Category: life

Peanuts Nostalgia

Peanuts at comics.com

I hit the comic above today off of my Google Reader feed (follow me at ‘billjank’ – mostly I tag stuff about defense-related computer stuff, management idiocy, and a smattering of smart articles about how folks like you and I are getting shafted by both large banks and the Fed. Not that there’s a better solution, but it’s always nice to know with whom you’ve been intimate)

Anyway, Jon (who was in Michigan but is now much closer to the Hudson River) replied that Frazz seemed to be an influence, too.

As much as I love Mallett, I don’t think he’s much of an “influence”, but rather a mirror; a product of the same set of variables that made (warped) me into who I am today.

The next few paragraphs are what I wrote in response. I you might be able to follow it at Google Buzz. If you are, drop me a comment – I’m also trying to see how much of my privacy Buzz gives away.

Frazz is more a mirror. I’d completely forgotten about most of the Peanuts they’ve been running lately.

But, way back in the stone ages, when I was in Elementary School in the Harper Creek school district outside of Battle Creek, Michigan, we were in the midst of the ’70’s economic crash. ALL of the ‘enrichment’ activities for elementary school were cut – no band, no nothing. We played dodgeball two or three times a YEAR as physical education.

As the ‘smart’ kid in the class, I was usually in trouble for not paying attention. But, as I’d read my textbooks from cover to cover under my desk in the first month or two of school, when the teacher would call on me, I’d know the answer, even though I wasn’t paying a whit of attention.

So, they sent me to the library. (In junior high, they started sending me to the computer lab, but this was elementary school, and no-one’d donated any Apple IIe’s yet) And so I read. And read.

I started in about third grade with the picture book section – banged through all the Dr. Seuss, and didn’t bother with much more – no poetry, poor visuals.

Hit the Wizard of Oz series since I’d been in a local theater production as “the Beast Oz” and the King of the Munchkins (no scars on the persona of a short kid there, I tell you).

But the highlight was the Peanuts books. The library may have had absolutely every Peanuts treasury ever released, and I sat there and read every one of them, under the watchful eye of the librarian, who, in hindsight, I think suspected me of being a neo-Nazi, as I devoured all of the WWII books in the place, too.

I think I was open to most of the ideas behind Peanuts before my exile to the library – I was short, slow, and very much a Charlie Brown, if only because Charlie Brown always wanted to be the center of his circle of friends; to make things better than they would turn out without intervention. That was me; hands down.

Man, I love Peanuts.

This probably falls under “Way too much information, particularly from a random “buzz”‘, but I like it.

Why didn’t Charles Shultz ever win the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Moon

One of the things I love about living in Connecticut is never being too far from the middle of nowhere.

Tonight’s a perfect case in point. We (the boys and I) are sequestered inside an adirondack-style lean-to, listening to the spring peepers and a babbling brook. The sky’s crystal clear, which means it’s going to get wicked cold tonight. But it also means that every star imaginable, and even a faint trace of the Milky Way is hanging overhead.

What makes it especially sweet is that we didn’t leave until after Nate’s t-ball practice, and a full day’s work and school. 20 minutes in the car and we were at the trailhead, and an easy mile on two-track and we’re here.

The fire’s burnt low in the ring, and we went for a quick walk in the moonlight from the waxing half moon. I can see why lunacy was blamed on the moon – at this point I want to run around, jumping for joy. Were that my lovely wife were here; we’d have to relocate our tent a little ways down the trail; this is a moon that stirs the passions; the spring moon under which young lovers throw caution to the wind and feel freed from conventions and the restrictions. Life returns after the dark of winter, and it manifests itself in limbs intertwined and lips pressed in the strange, clear, beautiful half-light of the moon. Orion, with it being spring, is either out of the sky, or looking away.

I bring a tent for the kids, ’cause the outdoors is kind of big and scary, and ’cause that way I can read and write while they get the wiggles out. They’ve just got a two-person backyard tent that was a birthday gift. It wouldn’t withstand a gale, and weighs about 8 pounds with only a partial fly, but, with the forest so close, we can cancel in a heartbeat if it looks like rain.

So, that’s where I am tonight. The peepers are peeping – not the wall of sound that they will be in two weeks, but a series of random eruptions of croaks. There’s a pair of crickets moving around the rocks of the fire ring, looking for each other. Spring inspires love in us all.

