Flagpole Sitta
Met Mike and walked through the use of the sound system at the new church today. I am excited for the schedule change and moving forward. I’ve been listening to some of the new Mass settings that can be used starting in December. Mike and I are leaning toward the Mass of Renewal by Curtis Stephan. It seems really singable and moves right along. We’ll continue to listen to this and other settings for a bit, but I suspect that we’ve got a winner.
Five of us playtested a new game that Ross and Mike (different Mike) have created. It’s set in the Star Trek universe. I thought it went pretty well. It’s still in alpha testing, but it went smoothly enough. Good times.
Got word today that Starbuck is in for September! w00t!!
Went running tonight. Did about 3.5 miles in <35 minutes. It’s getting easier. 🙂
Really tired for some reason tonight. Off to bed.
But first, enjoy this lip dub.
Lip Dub – Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.
Upcoming
Tonight was my last meeting as Grand Knight. I’m relieved to be done, but I wish I could have accomplished more. Hopefully I accomplished SOMETHING! I am apprehensive about Bill taking over starting next month. His attendance sucks and I don’t expect that it will be improving much. 🙁
This was a short work week. Monday was a holiday and as is true all summer, I have Fridays off. I’m very glad to be off tomorrow. I plan to meet Mike at the church to go over the use of the sound system, head to a different Mike’s house to playtest a new game, and finally, do my 10K training tomorrow evening.
Plans for September seem to be coming together. Exciting! So far, Rizza is coming for Jeff’s wedding, Dave (and hopefully Rizza and Starbuck) is coming to hike up Half-Dome. The possible plan is to run the 10K on the 17th, do some wine tasting on the 17th/18th, spend a day on the lake on the 19th, and go to Yosemite from the 20th through the 22nd. Much of this may not come to pass, but it sure is fun to plan!
All good things…
(Not just a Star Trek episode.)
And so comes to an end a very laid back weekend. Didn’t do much, but that was just about right. Today I went to the church to assist with a Memorial Mass for a man who died last week. I enjoy assisting at Mass, but it would have been just fine if I hadn’t had to leave the house today. As it was, I also stopped at the ATM for some cash, got gas, and bought a few groceries. Efficiency!
Got Haelindir up to 41. Did it mostly by skirmishing with Colred. That went well. But I’m a bit bored with the hunter. There’s not enough going on to make it interesting. We shall see if I can stand to press on.
I’m really short of money this month. 🙁 So I’m abandoning my effort to see a movie every week of the year. I may try to make up the time in July, but I kinda doubt it. The Modesto AmBadAssAdors never really materialized. Tant pis.
Sunday is a normal training day but I took this one off after the race. I wanted to make it up today, but I never got around to it. So tomorrow it is. I will begin transitioning to 10K training. But rather than start on week 1, I’ll begin with week 8. I am of two minds with the running. I am thrilled that I am doing it, and I look forward to it between sessions. But when I’m actually running, I don’t much like it. I sure hope that changes!!
I think I’m going to be trying something different. I’m going to try to get up a little earlier in the morning. Instead of 7:15ish, I’m going to try for 6:30. I’m sure I will hate it. And that means I have to go to bed. Good night.
There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues.
Today was an incredibly boring and unproductive day at work. Summers are always slow, but this was ridiculous.
This evening, I played Aluatis for a while, but my Monday night group couldn’t really get things together so grouping didn’t actually happen. Alas. We intend to try again on Thursday.
I listed to and sang through several Mass settings that we will choose from for Advent and beyond. I liked the Mass of Renewal by Curtis Stephan the best. I think Jody is amenable to that setting.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but I am sort of learning Italian. I love languages and I miss studying them.
