10-31-2011

Halloween antics. We went to costume karaoke to have dinner and laugh at people.

10-30-2011

That's definitely a black cat crossing our path the day before Halloween. If this is the last post I write, you'll know why.

The weather was really nice today, so after brunch we decided to spend the day outside. We didn't go fishing though. We went traipsing around a park to look at the Fall leaves fall.

10-29-2011

It's hard to see, but this car says "Money Over Evry Thng" on it. And has fuzzy dice. For real.

10-28-2011

I don't always post everything I do on here, but sometimes I end up in places like this to do fun stuff.

10-27-2011

We ventured out into the ominous night in search of Redbox and Blue Box. But what did they do to the box?! I want my orange dinosaur back.

10-26-2011

On 4-11-11, I reluctantly bought a silly "running armband" for my phone so I could track my mileage. The band isn't any less silly, but a little over six months later, I've worn said band and logged over 500 miles. I'm aware that there are people that do this amount of distance every few weeks, but this is a big deal for me. Besides, even Nike deems the achievement t-shirt worthy and I got a canned message from Paula Radcliffe to celebrate!

10-25-2011

I doodle a lot a work while I'm waiting for my computer to do things. Most of them end up getting thrown out and never see the light of day, but I thought that these were kind of funny.

10-24-2011

By some form of magic, we we're actually getting though this.

10-23-2011

When I say I look down on my friends, it really doesn't mean that I'm condescending.

In other complete randomness, my mother is a nutritionist by profession. So logically, that means she fed me a steady diet of things like fried chicken and fast food growing up. I've since attempted to form some semblance of better dietary habits, but I still have deep rooted nostalgia for various forms of junk food. Especially elusive junk food that only appears randomly, for limited amounts of time...and is formed into a processed meat patty with faux-bones and grill marks even though it's not actually grilled. Thanks, Mom!

10-22-2011

I blog a lot about food and all the weird stuff I eat. Oddly however, running now has me "eating" even weirder "food." I'm really not sure if I've unwittingly crossed some weird social barrier, but I'm pretty much down for whatever if it enables me to not die during our upcoming race. Speaking of which, Nicole and I went to scout out the course and to check out the competition. Clearly we're outmatched.

So this part is pretty exciting. Tonight, we went to one of the coolest, historic places I've been to that wasn't a museum to watch our friends get married. We like them both a lot, so watching them making things official was really fun.

Also really fun was the reception. Nicole makes me watch horrible TLC wedding shows on a regular basis, so I would like to think that I appreciate nice little details that I probably shouldn't. This picture is really funny and hard to explain. Yay! First dance. Still dancing. You may wonder how she had such great dancing endurance. I'm pretty positive it had something to do with these shoes. This is from the Matron of Honor speech that pictures don't really document the full humor of. I always take pictures of memorable food. This is a picture of bustling. I've been intrigued by this process ever since Nicole amazed me at our wedding when I turned around and thought she magically changed dresses somehow. It's like Transformers but for wedding dresses. Still dancing.

I'm not a big really I can't do it at all dancer, but I do like old things and exploring, so it's pretty obvious what would happen if you let me loose in an antique building that housed a Civil War era gentleman's club. Look at these guys. They're all so classy, even their pictures were judging the crazy long-hairded Asian hippie with the camera. And I don't blame them. In any case, I led an expedition party to the elusive fourth floor in search of hidden doors and secret passageways. We really just found a fancy space with breakfast cereal. And this really awesome plane! Hey look, I'm playing with something worth more than I am that's signed by Cleveland art/design royalty. I'm really glad that I didn't break that plane. If I did, I would have blamed it on these guys. I would have blamed a lot of things on those guys actually. I blame those guys for this picture being a little blurry, but it's still one of my favorite pictures from the whole year.

We came back to even more dancing! If I could dance at all, I probably would have done it all night too just to look at that floor alone. You know how drunk girls always take off their heels when they blame their shoes for not being able to walk? Well, that excuse doesn't work as well for boys. Boys with flowers. Nicole made it back down the stairs shoes intact. That only means that she probably needs one last drink for the night, so we went to one of the classiest bars around since we were so well dressed. Goodnight!

10-21-2011

I'm not 100% positive, but my black spandex running tights are black tie appropriate as long as I'm wearing a tie right?

10-20-2011

Let's face it. As a state, Ohio kind of sucks. There isn't really a whole lot to be proud of, and the stuff that people do tend to go crazy about (ahembigcollegefootballteam) doesn't really have a whole lot of appeal to me. What does have appeal to me though is food, and when Ohio produces a nationally recognized regional cuisine, I'm definitely on board. This is Cincinnati chili. It has its very own Wikipedia article, so you can read all about it there. All that you need to know is that it's delicious and good for you. Only half of that last sentence is true.

Speaking of regional foods that appeal to me, this place has a new place.

