Thanks to Blonde Justice for adding me to her links! I hope that a few of her many loyal readers will stop by and read what I have to say. (and not be so bored that they never come back!!!)

Nine Weeks to Thirteen Miles

This week begins my half-marathon training. It consists of two short runs during the week and one long run on Saturdays (similar to my 10k training). I am also supposed to do two days of cross-training. I can safely assume my walk yesterday will count as my cross-training for the week. This weekend's run is 4 miles and it will build up to a long long of 10 miles on July 23rd, before tapering somewhat before the big day. I am still worried about the heat (on the day of the race, as well as the training), but I am just going to have to make adjustments.

The Walk

E and I had been planning a walk to Navy Pier for awhile and today the weather was perfect, so we set out at approximately 10a.m. E likes to walk down the entire lakefront once a year and I was happy to be his companion for this year's jaunt. We walked from approximately Bryn Mawr to Navy Pier. Add to that detours to a noodle restaurant in Lincoln Park and the walking we did at Navy Pier and I figure we walked a total of 8.5 miles. After treating ourselves to ice cream, we took the bus home. (after walking another 15 minutes to Michigan Avenue to catch the bus).

It was a very good walk overall, although the lakefront was super crowded and the bikers and rollerbladers made things a little treacherous. Oh, we also found a big hill that I ran up twice. Will be a good place to visit if I want to do hill training.

After returning home, I collapsed on the bed, happy to remember that it was a weekday and the People's Court was on. Yay.

Miniature Golf Champion

I had a rather successful day at miniature golf. I beat E by SIX strokes!! I can gloat because he never reads this blog anyway. In fact, he is sitting at his computer next to me, playing with Sim City, completely oblivious to the fact that I am over celebrating my golfing triumph. I even had a hole in one! The course was very fun, with lots of hills and fake river rapids. Not like that crappy course back home where the whole thing is flat.

We spent a few hours today checking out Sam's Club and Costco, trying to decide which one to join (in order to put our new freezer to good use). We spent alot of time in each and I definitely like Costco better. Well, for one, the free samples were WAY better: pizza, ben & jerry's ice cream, cinnamon soft pretzels! Yum! The prices seemed nearly identical, so I think we are going to go with Costco. It just had a nicer feel to it, too.

I am looking forward to seeing if Danica can kick some butt over at Indy tomorrow. I can't believe the crap that Robby Gordon was spewing today. He contends that the reason that Danica is successful is that she weighs 100 pounds, making her car lighter. Well, I guess she deserves one benefit for being a woman. She also probably has 1/2 the bladder capacity as you do, Robby. Care to make the trade?

Blogging Birthday

Tomorrow will mark my one year blogging birthday.
It doesn't seem that long, probably because I slacked off for a few months in the middle there and didn't blog at all. I got busy. Falling in love and whatnot.
Anyway, to mark my one year birthday, I spent some extra time browsing through other people's blogs. Some I linked to from blogs I already read, but the majority of them I found by clicking the "next blog" button in the upper right hand corner. In so doing, I learned some things.

1. My blog is not the most boring one out there.
2. My blog is pretty boring.
3. There are lots of advertisement sites (poorly) disguised as blogs.
4. I saw the same woman's breasts on 15 different blogs. Not sure why.
5. There are lots of blogs in other languages that look pretty interesting.
6. We, as a people, are pretty self-absorbed.
7. Even some cats have blogs. It made Simba jealous.
8. Other blogs have better font than mine.
9. I came across some blogs that were created as part of a class assignment. That would have been a pretty cool thing to in high school, or even college for that matter. Sigh. Born too soon again.
10. Blogging is fun.

I'm Goofy!!

You scored as Goofy. Your alter ego is Goofy! You are fun and great to be around, and you are always willing to help others. You aren't worried about embarrassing yourself, so you are one who is more willing to try new things. Goofy 63% The Beast 63% Cinderella 63% Peter Pan 56% Sleeping Beauty 56% Pinocchio 50% Cruella De Ville 44% Donald Duck 38% Ariel 38% Snow White 31% Which Disney Character is your Alter Ego? created with QuizFarm.com

What's in a Name?

I changed the title of my blog.
I thought the old title made me sound a bit juvenile and unfocused.
Hope you like it.

