Jim's Guts

Friday morning pick-me-up...

Last week we went "Indie" this week it's pop with the Plain White Ts and "Natural Disaster"

For these week's classic we go back to 1996, here is Lush with "Ladykillers"

"Read about it..."

Besides being a great Midnight Oil song, it's a reminder that there are plenty of great things to read on the web, here are some of my favorites from this week...

Turns out that Sir David Attenborough, one of the preeminent naturist and presenters of my time gets hate mail.

On a lighter, but slightly more adult language note, Scribbler has a very funny anecdote on a unique version of behavior modification.

I'm very pleased with the first week of the Obama Administration and I think he's done a lot of really good things in a short time, but Talking Dog is right, we need to make sure he follows through on closing Gitmo. (h/t Digby)

Lance Armstrong had a great debut in Australia and the upcoming Tour of California is shaping up to be a fantastic bike race. Bonnie Ford at ESPN has a great look at both the man and why he came back.

Finally, if you're in the Seattle area, go see Lucy! Apparently the crowds have not been what the Pacific Science Center had hoped for and the whole museum is suffering.

Back. Again...

As I mentioned in my Resolution Run race report, my back tightened up during the run and just hasn't gotten any better, so I went in to see the doctor and subsequently got an MRI. I got the results of the MRI yesterday - I have a herniated disc in the joint between lumbar spines 4 and 5 (L4-5). This is the same injury I had back in 2000, but it's on the other side this time. The good news is we've found it early and my doctor (Dr. Packia Raj at Northwest Sport & Spine) is fantastic, he totally gets that managing isn't good enough for me. I'll go in next Tuesday for a steroid injection and we'll see where it goes from there, in the meantime I'm trying to keep a positive attitude.

Steve is always sharing pictures of his injuries (warning, semi-graphic content), so I thought I'd do the same thing - So you'll have something to compare, here is a look at the L3-4 disc;

And now the L4-5;

I highlighted it, but it doesn't take a medical degree to see the problem even without looking at the full sized pictures.

Friday morning pick-me-up...

Formed in 1997 just north of here in Vancouver British Colombia, this may be Canada's first "super group"- Here are The New Pornographers with "The Laws Have Changed";

Seeing as how we're North of the Border anyway let's stay in Canada for our classic. Old timers, who remember when MTV used to play music videos, will almost certainly remember these guys (and Mike Reno's bandanna), here is Loverboy - "Hot Girls In Love";

Dedication...

Our "niece" m showing how what it takes to be a Nationally ranked junior bike racer and stay on the honor roll at school...

A New Day...

That’s what this feels like, a New Day. A lot of conservatives, and to a much greater extent far Right Wingnuttia just can’t understand that. They’ve worked themselves into believing that I, and so many like me, think that Mr. Obama will take the oath and suddenly everything will be rainbows and happiness. That’s not going to happen; I know that, you know that, most people know that.

But it is the end of 8 years of gross negligence (the attacks of 9/11, the financial markets collapsing, Katrina), political cronyism (“heck of a job Brownie”, the entire DOJ “leadership”), false bravado (a staged landing on a US Navy Aircraft Carrier, “Bring ‘em on”), lawlessness (illegal searches, the suspension of Habeas Corpus, torture), and ruinous foreign policy (Iraq, ignoring Afghanistan, the Middle East and most everything that wasn’t Iraq). Back in early 2001 Mr. Bush said that he was “A uniter, not a divider”, and while it’s taken him 8 years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of American lives, he’s finally right – Mr. Obama takes office this morning with an 80% approval rating.

No, things are not going to magically get better tomorrow, but it IS the start of a New Day

More on referees...

Because you know you can't get enough of the stripes - I got some clarification, from Peter King's column of all places, on how the playoffs are officiated, and I had it basically right.

All crews (there are 17) and individual officials are graded each week over the entire season. For the first two weeks of the playoffs (Wildcard & Divisional), the top 8 rated crews are assigned to work those 8 games.

