Why is it that everyone I have a Red Sox jersey of is awful? I'm wearing a Papelbon jersey right now, and he could very well lose his closer's job after a mediocre spring. I also have a Matsuzaka jersey. Yeah, that one worked well. $120 million for a fifth starter? well, at least he isn't Key Igawa. Remember that guy? The Yankees answer to Dice K got lit up his first game and gets sent down to single A. And Dice K's not a total waste, I mean he does have his moments, he'll throw a gem every once in a while. Funny story: I bought a Dice K jersey and a Sox cap a month ago from the Yawkey Way Store. The jersey cost me $20, and the hat cost me $30. That's what we think of our 5th starter.
So, opening day, good good. I've become a pro at watching baseball while taking notes in class. Love it. Anyways, I ran around downtown Minneapolis yesterday after my Educational Psychology class. I kind of had to scramble and hurry up and do it since it was supposed to snow last night. It ended up not snowing though, thank God. I ran in my Ravenna 2's for the first time yesterday, and it was a typical new shoes run. The first few miles were so- so. My calves were on fire, but that might have been for two reasons. One is because the Ravenna is a little less shoe than my usual trainers, and the second is that I was stopping and starting every block or so. My calves don't hurt usually when I switch from my trainers to flats and vice versa, so I think I'll just forget about it.
On the "back" portion of my out and back, I saw two homeless guys playing a recorder duet. You know, those recorders that you play in like third grade and havent touched since? awesome. Highland Park has a meet next week in Waseca that I'm not going to, since we can only bring one bus, which means I can run the 10 miler next week, the first race of my season.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Old enough to know, but too young to care
That title doesn't really have any bearing on this post, its a lyric from a song called Haight St. by Anberlin that I'm really into right now. The whole CD really- called New Surrender, check it out. Also, its 11pm when I'm starting this, so spelling mistakes will be abound. I have to get up at 6 for work and I'm running on diet snapple, but whatevs, I'll brew myself another pot of coffee.
Anyways, "Spring" break is over. Spring was in quotes because it isn't very spring- ish at all. In fact, we got a good 3'' of snow when I was at home, which kind of threw a wrench into my running plans. Not that much though. Other than running, break was all researching and Madden '10. I took the Vikings to the Super Bowl, I know you're all proud of me. Sage Rosenfels was the MVP. Place your bets for this season, I'm going to be running T- Jack and Pat White out of the wildcat a lot. Enough about that though. I changed my research topic too, now its going to be the effect of the Biological Weapons Conference on Biological Weapons proliferation. I'm reading this book called Biohazard by Ken Alibeck (not his real name), the second in Command of the Soviet Union's Biopreparat facility, a clandestine BW complex masquerading as a pharmaceutical research complex. I don't know how to describe it- eye opening? scarry? fascinating? probably all of the above.
So today I went on a legit long run, my first in a week. I was planning to go 18, but I went 14 instead. The run started out terrible. I was running on Cleveland Ave about a half mile into the run, slipped on a patch of ice, and tripped headfirst over a planter on the sidewalk. I run past that planter every freakin day and it never gives me any trouble. Why now? Anyways, I went over headfirst, but ended up landing on the side of my hip. I was wearing my running tights which somehow weren't ripped. However, my side is all scarred up and red toward my butt. I bet my iPod that I just bought is broken too since I was wearing it on that hip. Scratch that, the screen is cracked something awful, but I can still use it and it still works. So, that was the excitement, I was up and off after that. No blood, thankfully, and I was able to breeze through 14 miles relatively easily. Tomorrow's run is going to suck though, since its already getting stiff and still stings like no other.
I'm going to try to wear my new Ravenna 2's to class tomorrow to break them in and then run in them, so look for a review of those in a while.
Anyways, "Spring" break is over. Spring was in quotes because it isn't very spring- ish at all. In fact, we got a good 3'' of snow when I was at home, which kind of threw a wrench into my running plans. Not that much though. Other than running, break was all researching and Madden '10. I took the Vikings to the Super Bowl, I know you're all proud of me. Sage Rosenfels was the MVP. Place your bets for this season, I'm going to be running T- Jack and Pat White out of the wildcat a lot. Enough about that though. I changed my research topic too, now its going to be the effect of the Biological Weapons Conference on Biological Weapons proliferation. I'm reading this book called Biohazard by Ken Alibeck (not his real name), the second in Command of the Soviet Union's Biopreparat facility, a clandestine BW complex masquerading as a pharmaceutical research complex. I don't know how to describe it- eye opening? scarry? fascinating? probably all of the above.
