Room to Rock

Ah, Fried-day. No bat sightings since last Sunday, so things are back to normal around here. We're getting ready for a gathering of the old Webnoize crew for a BBQ tomorrow, so that should be fun. Hopefully, the thunderstorms will spare us for at least one day.

I finally got on the ball and uploaded a shiteload of photos to my long-dormant Flickr page, which hadn't been updated since January. I've got vacation photos, birthday party pics from the spring, and even some shots from last night's Beverly Homecoming 5K. It was looking pretty ominous before the kids' races started, as the skies grew darker and the rain began. Lily and Hannah had fun running their races and did well. The 5K was my first speedwork in about a month; I ran a 21:50 by my watch, 21:53 by the official timer's clock. Not bad, a little over a 7 minute pace, but about 20 seconds off my PR. The rain stopped by the time the race started and held off for the entire time I was running. Molly and Jon also ran and did well; Jon ended up finishing 14th overall.

The Beijing Olympics kick off tonight with the 2008-hour-long opening ceremonies. I have to admit, I watched a little of it and it was pretty impressive. I was waiting for the rhythmic dancing tribute to the Tianamen Square tanks, but never saw it. NBC's going into Olympic overdrive. I'm looking forward to the track and field, soccer and swimming events.

Aiight, I'll check in later.

Truckloads of Nothin'

I'm in a sports-centric whirl right now. I picked up some research materials yesterday for my fantasy baseball draft, which takes place Thursday night. Both Deb and I are out of the March Madness pool, especially after Kansas (which we both picked to win it all) lost yesterday. In the hockey tournament, UNH was upset yesterday by Miami of Ohio; everybody was expecting a UNH-BC rematch in the regional finals, but no such luck. Unfortunately, UNH always seems to come up big in the regular season but slip in the postseason. Meanwhile, the Leafs continue to battle for a playoff spot; unfortunately, there are six teams fighting for the last three spots. They currently sit in 11th (the top eight in the conference get in), but they're two points out of eighth. The Leafs had a crucial home-and-home series against Buffalo and on Friday night, blew a 4-1 lead in the third to lose 5-4. Just awful. But they bounced back last night and dominated the Sabres, 4-1. Seven games to go over the next two weeks. Who knows what will happen?

And so it goes:

• Friday night's gathering with the old Webnoize crew was fun as always. Met up with Briggy, OJ and Amy, Doobs and Lee at the Border Cafe. Good buddy Bob made a brief appearance before heading off to dinner with his girlfriend; we were supposed to meet for drinks later but it didn't end up happening. Big Al Douglass showed up, mere seconds after his name came up in conversation. I gave myself special dispensation to enjoy a few cervezas along with my fajitas.
• The big potty training experiment with Lily kicks into high gear tomorrow. She has been using the potty somewhat regularly in the last few months and wearing underwear for trial periods instead of pull-ups, but tomorrow, she'll be pull-up-free all day. I think she'll handle it fine. We'll still put them on her when she goes to bed, although she did wake me up at 2 a.m. a few nights ago because she had to go. Hannah made the switch literally on her third birthday, so Lily's not far behind.
• Speaking of the girls, I have been slacking in recent months in updating my Kumarville family photo site, mainly because it's a pain to upload stuff to it. So now I gots me one of them there Flickr pages. There isn't a whole lot up there yet, but I'll definitely be adding more stuff in the near future. The other site will stay up, since it has a bunch of photos and I don't feel like migrating over to Flickr just yet.
• I woke up yesterday with some serious soreness in my right quad. I had planned to run 5 miles, but I took the day off. Felt a little better today and ended up running 12 miles with no problems, but it was (and is) pretty sore afterwards. The long-range forecast is calling for temps in the 50s next Sunday for my half marathon up in New Hampshire.
• Holy hobbits! There's a new J.R.R. Tolkien book coming out in a few weeks. Apparently the legendary "Lord of the Rings" author started work on "The Children of Hurin" in 1918 and left behind many drafts when he died in 1973. His son, Christopher, spent the past 30 years working on the book. Another posthumous Tolkien book, The Silmarillion, was published four years after his death.
• My original hometown, Toronto, has a new Major League Soccer franchise kicking off next month. Being a big soccer fan, I look forward to following the team, although its name and jersey aren't exactly thrilling. The team is going all Euro, calling itself Toronto FC (football club, for you non-footie types) and displaying a jersey sponsor's logo more prominently on its shirt than its own logo (the sponsor, by the by, is BMO, aka Bank of Montreal). The team has already sold out its season tickets, which is impressive. Soccer's much more popular in Canada than down here, so that makes sense. The team's owned by the same folks who own the Leafs and Raptors. They visit the New England Revolution in April and June, so I might have to venture down to Foxboro to check 'em out. Maybe. BTW, the team lost its first exhibition game to Houston yesterday, 2-nil. They should fit right in.