4 am Sunday wake ups suck
Ali was out Friday night at the ‘So You Think You Can Dance” show in Tampa so I was left solo. I had no big plans for the evening. For those of you with a good memory you will recall that Friday was the scheduled date for my HUGE Windows 7 House Party! Well my party was a bust. In fact I think that of the nearly 20 invitations I sent out, only one was actually received. It seems that houseparty.com has some technical difficulties. I sent an email invite twice to certain people and they never saw it. Oh well, instead I “partied” by playing WoW and then sitting down with the dogs to watch Transformers 2.
I saw the first Transformer movie and was not all that impressed. I found it rather confusing trying to follow the action, the robots all started to look the same to me. Sadly I found this movie felt pretty similar. The CGI used to make the movie is absolutely incredible, the detail of the Transformers is flawless. The thing is, flawless, incredible CGI is commonplace in today’s film industry, it isn’t enough to carry a film.
One of the biggest talking points of Transformers 1 was Megan Fox. She instantly became one of THE hottest chicks on the planet. To me, other than the much publicized clip of her bent over the motorcycle in this film, she didn’t really live up to the hype for me. If you look closely she actually has a big girl build from the waist down. I think she has to work really hard to keep things under control. Plus she wears pounds of make up in every scene and of course everyone has heard of her semi-clubbed hand thing she has going on. Needless to say no Megan Fox posters will be adorning my walls anytime soon.
There were some things I enjoyed in Transformers 2. Of course the biggest is one of the main Transformers is a new Camaro. I enjoyed the scenes where Bumblebee was involved the most. All of the Transformers were GM based vehicles as far as I could tell. I can only imagine how much money was spent to secure that deal.
There was lots of action, lots of explosions and surprisingly a lot of off the cuff humor in the film. It wasn’t bad but I am certainly glad that I didn’t drop $20 per head to see it in 3D in the theaters like I originally planned. Overall I’d give the film a B.
We caught a break this weekend and didn’t need to mow. Rain has been sparse recently and the recent cold front seems to have somewhat stunted the growth of the lawn which is fine with me. We of course still found ways to keep busy with other things. One of the unplanned things involved a trip down to the running store to pick up last minute race entries.
We have a real problem with people that participate in our races waiting until the last minute to sign up. For this past race we had 70% of the runners wait until the last three days to sign up. The main reason this happens is because the club does not charge people more for the race fee as the race approaches. Tiered race fees is a normal practice in the race business yet the powers that be in the club have resisted the change.
When the club used to time races manually by handing runners finishers cards that they wrote their name on it did not matter if people registered early or late for a race. It didn’t negatively affect anyone. However since we have been using the chip system for over a year and a half it has become apparent how much of a pain this is for the people that time the race, namely Ali and I.
When people wait until the last minute that means they will be submitting paper entries. Paper entries SUCK. Ali and I are continually amazed at how clueless people are sometimes. We constantly get entries that are incomplete, incorrect or illegible. Why is it a difficult thing for someone to fill out a registration form correctly? So getting bombarded with all of this paper means Ali and I have to punch it all into the system ahead of time. If a runner enters the race online I simply download their information and boom, I’m done.
Well things really got messy on the day of the race. Ali planned to run this race since it was a 5 miler and she was scheduled to do 5 miles on her training schedule. For awhile things were ok, we had a few runners signing up on the spot but it was slow. Then all of a sudden the gates exploded and we were inundated by people signing up late. It was a mess. Since Ali was going to run she had to get loose about 15 minutes before the race started, meaning I had to hop in there and try to get the entries in. Ali is a much faster typist than I am so it was not a good combination.
Adding to the stress was the fact that I had to get to the start of the race to synchronize the race time. This race is a logistical nightmare. The start line was literally almost a half mile from the finish/registration area. So with stop watch in hand I start running to the start line. I made it with about 30 seconds to spare. After the start I had to run back to the finish to complete entering the 20 or so registrations that I had not gotten done yet. The only thing that was working in my favor was the race was a 5 miler which gave me some extra time. At the time when the race started I hadn’t even had the time to hook up the timing mats.
In the end it all worked out ok, the chip system itself worked just fine although I was still angry about the situation. (late runners) I plan on really pushing for all of our races to start adopting new race fees in 2010 where people pay a low price if they register up until a few days before the race. After that the price jumps $5 and then another $5 if you walk up the day of the race. Sure people will gripe but soon they will realize that if they want to pay the lowest fee they will sign up EARLY. Getting that agreed upon by the majority of the club may be difficult.
Lost in the pre-race drama was the fact that Ali had a great run, finishing the distance a full minute faster than the prior weekend. I was proud of her as she crossed. However later in the day the happiness from a good run was replaced by pain. I think Ali was dehydrated. She only had part of a small bottle of water after the race. Ali thinks it was something else. But whatever the reason, she had horrible abdominal cramping that kept her in bed a good portion of the day.
As a result of Ali being laid up I spent a good portion of my day being a man maid. I swept floors, cleaned counters, washed sheets and more. Surprisingly despite my 4am wake up time I didn’t feel an overwhelming need to take a nap, although when 10 pm came I was out like a light.
Ali is feeling better this morning thankfully.
The Eagles play tonight. Hopefully they can beat up on the hapless Redskins. My fantasy team has hit a huge string of bad luck lately. After a 3-1 start I am currently at 3-3 and about to go to 3-4 since I am down over 100 points with only a few players to play. My team has scored a good amount of points in every game I lost but it seems that each time I just happen to go up against another team that has it’s best score of the season. It frustrates the shit out of me.
Phils and Yankees in the World Series starting Wednesday. Wow how sweet would that be if the Phils could take out the vaunted Yankees?? Yea we won it all last year but it was against the Devil Rays, not exactly a feather in the cap.