Rock n Sole

It has been awhile since I posted anything, I need to get posts up about Ragnar and my vacation to TN at some point...

Last weekend was the 2nd annual Summerfest Rock N Sole race in Milwaukee.  They had a 5k, which I did, a 10k and a half marathon. Last year this race was a cluster fuck from the word go. The race did not have enough water stops, ran out of water, no water at the finish, crowded finishers area... you name it, it probably went wrong.  I did not run it, for this I am glad.

My friend, Erica won an entry to the race from Fit Milwaukee so she asked me to do the race with her. Since I have talked her into doing a bunch of races I couldn't say no.

The morning started out rather comically. I told Erica that I would drive. We set the time for 6:00 am. I am about half way to her house when I pass a car that looks like her. I glance back in the rear view mirror and see her custom plates. Shit! Was she supposed to drive?? Didn't think so but I turned around and went back home. She seen me following her and realized that when I said I would drive I also meant that I would pick her up.

We get downtown and decide to park near the finish line. It is really foggy out and you can't even see the lake or the top of the U.S. Bank building. We wander to the Start line and wait for the half marathon and 10K folks to start.  They go and we get in line. We are about 2 corrals back from the actual start line. This is ok with me.

The gun goes off and away we go. We go down Lincoln Memorial drive and up the freeway on ramp. As we make our way up the Hoan bridge it is still foggy out. But the sun is starting to peek out. Erica and I wore our Team Fartlek Ragnar shirts. They were a bit warm. The climb to the top of the bridge is not as bad as I thought it would be. We still had to walk once we got about 3/4 of the way to the top. it was rather freaky to feel the bridge moving underneath your feet as 7400 runners made their way over it.

We got to the top and turned around to head back. The fog was still there and it looked strange to see the tops of the buildings poking out thru the fog. 

We got to the bottom of the bridge and circled around the Summerfest grounds. towards the finish line. There were lots of people cheering as you crossed which is always so cool. Erica and I finished with chip times of 39:49. Which for me is about average. Seeing as I had not run since Ragnar, I was happy with the time.

The finisher's area was spacious and well organized. You crossed, got water, got your medal, got food. You then went out into the Summerfest grounds. This was probably one of the best organized races I have ever done. I will definitely be back to do it again next year.

Erica and I before the race!

Slowing Down

Over the past few weeks I have noticed something that makes me a little sad.  My dogs are getting older and starting to slow down. Especially Riley. I think the years of allergies and shots and pills are starting to catch up with him.

It seems like he doesn't want to go one walks as much anymore. Sometimes, he just wants to whiz and go back into the house. He doesn't seems to be in pain or have a hard time walking, he just doesn't want to. He will stand at the end of the driveway and stop. I don;t force him, I just take him back in the house and walk with the other two.  When he does go for walks he is slower than the Rufus and Boomer and sometimes I have to watch myself to not yell at him to hurry up or to start dragging him along. Then the walks are fun for no one.

Rufus and Riley are both about 9 1/2 so not that old but no spring chickens either. It just makes me a little sad to know that they are not the young, playful pups they once were. Plus side is that they both like to get extra snuggle time on the couch with me.

Strange Brew

A couple of months ago Groupon had a deal for a starter home brewing kit.  As I have learned more and more about beers, the process of creating my own beers has intrigued me.  A couple of the guys from Beer Club brew and some of their beers are really good. So I bought the kit and selected the Irish Stout as my first beer.

As with any brewery, the first thing to do is select a name. After sitting in my favorite pub with Laura one night, we came up with the name Fartlek Brewing. It combines two things I like, beer and running.  You can follow it on Twitter or Untappd. A couple of names that were rejected. Brains, Beer and Boobs and Sizzletits.

Thanks to my friend's daughter who is a good artist, I also have a logo. I may do some tweeking on the text/name part but it looks pretty good.

Last week, I finally got around to actually doing the brewing.

The directions provided in the kit were a bit vague at times. I found I needed a few things that were not provided. The big one being a thermometer. Hitting specific temperatures at points is critical.

