Tripps!

Take a look at your national weather map. See that red spot in the middle of California? Yeah that's us.

Triple digits baby.

There might be some truth to that whole 'dry heat' thing after all.

I was driving with Lauren and said man, it is hot today.

She was like no doubt.

I was like first triple digit day of the year.

She was like WHAT?!?

I was like sure thing babe, it is 100 degrees right now.

and she didn't believe me.

Dry heat is good heat.

The doctor was in...

and I've got Achilles Tendon Enthesopathy. Sounds worse than it probably is - he says it is totally reversible. As I said before, my number one fear is that this was a career ending injury. This is not a career ending injury. Here is what he has prescribed:

4 weeks no impact - elliptical running, biking, weight lifting and swimming are all fine
2-3 sessions physical therapy
"Aggressive" stretching -they will show me how in the PT
Daily Advil
revisit in 6 weeks (start running in 4 so we can talk about how it is going when I see him again)

Not too bad. Apparently what is happening is that my Hamstring and Calf muscles are tight. This, along with the running tugs and tears at the point where my Achilles Tendon attaches to my heal. These tears bleed a little, and when bone bleeds, it makes new bone. This leads to growth of little bone spurs, the hardening of the tendon, swelling, and can sometimes aggravate the nerve in there.

Anyway, if you want to learn more, see the link below. My favorite part? This is a condition that affects athletes and lazy fat people - not people who generally share health woes.

"Contracted or shortened calf muscles resulting from a sedentary lifestyle and obesity or athletic overuse are factors."

http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec04/ch043/ch043g.html

Gabon

Looks awesome. Wish I was on this one.

A pain in my...

Heal. I have a lingering pain in my right heal. It first showed up around November last year. I figured I would take it easy, and so I didn't jog from December 2nd for three months. The thing is, the pain didn't go away. I figured what the hell, might as well start jogging again, and so I did in March. Strange thing is, the pain got better. It is still there, but when I jog and stretch, it is better for a few days, and if I lapse, it gets worse.

I don't know what this pain is but it worries me. I have an appointment on Monday with a Podiatrist to have it checked out.

My number one fear is that he is going to say it is a stress fracture or something else, and I have to stop jogging for like 6 months. If that happens, I will have to take up swimming.

One of the best parts of my job...

I get to use the manlift. It is like a fire pole, only it goes up and down. We have one of these that goes up and down 8 stories. It is awesome. You step on the platform, grab the little handle, and away you go.

http://www.humphrey-manlift.com/

Like seeing your fiancee on the food network

I'm sitting at home eating some dinner and watching a DVD of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" by Larry David. It is a great show that's on HBO in case you haven't seen it. Anyway, right in the middle, Lauren's uncle shows up.

A little explanation - Lauren's uncle is an actor. He isn't quite famous, but he has done quite well for himself with parts on all sorts of shows you have probably seen, like "Monk", "Desperate Housewives", "Cold Case", "Friends", "Malcolm in the Middle" and on and on. Well, apparently he is also in Season 6, episode 9 of Curb Your Enthusiasm. It is very strange (and cool) seeing someone you know talking to Larry David on your DVD.

It's been a good weekend

Started off with a minor league baseball game on Friday night. The Iowa Cubs were in town. More than the baseball, I was drawn by the friends and the fact that it was $1 hot dog and nestle ice cream drumstick night. We played around with the idea of a hot dog eating contest - it looked like Lauren was actually the most likely to take on my new friend Issac. Didn't do it in the end, but Lauren did manage to pack away three dollar-dogs. The Iowa Cubs won by a long shot, we debated what a "Rivercat" actually is (don't cats hate water?) and a good time was had by all.

On Saturday we finished up our gift registry for our wedding. Mos Def not my favorite task. It was okay in the end, I suppose - there are a few items on there that I would be really happy to receive (read - ice cream scoop and paper shredder) but I really don't enjoy the whole process. It is strange, because I have no problem putting together a long and detailed x-mas list. For some reason the wedding registry makes me feel greedy.

Saturday night we got together with some new friends and played Settlers of Catan: Cities & Knights. When we got out here, we were very happy to find some new board game friends. Catheryn actually has all three versions of Settlers, including the 5-6 player expansions of each. We played 6 player Cities & Knights - it took a very long time probably about 3 hours. For those in the know, we had a very well defended island and no cities were burnt down the entire game :-( Catheryn ended up winning but it was a good game, with 4 / 6 players in series contention to win it right up to the end.

Today we got up and ate granola bars and sausage for breakfast (we were going to make pancakes but are out of fresh milk). I'm looking forward to catching a matinee of Iron Man.

Like I said, that's a pretty good weekend.

Walnuts suck major nuts

I had to get up at 03:30 AM today to go into work and do an alergen inspection. When we run a product like, in this case, banana walnut muffins and finish the production run, we have to clean every last bit out of the system. This is because very small quantities of nuts can kill a guy - you have to make sure that not even the tiniest nut gets into the next product.

Anyway, at the general we have to do a 3-level inspection which means machine operator, quality lab technician, and team leader.

I was that lucky team leader who got to go in at 03:30 AM and do the inspection.

Yippee!