New Year, new beginings

6 January 2009           

 After much procrastinating, and general indecision I decided to get a new computer, my current laptop has a broken screen, and generally is a mess.  I ended up ordering a mini Mac, which I am excited about, though earning the new format will e interesting, 20+ years of sing a pc is going to be tough to forget.  In true John fashion, it could not end there, so I bought a new IPod to go with the computer, I figure it will come in handy at work, and the gym.

 

NYE

I was excited about New Years Eve, and for once the evening lived up to my expectations.  Phoenix came by my place, and after taking the dogs to the park, I gave her some flowers and a card.  We went to dinner at a sweet place downtown.  The food, ambiance, and (as always) conversation was amazing.  After diner we went to her place, made a fire, and hung out talking.  I had made a flourless chocolate cake for the occasion, and surprised her with my baking skills later that night. 

 It was a great night I ended up spending the night, and we both finally gave in to our animal desires.  Without going into detail, I was worried that this facet we might not match up very well, but I was pleasantly surprised that we match up perfectly here, which was a relief.

 

Time Cop
Phoenix had made plans to hang out with a couple of her friends Saturday night.  The 4 of us went to see the terrible JCVD movie Time cop.  We went to a cinnepub, which was fun since would could eat, and drink during the movie.  Also, they have two guys in the back of the theatre who make fun of the movie; it was a lot of fun.  Afterwards we went to a bar near my place, which I was totally disappointed not nearly as seedy as I had hoped.  We sat around talking when come to find out, Phoenix’s friends were reading my blog, which only caught me off guard when her fried pulled an exact quote out from one of the blogs, and it was pretty funny. 

 

The Move

When I decided to move to Denver my friend Martin said he would give me a hand.  This is the worst favor you can ask of a friend, for help moving.  I was dreading moving my own crap, move someone else’s on a day off? F-That!  The days leading up to the move I sold a ton of stuff on CL and eBay to lighten the load.  I also brought everything I could handle myself down to my garage.

It turned out to be the easiest move ever, the beauty of not having a lot of crap really shined.  If we had pushed it we could have fit everything in the back of a pick up truck, but since Martin has a trailer we put a couple of things on there. Total time to pack his truck, drive to Denver, and unload the truck was under 3 hours, which was outstanding.  I posted a few pictures to flicker of the move.

We had to carry 4 things down from the 3rd floor of my old apartment. Mattress and boxspring which we threw from the balcony (that was fun), and then moved to the dumpster.  The fridge of kegorator fame, this I wanted to throw off the balcony, but logic prevailed, and we lugged in to the dumpster.  Lastly my couch... all in all it was an easy third floor move.

 

The sickness

Sunday I started feeling sick, and while walking Jazmine Saturday I noticed one of her ears was inflamed.  Monday morning rolls around, and I felt terrible, I called in and took Jaz to the vet.  Jazmine had a piece of straw (grass) in her ear which caused al sorts of gunk, and a yeast infection of the ear. The vet took her for the half day, and now she is feeling better, but is on 2types of medication for the next week.

I am still feeling terrible, with the flu.  I seem to get sick once every year or every other year that knock me on my ass for 3-5 days, and this seems to be the one.  Phoenix was nice enough to stop by with soup, tea, medicine and cookies for me today.  This is when it really hit me, how lucky I am to have her in my life.  Seriously, of the 10ish girls I have “dated” since living in Colorado (Not counting Phoenix) aside from being wiling to watch my dog none of them would lift a finger to help me out.  Which is a testament to how awesome Jazmine is, not really has anything to do with helping me. 

 

Next season

I have been toying with trying to race again, I figure with the riding I do to get around seems like god base miles to get started in training.  Also since those miles are single speed miles these are the best for building muscle, so why not?  As of right now I am giving myself until next week to decide, but am not thinking a comeback is in my future.  I know it would be great for keeping me sober, training is a part time job, I was riding 15-25 hours a week back in the day to train and I stunk.  Obviously once you take into account the time needed to maintain a proper diet, proper sleep, stretching etc, on top of that 15 hours… there is not much time in the week for drinking or much else.

I remember training back in MA, hours on end on the bike, which I enjoyed.  Then traveling hours in a car to go to a race, jockeying for position etc, it was fun.  I also remember it was rather depressing never once did any member of my family seem to care, never asked how I did, or anything.  Skippy and his family paid more attention, and showed more interest than anyone I in my family.