The raw ingredients

Next I took some warm water and mixed in the dry yeast. It had to sit for awhile to starting working.

The yeast

Next you crush the grains and put them in a muslin bag and steep them in almost boiling water for about 30 minutes. This is where having a thermometer would have been handy. You were to keep the temp about 155*

Steeping the wort

Next you add the malt extract to the wort. This is really thick, like molasses. You have to stir it constantly until the malt is dissolved or it can burn.

Malt has been added to the wort

After that you bring it to a low boil for about an hour. You need to add the first batch of hops at this time. The hops I used looked like little rabbit food pellets. They dissolve in the water. You have to stir it a lot at this point as well to keep the wort from boiling over when adding the hops.

Wort with hops added

Once the boiling is almost done, I added the second set of hops. Lots of stirring again.

Then comes the cooling of the wort. You need to bring the temperature from boiling to about 80* as quickly as possible to avoid contamination of the wort. I used an ice bath. Another home brewer puts the ice cubes right in the wort. I may invest in a wort chiller if I decide to keep brewing. The chiller hooks up to the sink and you run cold water thru copper tubing that is placed inside the boil pot.

Chilling the wort

After that you put the wort in the primary fermentation. Basically a 6.5 gallon bucket. You fill it with water to the 5 gallon mark and stir the crap out of it to get lots of air into the wort. Oxygen is what the yeast needs to do its job. I got a good arm workout in. Here is where I may upgrade again and get an aquarium pump and use that to add oxygen.

Fermentation bucket

I then put the lid on it, put the airlock in the hole and put it downstairs.

A couple days later a guy asked how it was going. Was I seeing lots of action? I went downstairs and looked. Nothing. Crap! What is going on? After a pow wow with several tweeps, it was decided that the basement was too cold and it need to be warmer for the yeast to work. Thanks Tom for all your help and advice! I stopped at the home brew store to pick up a packet of yeast in case it was needed. Once I moved it into the spare bedroom, I gave it a few minutes of good swirling and waited.

By the next day when I came home, it had warmed up enough to get the yeast working again and I had bubbles!! The fermentation process was working!

I now have to wait for the bubbles to stop and take some gravity readings. One the reading are the same for three days in a row, I can move it into the secondary fermentation bucket where it will hang out for about another week or so.  Once again this is where the directions were a bit vague.No real time frames were provided.

After that I bottle it up and it conditions and carbonates in the bottles for about a month.
I will be posting more pics and updates as the process moves forward.

Garbage Day

Today is garbage day in the neighborhood. I am fascinated by the amount of garbage my neighbors generate.

Most weeks I have about five newspaper baggies of dog poo and a Pick N Save bag of garbage in my cart. Maybe if it was a big week, I will have another bag. Throw in the monthly furnace filter and that is about it. Some people will two or three carts of stuff. What do people buy and use that they generate that much stuff? I rarely eat fast or take out food so that is alot of waste I don't generate. I recycle everything I can.

Puzzling, I tell you....

Martin Luther King Jr Day

 Today is Martin Luther King Jr.Day. I thought I would share a couple of photos I took when I was in Washington DC in October. It was right after the memorial was dedicated. At night is was really a moving and beautiful memorial.

New Challenges

I am still here. I survived Vegas, thanks goodness. I still need to put a recap of that together but am lazy.

Welcome to 2012.

As I look back on 2011, I had lots of great experiences and new adventures. I traveled across the country from Florida to California. Philly and Washington DC to Vegas. I met some amazing new people that I'm proud to call friends.

I started a run streak on Thanksgiving. My goal was to run at least one mile every day from Thanksgiving thru the end of the year. I accomplished this goal. I was a bit nervous about how I would do after running a half marathon in Vegas but I think getting up early the next morning and running with Annie helped my legs recover quicker. I probably would have kept going but the weather turned crappy and running outside was miserable. I have a gym membership but hate, hate, hate running on treadmills. I feel like if I run at the Pettit, I need to get in more miles and some days, I just don't have time to block out an hour or more for running.

This year I am once again looking for new challenges.

