Races, Vacations, Cleaning, and Relaxationing

So it's been a few.

Major events that have occurred in the past week or two:

1. The Boilermaker!
2. Ocean Grove!

Starting in the proposed ordering, which also happens to be chronological: the Boilermaker was a success.

My results:

Totals (11539 Finishers 6418 M / 5121 F)

Div: M25-29
ChipTime: 1:26:12
Overall: 4060
SexPl: 3059
DivPl: 461
AgeGrade: 50% (pretty average)

Splits:

First 5k: 28:57
Second 5k: 27:10
10k: 56:07
Third 5k: 26:08
15k: 1:22:14

This, to me, must mean that "ChipTime" above is including the time between when the race started and I crossed the start line.

We had a pleasant evening at the World Famous (not really) Palatine Motel perhaps half an hour from the race in Palatine, NY.  I'd stay there again, given the necessity and the lack of closer options.

After our time in Utica for the race, we drove out to Ithaca to spend Sunday night at Julia's friend Angie's place.  Nice town - lovely gorges.  Delicious bagels.  Steep roads.  Cool school.  Lots of smart kids around.  Angie has a pleasant apartment.  Good times.  We hung out with a bunch of her friends for the evening, and went to a delightful place called the Glenwood Pines Restaurant, or some such, which served rather delicious burgers and fried sides (Corn bites, broccoli bites, fries, jalapeno poppers, etc.).

Monday morning, we roused ourselves fairly early, as I recall, grabbed a bagel sandwich at Collegetown Bagels down a tad south of Cornell, and then set out for New Jersey.  We got there sometime in the afternoon.

The beach was fairly rainy and overcast for most of our time there, unfortunately.  But, we still got in the water, still built some sand castles, still went out for ice cream almost every night, and still hung out on the Henry Richard Inn's porch every day.  It was, as always, well worth the trip, and I'm feeling nicely relaxed as a result.  It was great having Julia there.  You may be reading this.  I'm delighted you came!

On our way back up the coast on Thursday, we stopped at the Storm King Art Center nearish Storm King State (National?) Park in New York.  Very cool.

Yesterday, Friday the 17th of July, involved two things of a separate nature to those described above:

1.  A Dentist Appointment
2. A Guitar Lesson
3. Dinner at Takemura with Julia

The dentist appointment went well.  I was told I have excellent oral hygiene.  Woohoo.

The guitar lesson also went well, though I was not told I have excellent aural hygiene, unfortunately.  I'll just have to infer that on my own.  We talked about what I need to do in the next month or two to get ready for being in an ensemble next school year.

Yikes.

Dinner at Takemura was especially delightful (my especially delightful company being responsible for the added "especially" qualifier).  I had a Veggie Tofu Dol Sot Bi Bim Bap, which is fun to say.  We also each had ourselves a little glass of sake.  It rained on us on the way over and back, but not too much.

Today has consisted of several activities.  Ready?  Cause here they come in list form:

1. A brunch at Cabot's Ice Cream & Restaurant down in Newton.  Tasty.  Didn't get ice cream.
2. Cleaning up my room(s).  I have a lot of paper to be dealt with.
3. Futuretoday: Going to see Inception at 7:00 PM in Framingham with roommate Eric.

Seems like a good deal.