But either way going to finish 6.2 and then walk 3.1 with my mom. Then probably want to sleep but have too many thanksgiving dinners to go to to get a chance at it. Oh well family is good.
I am also sad in that I got a week left and I haven’t come anywhere close to hitting numbers for my NaNoWriMo. Oh well. It is farther along hopefully I can crank it some more. Just got to get my butt in the seat. I’ll see if I can carve out some time for that this weekend since while Juli is here she still has a lot of homework to do.
So I didn’t get as much done on the book as I had planned. Though I should be writing some tonight we shall see.
Whirlwind of a week. We had the Rocket Frogs vs Rocket Frogs at the Pond on saturday. It was fun but exhausting. We had all our silver level players playing and it was a running clock so there was no break. It was go go go. I slid into the boards at one point but still got the shot off. Between the boards run and a few friendly battles I think I jacked my shoulder however I haven’t really given it a rest to find out. Hopefully its just a deep bruise and I’ll be fine.
After wards we tail gated til the ducks game at 7. 4 hours of tailgating is long. Note to self only do 3 at the most in the future. Juli made some awesome cookies. They looked like our practice pucks with little RFs on them. To top it off the ducks won against the coyotes though they gave up a 4-0 lead in the 3rd and pulled the victory out by a squeaky 4-3.
Tuesday had me at the hockey clinic that Anaheim Ice does. It is a good clinic I think Derek and I are going to go to it for the rest of November and probably most of December.
Wednesday was Veteran’s day. So we got to leave early from work. I rolled at noon and got to hang out with Cool Rob. Then went for a bike ride in Whiting Ranch at 230. It was a speed ride so we finished in under an hour. Then I had Rocket Frog Hockey Practice at 930. So it was a busy night. On the plus side my weight is down. Go figure. Hit my lowest in a long time today at least in the past 3 years. I still haven’t hit the teens but maybe tomorrow morning it could happen.
Saturday has the 12 hours of Temecula Ride. I am going up to watch and hand out beers. Got to make sure I watch my calorie intake since I will just be sitting around and handing out beers.
Sunday has me and Juli going to watch the UCLA Women’s soccer team take on whoever wins again san diego and san diego state. I am pretty sure UCLA will beat Boise State. This is the start of their NCAA tournament. Hopefully they will win it all.
Currently doing well on my low carb diet til Thanksgiving. Down 4lbs from friday but it could be all water weight we shall see. I will keep it up. Got lunch with cool rob today at Knowlwoods so going to see about a salad to keep the trend going.
Writing is going well. I didn’t hit my goal last night but I am at 4300 or so words so far since Sunday. Figure if I keep up I should get around 7k for the first week. I will need to thread more character development into the story but definitely doable. If I keep up the pace I can probably get to around 60k words by end of the month which would almost double the work I have done on it already. It keeps getting slight changes in direction as I work it out but its all good. Writing is definitely not static. Plus I don’t count any writing I do on this blog as part of my count.
I had a good swim last night but still had my calves cramping up at the end of it. Going to have to see about pushing off the wall with flat feet rather than using my big calves to give me extra speed. I think I’ll ask to drop down to a slower lane and work on flip turns on Thursday. Which really means I’ll be working on breath control and drinking a lot of water, both my normal water and the pool water. Hopefully then I can work on pushing off with flat feet and therefore not have calf cramps at the end.
So as you can see I wrote some yesterday. I didn’t hit my goal of 1750 but 1400 words is definitely better than none. and i got over 40k which has been a goal since uh March. Sigh.
Hopefully I can take the momentum into today. We shall see I got Derek’s bday party this evening and Juli is going to be over since she has tomorrow off. Hopefully it will all work out. I am sure she has homework and I will probably leave the party a little early.
The weekend was pretty awesome. I got out of training early. Actually we ended early since we didn’t do the last lab. So got into the driver’s seat of Juli’s car and zipped up the 405. Now normally that statement on a friday would be a huge hyperbole. But in this case it was true. We didn’t hit traffic til a few miles out of UCLA. So we had California chicken Cafe for dinner and then leisurely went over to drake stadium to watch the UCLA women’s Soccer team play against USC.
They had 20 shots to 6 by the end of the game and the score was 2-1 UCLA. So fresh from that victory the coaches invited Juli to the bar afterwards to wind down. So that was cool. I got to hang out with two gold medalists for a bit. I got to say hi to Tina DiMartino and Val henderson who play in the WPS. Also cool. I think they might vaguely remember me. More so as Juli’s boyfriend than as an actual person but still cool.
Saturday had us up and at Shark’s cove by 9 am to watch the Wisconsin vs Purdue game. Purdue didn’t even score a point so Andrea gloated for a bit. Juli was sufficiently sad and didn’t want to talk about it for the rest of the weekend. We prepped for the party and I took a nap and then Paula and Parker showed up to join us for dinner. We retired to the garage for flip cup and beer pong. I actually won a game of flip cup and with parker on my team won two games of beer pong. I also lost a few games as well. We actually were surprised that we got trick or treaters and just as we were about to turn them away Juli ran up and grabbed the candy she used to decorate the table with and handed that out. We had two groups and that pretty much wiped us out of our candy so it worked out.
We hit Poopdeck and played some foosball (first with these slavanians then against them and they were bad ass at it.) then played some flip cup. Nothing like making sure your immune system is up to the task by playing flip cup on outside tables that everyone has played flip cup. Our next stop was Mermaid and we chilled there for a few more beers before packing it in for the night. It was pretty mellow there was no meltdowns or fights or throwing up. Overall I would say a good Halloween.
Sunday had Juli and I on the road by 9 so we got home at 10. Hung out with her parents for a little bit then hit my place to pack up. Her goal was to get on the road by noon since she had a big BioChem test on Monday. We hit Islands for lunch/ breakfast and she left from there. (well after a quick stop to print out lecture notes from my printer at home again 
I had a Finals hockey game at 440 and we rolled with Joe in a carpool. We played well but didn’t pick up the win. Which sucked. We lost 6-1. The goal was cool with Derek sacrificing his body to get it. It was well worth the show. I also got a front row seat to Billy just plastering a guy cause he didn’t keep his head up. It was brutal but worth it.
Finally I started a Low/ No carbs diet til Thanksgiving. In an effort to drop some pounds. I am cutting out bread, potatoes, tortillas, basically big carbs. I am still going to have beer if necessary but for the most part until thanksgiving going to cut out carbs. Hopefully that will shake up the system a bit. I am still having fruit and veggies but should be losing some pounds by the change in diet. So far I am 2 days in and still good to go.
So this weekend going up to UCLA to watch the women’s soccer play against USC. Go Bruins! Then we are going to crash at Brian’s place and spend Halloween up there. Not sure what our costumes are yet. We shall see.
I have a finals hockey game on Sunday against a team that no one on my team likes. They play pretty crappy. However since all our subs are ringers we are in the Finals so I am sure they don’t like us either. Either way should be fun.
It is looking like I am just getting in 2 swim classes per week for November. Since I have a full social calendar. Nov 7th doing Hockey with our team at the pond. On the 14th we are doing a 12 hour mtn bike race. on the 21st is the LA code camp. Then we got thanksgiving. Man how did that get so busy.
I got to get in running on monday, wedneday and hopefully either friday, sat or sunday. Cause I need to up my cardio in that regard. I have a 10k in less than a month so got to get that up so i can finish close to an hour.
I am going to try no bread or big carbs in November until Thanksgiving. So no potatoes or anything like that. See if we can get a good shock to my system to start the loss of weight a little more severe.