I'm Headed for Purgatory

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Fancy Hair Salon

So one of my few guilty pleasures in life is the large chunk of change I fork over to have my hair cut at the Fancy Hair Salon.
It is worth every penny.
I would pay that much just to have someone else deal with the nightmare that is drying my hair.
I feel pretty.

10K

I finished the 10k!!!
Time: 1 hour, 6 minutes.
Overall it went very well, although I was in desperate need of a water break between miles 3 and 4. The course was very scenic,with nice views of the lake and the city once we turned around and headed back up north.
During the final 3/4 mile, at which point I was certain that I would finish, I started to get reflective on how far I have come from when I started this running thing back in August. That bit of reflection pushed me that final stretch and I finished strong.
Up next: Half Marathon!!!!!!!

A Tribute to the Snake Lady

So many lives touched,
such a wondrous life fulfilled,
words are not enough.

Women in Combat

According to CNN, the House Armed Services Committee passed a defense spending bill that would prevent women from participating in combat. This made me remember an article I read last week that I found very interesting. It talks about the reality of the war in Iraq and how women are already serving in direct fire areas and excelling. The nature of the war makes it impossible for women to stay off the "front lines" because there aren't really any lines. Obviously this is another case of the politicians creating laws that they think their constituents want, with absolutely no concept of what implications it has on reality. Or even what reality currently is.

The Power of Red

A recent study revealed that wearing red can be advantageous in the athletic realm. I guess this means that I should only wear red during my races?

Positive

In an attempt to focus more on the positive side of things, I will list five good things that happened today.
1) It was sunny.
2) I talked to a client on the phone and we had a rather nice chat.
3) I went for a run today and didn't mind that I walked some.
4) Simba greeted me at the door when I got home.
5) Um, did I mention it was sunny?

YAY RUNNING!!!

So despite what looked like imminent rain (it didn't), I decided to go out and do my last long run before next weekend's 10k. It was supposed to be 5.5 miles and I nearly made it. Stats below.

Distance: 5.39 miles
Time: 52 min 17 sec
Pace: 9 min 42 sec

I have determined that the best way to enjoy my runs is to lip-synch to all the songs I play on my i-pod. It helps my breathing and makes the time go faster. I just have to get used to people staring at me (or at least I think that is why they are staring at me). Today I even did little arm movements to "You can't stop the beat" and "Yeah, Yeah." I "sang" all through Shamrock and I think that is why it went so well. I didn't bust out during Y-me until the last stretch which was my fastest. Coincidence? I think not.

Grr.

Worked sucked today. Completely overwhelming. And I lost that case that came down. I knew I would, but that doesn't make it suck any less. Third loss this week. Oh and yesteday I got the latest post-conviction petition from one of my client’s in which he raises an issue of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. (that would be me).
bring on the weekend.

Kindred Spirits

I also knew that Winnie-the-Pooh and I had a special bond. This latest quiz confirms it.

Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!

0-3?

A decision is coming down tomorrow in a case which I won a few months ago. The Appellate Court recalled the mandate, however, after some new transcripts were found by the court reporter who had previously said there were no other transcripts from that day. The transcript completely annihilated the issue I had won on, so the Court then took the case under advisement again. I have zero confidence that I will win on the other (lesser) issue. That would make the THIRD loss this week. Well, technically my case that came down on Monday was a "win" because it was remanded for sentencing admonishments and a chance for my client to file a motion to reconsider sentence. However, we lost on the motion to suppress issue and my client is likely to be deported. (I have gotten three calls from the Dept of Homeland Security as they have been monitoring the progress of the appeal). So another loss tomorrow will be 0-3 in one week. Officially a slump. Now I know how Pudge feels.

