Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Evening in Albuquerque

We were fortunate enough to host Mom and Butch for a long weekend. Our trip up to Sandia Peak ended right near sunset, with beautiful vistas our reward for braving only 40 degrees at the top.







Irony

3 a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result

-Merriam-Webster OnLine Dictionary

I had the idea earlier this year, as I contemplated mortality while approaching 30 years next October, to try something new and challenging, as an attempt to lift my spirits and start my fourth decade off on the right foot. I decided to run a marathon at some point next year, just to finish, and voiced this thought to a friend at work. He convinced me to try a half marathon first, a smart thought since I'd never run over 5 miles straight. He was going to run with me, and we had a race in mind for October 17.

In a result from which I'm sure I could learn something profound, but refuse to, I have pulled/torn a muscle so badly I can barely walk, and no less than three people independently attributed it to old age. It came as a result of combining half marathon runs and soccer season, a daily level of training which my younger self finished before lunch, and I can only guess that I would be dead if I was pushing for a marathon.

Setting out to prove my youth and virility, I'm now hobbling around, taking the elevator, with my wife putting on my socks. How ironic.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

The Greatest Thing Albuquerque has to Offer

Guess who visited us this weeked? It was fun having some in-laws in for town for the first time, and we scheduled their trip for the balloon fiesta so they could enjoy one of Albuquerque's main claims to fame (it's the hot air balloon captial of the world, you know).


We got there when it was fairly cold and dark, and after just a little while we were able to see them blowing up the balloons. The morning started with the special shapes rodeo, which is when all the shaped balloons lift off together.









After all the special shapes lifted off, the serious ballooners came in for competitions (they had to drop a marker as close to the goal as possible, and reach out to grab a key from a poll for a chance to win a car, etc.) We were impressed with the control they had over those things!


In short, it was a pretty cool sight.