the upfront this afternoon was rather exciting. discovery brought in mike rowe (from dirty jobs), stacy london (from what not to wear), and terri & bindi irwin for the presentation. i actually got to meet mike and chat with him for a bit which was pretty freaking awesome. that pretty much is likely to be the highlight of my week.

more to come later.

so i survived my first race. i didn’t walk as much as i thought i would have, but i still didn’t run all of it and it took me a bit longer than expected. i’m slowly working on getting better. it was a good first run i suppose. my left knee hurts like it has never hurt before, which slightly concerns me. it had been hurting previously but now it’s just crazy bad.

i made the mistake of wearing new shoes that i apparently hadn’t broken in properly and i have a huge blister on my right foot. oh the pain. overall i feel pretty damn good though. definitely something i’m going to keep up.

lately i’ve gone through a whole ryan transformation. i’ve started running. i’ve started sleeping decently well. i’m going to bed before midnight about 5 nights out of the week now, which is amazing considering i was lucky if i did that 1 time a week before. i’m going to work at 830 in the morning (as opposed to the 9am which i had been getting away with because i live so far from work). it’s like it’s a whole new ryan.

i ordered boxes this week in hopes that i can start packing up some of the things that i don’t use and hopefully make my room a bit neater in the process. i know it’s two months too early for that but i don’t know how else i’ll get my room clean again. i suppose i need to start looking for somewhere to live. i loathe apartment hunting. i wish it was so much easier. there are so many choices out there, yet there aren’t. i’ll be happy when it’s all over.

tomorrow is the discovery networks upfront which should be fun (open bar, need i say more?).

the weather the past few days has been wonderful. it was incredibly warm today. a welcomed change from the freezing winter.

that’s all i’ve got.

i must say the weather here in chicago is incredibly fickle. it was so bright and sunny up until about 20 minutes ago. within the last 20 minutes it has gotten terribly overcast and looks like it’s about to start raining. i must say i do enjoy the rain though. the rain is especially nice when it’s rather warm outside. the last three days were filled with amazing weather. there’s nothing like a freezing cold winter to make you long for summer. i don’t think i have ever looked forward to summer as much as i do at the moment.

so i ran for the first time in a LONG time yesterday. it didn’t go as i great as i would have liked. i made it about a mile and then my chest started getting tight and it was getting a bit more difficult to breathe. i didn’t know my asthma had gotten that bad. i proceeded for the next half mile doing a combination of running and walking while gasping for breath. pretty much did the same thing on the way back but was able to solidly run the last quarter/half of a mile. basically i suck and am totally screwed for the race at the end of the month. it was my first time back out running so i think there might be a few things i learned that will help me for next time. i’m a bit sore today but i’m hoping i can squeeze in a run tomorrow after work.

after running we (i went running with kate & megan from work) went to m.henry for breakfast. mmm the food there is so freaking good.

other than that it was a rather quiet weekend.

i must say that my sleeping habits are on the way to becoming semi-normal. two nights last week i actually laid down for a nap at 7pm and just ended up sleeping through the night. last night i was asleep shortly after 11. tonight i’m hoping i’ll be able to do the same.

i’m working on a refresh of the design of the site. maybe this time i’ll follow through. i’ll have to see if everything works this time because last time it was just disastrous. the next electronic gadgets on my to-buy list are a new slimmer digital camera and a scanner so i can work on pretty images for the site. all in good time people. the to-buy electronics gadget list is getting out of hand and i’m having a horrible time prioritizing.

off i go. time for some reading and then a bit of bed.

now i remember what i needed to say that i forgot to last time …

i need song suggestions for running music. i’m thinking power songs. i have a short playlist put together at the moment but i haven’t really put much effort into it. the event at the end of the month is only 5 miles so i’ll only need 45-60 minutes of music. i’m taking suggestions. i’ll post a preliminary playlist after i get it figured out. more to come.

in more exciting news … amazon unbox downloads was enabled for use with TiVo boxes today. i was seriously on the verge of giving up on TiVo until this came along. you can rent and buy movies & tv shows from the amazon unbox web site and then automatically have them downloaded to your TiVo. i’ve rented thank you for smoking and the lake house (no comments please) so far and bought an episode of arrested development. this is going to come in handy when i randomly get the urge to rent a movie.

until later.

i haven’t given up on this completely, i swear.

hmmm. what has happened since last week you ask? not much. but perhaps i have a good story or two to share …

wednesday and thursday of last week were rather uneventful, as most weekdays are.

met the guys for dinner and then a few of us went out afterwards. i had an incredibly horrible case of heartburn so of course i had to end my evening early and head home shortly after midnight.

saturday and sunday were relatively mundane. i slept on my neck wrong on saturday night and was in an incredible amount of pain on sunday (and a bit on monday, and today as well come to think of it).

on sunday i had this revelation that i really need to start working on preparing for the shamrock shuffle that is quickly nearing (25 mar). i have made a slight investment in this hobby with the hopes that this motivation will continue. the investment should also provide extra motivation to continue, as it would suck to waste that money on something i’ll only do once. i should have all my gear (and by gear, i mean new apparel and nifty electronic gadgets, generally stuff i clearly shouldn’t have purchased) by the end of the week so i can begin training for the run. i’ll have two weeks to do prepare, i’m hoping that’s enough. the good news is that it is supposed to start warming up a bit. i just need it to start reaching 50 degrees for the high on a regular basis. the high on saturday is 50 so i’m definitely going to try and take advantage of it. i’ll report back this weekend.

that’s all. i had more but i don’t remember. i’ll have to attempt to force memories of what i was supposed to discuss.