I decided to major in computer science based on my experiences programming in high school. At the time I was writing pretty simple, low level programs designed to do small tasks to illustrate whatever we were learning about. When I got to college and started looking at the theory and math behind the code, or was faced with gigantic programs (or my peers) I quickly became uninterested. I still really enjoyed writing little code snippets but since that isn't actually what being a computer scientist is I wasn't very into it.

Recently though, I stumbled across this blog post by the guy who writes xkcd about how he learned Python by doing a series of math problems from Project Euler. These problems are exactly what I enjoyed about coding in the first place, and they're math problems. I enlisted the help of my friend Kevin and we've been working through the first few. Right now I'm attempting to calculate the sum of all prime numbers less than 2,000,000 - the fact that my program has been working for almost 25 minutes tells me that I've done something poorly.

These things have thus far been very entertaining and getting more difficult so with 230 or so problems for me to do (I've done nine so far) I imagine I'll have plenty to keep me amused.

Since I inherited my father's record player I've decided to start a record collection. Laura got me started on my birthday with Tom Waits' album Blood Money and I ordered Something to Write Home About by The Get Up Kids, Boys & Girls in America by The Hold Steady, and Reconstruction Site by The Weakerthans.

I've thus far only received the Weakerthans record but I've had a lot of fun playing it and Blood Money. Something about the physical aspect of playing the record makes listening to the music a lot more pleasureable. The Hold Steady is in the mail from England and The Get Up Kids isn't relased until the 17th. I've also heard from Spoony that he bought me a record for my birthday that is in the mail but I have no idea what it is.

Friday night I went to the Pour House with 10 ish friends to celebrate my birthday. I like the Pour House because the music is loud and enjoyable (i.e. cheesy 80's and 90's hits) and the beer is big and cheap. Even though we ended the night early I had a really good time and was happy to see everyone.

Sunday morning Lisa and I did a 16 mile run to the bottom of Heartbreak and back to my house. Neither one of us felt very good for the first 8 miles but once we turned around and started back up the hill we both began to feel a lot stronger. By the time we were at the top of Heartbreak I was feeling great and we ended up running the last four miles faster than the previous 12. This run gave me a lot of confidence that my training has thus far been going very well.

I've spent most of the past week battling a pretty severe cold. I stayed home from work on Wednesday and Friday and didn't do my Wednesday and Thursday runs in an effort to get well as quickly as possible.

This is week 7 of my marathon training and it is the first week of phase two. This is where I start adding tempo runs and track work to my schedule in place of the Tuesday and Thursday shorter runs. I'm starting off with a 20 minute tempo run tomorrow at 6:51 pace and 5 x 1000m at 3:55 on Thursday. There is also a 16 mile run on Sunday that will hopefully go well.

I turned 25 today. Laura took me to see Slumdog Millionaire (awesome!) and then for Ethipoian at Addis Red Sea (delicious!). She gave me a lovely cowboy shirt and a Tom Waits record as well so my quarter century celebrations have thus far been very good. I'm going out to a bar for some drinks on Friday night with several people which will conclude the festivities.

I haven't been painting much of anything lately since I ran out of primed models and it's been too cold to spray outside. I did finish the Widowmakers last week.

I wasn't happy with their faces and I rushed some details as the end to get them done and off my painting table but overall I was happy with how they came out.

John Smoltz is on the Red Sox! Super exciting.

I decided to go back to my Man-O-War DC and make the ice mauls a bit icier looking. I can't tell if I'm happy with the effect or not but I think the models look better overall.

I've also started working on my Widowmakers. I'm mostly done with the easy, flat parts but their faces are starting to worry me. I've had a lot of success lately painting faces but the most recent attempt didn't go very well and I'm nervous about the four of these.

Widowmakers WIP

My Khador reinforcements arrived from ebay the other day. The Greylord Ternion and Koldun Lord will find themselves painted in the next month or two but the Kodiak will probably sit on my shelf for a while longer.