So today I went on a legit long run, my first in a week. I was planning to go 18, but I went 14 instead. The run started out terrible. I was running on Cleveland Ave about a half mile into the run, slipped on a patch of ice, and tripped headfirst over a planter on the sidewalk. I run past that planter every freakin day and it never gives me any trouble. Why now? Anyways, I went over headfirst, but ended up landing on the side of my hip. I was wearing my running tights which somehow weren't ripped. However, my side is all scarred up and red toward my butt. I bet my iPod that I just bought is broken too since I was wearing it on that hip. Scratch that, the screen is cracked something awful, but I can still use it and it still works. So, that was the excitement, I was up and off after that. No blood, thankfully, and I was able to breeze through 14 miles relatively easily. Tomorrow's run is going to suck though, since its already getting stiff and still stings like no other.
I'm going to try to wear my new Ravenna 2's to class tomorrow to break them in and then run in them, so look for a review of those in a while.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Spring break, spring baseball
So this week I'm on Spring break, except not really. Not really meaning I'm busy this week. I've got to call the businesses I initially contacted for Relay For Life back in order to confirm my requests for donations I sent them. I've also got to start and finish my political science research paper on Chemical Weapons proliferation, nonproliferation, and destruction. That's good stuff, I was in the Law Library all day Thursday and part of the day Friday researching. It made me feel important. Of course, most important is I've got to lead the Red Sox to the World Series in MLB The Show 2010.
Speaking of baseball, 11 days until Red Sox opening day. I had my first fantasy baseball draft yesterday, and it went alright. As usual, I picked a lot of rookies or AAA guys that are having good springs and have a shot at making the big league club, in my opinion. Worse comes to worse, there's still some decent talent on the waiver wire, but with guys like Danny Espinosa from Washington, I think he has a pretty good shot to make the club. He's already listed as a #1 on the Nats depth chart, which makes my other 2nd baseman, Ian Kinsler, expendable. Here's my roster, although I still have some moves left to make:
C- Santana, Carlos
1B- Votto, Joey
2B- Kinsler, Ian
SS- Desmond, Ian
3B- Sandoval, Pablo
2B/SS- Theriot, Ryan
1B/3B- Pena, Carlos
OF- Hamilton, Josh
OF- Hayward, Jason
OF- Pagan, Angel
OF- Jennings, Desmond
OF- Morgan, Nyger
UTIL- Nishioka, Tsuyoshi
BN- Arenciba, J.P.
BN- Espinosa, Danny
BN- Lowrie, Jed
P- Lester, Jon
P- Hamels, Cole
P- Kuroda, Hiroki
P- Papelbon, Johnathan
P- Axford, John
P- Hellickson, Jeremy
P- Chapman, Aroldis
P- Volquez, Edinson
P- Jurrjens, Jair
So there it is. Opinions? Like I said, I'm banking on some of these young guys- especially pitchers- to come through. I know Edinson Volquez had a terrible outing last time out, he walked five guys and giving up five runs in 2 innings, so I'm hoping and praying he'll come around, although starting pitchers are a dime a dozen.
Oh yeah, and I guess I ran a little bit too. Pretty boring week though, save for Thursday night. Thursday night was the night I was cooped up all day in the Law Library until close, which was 10pm. I still hadn't run, and I was debating whether I should go, since it was all dark and cold out. I ended up running at 11 or so, and I decided to run the "bar crawl loop" an 8 mile loop around three college bars. I ran that, and it was a blast. Drunk kids everywhere, which made it really fun. I was kind of worried since part of the run was on Snelling, which isn't the nicest part of town in the world, but it turned out all good.
Speaking of baseball, 11 days until Red Sox opening day. I had my first fantasy baseball draft yesterday, and it went alright. As usual, I picked a lot of rookies or AAA guys that are having good springs and have a shot at making the big league club, in my opinion. Worse comes to worse, there's still some decent talent on the waiver wire, but with guys like Danny Espinosa from Washington, I think he has a pretty good shot to make the club. He's already listed as a #1 on the Nats depth chart, which makes my other 2nd baseman, Ian Kinsler, expendable. Here's my roster, although I still have some moves left to make:
C- Santana, Carlos
1B- Votto, Joey
2B- Kinsler, Ian
SS- Desmond, Ian
3B- Sandoval, Pablo
2B/SS- Theriot, Ryan
1B/3B- Pena, Carlos
OF- Hamilton, Josh
OF- Hayward, Jason
OF- Pagan, Angel
OF- Jennings, Desmond
OF- Morgan, Nyger
UTIL- Nishioka, Tsuyoshi
BN- Arenciba, J.P.
