Oscar, Oscar, Give Me The News...

Hello all! Here we are in the calm between two storms. Predictions that I'm hearing are that we'll be getting 8 to 14 inches by Friday. Maybe with this storm, since it won't be over the weekend this time, will give kids a snow day. Gotta love the snow days. They were some of my favorite days as a kid, many great memories. I remember getting out of bed and watching the school closings scroll across the bottom of the TV just praying that my school would be on the list. How sweet it was...

Ok, so someone asked me at work who is it that is doing the blogging, Julie or Pat? They get confused when I sometimes say "I" and other times say "we". So, to clear this up, let me say that when I say "I" I mean "me" and when I say "we" I mean "us". Hope this makes things clearer.

Had a spin class tonight followed by an aggressive aerobic workout. The half-hour spin went pretty well - I brought my cycle shoes this week so my feet didn't hurt as much. But I got my butt kicked in the "stations" drills. Started out with lunges, then went to push-ups, followed by an agility course using steps, then weights, followed by sprints, with no rest in between. We'd do one round through the stations, get together as a group and do some funky aerobic stuff, do the stations again, and ended with core work. Yowza. Gasping for breath at the end but it was worth it. Quite a feeling of accomplishment at the end of it all. Thanks Ingrid and Mike!

Regarding the Oscars the other night, aren't films required to be truthful in order to be called documentaries? Non-fiction, right? Ok, that's what I thought.

Short post. It's time to hit the shower and crawl into bed. Peace. And may the Schwartz be with you.

Lazy Eye

Why is it that Sunday night always seems to come so fast?

Had a great weekend. Spent all day Saturday at the Wine and Food Experience at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Tried a LOT of wine, beer and food - especially cheese. Found some new favorites in each and had a great time with friends Jen and Marc. The snow was just starting when we drove downtown and by the time we left to come home on Sunday afternoon it had pretty much stopped. We went to the King & I Thai restaurant with another couple and had a great time, ate some more, drank some more. (That was pretty much the theme of the day.)

We spent the night downtown at the Hyatt, got up Sunday morning, had some breakfast and went down to the pool. We practiced our drills, and shortly after starting, a piece of the ceiling fell from about 25 feet above the pool. Luckily, no one else was in there so no one got hurt. We finished our drills and headed home. We're now watching the Oscars as we wind down from the busy weekend. Ellen does a great job as host of the show. I'll comment on the Oscars later I'm sure. Please, try to keep a cap on your anticipation. HA!

I must admit I'm shocked that we actually got the snow they were all predicting. They were saying on the news that the Chanhassen weather station had recorded over 11 inches of snow, which is about 3 miles from our house. We have spots in the yard with no snow and other spots have drifts more than 3 feet deep. The girls love to play in the snow so they are enjoying themselves!

Song of the week is "Lazy Eye" by Silversun Pickups. Check it out. Love it.

Time to head off to bed. Everyone have a great week!

Ride 'em Cowboy

Ran for a little more than a half-hour last night, then made dinner. Did some shake 'n bake (and I helped!) on some pork chops and then proceeded to wait forever for them to bake. These have to be the thickest pork chops EVER CREATED FOR MAN TO EAT. Well, maybe THAT'S an exaggeration but they were thick. Watched the final episode of the 3-part "ferry" series on Grey's Anatomy (no spoilers here so feel free to continue reading) and must admit I was a little disappointed. I thought the first two were much better. I just can't believe the whole cast is dead and the hospital burned to the ground. Ooops, sorry if you haven't seen it.

News blip: USC hockey goalie Mickey Meyer rode his stick like a horse, dropped his pants, mooned the crowd and slapped his buttocks during a game against BYU last Saturday after he got fed up with the referees.

Looks like a doozy of a storm coming. If I was still in school I would be SOOOOOOO pissed!! The only thing worse than no snow is snow over a weekend so you don't miss school. What's up with that?!

