Check it out - I'm about to hit my mark

I wanted to run 80 miles in January and I'm almost there. Actually since I forgot to turn on my sensor one day at the gym, I've already surpassed 80 miles, but I'm using the Nike data as "official."

Hit Greenlake again today. Sunny Saturday mornings are "great." It's all dogs, strollers, and people who can't grasp the concept of keep-to-the-right. Even though I was dodging people left and right, I cut 9 minutes off my time from Wednesday.

This 15K is in the bag. That's only 9.3 miles and I've already run more than that twice this week. Now I'm just working on increasing my speed.

Interesting day

Two interesting things happened to me today:
I received a Nigerian bank spam for the first time in forever.
My box of Red Zinger tea actually contained mint tea.
On further inspection, and actually brewing a pot, I'm pretty sure it was just a particularly minty batch of Red Zinger. :)

The fact that these made my day interesting is why I have to go back to work.

And, in other news, I downloaded the Garmin Forerunner software for the Mac. Worked fine. And I saw that the last time I used my Forerunner was September 5, 2005. I hope to take it out to Greenlake tomorrow while Dave is getting his back-walking.

Harley-Davidson - bringing out your inner jackass

I accompanied Dave to pick up a pair of (Harley-branded) boots he was buying from a guy today. Dave was on his Harley, and I was on my Aprilia. Dude actually asked, with me standing right there, "when is she going to graduate to a real bike?" I let him know on no uncertain terms that I can in fact drive a motorcycle and that he could pretty much bite me. Sometimes Dave is embarrassed by my behavior in public. This guy didn't even show up on his bike, he was in a Civic.

Things that make me happy

Things that make me happy:
ducks (but not geese)
fireworks
any song written by Jim Steinman
NPR's Luke Burbank
the color pink (complementary to all skin tones - no, really)
the dictionary widget in OSX that kept me from typing "complimentary" in the above item
finding a job and not starting it until next month

I'm sure there's more, but let's not go overboard here.

Today

I did 11 miles at Greenlake today! It must have been the sunlight; I just wanted to keep going.

Then I came home and finally got around to watching Monday's Prison Break. Team Burrows-Scofield-Kellerman? Awesome. T-Bag's still alive? Not so awesome. Seriously, he's not Jack Bauer. He should have been dead a long time ago. Great character, now let him go, writers.

24 followup

My quote from last week:
"I imagine he'll be over the whole killing Curtis thing by 10:15."

In fact it was 10:09.

Oh Canada!

I love Canadian advertising guidelines! Tonight we saw a Red Bull commercial that ended with the disclaimer the Red Bull does NOT in fact literally "give you wings!" How awesome is that?

Also? Did you know? That Mountain Dew in Canada does not contain caffeine because by law "clear" (ie, non-brown) sodas cannot be caffeinated? Wacky!

Oh, and in other news, BLUE TOOTH GUY IS JACK BAUER'S BROTHER!!!! Which didn't stop Jack for one second from tying him up and putting a plastic bag over his head.

Superbowl

I realized today that I am going to be at Disney during the Superbowl. I asked Dave if he was going to host a party without me, and he said no. Does this mean he's going to have Velveeta dip and pigs in blankets (Dave's signature party dishes) alone?

I haven't decided if I'm going to:
a) have pizza delivered to my hotel room and make my own party
b) watch in the Pop Century lounge
c) watch in the Polynesian lounge and then hit a park afterwards

Hmmm.

As far as the game goes, Rex Grossman should be sacked early and often. Go Colts!

Randomness

For whatever reason, this morning the question popped into my head, "whatever happened to Green Stamps?" So I Googled it and read this article from the Straight Dope. Green Stamps have gone virtual and are now called Green Points. And you can get them shopping online - even with iTunes purchases.

Who knew?

Disturbing dreams

Note to self: don't eat before going to sleep or else you will have more dreams like these:
That all the water rides at Disney World (Splash Mountain, it's a small world, etc.) are infested with live alligators.
A crossover dream that mixed starting my new job with an episode of Smallville.

Test

This is a test

24, part deux

Oh Curtis. You handsome, black agent, you survived far longer than anyone would have ever guessed. I'm surprised he made it 4 episodes into this season.

The Chloe problem. OK, I get it. Everyone loves Mary Lynn Rasjkub. The writers love her. The fans love her. But this "Chloe is a hottie and 2 men are fighting over her" thing? Please.