I also recently discovered that all of my old, horribly painted Ultramarines can be easily given a new life as Crimson Fists. When I was painting them I would paint each piece individually and then glue them together. Since the glue was paint on paint it is really weak and I can separate the pieces really easily. Right now I have an assault squad broken up and I'm going to buy some Simple Green to try stripping the paint.

My new (old) stereo arrived in the mail yesterday.

Everything seems to be in good working order and I'm totally enamored over everything being analog instead of digital. Initially I thought the record player or the receiver weren't working but my dad helped me to figure out the problem. I ended up ordering a preamp to help boost the output from the record player - not a huge problem at all and even now I can use everything.

Laura has been knitting like a machine. She recently finished two toys, one for me and one for her brother's friends' little kids. The beige, fat, dog is mine and the blue one is for the kids. She's currently working on some owls and I hear they're adorable.

Lisa and I had a pretty good 13 mile run this past weekend. Our overall pace was a little slow (8:45 per mile) but that's because we had a horrible first half due to ice being on all of the sidewalks. The second half we both felt great and kept up a very good clip. The weather is supposed to take a huge dip in temperature over the next few days and I'm worried about how our 14 miler this weekend will go.

It's been a while since I updated this thing. Between Christmas, New Years, vacation, and general craziness I wasn't able to find much time to keep this thing up to date over the past few weeks.

Christmas was a very good time for me. I was pretty unhappy with my job and the time in New Jersey was good for me. I enjoy my family more and more every time I see them and this was no exception. Laura came up for a night and despite her not feeling well I think everyone had a good time. My parents were also up in Boston this past weekend to drop Britta off at the airport (she's spending three weeks in Spain) so we got to hang out some more which I really enjoyed.

My father gave me his old turntable. I don't have any stereo equipment to power it so I bought this gorgeous, retro receiver and speakers from ebay:

The whole thing cost me under 40 bucks (13 for the system, 25 to ship, 38 total) and I should have it by the end of next week. Once I have everything working I am going to start collecting vinyl.

After Christmas I came back up to Boston to see my many friends who were visiting from across the country. Jen Han and her fiance Grant were in town for a few nights for wedding planning and we got dinner at the Alchemist and then drinks at the Behan. I haven't seen Jen since right when Laura and I started dating and I was really excited to catch up with her after so long. Mike D'Emic was at Harvard doing some research for his thesis and a bunch of us got to go to Our House for some Brubakers and good times that hearkened back to when we were all in college. He's doing well and will probably be around again for reserach. Spoony was also in town for the whole week and we had several chances to play little men, grab dinner, and hang out on New Year's.

My New Year's resolution for this year was to try to be more invested in my job. Recently I've been pretty unhappy with my work situation and that negative attitude made it hard for me to be there. I'd like to try to be more positive at work and really try to find ways to occupy myself with job related tasks instead of moping around the internet all day. Two days in and thus far I've been pretty successful. I'm not 100% about any of this but I've managed to keep myself happily busy and productive since returning to the office and I will say that I've been happier here as a result.

Speaking of jobs, Laura has had two interviews this far (one at Tufts and one at Suffolk) that have gone well. She hasn't heard from either one yet but I know she's expecting to get word from Suffolk in the next several days. I e-mailed a woman from MassBay Community College this afternoon about sitting down and talking about teaching math at the community college level. I still do want to teach and I think this might be a better alternative than high school.

Today marks the first run of my 4th week training for Boston. The first three weeks were a rollercoaster of snow storms, missed runs, and reshuffling. Despite all that I managed to get in every run except one 4 miler which I think I will just let slide. I'm glad to be back on schedule though and hope to be able to keep a more even keel for the rest of training. I am still working on nailing down how 8:30 pace feels but I've been doing a lot better than when I started.