David Shares My Pain

Over at The Thin Trade, David’s struggling with the same thing I am: Namely not getting up off of the couch and into the rack every evening.

This week, though, I’m doing pretty well. I’m posed to hit all of my mid-week runs (One shifted by a couple of days, but still), and really looking forward to tomorrow’s long run. I’ve been doing the Men’s Health Two-Minute Drill after most runs, and it seems to make a difference.

Last night’s run was a good case in point. I got home late, and really, really didn’t want to. But, I jumped on the dreadmill and got it done, and felt tons better as soon as I was finished.

On the belly front, I’m not doing too well, but I haven’t lost any ground since Christmas. Lent for me is going to be giving up soda and fast food (Fast food loosely defined as anything with a white bread bun and french fries). Even though I usually drink diet soda, I’m beginning to believe in the studies that have shown that sugar-free soda tends to just stimulate your appetite so you overeat to compensate for the calories that aren’t in the soda.

Another trip at the beginning of next week – must prioritize exercise for the nights I’m out of town, or the workouts will be replaced by beer.

Hip’s advice last week was well timed – stop thinking about or trying to do stuff and just freaking do them. I do control the little stuff in my life, and can turn my concerns over the big stuff over to God.

Here’s to New Orleans – could this be the biggest Mardi Gras ever?

Status Update

Been Working (Day job and on the house), Running (As if it were a priority), and Sleeping (instead of blogging or wasting time).

Largely in that order.

Though I did watch It Might Get Loud. And can am left only with the thoughts of the Beastie Boys:

If I played guitar I’d be Jimmy Page.

The girlies I like are underage

Wait… forget that last bit…

Now, to find a track on which to run in the AM.

Does that count, Hip?

Beast-ly Boys

Or, Why I love New England, Edition #419

Missy’s out of town for the weekend (Houston Marathon tomorrow morning, bib #3291), so the boys and I are trying our best not to burn down the house.

Figuring out that it’s probably easiest NOT to burn down the house if we’re not in it, we headed up IH-91 to Berkshire East for a little bit of sliding downhill. Y’know, the “Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn” type. And to FINALLY get the boys into ski school so I can stop feeling guilty about their not skiing as small kids.

When we got up to the hill, I told the boys that they may never have a nicer day on which to learn. Temps were in the mid-30’s, sunny, no wind, absolutely great packed powder, without the solid ice base that New England packed powder usually entails. Man, it was nice.

I dropped them off for an AM class, and jumped on the lift. Hadn’t skied in about 10 years (Don’t think I went the year Jake was born, and haven’t been downhill since), and was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the muscle memory came back. I did a couple of runs on the big, wide green slope, and then a couple of runs down some intermediate blues.

Berkshire East really strikes me as a skier’s mountain. The last time I was up there, probably 11 years ago, there wasn’t a green trail from the top of the chair lift all the way to the bottom of the mountain. At some point, you ended up on a trail that was rated blue. It was a mild blue, but a blue nontheless. This time, without removing or taming any of the existing blues, they’d added a great winding trail along the back side of the mountain.

They’d also added a double chair on the bunny slope, doing away with the rope tow, an even easier bunny hill with a moving carpet lift, and a whole new side of the mountain with a quad lift. The added area was great – the only lift we really had to wait for on the Saturday of a holiday weekend was the bunny lift.

After the kids’ lesson was over, we grabbed lunch, and I got to ski with them the rest of the day. What a treat to watch them learning. The instruction must have been pretty good – after the lesson they could both pretty reliably snowplow and get on and off the lift. Nate (age 5) had a tough time getting on the lift, mostly because it was hitting him in the middle of the back. But he could get off like a champ.

And the boys really surprised me. Jake’s usually a little wilder and rambunctious, and Nate’s usually thoughtful and reserved, so I figured those personalities would come out on the slopes. Turns out my expectations were inverted. Nate turns out to have my addiction to speed – all he wanted to do was point his skis downhill and let ‘er rip. Jake, on the other hand, was initially paralyzed the first time he was faced with a lip off of a jeep trail onto a slope. After a little pep talk and a couple of falls, though, he made up his mind that he was going to be in control, and started being very deliberate, and ended up figuring the control bit out really well by the end of the day.

