And here we go, Mitchell...part un

So we're now runners. I know, it's pretty shocking to me, too. To find a race that fit our schedule, we ended up driving all the way to Richmond. We were looking for a race that fit some basic criteria: easy, fun, flat and for a good cause. That's how we found ourselves at 7:30am on a Saturday lacing up the shoes at Innsbrook for the Central VA Autism 5K Run/Walk. There were a lot of people there, and most of them looked eerily in shape. Many of them, however, were running through the parking lot in short bursts, arms pumping and knees high in what appeared to be some kind of pre-race ritual; there was, however, very little stretching going on. Also interesting for me was the abundance of lycra in flamboyant colors [why wouldn't you wear neon yellow sleeveless lyrca, really?].

Of course the worst fashion accessory we saw was not clothing but man's best friend. The dogs
in their own strollers were somewhat cute and almost understandable. You want to walk with the dog, it's a race the prohibits dogs on a leash, and so you find a legal and reasonable compromise. OK. But the dog in the BabyBjorn carrier was over the top. Seriously, a woman carrying a toy dog, the dog's legs flailing out in front of it while looking like it's wearing a fancy Swedish diaper, was too much. It was silly looking and frankly embarrassing for the dog.

About 900 people participated in the event, with many more in attendance to watch and cheer. The race started off with a stirring rendition of the Star Spangled Banner by a mother of an autistic child. What was fun about that moment, however, was that the race organizer announced that there was no flag, so instead we should all "kinda turn towards that way and pretend there's a flag over there." During the song I couldn't help but think that this was just like Francis Scott Key would have wanted it.

After the anthem, we headed over to the starting gate. There a man wearing a full body cycling suit complete with sponsor patches [and again, why not?] yelled for people to move to the back. After getting no response from the crowd, he then stated that "unless you run a five minute mile, move to the back of the line." And that got things moving right along as a bunch of people moved to join us in the back of the line.

And then we heard the loud beep and we were off...more coming later...

Preview of things to come

New post coming soon, including the oft-asked post on the weekend race...

3.2 and counting

Today rocked a lot earlier, as we woke up before 7am on a Saturday to run in the 1st annual Starr Hill-Westhaven 2 miler. This was a benefit race for the Westhaven Medical Clinic, which serves Cville's oldest housing project. Fittingly, not only was today the first for the race, but it also happened to be our first race together of the season. We decided last minute to do this as a warm up for the 5K next week in beautiful Richmond.

Two miles equates to 3.2 kilometers, and if those miles are in Cville you know they'll contain at least one hill. The race directors decided to put that big hill at the beginning of the event to ensure that I'd be chasing my breath for the rest of the course [mission accomplished]. The Mrs. [#7 finisher] beat me [#8 finisher] by a solid 10 yards to win our first-ever race together.

A special added bonus were the many familiar faces in the crowd who were participating, including the Media Whore, Flash, and lots of staff from CHS. There were also lots of students from the high school who were volunteering. To honor their commitment to get up early to volunteer for this race, I rewarded most of them with a memorable showing of their former teacher flailing his arms and legs while attempting to keep up with his fleet-footed wife.

After the race, we continued the morning with a delicious breakfast at Belmont's La Taza, where we sat outside and sipped leisurely on some great coffee. We also enjoyed seeing Daniel, who was walking his enormous Great Dane, Tyrone, through Belmont.

All in all it was a great morning, especially considering that it's UVA graduation weekend and we did not encounter any traffic or delays. There are an estimated 30, 000 extra people in town this weekend, but we certainly didn't see them. Now it's on to the K-man's 80's party extravaganza.

Congrats to the K

As has been noted [see here] I recently lost in our Fantasy Premier league. In my defense [or defence], I wasn't really playing for the past 3 months or so, mostly because I forgot.

So it wasn't ignorance, but rather sloth and apathy, that cost me the title. Still, it was a bold move to keep Claudio involved on my team. It was a gutsy decision that did not go unnoticed over at E-pony:

"Congratulations to everyone on a great season! Extra special kudos to the Colonel who insisted on keeping Claudio Reyna as his captain even after Reyna left the EPL and moved back to the states. If that's not dedication to American nationals, I don't know what is."