BN- Espinosa, Danny
BN- Lowrie, Jed
P- Lester, Jon
P- Hamels, Cole
P- Kuroda, Hiroki
P- Papelbon, Johnathan
P- Axford, John
P- Hellickson, Jeremy
P- Chapman, Aroldis
P- Volquez, Edinson
P- Jurrjens, Jair
So there it is. Opinions? Like I said, I'm banking on some of these young guys- especially pitchers- to come through. I know Edinson Volquez had a terrible outing last time out, he walked five guys and giving up five runs in 2 innings, so I'm hoping and praying he'll come around, although starting pitchers are a dime a dozen.
Oh yeah, and I guess I ran a little bit too. Pretty boring week though, save for Thursday night. Thursday night was the night I was cooped up all day in the Law Library until close, which was 10pm. I still hadn't run, and I was debating whether I should go, since it was all dark and cold out. I ended up running at 11 or so, and I decided to run the "bar crawl loop" an 8 mile loop around three college bars. I ran that, and it was a blast. Drunk kids everywhere, which made it really fun. I was kind of worried since part of the run was on Snelling, which isn't the nicest part of town in the world, but it turned out all good.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Once again its on
Life just doesn't slow down when I want it to- bummer. First, a quick update on my last post- I met with campus life last Thursday , and they said that we could use donated food at Relay and played it off like it was no big deal and that was just standard operating procedure. We also got cleared to get outside monetary donations, albeit a few days after we would have liked. So essentially campus gave us the big FU and then apologized. Of course, it helped that we had our American Cancer Society adviser there to sort of legitimize us and set us apart from a regular St. Thomas club.
I've also began my second Field Experience at Highland Park HS, which in sunny St. Paul. Field experience is this thing St. Thomas has teacher ed candidates do every year which is basically a little student teaching, a little observation. Right now, I'm in Mr. Z's social studies and humanities classes (he teaches three periods of social studies and two of humanities). Yesterday was my first day and I stayed the whole day plus for track practice and basically helped kids with their reading and classwork the whole time. Mr. Z's also the track coach, and he asked me to sign on and help the kids (obviously unpaid). Yesterday I took the distance group on a 7 mile loop at a pretty easy pace, it being the first day and everything; at just a hair under 8:00/mi. Then we did a half hour of lifting and a half hour of core. Good times.
So running. Running's been good to me lately. It finally got warm enough during the nights to night run- I went at 9:30 on Monday night, and it was awesome. Its getting warm enough that I can get away with not wearing tights or gloves either, which is pretty sweet. The only thing I have to worry about are the puddles left by the melting snow freezing over later in the night. Its all good though. Race this weekend, although I'll see if I wake up in time. If not, no big deal, I was planning on bandit- ing it again this year.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
This post has nothing to do with running
So, yeah. If you're looking for running knowledge, move along.
I'm the co- president for the Tommies & Katies relay for life. Co- president because our school does Relay with St. Kate's, a local all girls college; I think I mentioned that already. Anyways, we were dealt a big blow on Tuesday (at least I think it was Tuesday). I met with our Campus Life rep, who is a temp filling in for our normal campus life rep who is out on maternity leave. I met with our old campus life rep twice before she left, and she had us convinced we were green lighted for Relay and everything was on the straight and narrow. However, when I met with this new woman on Tuesday, she said that we really needed to get our s*** together.
Campus passe this new purchasing policy stating that all food used at St. Thomas events must be purchased through "preferred" vendors (in quotes because no one actually prefers them). Anyways, this new person says we must purchase all the food used at relay through campus catering, which is another caveat of the purchasing policy. I can, and did, tell them that "unfortunately, that's not happening" in a few more words in a meeting with the director of campus life on Friday. She said she would try hard to lobby for an exception, but I'm 95% sure thats going to come back in the negative, and that's fine, because I don't think that will pertain to our event, and here's why: (1) Its called the purchasing policy for a reason. Relay is a donation- driven event, so purchasing anything doesn't make sense since our (notice how I said our, not my) operation runs on a song and a lark. If we purchase anything, it will most likely be out of my pocket or from donation money, and I'll go so far as to put my educational career on the line before the latter happens. Since we're not purchasing anything, the policy should not apply to us, its that simple
(2) Relay For Life isn't a St. Thomas event. Its an American Cancer Society event. As far as I'm concerned, St. Thomas isn't even responsible for planning it. Since we work in conjunction with St. Kate's, you could just take us out of the equation, and then where would we be? Well, Relay would be an outside event being held at St. Thomas, making it not subject to the purchasing policy. It already is, technically, since its an ACS event, but just for clarity's sake. (3) really? Is St. Thomas catering really going to provide enough food for 500 people for 12 hours, and for free? Lets be honest, they won't, and there are businesses willing to do it.
