There's a Pool in town...

This one goes out to my buddies in St. Cloud, MN (aka 'the cloud') who swim (or even bike). See back in the cloud, there used to be a freaking sweet 50 meter outdoor lap swimming pool called Municipal Pool (or just Munice). It was old and historic. Generations of people learned to swim in this pool including my parents, it was a great asset to the community of STC. Problem is, the pool needed updates. It was losing money and it wasn't managed effectively. The leadership in the city (and most likely the majority of the tax payers) didn't see it that way, and thought that the area would be better served if they filled in the pool and made it into a parking lot. (I still can't believe it). So that's just what happened.

Here in Bend, there's this place called Juniper Park Fitness center where they used to have a 45 meter outdoor lap swimming pool that was wearing out, needed updates, much like munice in STC. But instead of giving up, and filling it in, they spent millions, lengthened it to 50 meters and widened it to have 8 foot lanes. They also put a removable lid on it so it can be used in the winter. Duh, what a brilliant idea. Holy crap, that's not the end of it, they also built an awesome weight room and spinning room (a room 100% dedicated to cycling spin classes with a 50 inch plasma flat screen TV in there - I'm not kidding, I going to push for live TdF coverage during the tour!). There is a big difference though between Bend, and St. Cloud. People here are generally fit and want their kids to have a healty lifestyle, and that's where they want to go in their free time, unlike in the people in the cloud are going to the buffet and then the bar to drink MGD light.

The pool in St. Cloud was one of the reasons that brought me back there after college, and now it's gone. Someday maybe Dave Kleis (STC Mayor, and also my former drivers ed teacher) will regret that decision, but I'm sure most of St. Cloud probably doesn't care, which is too damn bad.

This completes my rant for the day. Snow report: it's blizzrarding up at bachelor, and we have 1 inch of snow in town.

The gingerbread man.

In the holiday spirit, Laurie made some gingerbread people cookies. Can you tell which one is her's and which one is the actual photo in a magazine?

MN Wild - Spin o rama

This is almost a week old, but it's sweet, because the opposing coach invented the move. Pierre Marc Bouchard wins it in the shootout. enjoy.

Pint 26.

I gave pint 26 today.

If you don't know what I mean by that, you don't read this blog very often.

Hopefully only a few more weekly pints to go.

Turkey Day!

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving and safe too! We have it so good here, we're thankful for so much. I miss getting together w/ the family for the holidays, that's definatly the hardest part of living so far away! Mom- we went skiing today though, and the snow was perfect!! We hosted thanksgiving here, at our house, with some friends of ours, that also don't have nearby reletives.

I was looking for a nice turkey picture for the holiday to post on the blog, so I typed in 'turkey' on google images... and this is the first hit:

Can you believe it? Is that how you would like to spend your thanksgiving? Getting dropped in oil, I'm sure is right up there. We did not have a full turkey, but we did cook a turkey breast, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams (some tofu also), the whole deal.

Oh yea, did I mention that the skiing is officially awesome.

We'll be skiing the rest of the weekend.

That's all!

Ironman Update.

My de-ironing progress continues. I started out with a ferritin level of 1090, in June, and now, over 5 months and 23 phlebotomies later, I'm at a miniscule 231!!! Yea twenty freaking three pints in 24 weeks - one short of 3 gallons. But don't worry, I'll be hitting 3 gallons tomorrow (that's alot when you look at a one gallon jug of apple juice). A ferritin level of 231 puts me within the -normal- range for a non-iron overloaded person (normal range for ferritin level is somewhere around 30-300). WOO HOO!

This was nothing short of great news, but I'm not done yet. The doc said the goal will be to get the ferritin between 10 and 30. I'm still under going weekly phlebotomies, for a few more weeks, so it will be important to make sure I don't actually run out of iron, which would lead to anemia.

On the fitness front, I ran in yet another 5k run last weekend (the COCC turkey trot) and I made it to the finish in under 19 minutes. I was proud of my friend Sean, and my friend Erika, who were the overall winners of the race. That wraps it up for running races in 2006. In fact, probably racing period. I'm planning some big events for 2007, many of which include pedaling a bike.

Here is a teaser for my next post: [11/23 update: you'll have to wait a few more days :) ]



bye.

Apple CRAP-ple.

Apple iPod nano: completely remastered
Apple MacBook: intel core 2 duo

Yea, in the past few months I got a new ipod, and what do you know, a few days later they came out with a new, even cooler nano with more storage and more battery life. yippie. We got a new MacBook at the same time, and now, what do you know, they have come out with new faster MacBooks. What the hell. It's not like I hadn't waited 5 years (or more) for the next sweet laptop to come out. I could never bite the bullet, because I figured a newer faster one would be offered next month or next year. So what happens when I finally get a laptop? Well, exactly what I thought would happen. Aside from the bad timing, I have to say I'm totally impressed w/ the macbook and it has more than likely converted me to an apple user, instead of PCs only. I only should have waited a few weeks.

I've been a bit sick the past couple days, nothing major, but hopefully it goes away because it's lame.

There was a trace of snow on the Mt batchelor web cam today, so we might just be skiing by Thanksgiving afterall.

I was 2nd in the 10k last weekend but I should've been 1st. I'm chaulking that up to having 22 phlebotomies in the past 23 weeks. That's right, 2 more to go, and I've got 3 gallons. My next appointment at the doc is Nov 21st, so there'll be a full update of de-ironing progress.

MacForest 15k

One of the best 15k trail runs is held each fall in Corvallis every year. The course has gains and loses about 1000 feet, so it's challenging, and it's held in MacForest which is resembles a rain forest after living in central oregon for the last 2.5 years.

The race is usually on the day that the clocks get switched back one hour. So basically you have tons of time before the race to get there, so you can sleep an extra hour. So for whatever reason, I had it in my head that the race started at 10:30am. We didn't get off to a super early start, but I didn't consider us running late. That is, until the gas light went on in the Subaru, (which means get gas immediately if the wife is in the car). So we got gas in Corvallis. As we were heading to the race, I glanced at Laurie and asked, 'it's at 10:30, right?' She replied: "I don't know, It's at TEN THIRTY, isn't it, Ryan?" in a sarcastic sort of way. I was the reason we were going to this race so obvioulsy I was the one that need to have the details right. So as we were pulling in to park, I was thinking we missed the start, because there were other cars parked, but there were only cars, no people. So we parked the car, and then like clockwork, Jazzy, our dog, ralphs all over the back of the car. (And I mean a big puke.) The plan was to have Jazz stay in the car while we ran, so no Lauire is stressing because the dog is sick, and we were thinking well should we just turn around, and go home? I think we both felt like doing that. We managed to get the car cleaned up so the dog wasn't laying in puke, and then jogged toward the start. Again, it was pretty desserted, excpet for the timer, and a few spectators, I knew we'd missed the start but I asked someone anyway. We went to get our race bib, and started about 15 minutes late. I ran the first mile w/ Laurie, and then proceeded to catch half the field, and Laurie ran the whole course passing a good amount of people as well. I'm proud of her finish, as she wasn't really 'pumped up' for this race (at all). So I didn't break any records but I did manage to run the last 8.3 miles in 58 minutes and 30 seconds.

Maybe do another 10k this weekend in Powell Butte.

Until then.