A local Eden Prairie company was in the paper about their bring-your-pooch-to-work day. Julie has been wanting to do that. Sounds like a GREAT idea.

Everyone have a wonderful Friday and enjoy the snow this weekend. We'll chat at ya' later.

Brewing Storm

Looks like we've got a decent storm brewing for this weekend - I'll believe it when I see it. There's always something that seems to happen to keep the big snow from hitting here. We'll see...

Last night was our swim, and while we thought our arms and legs would feel like lead it wasn't too bad. The legs hurt some (but only because I'm kicking wrong) but I think we're both seeing some improvement each week. We did some one-on-one with the coaches so they could tell us what areas of our stroke we needed to work on for the next week.

Coach Ingrid shared a mission moment with us before we started. We have a woman who just joined the team and Ingrid was talking to her after the spin last night. The woman said she would not be at very many team trainings because she is a single mother and it's difficult for her to have any free time. She has 4 children and one of them was born with spina bifida, has no ability to swallow, and must be fed through a G-Tube. There is not a moment in the day that her daughter can be left alone so taking a shower isn't possible without another adult to be with her daughter, let alone going to training. It also came out in the conversation that the woman's husband committed suicide last year. Throughout the conversation Ingrid was trying to find out what the woman's connection was to leukemia and lymphoma only to find out that there isn't one. This wonderful woman signed up because she wants to give something back, she wants to help others. Amazing. Team In Training is full of people like her, beautiful people who want to push themselves to do more than they thought they ever could, all while helping those less fortunate.

GO TEAM!!!!!

How ya' feelin'?!

Wow, what a workout last night!

Started with a half-hour spin. Coach Mike led us through a fun ride that never left the (interesting? cozy? dungeonous?) confines of what used to be a racquetball court. Mike must have been talking to Safety Bob about music selection because my beloved "Le Disko" made an appearance!

Now, had we stopped at just the spin it would have been pretty good, but the fun was only beginning. Upon exiting the spin room/racquetball court/dungeon we went to the aerobics room where Coach Ingrid put us through a tough, fast-paced workout. Let's just say I'm not Joe Flexible ("I'm not Joe Flexible", very good) but that didn't stop me from attempting some of the moves that Igrid had us doing. As I looked around the room (I was slowly spinning to the ground right before I blacked out) I noticed most of the others were not having as hard a time as I was; although I shouldn't sell myself short, every time she'd say "take a second and drink some water" I was all over it. I got that move DOWN!

When it was all said and done we had a very good hour-long workout, and we're actually not feeling that bad this morning. Tonight is the swim. Looking forward to it. Really, we are. :-)

Heading Home

After a long, courageous battle with cancer Laura Jahnke passed away this evening in her home surrounded by her loved ones. She was a beautiful, strong, caring woman who never let the cancer diminish her spirit or faith. She was an inspiration to all who knew her and followed her and will be deeply missed. Please continue to pray for Laura's family and friends as they go through these difficult times.

One of the many people touched by Laura reminded us of a post that Laura herself made in early 2006. I remember first reading this post and was touched and humbled. I've pasted it below.

"I am trusting in the Lord through all of this. He is always by my side and I know he has some amazing plan for my life. He has always been able to turn this bad for good, and I know it will happen again. So many amazing things have come out of the past 4 1/2 years, no matter how hard they were, every moment was worth it. I have been so blessed with the people I have met and things I've had the opportunity and the people whose lives I've touched. I look forward to what lies ahead because I truly believe that you can be joyful through every circumstance. I know there will be hard times, but the good always outweighs the bad...and I will focus on the good times. When I look back on my life, I honestly have a hard time remembering the bad. I remember snow days rather [than] chemistry tests...friends rather than enemies...and laughter rather than tears. It is much more fun to go through life looking at it with a glass that is half-full. So, that's what I'll do and I'll keep fighting with a smile on my face!"

Laura, you were amazing and beautiful. May we all strive to live our days as passionately as you did.

