Without Limits

I know I had started running earlier, like, almost a month ago, but of course, I promptly got sick, and then just stopped, as is the usual trend with me; find an excuse to stop and never continue.

Despite this, I started running again, partly because I saw that my sister Kellie ended up having to sign up for the Frederick Marathon instead of the Pittsburgh, and while it is still too late for me to get in shape for that marathon, there is also a half marathon and all that jazz. I don't know, God hates a coward, and while I'm not opposed to running thirteen miles, it seems kind of wrong when I could easily train to do a marathon, and on the same day that a bunch of people are dropping down 26.2 or so odd miles, I'm doing a leisurely thirteen. Also, I'm running again because I do some great thinking while running.

There are no distractions while running. It's not like when I'm driving, or at work, or home doing other things. When the only things I really have to worry about are staying on the road and not getting hit by cars, and even that, most of them are kind enough to do my job for me. So it's easiest while running for me to not just let my mind wander, but to lose my mind to those who do a better job of telling my stories than I. After all, they're their stories.

It's truly wonderful, with a few exceptions. The first of which is when I'm out of shape. When I let my characters run wild, that's generally what they do, and my own physical limitations are left where I started.

That's what happened today. I ran way too far, way too fast, and I'm already hurting. It's a fair guess to say that I will have some serious issues with just getting up tomorrow morning, let alone going to work and class, and of course, running again.

It occurs to me that I could probably do a marathon like this. I might die afterwards, but while I'm running, I feel nothing, at least nothing that's happening to me anyways.

Still, I'd have to say, as I massage my aching legs (I was surprised to see my calf muscles are already back, in all their former glory), that it was totally worth it.

Mr. Linganore

I went to the Mr. Linganore Pageant at my old high school last night. I had nothing better to do, and my mother was going, so I figured why not. It wasn't until I was already in the car that my mother reminded me that i haven't been to the new school.

"Turn the car around."

I almost had her do it to. I had seen the new building from the parking lot once, and had seen the wreckage that was my high school on more than a few occasions, but something about actually going in, doing something that I had done before in the old building, it seemed like admitting defeat.

Not that I wasn't defeated, or could have done anything besides refuse to acknowledge it. I don't even know why I cared so much. It's not like I really liked high school.

That's not true, nor is it fair. I didn't like learning, so much that it created a rather bad atmosphere, but it's where I saw and met most of my friends, and while the building itself was in bad, bad shape, despite this, I have a lot of good memories, both real and fake, that happened in that school.

The new building, well, it looks all efficient and modern. I was surprised to see they already had portables behind the school, seems they wanted a repeat of the problem they had at the old school, but then again, I had forgotten that they are still building another school to shove the kids in.

I'm told there is no way to get in the tower. Why?!

Still, I wanted to go, as as this years group of seniors was the class that were Freshmen when I was a Junior, probably my best year, and the year I "adopted" many, many freshmen. Three of these were in the pageant, and another one was working behind the scenes, so I figured i might as well. Maybe I could take credit for their awesomeness, my influence got them where they are.

It didn't, but it was nice to see them, and remember some people I was almost entirely nice to.

Another thing about those Freshmen that I adopted, I nicknamed them all. Well, actually, for whatever reason, I never nicknamed Danny French, but he was in it, and he should have one, and I didn't personally give Bobby Rankin the name "Sweet Pea", but he was also in it. I did give Bobby Martin the name "Sweet Cheeks" (a long story, for another day). Also, Kevin Cole, dubbed "Studmuffin", was in the background, with his awesome voice, befitting a guy called "Studmuffin" working lights. I also managed to see Ryan Barron, aka "Rydog", Adam Eisenstadt, given the name "Munch", but not by me, Rusty Martin, named "Cap'n Abilicious" (he made me attest to his abs in front of his girlfriend, it was to say the least, awkward), and Eva Creswell, who was, due to creative inhibitations on my part, named aptly "Minion Number Two" (Minion Number One was not there, sadly).