The Europeans are coming to a Galaxy near you.

In Los Angeles. Seems that Portuguese Abel Xavier, an English Premier League player, will be joining Major League Soccer's new millionaire's club, the LA Galaxy. Xavier, a defender, was most recently with the EPL's Middlesbrough. Well...sort of with them.

Seems that he has failed to reach a contract with his former team. They're his former team because he just sat out a one year ban for "having performance-enhancing drugs in his system." He was, by the way, the first player to do this, which is an accomplishment in its own right.

He will, of course, be joining David "Posh" Beckham in LA. He of the ~$250 million contract to leave Real Madrid and to move to Hollywood to jump start soccer in America. Or at least get rich trying. These two European players will get to play against another former EPL'er, Captain America himself, Claudio Reyna, when they play against New York.

While it's great to see these world-class players moving over here, I do have to wonder if this was the right decision to "lure" Xavier away from the EPL. He was found guilty of doping, and he was the first player to be banned for a year for drugs. Couldn't the coaches do better?

My favorite quote, the one that makes me just scratch my head in confusion, is this one by the LA Galaxy coach about Xavier joining the team and MLS:

"This is a terrific signing for us and he will bring so much experience, leadership and ability to the team," Galaxy coach Frank Yallop said.

"People of his quality are not often available for us to sign, so we are really happy that he is going to join us."

He's right; there are only so many banned players from the EPL. Then again, as has been noted by others, the Galaxy will field the best hair in the league with Xavier and Beckham.

Quick recap: the week in semi-review

Great weekend was had by all at QuotiCville. Friday night featured a fun road trip to Richmond to catch Carbon Leaf [yes, that band again, Daly] perform at Brown's Island. They were opening the 2007 season of Friday Cheers, and it was a great evening and concert. There were about 10, 000 people there, and the weather was fantastic.

Saturday rocked a little earlier, as the Midlo gang had our semi-annual reunion that started at the ridiculous hour of 10:30am. Ten years ago we had this party at 10pm. Another major change was that we had ~26 people, but only half of them are [currently] potty trained.

Saturday night we went to a fare-ye-well party for Jen and Matt [and Jay], great friends who are [sadly for us] heading home to Vermont. The Northeast's gain is definitely Cville's loss as these two are simply fantastic in every way.

Sunday went great as well, as we made an early trip to Culpeper to surprise the Mrs.' parents. Sunday evening we went to dinner at one of my professor's homes. He had our research team over to celebrate the end of our year supporting the Darden-Curry Partnership. It's been a lot of fun getting to know them throughout this experience.

Lots of fun, but it was a pretty frantic pace that kept us from relaxing. Oh, and I painted. The bedroom wall. Light green. Pretty fun.

More later...Jack is trying to save the never-secure CTU from the daily influx of terrorists. Again.

April reading list

In a big nod to the K-man with his monthly recaps of what he's listening to on his Ipod, here's what I read in April. This does not, of course, include the scholarly works for graduate school.

Here we go with a shorter list:

The Husband by Dean Koontz. Pretty good, though it's more of a beach book and I read it here in Cville mostly inside due to the rain.

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. Rereading this great book on Bryson's trips to Australia. Full of humor and interesting facts on Australia, it's a book worth picking up.

U2 by U2. Fantastic book on one of my all-time favorite bands. It's written as an interview with the 4 band members, so it reads more like a conversation than a book. Some great pictures in it as well.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. No surprise that one of my favorite authors had 2 books on this month's cycle. This is probably the best book on science that I've ever read; it's much more interesting and informative than any book or article I've ever read on biology, chemistry, geology or any other science. A must read, and I recommend the special illustrative edition.

Naked by David Sedaris. One of my other top three authors, Sedaris writes hysterical "non-fiction" about his life, travels and time in France. The highlight of the past few months was an evening with David Sedaris at the PAC that The Mrs. C gave me as a Christmas present [one of the best and most thoughtful presents I've received in a long time]. I read our newly-autographed copy that we got when we met him after the show. You can read more about the show here on the other blog.

