January 2009 Archives
I've done the Rockets Run a few times before, and every year I complain about it. The last time was 2006, I think, so when Jose expressed interest in running it and getting the free ticket to a Rockets game, I decided it was time to give the race another chance.
The verdict? It still has major issues. We didn't register in advance because the online system didn't appear to have a way to ensure that our game tickets would be next to each other. So we waited until this morning to register, and had to wait in line for 25 minutes to hand over our forms. At that point, we were literally 2 minutes to race time, so we had to grab our t-shirts out of the bag and toss the rest. The gun went off while we were still pinning our numbers on. Since we didn't have time to go back to the car, we also had to run in our sweatshirts and jackets. It was pretty cold, but not cold enough that I needed the THREE layers that I ended up wearing.
I decided it wasn't worth complaining, so I made the best of it. We knew going in that we'd just be doing it for fun, so we did the run 3 minutes/walk 3 minutes pattern that Jose has been doing lately. I think we finished somewhere in the 45-47 minute range. That would be chip time; gun time was probably 50 minutes because we got started late.
Still, it was fun to get some exercise and finish on the court. And we're looking forward to the game on Tuesday night. And because I knew I'd be going slow, I took my camera along for some crappy photos! Woohoo!
I'm brainstorming for a project:
If you were tasked with creating a new board game, what would the game be?
This has been perhaps the craziest week in my entire life.
No exaggeration.
Not going to blog about it. Email or call if you want.
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If you don't read the wedding blog, here are the highlights.
We sent out save the dates that I designed. I liked them.
We got to taste a bunch of food at our venue. It was all yummy.
I don't know how to make sure I get a good DJ that I won't hate.
My mom picked up my dress and I'll have it later this week.
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Whew. That is all.
I had my midpoint evaluation for my front room rendezvous officer training flow yesterday, so it was a pretty stressful day. Before every sim in the front room, I always have a brief moment of complete and utter panic -- as in, I start sending Jose emails that say stuff like:
"I don't want to do this."
"I just want to be at home."
"Ugh ugh ugh."
And finally...
"Ok, I have to pull it together now"
Thankfully, so far I've always been able to do just that -- pull it together. It's very different from my experience in my previous training flows, where I had the safety of the backroom to fall back on. In the backroom, your decisions get funneled through someone else before they reach the flight director. In the front room, I control the funnel. And I get seriously freaked out each time I stop to actually consider that!
Anyway, all in all the sim went well. I got some good feedback on what I can improve, and everyone said I'm right where I need to be. That is exactly what a midpoint evaluation is for, so I'm relieved and happy.
Last Friday I got to be weightless for the 4th time in my life. (The first time was pre-blogging, but here's the second and third.) This time was a little disappointing -- not because of the flight itself, but because of my role.
I was a self-described "technical mentor without a team." The college team I was assigned to work with ended up not being quite ready to come to Houston to fly this time, so I had no one to work with. The Reduced Gravity Office was kind enough to let me come out and fly anyway, since I'd put a lot of time into helping the team before they were withdrawn -- but none of the teams really needed any help! I was feeling really dumb for even being there, as cool as zero g flight is, but finally one of the teams (a collaborative effort between NASA and Clear Creek High School) took pity on me and said "we'll take her." Whew!
It turns out that I was actually of use after all, since two of the three team members immediately got sick -- and by sick, I mean Jen levels of sick. (When I flew on the Vomit Comet for the very first time as a Georgia Tech student with Jen, Becca, and Karen, Jen felt so miserable that I still remember her saying that she was ready to jump out the window -- with or without a parachute.) They were whisked off to the back of the plane where they remained strapped in their seats for the rest of the flight, periodically throwing up. Yeah, fun stuff. Fortunatley, I was able to help the last man standing and hopefully they got some data for their experiment.
NASA is now contracting out all of the zero gravity flights to the Zero G Corporation, a private company that offers weightless flights to paying customers, so we flew on their modified Boeing 727 instead of NASA's C9. There was no noticable difference in the layout or operation of the plane, but it was much more nicely decorated on the outside. :)
I took an hour of my day yesterday to walk over to the auditorium where they had CNN running on a big screen. It was cool to watch the inauguration and see the masses gathered on the Mall. It looked pretty darn cold, but then again, if I'd been in DC I probably would have wanted to be there too. I have high hopes for Obama, and it will be interesting to see how things progress now that he is in office. There is such massive adulation for him, and yet it will be impossible for him to make decisions that please everyone. It was disappointing to see some of the snarky comments made about President Bush's departure. I wasn't a fan of many of his policies, but there's no need to be nasty. I wish him well back here in Texas.
