Inconsequentials & Trivialities

All weekend in a day

Wow. Today was busy. Busy but fun.

This morning, the 10 AM English Mass moved to the new church. It was oh so familiar to me, but it was really new for Mike. After Mass, he went on and on about how I really stepped up and saved the day for the group. At the risk of being overly modest, I didn’t do anything that he won’t be fully up to speed with in two weeks. Still, it’s nice to be appreciated. I’d say that music went well. We have lots of room in which to get better, but it was a solid start and I am very much looking forward to the weeks ahead!

Right after Mass, Cathy, Joey, and I went to the California Ballroom to watch the Modesto Portuguese Pentecost Association parade and then have some sopas. In all the years that I’ve gone to festas, I’d never had sopas before. Well, that streak has ended. It was pretty good. I LOVE all the cultural shiz!

Spent four hours over at the House of Robot Pets playing the new Star Trek game that Ross and Mike have created. It went pretty well. It calls for a lot of creativity from the players. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll stick with the game, but it was fun.

Then back to the festa for dinner. More sopas. I scored a pair of tickets to the bullfights tomorrow. w00t! After dinner, I sat and enjoyed the music of a group from Terceira, even though I had no idea what they were saying. I stayed for a bit of the dance, but as I had no dance partners, I left before 10.

Finally, I managed to get in my run for the day. 3.65 miles in 41 minutes. This was 5 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking, rinse and repeat. Not sure why it should surprise me, but breathing while running is getting easier. 🙂

Tomorrow: the bullfights!

Stress-free, Lazy Afternoon

Today was about the best day of doing nothing that I can remember. Got up late. Played LOTRO. Cooked and ate. Went for my run. But no responsibilities, no one needing me for anything, no place I had to be. Pretty darn good.

I did realize that I shouldn’t cook food just before I go running. The temptation to eat it then was very strong. The reason I did cook at that time was that I wanted food to be ready when I got back. I’ll have to look for other ways to work that. Maybe something that would go into the oven… Or in the crock pot.

Friday is the old Friday

I frequently wonder how in the heck I get myself so busy. On the surface, I really dislike being overbooked. But I wonder if deep down I don’t really enjoy it. I mean, I get to that place all the time!

This morning I went down to the church to serve as a sacristan for a Memorial Mass. I don’t do this very often so when I do come up on the rotation, I’m usually unsure of what I’m supposed to be doing.

I had lunch at Papachinos downtown. I made a point of having some pasta with chicken, a highly recommended day-before-a-race meal. And it was really, really good too! I’m going to have to go there more often.

This afternoon, I had a meeting with other members of the Pastoral Council to continue working on the strategic plan. This was a three hour meeting. It feels like it’s going rather slowly to me, but I really think we’re making progress.

I went and picked up my race bag from Doctor’s Medical Center. They had the wrong shirt size for me so I hope I fit into the one I got.

After that, I went and hung out at Minnies for a couple hours before the hafla. Boring. I stuck around for about an hour once the dancing started and took some photos.

Now to settle in for a good night’s sleep.

Saturday in the sun

I spent all day out at Modesto Christian High School with the Knights cooking tri-tip, hotdogs, hamburgers. It was a sunny day with a high of about 80 degrees. In other words, I hated it. I did get a decent sunburn. Joy. And I managed to cut into my finger with the meat slicer. So I got that going for me.
Sales weren’t as brisk as I’d have hoped, but we still might make a bit of a profit by the end of the weekend.

Tonight I tried to burn through several episodes of recorded tv. I managed to watch a couple of hours of Smallville. I wish I had more time to get stuff done!

Fridays in the summer

At MJC, for the summer, we all switch to 4 10-hour workdays with Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays off.
I hate it. The days are so long; you have to spend Fridays recovering from the week, Sundays getting ready for the next week, and there’s no time to do stuff in the evenings after work. My solution is to use vacation time to shorten each of my work days.

Anyway, fans of this schedule will point to the extra day off. But as I mentioned, I spent most of today sleeping in, and doing nothing. I did get some time in on Haelindir, he gained almost 2 levels today. I’m hoping to have him at 38 by weekend’s end. I also went shopping with Jose for the tri-tip fundraiser this weekend. We spent just under $1000 at Cash & Carry. He still had more shopping to do at Costco too. I hope we make a decent profit.

I did my training tonight. I’m on week 7 (day 2) which has me jogging 25 minutes. But I made a mistake and did the training for week 8, day 2, which had me jogging for 28 minutes. I did it, and it wasn’t too bad. Now, do I go back and make up for what I missed or do I just go forward from where I am?

Oregon, Day 8

Did my 5K training this morning. Had a rough time of it. Had to stop twice to rest. 🙁 Hopefully Sunday will go better. I’ll be back in Modesto where I’ll be running over flat terrain.

After that, Dave and I went to Voodoo Too to get some doughnuts. I got a Bacon Maple Bar and a Memphis Mafia along with a milk. 

We then drove out to Forest Park and hiked around for about 3 hours. Good workout. Following that, we drove out to The Grotto. I took many photos; it was quite peaceful.

Lastly, we went to Bella Faccia Pizza. It was very good.

I’d really like to move here.


Tomorrow, we both return home.