Gargantua de Francois Rabelais. C'est le deuxième roman de François Rabelais. Publié en 1534, il fait suite au succès du premier livre de Pantagruel, probablement publié en 1532. L'auteur a retravaillé le texte ultérieurement.

Gargantua est sans doute le texte narratif le plus célèbre de la Renaissance française. D'un structure comparable à celle de Pantagruel, il conte les années d'apprentissage et les exploits guerriers du géant Gargantua. [en francais de la 16eme siecle].

You should try the original 16th century French version; it's much, much funnier and actually quite dirty. The modern English version is actually missing ~ 1/5 of the original book because it's a little too graphic for our modern sensibilities [which I find curiously ironic].

Those are the highlights of what I read over the past few weeks. Merci.

Run, quotidians, run!

Looking for another sign of the coming apocalypse? Or are you looking for something to make you chuckle a bit? Either way, this post should satisfy you.

On Saturday May 26th, we are running in a 5k. In Richmond. Really early in the morning. And we chose to pay to do this.

And it's a real race, with organizers and water people lining the sides and everything. It evens comes with a free t-shirt for your donation of $15. We're running to support the Autism Society of America. Because I'm new to this whole running thing, I'm not really sure why we have to drive to Richmond to pay to run really early on a Saturday, but I'm sure I'll get an answer to that one day.

It's only a 5K, but that's 3.1 miles here in America. And that, my friends, is farther than either of us has run intentionally in a while. And by a while I mean a long time.

Now for some of you, 3.1miles is nothing, something that you do as you warm up for the 'real' run. For others, 3.1 miles is something that makes you think that running is something that 'other' people do, people who are fitness buffs and who wear those funny windy shorts. Unfortunately for me, I find ourselves solidly in between these two camps, in sort of a runners' purgatory or no man's land. For me right now I think running as something that other people do [ironically I often feel like this when I'm running], and yet I feel like we're getting better and better and working ourselves up to something bigger. It's somewhat fun to be in the center between the two extremes [filtered water on this side, Coke on that; protein smoothies with whey powder here, Blizzards on the other; five apples to the left, Five Guys to the right] but it's somewhat lacking a real position or definition. It's a lot like politics in this way.

Right now I feel comfortable only using the verb but not the noun. We run, but we're not 'runners;' at least not yet. Maybe one day we will be 'runners,' and then again this could prove to be just another fad, like flannel shirts or Jessica Simpson.

The training has been good and actually encouraging. We run longer and farther each week. We are of course in no danger to break any records or anything. Our goal for the race is fairly simple: to finish. I like to think that this allows a great bit of freedom in the results, but the Mrs. C is hoping for a respectable and solid finish. Something about finishing withing the 45 minute time limit, which sounds doable until you, you know, have to do it.

We're no Sunday Runners, but maybe one day we will be.

By the way, best reaction so far at this news:

"Really? Well, I never really thought....um...that's great. My son, the jogger. Well, I'm sure you'll be fine."

This little piece of encouragement was of course delivered by none other than my mom. Happy Mother's Day.

Carbon Leaf, K-man style

Last Wednesday the Mrs. Colonel and I got to see The K-man's favorite band, Carbon Leaf, live and in person...and for free. They were playing at the Plan 9 store before their concert at Starr Hill later on that night.
It was a pretty fun show, or EP as I like to think of it seeing as how they played 6 songs [it was free]. It's an interesting venue for a live performance, as the stage isn't too big and actually ends at the curtain; the band had to be careful or they would have fallen back because there's nothing behind it. There was a pretty good crowd for a 6pm show, with about 30 of 40 people there. One fun side note was it seemed like if you were a Carbon Leaf fan, married and in your 30's with at least one kid, you came to this show. Oh, and you dressed your newborn in Carbon Leaf clothing, like hats and t-shirts, which was pretty cool. It was a nice moment I'm sure for these families, who couldn't make the band's "real" show later on since it started at 10:30; it also gave it a different kind of feel instead of your average rock concert.

