Surprise!

Two weeks ago, after a seemingly short time gaming and increased desire to return to the virtual battle front, I was perfectly primed for my surprise birthday party. My wonderful wife and awesome family and friends completely duped me. We were there at the cafe, having a great time, and I got a call from Jean telling me that she had sprained her ankle while working out. Since she took Michael, she asked me to take a break and come help her get him home safely. Now, that may sound a little fishy to you now, but at the time, she did a great job of convincing me she was quite serious.

Fast forward about 45 minutes. When we start to round the corner to our house, Jean and Michael in her car and me in mine, I noticed two women running up the stairs to our front door. Jean and I were already carrying on a phone conversation, so I remarked that we would now have to deal with door-to-door salespeople too. Imagine my surprise when they went inside our front door! Of all the thoughts I could have had, the one I ran with was... "Oh my gosh, there are burglars in our house!"

To my great delight, there were no burglars in our house but a host of friends and family. Even the guys I was gaming with minutes before were there too. We ate, drank, socialized, and watched a movie my brother compiled of many photos and home movies throughout my three decades. Everyone had a great time.

And afterwards... a few of us returned to the cafe for more gaming!

Game On

I am starting the first morning of my third decade relaxing with my beautiful family. Playing, laughing, eating, exploring, sharing, remembering, kissing, flying, jumping, talking; we start the weekend off right over here. And yet, there are still more awesome events in store for me today.

At noon I will meet friends at the Xtreme Gaming Cybercafe, and we will play games till we can't game anymore or they kick us out. One good thing about not having enough time to play the newest games as they come out is that there are plenty of great games for us to choose from today that most of us will have never played. We will soon see who is still standing amidst the ashes of the virtual holocaust; which strategist will reign supreme; who will win bragging rights for the next year; who will lie exhausted on the field of battle... victorious!

It is Alive!

I am posting from a brand new 15 inch MacBook Pro. My wonderful employer preempted what would have undoubtedly been my own purchase in the near future. So, since Thursday afternoon when it arrived, I have been enthusiastically exploring its capabilities and loading the applications I love to use.

Now that I have gotten back up to speed with regard to my connectivity and portability, it is time to tackle the really hard stuff. I started opening up my old laptop last night. Its hard drive is really not easy to extract. You will definitely hear from me again when I get my hands on it and attempt to acquire my inaccessible data!

Flying Out Again... Back Soon

Flying Out Again... Back Soon
Originally uploaded by Philip J Beyer.

As I began my journey yesterday evening, this was the view I caught of Terminal 1 at San Antonio International Airport while walking away from the parking garage. I flew to Charlotte, NC last night for a brief security assessment this morning. I am about to board my final flight home from Chicago right now, so I can't say much more other than it was a successful trip and I'll be glad to get back home!

Incidentally, I tried twice to upload this photo from my phone directly. I had no luck, so that's one strike against this new phone that is wonderful otherwise. More on that later.

Running

Though I enjoyed the 50-yard dash more than most when I was a tyke, I never was much interested in long distances or endurance running. Fast forward about 20 years or so, to when I met the wonderful woman who would later be my wife... and she's a runner. I gave it my best at first but quickly determined I needed some extra boost along the way. So, by combining my trusty 4th generation iPod with an armband carrying case, I made an already great and well-used Christmas gift into a tool to motivate me past the first few hundred meters.

It has taken about 2 years, but running with my girlfriend/fiance/wife both outside and on the treadmill, and powered by inspirational music, I am on my way to being comfortable with running. Recently, I encountered a crossroads. Through what I can only call extreme overuse, my iPod became practically unusable leaving me in the lurch. After a few weeks of deliberation, mainly due to the fact that I was working so much and frequently out of town, I finally decided to pick up an iPod nano and take advantage of a new tool that might possibly take my running to the next level.

I have been eying the Nike+ system for quite a while now, but since it requires an iPod nano, I never pulled the trigger on a purchase... until now. As you can see in one of the windows on the right side of this blog, I have logged a few runs using the device. I very much enjoy the feedback I get when I run as well as the data that is gathered. Who knows, maybe I can use this new tool to get up to the 10k level... you can watch and see!