so much going on

Posted on Sunday August 14 2011 · 5 Comments

Thank you to everyone for your kind thoughts and words.  I appreciate the support.  :)

I’ve had alot going on since my last post.

The writing is going well.  I’ve had the plot change around dramatically, which is good I guess.  I’ve had a hard time letting go of an opening chapter that I really liked.  It was the first thing I wrote down, so it was tough to send it to the chopping block.  But it no longer fit with the rest of the storyline, so tore it apart into little pieces.  Saved all the clever wording, but let the meat of it go to the cutting room floor (so to speak).

Its amazing how I see things so differently now that I am writing.  I find myself stealing names for characters.  I see plot lines and ideas in everything people do.  I keep small notepads with me so I can write ideas down (which becomes somewhat hazardous while driving).

I’ve really started to see familiar patterns in other books.  Things that other writers have given as tips and guidelines for writing great fiction.  Suddenly, reading a fictional story takes on an entirely different feel.  I find myself zeroing in on the main character and looking for what they “want”.  It seems like they always want something, and then for the rest of the book, they are trying to get it.  They want money, or a lover, or freedom, or a magical ring, or something.

Speaking of fiction, I finally saw the last Harry Potter movie.  Ended up seeing it at the iMax because the show times worked out best.  I don’t think it was really worth it in 3D, but it wasn’t aweful.  Avatar was worth it, not so much Harry Potter.

I was happy to see it all end.  I didn’t want to keep waiting to see how they would play out that monster of a final book.  I think Rowling got pressured at the end to close it up fast.  It was like she used one dream/death sequence and the pensive bowl thing to explain the entire book series.  And then we go “Aaahaaaa, that’s why that happened.” Sigh.  I never did like the ending of it all.  And the prologue was too shmalzy.

But I was happy to see Bella Lestrange one last time.  :)

I’ve been running.  I ran two days last week and I did weight training twice as well.  Its going ok.  Very slow and sluggish, but at least I am moving.

I ran in the Warrior Dash this weekend.  I guess you can’t say ran.  I walked much of it.  Why?  Why would I walk in a race, you ask?  Well, for one thing it was on a SKI SLOPE.  Oh yes, the race went up a ski slope and then back down.  So about 98% of us walked it up, because running up a 70 degree incline for a mile and a half, truly sucks.

There were all kinds of obstacles, but the most welcome one was the giant pit of cold muddy water that waited for us at the top.  I was never so happy to get wet and dirty.  We had big logs in there to climb and roll over.  I ended up with big bruises all over me.  There was a big mud pit near the end with barbed wire to crawl under.  And a giant slip and slide that really hurt because there were rocks under it.

But I did get to jump over fire at the end and I did eat a giant turkey leg.  :)

The warrior dash is ok.  Very tough and the food is ultra fail: bananas and cups of water.  Everything else you pay for.  The turkey leg was $8.  We did get a free shower to wash off the mud.

So today my legs hurt and my feet hurt too.   And I have some bruises to show at work tomorrow.

Hope you all had a good weekend.

Filed Under: Jon is insane, Races, Running

am so messed up

Posted on Wednesday August 03 2011 · 12 Comments

I will not go into details, but I am in a seriously messed up place right now.  Its so very hard to dig myself out.  I can’t believe I have lost so much control.  Its crazy.

Nothing life threatening, just mental crapola messing up my head and interfering with day to day functions.

Sorry I cannot elaborate to anyone on earth.  Just typing this helps.

Filed Under: Jon is insane

writing…

Posted on Monday July 18 2011 · 2 Comments

I’ve started writing my book.  It all just kinda coalesced for me a few weeks ago.  All the ideas that I had been having about it, just fused together in a great big connected matrix.  Everything that seemed so disconnected before, seems to now connect.  And every time I look at something else I wrote before, I see where it fits in the book.  I see something happen and it fits in the book.  I talk to people and it fits.  Every person I meet is an instant character.  Its crazy.  Suddenly everything fits.

In other news, my brain is failing me.  I can’t type straight.  I keep making typos over and over.  I hit the space bar too soon in sentences.  Like I am hitting the keys out of sequence.  Left hand goes too fast for the right.  And I’m so very tired all the time.  Like sleepy tired.  Can’t stay awake for nothing.  I dozed off standing up in church.  People probably thought I was fainting.  More craziness.

 

Filed Under: Jon is insane

weakening

Posted on Monday June 13 2011 · 1 Comment

I’m missing the online game tonight.  Sometimes I wonder if my little online game friends miss me, or wonder where I went.  I never said goodbye, I just stopped showing up.  I want to go back and say goodbye, but I know I’ll get sucked in again.  So I’ll just be sad about it.

Filed Under: Jon is insane

and here i am

Posted on Sunday May 29 2011 · 1 Comment

Posting online and NOT playing that stupid game.   Trying very hard to be good.  I have to admit that I’ve thought about getting on the game just for a minute or two.  But I’m not going to.  Tomorrow I may throw away all my achievements of today, but tonight I win.  I’m not playing.  They can go play with themselves.

