It feels especially slow today, not sure why, although the 4 1/2 hours of sleep I got last night probably has something to do with it. I got caught up watching Terminal Velocity, or maybe Drop Zone, the one with the Baldwin and Dennis Rodman. Anyway, this was post track, which kicked my ass, dinner at Twisted Spoke, and during arm workout, the Mia Stephen push up routine is killer. Still gonna try and get out to beach tonight. Also managed to get yet another call in to Leah, 4 days in a row, 13 days left, and figured out that we can also SMS as well. I don't think I've mentioned lately that I miss her, and that I'm really excited that there's only 13 days until she's back. Headed to South Bend this weekend for Kaze practices and Blanchet-Ruth fun.

Doing a track workout today. It's gonna be hard. I'm not looking forward to it at all. Practice was good last night, worked on the endzone, double score scrimmage. Afterwards was some good Cold Stone and a sandwich from the place across the street. Managed to sneak in yet another phone call to Spain this morning. Only 2 weeks now. 2 weeks. Currently researching accommodations for Labor Day in Santa Cruz, trying to get a beach house. But last night after practice I noticed that the middle toe on my right foot hurt a little walking. Looks a little swollen. No idea when or how it happened, but I didn't feel it at all while playing. Hardly feel it while walking. I'm not worried.

I had a good bye dinner with Jess last night at Rise. She's headed out to Colorado for Art Therapy School. About time she got outta this town. But good to catch up one last time while she was still in the city. And Rise as usual was good. Ate too much, as I seem to be doing more often than not recently. I seem to have lost my cones, again, and I don't even think they were my cones this time. Weather, while beautiful, is continuing to freak me out. It's toooooo nice. The whole balance thing means we're gonna get hit with something nasty sooner or later. Hopefully get some Cold Stone after practice tonight, and then work it off at track tomorrow. I got caught up in Monster House last night. I remember way back when I wanted to put up a paper mache tree in my apartment senior year. That's something that'd end up on Monster House. Oh well.

Honky Kong, or Kaze's Sandblast Team B, or maybe it was A, but we went 3-1 on Saturday, losing to Bjorn's high school friends and Brady. Sunday we won our first game and lost our second to eventual second place finishers, my former team, Sandwhammies. Beach is fun. Good and fun. And Honky Kong beat Kazbe Sweaters, Kaze's Team A/B in the ever important game to 7 for Cold Stone Creamery. Dinner Saturday night at Woo Chen for some nice Korean BBQ, and then dinner at Dublin's the following night. Good food, good company all around. My feet hurt not from the beach, but from having to be in shoes today. Practice Tuesday, probably stadiums or track on Wednesday, more beach on Thursday, sushi on Friday, and South Bend this weekend.

Volunteering went well at the Inspiration Cafe. It was my first time waiting tables, sorta. We managed to get to the beach before they even started playing. Good group of people. Good running. Good to get used to the Montrose Beach sand as opposed to the North Ave. Beach sand. Very different. Afterwards, a group went for Heaven on Seven on Clark, eating outside in the absolutely beautiful weather we're having. Overall, a pretty good Thursday. Got a nice half day today, which I need, since I got a whopping 2 1/2 hours of sleep last night, which is fine, because I got to talk to Leah. Man, 19 days and change. I did manage to give myself a haircut last night. Going to watch some movies this afternoon-evening before Sandblast Kickoff Party at Piece. Come on out and watch this weekend, Montrose Beach, Sandblast Beach Tourney. I'm leading Kaze 2: Honky Kong, in a quest for some VC Ultimate gear.

I'm definitely not getting enough sleep. Today I'm running on 4 1/2 hours or so. Not good at all. I'm hoping to catchup some tonight, maybe this weekend, or maybe not. We'll see. But I need to, it's unhealthy otherwise. I gots to get time for my body to rest and replenish. I have to admit something, I actually watched Cupid last night. Not sure why, but the first 10 minutes or so and I was hooked for the hour. Am I ever going to watch it again? No. There's way too many reality romance shows. It's about time Kaze did one of our own. Inspiration Cafe tonight, and maybe beach, maybe Cold Stone, maybe movie, maybe Hip Hop show at the Hot House. Or sleep.

Impromptu showing of Bad Boys I tonight at my place. Starts round 8pm. Practice was a good time last night, probably because my team did all the winning. It didn't take me too long to get down to Washington Park from Evanston, about 40 minutes, which I think is impressive. A handful of us then went to Chinatown for dinner and frozen bubble tea drinks. Tomorrow night a bunch of Kaze players are cooking and serving up some grub at the Inspiration Cafe, followed by some other social activity. This team stuff is great. A Stadium followed by practice with sprints led by AJ is leaving me wiped but happy, especially since I'm not gonna try and do a track workout today. Maybe Friday, which is another half day for me.

