Well, getting ready to head off to NYC tomorrow morning for the marathon. Deb and I are driving in to the expo where I'll pick up my number, and then we're staying in Manhattan with her uncle. Then it's up at the crack o' dawn on Sunday to catch a bus to the start, where I'll wait around until the race kicks off at 10. The weather is supposed to be in the mid-60s and cloudy, which is pretty great. Originally they were predicting temps in the 70s, which is too warm, but it'd be easier to take than the 70-degree weather we had for the Boston Marathon this year, which came after training in cold weather all winter. Anyway, wish me luck. P. Diddy's running the race, too, so we'll see if I can beat him. Will Ferrell kicked my butt in Boston this year, but he had the advantage of training in warm weather; on the other hand, in 2002, I totally whupped Mario Lopez's (Slater from "Saved by the Bell") ass by more than an hour in Boston, but he had a sprained ankle. Whatevah.

So I'm sitting at my desk yesterday minding my own business when our HR honcho Bernie walks in and drops a couple of $82 tickets for the B's-Habs game last night. The seats were awesome...four rows from the ice by one of the nets. Closest I've ever been for a pro hockey game. I ended up going with my buddy Matt. Bruins lost 1-0 in OT.

I think we had about five kids come by for Halloween tonight, which is three more than usual. We took Hannah to a couple of our neighbors' houses, but she was pretty cranky by that point. She sure made a cute giraffe, though.

Bloggity blog blog blog. Doing some work at home tonight, which is never fun. Tomorrow we have our annual kids' Halloween party, which means I won't get much done from 3 to 5, so I'm getting some writing done tonight. I'm dressing up as Mike Tyson--I was unable to find a fake gold tooth, but other than that, I'm all set. I'll be drawing that stupid tattoo on my face, so that will look good.

The Yankees lost to the Marlins in 6 over the weekend. To which I say, hardy har har. Give Florida credit. They're a scrappy team.

Well, back to work. Get thee to a nunnery or something, willya?

Hey there, ho there. Saturday night's alright for bloggin'. Just watched the Leafs take out the Capitals, 4-1. Nice game, Belfour played great, Sundin finally scored his first goal, and the team looks like it's putting it all together.

Had a decent day today...we had folks from the softball team over for a BBQ, although Deb, Hannah and me were the only ones who actually stayed for the food. Everyone had somewhere to go. But it was a nice day and I'm not complaining. My cold's finally gone, my stomach feels okay (knock on wood-like desk), and my back's not too sore. One week away from the NYC marathon, which is hard to believe.

It'll be a busy week at work. My deadline's on Wednesday and a bunch of people haven't called me back yet. I'm going in tomorrow to write as much as I can so the week isn't a total freakshow.

Elliott Smith killed himself this week. His girlfriend found him after he stabbed himself in the heart with a steak knife. Dayamn. Couldn't he have found an easier way to go, like setting himself on fire and then jumping into a blast furnace? Guess he was pretty messed up on drugs and shiznitt. The guy was talented, no doubt. I was checking out some of his stuff in Heatmiser, his old band, and it was really cool. I never realized he brought the rock like that. Heatmiser also featured the guy from Quasi. I definitely need to pick up Smith's solo stuff. What a waste. Suicide's just friggin' stupid.

The ultrasound yesterday was awesome. We saw the little dude/dudette moving around in there, counted all the fingers, and saw a normal-looking heat beating away. It never fails to blow me away, to know that a little person is in there just chillin' for nine months. It was also weird to think that not quite two years ago, we were looking at Hannah in an ultrasound. Four months to go.

So I'm sitting there last night, watching "Boston Public." Like all David Kelley shows, it's eminently watchable even though it's absolutely ridiculous. In last night's episode, Dennis Miller guest starred as a broker who instead of receiving jail time for some scheme gets sentenced to becoming a math teacher. This show cracks me up, because people just get pulled off the street to become teachers. Jeri Ryan's character was a lawyer who decides to become a teacher. Don't bother getting certified, just walk right up. And of course, just about every female teacher has to be absolutely smokin' hot, with Jeri Ryan as the prime example. I'm not complaining or anything, but in all my years of going to school, I never had a teacher look anything remotely like her. Trust me, I would have noticed.

Ah, it never ends. I got the A-OK on Friday to get back to regular eating, which is great news. I have to keep taking the thyroid medication, probably forever, and there's no indication how the problem got started, but at least it's manageable. Of course, I was still dealing with this chest cold over the weekend, but it's mostly gone now. And this morning, I'm at the gym doing a chest workout when I strained my back. I've done it before, but it's just annoying because I can't play hockey tonight. I already missed the last two weeks because of my stomach and the chest cold, and I'll miss the next two because of the marathon. Oh, well. My back should be all right in a few days, but it's pretty damn sore right now. I need to watch out for falling pianos and anvils.

The wedding went okay on Sunday, although I didn't see a second of the ceremony because Hannah had fallen asleep in the car on the way there. So I stayed with her in the car and listened to the Patriots game. We had a babysitter to take care of Hannah and her cousin Danny while we were at the reception. Everybody seemed to have a good time. I'm just glad we're done with weddings for the year. We had a lot of them this year.

On Friday, we go for the first ultrasound of BK2 (Baby Kumar 2). We're not finding out the sex of the baby, but it's always cool to see the little one in there moving around. I can't wait.

