Exercising, free bagels, grammar guerrillas, Robert’s home, affirmations from Sarah…

RTP Startup Weekend
Well one out of two ain’t bad—I was bushy-tailed this morning (can’t help it, really), but I wasn’t bright-eyed.

Nonetheless, I did get to the gym at just after 7:00, and it was a cardio-only day for me. In anticipation of Robert’s arrival this afternoon from NYC and having seen Wicked, while I worked out, I listened to its soundtrack, which I love.

Exercise Type
Minute Duration
Calories Burned

Cardio (Elliptical)

40

830


Afterwards, I enjoyed a free, plain bagel with honey walnut cream cheese, accompanied by just a skosh of coffee. Their coffee is never quite hot enough, so I always take just a little. Again, I missed my gym buddy, av8rdude, this morning.


Once back at the house, I put on a fresh pot of hot, hot coffee, and began my workday from home with a cup of ambition.


The muscles in my arms and shoulders hurt today. This is good news, I suppose, as I attribute it to two things: (1) 30 minutes of laps in the pool at the campground on Sunday, and (2) Upper body workout day at the gym yesterday.

It’s always interesting to me how when you do a different form of exercise, new muscles ache. I mean, the upper body workout I do, which consists of a circuit of machines, is supposed to exercise almost all of your upper body muscles. However, obviously, swimming woke up a few dormant ones.

Though, for as long as I’ve been doing strength training now, no muscles are visually obvious, I do feel a lot better about the condition of my body. I think what I’m doing is actually just toning, not really strength training—if there is a technical difference between those two things. Whatever the case, in the immortal words of James Brown, “I feel good!”


Talk about “cruising into the sunset!”


Thanks to my friend E-Ching for sharing this story with me. These guys are my new American heroes!!!


Jeff Deck adds an apostrophe to the word mens at a clothing store in Wicker Park on Tuesday. He and his friend Benjamin Herson are traveling across the country correcting spelling and punctuation errors wherever they see them. (Tribune photo by Abel Uribe / April 29, 2008)

Read the complete story here.


I picked up Robert from his return flight from NYC, and we had a Mongolian Beef & Cheddar Salad for dinner at my place, while he caught me up on his weekend, and we listened to a little of the soundtrack of Wicked.

He bought me two little original art drawings—one of the Chrysler Building and the other of the Empire State Building. Very nice. I must get them framed and hung!


Excerpts from a very affirming e-mail from one of my favorite people on the planet, my friend Sarah Egan Warren.

Hi darling John,

We had our STC strategic planning meeting at Mitch’s last week. All is well and I think we have a good group. However, I did miss YOU running the meeting!

It was great to refer to all the files that were uploaded to the Yahoo Group and we will continue using them—thanks so much for working to get that organized and established. It has proven to be very helpful. YOU ROCK!

I looked back on your blog to see the example t-shirts you created.  LOVE having your blog as an archive of STC stuff.

As nice as that was, this is the part of her e-mail that I absolutely loved! Who wouldn’t want parents like these?

I am enjoying my summer—no teaching, just working on a grant project and hanging out with my children.  We are calling it the “SUMMER OF YES!”  This means that all suggestions for activities are thoughtfully considered and more often than not we try to say YES!  (Can we have go to the pool before dinner? YES. Can we read ANOTHER book? YES.  Can we roller skate at bedtime? YES. Can we watch another show? YES. Can we paint? YES. Can we color? YES. Can we blow bubbles? YES. Can we go to the creek? YES. Can we go to the Y? YES.  Can we listen to the same song over and over? YES. YES. YES.)  So often during the school year my answer has to be “NO” or “maybe later” so we are all enjoying the Summer of Yes. 

YOU rock, Sarah!

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