Booked, handstand = bloody toe, Jackass, flooded, radio time

So I finalized the transportation and lodging for a mid-December trip back to NYC.  I was a bit bummed that the air fare went up $10 per leg in the 24 hour period since yesterday but it still is a good deal, much less than we spent to fly up in August.  For lodging I reserved a room at the Park Central Hotel which is real close to Central Park. It is listed as 4 star hotel but was considerably less than the ridiculous $400 a night the Sheraton was looking for.

Both Ali and I are very excited for the trip.  It will be a great Xmas present to ourselves.  Since our subway experience we now know how easily we can get around the city to see whatever we want to.  Things on the list of possible to do’s this time around are the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden and the Chrysler Building.   It would be cool to catch Spider Man on Broadway.  Of course a return trip to Tompkins Square Park will definitely be on the list.  I’d love to hook up with Al again.

The city will be in full holiday mode at that time which will be worth the price of admission itself.  I heard it is just awesome to see.

Last night I was doing my mini-workout and decided to do some handstand practice.  At the gym during the day I had a few decent holds of 5 seconds or more.  I equated the good holds with doing it on a solid surface as opposed to carpet.  I decided to do the handstands in the kitchen since it is ceramic tile.  Now months ago I would have never tried a handstand in such close quarters since the majority of my efforts would wind up in some sort of fall.

Well since then I have at least become pretty good at getting out of an over balanced hand stand.  Instead of flopping on my back I normally can either walk forward on my hands or spin out of it in a cartwheel type fashion.  So I did a few attempts with minimal success.  I then actually hit the balance point, briefly.  But then I went into over balance mode which I tried to get out of by walking forward on my hands.  Unfortunately I continued to tip over and wound up flopping hard on my back.

Not only did I land on my back, I banged my right knee against the wall and wound up with a bloody toe when they got jammed together, causing a nail to cut the adjacent toe.  My knee actually left an imprint in the drywall, luckily I didn’t punch all the way through.

Ali, who was in the office, came running over to see what happened as did the dogs.  I assured her I was ok.  I didn’t let the crash stop the session however.  Eventually I got a decent 5 second or so hold right at the end.  If you want to just see the crash go here, to see the entire session go here.

Last night I watched Jackass 3D in 2D.  It follows the same format as every Jackass you have ever seen.  Most of the stunts deal with one of three genre’s, bodily excretion, impact or pain.  It was entertaining but not terribly so.  I certainly found myself cringing more than once. I’d give it a B-.  Definitely glad I didn’t waste money seeing it in 3D in a theater.

I have seen a lot of picture of my old home area being flooded out courtesy of the remnants of Lee.  Some of the images are quite dramatic.  I found this picture of Eisenhauer Nissan particularly striking since that is where we bought our first Sentra years ago and is located only a few miles from our old Wernersville townhouse.  When I found out that the “water” was actually mixed with sewage it made even more of an OMG impact.  What a f’cking mess.

My brother got directly hammered by the flooding.  His rental property had water against the walls and two feet of water in the basement.  Luckily nobody lives there right now but regardless it is going to be a huge headache for him to clean up.  The last thing he needs is more expense since he is still in the middle of a never ending divorce proceeding.

All over the area there are examples of chaos from the flooding.  It makes my water problems seem very insignificant.  Luckily in Florida they plan for water by building most homes on mounds that are 3 or 4 feet high.

I was talking to Homey yesterday via IM about the flooding in PA.  He evidently mentioned it (and my name) on the radio.  Within 5 minutes I had a call from my dad saying a friend of his heard the mention.  Homey has mentioned me a number of times over the years as part of his radio banter. It always makes me laugh.

This weekend I plan to resume my regular running routine with a planned 7 mile club run tomorrow morning.  I have the Tough Mudder coming up in December which in addition to 20+ grueling obstacles also just happens to throw in a monster 12 mile run as part of the fun.  I really haven’t done much running since the epic Ireland run, I’ve had some lingering soreness in the right knee.

I’d like to get the property manicured but unfortunately unrelenting daily rain has retarded the evaporation of the standing water.  It might be a mound only mow this weekend.