I just watched the State of the Union Address. Sadly, the first I've ever watched. Following it, came the GOP response. Why the GOP gets a response when we're a single government with a single leader is beyond my understanding, but it is what it is; precisely what's wrong with a bipartisan system.
A few points my [girl-like throwing] governor, Bob McDonnell said didn't ring well with me:
He's so quick to throw Obama under the bus for not solving the financial mess "his guy" got us in over the past decade. Before "his guy," we were doing great. You really have the audacity to give "our guy" crap for not pulling us out of a massive hole in a year? Unbelievable that after a year, he thinks his party knows what's best after they didn't have a clue for so long.
He actually said we have the best health-care system in the world. Ahahahahaha! This had to be a slip up. I'm one of the lucky few who has always had great coverage, but I know plenty of folk not so lucky... He clearly does not. Must be nice living in that little bubble without Google.
My creative juices have been flowing as of late. What do I attribute it to? OmniFocus and Getting Things Done. My mind has been clear of all the little constant nags/to-do items, and free to think outside the box.
The site? Brett Favre Retirement Watch. As big as the news is, I couldn't find any one site devoted to the topic. So I made one.
I think my last report on Emily (my couple month old niece w/ Neuroblastoma a few weeks ago? Well, two updates since I think I last updated. On her December visit to Chapel Hill (where her doctor is), they found her mass to have shrunk a great deal. There was some confusion as to the math of it all, but the mass was now about 20% the size it had been. That is great news... There's a chance that this thing would just wilt away and be forgotten. She just recently had another check-up and the news, while not as good, wasn't bad, either... The mass had not shrunk, but also not grown. My fear is that we're on the bottom of a parabola... The doctor said the next checkup would be in two months as opposed to the usual month, which doesn't make much sense to me, but he or she is the doc.
On the Jade front, she has gone into remission! You can of course read all about her journey on her site. While she's not in the clear, this means that the treatment the doctors prescribed her is working. She's currently back in the hospital for another phase of treatment, but she was able to get home for the holidays and is now in a "maintenance" phase, where she's allowed to go home for weeks at a time. Unfortunately, during this visit she has developed a fever so the expected week-long stay is going to be longer until the fever is under control. I visit her yesterday for the first time in a few weeks and my, how things have changed; she looks REALLY tired, her face is all swollen from the medicine, her hair is well on its way to being gone, and she's definitely not her bubbly little self.
No bad news, but not the best of news... Gotta keep on truckin'. Thank you to all of you who have supported the causes.
Note: You don't need to buy the book. Proceed to checkout until it asks you if you'd like to start a trial, do that, then leave the page and remove the book from your cart.
2009 Goals 1. Run a sub-18 5k - Failed. Didn't even come close. Was going to make the 5K push following the marathon stuff, but the whole running thing didn't work out. 2. Run a sub 1:30 Half Marathon (should be cake) - Failed. Was sick for the first, and injured for the second. 3. Run a sub 3:10 Full Marathon (Boston Qualification) - Failed. 3:16. No good reason. Just didn't have it. Abbreviated training due to injury? 4. Go to France - Didn't happen. 5. Continue Japanese (102 and 201) - Dropped 102. 6. Revisit NYC, go to the top of the Empire State Building - Went back to NYC, but didn't go up ESB. 7. Bike 100 miles in a day - Didn't happen. 8. Run 1000 miles - Should have been cake; was on pace for 1500 before injury.
Sooo.... I didn't accomplish a single goal I had set last year (Note: I've never not accomplished a goal in one of these posts). Luckily, I did accomplish a life goal, which I hadn't anticipated: Started a company... Phew! I did something this year.
2009 Notes - Ran 953 miles (up from 857), biked 670 (from 472), swam 3 (from 2). - Gained 5 pounds. - Didn't get a raise, but my cube got even sweeter. - Sold the rip and flip Integra. - Spent a lot of time working on the Civic. - Didn't have an XBOX fail. - Refreshed my SCUBA cert. - Trashed my hamstrings.
2010 Goals - Get running again. - Run a sub-3:10 marathon. - Visit another country (France, Japan, Italy, and Thailand are on the table). - Bike 100 miles in a day. - Bike 1000 miles. - Get the Civic back to fully streetable. - SCUBA dive. - Go on an epic bike ride or car trip. - Work remotely for an extended period of time. - Begin learning Spanish. - Bench press 225. - Cook more.
