1st Invitational Cheshire Poker Tourney

Well, it looks like it’s been a while since I wrote anything in the ole blog-sphere, so I figured I’d dash off a few paragraphs of random neuron firing. With the weather finally starting to come around, I’ve been as busy as ever, with lots of training focus, spending time outside running, and working away in the basement at getting the bar done, just in time for summer. What’s that? This was supposed to be a winter project? So that people could enjoy cold nights with cocktails and entertainment? Bah! I make no excuses, I’ve done my best. On that front, things are really finally ‘coming together’, pun intended. Last night marked the official first building steps of the bar. I was burning the candle at both ends last week, getting up early to stain and varnish, and staying up late to do the same. Persistence paid off, and the final two panels were finished Sunday morning. As such, I started putting the framing together last night, and will hopefully have some pictures up soon.

But I digress, the bar is not the focus this time around. Obesity is one of my topics du jour. They say that obesity is almost a national epidemic. If not obesity, then certainly at least being over-weight. How can this possibly be, asks me? Well, I think I got an inkling of an idea why. On my Saturday run, of a relatively short 13km, I passed directly in front of 3 McDonalds! A 4th McDonalds was just 200m off my route as well! Not to mention the countless pizza joints, and various other speedy, junky food options. Now I’m certainly not condemning the Golden Arches. Quite the contrary, those who know me are well aware that I had no problem watching “Super Size Me”, then heading to Ronnie’s house the next day for a delicious Quarter Pounder meal (check out the nutrition calculator)! Quite the opposite, I personally would have stopped in for a bite had I not been in the middle of a run and not had any money on me!

Since I’ve got your attention on these matters, I think I’ll also share another source of inspiration that I’ve unearthed. I was going to tack this onto the end of my last post, but decided that it was important enough to get it’s very own post. This inspiration comes from an unlikely source. Well, maybe not unlikely, but undiscovered by me until just today. It came in the form of a news article shared to me today by Larry, an old co-worker of Jody’s from her CREA days. This article was about a fellow by the name of Randy Pausch, who just died today from pancreatic cancer. He was a university prof with a very distinguished pedigree in the world of virtual reality. So just what is the source of inspiration from him? Well that would be his 1hr and 16min lecture that he delivered in September 2007, which was his ‘Last Lecture’. Basically, profs at Carnegie Mellon are given the chance to reflect on their lives and give a lecture based on what they would say if it would be the last lecture they would ever be giving before dying. Well, in an odd twist, Randy was actually doing just that. He had already been handed his death sentence resulting from the cancer diagnosis, and had to come to grips with it.

Yup, as the picture suggests, I’ve now turned into one of ‘those’ people. I’m a pod person. I’m now the proud owner of a new toy, in the form of a 30 Gig, 5th generation video iPod. I came to own this little beauty in a spontaneous, roundabout kind of way. Last week, I showed up at work, and we were having a silent auction at lunch to raise funds for charity. There was quite a few unimpressive ‘prizes’ like logo’ed shirts from phone and broadcast companies, some dvds, cds, and sports tickets, but there was also this nice little iPod. Of course, I was well aware that it would fetch quite a few bids, and I wasn’t even convinced that I wanted it. In the end, I put in a bid of $250… and won! Overall, I’d say I did get a reasonable deal. They sell for $300+tax online and in stores, so I saved about $90.