Pining for the Fjords

Every month, our team at work tries to go on some sort of team building exercise.  Sometimes, they're fun, like heading to lunch and bowling, sometimes they're volunteer oriented, like working at the food bank and going to lunch, and sometimes, they're a tour/info session at a business, like going to lunch and then the Federal Reserve (yes, lunch is always involved.  We like to eat).  Since we're a small team full of lovely people, we're all buddies, and it's nice to get out of the office atmosphere and cut loose for a little while together. A few of us on our recent bowling expedition. We're not at a rave, I swear. A few months back, we took a tour of the public service radio station in the Phoenix area, KJZZ.  Although most members of our team primarily know it as the NPR affiliate in the area, it's always been KBAQ, the Valley's classical music station, to me (music dork, I know).  The tour was really interesting, and in addition to l...

Okay, so the Bella picture has absolutely nothing to do with a training update, but since it received more likes than any other picture I've ever posted on Facebook - EVER - I figured I'd post it here again, since everyone really seemed to enjoy it.  We pay for her food, lodging, and meds and pretty much get nothing but sassy comments (in dog language) in return, so it's about time she started pulling her weight around this blog. Anywhoo, a training update.  As of today, 9/20, it's THREE WEEKS until my fall marathon for 2015, out in Long Beach, California.  I originally wanted to run the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) in DC, but that's so popular you have to be chosen from a lottery; although I entered, I didn't get picked.  Long Beach looked like a good second choice, since it was two weeks before MCM, and it also allowed us to head out west and visit Dad and Risa for the weekend. The biggest issue with running October marathons is that means your training ...

As I mentioned last week , Ragnar McDowell is coming up soon, and part of Labor Day weekend was devoted to getting my craft on in preparation.  On the blog last week were the jumpsuits, and this week, it's time to discuss the signage for our campsite. As a reminder, last year, our camp sign looked like this: Rag'Merica! Freak yeah! It was made out of a "create your own sign" kit Bryan and Jen found at a decoration store, and it worked really well.  Since our colors were red, white, and blue, the bright colors and size of the letters worked well with our theme.  While walking around on Thursday night last year, we ran across one of the ladies from Team GroundPounders making a team sign with this cool glowing wire she'd found online.  I filed that away for further use, so when it came time to make a sign for Team Breaking Rag, I searched the wide internets to find something suitable.  As usual, Amazon came through: Suh-weet! The next step ...

This year's Ragnar McDowell Mountain series of trail runs is only two months away, so you guys know what that means - I've been restraining myself from over-planning for the past six months and can finally cut loose!  This year, we're running on our friend Matt Soto's team with our buddies Jake and his brother, conveniently also named Matt, Bryan and Jenny from Tucson, and their friend Whitney (we've never met Whitney, but she's a super fast runner, and if Bryan and Jenny vouch for her, that means she's good people).  This year, we've chosen the name "Breaking Rag," and as you might imagine, we're operating with a "Breaking Bad" theme. Logo time! Pretty cool, huh? Thanks to Jesse at work for creating this. We're working on a whole host of decoration ideas for the canopy/tents/accessories for the campsite, but I also wanted to put together a few fun other items, just to spice it up a bit.  I'm working on a si...