I cannot wait to head back up, probably in February if I either a) Get the taxes done, or b) get much better about taking my lunch to work, saving $6/day on food. I’m pretty confident that the boys will be decent skiers, and they’re both pretty eager to get back. And, man, was it fun.

2010 Continued

Man, I’m loving life.

First, the Twitter (via William Gibson of Neuromancer fame) spits out this link about neo-cavemen (cave people?) in NYC. Absolutely fascinating, and Nassim Taleb makes an appearance (You have read Fooled by Randomness, right?). So, in one 5 minute diversion, I’ve got:

  • Meat.
  • Exercise
  • Math
  • Stickin’ it to the Man
  • References to squirrel hunting
  • Making fun of Vegans
  • Frenchies.
  • Ex-Navy guys about my age

Fascinating article, but I’m afraid it’d ask me to give up beer.

In other news, I had two great runs this weekend. The first was Saturday afternoon – I went long-ish from NAVSTA Newport to downtown after drill. Was just really, really nice to be out, and in the zone. Highlight was when a pre-family co-worker flagged me down across the street from the post office and introduced me to his girlfriend. She was nice, but the best part was being a decent enough person to work with to be flagged down socially.

Sunday afternoon, I went for a short run to blow out the carbon after the long run. The first half-mile was tough, but I stuck with it for 30 minutes, and felt GRATE! by the end of the run, and woke up feeling great this morning.

Tonite, I made it back to the Y pool for the first swim of 2010. Seems like the Mystic Y raised the pool temp about 5 degrees – it wasn’t painful to get in. I actually broke down and did about 600 yards of drills that I remembered from last winter’s swimming for dummies (Triathletes) class in addition to the standard warm-up/cooldown.

Let’s see about other stuff:

  • One of my running partners for the VT City Marathon training is on DailyMile with me. Very much like the RBF works to motivate me, knowing that there’s someone else out there getting fitter and faster than me is a huge motivator.
  • Similarly, I’m determined to figure out how some of the new “New Media” works. Want a Google Wave invite? Leave a comment.
  • Likewise, I’m all about the MIT Opencourseware Project. I set up a $99 monitor with an Apple TV and a VGA jack for my laptop, plopped my bike trainer in front of it, and I’m reviewing linear algebra and its application to computer science. All for the price of nothing (I’d bought the monitor for something else)
  • Found out that a high school classmate of mine is going to retire from the Army this year. Odd to think that I’m old enough to have retired friends. Happier to think that I can retire from the reserves in about 4 years. And thankful that there’s men and women in this (and other) countries who are willing to dedicate themselves to making the world safe for democracy.
  • Did the final cleaning on the old house. Scrubbed all the applicable floors with Murphy’s Oil Soap, and had a trip down memory lane to scrubbing the floors at the fraternity house on Sunday mornings (morning being loosely translated as noon-ish) after parties.

OK, that’s probably close to enough. Things I still owe:

  • Resolutions
  • Training plan for VT City
  • Pictures of the new house

ENOUGH! Go run.

EDIT: Two more quick things –

  • I’ve got a current intellectual crush on Karen Armstrong. Her book on The Bible is a great and short read. (And it’s out of the same Atlantic series that spawned PJ O’Rourke’s brilliant book on “On The Wealth of Nations”, so it uses small words). God is good, and expects us to be good to each other
  • Bag Balm. I’ve been suffering from some excema on my foot for about 9 months. Peeling, cracking, itching. I’d tried steroids from the doc, and some fancy stuff that Melissa recommended, and it just kept getting worse. Then, as we’re moving, I come across this tin of Bag Balm that we’ve had for a decade or more, since we treated a dog who’d had a run-in with a pricker bush. I figured “What the heck?” and smeared it on, and about 2 weeks later, I’m close to convinced that I’m finally going to get better. Just further proof that everything good comes from Vermont.

2010

So, “Billy Off” seems to have worked somewhat, but not nearly so well as 2 weeks of not eating crap, playing with the kids, and spending all day moving stuff around the house or doing building. I’m within spitting distance of 170, and feeling great.

I squeezed in two “Massive” (for current training volumes) long runs – an 11 miler the Saturday after Christmas with the group from the church (which CRUSHED me – I hadn’t run much in December, and hadn’t gone more than 5 or so since October and the pre-NYC flu); and did my 10 for 2010 on New Year’s day, which was a lovely run from the new house, around River Road, and back.

