good for the soul

Old friend. New babe. Coffee. Fireplace. Exactly what I needed today.

freeze yer gizzard

Because it isn't cold enough in Minneapolis, some running pals and I decided to venture to International Falls, a stone's throw from Canada, for their annual Icebox Days. We ran a 10k, the Freeze Yer Gizzard Blizzard 10k, and had some beer. And margaritas. We watched smoosh racing and hung out in the hot tub. And it was captured by Nightline, which aired earlier this week (you can see me at 1:03 at the start of the race. Red top, black hat with a red/black trim). All in all, a fun winter weekend. Oh, and I came in 3rd in the run! Clearly, there wasn't much competition. But hey, third is third. Our top guy, Brian, won the whole thing, and another runner, Pam, placed second in her age group. A fun race, made better by the bragging rights of frigid temps.

polar vortex

Because of the polar vortex that has lived over the midwest the last three days, campus was closed and classes canceled yesterday and today. It meant I had to figure out how to hold a 3.5 hour class online with students who were not prepared for an online class. So, I couldn't guarantee they would all be able to access a new technology to meet synchronously and yet had to figure out how to accomplish the necessary objectives for the class. With only 4 weeks of class and a total of 8 meetings, I needed this one.

So I ended up creating some crappy videos in my dining room I uploaded to YouTube for students to watch, and narrated a lecture. It wasn't ideal, but it was all I could do in the short notice. Students seem to have managed ok, and I was thankful not to have to deal with whining about the cold if they were forced to come to class. I guess I'll see how it went in class tomorrow.

Here's to J-term!

there's something seriously wrong when...

...this is how I dressed to run today. January 10, 2012. Minneapolis, MN. 52 degrees.

it's beginning to look

The mark of the holiday season, at least for the last decade or so, has always been beginning to play the music for the Nutcracker Ballet. I've played it with my orchestra, and then a different orchestra, since I graduated college. That music always puts me joyfully into the holiday spirit, even if I do grumble the weekend of performances. It's a really hard piece of music for us down in the pit, and four performances is draining. But when push comes to shove, I love it. Damn you, Tchaikovsky, you sure knew how to write great music. There are sections that get me every time. I mean tears. While I'm playing. Even though I've performed it, what, close to 50 times?

Anyway, in this economy, the ballet has decided to go with a CD to save money. So we aren't playing it this year. This has caused us (who used this as the major money-maker for the orchestra) to scramble a bit. We have a fundraising event in late December, which is a new experiment and we'll see if folks come.

Anyway, I'm kinda sad about not playing the Nutcracker, and mostly missing the music as the onset of the holiday season. I guess I'll have to pull out a recording. Not the same, but maybe it will work.

time to be done with the snow, ok?

Seriously mother nature? We know that you're powerful and appreciate your "whimsy" at times. You've made for a really tough winter for a lot of folks around here. And the fact that it snowed today, APRIL 20TH!!!, is "fun" for some I suppose. And yes, it has since melted. But it's time to be done. We are done with the snow. We're done with mittens and scraping windows. We refuse to go back to winter coats. We're ready for spring. I'm not asking for miracles. It is late April, after all. Please???

winter running

Running in the winter is like a whole different sport than running in the other seasons. In some ways this is good. In order to stay on my feet, my core and inner thighs have to activate a whole lot more to stay balanced, arguably areas that could use some work on my body. More than some, actually.

In other ways, though, this is bad. Because of slick sidewalks I basically run looking straight down, so I end up being clotheslined by tree branches often. I also leap over the piles at the crosswalks and sometimes land wrong, which isn't great on my tender foot. My pace is really slow which makes me crabby. It takes so much longer to get dressed. My skin gets chapped and scaly. I've been relatively unscathed by falls, but did break a finger a couple years ago from a slip on the ice. I have a harder time listening to my body and getting into a rhythm.

I sometimes wonder if it's all worth it. But I'm back out there the next day anyway, with all the other crazies running through MN winters.

snowpocalypse 2010

I was a naysayer about the predicted tsnownami, but I was proven wrong. I was glad that I didn't have much planned for the weekend, though it would have been nice to have an excuse not to grade. Grading, turns out, can still get done in a snowstorm. I was a little stir crazy by Sunday afternoon, but that's ok.

The pics don't really do justice to what seemed like feet and feet of snow to shovel. I think officially we got 17" at the airport. It was really pretty and fun to watch come down from the comforts of my house, and still kinda fun yesterday to fall all over while trying to slog over to the coffee shop at the corner to treat myself to a hot chocolate and cookie after I finished shoveling. The shoveling itself was not fun. I'm just glad I had the foresight to steer clear of purchasing a corner lot.

It really is a wonder, this living in MN thing. My neighbor was talking about how back in the old days when he lived in southern MN, the farmers used to shovel tunnels from the house to the barn through the snow drifts. He remembers walking from his house to a neighbors out second floor windows.

As much as I grumble about the shoveling, I really did enjoy watching people trudge down the street and chatting with my neighbor as I shoveled, and helping push several stuck cars out of the alley and off the street. I heard of a lot of friends who benefited from good samaritan neighbors who helped snowblow sidewalks and driveways. Those fair weather states miss out, I think.

Every muscle in my body hurts, but it was a good MN winter wonderland weekend.











Guess I won't be using the other side of my garage until like May probably.