The Conference Championship and Super Bowl are officiated by "all-star" crews, with the top three rated officials at each position (back judge, side judge, etc.) working those three games. There are a couple of exceptions - No rookie official, regardless of their ranking, can work in Championship games and no one can work back to back Super Bowls.

Friday morning pick-me-up...

We now return you back to new bands that you may not have heard of, and up this week is Mute Math with their first single "Typical" (if you're interested in how they made the video, you can see it here)

For the classic we're only going back to 1997 - There are some songs you have to hear a few times in order to enjoy them, this is not one of those songs, I loved it the minute I heard it. Here is Cornershop with "Brimful Of Asha"

And the officials are...

Thanks to my friends over at the Football Refs blog here are the assignments for the Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl**

AFC Championship - Bill Carollo (5 Conf. Championships and 2 Super Bowls [this will be his last game, he's retiring at the end of this year])
NFC Championship - Walt Anderson (3 Conf. Championships and 1 Super Bowl)

Super Bowl - Terry McAulay (this will be his second Super Bowl)

And if you really want to geek out, Scott Green has the Pro Bowl.

**A note about the Super Bowl - I heard from a different source that it hadn't been assigned yet, so I'm not 100% positive and will keep an eye on it.

Not "Must See TV"...

The New York Times' Gail Collins discusses about Mr. Bush's farewell speech tonight;

"The White House has promised that in his final address, the president will be joined by a small group of everyday American heroes, which means that the only person on stage with a history of failing to perform well in moments of stress will be the main speaker."

The whole piece is well worth a read, but suffice it to say, I won't be tuning in.

Diets...

Everyone wants to lose weight in the new year, fortunately Sarah Haskins shows us how...

"...And for dinner I swapped a six pack of beer for a fifth of whiskey"

How we met...

As of this afternoon the Lovely &Talented Mrs. Smith and I will have been married for 18 years, so I thought I'd share the "Origin story" with those who might not be familiar - The "where" part is easy, we met while working at Walt Disney's Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. As for the "how", well the L&T has a slightly different version of this story, but because this is my blog this is how I saw it (she has her own if she wants to tell her side of it), but first here's a look back about 20 years ago...

The L&T walking her beat in New Orleans' Square

 
Yep, that's me at the bow of the Davey Crockett Explorer Canoe on the Rivers of America

Continuing...Here's how it really happened - I was working Guest Control on the Splash Mountain attraction (basically trying to keep guests in line and happy along with answering the random "where is the nearest bathroom" or "what time are the fireworks" questions [and yes, I still know the answers]) when I saw this cute girl from Custodial walk by. Now one of the great things about working at The Park is that everyone wears name tags, so it was easy for me to say "Hi KRIsten" which promptly got the l&t (she was lovely and talented, but she wasn't The Lovely & Talented) attention. She whirled around and said "What does the name tag say?" (hint - It wasn't Kristen). I stammered and sputtered a bit (more than normal) and apologized which made her smile. We chatted for a moment and got back to our respective duties.

Either that day, or shortly there after, we both happened to be in the break area near the Haunted Mansion attraction, and I was probably trying to stretch out my shoulders when the L&T offered to massage them. I gladly accepted, and while she was working on my back I said "I'll make you dinner, take you out to dinner, heck I'll give you money so you can take someone else out to dinner" to which she replied that she'd let me make her dinner. We had our first date a couple days later (a whole different story) and the rest is history.

Happy anniversary Mrs. Smith, it's been a wonderful ride...

Friday morning pick-me-up - Anniversary edition...

The L&T really likes country music, so as it's our anniversary weekend I thought for today's FMPMU I'd make at least one video a country song. Then came the problem, the country music labels don't like their videos embedded. I had a heck of a time finding a video that I could feature here. Finally, I found an artist that L&T has a couple of albums from, and I have to admit this song makes me grin - Here is Chris Cagle with "Chicks Dig It";

Way back in the day when we first started dating, I lived in California and the L&T up here in Washington, and still we managed to talk about every other day. Now these were the days before cell phones and e-mail, so as you can imagine our bills were pretty extreme. Still, when I hear this song it always reminds me of those days. This is Go West with "Call Me";

Playoff assignments set...

