I smell like smoke
Got up at 6 AM this morning when I received a phone call from Jose asking about how to unlock the gate behind the community center. Too damn early! By 7 AM, I was down there to help get the day going. The bbqing and sales went well; at one point I even had to go get 50 more lbs of meat. Even with that, we ran out after the noon Mass. So sorry 2:00 Mass.
In the middle of it all, I had to step away and do the music for the 10 AM. You know what? I fricking rock at leading music for Mass. Mike is a way better guitarist than me, but I kick ass at leading.
Went for my run tonight. Was a bit harder than I’d like. Part of the problem his how arid the weather is. It gets difficult to breathe as my throat dries out. Despite my poverty, I’ll have to see about getting a hydration belt or something. Carp.
Ready to be done
With all modesty I can say that I have some strengths. Logistics doesn’t seem to be one of them. Here at the last minute, I still had no wood for Sunday, the ice situation hadn’t been resolved, and we weren’t sure who would be showing up at dawn to assist Jose with getting stuff ready for the tri-tip sale. I suck at getting these kind of details nailed down with plenty of time to spare. I’ve been terrible at it since well before I assumed the responsibilities of Grand Knight. That people should expect me to suddenly be good at them strikes me as wildly irrational.
Frustrated and frazzled.
And the straw boss said well a bless my soul
I had to do a bit of running around today including going to Cash & Carry to buy 125 lbs of tri-tip, 6 flats of soda, 2 flats of water, and various other supplies. I then had to fit it all into my car and drive it over to the community center whereupon I had to unload and tote all of it upstairs to the Knights room. All by myself. I should probably log all those trips up and down the stairs as a workout.
Did my run tonight. Tried to increase my speed a little. Getting there.
Topic stew
What the heck? Second day in a row of nearly effortless awakening in the AM. I think I’m doing something wrong.
Actually felt like I got some work done today. Got some things done for the curriculum website and worked with Letitia on how she can take over responsibility for its maintenance once I’m separated from the organization. Add to that some exchanges with Governet, scheduling a years worth of meeting space, and some more data entry into CurricUNET. Yep, I rock.
Sent a résumé up to the diocese today; an Administrative Assistant Position. We shall see. I think it’s helpful to be proactive. Helpful but quite difficult for me as it turns out.
Ok, know what else I pretty much suck at? Trick question. I only had one thing in mind. The correct answer is: follow-through. We’re having a tri-tip sandwich sale on Sunday. I’m sort of in charge so I should have had more of the details locked down before today. Well, it’s not too late or anything, just tardy. I think I pulled it together sufficiently though. I will have to do a crapload of running around. 🙁 But I will be getting a Costco card out of the process.
Got a semi-random email today from a woman asking if I could get together with her to do a photoshoot. She’s a bodybuilder and wants some shots for her portfolio. I totally would do this, but I’m not feeling excited about TFP (time for photos) right now. If this were a paid gig, yeah. I did tell her that if the shoot were really close by, and she was in a bind, I’d do it, but that she should look for another photographer who’d be more into free work right now.
*Several hours later*
Did my run tonight. Went SO much better than last Friday. The extra rest seems to really have helped. I ran 10 minutes, walked 1 minute, then ran 30 minutes. 3.55 miles. Breathing was amazingly easy!! Getting better!
Dinner post-run was rice, steamed vegetables, and steak. The rice came out perfect! And the steak too. I’m calling this a good day.
Good day.
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!
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.
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?
By the way, thanks for reading.
AMGEN Stage 3
Today was Stage 3 of the AMGEN Tour of California. It started in Auburn and ended in Modesto. Last year I went up on top of the Performing and Media Arts Center and took photos from that high vantage point. This year, I wanted to try to get street level shots so I went across college to catch the riders as they rounded the corner onto Coldwell. It went ok, but I’m not entirely happy with the photos. I’ll try to post some tomorrow.
Led my last Officers Meeting tonight. At this point, I’m looking forward to ending my term as Grand Knight. Bill will be taking over July 1st so the next Officers Meeting is his to lead. I just have one more Council meeting to lead then it’s on to trustee land.
If the weather cooperates, I’ll be taking photos of Eloisa tomorrow night for her graduation from Stanislaus State.
Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.
All weekend in a post
Above all I wish to state that my suffering has begun. It is officially too warm for me. Rule of thumb: If you have to run the A/C to be comfortable, it’s too warm.
Here’s a recap of the past several days.
Thursday I went up to Stockton for the Chrism Mass. Music was ok, I got a couple of decent photos, and dinner was excellent!
Friday I got off work at noon then went for my walk/jog/run. When I finished that, I came home and fell asleep for a couple of hours. In the evening I went to the fish fry at the parish. I think it was even more successful than the one we did earlier this season.
Saturday I went out in the afternoon to the Modesto Earth Day celebration at Graceada Park. Sadly, it was pretty boring. Oh well. After that I went to Mass where I served as Commentator. This being Passion Sunday, the Gospel was quite long. I took the part of the narrator in the reader’s theatre style proclamation. Still later in the evening, I stayed up much too late watching TV. Merlin and Walking Dead.
Today, Sunday, I got up earlyish to go down to the church and open the gates to Central Catholic and post signs indicating that there was overflow parking available. I was quite proud of myself for getting it all done. But when I went back this evening to lock up, someone had already closed the main gate. So for all I know, people went looking for parking only to find a locked gate. Annoying.
After opening up, I went to MJC to do my walk/jog/run on the track. I actually felt quite good after this session! I can tell that the workout is getting a little easier. That’s encouraging! Another nap (geez I’m getting old) and this evening I went out to the Clarion for the belly dancing thing. I took a few photos but I haven’t processed them yet. We’ll see if they’re any good.
Ok. There you go. Now you’re up to date.