My first run for Boston '09 went really well. It was only four miles but I was happy with the consistent pace I kept and how I felt at the end. I was supposed to run 6 miles yesterday but that got scrapped due to A Very Die Hard Christmas, and today's 4 miler is going to get missed because Laura and I are going to the ballet. I'll make up the 6 miles tomorrow and the 4 miles on Monday. Not the best way to start off a training program but it can't be helped.

I finished off the first three Terminators the other day. It took me about two weeks to work my way through them which is a lot longer than I would have liked. For some reason I just wasn't very excited about painting and I couldn't do more than little bits on them before I'd get bored.

They're a little sloppy but I'm glad that they're finally done. I might have my first game with this army (and first 5th edition game ever) on Sunday afternoon. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try to get the rest of this squad painted by then or not.

Last night was the annual Christmas party at my house. We started a tradition last year where a bunch of us get together for dinner, beer, and Die Hard. I'm a big fan of the movie and since I organized the party, I cooked. Laura helped me make two lasagnas and a big salad and she brought cookies. I think overall it was a rousing success - at least I know I had a good time.

Marathon training starts up in eight days. I've been working on nailing down 8:30 mile pace the past few days (it is the pace I'll be running my long and recovery runs at so I'd better know it) and I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll have it before next week. I've been doing 4 mile runs that include the big hill that my house is on to get practice on downhills, uphills, and flats.

Right now I think I have the first six weeks of training tentatively planned out, as well as the final three weeks. Those middle nine are giving me trouble. Every time I read something new it seems to contradict what I have previously learned so I think I'm going to hold off scheduling those middle weeks until I know more about what I should be doing. Lisa and I are going to run and get sushi on Wednesday to talk about it and I'll go from there.

I finished Sorscha last week so I have a legal army. I think she turned out really well and I was really happy with her face. I should have painted her eyes first because once the skin was done I was scared that I would ruin it if I tried to paint the eyes.

the face that I'm so proud of

the whole battle box done

I've started work on a squad of Terminators for my Crimson Fists and they should be done before I leave for Christmas.

Laura, Britta, and I went to a cool artisan fair yesterday downtown. Britta and I bought some stuff for our parents and Laura and Britta both bought a lot of jewelry for themselves and friends. There was a lot of cool stuff there and we met up with Lauren for a fun time all around.

Thanksgiving was a good time and I find myself enjoying being home more and more every time I go. Britta, Dad, and I ran a 5k in the morning and it was gorgeous. I ran something around 18:45 and felt pretty good doing it. Dad and I then spend the day (and night) tearing up carpet on the first floor to allow a man to come in and assess our house for wood floors.

Mom's dinner was delicious as always. We had a big turkey, really good stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and yams of some sort. There was also cheese cake and pecan pie to help send us off to bed happy.

Britta and I saw Grandma briefly on Saturday afternoon before continuing on to Penn Station and our train. She doesn't remember either of us and the whole time we were in her house I was very uncomfortable and upset with the whole situation.

I've been doing a ton of research lately into marathon training. I've set a goal for myself of a 3:20:00 marathon at Boston this year. I read a good article from Culla and I bought a book he recommended. The more I read and learn the less clear the picture becomes for me; there is so much that goes into a good training plan. It is becoming very clear to me why coaches exist.

Before the holiday I finished the last three models for my second tactical squad. I'm having problems with my Blood Red being terrible so the red parts on the model are not very good. I like the melta gunners though.

multi melta, sergeant with a power fist, melta gun

second squad completed

That now makes two full tactical squads painted, which represents a big share of my 1000 point list taken care of. I think the next squad I'll do for this army will be five terminators, but right now I'm working on Sorcsha for my Khador army.

I didn't purchase anything little men related last month, which means my fund loses half of that unspent money (50 dollars) and picks up another 50 dollars for the month of December.