Laura Update

There's not much to say today. We continue to pray for Laura Jahnke. I have copied and pasted the latest journal entry from her Caring Bridge website. Please pray for Laura and her family as she passes through these final stages. The entry below was written by Laura's mother, Merilee. God bless.

Sunday, February 18, 2007 11:28 AM CST
Dear Friends and Family,

Laura's health has deteriorated dramatically over the last 18 hours. We've had to increase her IV pain meds from 35 mg per hour - to 55 mg per hour. We've also had to add 2 more IV drugs to try and keep her comfortable. She is no longer able to take any meds by mouth, and they switched the oxygen to 100. It was a very long a difficult night.

Matt, Laura's Hospice nurse, has been here multiple times since yesterday evening.

Laura is not resting comfortably - so please pray for peace and and a pain free end to this journey.

With love and blessings,
Merilee

Feel the Burrrrrrrnnn

What a day.

It all started with the alarm going off at 6:07 AM. Headed over to Lake Calhoun for our 8 AM team run. Had a pretty good turnout, thinking at least 50 were there. The temps were good, it was just the wind that made it a little cooler. Since it was the first team run (last week's was cancelled due to cold temps) we just ran (and walked) for about a half hour. Once we were sufficiently cold, and after waiting for all the runners to get back in, we got in the car and headed over to the Tahoe team's spin class.

For the most part we had the same crowd at the spin as last week, plus a new guy who came to try it out. Glad he did! He signed up on the spot! He has a connection to the cause with a friend of his just recently being diagnosed with leukemia. It was another good workout, the legs were definitely feeling it!

Post spin we headed over to Jimmy John's for some much needed nourishment and then went to Marathon Sports to buy some new shoes. Nothing like new kicks to get the legs energized and ready for more!

This evening we went to dinner at Pablo's Mexican Restaurant in Shakopee and then went to a movie. Saw "Music and Lyrics" which was a pretty good movie. Always been a fan of Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. Brad Garrett was in it as well which was a nice surprise. We recommend it.

Pretty wiped so we're heading to bed. Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. Everyone have a great Sunday.

The Fighter

Not much new tonight. Been thinking a lot about Laura this week (see prayer request below) and praying that God gives her and her family the strength and comfort they need. It's truly a blessing when you read through the guest book and witness how many lives she has touched. God bless you, Laura. If the rest of us could be HALF the person you are we'd be doing alright.

Julie and I took a day off from our tri training, although Julie did go to a Pilates class. Tomorrow we run at 8 AM and spin at 10 AM. After that we hope to get over to Marathon Sports and buy some new shoes, a training essential that we're in desperate need of. Our current shoes have lost their bounce.

The temps outside are finally starting to warm up a little - a downright heat wave! Tomorrow should be close to 20! Who'da thunk that 20 would feel so balmy? Should be great weather to run, although may be a bit windy.

Julie was just telling me there was a woman on the Today show this morning who has had the hiccups non-stop for 3 weeks. 3 weeks!! I get annoyed if they last 5 minutes! Apparently the doctors don't know what is causing it. She needs Valium just to try and get some sleep at night. Can't imagine. The freaky thing is that the hiccups stop when she's talking. Weird.

I mentioned TV commercials in my previous post and would be remiss if I didn't mention how irritating the Jared commercials are. "He went to Jared!" "He went to Jared?" "He went to Jared!" For this reason alone I shall never step foot in the place. I can't believe there would be anyone out there who LIKES these commercials...

Short post today. Want to get to bed and get a decent night's sleep. Y'all come back now, ya' hear?

Jump Jump

Not much new to say today, sitting here staring at a blinking cursor. Guess today's post will be just random thoughts....

We have two dogs, Molson and Gracie. Molson is a Golden Retriever (named after the beer Molson Golden, of course) and Gracie is a black lab/collie mix. They both are fixated on eating ice when we let them out. It gets annoying when you're waiting for them to do their business. I just don't get what the big draw is.

Seven out of ten people make up 70% of the world's population.

