Baby come back

Hey baby, how YOU doin'?

I quit running last year, and our break-up was rather public. But I've been doing some thinking over that time, and I've reconsidered. Maybe if you're not doing anything next week, we could... you know... get together?

The issue is that without you in my life, I've grown as a person. No, not figuratively, I'm really getting kinda big. I weigh myself every Wednesday, and have for about six years, and I record it in an Excel spreadsheet. All last year, 2011, my weight was in the 170's except for one week in September when it went to 180.5, and the last week of December when I hit 180 again. From January until May this year, 2012, there have only been three weeks when I dropped below 180. Since that article was written, in early November, I've gained about 8 pounds and kept it on. My goals of hitting the weight bench never materialized, so other than my weekly (indoor) beach volleyball games from January to March, I got pretty much zero exercise through the winter. Add in my increasingly lousy eating habits, and well, let's just say some of my large T-shirts aren't so large anymore. And they haven't shrunk.

So I've been thinking of giving you a call for a few weeks now but just like the weight bench thing, it just kinda never happened. The last straw was yesterday when I got a haircut. I got my standard summer buzz cut – #4 clippers all over. I don't quite look like I'm joining the Marine Corps, but it's close. This is quite a change from my shaggy "winter" haircut, so naturally when I look in the mirror the first few times after doing this, I get a bit of a shock. But this time, it wasn't "whoa, your hair's different", it was "whoa, you're fat". And you know, the baggy XL T-shirts won't hide the difference in your face.

So right then and there, I made the first move – I plugged my iPod Nano in to charge. I use the Nike+ thing on my iPod to track my runs, and that's the only thing I use that iPod for (I have all my music and podcasts on a different one), so the battery was completely dead. Note that I hadn't decided that I would go running, I just decided to plug it in so it would be ready to go... whenever I got off my lazy ass and decided to actually run. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day. But over the course of the rest of that day I happened to glance in the mirror a few more times and by the end of the day, I had had enough. The iPod was charged, so I grabbed it, changed into my running shorts and shirt (after blowing the dust off of them first), and out I went – and once again, my dear, we were together again.

I walked for the first and last couple of minutes and for a couple of minutes in the middle as well, but I probably ran about 2/3 of the whole thing which ended up being 2km. Not bad for my first time in six months. Was it good for you? I was pretty tired afterwards but not completely wiped out. To be honest, I probably could have gone longer, but I didn't want to overdo it my first time out. No, really!

The really dumb thing about this whole affair situation is that I picked the worst possible winter to not run. We had a bit of snow here and there, but it was generally gone (or minimal) on the sidewalks and roads a week later. It was also far warmer than our average winter, so there were only short stretches would I wouldn't have been able to run outside. You know how I hate running on the treadmill, but I really could have been running outside almost all winter long.

Anyway, it felt pretty good to be back with you again. I'm not yet sure whether it was the running itself that I enjoyed yesterday, or the fact that I was running. Either way, I'm glad I went. I really hope I can stick with it this time because to be quite honest, you're the one "mistress" that Gail really doesn't mind me spending time with. I had a different one this past winter called "lacrosse blogging", and Gail wasn't so thrilled with her. She took up a fair bit of my free time, including most Friday and Saturday nights and most of the day every Sunday from January to mid-May. I may see you just as often as her but it's for shorter periods of time, and frequently before Gail's awake. Plus she's happy that I'm getting exercise and staying in shape.

I know Gail doesn't care if I have a bit of a spare tire around the middle, but I certainly do, and if you can help me get rid of it, that'd be great. Thanks babe, it's good to have you back.

All blogged out... for now

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed a slowdown in the number of postings over the last five months or so. This is because of the other two blogs I've been writing for: NLLChatter.com (my own lacrosse blog) and ILIndoor.com, the premier box (indoor) lacrosse blog anywhere. Since late December, I've written twenty articles on ILIndoor (listed here) and almost eighty articles on NLLChatter. By way of comparison, I've written all of ten here.