Filed Under: Jon is insane

a funny thing happened on the way to work

Posted on Saturday May 28 2011 · 1 Comment

Ok, so i totally fell off the running wagon when i got the stress fracture.  Got majorly fat, and majorly demotivated.

I spent alot of time surfing the web and watching videos, and seriously there are millions of really funny ones. But along the way, I found some motivational CD’s by Jim Rohn, which were awesome.

So I started listening to them in the car.  Since I have an hour drive to work (57 minutes is my record – WOOT!), i could listen to them all in a few days.  Weeeeeelllll, i listened to them over and over and over, until I had internalized the philosophy.  It had a serious impact on my thinking!

I was focused on work and writing down my personal goals.  I kept a tiny little journal with me all the time for writing down ideas.  I was on!

Unfortunately, it went awry from there.  See, somehow the philosophy of “take charge of your life” was morphed into “go after what you want” followed very quickly by “do whatever the hell you want” and then emphasized with “hellz yeah!”.

Consequently, i ended up surfing the web for online games and ran into one that was particularly addicting.  Far worse than the last one.  I won’t go into details or even tell you what it is, but i will say it is a real time suck.  i could be on that game for HOURS and not even realize it.

The game is part of what i call “social gaming”.  These are role playing games where your character can interact with other players, either as part of the game itself or simply as part of a chat feature attached to the game.  I used to play Blogshares which also fall under this category.  There’s free games like Hobowars and paid games like World of Warcraft and Rift.  So you get the point.

But I just get sucked into these things because there is the instant gratification factor.

See, in the world of social interaction on the web, there were bulletin boards (which sucked).

Then there were personal web pages (which also sucked).

Then there were blogs, which at first didn’t suck.

Then there was Facebook, which made blogs suck.

Then there was Twitter, which actually is lame and stupid but nobody wants to stop using it because then everyone else will say they aren’t cool, and why the hell hasn’t someone jumped up and said “The Emperor has no clothes on!” (*jumps up and screams it loudly*)

Then everything moved to everyone’s iPhone, even if they didn’t have one because somebody next to them had one and we all leaned over and stared at their stoopid apps because (what the hell?) isn’t that a heck of a lot more fun than doing work anyway?  (*hellz yeah*)

But what I am *trying* to show is that the progression is faster and faster and instantaneous responses from social interaction.  We went submitting and entry and waiting a week to see who comments, to instantly telling the entire world that you accidentally dumped a quart of Chobani yogurt into the fish tank (totally not my fault, btw).

And.that.is.addicting.  Srsly.

oh, and typing.  omg.  I am having a hard time typing like an educated human, rather than typing like a 14-year-old texting his stoopid gf about her hair. o.m.g.

Yeah.  Its come down to complete mental breakdown.

But its easy to do and the instant response is mentally satisfying.  Its like being at a GIANT party where you can see EVERYONE at once, and can talk to anyone instantly.  And they respond.  Thank goodness Pavlov didn’t design these things because we’d be drooling all over the keyboards (obscure reference #465).

So i missed ALOT of sleep.  And didn’t exercise.  And didn’t run.  I played a stupid game which gained me nothing.  I’m still trying to quit it.  I played until 3 am last night.  Really stupid because I can’t sleep in.  Once the sun is up, I am awake and cannot sleep.

So here it is almost 11 pm, but I am not on the game.  I’m here typing on my blog.  I’m just going to finish this entry and get to bed.  I have sooooo much work to do tomorrow, its not even funny.  I’m going to have dinner with my former running partner (and btw SHE is still running) tomorrow night.

I hope everyone is well.  I haven’t been reading the blogs.  I will try to catch up.  Google reader says I am behind by almost 400 entries.  Egads.

Filed Under: Jon is insane

a month overdue

Posted on Tuesday May 17 2011 · 4 Comments

I can’t believe its been over a month since I posted.  Lots to say but not a lot of time tonight.  So its bullets.  Here’s what’s happened in the past month:

  • have not run
  • gotten fatter
  • become addicted to another online role-playing game
  • am sleep deprived – very seriously
  • fell out of love with country music
  • gotten hooked on freaky dance music
  • got a new bike from Lara!
  • work is killing me
  • need to go to bed now

I am slowly recovering again after falling off the running/gaming wagon again.  I was on for only 30 minutes tonight, and i’m going to bed right now.

I’ll be back!

Filed Under: Jon is insane

oh how the mighty have fallen

Posted on Sunday January 02 2011 · 7 Comments

It was only a few short months ago that I ran a marathon.  Not a very pretty one, but I ran it.

Yesterday, I ran three miles at my marathon pace, and almost died.  Today it hurts to walk and sit down.

What the heck?

I’ve put on so much weight and lost so much fitness that I am right back where I started from.  Sucks.

I am not running today.  Its cold and windy and I hurt from yesterday.

This morning I made laundry detergent.  Did I talk about this before?  I make my own.  It cost like $2 for a 5 gallon bucket, and it works as well as the over priced crap at the store.  And its a chemist thing.  We like to mix up potions.  :)

Part of the process involves grating a bar of Fels-Naptha soap and dissolving it into a small pot of water.  I usually do this outside because when you cook a bar of that soap in your house, all you can smell is soap for a week.  So, I use the side burner on my grill.  However, today the propane tank was empty.