Oregon, Day 7

Came back to Portland today. After checking in at the hotel, the first order of business was to go back to Christopher’s Gourmet Grill for the Man Up Cheeseburger. It was two patties, cheese, bacon, a sausage, a fried egg, and fixins.

I killed it.

We walked to and from the restaurant which allowed for some good digestion time. On the way back, we stopped in at a percussion shop, the Nike Factory Store (where Dave bought some stylin’ new sneakers), and a coffee shop. Very relaxed afternoon. Back at the hotel, I dozed off for a couple hours. Somewhat late in the evening, Dave and I took the lightrail downtown to go to a bar and catch some music. Sadly, we were a little too late. 🙁

Oregon, Day 6

Today was the last full day on the coast. We got up rather late. I did my 5K training along the beach. It was a bit windy but I got through the entire set. Returning to the inn, we made breakfast. Actually, David made breakfast. It was eggs with onions, tomatoes, and avocado along with bacon and toast. After eating and cleaning up, we all went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. It was interesting to see how they made cheese. I checked in there using Foursquare and Chris Zimmerman saw the tweet announcing the check-in. He alerted his brother, Aaron who works there and Aaron came and found me. Awesome! That was kind of the highlight of the trip. 🙂 We stuck around and played UNO in the eating area. Rizza won. A sneaky, come-from-behind sort of victory. Possibly illegitimate, but a win.

We returned to Cannon Beach and ate a late lunch at El Mariachi Loco. It was perfectly decent Mexican food. I’m rather proud of myself that I opted not to finish my plate of nachos after I’d gotten full. After returning to the inn, we all sort of went our seprate ways for a couple of hours.

Finally, we finished up the evening by playing some more cards in the girls room.

Tomorrow, back to Portland.

Oregon, Day 5

Today was a really nice day. We started by going to breakfast at Pig’n Pancake. I had a taco omelet and banana pancakes. Yum. Then we drove up to Astoria and spent some time sight-seeing. Among the attractions was the Astoria Column. (Again, photos will be forthcoming.) The weather was great the entire day, clear and mostly sunny.

In the afternoon, we went for another walk on the beach and decided that this would be the night that we built a fire on the beach. I left Dave and the girls out on the beach while I retreated to my room for a bit. An  hour or two later, Dave came up to gather supplies and we returned to the beach to build a fire, roast marshmallows and hotdogs, and enjoy the relatively warm night on the beach. It was a very pleasant evening and after a few hours, we all returned to the girls quarters to watch The Two Towers. Here’s the problem: David brought his Region 2 set of DVDs. So they wouldn’t play on the machine. Hahaha! So David and I had to take turns summarizing the plot of the movie. That took 30 minutes! Anyway, we started The Return of the King after that and we all took turns dozing off during the first disk.

Yeah, all in all, a very nice day.

Oregon, Day 3

Got up this morning and the first thing on the agenda was to do my 5K training. Today was 5 minutes of warm-up, 20 minutes of jogging, and 5 minutes of cool-down. I started off from my hotel and made my way to the Broadway Bridge. I managed to do the jog up the incline and coming down the other side was a breeze. I jogged past the train and bus stations and began my ascent of the Steel Bridge. By this point, I’d been jogging for 15 minutes, almost double my previous time, and I was feeling it. And I was jogging uphill. I though if I could make it to the top of the bridge, I could finish out my alloted time. Alas, it was not to be. I was out of gas. I forced myself to get to the 17 minute mark, then I hit pause and walked for a few minutes. I did resume jogging after a bit, and finished out the 20 minute total.

After a shower and breakfast, I went to Mass at St. Pius X. Overall I was pleased. If I had to make this my parish, I think I could tolerate it. I’ll keep looking but I sure could do worse. Here are some salient pros and cons:

Pros

• Layout of the church – Tabernacle was to the side, worship space was wider than long.
• People sang!
• The worship resources in the pews were acceptable
• There are a good variety of active ministries at the parish
• The parish is growing
• There were lots of families at Mass
• The Presider sang the Eucharistic Prayer (and did it well)
• Music group consisted of piano, organ, guitar, bass, and choir
• During the Prayers of the Faithful, we prayed that people find it within themselves to forgive Osama Bin Laden and others who would do us harm. – This was really moving to me. I think forgiving isn’t so much for the transgressor as for those who have been wronged. It’s hard to forgive but so good for us if we can.

Cons

• Marian songs were sung during Mass (twice!)
• Only 1 verse of the Preparation Song and Closing song were sung
• Some strange, unfamiliar Eucharistic Prayer was used
• Psalm was a paraphrased version
• The Fraction Rite was a little odd. – It looked like the Precious Blood was poured into cups held by each of the EMHC that were assisting.
• There was poor line of sight to from the back of the church to the sanctuary
• There was a long delay before singing started at Communion
• The Presider directed us to hold hands for the Our Father
• The Presider directed the assembly to stay seated for the Prayer After Communion

In the afternoon, David and I went to meet Suzanne and Mike at Powell’s Books. As advertised, the place is quite large. After this, we all went to see Thor. It was pretty good. Only a couple of story/continuity problems which I am willing to overlook.

Finally, we all went to the Brazil Grill where I, for one, had WAY too much meat to eat.

Pretty good day.