Thanksgiving Week Update

Last week was a little busy. I don't even know where it went really. I am nearly finished with my SNAP though. I need to reattach the pistol grip since the hot glue I used before was cracking under the stress of the recoil from firing. I have a couple barrels for it. One fires standard streamline darts. The other will be for the stefans I make once I find some appropriately sized felt pads or an alternative pad/weight combination.

I didn't get a shot off at any deer over hunting. One of them could have been a reasonable shot, but it was pretty close to a "road" I couldn't see very well and firearm safety kicked in over-zealously. My loss. At least there should be more chances to come.

I have started a project to make a few plushies. I was rather surprised to find that a couple girls I know had never heard of little stuffed animals of the sort were referred to as such. Having had trouble thinking of anything to get family for Christmas, I think the first one goes to my mom. Something handmade by me for her and a mother is the perfect person to give such a "prototype" to since she has so much practice from the rest of my life. It's surprisingly befitting, I think.

I feel like this suffice for now.

Hunting Season

It's hunting season opener this weekend. That means...family reunion! (effectively any way) This year we are gathering the first weekend (which is fairly common) and some portion of the 12 of us who actually carry firearms will gather to see what game might be had  from the land. So looking forward to more venison, despite the fact that I still have part of a venison steak in my freezer...

Any way, it should be exciting. Six hour drive northwest tonight before my dad and I drive another 45min to an hour to reach the old farm in enough time to post up before dawn. I think that is officially around 7:45 at this time of year, if memory serves correctly.

I can't really force myself to see a deer. That's kinda up to them. So instead, lets go for kills to shots ratio.

Photo Upload Challenge

I have been slacking on my posting for reasons focused on disdain for FB, but I bet my friends would really like to see the trove of treasures I have horded on my laptop. Therefore I challenge myself to upload 500 pictures to FB. Pretty sure I have that many lying around. If not, I guess I go on a night time photo scavenger hunt.

Happy November...hehe "loyal readers"

Here I thought 100 would actually be a lot. Had to come back and edit to 500.

Another Week, another Half Marathon

Well, I have another half marathon tomorrow. Shooting to be back around an hour thirty again. This one will be a little more fun since it is in costumes. I will be a race rabbit. (I am sorry to any of the non runners who do not get the joke). Any way, all I am really doing is wearing bunny ears and a home made cotton tail (made of cotton balls and a cloths pin) and I will wear a target on my back as though people are supposed to be gunning for me. Ha ha ...

Any way. I have a big, action packed weekend too. I will be leaving shortly to spend the night on a couch so I don't have to get up as early to get there on time. Then, after lunch, I will be going to a college cross country conference championship meet, probably still in my race rabbit costume. In the evening will be a costumed birthday party, where I will don the second, much creepier costume.

Sunday should include a house visit where I will live starting in January and a trip to a "haunted town" type tour with a college club I'm involved with. To be a pillar of safety or an extra creeper...hmm...We shall continue to ponder that. I bet it would be pretty funny to see a bunch of the HvZ crew at one of these places. (esp. if they brought nerf/socks).

Happy Halloween

Results of Homecoming Weekend

It comes as little surprise to me that I bombed the pictures challenge, but was astonished by the 5k results.  The race itself was 0.2 miles short, so it is not legitimately a 5k time, but my 16:11 pace for a 2.9 mile race means I averaged 5:34/mile.  With as good as i felt at the end, I have no reason to believe I could not have held that pace for another quarter mile for a roughly 17:15 5k. I would say this smashing success is well worth offsetting the minimal number of pictures taken.

Weekend Challenges Oct 14-16

For lack of input, I am once again unilaterally deciding my own challenges.

First is picture taking.
I often end up being notorious for having a camera and either not using it or hoarding away the photos I get on my hard drive.
That being said, the goal is to take 5 silly pictures with people at Homecoming. Take 5 serious pictures with other people at Homecoming. And (these can overlap with the previous 10) take pictures with 5 current students and 5 alumni. I don't think I need to worry about family, my mom does a good job of taking care of that. I could add however that at least 1 picture should be at the football game.


Second is running the Homecoming 5k
I have determined that my 5k pace should be very close to 18:40. This challenge will have completion tiers.
The first tier is run under 19 min (shouldn't be much of a problem, but you never know)
Second tier is to run under 18:50. (still pretty managable)
Third tier is to run under 18:45 (now a challenging goal, as my current PR is 18:43 if I recall correctly)
Fourth tier is to run under 18:40, leading to a new PR.
Ultra Level tier is to run under 18 min. (I don't think we have to worry much about this one. I don't see much reason to expect I can at this time. It is however a road mark for me running a sub 3 hr marathon)

Bit of a let down

Rather sporadically, I had decided to visit my school campus since I wasn't working over the weekend because I knew there was Humans vs Zombies going on this week + the Zombie pub crawl in the evening.

I arrived on campus to enjoy the fun to find the turn out for the mission was so low it did not get held. Really glad I payed for the 2 hr of parking to get there in time to figure out where this was going down. As a secondary turn ov events, the mission time was such that there was a considerable amount of time before the evening events, which I was only the least bit excited about because of the theme. Not getting a hold of any of my friends in the area, I decided to return home for the extra sleep I could really use.

Assistant coaching on the side of doing an internship is quite demanding, despite the fact that I still use time in the evenings to work on projects and watch movies/youtube videos. This lack of sleep thing couldn't be my fault though.

At least I get one more shot for the final mission tomorrow, as I am meeting my Mom for dinner, back in the cities, later that day. At least i will get plenty of sleep.

Challenge 5

Well, I have been contacted about a voluntary coaching position I have sought out. I will be helping coach high school boys cross country. The timing for this is a little unusual since I will be starting no less than 3 weeks into the season.  I foresee the potential for several mini-challenges, like learning everyone's names. This will end up being about two months of my life, so it conveniently fits quite well into the pattern of my adventure. Just waiting on a background check to be complete and to finish an online quiz required by the state and I can start.

Challenge accepted.

Challenge Requested 2

Not to sure where to go next. I need some ideas for new challenges I'm not already working on. Even if you're just a passer by, challenge me. I dare you.

On another note, eventually, I would like to run all the way to the next town and back, but I'm not sure when to attempt it. This coming weekend is available, but I have a race the following weekend. I'm not sure if it will be enough time to recover sufficiently to make a good showing. Most of October is very up in the air.

Challenge 4 expires

So I guess I failed this one. I had a whirlwind of an end of the week. Friday just disappeared on me. Saturday my long run occupied plenty of my day, along with additional working out. I also lost much of the evening to making monkey bread and 3 hr of driving to play Risk. 

I have some measurement issues to work out with my nerf homemade and some logistics to figure out concerning the smoker.  As a simple matter, I still did not touch the radio.