Being an ingenious person (and a scouter as well), I pulled out my Jet-Boil Helios stove and proceeded to cook my soap on that.

Have you seen these things?  For hikers who cook on stoves, they are the cat’s pajamas.  We took this on the last campout and it totally rocked.  It can boil water in that pot in about 2 minutes.  The thing sounds like a blowtorch, just roaring.  I love it.  Here’s a pic of two fashion models pretending to cook on a Helios while camping:

(Nobody’s hair looks like that when they are camping)

On the far right you can see the clear plastic windscreen below the pan sitting on the burner.  This really helps when there’s a breeze in the air.  For backpacking stoves, just a little breeze can really slow down cooking time.  When I first bought this stove, one of the snaps broke off.  I took it back and the store (LL Bean) gave me a new one without question.

So anyway, the point I was making was that I had to cook on the Helios.  Not thinking about how fast this stove will heat up a pan, I just let it sit.  Well, I saw it was starting to boil, I pulled it off the stove.  But the pan had gotten so hot, that the water kept boiling.  Unfortunately, when soapy water boils, it foams like crazy, and it foamed right over the top of the pan and all over the porch and my Helios stove.   At least my stove it now very very clean.

Filed Under: Jon is insane, Running

statistics

Posted on Sunday October 17 2010 · 2 Comments

I was going through past race results, trying to make a list of where my current PR’s stand.  I ended up putting it into an Excel spreadsheet and came up with two very interesting graphs.

They actually both contain the same data, just one shows pace and the other shows time (in minutes) for each race distance.

I was fascinated by the fact that, with two exceptions, my fastest races follow a very distinct path.  The two exceptions include 1) the Boilermaker 15K where I tore my calf muscle, and 2) the 2010 New Haven Road Race (20K).  Other than these two, everything else falls on the lines.

If I did not have my recent marathon PR time, I could have predicted it within a few minutes of the actual time I ran.

Even more interesting is that these race did not all occur this year, so that my race paces should have been consistent.  They happened over a couple years:

5K    Apr-09
10K    Nov-08
15K    Jul-09
20K    Nov-10
1/2 M    Apr-09
30K    Mar-06
M    Nov-10

The real kicker was that 30K (18.6 miles) in 2006.  My time was right on the curve for that one.

Looking at this graph, I have to wonder if this means that my maximum speed, for any given distance, is really no better than it was 4 years ago.

So what does this mean?  I think, I am seeing the maximum that I am capable of for a given race.  One would expect that over time, I would eventually hit my max.  I could run several races (say 5K’s), different times of the year, different conditions, and whatever.   After enough of them, I will have gone just about as fast as my body would ever be able to go.   If I were not at that point, I think the noise in that line would be quite large.  Later dates would show much faster times, and the trend line would not be there.

So what happens when I plot, say, all my 5K times I can find?

I think in general it might be showing a downward trend, but its a little hard to see.  It might be a stretch.  Looking at it more objectively, it looks like noise.

It makes me wonder if I really am improving, or if there just isn’t enough data (i.e. races) to give me a large enough sampling of race times to show my maximum speed.

It could be I am looking at this all wrong and I don’t understand really how statistics work.

Filed Under: Jon is insane, Running

and one more thing

Posted on Sunday May 16 2010 · 10 Comments

Farcebook is beginning to annoy the crap out of me.

Yes, the horrendous abuse of information that you entrust them with (and to be honest, every piece of information I give them is carefully manipulated and controlled so that they have nothing real about me), is an awful and annoying thing, but its not the problem.

The problem is that most of the people in my high school treated me like crap. Despite being incredibly intelligent, dashingly handsome and charming enough to talk a bear out of his salmon dinner (cough), people dumped on me relentlessly. Mentally, verbally, and of course, physically. The jocks tormented me, the stoneys beat me up, even the geeks rejected me. The computer club members tricked me into thinking the club picture had been canceled so I couldn’t be in the shot. Nice.

So there I am on farcebook, with several people I know (who ARE my friends), but a lot of their farcebook friends are people who treated me like shit. Its not that I live 30 years in the past (yes, I am damn old), but seeing their smiling little faces pop up in comments every day just brings back the bad memories.

I want to post hateful things and comment about how all those people were total suckholes and I hope their lives are crap. But farcebook is about happy thoughts and gleeful things. Posting negative vibes is frowned upon.

So I post bad thoughts here as my outlet for negative energy.

Dear people who treated me like shit 30 years ago:

You all suck. I’m sorry if your lives turned out well. I’m sorry if you don’t remember how rotten you were to me. I remember. Especially when I have to see you smile and hug your families in you stupid pictures, like you never did a bad thing in your lives. I wish evil, pain, misery, suffering, death, disease, sadness and pestilence to plague you and your descendants until the end of time. I hope you die alone, in pain, frightened and begging for mercy.

Have a nice day.

Uh, no, have a miserable day.

From the guy who you tortured for fun

I feel so much better. :) I’m going to go and block every person I didn’t like in high school.

Filed Under: Childish Rants, Jon is insane
« Older Posts