Hey Gang! I figure it’s high time that I write a little blog post to let you know what’s new in Steve-land. Not too much actually, as you can probably tell by my rather sporadic posts of late. However, I’ve been keeping busy and having a good time whenever possible. To wit: the 2008 Fall Classic poker tourney out at Calabogie at Jim’s cabin. I lobbied to get a few more of the gang out there, but space is pretty tight, so the core group were all that could make it out. However, there may be space for the winter classic when that rolls around! As is becoming tradition, every year around hunting season, Jim has us out for a great guys weekend, where we are treated to deer meat (sausages this time), and some great poker action. Read on for a bit more about the weekend, and other stuff I’ve been up to. To check out some pics, head over to flickr.
As you can tell by the pictures, the snow hadn’t yet started to fly in those parts. I’m a few weeks late getting this posted up, and surely by now there is some snow out there now. We were a pretty tame group all told this time. Jim and his hunting posse had been out there all week, up early to stalk the deer, so they were a bit tired from the full week. The rest of us were just generally tamer than we have been in the past. I hesitate to say that it’s because we’re all getting a little older, but you never know. That’s not to say we don’t still know how to have fun, but the adventures are not quite as extreme or R-rated as they used to be. Oh well, such is life, right?
All told, I had a pretty good poker night personally. On the big game, I ended up getting second place, which put me in the money. I threw my money back in the pot to play our secondary game, but lost that pretty quickly, as I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend another few hours pokering. Also, I hoped to get in a good bike ride the following day, so I didn’t want to be so hungover or tired that I bailed on it. Getting back into race shape is definitely going to take some discipline on all fronts for me. When you don’t have a race coming up, with a goal to work towards, it’s a tad tough to get motivated. For that reason alone, I’ll probably have to start registering for races.
This leads well into the second part of my post, which is to fill you in on what else has been going on. Basically, it’s been all about slowly clawing my way back in to race ready status.The running has been re-introduced, and the past month or so I’ve been ramping up, and already seeing improvements in my pacing and abilities. I’ve opted to only run three times a week, but am increasing the intensity of the workouts by doing a speed day, a tempo day, and a long run day. On top of the running, I’m trying to spin 2-3 times a week as well, with two shorter spins during the week, and one longer spin on the weekends. Cap that off with going to the gym for cardio and weights 2-3 times a week, and you can tell I’m serious about this. I find I feel better, and can be more focused on everything in life as long as I’m taking care of myself and working hard at my goals. I haven’t re-visited my life list or anything yet, but I’ve been getting inspiration from all corners of the world (web and otherwise)!
Also, apart from the training, you may have already gathered from a previous post that I’ve been having some rather interesting work-related stuff going on. It’s all good, in that the work I am doing is very interesting, and does lead to some rather controversial results at times. This is actually only the beginning of a project that will keep me gainfully employed for at least another year I’d say. Gainfully not only in the sense that I’ll be busy, but also in the sense that I’m willing to stick around for it 😉 Although I did post about it once, you are unlikely to see me blog any more about it. I guess it’s just not that professional of me to write about it on my personal space. So don’t expect me to take the bait and fire off my thoughts here! Besides work, the last little thing that has been taking a bit of time has been the preparations for our upcoming trip to the Magic Kingdom (Saudi Arabia) to visit my sister and her family. It’s hard to imagine, but I almost get the feeling that Saudi does not intend people to visit their country for pleasure. Of course, it doesn’t help that Jody and I are neither related nor married, which means traveling together in that country would be frowned upon. However, most of you already know how we’re dealing with that little challenge.
Well, that about does it for me for now. I’m sure I’ll have more interesting tales in the month to come, but till then, you’ll just have to accept these little bits as my update. I wonder if I should just fire off little posts more often, or keep doing what I’ve been doing? I suppose if you’re interested in random thoughts, you can always just read my twitter updates and/or look at what I’m sharing in Google Reader! Bye till later.