Training started for the season. I did Dyche, err, Ryan Field last night. Good time. Not as hard as I thought it'd be, which is good. And go figure, I felt better after it than I did before, in terms of knees and ankles and stuff. Otherwise, a very uneventful day, at least compared to the rest of my days so far.

The weekend's already over? Crazy. Friday saw the successful launch of Kaze Club night, thanks to the impetus of KK and Sally. Festivities started at the Artful Dodger and concluded at Betty's Blue Star Lounge. Kaze practice the next day was a little rough because of it, but alright. Went an ate at the Goose Island brew pub in Wrigleyville and hung out at the block party there, at least walked through it, with my high school friend James. We were both pretty wiped by practice so ended up watching a couple movies and sleeping instead of any more bar action. Sunday was some downtown shopping, getting a USB cable for his digital camera, and I checked out Sony's fab TR1, a nice subnote, as well as their U30, a tiny tiny digital camera. James, down from Fairbanks on leave, decided he wanted Alaskan Halibut for dinner, so I took him up to e-town to Davis Street Fishmarket and some Marble Slab Creamery for dessert. Cold Stone is much much better. I'm supposed to do stadiums tonight, and Kaze practice tomorrow night. 23 days and change.

So I've been working for 6 weeks now, I think, 7 weeks maybe, depending on how you count. And this might be my first Friday I'm thankful for? Maybe it's because I don't have a tourney and I get to sleep in tomorrow. But no Beach last night due to inclement weather; the storm moving out over Lake Michigan though was quite beautiful. Instead I made it out to Piece to hang with Tun, AJ, Bailey, and Katie Kelly. Tonight I'm headed to Chicago Diner with the Siblings Kennedy, and maybe some other neighborhood bars or some such deal. Oh, my on board ethernet on my G4 tower crapped out on my yesterday, might have been a power surge, or just failure on a refurb old machine. Good thing I had a spare Airport card, but still, I might have to look into a new machine sooner than I'd hoped.

27 Days and change. Slept a bit more than usual, up to 7-7 1/2 hours or so. Started the Recruit as the current movie. I actually made some food, well, okay, I warmed some of my mom's food up, and had dinner and breakfast. I followed Alton Brown's omelet tips, and warming the eggs up to room temp really helps a lot. I also really need a new 10-12" non stick pan. I missed the injury filled MarketADvantage b-ball pickup game. I also missed the last purple line express and ended up taking the Red Line home last night. I also miss Leah, but everyone knows that by now. I tried doing some home pilates instead of my ab routine, I still need some help on those. Beach at Montrose tonight, and practice on Saturday, but besides that, nothing much, hopefully a lot of sleep.

In my growing weakness, I've decided to lay off the coworker pickup basketball until after the season is over. I'd hate to go out with a twisted ankle when I wasn't even playing Ultimate. I just gotta make sure I don't hurt myself doing anything else, like walking back from a party or something. Finished up watching Se7en last night. Freaky movie. It's been interesting how long it takes me to actually watch movies now, something like 3-4 days a piece. I contemplated going to a movie up here in Evanston, but I'd rather go home and try, most likely unsuccessfully, to go to bed early. I've been writing a lot of shell scripts lately, which is pretty cool. Beach tomorrow up on Montrose for a change, and my friend James is back in town for the week and is coming in to the city for the weekend.

So no Kaze practice tonight, since the All Star game is at Comisky Park tonight, and therefore makes traffic an absolute nightmare. Instead, probably gonna watch a couple movies. Dinner last night also included Sarah, and was good, a nice BBQ Chicken sandwich, and a quality mint chocolate chip ice cream bar. Managed to get some new music, some All Saints and random other stuff, but missed getting it onto my iPod somehow. I'm wearing one of those new Under Armour Performance Polos today, and it's pretty sweet. A little heavier than the loose gear, but still pretty nice. I'm still working out kinks with the Mac Calendar, t68 cal, and outlook at work synchronization.

This time I'm talking about missing a posting last Friday. But it was a half day at work, so I was busy. I did manage to talk with Leah, with the 7 hour difference, whilst she was on the beach and I was in the park. Very nice. Long distance transcontinental cell phone calls are cool, very clear. Anyway, Kaze went to St. Louis for Summer Soaker III. We went 3-1 on Saturday, losing badly to Blah, where they just ran harder than we did. Sunday we won our quarter and lost in the semi to the Chad Larson Experiment with some awfully fast women. Good weather, hard fields, and Kaze's first tourney of the year. Lots to work on. Came home to a nice clean house thanks to the 'rents. Tried to sleep at a decent hour, but still couldn't. Dinner at Twisted Spoke with Russell and Bryan, maybe finish up Se7en. And more sleep. Hopefully.

