Skittish

I never drank coffee at all for most of my adult life. The last year or so, I started having maybe a cup or two a week, then a daily cup. And now this winter I have become officially addicted to coffee. Better late than never?

I gotta tell you. I feel terrible. Just kind of a low-level feeling of adrenaline, not in a good way at all. Very disconcerting. Guess I gotta stop drinking coffee. Or cut back? Decaf?

How did this happen?

PokerStars Blogging Championship

So I'm maybe playing in this freeroll, not sure, but to get the tickets I need to post this. Dave Dunnet, you should enter (or any others among you with a blog and a fondness for the pokerz). Did I mention it was a freeroll?

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: XXXXXX 388810

New Poker Blog

Started a new poker blog, you can find it at http://whyisuckatpoker.com/. It will be updated way more often than this one, but will be pretty much all poker related so if that's not your bag I probably wouldn't bother.

I'll still try to get back into blogging here soon. I figure I'm due to have something to say any day now.

Finished

Man have I neglected this blog. It's poker's fault, of course. Partly because I now have a poker blog hosted elsewhere, but mainly because finishing SuperNova Elite was such an incredibly soul-crushing, time-sucking, life-halting grind.

I finished on Monday, btw. Stoked to be done, of course, and somewhat proud of it as a feat of endurance. Would have been a lot more proud if the in-game results hadn't tanked beyond imagination the last few months. Not sure it was a smart decision to take it on, and seems somewhat unlikely that I'll repeat (not impossible, but it's a long shot). Mainly it just feels like an unwelcome house guest has left and I can finally relax in my own home.

Half Marathon Is No Joke

Okay, now that my debut half marathon is a couple days behind me, I'm ready to analyze what went wrong.

I guess, in retrospect, it wasn't all that bad. I expected it to be hard, which it was. And I only really cared that I finished, which I did. But brother, I'm here to tell you. I was fully and completely crushed by the thing. As I crossed the finish line I was firmly resolved to never do any serious exercise again. Ever. So I'll die young and experience a diminished quality of life? Fair enough.

But I'm off the ledge now and actually feel committed again to trying to run a marathon next year. Which brings me back to what went wrong (you know, in the interest of learning, like):

1) I undertrained. I only got up to about 15k in my training runs, and not even that many of them. I was told that the extra k's wouldn't be that hard, but the tellers lied.
2) The damn hills. If I undertrained for the distance, I way undertrained for the hills. Like, didn't train at all. There's one long, gradual hill, probably about 3k, which you do twice. The first time crushed me. The second time left me a bitter, defeated shell of a man (which I mean in a fun, upbeat way).
3) The damn cold. It was freaking snowing at points. Parts of the road were icy. I couldn't feel my, well, anything. i couldn't feel a damn thing.
4) My common sense. If I'm doing something, by choice, that makes me want to puke, it seems instinctual to stop. I'm gonna have to work on defeating that particular instinct.
5) The chili was overrated. Can't really blame it for the race, but still. Disappointing.

That Was Fast

Been talking about getting rid of the car for probably six months now. Truth is, we don't really need it. Daily life here downtown just doesn't require it, and there are a couple great options for the rare occasions we do need one (already joined ZipCar, which is ideal for short stints, and there are several local car rental places when we need a car for a bit longer). Those costs should be way less than insurance/maintenance on the car. And the finances really aren't even the point. The point is we don't need a car, so why have one?

Anyway, been talking about it for a while and finally got our shit together, cleaned out the car, and put it on craigslist today. Only got one call, but (surprisingly for Craigslist) the guy did come over, we agreed on terms, and boom! I'm carless for the first time since I was 16 years old. Well, technically I won't be carless till Friday. He gave me a deposit and agreed to come back then with the remainder. But the point remains.

So I guess it's good, but I do have a vague freaked out/panicked feeling. Maybe even not that vague, fairly prominent. But I was expecting it, and I know it'll pass, and I'm pretty sure it's the right choice. And if it's not, well, we didn't just sell the country's last available car. We could acquire a new one easy enough.

Whatever. It's just weird. No car is weird.

The Angry Pedestrian

There are many ways having a child changes you, of course, and not all of them are expected. For example, before Henry I can't recall ever getting mad at a driver while walking about. I mean, yeah, sometimes drivers aren't paying attention and almost kill you and whatnot, but hey, we all make mistakes, and what's the point in getting all worked up about it?

But this week I'm walking down towards the Costco for the buck ninety-nine hot dog and soda, and little Henry is in the stroller, and this lady is coming out of the Costco parking lot. It exits onto a one-way street, so she's only looking to her left and even though she has a red she rides right on through the intersection. And if I weren't on my toes, she would have rode right on through the baby stroller. So I give her the universal palms up what are you doing gesture, and she sees me and looks suitably horrified/ashamed and mouths 'sorry' and I hold my gesture and she says 'sorry' again and then it's over. She's down the road.

And afterwards, I'm actually feeling kinda bad. Cause truthfully I probably would have had to accelerate a bit for her to have had a chance at killing Henry (that's not really the point, she should have been paying attention, but it does seem at least vaguely relevant). And moreso cause she said 'sorry', she obviously felt bad, I wish I would have released the gesture and mouthed some sort of peace-making 'okay'.

But I didn't learn my lesson, cause just yesterday I'm walking up Hornby just past the art gallery and there's some construction and the intersection is a mess. And when we get the 'walk' sign we all start through the cross walk and this guy who obviously had waited the entire light without being able to get through races in front of us. Again, not exactly a near-death experience, but still I felt like Henry was being disrespected. Like, really, you're in such a hurry you're willing to kill a baby to get through this intersection? So I give the palms up again and I even mouth 'what the eff', and he refuses to look at me (I know he knows I'm there), and he has been slowed down by the intersectional mess so he's crawling by but still refuses to look as I give a second 'what the eff'.

So I kick his rear tire. He looks at me in his side mirror, and I see true fear in his eyes, and he drives off. And I realize, not for the first time and I'm certain not for the last, that being a dad makes you crazy. And if you're not careful, maybe a little mean.

I mean, kicking people's cars? What the eff, indeed.