Siriusly?

I am now an official member of the Sirius cult. I've sold my soul to satellite! And love it!

s42

Gas Rant

Ok. Am I the ONLY one in the world that sees there is NO justification for oil prices (and thus, gas prices) to be anywhere NEAR what they are right now? About 3 months ago, there was a big worry that oil stocks were very low, and demand was going to be very high, particularly in the upcoming winter. So the people that REALLY control the oil prices (traders and investors) decided it would be a great time to run up the price of oil. All the way to FIFTY dollars a barrel, which at the time was a record. Approximately 2 months later, the oil and financial gurus met and wrote reports stating not only was supply MUCH higher than anticipated, but the predicted demand in China (which was the big scare point) was only up 4 percent, as opposed to the prediction of 19 percent. For those that aren't following me, supply was up, demand was less, so therefore, oil was overvalued and the prices were bogus. It probably should have been more like 40 dollars a barrel. AND, OPEC decided to RAISE PRODUCTION by 500,000 barrels a day. It was also noted that there should be more than enough supply to last through the winter and still have a nice surplus, even without the production boost. So a month has gone by, and we now find ourselves with SIXTY dollars a barrel, as of today. Why the high prices? The justification given by the investors (read: greedy ignorant bastards) is that they don't think the supply would hold up in the event of a major stoppage in production or distribution. Well, no SHIT. That's like saying "I think our electric will go out if the power plant gets bombed." These people are artificially inflating, and by a LONGSHOT, the price of oil to make some big money. So for the short term (or potentially a bit longer), we're going to be stuck paying prices that are nowhere near reasonable for gas, heating oil, electric, airline tickets, and just about everything else you can think of, because people are going to start adding even greater surcharges to all products to cover the elevated costs of shipping.

Take a look at the gas prices today, because oil just went up 11 percent over the past week. Yes the past WEEK. So assume most of that will be passed on to gas prices. Figure adding 20-25 cents onto today's price for about 3-5 days from now. Nice. All because of some ignorant Wall Street bastards.

The one good point in all this is eventually, even those hardheaded bastards are going to realize there is a huge surplus in oil in the world, and the precious commodity will become much less valuable. People are going to lose everything if they don't get out in time. And prices of gas and oil should eventually drop to levels we haven't seen in years. For the meantime, though, it really just sucks.

s42

Name this movie quote...

"You get a goddamn job before sundown.....or we're shippin' ya off to military school....with the GOD DAMN FINKLESTIEN SHIT KID......SON of a BITCH!"

Change-up

Just something a bit different. Not sure if I'm going to keep this template style or not. I'll give it a few days to see if it grows on me or not....

s42

Running update

Well, it's now less than 5 months until the Philly Marathon, which I still hope to run in. I'm still suffering from plantar fascitis since OCTOBER, but it's more of a nagging injury than the debilitating one it was several months ago. I've learned to do the right things as far as making sure I always wear my inserts and stretch (but not OVERstretch) before and after running. And of course resorting to the odd dose of Naproxen after particularly hard runs. I still lost some valuable training time over the Winter and part of Spring, but I'm starting to get back in the swing of things again. I just recently completed training runs of 3 miles at 23:30 with hills and 5 miles at 42:05 with MANY hills (tonight). My training runs are not at race pace, obviously, but I'm happy with where I'm at right now. I need to drop about 10 lbs., too, to get back into a more ideal race weight. I'm tentatively eyeing up two 5K runs for July and early August, to sharpen my lower end mileage runs a bit and get my speed up. "Official" marathon training starts August 1. At that point, I'll be seriously ramping up my long runs on the weekends, starting at 8 miles on week one and peaking at 20 miles at week 13. Weeks 14 and 15 are taper weeks (with the option of a 1/2 marathon on week 14), and week 16 is the marathon.