Another issue is monetary and material (non- food) donations. For some reason, St. Thomas wants us to run the donations we're planning to get by them before we get them. There are plenty of problems with that too, not the least of which is that we're not really in a position to ask for specific things from specific companies. So, I think I'm just going to hand campus a big ass document of every business imaginable and every item imaginable. I don't think I'll actually do that, but I think you see where I'm going with that. The reason they gave me was for tax reasons. Obviously, businesses who donate want their donations to be tax deductible. However, since St. Thomas never sees the donations, I have no idea why they could oppose donations on those grounds.
As usual, when I met with campus life on Friday, they threatened to pull our funding if we didn't follow the policies. The meeting was eerily similar to a meeting I had with the same person about a year ago about the future of Sigma Chi at St. Thomas (as far as threats go). I've been through this song and dance before.
In case you're interested, here's the purchasing policy
And here's the link to our Relay site
I'm the co- president for the Tommies & Katies relay for life. Co- president because our school does Relay with St. Kate's, a local all girls college; I think I mentioned that already. Anyways, we were dealt a big blow on Tuesday (at least I think it was Tuesday). I met with our Campus Life rep, who is a temp filling in for our normal campus life rep who is out on maternity leave. I met with our old campus life rep twice before she left, and she had us convinced we were green lighted for Relay and everything was on the straight and narrow. However, when I met with this new woman on Tuesday, she said that we really needed to get our s*** together.
Campus passe this new purchasing policy stating that all food used at St. Thomas events must be purchased through "preferred" vendors (in quotes because no one actually prefers them). Anyways, this new person says we must purchase all the food used at relay through campus catering, which is another caveat of the purchasing policy. I can, and did, tell them that "unfortunately, that's not happening" in a few more words in a meeting with the director of campus life on Friday. She said she would try hard to lobby for an exception, but I'm 95% sure thats going to come back in the negative, and that's fine, because I don't think that will pertain to our event, and here's why: (1) Its called the purchasing policy for a reason. Relay is a donation- driven event, so purchasing anything doesn't make sense since our (notice how I said our, not my) operation runs on a song and a lark. If we purchase anything, it will most likely be out of my pocket or from donation money, and I'll go so far as to put my educational career on the line before the latter happens. Since we're not purchasing anything, the policy should not apply to us, its that simple
(2) Relay For Life isn't a St. Thomas event. Its an American Cancer Society event. As far as I'm concerned, St. Thomas isn't even responsible for planning it. Since we work in conjunction with St. Kate's, you could just take us out of the equation, and then where would we be? Well, Relay would be an outside event being held at St. Thomas, making it not subject to the purchasing policy. It already is, technically, since its an ACS event, but just for clarity's sake. (3) really? Is St. Thomas catering really going to provide enough food for 500 people for 12 hours, and for free? Lets be honest, they won't, and there are businesses willing to do it.
Another issue is monetary and material (non- food) donations. For some reason, St. Thomas wants us to run the donations we're planning to get by them before we get them. There are plenty of problems with that too, not the least of which is that we're not really in a position to ask for specific things from specific companies. So, I think I'm just going to hand campus a big ass document of every business imaginable and every item imaginable. I don't think I'll actually do that, but I think you see where I'm going with that. The reason they gave me was for tax reasons. Obviously, businesses who donate want their donations to be tax deductible. However, since St. Thomas never sees the donations, I have no idea why they could oppose donations on those grounds.
As usual, when I met with campus life on Friday, they threatened to pull our funding if we didn't follow the policies. The meeting was eerily similar to a meeting I had with the same person about a year ago about the future of Sigma Chi at St. Thomas (as far as threats go). I've been through this song and dance before.
In case you're interested, here's the purchasing policy
And here's the link to our Relay site
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