So 2009... A lot of failed goals, two kids with cancer, homes are still unaffordable, Mom had two major surgeries... 2010 is sure to be better!
Anyway, throughout my entire life I've heard "Porsche" pronounced two different ways: "porsh" and "por-shuh." Last week, I decided to figure out who was correct. Turns out, I've [and 90% of America] been saying it wrong.
I went and did it. Completed my tax forms and a few legal documents today, which I think legally makes my company a real one. I submit my first invoices to my two clients (one person, two companies) tomorrow... Plan on doing a little fibbing with the tax stuff so my fiscal year is January to December, but don't tell the IRS that.
I also spent the night working on a site, http://www.itbymike.com. Now I'm exhausted and must sleep... I picked a really good night to not get sleep... Luckily, tomorrow night is an early one [sarcasm].
The idea behind the site is that it'll be useful to any old visitor, have a light air to it, and get plenty of information across.
In order to build my client base, I opened the site up to providing services (I know a lot about consumer electronics) to individuals. Thoughts? I have mixed feelings.
Constructive and/or nice comments are very much appreciated, as always.
Little to no improvement in my right leg for the past month or two, which is incredibly disheartening. My left, luckily, feels "normal," (I've forgotten what normal feels like after nearly half a year of pain) so we've stopped treatment on it.
The treatment that I'm getting... As I mentioned before, I left the chiropractor who had been treating me for a few months... He was doing stim and a light amount of ultrasound to no effect. I'm now seeing Paul Glodzik, a chiropractic doctor who is seemingly 100% devoted to adult athletes. This is good; he understands the athlete, and is practitioner of some of the latest and greatest techniques. I had been receiving tips from Max Lockwood, local elite runner, and Georgetown Running Company owner to visit him, and finally Dr. Paul came in to chat with our trainees about injuries and injury prevention so I decided it was time to introduce myself and set something up.
We started with Active Release Techniques, which basically was him pinning each tendon (with his thumb) in several places and then forcing my leg through full motion. He's also a professional rugby player... I was sweating in pain, and he was sweating in exertion... That's how tight my hamstrings are. After a few visits, we weren't seeing any improvement so we moved on...
The Graston Technique is yet another state-of-the-art sports injury treatment technique, and it was our next step. We're now cooking with fire. The quick of it is that I'm basically rubbed so hard with a metal pole over and over again that all the tissue turns into jello and rebuilds, but correctly this time. After the first treatment, it took a good five days before the bruises faded and my leg didn't hurt [from the treatment]. Unfortunately, after three days or so the pain [from injury] was back and I was as tight as ever... Also unfortunate, it was a holiday week so I couldn't seen him for another week. Yesterday was the second treatment. Based on how I was feeling, the thought is that we gave me too much time to heal back up before giving another shock to the system and getting deeper. Today aside from the soreness from the treatment, I've been feeling fairly loose. I even ran down to the store and back (quarter mile)! Super unfortunate, it's another holiday week and they're moving offices so I can't see him again for another week... Oh well, eventually we'll get to meet two times in a week and hopefully then we'll start seeing some major progress.
Athletically I have been doing nothing, and the scale shows. It's too cold to go on lengthy bike rides, our work gym is awful, and I can only swim so much... Tomorrow I'm going to bite the bullet and sign up at Gold's in Ballston. Not excited about it as I've got a bad taste in my mouth about that location, but it's closest to home, work, and better than my other options. I'd really like to get back to the rock gym, but a taut hamstring doesn't lend itself to climbing too well AND I don't have anybody to go with. Blech.
On the running front, I can tell I'm likely not running at all this winter. Major bummer... Running more or less defined me... I'll have not done it in nearly half a year. I'm extra worried that my scheduled marathon, Steamtown, will not be a Boston bid, but instead just a "get through it." It isn't until October, but marathon training is four months, I need a three month solid base before jumping into that, and I'd say I've lost at least another three months of fitness or so... Yep, that means I'd likely need to get going tomorrow to give it a serious shot. Not happy. I'm also unable to compete for the club racing series, which I've won biannually three straight times now.
If things never improve, I'll likely take up mountain bike racing. I've done it before and thoroughly enjoy it. Once I got the skills down, I think I might be pretty decent as well given my strong cardio background.
If you don't follow The Big Picture, a regularly updated feature from the Boston Globe, you should start. Their subject this week was "2009 in photos," a 3-part series. Some really awesome stuff:
