Quick quiz. Without looking, do you honestly think you could answer a series of questions about the back of your hand? How many wrinkles on the left main knuckle? Which way does the hair on your hand sit, from thumb to pinky or pinky to thumb...or wrist to fingers? Do you have any freckles on your hand? How many? Where are they?

 

Yes, how well do you know the back of your own hand? As the famous idiom goes...do you know the back of your hand "like the back of your hand"?

If you do know the back of your hand well...you deserve a handshake; you're keeping the dream alive. If not, like myself, then you'd agree with me when I say that it's a silly saying.

 

I've got a number of different endurance based events already set up throughout the year. I've done the Disney World Half Marathon in January, and I'm ready for more. So here's what's lined up so far.

 

 

I'm probably most excited about this one. Think Amazing Race on a smaller scale. The following is from their website.

The teams are on foot, but can take public transportation if they want. I forsee we'll still be doing a lot of running. It reminded me of when we did our own kind of thing like this back in '06. My friend that set up that race, Michael, is the other member of my team. Our team name is Taco vs. Grilled Cheese (if you're wondering where such a name comes from, watch this movie). Both of us are pretty competitive, we've already started to strategize and plan for the race, trying to cover as many bases as possible. I think we may have a good chance to actually win or place.

 

Also, they hold these all over the country, so there may be one in your area. If you're interested, check out the website.

 

 

I haven't signed up for this yet, but if I ran another half marathon this year, it would be this one. The only thing is that it's only a week away from another race that I've already signed up for, which simply means it will take some careful planning to work it all out.

 

 

This is a brand new race they've added to the Disney endurance challenges. It's a combination of a 5k run, obstacle course and scavenger hunt through Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park. Like the Urban Dare, this is for teams of two. The event is held in the evening, at 7pm. What's cool about this is that after the race, they have a private after-party in the park (from 10pm to midnight) with food and refreshments, and some of the rides will be open. You also get a one-day pass to either Animal Kingdom or EPCOT.

 

An easy 10K run through Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM Studios) and EPCOT, which finishes at EPCOT's International Food & Wine Festival. It's a great time to go to EPCOT (my favorite of the parks in Disney World), with special foods and drinks from around the world. I haven't been there in a while, so it'd be a nice chance to go with a group of friends...who I'm trying to recruit for the run.

 

So there it is. It should be an interesting year.

 

Just look at this place...cockroach turds everywhere, a thin layer of dust over everything, and the apples in that bag have turned into a single lump of dark brown "that's where those went!".

 

Let me explain my situation with an illustration. Think of moving into a new house, but not because you just want something bigger. You have to, because your old house has simply vanished. All your stuff, everything, is gone. This is what happened to my hard drive. No, it didn't disappear. It crashed without any hope of recovery. It went beyond not working correctly, it can't even be bothered to work just enough to retrieve and transfer my data. All my data, my music, work, pictures, anything I had solely on that hard drive is locked in it's uncompromising grasp. I'd been working on my website for a while...and poof, suddenly it's as if I never started it.
But don't you have a backup hard drive? Of course not. I'm too busy being the only person in the world who doesn't have a backup hard drive to be bothered to go out and get a backup hard drive. I'm doing this for you. You know, Gallant would've never been that effective without Goofus.

So anyways, my old HDD is now a brick and I finally got a new one after a few snags. So it's time to rebuild. I've got MP3s on my iPod and more music on CD...thankfully, many of my recent pictures are at flickr, in their full size (I knew I'd justify buying the pro service), and I've already started to get cracking on the website. It's good to be back.