Walked 25
Legs

Wasn’t too enthused to run, so I walked. Oh well.

I think that is awesome, but I also think it’s pretty damn nasty!!! I HOPE that thing is on hydraulics!

Yeah yeah. How’s it going?

Today, at the gym:

Ran 30
Chest

Saturday Night Basile Comedy Show
Saturday, my mom and dad, Demo, and my aunt Effie, went to the Royalty House to see Basile, this Greek comedian. He was frickin’ OFF THE HOOK!! I think Dino and Gina would’ve loved it. Gina was booked, and Dino was probably resting. I actually didn’t even ask either of them if they wanted to go. I wanted to horde my mom and dad to myself! We went to Buddy’s for some salad, pizza, and drinks, first! Anyway, the opening act was Jimmy Santis and this woman, his girl, wife, ???. They have a bunch of parody Greek songs (covers of American songs like Super Freak). They sang and acted them out. It was hilarious! Basile’s act was more of a stand-up routine. He had jokes about Greek food, living with Yia-yia and Papou, picking weeds (Greeks like to pick dandelion leaves (chickory) and boil them up and eat them with Olive Oil), Greek accents, Olympics 2004, and all sorts of other subject-material! Overall, we had a great time!

Midterm in Managerial Accounting
Michelle and I had a midterm in Managerial Accounting on Saturday morning. We got there about 10:00 and were done at about 12:15. Not bad. Longer than I thought it’d be. I sure hope I did good enough to get a B. The test wasn’t AS BAD as I thought it’d be. Let’s hope for the best. After the exam, we went to the Oakland Mall (it had been a long time) and did some binging. It’s always nice to buy stuff!

Sunday was nice
We slept in until 10:30 on Sunday, which is VERY RARE for us. It was nice though. We just rested, went shopping, again, and hung out. We went to Kim and Matt’s last night for cake and ice cream for Matt’s 28th birthday! It was very nice. We also congratulated Vanessa and Nathan on their recent engagement (Friday night).

I forgot to log my workouts this week.

Monday:
Ran 30
Boulders

Tuesday:
Ran 30
Arms

Wednesday:
Ran 30
Legs (crushing)

Thursday:
Ran 25
Chest

[Listening to: You Shook Me All Night Long - AC DC - Back In Black (03:30)]

Just one more day to go before the weekend and the midterm in Managerial Accounting. Sometimes, two 3 credit classes at the same time sucks!

This kicks ass!

I especially like the pandas and the cat!

I forgot to announce that I had put up the photos to my trip to New York City last week for ASP training. I also mentioned in a previous entry that I’d do a photo-documentation of my morning commute from the East Village, Manhattan to West Orange, NJ.

You can find the beginning of that here.

$902

For $902 bux, you get a pretty damn good computer system with what is listed at the URL above. You get everything you need sans an operating system… we all know that you don’t necessarily HAVE to pay for that…but that’s up to you!

Spanning software. This look pretty damn cool.

ATI’s HDTV WONDER
A preview of this card from Hot Hardware!

I can’t wait for this kind of stuff to come out!!! It would look GORGEOUS on my 19" LCD!

My trip to the Big Apple is nearing its end. I can’t say I’ve had a bad time because I’ve had an amazing time hanging out with John and his friends. Last night, I played cards with 3 of his close friends from work…and I took their money. It felt great. I never really get a chance to play cards. We played poker for a bit, with low stakes, then the stakes kept increasing as we ended the night with lots of drinking and lots of Blackjack…my favorite. The way we played was that each person dealt three hands. While they dealt, they were the bank….so the odds were in their favor. I think I walked away with about +200 dollars! SCHWING!

We’re going out tonight with Lenore’s (John’s roommate) friend, Karen. We’re going out for dinner and then probably drinks… I think I’ve had drinks every night. I need a break from this break! It’ll be good to be home, dieting, running, and lifting! But school awaits…Whoa is me.

The only thing left for me to do is go to the Empire State Building. Lenore tells me that it’ll be like a 3 hour wait…I may forego this experience and just try and head up to Astoria and check out the NYC Greeks!!!

I took pictures every half block or so on my journey from John’s apartment to the subway, to the bus stop, to the bus, and to the class in New Jersey (about 15 min. walk from the bus stop). I’m going to make a collection of “stills” depicting my journey. I can’t wait to do it!

John and I went and saw Avenue Q this evening after work (school for me). Avenue Q was an adult audience based puppet show with puppets that resembled those of Jim Henson’s world. Hilarious! Unique! I was fighting myself to stay away for a little bit of it, near the end of the first half and the very end. I don’t think I fell asleep…if so, for about 1 minute, total.

Today was the longest day thus far. Got home at about 11:00PM. I’m sure we’ll find something to do tomorrow night…

So, today was my first attempt at getting from Lower Manhattan to West Orange, NJ, where my Microsoft ASP training class is being taught. Here’s how it went down:

I woked up at about 5:30, with no help from an alarm clock for some crazy reason. I actually got out the door at about 6:00, a bit earlier than I had planned (6:30). I walked out the door and turned left, like practiced yesterday. At St. Mark, I turned left and walked one block and then turned right. OOPS. I was supposed to go two blocks, which I found out after walking an extra FIVE blocks too far. No worries. I had plenty of time. Made it to Starbucks where I grabbed a coffee but forgot to use my corporate credit card OR get a receipt. Oh well. I had a protein bar for breakfast. Tasty stuff.

Anyway, after the coffee, I get out of Starbucks and turn left at the end of the street, as practiced. I got into the station and took the train to the Times Square exit. I could have actually gone one or two farther that would have prevented me having to WALK that extra two blocks, but the exercise was good. So, I ask a guy emptying the garbage where the PABT (Port Authority Bus Terminal) is, and he says: “You’re in it!”. I turn around, and lo and behold, I was right in front of it. I quickly figured out which ticket counter to get my tickets for the 66/66R bus trip to and fro West Orange, NJ. $51.50 for 10 tickets. Purchased with corporate credit card. Nice and easy. And that’s that. I was about :45 early for the bus trip, so I read the Daily News while I waited. The bus ride was nice and fast. It left at 7:30 and dropped me off at the stop at 8:10. Nice and fast. What sucked was that I had to walk about one mile (~10 mins.) to get to the Residence Inn. And here I am, on my lunch break with no means to get lunch. There’s no restaurant in the hotel and none within walking distance. Oh well. I’ll plan ahead for tomorrow.

Goodnight.

Oh boy! This place is nuts! Busy busy busy is all I have to say.

John took me for a whirlwind tour of downtown Manhattan. Fantastic experience, indeed. Strolled by Ground Zero, Battery Park, Wall St., and other areas. Big city. Lots of people…and it’s only Sunday. I could only imagine what it’s like here during the week. I’ll find out tomorrow as I make my journey from John’s place to the Port Authority Bus Terminal that will get me to a bus line that runs to West Orange, NJ, where my class is.

Going to have brunch in a bit. Gotta shake this damn headache though. Too many lemon drops last night!