Err...hi

This is now the online place to track my 10k training, and possibly beyond once I work up the balls to try a marathon.
Yesterday I started on Hal Higdon's 10k training program for intermediate runners (even though I do not fit his description of an "intermediate runner"). Did a 3 mile run in 20:47 and strength training on chest, back, lats, and triceps yesterday. Did a 3 mile run today in 20:41. Tomorrow I'm supposed to do a 35 minute "tempo run". Not too sure what that means but, hell, I'll try anything once. I only really started cardio training about five months ago and my 3 mile pace has picked up considerably, and more importantly my recovery from a 3 mile run is about two minutes instead of 20 minutes.

I don't have any particular 10k race targeted just yet, but I'll be on the lookout for one.

I guess I'll also try to post about my year long board review process. I'm currently about a third of the way through the Educational Review Manual in Neurology. Hope to finish that up by December-January. Then I'll work through Haberland's Clinical Neuropathology and Case Review Series Brain Imaging by around March. Then a couple months going through Colen Flash Review -- Neurology and Neuropathology. Finishing with Neurology for the Specialty Boards and Neurology & Psychiatry:1000 Questions to Help you Pass the Boards. I probably will not have the time to finish my epic battle against DeJong's The Neurologic Examination or Brazis's Localization in Clinical Neurology. Nor will I be able to read my new Neurology: A Queen Square Textbook, though I got that mostly as a reference anyway. We'll see how soon the wheels come off this plan. It will also be interesting to see whether I'm more dedicated to running or studying.

Things I learned or re-learned this weekend

(Sorry for the delay, technical issues)
1. My grandmother is a badass. Seriously. She just had her chest cracked open and sewn shut with wires, she had a tube down her throat, she was getting zero pain medication, and she was smiling at me. Damn.
2. My dad's conservatism trumps his intelligence. "I'm not convinced CO2 emissions are causing global warming." Okay...anything else I should take off the discussion menu: evolution, round Earth, the fact that rain is when Zeus beats off to Redtube clips of Ceres while Hera's in the shower and his seed spills down on us?
3. My mom has issues. She treated her eldest sister like a child. She treated her other sister's husband like a child. She treated her husband like a stranger. She refuses to acknowledge that her lifelong adequacy issues with regard to her older sister color their relationship to this day. She refuses to see that my dad is getting the short end of the stick in their relationship now. In her mind nothing has changed in their relationship since 1983, when in reality things have gone 180.
4. In 10 years I'll be my parents' only child with hair.
5. UT-Houston is not the flood-ravaged mess I visited on med school interviews.
6. Houston is not the dirty confusing mess I've always thought of it as since my initial foray as a driver at age 18.
7. Opera mini is a better web browser for my cell phone than the default browser, but still not the greatest.
8. Google maps cell phone app is far superior to the default map application provided by Sprint, but still far inferior to the true Google maps.
9. I might be on board with the iPad after all, though the name still sucks.
10. I like to have 10 items instead of 9 in a list.

Reasons I don't have a list for this week's post

1. I suck.

Qualities my phone has in common with Michael Jackson

For the record, I know that Michael Jackson jokes are older than Greg Oden's knees. I just don't care.
1. Excellent voice quality (when not dead)
2. Fondled by little boys*
3. Arrived at my apartment in a box, cold and lifeless**
4. Black fades over time



*Only one boy for the phone.
**On further review that was an alien sex doll I ordered off the Internet, and NOT, in fact, Michael Jackson's corpse. Totally unrelated, but I need like a dozen AA batteries. Thanks.

NCAA Conference Realignment

Given the recent spate of coverage across the intertubes regarding the potential for Big 10 expansion and Big 12 dissolution, I offer my remedy:
1. Big 10 takes Mizzou or Pitt to form the Big 12 2.0.
2. If #1 = Pitt, then Big East takes Mizzou or Nebraska (best either can do).
3. Pac 10 scans the carnage and smiles.
4. Texas + TAMU + OU + CU + BYU + filler school to be named later to the new Pac 16. I'm thinking Mizzou is a possibility if still available.
5. KU, KSU, OkSU, TT, and whoever's left of Mizzou/Nebraska plus TCU, Utah, and Wyoming form new Midmajor 8. If Mizzou and Nebraska already out of play consider Houston, with Baylor then joining CUSA.
6. WAC absorbs reamining 5 MWC schools to form 16 team conf.
7. In 10 years Midmajor 8 and Big East merge forming mega basketball conference that dominates the NCAA tournament for decades.

Also, the "Texas to independent" movement may get legs if Texas can come up with a distribution model that pulls in big internet bucks, since it won't be able to get a sweetheart TV deal.

Things I wish I had done for the last time, but probably haven't*

1. Gone to work early in the morning with a King Kong hangover.
2. Laughed at a racist joke.
3. Two chicks at once.
4. Lost my shit in front of my kids.
5. Failed to see how badass my life is.





* It is entirely possible that I have not only never done one of these things in the past, but that the chance of my doing it in the future is somewhere between zero percent and no fuckin' way.

Things I have done (probably) for the last time without realizing it was for the last time*

1. Peed in an oven.
2. Played Scrabble with my grandfather.
3. Two chicks at once.
4. Killed 10,000 June bugs by shooting hoops in the driveway for two hours.
5. Rocked my daughter to sleep.
6. Followed a class of football players from their junior year of high school to their rookie year in the NFL.
7. Made frozen orange juice concentrate with extra sugar.
8. Waltzed.
9. Thought I could do anything I wanted with my life.
10. Thought I could fly.



*It's possible that I may not have EVER done one of these things.