Eyewitness testimony

Found this interesting article about eyewitness testimony on Indefensible. I agree with alot of what it has to say. It is very frustrating when you can tell that the eyewitness picked defendant out of a small collection of pictures, probably with some uncertainty. Then they remember that face from the picture and use that to pick the same person out of a line-up, identify at trial, etc. Their certainty may grow everytime they make an identification, but that is only because the image of the defendant is now burned in their brain as that of the offender, even if it wasn't him. It is one thing if the pictures for the original photo array were selected based on the description given by the witness, but, as the article points out, often the pictures are selected based on the "gut instinct" of the police officer. Which means they pick out some guys that were arrested before (obviously, where do you think they get the pictures), likely for the same offense. Sometimes it is some guys that they know have been "active" recently based on informant chatter or the word on the street. So there is a decent chance that none of the 8 pictures is the guy that did it. What if the offender has never been arrested and therefore the cops have no photos? Never seems to be considered as a possibility. In the movies or on TV, you always see the witness going through big books of mug shots looking for the offender. I have never had a case where that happened. At least under that scenario, the witness would not be influenced by the size of the photos, the arrangement of the photos, etc. There is no easy answer to all of this. What makes it much more troublesome is that to jurors, the testimony of an eyewitness is gold. For the defendant it is iron.

Celebrity Sighting!!!! Well, sort of...

Betty and I were on our 2 mile run today when we passed what appeared to be a movie set. The run sucked. It was HOT. I was miserable. (as an aside, my new sunglasses worked fabulously). We decided on the way back to stop and check out the movie set. We tried to casually walk by when we were accosted by some kind of assistant guy who told us we had to cross the street. I think he got a power trip out of it. We were instructed to stand in one of two groups on the other side of the street, so as to not be in the shot.
We knew that Sandra Bullock was in town shooting a new movie, so we thought that was probably what it was. Soon we saw a scene begin. We actually saw the scene 5 times. I am not sure what was wrong the first 4 times, because it seemed to me to be the same thing over and over again.
Scene: outside a hospital
Some guy on a gurnee is pushed out of an ambulance. A taxi pulls into the hospital. Two doctors walk across the parking lot. A woman yells out "Angelina!! Angelina!!" to a woman who I think came from the cab (couldn't see very well). The two women hug and walk off screen. People in the crowd were saying that Angelina was Sandra Bullock, but this woman was way too short and didn't look anything like Sandra, except that she had brown hair. I guess people are desperate to see celebrity and they were distorting the image in their minds. Which also explains why I am convinced the yelling lady was Margaret Cho.
I looked up on the web and Sandra's character is not named Angelina. She does play a doctor though, so it is possible it is that movie.
I should note once again that Betty was much faster than me today. I think she is on her way to becoming the real roadrunner.

Monday Again

So the race went okay yesterday. Much better than the Springfield disaster. I finished in just over 30 minutes. I think. I wasn't paying too close of attention. I saw E at the end to take my picture so I stopped. Not realizing that I hadn't crossed the finish line. Got yelled at by lots of angry runners.
It was hot. And bright. and hot. And I almost missed the water station just before mile 2, which was oddly located to the left side of a curving turn. I was on the inside of the pack and didn't see the table. Then I saw someone in front of me to the left with a cup, so I had to make a little u-turn and a beeline to the table. I nearly knocked someone over, but I didn't care, because I was very thirsty. Good thing I stopped because that was the only water station. Well, actually there was one at about 1/2 mile into the thing, but I really didn't feel like stopping for water when I had only been running about 5 minutes.
The goodie bag had some good stuff. A little beanie baby kitty cat and a coupon for a free ice cream cone, among other things.
Next up is the 10k in just two weeks. Uh, oh.

Still moving...

Today Betty and I ran about 3 miles. My body was rejecting it a little bit. I think it was the two days in a row that were the problem. That's all I have to say.

Finally...

I managed to get back on the running horse today, doing about 2.5 miles or so. The weather was very nice, a little chilly, but okay. I plan to go again tomorrow. I wish that when I let myself slack off, I would just remember how good I feel after I run. That is enough to get me back out there: rain or shine.

Well, maybe not rain...

Running? What's That?

I feel guilty that I haven't been running. My mom said that I shouldn't feel guilty because I am only doing it for myself and am not letting anyone down. Of course that would be true if I was not a perfectionist by nature. I feel like I am letting myself down and that is enough for me. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and 63 degrees. No more excuses. No more complaints. No more putting it off. This is just silly.

I would go now, but it is a little chilly..

Not a good time to be an amphibian...

I previously mentioned the exploding toads and now the latest news about Peruvians using endangered frogs to make cocktails. Apparently the Telmatobius frogs can be used as an aphrodisiac so they make popular beverages.