It's an exciting time. Change is scary. But I hope that it will also be good.
In other news, here's a photo of me running on Sunday. The race bibs were gigantic this year. While it was cool that everyone was able to read my name in 100-point font, the size was slightly obnoxious. I was a poster child for my triathlon club, BAM. Woo!
MLK Day is drawing to a close, and so is my three-day weekend. (Though it's arguable how much work anyone will get done tomorrow, since I'm sure we will all be watching the inauguration. I must say I'm glad I don't live in DC right now.)
Jose and I went downtown every single day this weekend -- four in a row. On Friday night, we joined Jason and his parents, Debbie, Curt and Mark for the Aeros game. The next day, we met Meryl and James for dinner at the House of Blues and the Rockets game. I hadn't been to House of Blues before, and I also didn't know you could eat there. The food was pretty tasty and the atmosphere was cool. I'll have to keep an eye on the upcoming acts to see if there's anyone we'd like to see in concert. The game was also good, with the Rockets safely beating the Miami Heat.
Less than 7 hours after getting home from the basketball game, we were up and headed downtown again for the half marathon. And today we decided to take another basketball game and went to the Rockets' "matinee" at 1:00 against the Denver Nuggets. It was a close game the whole way, and the Rockets managed to hold on in the end for a 2-point win. We got our tickets from a new system that allows season ticket holders to put their unused seats up for sale. (Baseball has done this for a while, but I guess it's new for the Rockets.) We bought two seats on the first row of the upper deck in the "end zone," and there is nothing to print out. You enter the arena with your credit card, which the door attendant swipes through a little machine. The machine then spits out a piece of paper with your seats on it just so you know where to go. It was pretty cool.
In other news, I am TOTALLY sore from the run yesterday. It's pathetic. I had no real soreness to speak of after last Monday's 9-miler, so I'm a little surprised at the difference today, but I'm sure it's due to running surface. Last Monday I ran on half asphalt and half dirt; yesterday I ran the whole way on concrete. Either that, or I'm just getting old...
I ran my 5th Houston Half Marathon this morning -- 2004, and 2006-2009. (In 2005 I ran the full marathon.) In 5 years, I have run this race on less and less training. This year takes the cake. After not running for an entire month from early December to early January, I ran a couple 4-milers, then a 9-miler, then showed up at the race. This is certainly not my brightest move, but it turned out fine.
I ran a 2:29:54, my slowest Houston Half, but not my slowest half marathon ever. All things considered, I'm thrilled. After running the first mile, I stuck to my plan of running for 3 minutes and walking for 1 minute. It worked perfectly. I was able to maintain the same ~11:30/mile pace the whole way without any tailoff at the end, because even towards the end when I got tired, I never had to run for long before I had another walk break.
The funny thing about doing run/walk during a race like this is the comments you get from spectators. Since I was walking as early as the second mile, I got tons of "you're looking good, you can do it!" cheers from people who assume that if you're walking, it means you're already worn out. So that was cool -- lots of cheers just for me! :)
Jose was waiting at the corner of Dallas and Milam to give me a boost for the final mile to the finish line. I worked my way through the post-race hoopla as quickly as I could and met him in the lobby of the Hilton, and by 10:00 we were on our way back to Clear Lake. Not much fanfare to my race this year, that's for sure. I didn't even go to the expo -- Debbie and Jason were kind enough to pick up my packet for me.
I'd like to say that I'll train better next year, but who knows. Right now I view running as a fun way to maintain fitness, so I'm not really concerned about getting faster. This was my slowest Houston Half, but it was also one of the most fun, because I didn't care about what time I ran. I'm happy to have squeaked in under 2:30, but honestly I didn't even realize I could do that until I was a tenth of a mile from the finish and could see the clock. It was nice to not care.
From the look of it, most of my friends had great days, and I can't wait to read all the blog posts!
Yesterday I sold my entire set of Playstation 2 stuff -- everything from the console to the games to the guitars to the dance pads. I got $250 for it, so I was pretty happy. Since Jose got his PS3 a few months ago, the PS2 has been sitting around totally unused, not even plugged in to the TV. Of course, getting rid of all that stuff meant I can no longer play Guitar Hero when I get the itch, and this was obviously an unacceptable situation. So we headed to Best Buy last night to pick up Guitar Hero World Tour (which we never got for PS2) and, at the last minute, added Guitar Hero III to the mix to get a second guitar. At the checkout my total was $248.55. So I got rid of the stuff we no longer used and got the stuff we wanted now, and made $1.45 in the process.