New Model Fund - $75

Model List -
Khador Greylord Ternion (to finish off 500 points)
Khador Koldun Lord (to finish off 500 points)
Khador Kodiak (to finish off 500 points better)
Space Marine Assault Squad (because it is cheaper than just buying the bits I need)
Space Marine Sternguard Squad (because the models are gorgeous)
paints and brushes (Baal Red, Devlan Mud, Badab Black, Thraka Green, Orkhide Shade, a 00, 0, and large tank brush, Testors Dull Coat)

There are also several more Space Marine purchases I'd like to make, including a Drop Pod and Vindicator, but I'm going to hold them off the list. Everything currently on the list (except the Sternguard) are for my Tale of Painters projects.

Sometime towards the end of last week my grandmother had a stroke. Initially it didn't sound so bad but my mom told me later that it hit the part of her brain that controls her memories and that she didn't remember much of anything. She sort of knew her three oldest daughters (my mom is the oldest) but had some trouble with her youngest, Ana, and yesterday couldn't come up with my Dad's name. I think my mom is doing her best not to be upset but I know she is. We're not sure what's going to happen when Grandma gets out of the hospital but it doesn't sound like she is going to be able to live on her own anymore.

Laura's big birthday party was on Saturday night at the Pour House. A bunch of people cycled in and out over the course of the evening and everyone who stayed had a good time and drank a bunch.

The next morning Shannon and I were supposed to compete in breakfast olympics (my chocolate chip pancakes against her french toast) but she was too hung over to do anything but lie in bed so Drew and I ate some pancakes and got coffee. We then spend a good amount of time wrestling with a 13 pound frozen turkey in a giant bowl of hot water. It had been defrosting for three days but was still largely frozen and we were hosting a Thanksgiving dinner that afternoon / evening. After both of our moms told us that we could potentially kill everyone at our dinner party (and after getting soaked with warm turkey juice) we decided to get a fresh turkey from Stop and Shop and roll with that guy.

Turkey cooking proceeded without a hitch after that and was probably lubricated by Beth's new drink concoction, Breakfast Champagne. It is a half and half mixture of High Life and Orange Juice; it sounds gross but it's very refreshing. Over the course of the day we went through about 30 High Lifes making these things for about a dozen people.

My dad sent me a really nice article about one of my favorite soccer players, Frankie Hejduk. He scored one of Columbus's three goals in their 3-1 victory over the Red Bulls in yesterday's MLS final.

Laura's birthday is today. We're going to see Quantum of Solace tonight and last night we went to Zon's for a delicious birthday dinner. Saturday is her party thing at the Pour House. Thus far she's enjoyed the dinner and the present I gave her and I anticipate her having a good weekend as well.

The weather has taken a rather intense drop in temperature. This morning I rode to work in 27 degree weather and had to spend time at work thawing out. My run yesterday wasn't as fast as I had hoped because my legs couldn't warm up. I know it was colder last year when Lisa and I would run in December and January but I'm just not used to it yet.

Last night I finished the Destroyer for my Khador army. I got some really good feedback on Librarium Online regarding battle damage, highlighting, and shading that I feel really helped me improve this model over the Juggernaut.

After some experiments with the blue to white gradient as a background I've decided to stop using it. It was creating a lot of glare on the models and washing out their colors to the point that they all looked like flat, neon messes. The pictures above were taken without and background at all and I think they really show what the model looks like so I may just stick with that.

For reference, this is what he looks like with the gradient.

This isn't a terrible picture but if you compare it to the ones above you can clearly see how washed out the model is; the highlights disappear and the colors are a lot brighter than they are in reality.

Oh, and if you haven't seen the puppies you need to take a look.

Work has been really dragging this week even though I had Tuesday off. Sometimes I can get myself excited to do something but most of the time I find myself bored, listless, and uninterested.

Laura has been applying to a lot of publishing jobs recently and came across an interesting potential career move for me in the field of mathematics text book publishing. She sent me a few postings for jobs editing and working with math texts. It is something I had never considered before but now that she's planted the idea in my head I'm intrigued.

