Power of the Gu

I hadn't run since last Tuesday... shame on me. Considering I didn't leave the house on Sunday, I was pretty upset at myself. So I had to run today. We're swamped with assignments tonight, so I woke up a few minutes early today and went for a jog before work.

I didn't eat very well yesterday, some chicken and rice, a couple links of sausage on the golf course, and a bowl of cheeze-it's late last night. Oh, and a Heath Ice Cream bar. (It was free during that golf tournament... that means I have to have one) So I was a little worried how the run this morning would go.

I downed a packet of Gu (a small packet of caffeine and carbs) and hit the road. I was a little stiff to begin and my legs felt like logs. But after about a half mile, I got into my groove. And at the 2-mile point, I felt like a million bucks. I finished the last mile faster than the first.

Here's what my run looked like in the form of a graph. It's a little miss leading because I pretty much kept the same pace throughout the run... but when you shrink it down like this, it looks like slowed down, sped up, slowed down... etc.



So what's cool about this? Well, I ran my 300th mile this morning. That's probably a little bit off since a few of my runs didn't register with Nike+ for some reason. But it's still pretty cool to break the 300 mile point. And after my run, Paula Radcliffe (fresh off her NYC Marathon victory) came on my iPod and said I set a new personal best for the mile. Sweet.

The rest of the day should be a breeze now.

Where to put the Cheese

This afternoon, I sent Nabil an email with a few predictions on the High School basketball game I had to photograph. The regular season tipped off tonight with a match up between the last two state runner-ups. Ellender lost in Overtime of the state champ game two seasons ago. And H.L. Bourgeois became the Cinderella team and lost in the finals last season.

I told Nabil that HL would shoot 37 three-pointers. And Ellender would dunk twice.

I got much more than that.

I'm not quite sure how many Three pointers HL shot, but I'm guessing it's more than you'd ever imagine a high school team would shoot. And what's amazing is that they make most of them. Here's the HL guard pulling up for a quick jumper... from at least 25 feet out. There was plenty of time on the clock. I guess he figured he was open so why not shoot the J. He made it. If I were a coach, this would drive me crazy... but he scored 42 of their 85 points so what can you say?


And there were a few dunks... I'm pretty sure this is the same kid from my earlier post. I would have given almost anything to be able to do this in High School.


But I got a lot more than a asked for tonight. I haven't kept track, but it seems every basketball game I cover, I see something I've never seen before. It might be someone famous, it might be an amazing play, it might be a crazy fan... there always seems to be something that catches me off guard.

And tonight... four Technical fouls in one quarter. Two by one coach. Meaning he was tossed from the game. I've never seen a coach tossed from a high school game before. He didn't do anything outrageous, he just said something to the Ref that the Ref didn't like... twice. The other two fouls were from a player saying something to a ref, and another player hanging on the rim a little to long.


So he sat out int he hallway for the rest of the game.


And of course, it was a physical game. And that makes for fun photos.



So Nabil... there you go. Two dunks, a bunch of threes and four technical fouls. I think that means you have to come down here and watch some games for yourself. HL serves up an amazing batch of nachos. They put the cheese in the little spot for cheese AND on the chips. For only two bucks!

And now for something completely different...

I also shot a charity golf tournament this afternoon. Pretty boring for the most part. I got better photos of the setting sun and gnats than I did of any golf action. Yea, that's a crap load of little bugs flying around.

State volleyball

First of all... Congrats to the E. D. White volleyball team for
winning state. They've made it to the finals the last five years, and
lost each time. Until tonight.

I finished up work, ate the free chicken in the coaches room, and
decided to stick around and watch the finals of another division. I
have no clue who's playing but it's good volleyball so it's fun to
watch.

My other options were driving home or standing in the lobby, crowd
around the tv with the dads and watch whatever football game is on.

I might head back into the coaches room for some bread pudding here in
a bit. It's good, but has too many raisns to be really good.

Stuck

Look who I met this morning as I left my house for work...

This little fella was stuck in the area outside my front door. He
(she?) must have somehow flew up the stairs and couldn't figure out
how to get back down.