The National Lacrosse League season ended a little over a week ago. There are indoor lacrosse leagues in the summer, as well as a field lacrosse league, but I don't really follow them, so I'm pretty much done with lacrosse until next winter. So now that I have more free time to not write about lacrosse, and because the weather is beautiful outside, I'm finding that sitting at the computer and writing about other things is a little less of a draw now than it has been in the past. I'm quite sure this is temporary, and I do have a number of articles in the queue either needing polish or waiting to be written. In fact, one of them will likely be posted later today.

So do not worry, faithful reader, that I have quit the blogging game. Stick with me and there'll be more articles coming – and I guarantee that you'll get the same amount of insight and wisdom as you've always gotten from me. Interpret that last sentence as you will.

Cubs, mushrooms, and a decimetre

This past Saturday was JOTT, or Jamboree On The Trail, a day where all members of Scouts, of any age, around the world are encouraged to go for a hike. The 3rd Waterdown group that my kids (and wife) are part of does this every year. They generally arrange things so that all the groups – Beavers (ages 5-7), Cubs (8-10), Scouts (11-14), Venturers (14-17), and Rovers (18+) all hike different trails that end up at the same place at the same time for a barbecue. The Venturers start early and hike 10-15 km, the Scouts a little later and a little shorter, the Cubs shorter still, and the Beavers start last and hike 2-3 km. Nicky is a third-year Cub while Ryan is a third-year Scout, and Gail is a Cub leader. Gail was busy this past weekend so I took her place and hiked with the Cubs.

We walked along part of the Bruce Trail from northern Burlington to Camp Manitou, a Scout camp south of Campbellville. We went through forests and meadows and farmers' fields and up and down steep hills and across wooden and metal bridges and boardwalks over swampy areas and rivers, and even along residential streets through the little town of Kilbride. We saw no fauna other than a few birds, but lots of flora including giant mushrooms eight inches across, trees growing on top of huge rocks, ferns, and thousands of pink and white trilliums.

I made a map of the trail we covered. Of course, the straight lines through the forests are very rough approximations, since you can't see the path on the map. I can assure you that the paths through the forests were not straight for very long, so the 3.67 miles (5.9 km) that Google Maps reports is rather low.

Of course, when you have thirty or so 8-10 year olds and no TV or video games, you end up with some interesting conversations. Here are a couple that I overheard snippets of and one that I was involved in:

A: [Talking about digging a hole with a chainsaw] Then I sit on the chainsaw and dig down.
B: Then you'd go all the way to China.
A: You know what? China isn't on the other side of the world.
C: You couldn't do that anyway. This earth has a core in the middle. If you get too close to the core, you'd die. You'd disintegrate.

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A: Do you believe in God?
B: Do you?
A: No. You don't have to, you know. It's a person's choice whether they want to.
B: So if God didn't make the world, then who did?
A: I dunno.

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A: How long would it take to get to the moon?
Me: I think it took the astronauts about three days to get there.
A: But in space time, it only took them, like, two minutes. Time goes slower in space.
Me: Well, the astronauts were going pretty fast, but not fast enough to slow down time for them.
[At this point, I'm impressed that he has even the most vague knowledge of relativity. Then...]
A: I knew a guy who could stack cups, like, almost the speed of light. Like, a decimetre.
Me: Ummm...
A: How fast is a decimetre?
Me: Ummm...

[A decimetre is a seldom-used measurement of length equal to one-tenth of a metre, or ten centimetres. This is about four inches.]

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When it was all said and done, the GPS said we walked about 9.8 km in 3hrs 15 minutes. The Scouts walked a little further, about 10.3 km. Everything worked out really well at the end of the trail – the hot dogs were ready when we got there, and there were lots of apples and oranges and watermelon and of course watery Kool-aid (I believe that is a Scouting requirement). All the different groups arrived within about half an hour of each other, with no missing kids and no injuries. It was also the first JOTT in at least a couple of years with no rain; actually the weather was perfect. I hope the other Scouts from around the world who participated had as great a day as we did.