People, Places, Wings

The last week has been a whirlwind of activity, so I'm finally getting around to do a little update.

The three baseball games last week were awesome. I'm a Mets fan, but since a) I really don't care what happens in sports in which I am not participating and b) I was kindly hooked up by members of the Orioles staff, I was definitely rooting for the O's this week. Tuesday's highlights were Relish winning the Hot Dog race and the Mets winning the game. Wednesday's highlights were the Orioles winning the game, the Adam Jones bobblehead AND getting to sit in Tom Clancy's suite (thanks DH!).

By Thursday I was honestly tired. I had only run on Monday and Wednesday, and took Tuesday and Thursday completely off. I was trying to recover fully from the EMan effort. Thursday's game was completely awesome, O's win in the bottom of the 9th, got to go to the game with Ron $ Willoughby and afterwards a few of us went out for Barf's birthday.

Friday comes and my friends were set to arrive in the afternoon. Pereless hadn't been for a visit since 2005 (a visit to hang out with us, at least). Sgrizzi and Reese hadn't been back to Baltimore since summer of 2007 and Koot and Lauren haven't been up for a while from DC. It was going to be a pretty sweet weekend. But first I had to get in a 50 mile ride followed by 6 mile run with OJ. I was glad I got in at least one quality workout this week.

Friday night a large group of us headed to Red Star for dinner, one of my favorite places to eat and the smokeshow of ladies was absurd. After dinner, while some of the girls were going to bed in preparation of Saturday's 10 miler, the remainder of us headed out to the Square. It was relatively quiet, a sign of the summer when everyone disappears from Baltimore. I love it. We weren't out terribly late, but I had a restless sleep and as such only got about an hour and a half of it before waking up at 5:45 for the race.

I wasn't running IN the race, but rather planned on running about 13 with the guys from Kris' house. I dropped off Lauren, Emily and Sara and headed back over to Remington. The skies were dark and ominous, but for the first 30 minutes or so we were still dry. Then, right after the race started, there was a torrential downpour outfitted with thunder and some lightning. We got soaked and still had the Mt. Wash hills to tackle. Put in some decent efforts back in the Druid Hills, and then popped out on the course. Apparently we had missed the leaders, and we mistakenly took Maurice to be the leader.

We stopped for about 45 minutes to cheer on runners and wait for our friends (in the rain, mind you) before jogging back to Kris'. 15 on the day, I could accept that. It was still raining super hard when we went to lunch at DuClaw's, but then the sun finally popped out. Everyone was tired and I suggested some rest before the evening's activities.

The evening kicked off with a bbq of immense proportions and then we finally got motivated to go out. We headed to Walt's Inn, where I rocked the mic with my rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart. Normally I perform this song while Jake's around, but in a pinch it works to get the crowd really pumped. We have video of it somewhere. I'll try and get it. After the song we split to go to Pickled Parrot, and kicked it there the rest of the night til close.

When we got home, our neighbor was just getting back and he said he had a hooker coming, so we were trying to wait to see if she would come or not (my guess, even if she did, she didn't, if you know what I'm saying). Meanwhile I headed up to Royal Farms where I waited 30 minutes for them to make me a simple turkey sandwich. When I got back into the house, the guys were in the kitchen, which was littered with strewn-about porn. I guess they found it in the streets. Normal for us in college, normal for us now at the ages of 28-32.

The next morning there was very little movement until nearly 11am. We hit Kisling's for lunch and then a few people departed. Sgrizzi, Reese, Emily and I went out to Harbor East/Inner Harbor later in the day, and then it was pizza for dinner before crashing out.

It was an awesomely exhausting weekend. Even on Monday, we still had Sgrizzi and Reese around for a little bit, and after they left, Brita, who lives in Oakland now, stopped by. The combination of late nights and terrible food choices made the evening's run tough, but I did knock out just under 15 miles in 1:37 which is a good run for me.

I am trying to get back on the horse now, catch back up on sleep, get in some good training before Providence.

Having my old friends around is always fun, and happens fewer and farther in between these days.

And a thought I had, which was prompted by one friend's email yesterday - he is out in Cali, at Berkeley: "Better ethnic food. More beautiful people. More progressive." Talking about how the weather is better and wondering why we live where we live when it's so much nicer elsewhere.

Well here's what I've got to say about that. Who gives a shit? Like what am I going to do with better ethnic food? And more beautiful people? Who cares. Are you going to have sex with any of them? Definitely not if you're married. More progressive. I hate those liberal weirdos. I don't care if people are nice. I don't care if people say hi to me on the street. I grew up an east-coaster and that makes you hard. The weather here isn't bad. Could always be worse.

I am pretty tired of hearing about how there are all these better places. If you like them so much, go live there. I love where I'm at right now. All I need is the friends I have - that's what makes a place habitable. Or is it inhabitable?