I'm still in shock today at how the Red Sox totally blew their first shot at going to the World Series since '86. They had game 7 in the bag, leading 5-2, and Grady Little leaves Pedro out there for the eighth instead of going to his bullpen. Next thing you know, it's 5-5 and the damn Yankees win in 11. I could hear my dad saying "Stupid Grady Leeeetle," just like he used to say "Stupid Jeeemy Weeeliams" back when Jimy was managing the Jays in the late '80s. Couple that with the Cubs' choke a few days earlier, and you get a good understanding why these teams haven't won anything in the last 85 years. There's a lot of depressed and angry folks around here today. Fortunately, I was just an interested observer. I still have my memories of the '92 and '93 World Series victories to savor.

At least I don't have to hear anybody say "Cowboy up" any more. God, was that annoying.

Of course, the Leafs have had some big chokes of their own the last 36+ years, but they usually don't even get to a big game. Last night, they let the Devils tie it up with two friggin' seconds left. Sheesh.

Still fighting this cold, but I feel a lot better than earlier in the week. Didn't play hockey Tuesday night, just stayed home. I'm starting to eat more regular food, which is nice. I have an appointment with my nurse practitioner in half an hour, so we'll see if she says I can get back to eating what I want again.

My brother-in-law Steve gets married for the second time this weekend. Should be interesting.

Got some cool DVDs to watch: My bro sent me "The Kids are Alright" and Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" as belated birthday presents, plus I still have "A Mighty Wind" to watch.

Hola. Happy Columbus Day. Gotta love these long weekends, even if I feel pretty miserable right now. No, not the stomach thing, I've got a nice chest cold thanks to Hannah, who brought it home from daycare. We're all suffering, but mine is definitely the worse. Coughing up lots of good stuff. I ran the BAA Half Marathon yesterday and at first wasn't sure if I'd be able to finish because I had been up half the night hacking. But surprisingly, I felt good and had a decent race.

Saturday's Red Sox-Yankees game was insane in the membrane. Pedro throwing at guys, Don Zimmer getting tossed to the ground by Pedro, a melee in the Yankees bullpen, Clemens and Manny yelling at each other. It was out of control. But give Clemens credit. He was the one guy who controlled his temper and that's why they won.

The Leafs came out flat for their season opener, getting shut out by the lowly Habs. I taped it because we had our roto hockey draft at the same time, but it sounds like it was so bad I have no desire to watch it. Hopefully they'll play better tonight against Washington.

Hey, how's it going? Things are going a lot better here. I'm still eating bland as hell, but at least I feel better. The doc thinks the thyroid problem is what caused the Crohn's to kick up, but I still have no idea what caused the thyroid problem. All I know is I feel better and I can do whatever I want as far as exercise--I ran 21.5 miles on Sunday and felt great, played hockey last night and scored two goals. But I'm still being careful about what I eat, although I have been sneaking some ketchup or chocolate here and there and have had no problems so far. Hopefully, I'll find out soon that I can go back to eating meat, veggies, fruit and dairy products, not to mention drinking beer.

It's a great time of year for sports. The baseball playoffs have been fantastic so far. The Red Sox just won the divisional series from Oakland in five games after losing the first two, and now they face the Yankees. As much as I can't stand the Sox normally, I hate the Yankees more, so go Red Sox! Meanwhile the Cubs and Marlins are in the other series. And the NHL season starts tonight, which not so many people care about around here anymore, but I do. Besides, it might be the last season for a while. And the NFL is well underway and always exciting.

I need to see some new movies out or about to come out: Kill Bill, pt. 1; Lost in Translation; and School of Rock. Also there's a bunch of new rock out that I need to pick up: the new Outkast double-disc, Guided by Voices, live Fu Manchu, Nebula, all sortsa stuff.

Got my car back and it's running fine, although I need to get the exhaust worked on in a few weeks. One thing after another.

Well, time to go watch five games at once. Later.

Damn, it's been a whole week. Not a fun one, either. Last Saturday, I got a good 20-mile run in and was feeling pretty well. That night, I went out with my brother-in-law Steve for his bachelor party, which turned out to be a pretty tame affair. We just went to the Outback steakhouse for dinner and had some drinks afterward. But at some point, I picked up a stomach bug and for the next four days or so, my gastrointestinal system was in some serious turmoil. I couldn't eat much, had a lot of trips to the bathroom, it wasn't fun. I still went to work, but I was pretty miserable. I felt better on Tuesday, but I made the mistake of having a roast beef sandwich for lunch and getting the whole thing going again. On Wednesday I went to my nurse practitioner and she figured it probably had something to do with Crohn's Disease, which I was diagnosed with last year but which hadn't yet manifested itself. She said I could eat chicken and fish, but no beef or really fatty foods, no fruits or vegetables, at least until this is resolved. I visited my G-I specialist the next day and he said I probably had some sort of bug or virus that activated the Crohn's. He prescribed some medication, ordered a stool sample (not easy) and I'm to call him next Tuesday to report back on how I'm doing. I felt pretty good on Thursday and Friday, enough to get a couple of five-mile runs in; we'll see how I do tomorrow, when I'm supposed to run 22 miles. It's my last really long run. The marathon's less than a month away.

So anyway, yesterday I get a call from my NP saying my blood test showed I had an underactive thyroid, which usually means the person is sluggish, sleepy and gaining weight. All things that I'm not suffering from. They're double-checking it. I'm just full of surprises.

To top all that off, on Tuesday, the radiator in my car sprung a leak and I had to leave it with our mechanic because it was overheating. Fortunately it won't cost too much to fix because he's giving us a good deal, but I haven't had a car all week.