Also, it is necessary to mention, should you be in some sort of talent contest, aand are able to do a Rubiks cube while blindfolded, don't waste everyone's time doing it once first with you're eyes open. It was too long, we were already impressed before the blindfold, and then were dissappointed that you couldn't do it with the same stellar speed whilst blind. And should you fail, which he didn't, we would remember your failure over your success. Also, I'd like to ask the question, how is that possible.

I shouldn't complain about that kid, as there were a few who actually had no talent. I'm sure they did, they just failed to display it. One kid, who I believe was wearing crutches to both get out of the awful, awful square dancing competition, and to get some sympathy votes. He needed them. FOr his talent portion, he had some other kid (who had apparently just become a father, having knocked up a girl who my mother tried hard to hook me up with) act like a vantriliquist dummy for the worst comedy act I've ever seen.

Then, to top this kid, some other kid I didn't know got up on the stage with a guitar, giving us fair warning that he had just learned guitar two weeks ago, and then proceeded to render a second of the night, and also the worst, Star Spangled Banner, I have ever heard. I was ticked when I realized what he was doing as it meant I had to stand again (I didn't come to this thing to stand, for my country or not), and then it was just awful. I could tell he tried to do it Jimmy Hendrix style, but he got nowhere fast.

Also, I should close saying that I have now seen six dudes in person doing the Beyonce's "Single Ladies". I was less thn impressed.

Happy One Month Blogiversary

Yeah, I've been at this whole Blog thing for a month now. Not really that long, I suppose. Some days anyways. Time's funny. My year in Pittsburgh seemed at least twice as long as my four years in high school. So I've had my long months. This one though, well, today it seems pretty short.

Well, I said earlier that last night I went to some seminar on communications as technology. It was, well there were some interesting points, to say the least. One of the panelists made the mistake of accidentally implying that Bloggers would replace professional journalism. I think was talking about how online media was replacing print media, but he made a poor seguay to talking about Blogs and other forms of non-professional broadcasting. They were quick to try and clarify, but they weren't the most coordinated group of five people I've ever seen, and their audience was less than wonderful. Still, it was interseting, as most of them clearly saw that while Blogging and the like aren't meant to replace professional journalism, many, like many people among me in the audience, would make that very mistake. I don't know. What I blost here is most definitely not news. I've read some Blogs that are news based, or more specifically, opiniated, unobjective people ranting about the news, but what I'm going for here is purely entertainment. SO if you're looking for news, your're in the wrong place. If your're looking for the antics of a couple of guys who are way too easily amused, yeah, this is the place. Please support us.

One of the other panelists, easily the best one, was very supportive of everyone having a Blog, for a multitude of reasons. The practice in writing alone he said was worth it. I'm mostly in it for the commitment. I'm doing things that I might not normally do mostly because I have committed to this Blog. I'm doing som other things to aid in my commitment issues, but more on that at a later date.

Anyways, I thought I'd just give a heads up on some of the things I'm planning on doing.

Build a windsurfer on a skateboard. It should be legendary.

Run a Marathon. If both of my sisters can do it, so should I.

Help Jo find her birth mom. Or at least, a cat I can convince her is her mom. I'm not perfect.

Learn to play the Guitar. It's something I've been meaning to do.

Build the Solar Death Ray. The power of 1,000 suns!

Learn to do Magic. I probably can't. But I'd at least like to give it a shot.

Finish writing one of my stories. I've started dozens, but never finished. After that, comes publishing.

At some point, a road trip. Doesn't matter where.

And there's a few things left up my sleeve, quite literally actually, that I will reveal when the time is right. After all, I can't let you now everything I plan on doing. Then you would have a little less reason to keep reading what I have to write.

So I'll keep blosting, whether or not you keep reading. I guess I'd prefer it people read, but it's not necessary. As always, suggestions are more than welcome. And if you're in town, give me a call. We'll do something stupid and fun, maybe fly a kite.

Where Am I?

Sometimes, it's really frustrating to be me. I mean, despite the fact that I am overflowing with pure, unfiltered awesome, I have flaws. Among them, probably the one that hinders me most on a regular basis, is that I have no concept of space.