Found out that you can download books on tape from the library website and listen to them on your mp3 player. That's pretty cool. Never listened to a book on tape, or cd, or whatever. I have many books that I've purchased over the years that I haven't read yet. Julie is much better at reading than I am, although neither of us have had the time lately to do it.

Love IKEA. And whoever makes the Target commercials does a great job. I'm always impressed with them. Still get really annoyed with the Menard's commercials.

Sex is the number one cause of teenage pregnancy.

There have been a lot of coyote sightings around work lately. Our marketing department got quite a few shots of one a couple weeks ago, about 20 feet from our building laying by a tree. Is it Ki-Ote or Ki-O-Tee? Poh-tay-toe or poh-tah-toe? Is it "the girl with kaleidoscope eyes" or "the girl with colitis goes by"?

Wasn't it Kriss Kross that wore their clothes backwards? I may do that one day. Maybe on a Tuesday. I'll do it on a Tuesday with Morrie.

Prefer Letterman to Leno. Some say Letterman's gotten soft. I don't know about that, but his hair is thinning.

So Bruce Willis and Demi Moore have a kid named Rumor? I guess one of their other kids asked where the remote for the TV was and Demi said "Rumor has it."

Speaking of rumors, I guess Prince has changed a lot of the lyrics in some if his songs that were, shall we say, a tad bit naughty. I guess he's replaced the words with more religious lyrics. It may be a lost cause - I think he's naughty by nature.

Not that I dislike Leno, mind you. Some of Leno's skits are funnier, but I just like Dave better. Julie can't stand Paul Shafer. I like Paul - he's kind of goofy. I think we have a lot in common, and not just the goofiness. Like myself, Paul has a mother. He also was instrumental (HA! Get it?!) in Cyndi Lauper's "She's So Unusual" album. He almost has as much rhythm as Justin Timberlake, almost.

If you're not yet married, will you play "The Hokie Pokie" at your reception? After all, it IS what it's all about.

One of our mentors with TNT is thinking of doing a fundraiser where you make a donation and get to pick which part of his body is waxed. Not kidding. Just gives me visions of "The 40 Year-Old Virgin", and one of the funniest scenes ever put on film.

By the way, I think it's "Ky-Ote".

Happy Valentine's Day

It's been a crazy week, busy with meetings, training and meeting up with friends.

Tonight was our swim training. Learned a few modifications on our technique. Still trying to get the whole breathing thing down, but that will come with more time in the pool. We had a good turnout and shared some mission moments to remind us why we're here and why we're raising this much-needed money. Yesterday we went to Life Time and rode the bike for a while before heading out to dinner with the walk team from Phoenix. It was good to see our friends again.

There have been many things I've seen over the last few days that I've wanted to put in the blog. I'll just mention some of the ones that particularly caught my eye.

First, some friends of ours went ice fishing this past Saturday. One thing that should be noted is that the only one that is the "outdoorsy" type is Chuck - the one proudly holding the fish in the picture below. They sent us this picture and I thought the caption below it was priceless. That and Chandler's crooked face mask (the boy in the picture) had me laughing for quite a while.

The caption below the picture said about Chandler: "He even helped to pull it in... someday he may even touch the fish." Priceless!! You go Chandler!!

Random thought: It occurred to me that if I had an autographed picture of Jerry Mathers that in my will, when I'm making my list of who gets what, I'd put "Autographed picture of Jerry Mathers: Please leave it to Beaver."

Yet again someone else gets all the fun. All the family folk and friends in Ohio are enjoying Mother Nature's present of a blizzard. For some reason, tho, no one there seems to be enjoying it. Just don't get what's not to love about 12+ inches of snow and white-out conditions.

An appropriate new song for Valentine's Day - "I Think I'm In Love" by Beck. Been hearing that a lot lately. Pretty cool song.

If you could do any job you wanted to what would you do? Before you answer, it has to be a job outdoors. I often look out the window at work during the summer and think it would be cool and relatively stress free to cut grass for a living. Although, the only days you probably get off would be when it's raining. That would stink.