There are alot of people that I run into that think I'm nuts for attempting this. Also alot of people that probably secretively think I'm not going to do it. Well, I'm going to give it my best shot, and the only thing that could hold me back is my foot injury. I'm hopeful that it continues to just be no worse than a nuisance, but I understand there is a very real possibility that I could have a setback or two. So I need to be smart about it. But other than that, my mind is made up that come hell or high water, I'm going to finish this 26.2 mile bastard. It's just something that I want to be able to say that I did. An accomplishment that all the negative people in this region will just have to live with (although I'm sure there will be some that scoff because I don't run it in 2 hours and 30 min.). But enough of that. I'm doing this for ME and ME alone. I'm the only motivation I need for this. How far can I push my body and mind? That's the real question.

Running has always set me free. Free from the stresses of home, work, and life in general. While I've never tried anything NEAR this magnitude before, I'm comforted by the fact that along the way, through all of the blood, sweat, tears, and pain, I will find peace. The actual 26.2 miles that make up the marathon will be the exclaimation point on the long journey I am beginning to undertake in an attempt to reach my goal. I hope some of you will be there to cheer me on at the end.

s42

The Thin Line Between Love and Hate

It's an overused cliche, for sure, but there really is a THIN, THIN line between love and hate. Most things/people in my life do not evoke EXTREME emotions. I care about people, and I have feelings for people, but there are only a very select few that can make me completely turn from the highest high to the lowest low and back again in less than five minutes. It happened to me today with two separate people at two separate times. As I thought about the people, I realized that they are two of the people that I care about the absolute most in my life. Strange that I would equate caring to both ends of the emotional spectrum - but it seems that perhaps the more passionate you are toward somebody, the more you open up your emotions to that person, and consequently, the more you can be emotionally affected by their every move, word or deed.

Philosophy 101 concluded. Have a nice day :)

s42

Burning the candle at 3 ends.

It suddenly hit me tonight that I need about 28 hours in each day to fit in all the crap in my life. Tonight was a prime example of how crazy things can be. Work 9 hours, come home, play with Brandon, eat, check sister-in-law's house (on vacation), play with Brandon for about an hour, do an hour of work for U of Penn, run 3 miles (marathon is coming in 5 months from today!), do another hour of work for Penn, and FINALLY sit down to have some time to myself. Oh yeah, it's 10:30 and I need to go to bed soon. Where does the time all go? It's crazy. And every week day is a repeat of the last. I really need to rearrange some of the things going on in and around me. I can only imagine what life will be like when Brandon starts getting involved in "after-school activities" and such. I'm going to need a clone!

Phil Collins at his (drumming) best - Brand X

Phil Collins was a powerhouse performer in the 70's, 80's and 90's, performing solo and with the band Genesis. His album sales from these two projects and various other side projects (including movie soundtracks, compilations, etc.) have totalled well over 100 million copies. He still continues to make music, however seems to have totally converted to the Adult Contemporary side of things.

To truly appreciate the musical genius this man is, you have to go back to the early Genesis days, and back to the mid-70's when he had a side-project called Brand X. Brand X was essentially a prog-rock/jazz fusion quartet with Phil solely on drums. I knew of Brand X, but never really gave them a listen until several weeks ago, when I picked up their first album, "Unorthodox Behaviour". I was BLOWN AWAY from the start by the pure speed and genius of Phil's drumming. The opening track, "Nuclear Burn" starts out sort of mellow, but gives you a sign of things to come by laying down an 11/8 beat (yes, 11/8). The middle part of the track, where Phil takes a bit of a solo, is the most amazing drumming I've ever heard. He is absolutely flying, playing just about every rudiment known to man, and keeping a riduculous time signature though the whole thing. I was stunned to hear this, because I've always known Phil was a top notch drummer, but he'd gotten away from the more difficult drumming as Genesis and his solo career became more mainstream. To hear him playing this way was almost enough to knock me out of my chair. It's that amazing. The rest of the album features some very tasty tracks as well, spanning several genres including funk, jazz, rock, and even a little samba thrown in for good measure. If you enjoy complex, but very accessible and catchy music, give this disc a listen. You won't be disappointed. It's a great changeup from the current music scene, yet still sounds very relevant. I'm going to be checking out several other Brand X offerings. As his solo career and Genesis tour schedule became busier and busier, Phil opted out of several of the Brand X recordings. But I know of 3 that he is the exclusive drummer, and I'll be tracking them down soon.