Did I mention we moved? Not far, but into a (very slightly) bigger house, with a slightly more manageable yard, more kids in the neighborhood, and half a mile of freaking uphill on the return from any bike or run. I’ve been telling the kids that if they learn to run from this house, they’ll be stars at cross country. I’ll post pictures from our upstairs windows – there’s even a view!

I’ll go into it a bit more later, but I’m not too sure I met too many of my 2009 goals. There’s always 2010 though. The short version for 2010 is:

  1. Colchester Half Marathon – 27 February
  2. Vermont City Marathon – 30 May
  3. Bluff Point Twilight Trail Run – 4 June! (Seems really, really late)
  4. At least 1 Olympic Triathlon during the summer
  5. Terramuggus race series, or other weekday tri series
  6. New Haven 20K – Labor Day
  7. Mystic YMCA Turkey Trot

Maybes include:

  • Blessing of the Fleet 10 miler – 24 July
  • Mystic Triathlon (depending on drill schedule)
  • Newport Naval Station Triathlon
  • An off-road tri
  • And jack and squat after New Haven

Major goals for the year:

  • Back under 160 lbs by New Haven
  • 4 hours at Vermont City
  • An unofficial Century on the bike in August
  • Two rides up to Smuggler’s Notch during our Stowe week in June/July.

We’ll hammer out the rest later this week. Hope everyone had Happy Holidays, a Merry Christmas (as applicable), and an exceptional 2010.

Billy Off Week 2 (Take 2)

Bad week this week. While I did the 2 minute drill every day, work and negotiation with the mortgage company have pretty much taken all the willpower I’ve been able to summon. Which means that I’m way behind. I didn’t weigh in today; I don’t think I put on any pounds, since during week 1, I went ahead and got rid of most of the snacky-cakes I had in the office. I even passed up communal cake in the coffee area. Yeah me.

So, I’ll weigh in Sunday morning and get in a good run. The Church pageant will be over, and everything will be settled with the new house on Monday. Then, there’s stripping and painting to be done, and my folks here, but that’s all stress that I can control.

Sigh. But not in a bad way; just wanted to maintain full disclosure here.

Happy Holidays for my friends lighting the menorah.

New York Aftermath

So, much like Danny*, I did the annual withdrawal from the NYC Marathon this weekend. There’s a long and tragic series of events leading up to not running; the short summary of which goes:

  1. This was probably my best summer’s training ever. July and August were AWESOME, and I PR’d New Haven, breaking a streak of really, really tough runs. September started great.
  2. September at the office turned into a zoo. After New Haven, I averaged one (1) run per week from Monday-Friday. And those were all about 3 miles, due to a combination of being time-crunched, on travel, or sore from the long run.
  3. Long runs – I made about 60% of them, with an absolutely disastrous 20 miler 3 weeks before NYC. One of my Sunday Schoolers (High School Junior) mentioned to me that she almost stopped to give me a ride that day.
  4. I mis-trimmed my left big toe about 2 weeks ago, and it’s a nasty, sore, oozing mess. I’m tempted to put up a picture, but man, is it grooody and painful.

In the end, what put the nail in the 2009 Marathon coffin was coming down with the Flu a week ago Wednesday. I spent 3 days completely in bed, and still am not quite right. But, I decided to bag the race. I don’t have the cool cancellation message, as it was the 29th by the time I was conscious enough to realize I wasn’t going to run, and you can’t withdraw electronically after the 28th. No huge deal – I think that I’ve realized that I need to do my big race focus in either early September or after the New Year from now on to allow training to mesh with work.

The flu kind of ended up being a relief. I could have finished NYC, but there was no way it was going to be a good race. Not having to go through with the race just ’cause I’d paid (through the noise) for it made life a bit easier.

But there are positives – I dropped the 5 pounds I’d put on over the summer thanks to 104+ degree fevers and not eating for a couple days. And I had an awesome weekend with my parents and kids – Ma and Pa Jank had come up from Texas to watch the youngn’s, and I got to spend a delightful weekend with them, including a trip to Clyde’s Cider Mill on Sunday for kettle corn, donuts, and hard cider.

So, RBF, there you go – true confession, I blew it for this race.

* I mention Danny only because we’ve been swapping emails with sob stories for the last week. Misery, turns out, really does love company.