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day. All you need is love. Love is all you need. Love, love, love.

Prayers Needed

I have a couple of prayer requests to send out to the masses. Please do what you can to pray for and support these individuals and their families.

Laura is the daughter of a gentleman I work with. She has been bravely fighting cancer the last few years and is going through a very difficult time. Click here for her Caring Bridge website. She is an amazing woman.

My other prayer request is for Willie. He's having experimental surgery to remove cancer from the junction of his esophagus and stomach on February 20th.

Thanks so much for your support.

Crazy

Went to Life Time today and did 30 minutes on the treadmill (run/walk) and did some core work. It was a good day, and our butts are still sore from the spin class yesterday. We are very much in need of new shoes and will probably buy them this weekend at Marathon Sports. Great place to go if you ever need running shoes - they know exactly what to look for in your mechanics so you get the right shoe for you. 50th and Penn. Check 'em out.

Finished entering the roughly 250 email addresses for all our participants in TNT this season. Hopefully we'll get another 100 to sign up in the next few weeks. We've got a good group so far and an excellent corp of mentors, staff and coaches. This is going to be a great season. I can feel it!

I just can't stop listening to "Le Disko" (see previous post). I must listen to it at least 10 times a day, not sure why, just one of those songs that gets under your skin. Been watching the Grammys on and off - the set with Corinne Bailey Rae, John Legend and John Mayer was pretty cool. Not sure I much cared for country artists doing Eagles songs. Justin Timberlake was good, and how can you not mention the Police! We will definitely be going to see them if they come through MN. I also thought the slowed down version that Gnarls Barkley did of their song "Crazy" was pretty good. Glad I missed the Dixie Chicks.

Going the Distance

Today was a good day, starting with sleeping in until 8 AM. Gotta like that!

Went to the first spin class for the Tahoe team and had a great turnout. Lucy, the team honoree, and her father Jeff came to the class for moral support and to generally put a smile on all our faces. She is incredibly cute! She got some gifts from a couple of people on the team and hammed it up for the camera. Thanks to Lucy and Jeff for coming out!

The spin class went really well, got in a great workout. Thanks to Coach Bob for putting "Le Disko" on the play list, although Julie was NOT at all happy with "Going the Distance". Don't know why she doesn't like that song. We can tell we haven't been on a bike in a few months - needless to say our hinies are hurtin'! Everyone on the team did really well for the first team training and left with smiles. Way to go team!

It's amazing how quickly you get used to the cold weather. We were out earlier and it was around 8 degrees and it felt downright balmy! I was almost looking for some shorts and sandals to put on! The below-average temps will be around for most of next week, but by then we'll be halfway through February and closer to March. Now typically March would mean spring but from what I understand March is the snowiest month of the year. I'm sure we'll get to the warm weather eventually.

I got a way-cool PowerPoint slide this week from a guy at work. It's a picture that contains the names of 70+ artist/bands. For example, there is a hole in the street which represents the band "Hole". It's been a lot of fun going through the picture trying to decipher the various images and figuring out the names. So far I've found about 50 of the 70 bands, so I'm doing pretty well. If you're interested in giving it a shot let me know.

TGIF

Been a quiet day today. We got home from work, went over to Life Time and swam, practiced our drills, and then treated ourselves to a bit o' time in the hot tub. Even after just one team training we're already noticing a difference! The anticipation builds...

Due to the cold weather conditions they cancelled our team run for Saturday morning. I guess that's good and bad. It will be nice to sleep in a little and yet it would have been good to get that first team run under the belt. Don't want anybody with frostbite tho... Instead of the run tomorrow we'll go to the Tahoe spin class and move the run to Sunday. The one nice thing about training for a tri is that the workouts are varied, which is cool.

Just a short post today. Tired from a busy week. Need to head to bed for a good night's sleep. Get the battery recharged for the spin class tomorrow! Y'all have a great weekend!