So I decided to sign up for Ragnar. What is Ragnar, you ask? You can see all the fun details here.  But it is a 200 mile relay run between Madison, WI and Chicago, IL in early June.There are 12 runners in a group and we rotate running legs. We run day into night and back into day again. Some Team Challenge friends did it last year and talked about how crazy fun it was, so I was talking with someone and we both said "What the Hell, Let's go for it" So I mailed off my race entry fee to the team captain and proceeded to freak out.

I am also trying to keep running and staying active so I have been signing up for other races as well. I am doing the Samson Stomp at the Milwaukee County Zoo in a little over a week. The following weekend I'm part of a marathon relay at the Pettit Ice Center. This is a team of four people who have to run a total of 96 laps around the track. We still have no strategy (or maybe that is our strategy).

After that, I have no idea. I would like to run at least a race each month. 5k and 10k are preferred but am thinking about heading back to Napa with Team Challenge again for another half marathon.

So what new challenges should I embark on for 2012?

Viva Las Vegas

Only a few more days till I leave for Vegas. I'm really looking forward to running in Vegas half marathon with Team Challenge again. This year it will be at night under all the lights of the Vegas strip. 

I can't believe how fast this season has gone by. 14 weeks ago, I was just meeting my new group of mentees, assuring them that they  A.) won't die and B.) can raise a ton of money for Team  Challenge and the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. I am so proud of them and how they have done such a good job with their training and fundraising.

I am a bit worried about how to prepare for the race. With it starting at 5:30 pm, it is much different than I'm used to. Trying to figure out when and how to eat and drink. I don't want to have to stop and pee or be not hydrated enough.  I was planning the run out a bit and was happy to see that there were 8 water/GU stops along the course. That means I won't have to carry any water with me.  Yeah!!!

I was a bit disappointed to see that Steel Panther won't be playing at the House of Blues or GVR this year.  It was a blast seeing them last year. I just may make the trip to Chicago to go see them at the end of the month. I still have three vacation days to schedule.

Also looking forward to a few places for beers. It is nice that the Burger Bar is in our hotel. I can stumble back to the room.  I'm hoping that we can hit up another place or two after the race on Sunday.

Stay tuned for race updates next week!

Cranky

For the past couple of weeks it seems like I have been more cranky than usual.  I have less tolerance for people. It seems like everything is just irritating me. Neighbors who insist on parking on top of the pile of leaves in front of my house and then the city doesn't pick them up. Co-workers who change things mid stream or give us crap data and then when we do what they gave us are not happy because it is crap. People in stores who stop in the middle of an aisle and give you a dirty look when you say "Excuse me" when trying to get around them.

I'm blaming it on the lack of sunlight.  I'm leaving work and it is dark outside and by time I get home it is dark outside. And the cold. I hate cold weather. Give me 90's any day over the 30's.

I'm walking the dogs in the dark at the park. I'm not overly fond of this because of the deer and coyotes that roam the area. More so the coyotes.

By time I get back from walking the dogs I don't feel like working out so I put my lounge pants on, eat dinner and snuggle with the puppies on the couch. Some nights I feel like I could go to bed by 7 pm. 

I'm hoping my trip to Vegas will help cure this grumpyness a bit. If not, it will be a long winter.

I've also been looking at some vacation options for Jan/Feb. I would like to go back to Mexico. The weather and scenery were beautiful. The resort was fantastic.

So who's up for a tropical vacation?

One of Those Days

Today at work was just one of those days where I wonder how anything ever gets done there.

I have been working on a small project of documenting several processes that our group performs.  The one I started yesterday involved going to a vendor website, downloading some updated files, unzipping the files and repackaging the files that are needed by our system. We then move these smaller file packages to various servers depending on the package type.  Because of how we do our development work, this mean putting the files out in four different environments.  Development, IT Testing (we test how good our development is), UAT (where we let our users do testing) and production. I figured this would take me a day to perform the action and write up the processes.

That came to a screeching halt.  Because this is a fairly new process that was implemented about eight months ago there have only been two updates to this area.