Recently a UFC fighter who I like, Chris Leben, failed a drug test and was suspended for 9 months. My reaction to this was to feel bad for him because I like him and I feel like he's overcome a lot in his life. I was out on a run the other day thinking about this and I realized that my reaction was the complete opposite to how I normally react to situations like this. I can't stand Sean Sherk, another UFC fighter who failed a drug test, and have almost not respect for him as an athlete anymore. I also distinctly remember when Justin Gatlin failed his drug tests and how betrayed I felt by him. Other althletes like Marion Jones, Floyd Landis, and Jan Ulrich have been tainted for me by their steroid useage and I know that I can never look at any of their achievements with any sort of faith that they were achieved in good faith.

I honestly don't know why Chris Leben bucks my trend of anger and resentment towards althletes who use steroids. I liked Justin Gatlin more than Chris Leben and I was more familiar with Gatlin and Marion Jones's accomplishements and careers. Most of the other people on my list denied using while Leben admitted it immediatley. I wouldn't even say that Leben is very high up on my list of favorite fighters, so why do I feel sympathy for him when I could never support any of those others again? I honestly have no idea.

I've decided to start reading more. It's been a while since I read any sort of book and I'd like to get back into the habit. I also want to be more informed so I've taken to browsing CNN and the New York Times at work when I have spare time.

I went climbing the other night before and after teaching and had a lot of fun. I still remember most of my technique and I'm just waiting for my arm and hand strength to return. Unfortunatly I tore a lot of skin off the pad on my right middle finger but I've been drying it out pretty aggressively so I hope it will be usable in a few days.

I finished off the last three marines for my first tactical squad.

all 10


vet with power sword


plasma twins


the three new guys

I spent several hours this weekend painting a Khador Juggernaut and this is the result (photographed poorly - they don't show the highlights that do exist however faint):

I had a lot of trouble conceptually highlighting the huge red armour plates. My typical strategy of line highlighting was pretty useless on the vast, flat expanses that needed to be highlighted. I went for what I thought would be natural highlights but I'm not satisfied. I don't think I executed my plan correctly and I don't think I have enough contrast for the highlights to be visible. The Warmachine rulebook has some good reference pictures and I'm going to try to use them to touch up this guy. I'm also thinking of trying to paint on some battle damage, but I'd like to get the highlights correct first.

I decided to enter a second army into the Tale of Painters on Librarium Online. In addition to my 1000 points of Crimson Fists I will be working on 500 points of Khador. The Juggernaut represents 100 points done already so my first month's submission is already take care of. Once I get those next 5 tacitcal marines done I'll have my Fists sumbission done for the month also so I think I'm in pretty good shape to take care of both.

Once these two projects are done I am thinking of doing some Cygnar models. The two that have really caught my eye are Coleman Stryker and the Journeyman Warcaster.

Coleman Stryker (image from Privateer Press)

Journeyman Warcaster (image from Privateer Press)

Khador has a feeling of steampunk Russion, and Cygnar has a knightly feel to them. I also really like the vibrant blue color of their armour.

My next marathon is coming up on Sunday. I think if I can run a 3:40 and help Lisa to qualify that I'll be happy. Somehow I managed to get a blood blister on one of my big toes; hopefully that won't be too much of a pain in the ass.

Spoony was in town this weekend for regionals. It was really good to see him. Since I had Monday off (hooray Chris Columbus!) Laura and I got brunch at the Center Street Cafe. It was really good and a lot of fun. Even though we've been dating for over two years now I still like going on dates with Laura.

The Red Sox have dropped two straight to fall behind 1-2 against the Rays. Hopefully they can pick it up tonight and bring it back to even.

My first Crimson Fist squad is done!

The three in front are the product of last week's work, and the two in back are a few months old. Those two I'm not really excited about and if I were to strip some models one day, those would be the first two I'd try.

I'm going to be building another 5 bolter marines tonight (hopefully) in an effort to knock off the boring guys first. Those 10 guys will be my first Tale of Painters II submission from the painting event going on at Librarium Online. This first ToP was the reason I finished up my Wood Elves and in six months I'm hoping it nets me 1000 points of marines.