Chasing Cars

Before we get started, I must correct my earlier post (from Tuesday I believe) where I said we were training for our first marathon. NOT! We're training for our first TRIathlon!! I'm sure you all knew that anyway, guess I just am stuck in the marathon mind set!

Now to serious business... Why do some people have ALL the fun?! Check out this link which will take you to a story about a couple of towns in upstate New York that have received over 6 FEET of snow since Sunday!! And they have 2 more feet coming by tomorrow! Can you imagine that? How freakin' cool would THAT be?! The only drawback would be that I'd have to shovel a place for the girls to do their business. I think they'd freak.

We've started collecting old/used cell phones for a fundraiser. If you have any old cell phones you'd like to get rid of please let us know! Also, if you know of a good place to put out collection boxes (banks, coffee shops, work, etc) let us know that as well. We've got a half-dozen or so collection boxes that we can scatter around town. It all goes to a great cause!

Another cool song that I really get into when it's on (and it's been out a while) is "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol. Such as simple, beautiful song with some lyrics that just get me.
"If I lay here / If I just lay here / Would you lie with me and just forget the world? / Forget what we're told / Before we get too old / Show me a garden that's bursting into life" Such a peaceful idea. Sometimes you just need to take a break, relax, and enjoy life. It offers so much, if you choose to live it.

I guess that's one of the many reasons we are so passionate about TNT. There are so few things in life that give back WAY more than you put in, and TNT is one of them. We're so proud to be involved with this organization, so blessed to have met the fantastic, beautiful people that we have, so inspired by the patients and their families, so amazed at what we've been able to accomplish on both a physical and emotional level. Sometimes life presents you with an opportunity to do more than you ever think you're capable of doing, to push yourself beyond what you think your limits are, to be part of something so much bigger than anything you've been part of before, and when you're at that place and you're living life to it's fullest - that's when you need to step back and thank God for where you are and the blessings you have. That is the beauty of TNT.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being you.

Pimp my Potty???

Ok, Julie just yelled from the other room that on WCCO they just had a story called "Pimp My Potty". Say what? Apparently, Roto Rooter is giving away a pimped out bathroom, complete with an XBox, flat-screen tv, refrigerator, and stationary bike - all to be used WHEN YOU'RE ON THE CAN!!! All Julie could say was "Good Lord, Pat, you'd never leave the bathroom..." This is what I was able to find on line. http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/potty/ What will they think of next!

Just breathe.....

Tonight was our first team training and it was swimming, our weakest area. Needless to say we were a tad bit on the nervous side but once we got in the water (which must have been a balmy 60 degrees) things went pretty well. We learned some drills, how it's better to inhale when your head is OUT of the water, and that the water in your water bottle tastes better than the pool water. Right now, the body is better built for cannon balls than long distance swimming, but I think we saw some promising signs tonight. Now we'll see how the run goes on Saturday....

By the way, there's nothing quite like a cold pool, sub-zero temps outside, and a bunch of pasty Minnesotans to make you long for summer! HA! But for a group of beginner swimmers we all did pretty well!

These last couple weeks we've been going non-stop. Thursday is an off-day and we're looking forward to it!

Ready to Rock!

Tonight we had our first Tri team meeting and we are SOOO psyched for the season!! We are pumped up and ready to go!

After an inspirational speech from our Team Honoree, Betsy Lucas, we got down to business with Coach Ingrid and Assistant Coach Mike. It is such a blessing to have Ingrid and Mike and our great mentors helping us complete our first marathon. There is no way we are not going to do this! GO TEAM!!!

Tomorrow is our first team swim and Saturday will be our first team run. Not our strongest aspects of the tri so we're anxious to get going. We tried on our tri suits today so they could be ordered and, well, let's just say it's plenty of motivation for us to get into shape!! ;-)

As a fundraiser Julie and I will be selling Team In Training cookbooks for $20 each with 100% of the profit going to the cause. These were beautifully and professionally done by one of our super-mentors, Suzanne Gilbert. Way to go Suzanne! If you would like to purchase a cookbook (chuck full of awesome recipes I must say) then please let either Julie or me know. Thanks for your support!!