Also, standing in the aisles of Plan 9 listening to a band while people are trying to buy stuff is pretty funny. The guy trying to get to the Easy E cd didn't appreciate me standing there in the A-F aisle of "Rap, Gansta." Oh well.
It's been really fun to watch these guys as they've grown over the past 12 or so years. I first met them my freshman year at HSC when I was a pledge moving their equipment into our fraternity. ["Wait, you were in a fraternity?" Yep. I was as fratty as the K-Man. Beta Theta Pi. Good times, good times. But that's for another post some other time, most likely when the Mrs. is out of town and I can post it without her permission...]. Back then they had just started out, and they'd play for us 2-3 times a semester for ~$300 and beer and pizza. Later I got to know them fairly well, as I was social chair and I'd book them [and pay them at the end of the night]. Since then the band has continued to do really, really well. They even won the 'Best New Artist' award at the American Music Awards a few years ago, and they regularly sell out fairly impressive venues.
Their new material over the past two years is great, and it's only a matter of time before they make it even bigger...maybe like Jack Johnson [that's the 3rd shout out to the K-man, which is a new record]. The greatest thing, though, is that they've stayed the same down to earth, humble and nice guys that they've always been. Never too busy to talk to the fans, they're genuinely talented musicians who are also just great people to be around. By the way, the guy in the green, Barry, looks like a Seattle-based grunge rocker in these pictures. He's usually much cleaner.

Here's a link to more pictures of the show here.

A trip back to the alma mater...

This past weekend I sneaked back to my "nourishing mother," Hampden-Sydney, for a great afternoon and evening of meetings and dinners. Hampden-Sydney, founded in 1775, is America's 10th oldest college or university, and if you've ever heard of it [few have; it's too small and tucked away in the middle of nowhere], it's most likely because it's one of the few all-male schools in the country. Here is a nice article from a few weeks ago by the Richmond T-D on its status, including a list of notable alums, including Stephen Colbert but unbelievably missing US President William Henry Harrison, Hampden-Sydney Class of 1791. Harrison? Yes, that one. The guy who died of pneumonia after his inauguration...'Ole Tippecanoe' himself.

I serve on the board of the Wilson Center for Leadership, a program that I was a part of as a student that seeks to prepare young men for a career in public service leadership. Originally called the James Madison Leadership Program [after the US president and HSC co-founder], it's been renamed after Lt. Gen Sam Wilson, the president of HSC during my years and one of the greatest public servants still alive today. "Why that's a bold claim," you say to yourself. Indeed. But it's also true. Here's a link to a couple of biographies and newspaper articles on this fascinating man, who at the age of 84 still teaches, writes, consults and advises leaders across the world. Here is an excellent article on General Wilson written by Joe Galloway, esteemed reporter and author of the best-seller We were soldiers once...and young. General Sam, as he's known to his students, enlisted at the age of 16 in the US Army during WW2, and served with distinction with the famous Merrill's Marauders in Burma. He then rapidly rose through the ranks, moving from private to 3 star general in his 30 years. He also worked clandestinely for the CIA, including a stint as the station chief in Moscow during the Cold War. Some of the stories he told in the course I took with him entitled 'National Intelligence' are still technically classified, including his work to steal a Russian jet from a Russian air force base outside of Moscow [he speaks flawless Russian, and said that it "came in handy" when he was at the base impersonating a Russian general]. He later rose to head the Defense Intelligence Agency and commanded the famed 82 Airborne. I got to know him through his class but also from church; he taught a Sunday school class at College Church and invited us back to his home each week for an amazing Sunday brunch. Of my time at HSC, my best memories are mostly centered around being with General Sam. And now I get to sit on this board with him, so I can continue to stay in contact. It really is a win-win.

Here are some pictures of HSC's beautiful red brick campus, which is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

A view of Morton Hall, where I worked on my Political Science and Public Service degrees. The bell tower in the foreground is used to start and end classes; legend has it that you must streak it before you graduate...











Cushing Hall, my dorm my first year there. This is America's oldest dorm still in continuous use, as it was built in 1820. I lived on the right side of this picture, third window up from the ground on the front. At one point most of the college was located in here in the four passages. An interesting design note is that it's actually four separate buildings of four rooms on four floors, ie you can't walk from one end of the building to another but rather must exit and enter each of the four passages.




More pictures can be found by going here.