bulky update

A little bit of everything, at least from my perspective...

Downstairs bedroom - Painted! And ceiling fan installed! And shutters installed! The room looks nice, but the ceiling fan smells of new electronics. Normally I like this smell as the item comes out of the box, but the smell always fades. Not so with this fan. Every time you turn on the fan, the room stinks like new electronics. This is probably not a good thing. No solution yet determined.

Boston - We are going there tomorrow! It's been over four years since we've been out there, which is a year longer than Laura lived there. That's just too hard to belive. We called that place home for a while, and then moved away from it. I could live there again, absolutely, if it weren't for the 3000 miles that would be between my and my friends and family. I was really hoping to race at the Head of the Charles Regatta, but my club could not get an entry this year. It's a very popular regatta, usually they have to turn away anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of the people who want to race. They "only" have room for 950 boats to race over the course of two days. That's all right. No, no, that's fine. I'm only in the best shape I've been in in the last 10 years. And I've only taken up rowing again with a team of really fast, eager, and aggressive guys who love to row. I'm sure we can recreate that again next year, when I'm busy raising my first kid. Racing aside, we are really excited about going to Boston, checking out the sights that were famaliar to us, eating a lot of good food, and just soaking it all in again.

Rowing - two races over the last two weekends, Petaluma and here at the Port. Didn't win anything, but they were still good rows. The last one beat the crap out of me. I rowed in a four man boat, and our average age was something like 32. We had two competitors, one of which we, expectedly, blew away early on, but the second which we knew would be tough. Marin has a rowing club full of very fit, very fast rowers of all ages, many of whom also have previous national or Olympic experience. Oh, and they area supported by very rich club members. So the four man boat we were chasing had an average age of 60, and we only beat them in the raw time by 20 seconds over a 3 mile course. With their age handicap of almost two minutes, they blew us away in the end. You might say that's pretty sad that guys twice our age could do so well. That's what I said at first. But I'm trying to let the moment inspire me to get faster as a rower as I get older. It hasn't sunk in yet.

The other funny thing about having gotten back to rowing in the months since April is that I've managed to loose 16 pounds. Didn't really mean to, it just worked out that way. Now my pants don't fit right any more. Guess I have to eat a couple extra cannolis at Mikes.

Work - Can't seem to finish the things I start. Every time I run a test or work through a problem, I just seem to end up with more questions, no answers, and less time. I really want to make a discovery here soon and close up this project I've been wokring on for ... crap, for a year now.

Home - Too many projects going on there as well. I guess I finished painting the downstairs bedroom, but I'd really like to get some other stuff done as well. Especially before the kid comes along. Maybe I'll have more time when the rowing season ends.

Movies - A couple weeks ago we went out and saw 500 Days of Summer. It's not your typical love story comedy, it's engaging and funny, and I recommend it. Last weekend we also OnDemanded (is that a verb yet?) Away We Go with John Krasinski and Mayah Rudolph. Also a good movie, maybe not as sharp as 500, but heartwarming, funny, and entertaining.

Well, that was kind of a boring update. Sorry. Wow, the links weren't even that exciting. Well, more to come after Boston. Ciao for now.