Thanks to the gentlemen over at the NFL & NCAA Referees blog, here are the assignments for this weekend's NFL Divisional Playoff games;

Arizona @ Carolina - Bill Carollo
Philadelphia @ New York Giants - Scott Screen
Baltimore @ Tennessee - Jerome Boger
San Diego @ Pittsburgh - Jeff Triplette

I'm not too familiar with Mr. Screen, but that's a solid slate of officials.

Race Report – Resolution Run 5k...

OR - It was a dark and stormy night... Look, I get it, when you run in Seattle on January 1st you're not exactly expecting 70 degrees and sunny. But damn, this was bad even by Seattle standards...It was cold (about 37) with wind and rain to add to the fun...

It was a dark and stormy night (or New Year's morning)...

The Club Northwest Resolution Run 5k has become a bit of a tradition for us. For the last 4 years, after a wonderful New Year's Eve dinner with the Jones, we've gotten up on January 1st and go run 5 kilometers to ring in the New Year. In previous years it's been a little cold, but this year it was COLD. Still, tradition is tradition (and I can't bust my goal already) so Thursday morning found us at Sand Point waiting for the gun.

See the excitement (and cold) on our faces?

Bundled up we waited for the gun, and not too long after the published start time we were off. Quick note, the Resolution Run 5k offers a chance to submerge into Lake Washington at the end of the 5k run and for this reason they changed the course this year. HORRIBLE idea. In addition to the parking issues, the course was basically a cross country affair run on both pavement and puddle, with some muck thrown in for good measure. Trust me when I tell you that the picture below doesn't begin to show how bad it was.

Good times in the Pacific Northwest...

Still, when the gun goes off, it's time to run, so off we went - The first mile was a little crowded and people were trying to avoid the puddles, but after that it got smoothed out. My first mile went 9.35, not bad, particularly given the conditions. 2nd mile was 9.21 - Woohoo! Negative split! About half way into my 3rd mile my back started to seize up a bit which caused some concern, but I still managed to bang it out in 8.56! Woohoo! Negative split AND sub-9!!

After making the turn for home I held up. 3 years ago the L&T and I started a tradition of starting and  finishing this race and the "Love 'Em or Leave 'Em 5k" together, so with about 50 yards to the finish I held up and waited for Mrs. Smith to join me and we crossed the finish together. My watch time was 28.57, which puts me in good shape to meet my goal of a sub 27 minute 5k this year.

Maybe not the traditional way to start the new year, but it works for us...

A nice start to the new year...

Sellout...

There's nothing like going to an NFL Playoff game. In addition to the game itself, there's the anticipation, the excitement, and of course the pre-game (we can't truly "tailgate" here, so it's Fuel before games for us). So I was stunned to learn that not 1 but 2 NFL Playoff games weren't sellouts! Min v. Philly and Atlanta v. Arizona had tickets available as late as Friday morning (Arizona finally sold out).

Beware fans in those cities - The football gods don't take kindly to that sort of thing, it's liable to be a long time before you see another home playoff game...

Friday morning pick-me-up...

Quick ones today, but the song title seemed appropriate (and it's a pretty good song). Jack's Mannequin with "The Resolution"

And for the classic, how about something from our friends to the north? Here's Toronto's own The Pursuit of Happiness and "Hard To Laugh"

Goals for 2009...

I never really got into the "New Year's Resolution" thing. I mean, if you need to make a change in your life why wait for an arbitrary turn of a calendar page? What I do believe in is setting goals, so without further ado here are my goals for 2009;

• Complete one road race per month
• Post at least 3 times a week (a log book is only as good as the entries you put in)
• Complete a half-marathon and get my 5k times below 27 minutes
• Raise $2,500 for this year's Get Your Guts In Gear Ride

Doesn't seem like much, but each of them is a little stretch, which is kind of the point. We'll see how it goes...