Directions, distance, even just the simple concept of right and left, are beyond my grasp. It's pretty much a condition, even a handicap. Today was a bad day. On an average day, when I need to figure out right from left, I just make the L's with my hands, and quickly recognize right from left. In the car while driving, it's even easier. My brain will never be able to instinctively know right from left, I've given up on trying to learn long ago.

Anyways, today was a bad day. On a bad day, when I need to differentiate between right and left, I look at my hands, and then have trouble processing what an L looks like. Then I try to imagine myself drawing an L, but without a pen in my hand, I have idea which is my hand. So I have to get a pen out of my pocket, if I am lucky enough to be carrying one, figure out what hand it feels right in, fortunately, once I've found my right hand, I've figured out which was is right, and drawing the L is pointless. Still, a tedious task, for trying to figure out a simple direction.

Fortunately, routes I normally take are easily committed to memory, and right and left and directions of any sort play no part. However, whenever I have to go somewhere new, or even somewhere old, but going a different route, even the reverse of a route I normally take and know, It's almost guaranteed that I will get at least a little lost.

My GPS helps, but only so much. Especially when, for no good reason, I feel confident enough to go without it. Today was one of those days. Ben and were going over to China Panda this afternoon, and while I can get there from work, I was at my great grandmother, Gigi's, and I had never gone to China Panda from there.

Not a huge problem, I figured. I would just get back over near Target to the point where I knew where I was, and then backtrack. Of course, at the time, I didn't realize that while I went from Target to Gigi's a lot, I had only once been from Gigi's too Target, and not the way i was trying to do it, and not during the day. When I realized that I was going to have issues, I whipped out my GPS, knowing I would need Mr. T's aid in getting me where I needed to go. i went under favorites, and told it to take me to Target first, because the last thing I need to be doing while lost is fiddling wiht my GPS. And immediately, of course, TomTom tells me that no route was found.

Needless to say, at somepoint, I found myself on 70 going west, towards Hagerstown. Frustrated, I made it there, and few things aleviate stress like China Panda, and more specifically, building things out of toothpicks and cup lids.

Then later, I had have a class on Thursday nights, but of course, I forgot that this week, before class, we were supposed to go to the communications technology seminar thing, when I got to class, the room was empty. I remembered then and i checked the paper and saw I was supposed to be in the JDK theatre. So I found a map. Maps aren't the most helpful thing in the world to me. If they are laying flat, lined up with whatever they are a map of, I can follow them pretty well, but if they are on a wall, or the orientation isn't right, I can't move it in my mind to where it should be, and then I can't find anything. But this didn't turn out to be a problem, because the JDK theatre was not on the map.

I decided finally to try my luck in the arts and communication building, and after going the wrong direction and into the wrong building and having to turn back and go in the opposite direction, I found the building. It had it's own map of the building itself, where conveniently, the JDK theatre was not listed.

Had I not remembered that I had in fact been here once before, many years ago, to see a firend's dance recital, I probably would have just gone back to the classroom and waited for an hour and a hlaf for the seminar to be over. But I did remember a theatre, and more specifically, having trouble finding it the first time. Armed with that knowledge, I found the theatre, and it was actually a pretty interesting smeinar, and I was glad I was able to find it. Because, I am, after all, a guy, and therefore, cannot ask for directions.

Too Windy For Kites!

So we were kiting again. If it seems like that's all we do, it's probably because it is. At least for now, because it is March, and therefore windy, and we now have kite fishers.

Actually, that windy thing kind of turned out to be a problem. We were having trouble flying kites because it was too windy. I noticed the windy conditions on my way to class today; it was gorgeous, mid seventies, with good strong winds. I almost skipped class to go fly kites, but I decided I might as well go, so I sat through Spanish, staring outside, feeling the wind through all the open windows on my face, wishing I was outside.

finally, I was able to go outside and go back to Mount Airy for some kite flying action. Of course, by then, it had become overcast, and looked like a storm was blowing in. But that of course never stops us.