10-19-2011

With all this focus overload on running every night, I've been seriously neglecting tending to my pepper plants. Amazingly they're still alive (even though I can count the number of leaves on Iron Man on one hand), and producing peppers. We'll see how many of the green peppers still on the plants have a chance to change colors before the rest of the leaves fall off. Even the pepper plants are involved in races these days.

10-18-2011

One unexpected awkwardness about running all the time is having to make the concession to wear spandex on a nearly daily basis. And to like it. A lot.

10-17-2011

I nearly crashed my car when I saw snow on my way home from work. It was really just ice from some food trucks, but even as a trick, this is not something I am prepared for.

I also thought I was hallucinating when I saw this weird rainbow thing. I really hope it's from aliens.

10-16-2011

Oh, you know...just hanging out in the parking lot by the SUV's and the boat with the friendly goats.

In other news, the Cleveland winter has successfully completed its first step in breaking us down and it hasn't even started yet.

10-15-2011

Twelve miles along the towpath means we can eat as much of whatever we want. Speaking of eating, in a missing London moment, we got the American attempt at fish and chips and bangers and mash. I wouldn't say it's on par, but this is a lot cheaper than plane tickets.

10-14-2011

All we do is run. That's it. We run so much that all the restaurants are closed by the time we're done running after work every night. This is we-get-a-night-off dinner.

10-13-2011

Sometimes my computer at work makes more interesting "digital art" by accident than I do on purpose.

10-12-2011

Repainting looted goods like cars in a chop shop.

10-11-2011

Hey look, that tiny little bald guy on the TV is the owner of the restaurant I was having lunch at. Weird right? Even weirder, there's a commercial for that same show on my TV right now as I'm typing this post. Stop stalking me, Michael Symon.

10-10-2011

The books are now open. I've got 4:1 odds on Mushroom.

10-9-2011

I spent my day painting things and trying not to fall off of ladders.

The rest of the time I went shopping with Nicole in a strange and dark abandoned building supply store. The prices are great.

10-8-2011

I have fun with my friends and eat tacos.

10-7-2011

So Nicole's job gave her free tickets to our local hockey team's opening night. I don't really know anything about hockey, but I have a standing policy of going anywhere and doing pretty much anything. Especially if it's free. Even more so if it's on dollar dog night. I'll really go anywhere and do anything if it's combined with $1 hot dogs. I don't think it's really necessary to know about how they actually play hockey anyway, because I'm pretty sure 90% of the people are just there to see the players get mad and beat each other up. I wonder if the players feel like they're animals at the zoo when people bang on the glass when they get excited. In any case, this game definitely did not disappoint when it came to brawling on ice. The End.

10-6-2011

I probably have no business posting this on my stupid blog in the first place, and I tend to think it's gauche to talk about money anyway, but it's not often that things like this happen with someone else's signature on the front so I'm documenting it for its rarity.

10-5-2011

According to credible sources, pimpin' ain't easy. Neither is speedwork. Does that mean speedwork is the same as pimpin'?

10-4-2011

Scouting spots for speed workouts. This is going to hurt.

10-3-2011

I've been doing this post-a-picture-every-day blog for so long I don't even know what to do or what direction to go in.

10-2-2011

I posted on 8-25-11 about eating the ridiculously decadent and delicious combination of fried chicken and waffles. Well, with all the ridiculous amounts of running we've been doing, I feel like I have a pass to eat as much decadent and delicious food as I want. As much as I want = all you can eat chicken and waffle brunch buffet. Not just one buffet line, but two buffet lines full of gourmet soul food like three cheese macaroni and cheese, collard greens with smoked pork, and cheesy grits. They knew about my high blood sugar, so they were nice enough to seat us directly next to the dessert table so I could see every time they brought a cart full of fresh desserts for me to eat. I need to run another ten miles.

Today is a day off on our schedule though, so we went to the bookstore instead. I don't know why I think it's so funny that this is now a legitimate literary genre. Oh yeah, we got macaroons too since I clearly didn't just eat enough calories for breakfast (lunchanddinner all at once), and I've been missing cookie time since Paris. So yeah, day off from running means cookie time and reading books by the fireplace with Nicole and Sienna.

10-1-2011

Today I officially survived my first week of half marathon training by completing a (very enjoyable actually) ten mile run. This is the farthest I've ever run in my whole life ever, and I'll be running even further next weekend. I'm swelling with both pride and sore leg muscles.

Well, after our run, we went to go see Nicole's dad's team since they were racing at a meet down the street from where we were. Obviously, with a father who's coached her whole life, Nicole is an experienced running person who has participated and been around stuff like this since forever. This is all still quite a spectacle to me though since I was too busy falling off of skateboards and being in bad punk bands in high school to even consider joining a sports team. Now that my obsessive compulsiveness has targeted running, I kind of wish that I had started earlier so I would be better at it now. Really though, I probably would have looked like this sad scrawny kid running though the mud and crying. I had no idea how dirty cross country running is. If Nicole made me run here today I would literally be crying mud.