It turns out that each of our four environments are set up differently.  Not good.  They should all be the same.  How else can you expect something that you developed to work properly if, as you migrate it up the chain to production, everything is different? You can't.

So at 2:30 this afternoon, I pull together two of the people who worked on this previously.  No one knew why everything was different.  The guy who did most of this work went to another area shortly after this was implemented.

Now it is my mess to clean up.  We have to get each of the environments look identical.  That means trying to figure out what they did in production and working backward to replicate it.  This means making server changes, database changes code changes and who knows what other changes.

This may now consume the rest of the month if not longer for me.  I don't mind it, as I am learning lots of new stuff but I hate going back and cleaning up other people's messes that they were too lazy or incompetent to do right the first time.

It also meant that I didn't get out of work until almost five and hit some crappy traffic on the way home.  It took me an hour to get home and I had to walk the dogs in the dark.  That made no one happy.

Things I Like

I like it when I get emails like this.

Donation to Tomorrow's Hope. As I posted the other day on our Facebook and Twitter, we closed out the books on the 2011 Tyranena Oktoberfest Bike Ride and mailed a donation check to Tomorrow's Hope in the amount of $19,107.47. Woohoo!

A couple weeks ago a friend and I volunteered at the annual Tyranena Oktoberfest Bike Ride. This was our second year of volunteering and I have ridden in the event three times previously.  Tyranena always puts on a great event.  It doesn't hurt when they make some awesome beer that we get to drink for helping out. It make me feel good to know that our help made a difference and that alot of money was raised to go to a great charity.

We are volunteering again for the Beer Run next weekend.  This event will benefit the Lake Mills food pantry and the Jefferson County Humane Society. I kinda would like to run the half marathon but my times are not quite where I want them to be and I would very likely be one of the last people out on the course. I am hoping that maybe next year I will be faster and can run it.Instead we will be in the finishers tent handing out snacks and water and collecting timing chips.

One of the things I told myself is that I would start doing more volunteer work. Whether it is at events like this, working with Team Challenge or company sponsored events. I am fortunate to have the time and energy to help out and feel that what I do does make a difference.

How have you made a difference??

Freaking Out

I very seldom remember my dreams. I don't know why and really don't care. Who knows.. maybe I don't dream. But every once in awhile a dream sticks with you and really kind of creeps you out.

Last night I had a dream that my work hubby and I were in his car.  We were driving with the top down on a bridge. There was construction on the bridge. We had to stop when the bridge took a sudden shift up.  We got out of the car and walked to the end of bridge.  There were some people on the section that we were trying to get to.  They were telling us how to get up there in the car.

Next thing I know work hubby is falling over the side of the bridge. I can so distinctly hear him hitting the ground followed by cars honking. I remember screaming and woke up.  I lay in bed for quite awhile this morning because I couldn't shake the strange feeling I had. 

When I got to work, work hubby was already there. I was relieved.  I settled in and sent this tweet at 7:44 am. "Had a bizarre dream last night that work hubby fell off a bridge. Kinda freaked me out."

While checking Twitter about twenty minutes later I see that there is a report of someone falling/jumping off the Hoan bridge this morning. At first details were rather sketchy but it turns out that a man had some car problems, got out of his car to look under the hood and was hit and thrown over the side of the bridge by another driver. He fell 80 feet to his tragic death.

When I read that I had to go into the bathroom at work because I started to cry.  I have no idea why this freaked me out so bad. It did and still does leave me with a very unsettled feeling in my stomach. I feel so bad for this man's family.

I just hope that I don't have more dreams like this.

Waking up Awesome!

I am borrowing this from another blog.  I seen it and thought that we don't think like this often enough. It should not matter if you are a kid or adult.

A big thank you to Pigtailpals.com for letting me borrow this great message.


Waking up Awesome!

There was a time when you were five years old,

and you woke up full of awesome.

 

You knew you were awesome.

 

You loved yourself.

 

You thought you were beautiful,

even with missing teeth and messy hair and mismatched socks inside your grubby sneakers.

 

You loved your body, and the things it could do.

 

You thought you were strong.

 

You knew you were smart.

  

Do you still have it?

The awesome.