Sunday potpourri
I started the day by playing/singing for Mass. Despite my lacerated index finger, I think I did a tollerable job. But here’s the problem, in 3 weeks, the Mass schedule changes and the 10 AM Mass will be in the Maze church. We still don’t really have a plan for what will happen with music when the schedule changes. I suspect that Mike will not last long and if/when he goes, Chris will follow. Cynthia has turned out to be pretty much worthless, so maybe I’m all there is. *Sigh*
Played several more hours of LOTRO this afternoon. Haelindir again. I got him up to 38, so mission accomplished. Back to Aluatis tomorrow night. All of the enhanced xp is used up for Haelindir, so I probably won’t play him again until next weekend.
Our tri-tip fundraiser did turn a profit, but I’d guess that it will all turn out to not have been worth the effort.
Did week 7, day 3 of my 5K training this evening. I’m pretty sure I upped my speed. That’s great! I have two more training sessions before I actually run a 5K (next Saturday).
I’m very much not looking forward to going to work tomorrow. I’m rather discontent. I’d like so much for things to be different but I am ruled by inertia. I keep looking for that combination of things that will lead to change. The search continues.
Oh, and it seems I’m an inconsiderate jerk.
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?
By the way, thanks for reading.
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.
Looming departure
As usual before a trip, I have numerous things to do and feel like I won’t have time to do them all before I leave. I was able to do a little cleaning this evening after I got home from the ShadowChase Walking Group. I really liked meeting up with the group. It has the kind of structure that I respond to. Looking forward to being a regular with them. I was also able to cook up some food for tomorrow and Thursday. Meals are taken care of until I leave.
I had intended to play Haelindir a bit tonight, but some kinnies asked for help running the Great Barrows, so I switched to Danae and we knocked it out tout suite.
I learned some French txt abbreviations today. My favorites are mdr, short for mort de rire (dead/dying from laughter) and A+, short for a plus tard (until later).
Tomorrow I have some things to take care of in the afternoon so I’m taking a half day off. And then more stuff to do in the evening. I may never be ready to leave.
A+
Pants aflame!
It seems that without meaning to, I have lied about posting pics from the Vigil. I had the best of intentions but time has once again slipped away from me. I shall endeavor to rectify this tomorrow.
Today I got up rather early to go open the gates at Central Catholic for overflow parking. I then attended the 8:00 Mass. There were tons of people there today. Nice to have the church full at an English Mass for a change. Afterwards, I went by the downtown church to speak with the music group. I asked about joining them and it looks like I’ll start doing so next weekend.
The rest of the day was pretty much working on Haelindir, my hunter. I’m trying to level him up to the mid 50s range so I can use him for my Monday night sessions. I still have 20 levels to go. 🙁
I love it when a plan comes together
I had intended to get up in time for the 8:00 Mass, but when my alarm went off at 7, I was not at all ready to get up. I ended up sleeping for an additional 90 minutes and decided to go to noon. This gave me time to make breakfast before heading out. Mass was barely tolerable. The music was really bad. They even managed to take a beautiful song that I love (You Are Mine) and make me wish it would stop! The piano was fine of course, and Danny on viola sounded good as usual. I’ll even grant that John sounded good singing. But everything was mic’d such that all the bad parts got equal volume. There was at least one if not more than one string instrument that was way off and the singing was so atonal. Even the guitar was doing some really funky stuff that just didn’t go. I should just look on this as part of my Lenten sacrifice. It was painful.
Afterwards, I went to get some fro-yo. I selected Alpine Vanilla and I added mango, strawberry, blackberry, pineapple, and granola. Twas yum!
I snuck in a nap. Not because I was especially tired, but because I was procrastinating going for my run/jog/walk. Ultimately, I did go out and do 3 miles alternating walking and jogging according to my 5K training plan. Toward the end of the jogging, I was getting pooped. It eased up just in time.
And good news! I found online that there is going to be a Modesto 5K run on May 28th. This is actually 9 days before the end of my training period, but close enough. So I’ll be signing up to run. w00t!
Dinner was a steak with rice and green beans. And I finished up the evening with a few hours of LOTRO (some festival stuff and book work with Aluatis, my captain), and some television (Survivor and Merlin).
Now to bed.
