Rodeo Run

FDR made me run today.

In previous years, I've registered for Rodeo Run well in advance. But this time around I was fairly ambivalent about it. A little over an hour before registration closed yesterday, I decided to flip for it. Just to be sure, I flipped the dime twice and both times it landed with Roosevelt facing upwards. So I took the trek down to River Oaks to sign up and get my number from the volunteers at Luke's Locker.

After arriving downtown this morning, I drove into the east side of downtown away from where I knew the crowds would be. Instead of seeking a close-in parking spot, I decided to warm up by jogging the rodeo parade course in reverse towards the start line. I really like seeing all the families arriving on Travis and Texas streets to watch the parade.

For the first time I was showing up the 5K Fun Run course. Miles 4 through 6 of the 10K are an out-and-back over the Elysian Viaduct, and frankly, I wasn't in the mood to deal with that this weekend! Instead, I had a relaxing romp around downtown in just under 36 minutes. After splitting off from the 10K course, the 5K route weaves around Toyota Center and the George R. Brown Convention Center before ending at Minute Maid Park.

Part of the fun is seeing some of the 13,000 runners donning wacky costumes. The "hula cowgirls" definitely got my vote for best dressed. Their shirts were supposed to spell out "R-O-D-E-O" but they weren't really good at running in formation together, so at one point I could hear spectators cheering for the "O-R-E-O" runners.

The weather was "spectacularly spring" this morning and as it turns out, our four-term U.S. president did a good thing by prodding me out there today. Now I just need to get back in the habit of registering early for running events again!

I wear now pants! I wear now pants!

It's not quite as nice as the trinket that the New Orleans Saints brought home, but I won something on Super Bowl Sunday too:

Most of the commercials aired that evening were pretty forgettable, but I noticed that the "Wear The Pants" ad from Dockers ended with a mention of a giveaway online. A couple of days later, I finally remembered to visit the site and before I knew it, I was being congratulated on being one of the 5000 randomly selected winners. Dockers was sending me a pair of soft khakis in "carmel."

No, I don't know why they have a color named after a mountain.

Anyway, today the package containing my eagerly-anticipated fig-leaf substitute arrived and we can live happily ever after now that I can stop showing up to work pants-less like the guys in the Careerbuilder commercial.

Mardi Gras Beach Run

Before even more time slips away, I'm checking in to file this tardy "race report" from last Saturday's Mardi Gras Beach Run on Galveston Island. Truthfully, there wasn't much of a race for me to report on. Saddled with a cold heading into the weekend, I ended up splitting the 5K course -- walking the first couple of miles with my girlfriend and then romping through the return mile back to the Stewart Beach pavilion. At the finish line, a cheerful volunteer draped the first beads of the weekend around my neck.

This was my first time to check out this event and it was the first time the local YMCA was able to host it since Hurricane Ike pounded the region two summers ago. Rebuilding and recovery is still an ongoing activity on the coast. For example, last year five Catholic parishes on Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula have consolidated into one. As we arrived to attend Mass at St. Patrick Church on Sunday, I couldn't help but notice the plaque that commemorates the historic building's survival through the 1900 Storm, America's deadliest natural disaster.

After Saturday's 5K, we watched the Mardi Gras parades from a spot on the seawall near where the 61st Street Pier used to be. The plaque gives 1954 as the original construction date:

Here's a pre-Ike picture of the pier:

In this area, a couple of concrete ramps have been constructed that lead down from the seawall and onto the sand. I assume the ramps will be used by trucks and heavy equipment to rebuild the beach and perhaps the pier.

The daytime parade was one of fire trucks, but right in the middle was this one from Carnes Funeral Home, and it seemed a little out of place to me:

The nighttime parade by the Krewe of Gambrinus was larger and a really fun one to watch. The main corporate sponsor was Budweiser, and I finally got an up-close look at the gigantic and gorgeous Clydesdale horses. (As a "Clydesdale" runner, I can only dream about looking that good in motion!) This float made me do a double-take:

I'm not sure what is being implied here. Is Garfield now washing down his lasagna with Bud Light? It might explain why he's always so lethargic and lazy, though....

After the last marching band had passed us and turned the corner, we were ready for some Louisiana flavor for dinner. One block away was Popeye's but they weren't open. What's funny is that right next to their "CLOSED" sign was the Popeye's "Every Day is Mardi Gras" poster.

Well, if they're not open during Mardi Gras. . . .

Tech Refresh

After reading a new year's resolutions update from my fellow blogger Michelle at Tea At Dusk, I decided to revisit mine. The running one (average 2 mi/day) lacks momentum right now. I could blame it on the colder-than-usual winter or reports of a cougar roaming the area. But instead I'll point to the easily predicted drop in motivation I always have after achieving a goal race. But there's always the spring season of events to rejuvenate activity.

My second resolution -- spending more money on myself -- has been much easier to fulfill, as I gave myself permission to update more of my personal tech:First I snagged one of the screamin' cheap post-Christmas eMachines EM250 netbooks at Wal-Mart. Powered by Intel's Atom and barely a couple of pounds, it displaces my five-year-old Pentium M "Centrino" portable with the broken hinge. (I think I was ahead of my time: I bought that four-pound Averatec notebook at a time when eight-pound portables with huge screens for watching movies were in vogue -- and ridiculously weighing down students' backpacks.) So far I'm loving the EM250 for what it does, but there's no way I'd want this to be my sole PC with its cramped keyboard and the limitations of Windows 7 Starter.

January is a popular time to put our minds on organization, and my other tech splurge for the month was an HP Mediasmart EX490. Running Windows Home Server, this nifty box took over the workload of a slow NAS with a small drive crammed with files. I can also stop my old practice of running Norton Ghost once a month, as WHS also does set-and-forget backups of my computers over my home network.

(Of course, this still only provides "in-house" backup and leaves things vulnerable to natural disaster or break-ins by thieves. Readers, do you include offsite backups in your routines? If so, what do you use? Online services like Carbonite, Norton, or Mozy? Or do you distrust "the cloud" and combine a set of USB flash drives with periodic visits to a safe deposit box?)

Coming up: I think I'm ready to take the plunge with a new desktop PC. There are some digital media homework assignments that I'd like to have done, and the ol' P4 isn't going to make the grade at those. Right now I'm weighing the pros and cons of vendor-built versus Vince-built and neither side seems to have won the argument in my mind.