I tried to shoo him back down but he kept going to the screen window.

Jamboree

Let the High School basketball season begin!

Here are a couple shots from the boys basketball Jamboree... a pre-season scrimmage of local teams.

Tonight happened to match up the biggest rivals in the town, Terrebonne and Ellender. Had it been a regular season game, there would have been zero empty seats and all corners of the gym would be filled with standing room only. But since most of the Terrebonne team is still playing football, it wasn't as hyped at usual.... but it was still fun to watch.

This area has some amazing basketball talent for some reason, and it makes High School ball awesome to watch. You'll have solid teams and of course a few showboats that like to flaunt what they can do. Makes the games fun to attend.

We've had a team in the state finals the last three years.

I really wanted some nachos from the concession stand tonight, but the line was always way to long. So, I'm starving right now and am going to get something to eat.

Anyway, here are a few shots from tonight. A dunk and a funky, from the hip, scoop-type lay-up thing.

Waiting

Well, the last couple mornings have been a little rocky.

Yesterday, my first day back from an awesome vacation, my car battery
died. It was an "18 month" battery and it turned 19 while I was gone.
So I spent the morning in the wall mart area.

And this morning I had to get some blood work done at the hospital.
Everything went smooth until I got to the lab. The waiting room was
full so I'm staking in the back watching the price is right. $.80 won
a trip to the second showcase showdown. There's one seat open, but I
wouldn't be able to see the TV.

Other than the battery and blood work, things are great.

I think I'm next

Got my fix

Every time I come home, I have to stop at a Hardees to get a hot ham
and cheese sandwich. There aren't many Hardees around houma.

So mom, erma and I stopped at the turnpike hardees so I could get my
ham and cheese fix.

I'm better now that I've had my hot ham and cheese.

Geddy

Geddy sleeping downstairs

A big little apple update

Thought I'd post a few photos and thoughts from the trip as I watch 300.

It's been an awesome trip so far, other than the score of the KSU vs KU game of course.

The weekend was awesome. Friday night, Ben, Jess and I went out for dinner and crashed early. Saturday, we went to Lawrence for the KU game. Looking back, I'm glad we didn't get tickets. We had a blast hanging out on "the hill" The weather was fantastic, the game was not. I brought a few dozen purple beads with me to the game. We had a great time tossing beads to the KSU fans before the game.


That night we met up with Bradley who was in town for a workshop, John and Eric, a friend of Ben's. We had a few beers and way to much pizza. It was dubbed "Ben's bachelor party" but really didn't live up to the bachelor party stereotype. But it was still fun.

I came home with John on Sunday morning after an awesome breakfast of homemade biscuits and gravy.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week have been really laid back for me. Sleeping in, going for a couple jogs and just kicking it in my parents' comfy leather couch.

I visited my grandparents who recently moved into a new apartment in a retirement community. They have an awesome view from their balcony. This shot is looking East.



Yesterday, mom took me on a tour of the tornado damage. It was pretty impressive to see the track of the tornado. A few of my high school buddies had quite a bit of damage to their homes. The tornado first touched down near Warner Park, where I ran cross country races back in the day. So mom and I took a little stroll through the park. It's a little chunk of tall grass prairie in the middle of growing neighborhoods.


Tonight, after a dinner at the new Kites Bar and Grill (which is filled with awesome, historic KSU sports photos) dad and I went to the KSU vs OU volleyball game. It was cool to clap along to the fight song, do the Wabash and see the Cats get a win. We ran into and sat with long-time family friends, the Robinsons. So that was cool to catch up with them.


I've got some video of the game winning point and the crowd doing the Wabash, but I don't feel like waiting for it to finish uploading to YouTube. Maybe next post.

Next up on the trip... a trip to campus to talk to some classes and show some work from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. And after that, it's off to KC for all the wedding festivities.

Cool, back to watching 300. I really have no clue what's going on right now, but it's still a pretty cool flick.

Horray fall

I miss real falls. Although it was 85 today and didn't feel like fall.
At least it still looks like fall.