100000

I've let this run far too long without acknowledging the awesomeness that was ye olde - and I do mean olde - 32nd birthday. Last Wednesday, I attended my office hours (no one attended) and a couple of meetings and then came home to spend a great day with the Beck. We had DeLux Burgers for lunch, grabbed some MoJo, and narrowly missed rooking ourselves out of mad cash by getting some new cell phones - we still have a couple of months left on our contracts, apparently, each of which carries a $200 termination fee*. So, glad we didn't do that! Came home briefly to play with the S/W/F, then went over to Scottsdale to catch Crazy Heart, a movie Beck concisely reviewed as another "Slutty Gumby Saggy Maggie" piece. Beck's review was accompanied by an unbelievable interpretive dance, ftr. We followed that up with a thoroughly healthy dinner at TexAz, a slice of home, if you will, where we got Texas Country Fried Steak and a Shiner Boch. As though the day's caloric onslaught had not been enough, we came home to five mini birthday cakes - "cakelets," let's call them - and I got to eat and open presents. Thanks to everyone for the books (Deb, Nyetfam!) and the iTunes gifts (iPJ/iPMM!) and the amazon gift (Aaron!) and magazine subscriptions (Ellis-fam!) and money for yet to be determined purposes (Grandpa!). Beck also got me some great gifts including a stylish wicking shirt and some cool books. I am a lucky dude! Gracias everybody!

* - What vaguely puzzles is me is how they can get away with a termination fee that is higher than the actual amount of money left on the contract. That doesn't seem to make any sense...

Anyhoo, fun day, fun times, and glad the rain conspired to allow me to spend it with Beck. Oh, I also had the following funny conversation with my brother:

A: Happy birthday! I remember, 31 years ago today...
N: 31 years?
A: Yeah, 31. 2010 minus 1978 is ... oh wait!
N: Ha!
A: Okay, let's try that again. Welcome to your 32nd year!
N: Actually, it's technically my 33rd year...
A: Shut up.

I don't know if that will make anyone laugh as much as I did, but it was pretty solid in the A/N comedy tradition. What else? Facebook, it turns out, is a cheap way to get lots of people to wish you happy birthday. This is cool, but if you at all are feeling slightly aged because you woke up that morning with locked arthritic knees, that little red bubble just keeps popping up over and over with more stabs to your decrepit body. Yeah, I'm 32, but as Sprawl pal EBay noted, I am not master's eligible just yet.

Speaking of Sprawl, things have been busy. We made the calls for the two teams at NYF, electing to go with an A- team and a B+ team instead of a strict A / B split. (Meaning that we made A and B teams and then overlapped some players each way to get people experience on both sides - some of our A players more PT and opportunities to try things out, some of our new guys a chance to run in teh tournament's A bracket and see if they could hang). This caused a perhaps predictable amount of strife with people "on the bubble" - sometimes it's not fun to be in charge, but it's been a good experience learning to smooth out the vagaries of sensitive behaviors. Or maybe I haven't learned it and have solely managed to piss off 36 dudes. Hope not.

That's right, 36 - 17 going A-, 19 going B+. Big squads, lots of rest, my favorite way to play Ultimate. Practice was crackling with energy tonight; I hope we can drive that through to the weekend and make a good showing with both teams. On Damon / Paul's suggestion, we ran a scrimmage where the stall count was capped at 6 instead of the usual 10; this basically made play very bang bang and got us better about getting rid of the disc. Lots of fun, and it bled over into the next normal stall 10 scrimmage. Fast-paced action! People are pretty excited for this weekend; should be intense.

I, of course, managed to fall on my knee tonight - I've got an inflamed patellar bursa in my left knee, and every time I bang it, it swells up. So my left kneecap has a nice jelly protrusion. Awesome. Am currently icing, for something new and different.

ASU continues to roll along. I'm trying to get really focused on particular aspects of the project, and it's slowly coming together. As always, we'll see ... I have to go into office hours early tomorrow, so staying up until 1 AM is probably not the most productive thing I can do. But here I am, Fred in lap, ice on knees ...

Oh, and just to give the entry some symmetry with the caloric explosion at the top, I've resolved - perhaps three and a half weeks too late - to shed some of this winter weight (not bad, I'm still in the 190 ballpark, but I think dropping down to 170-75 might help the knee pain). So in pointless self-congratulatory mode...

2 oatmeal packets = 280 calories
1 Dollop of milk in coffee = 10?
1/8 bottle powerade = 25
2 Lean pockets (lunch / dinner) = 560
1 Clif Bar before practice = 260
1 Powerade after practice = 200
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Total = 1335. And I didn't have to go to a Taco Bell Drive Thru or ANYTHING.

And yes, I recognize this is a horrible diet. Long day at school plus practice afterwards kinda messes things up. Underachiever, please try harder.