A voice mail message is like methodone to a heroin addict. Well, I'm just guessing that's what it feels like when I got one from Leah. T-Mobile is starting to upset me with multiple "Network Busy" problems and missed calls that aren't even missed calls. But I do like my phone, which is actually unlocked so I could switch providers if I wanted to. After initial success and subsequent failure, I got my phone resyncing with Outlook here at work. So now it does the duty of syncing my home and work calendars on both sides. It's so much easier on the Mac side. Basketball was good yesterday, and hopefully weather will stay decent enough for Beach tonight. I do have to get some sleep before this weekend though. That'd be nice. Finally did dishes, and now just have to at least organize the piles of clothes in the bedroom. Oh, I added some pictures to the Galleries, a few to Leah, a few to Kaze. At least that still works.

Huh, finally a movie that seems a little reserved? I kinda liked T3, but just kinda. The story was pretty good, but the action seemed to me a little blase, tired. Unoriginal. But the ending I really liked. Dinner at Big Bowl, which was good. I like Big Bowl. Again, not a whole lot of sleep as I went digging through files for the kanji for Kaze, for use on temporary tattoos. Basketball tonight, and beach tomorrow, all weather permitting. Half day Friday means an early start to St. Louis for Summer Soaker III. According to a shell script, 34 days, 8 hours, 50 minutes and 44 seconds till her return.

Did some laundry last night. Didn't quite let everything dry enough, and ended up with some slightly damp clothing, which is good for the dress shirts that need to be ironed, which is now somewhere over 20 or so. I've got to use my sundeck more while the weather is agreeable, which pretty much limits use to early morning or late evening, dusk or dawn. The sunset was pretty last night, as were some storm clouds this morning which looked like Mount Doom. Watched a little Monster Garage, about turning an El Camino into a bronco buster to be ridden by a rodeo rider. Going to see T3 tonight in DLP, dinner somewhere, and hopefully finally catching up on some sleep.

So this past weekend marks the 2nd birthday of Tea & Strumpets and also my retirement from the team I helped to found. We went 6-0 in scramble play on Friday and Saturday, beating Duck X-ing for the first time ever and MEAT (Yellow Subs plus others) as well. Very close and good games. We then lost our first game against SMERFS on Sunday, but managed to hopefully place in the top 8 (I haven't checked standings yet). Dinner as always at the Church House Brew Works, good food, good times. 5 games of beer schtick on Saturday night, along with some dodgeball courtesy Duck X-ing. Overall a great time, and I hate to have to give it up. Otherwise, traveling went well, with no problems or hitches anywhere along the way. I did manage to get some sun, but protected well under SPF 30. Good times. Very good times. (35 actually 36 and change days before I get to see the girl I miss so much. Way too much now, isn't it?)

Hmm, as the days go by I mention it less and less, but guess what, yup, you guessed right. Basketball was fun last night, but it uses totally different muscles, totally different game, well, different from my ultimate game. My calf cramped up about midway through. Crazy. I did not do any laundry, instead had Mac and Cheese and Keilbasa, did my workout set, and watched TV and more of Don Juan DeMarco. So tired though. Ended up packing this morning, and hopefully didn't forget anything. I switched my return leg to Monday morning, so it's gonna be a very long Monday. Things to look forward to this weekend, Church House Brew Works and walking beer schtick.

Did you notice? I didn't even say I missed her yesterday. But she leaves today. And guess what, I miss her. Apple Store was interesting yesterday. Still very busy at 7pm at night. They had some sort of presentation by some music producer and some guy from Cheap Trick. I did not walk out with either an iSight or a new iPod. Just no pull. None of it actually had any pull. They were all nice to look at, but just no desire to purchase. Dinner at Grand Luxe was good, sesame crusted Ahi Tuna. I've neglected to mention that I finished up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and moved on to the Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox. I watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves a couple nights ago and in the middle of Don Juan DeMarco. I hadn't realized that Marlon Brando is in that. Had lunch with Noel today at Olive Mountain. Also good. Flying out to Pittsburgh later tomorrow night, and flying back in early Monday.

A quiet night at home last night. Got myself a Gyro, first one in a long time. It was good. Did my workout, which was good. My PAI seemed odd, but hopefully that's just soreness from playing again. Doesn't feel like something bad happened or will happen. Got my phone to sync up over bluetooth with Outlook at work. Took a whole lot more effort than it did with my Mac at home. And I still don't quite understand what everything is doing when I do sync it up. But hopefully this will mean no more late meetings. Ever. Hitting the Apple Store tonight, dinner at Grand Luxe, and maybe a movie too. Gonna play some ball with coworkers tomorrow night, maybe do some laundry. Flying out to Pittsburgh Thursday night for Mars, 3rd year in a row. I remember this tournament extremely well for some reason.