Well, despite our awesome kite fishers, our kites failed to stand up to the sheer force of the wind. They tend to fly out almost completely horizontally, as opposed to the preferred, you know, vertical flight, and then, they just turn over and take a nose dive into the dirt. It's frustrating. And then, the kite abomination. Owly McBird and Elmo started going at it, and once they got tangled up, there was really nothing to do but watch. Then, Spiderman got sucked in, and things got ugly.

Their tails are a lost cause. Ben even had to amputate Optimus Prime's to prevent him from getting sucked into the ever growing tangled mess that was the kite abomination. Mostly though, it was a beautiful day, and we got some great pictures.

Also, we believe we found evidence of some great bird, or mayhaps a dinosaur. Check these tracks out.

Oh yeah, and we took Roma with us. It was depressing, because I had to teach him how to fly a kite. I thought those were skills everyone was born with, but maybe that's just an american thing. Anyways, I wasn't there when it happened, so I can't fully understand why, but somehow, he managed to get his kite stuck in not one, not two, not three, but at least six trees. It was like a kite eating forest, I guess. It seemed reasonable, well not reasonable, getting a kite stuck in more than one tree is never reasonable, but plausible, as the trees were all in a line in the path of the wind. But after his kite cruised through the trees in a row, it turned around and looped backwards, against the wind, to get stuck in three more trees.

That's him, trying to get it out of the last tree it got stuck in. The string is still up the rest of them, and I found it fitting that a Spiderman kite left webbing everywhere. Man, I wish I had been there, but I was busy almost getting eaten by a small dog. Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like.

Jo's Quest

Every spring we go through this. Jo, for whatever reason, decides she needs to find her birth mom.

This is, surprisingly less funny than it sounds. She can be very, very annoying when she wants something, and I know that when her food dish is full and she still insists on not letting me get any sleep, there is clearly a deeper issue.

Look at that face. How can you say no to that?

A bit of history. I got Jo over four years ago, back when I was working at the PetLoft. It was the near the end of my first summer, and some woman and her daughter came in with this tiny, tiny kitten. My boss guessed the little thing was probably only four weeks old, and since they're a pain to keep alive when they're that young without their mother's we had a policy of not taking them. My boss, Sarah, encouraged me to take it home with me for two weeks until it was old enough to bring back in and let it be the store's problem. And that's how I got stuck with this one.

Needless to say, I didn't take her back after two weeks. It wouldn't be fair to say I intended to keep her from the get go. After all, I didn't name her for a whole year.

But anyways, being seperated from her mother so young has left its mark on her. I have this one blanket that she likes to try and nurse on. I guess it reminds her of her mum, but still, I keep telling her she is way too old for that to be cute, but does she ever listen to me?

So finally, in the interest of getting a full night's sleep, I looked into those organizations that help reunite seperated parents and children. It took me awhile, but I found an organization based in D.C. that seemed pretty legit, and was about to give them a call.

Now, I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like to talk on the phone. Not being able to see the other person doesn't do wonders for me, so I like to mentally map out where the conversation will possibly go. And no matter how I looked at it, I was pretty sure I was going to be making a prank call.

"My friend Josie is looking to find her birth mom. It's difficult for her, so I'm helping out."

"Does she know where her birth mother might be."

"No. Some woman found her on the side of the road when she was like, four weeks old, and brought her to my store, so I took her in."

From here, things start going downhill. I have no idea what I would say to that, let alone what someone who does this kind of thing for a living would do. I almost called anyways, figuring I could just run with it, and worse case scenario, just hang up. What do I have to lose? Nothing really, but at the same time, this is an organization that is doing great things, and in the end, I really couldn't bear to waste someone's time for this. I considered sending an e-mail, but I'm still wasting someone's time, and I'm not likely to get a response.

But we'll get by. We always do. And pretty soon, it will be warm enough for me to leave the windows open at night, and she'll forget all about her lost mom, and be transfixed with the outside air. She is, after all, a cat.