 

Did someone take it from you?

Did you let them?

Did you hand it over, because someone told you weren’t beautiful enough, thin enough, smart enough, good enough?

Why the hell would you listen to them?

Did you consider they might be full of shit?

 

Wouldn’t that be nuts, to tell my little girl below that in another five or ten years she might hate herself because she doesn’t look like a starving and Photoshopped fashion model?

Or even more bizarre, that she should be sexy over smart, beautiful over bold?

Are you freaking kidding me?

 

Look at her. She is full of awesome.

 

You were, once. Maybe you still are. Maybe you are in the process of getting it back.

 

All I know is that if you aren’t waking up feeling like this about yourself, you are really missing out.

The Circle of Life

The past week has been a tough one for my friends.

One friend's father passed away Saturday very unexpectedly. Another friend's mom has been going through some rough times and it looks like the end may be near. Today I got a call from my mom about another friend who I have not seen in probably 10 years that her mom had passed away on Monday.  Three months ago another good friend's mom passed away.

I know all about the circle of life. I watched The Lion King, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

I just hate that my friends and I are now getting to that age where we are losing our parents.  I am not that old.

It has been a little over two years (Aug 21st) that my dad passed away.  I still miss him so much. I miss talking to him about stupid stuff or just to even say hi.  While the pain has subsided, the heartache is still always there. 

This past weekend at camping it was decided that we are doing away with the third week of August. Too many bad things happen. Three years ago, my friend's brother died, two years was my dad and this year, two friends lost their parents.

The only good thing was 11 years ago two great friends got married. They were even nice enough to offer to move their anniversary date to not coincide with the "bad" week.

I want to go to more weddings and less funerals.

Boys of Summer

The Milwaukee Brewers have been red hot the past month or so. They have the best home field winning record at 46-15. Unreal. They have won 19 out of the last 21 games.

They are getting great starts by their pitchers and not giving up the stupid plays that used to beleaguer them in the past.

The best part is that they are fun to watch and look like they are having fun playing.

Nyjer Morgan (aka Tony Plush) has been a hoot to listen to in post game interviews and on Twitter. Yesterday he adopted a kitten from the humane society and Twitter was all abuzz about it. The kitten's name is Slick Willy.

John Axford has 35 saves so far this season and 32 consecutive saves. Unbelievable.

I've only been to a handful of games this season so far but have plans to hit up at least two more. Tickets are now hard to come by.

I look forward to them having a long extended season this fall.

Jo and the Volcano

I didn't sleep very well last night.  I kept waking up while having the most bizarre dream.

I was in Hawaii. Or at least that's where I think I was. I explain more about that in a minute. It was cold but yet warm out. I was bobsledding down an active volcano. Weaving in and out of the snow. Avoiding the lava rivers. Every so often it would erupt and make the course more challenging. Once I would get to the bottom of the volcano I would put the bobsled in the back of the blue VW van from the tv show, Lost. The scenery was very tropical and lush so that is what makes me think I was in Hawaii.

It seemed like after every time I would get to the bottom of the volcano I would wake up. Not all the way but that kinda weird dreamy state where you can sense things but not quite cognizant of things.

It seemed like this went on for most of the night.... or at least until 4:36 when the newspaper hit the porch and woke Boomer up.

As a result, my butt is kinda dragging this morning. 

Update: The volcano may have been Mount Etna in Italy since I see that is also erupting.

Just Ducky

Last Friday was @Sp0on's birthday. She had put the word out on Twitter and G+ that she was having a mini bowling party at a local bar, Koz's

I never remembered it being called mini bowling before. We always called it duck pin bowling. Why?? I have no idea. I have not been duck pin bowling in at least 20 years. If I recall, R and I went before we were even married.

Anyhoo... We met up at Koz's about 7pm. There ended up being about 20 people who showed up during the evening. We broke up teams by the old fashioned way. We counted off by three's like you did for gym class in school. This made for some interesting teams to say the least.