Which brings me to Milo. Why bring him back if his character is NOTHING the like the way it was? He's not Milo, he's "Milo." I know Eric Balfour was available, and it's cool to bring back someone from Season 1, but have it make some kind of sense. Right now Morris is more true to Milo's personality.

The good:
nuclear bomb has already exploded and it's only the 4th hour
we haven't seen Audrey yet
Bill Buchanan is my pretend boss
the suburban family gets caught up in a terrorist plot (does this have to happen every season) is already tied up
Jack Bauer - still awesome. I imagine he'll be over the whole killing Curtis thing by 10:15.

So far I'm loving it. Lost producers - you could learn some lessons here.

24 is back!

24 is the most awesome awesome that ever awesomed.

I don't care at all that Jack Bauer went from 2 years in a Chinese prison to well-dressed and coiffed in 30 minutes! And did he cut his own hair? Because he did a good job. And then he killed a man ..... with his TEETH! That was even better than the season that opened with Jack Bauer shooting a man in cold blood, then putting his head in a duffle bag!

In other news, it is way distracting to see "Kumar" as the "middle eastern" "teenage" terrorist.

Can't wait for tomorrow night! And kudos to Global for showing the whole 2 hours of 24 after it was delayed half an hour by the San Diego/New England game. They even managed to catch up 20 minutes by cutting some of the commercials.

I was looking for a job and then I found a job.

So, really, all I had to do was tell myself, "Self, I'm going to embrace unemployment." And bam. Job. I interviewed today, then went straight to the gym to work out, and my agency left voicemail while I was exercising that the group was making an offer.

It's another contract, but this one is a good one. It's a year gig as the program manager of this product. So, not only did I swing a PM job that wasn't a "process PM," but I got my own product, not just a feature. For once, my Microsoft resume got me something careerwise. Who says the Gold Star is just for suckers? :)

Now I need to figure out how to hit the ground running with this before the group realizes what they've done.

Best part, I don't start until mid-February so I can commit a year to it. I thought it was very nice that they thought I was worth waiting for my agency temp clock to reset.

In other news, I'm going to Walt Disney World the first week of February for a solo trip.

Life is pretty good right now.

The tab, as far as I'm guessing

2 iPhones $599 x 2 - $1198
1 new MacBook when Leopard comes out $1500
1 new MacBook Pro for Dave's iPhone development $2500
what it's going to cost for Laurel to switch from T-Mobile to Cingular ???
a new 30" monitor $1999 (OK, maybe not)

And it's still less than we've spent on scooters and motorcycles in the last year by a long shot.

Have I mentioned that Steve Jobs is a rock star?

Buy this book - or not

As someone who used to work in a bookstore, I know the importance of a good cover. And I have seen some really great ones as well as some really lousy ones. Random House (and its Knopf and Vintage imprints) has always done well with their designs. It turns out that one designer, Chip Kidd, has done many of the book packaging that I have loved over the years (The Secret History hardcover, David Sedaris's Naked, all the Cormac McCarthy books). And there's a book out that collects a lot of his work.

And why do I know about this? Well, I picked up this book at the airport a year or so ago because (of course) I liked the cover. The book was pretty good. It fell apart in the last chapter, but it was interesting enough for me to wonder if this Chip Kidd had written anything else. I searched and found the cover art book.

Better than anyone could have ever imagined

All of a sudden those years on the Mobile Devices team are completely meaningless. More so than they were before anyway.

Sorry, Zune and Mobile teams - you have just been rendered obsolete.

Steve Jobs is a rock star.

What's it going to be, Steve?

Tomorrow Steve Jobs will let me know how much money he is going to get from the Stewart family this year. Not including iTunes purchases, which by the way I'm sure surpass the amount we have spent on our 1G 20gig, 2 Nanos, 2 video Ipods, oh and the Mini I got as a ship gift from the MacBU. And 2 Nike+ kits.

Apple is worse than chocolate-covered crack.

Minnie Marathon in May, mmmmmm

It's not really a marathon. It's not even a half. It's a 15K (9.3 mile) race for women only (that's what makes it Minnie) that will be run on May 6. And I'm signed up for it! Go me!

Here's a link to more info.

New Year, New Blog.

Let's give this one 3 weeks before it goes into oblivion.