Sweat Pants

Who knew that six weeks of not running wouldn't be enough to heal my broken knees? I thought six weeks would have been plenty. I ran twice this past weekend. Two miles each time. Once by myself and once with Liz and Zane. Each time, about a 1/2 mile into it, my knees started aching. My right knee especially bothered me. The stabbing wasn't as strong as it was going up Heartbreak Hill, but it was definitely uncomfortable. Surprisingly, after about two miles, when I was about to finish up, the stabbing turned into a dull ache. I'm not sure what this means. Are my knees sore because of non-use? Can I run through this? I don't really know. I'm going to run every other day this week for two to three miles each and see how it goes. I need to do this, as even my fat pants are getting too tight. I might need to start wearing sweat pants to work. Sweet elastic.

Happy Birthday Liz!

28 spankings for you!

I like exclamation points!

Oppressed Youth

Another extremely interesting and entertaining subway ride. I'm on my way home from school at about 9:30pm. School was ok, but I can already tell it's going to be a long summer. If I have to listen to another story from the NYSE specialist in our class, I'm going to be ill. Inventory management just isn't that exciting.

Ok, back to the subway. The 6 train to Grand Central. At 23rd Street, two young black guys get on, dressed interestingly enough, like hardcore punks. Torn up jeans, Megadeath patches, chains glued their pants and jackets, and of course the obligatory combat boots. However, they were carrying an 80s style ghetto blaster. As soon as they stepped on to the train and the doors closed, they both yelled, "Hey, if the mother f-ing hip hop guys can do it, so can we." Then they pressed play on their ghetto blaster and out forth spewed Testament and Slayer-like speed metal. The guys then proceeded to bob their heads in rhythmn to I'm not sure what and play their air guitars. All the way to Grand Central.

In addition, sitting three feet across from these metalheads was a sunburned family from Kansas, with their shorts up to their waists and Guggenheim posters in hand. Prior to our young friends boarding the subway, they were laughing, having a good time, telling everyone who would listen that "...they weren't from here..." (no kidding), and falling all over the train every time it stopped, started, or turned. Well, once Living Colour boarded, the fun stopped. They huddled, stopped talking, and started emitting tourist fear pheromones. You'd have thought they were back in Wichita at the height of the BTK madness.

For all you Family Guy fans out there, "What's CPR?"

The Blocker

Yes, I've been ignoring my three fans. I'm sorry. Finals and work have killed me the past two weeks. I'm back.

Yes, this picture is of shoddy quality. Yes, it's dark, it's fuzzy, and otherwise worthless. It was the best I could do. I needed to show you rush hour technique at Grand Central Station. It's called, finding a blocker.

During rush hour, there are thousands upon thousands of people going to trains, getting off trains, going to the subway, going to the street, getting something to eat, shopping, etc. All in a single building. In order to make your way effectively through the station to your post-station destination, without stopping every two steps as someone blocks your path, you must find a blocker, or better yet, several blockers.

The technique is thus, find a blocker(s) and stay on his/her hip (I don't discriminate). You choose a hip by determining which side the traffic perpendicular to your path is coming from. If it's coming from the right, you are on the left hip. From the left, on the right hip. Switching blockers is acceptable. Losing your blocker is traumatic.

FYI on my running. I had an MRI on my right leg yesterday. The nice MRI people gave me the pictures to take to my doctor. I oohed and ahhed at them. Unfortunately, I cannot interpret what is going on. I tried running 10 days ago and took about 15 steps before the rotting feeling in my right leg came back and it felt like my leg was going to snap in half. I'll try again next week.