Since about half the people had never met each other before, in real life, we had to use everyone's Twitter names. Then we all knew each other. Only a couple people knew how to mark score. I was one of them. I tried to keep score for the first game but gave up on the second. The others were on their own. I did teach a few and they seemed to catch on so all was well.

After two games, people were getting restless. By this time everyone was enjoying the $2 bottles of Lite or the $1 glasses of PBR or Schlitz and talking and laughing. We stopped for a bit when it was noticed that there were fire trucks and ambulance across the street. Turns out the firefighters weren't here to strip for Sp0on but to attend to a child that was hit by a car. (Side note: you never heard about it on the news or in the paper)

We then headed up to Bryant's Lounge. There ended up being about a dozen of us there. We walked in and noticed that it was dark. Very dark. Like so dark, we all pulled out our phones so we could see where we were going, dark. Because there were so many of us they said that they had no place for us to sit. We headed outside to discuss our options and decided to head to Bomb Shelter instead. They have a great selection of craft beers and was just down the street from where we were. It was fun to sit in the back area and check out all the beer and Milwaukee memorabilia. They had some classic stuff. Check out their website for some of the pics of the place.

After a few hours, I was running out of steam and headed home. It was a good time exploring of of Milwaukee's little known and fun treasures.

Skunk!

The past week or so I have seen something outside at night that is very disturbing to me.

Skunks. And not the cute Pepe LePew kind either.

Tonight confirmed there are at least 3 of them terrorizing the neighborhood. This is making it extremely difficult to take the dogs outside after dark. It looks like there are two little ones and a mom. Tonight they were not together so not sure if they are related.

Boomer got sprayed by one the other night. Luckily it was not bad. Just what I wanted to do at 10:30 at night is give him a bath.

They are not afraid either. Tuesday night one of the little ones waddled down the neighbor's lawn and hung out by the street light. It wandered around, then waddled across the street and sat on another neighbor's porch before it went under some bushes. I was out there shining the flashlight in it's face and making noise. It just looked at me. No fear what so ever.

I called the city to have them come and put traps out. They said that they can't so that without the homeowners permission. The two houses where they seem to be hanging out are both empty. One is for sale (the realtor is getting a call tomorrow) and the other has been vacant for the past 15 years or so. Both have landscaping that is overgrown and not maintained (which I did tell the city about when I called them). The perfect habitat for them to live in.

I am going to spend my off day tomorrow calling the city and getting traps in my yard and rallying the neighbors to call and get them in their yards. This skunk thing has to stop.

Damn, It's Hot Outside

It's a sad day when this happens. How many little kids are crying?

Sports Night

Over the weekend I discovered that the tv show Sports Night is streaming on Netflix. The show only ran 2 seasons and had some of the best writing. I loved the quick witty dialogue between characters. The chemistry was fantastic.

That show introduced me to Josh Charles, Peter Krause, Felicity Huffman, Josh Malignant and the ever awesome Robert Guillaume.

I spent most of Sunday watching the show. I have to say I love the fact there are no commercials. The episodes are 22 min long and you can breeze thru them.

When Robert had a stroke in real life they wrote that into the script of the show.

Sports Night reminds me a bit of Parenthood. It too has the same quick banter between characters. It makes you really connect with them.

I wish there were more shows like this on tv today.

Dads

With Father's day on Sunday, I find myself missing my dad more now than right after he died.

It is the little, stupid things that I miss the most. Like coming home to find that he did some little thing around the house for me. I miss asking his advice on stuff. How to do something or having him help me fix something. Or just even going up to the restaurant down the street for dinner.

It is kinda funny. I look back and think that the last few years he was alive we went down a very similar path. We both had spouses that cheated, tried to work it out, got fed up with it and moved on. The end result for both was sorta the same Randy died and so did my dad.

I was always closer to my dad than my mom. I liked to learn how things worked and my dad liked to show me. He was by no means perfect and had his demons. He struggled most of his adult life with alcoholism and in the end that and smoking contributed to his death. And while he could drive me nuts at times, I knew that he loved me and even when he was dying he was trying to take care of me and make sure that I would be alright.

Dad, I miss you and love you and I'm doing alright. Thank you for teaching me to be the person I am.