We are also collecting used cell phones, so if you've got some laying around the house let us know and we'll take them off your hands!

It's a short post tonight - gotta get to bed. We'll be chatting at ya' later.

Eating Air

I believe we're now at 65+ straight hours below zero and counting....

I've added a new link. It's to my nephew's website. He's an aspiring movie director and has some really cool stuff that he's created and posted on his website. My favorite so far is a piece called "Sylvan" - about half-way down on his home page. If you have trouble viewing it you might be able to watch it on YouTube. Pretty cool! Very proud of him. Way to go Brian!

We received a wonderful gift in the mail today from my Godson Derek. He lives in Maumee, OH, and he created a great piece called "My Favorite Place", written and illustrated by Derek Huddleston. In it he explains why Minnesota is his favorite place because his friends live there and his favorite dogs live there. My favorite part is where he says "At Minnesota I can eat cookies and food and water and air and drink." What else do you need?! Thank you, Derek!

I've had many questions on where "Crash 'n' Numb Toes" comes from, so I'll spill the beans. I, Patrick, am "Crash". During one day of training for our century ride last Fall I got a flat tire and crashed twice. It was NOT a good day; however, the fantastic burger and a few glasses of beer at Shaw's helped to ease the pain and soothe the ego. Julie is "Numb Toes". Also during our training for the century ride Julie would often comment on our long rides that her toes would go numb. Not really sure what was causing it, but I would equate it to attempting to eat when you can't feel the fork you're holding. Weird. Anti-climactic, huh?

Peace out.

Seconds

Random thoughts...

Here it is the end of the weekend, and a cold one at that! Why is it that the amount of time it takes for a dog to do it's business is directly related to the weather? Beautiful day? Done in no time. 7 below zero? They take their own sweet time!

I was just on Kimmi's blog (see the link to the right - Captain Cartwheel) and was so excited to find out she's a fellow BRUCE fan!! Oh, Julie will just roll her eyes when she hears that! However, Julie will be happy to know there is someone else who I can go to his concerts with. That gets her off the hook on that one!

This week Julie and I begin training for the Life Time Fitness Triathlon with the Team In Training program. (http://www.teamintraining.org) This will be our first triathlon. We've done 3 marathons, a 1/2 marathon and a century ride, so completing this event will give us the triple crown! Neither of us are strong swimmers and we couldn't run around the block if we had to (our marathons and half-marathon were as walkers) but we know we'll be crossing that finish line in July. We met the rest of our teammates yesterday at the kick-off party - what a blast! We have such incredible coaches and a top-notch support system! We can tell already that this is going to be a wonderful season and many more great friendships will be created. We're nervous but excited to get started!

Two songs I've heard the last couple weeks that I thought were pretty cool - "Le Disko" by Shiny Toy Guns and "Crazy" by Shawn Colvin. The Shawn Colvin is an acoustic cover of the song by Gnarls Barkley. Check them out - I think you'll find them interesting.

So, what's the deal on the name of our blog? Well, for this post I'll just say that I am "Crash" and Julie is "Numb Toes". More details to follow...

Everyone have a great week! And try to stay warm...

Hello. Is there anybody out there?

Hello, everyone!

Welcome to what will hopefully be an interesting little blog, one that may inspire you, make you laugh, make you cry, make you think, and, if all goes well, won't make you feel nauseous. We're truly not sure how this will work or if anyone will really pay attention, but we thought we'd give the diary of the 21st century a try.

We can't promise much beyond the fact that we'll try to make your trip to this site worth your while. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know what works and what doesn't work, what you enjoyed and what you didn't care for.

If you're curious where the name of the blog comes from you'll have to check back. We'll save that for another post. I know, it's lame, but maybe it will make you come back a second time.

P.S. We haven't yet figured out how to post a picture but we're working on it!