Lisa and I ran a 5k this weekend in Somerville with some friends. I was hoping to go sub 18 and get a PR but apparently all this marathon training has blunted my speed a bit and I finished in 18:49. I'm still really happy with how I performed and I know that with a little speed work I could crush the 18 minute mark, seeing as I wasn't breathing hard at the end of this race at all.

We also did a 12 mile run this Sunday at 8:47 pace. This is also not as fast as I would have liked it to be but again I'm happy with it. After some rather poor showings on the previous weeks' long runs I was happy to get a quality run in before the marathon.

Friday after work Laura and I saw Burn After Reading. It was very well acted and the dialouge was clever and funny, but I wasn't totally sold on the movie. The plot was pretty complex and I had to focus on what was going on. This would have been fine if they had built it up to some huge climax at the end, but when the movie ended I felt let down.

I cooked burgers last night for Laura and I. Laura wasn't confident in her ability to eat a whole burger (a justifiable concern) so I made her two sliders. Early reports were positive and I haven't heard any terror stories about her body rejecting them, so I think she probably liked them.

I've finally gotten started on my Crimson Fists. I have the two test models I did a few months ago and last night I painted up a third bolter marine. From a technical standpoint I am very very happy with how he turned out. I gave him a really smooth base coat of Regal Blue and then two highlights. The first one was a 60/40 or even 70/30 mix of Regal Blue / Ultramarines Blue that was pretty watered down. I used this in pretty broad strokes as a bridge between the basecoat and the second highlight, which very thin lines of straight Ultramarines Blue.

Looking at the model up close I was really proud how how I had executed the highlighting, but from arms length almost all of them dissapeared. Obviously that's the opposite of how I wanted the highlights to work and I'm not sure what went wrong. I went ahead and finished the model with the hope that addine the reds, metallics, and whites would help the overall effect pop. To a small extent they did but not as much as I wanted.

I'm not really sure how to fix this but I'll keep experimenting.

Last week was the last up week of my marathon training and it was capped off with the last 20 miler in the schedule. Sunday was a very rainy, cool day and I think that contributed to the pretty poor showing both Lisa and I had during the run. Neither one of us had much pop in our legs from the get-go and come mile 10ish we were both feeling pretty bad. Around Kenmore Square we both decided to slog through to the bottom of my hill and then walk up.

I'm sure the rain played a role in our poor showing but I'm not willing to give it all the credit. Neither one of the 20 milers I've done this training cycle have gone particularly well, and both times (and other times through this training) I've felt that my legs just didn't have and life in them. I don't know if this is because they're reacting poorly to the increase in mileage or if they're not recovering adequately or if the problem is something else. I hope that the three weeks of tapering gives them enough time to rest and be fresh for the race.

Other people however, don't seem to be having my problems. Haile Gebrselassie, the world record holder in the marathon, shaved 27 seconds off his previous record time to finish the Berlin marathon in 2:03:59 and become the first person to ever run a marathon under two hours and four minutes. And he's 35 years old! I think it's only a matter of a few years before someone knocks off those last few minutes and we're looking at a marathon run in under two hours.

Steve and I had a long conversation yesterday about the financial crisis currently going on. I was pretty uninformed about it and when I tried to get informed, most of the articles I was reading were assuming that I already knew what was going on. I think I have a handle on the general ideas now and I'll admit to being a little nervous about what's going to happen. My dad sent me an article a few days ago that talked about the bailout plan that was ultimately shot down.

This Thursday is the Vice-Presidential debate. I am planning on racing home after teaching on Thursday to watch it and see how Sarah Palin holds up. I am pretty scared of the prospect of her becoming the VP after watching her handle herself in this interviw with Katie Couric. Thus far she's been almost completely hidden from the national media and most every time she has spoken it's been pretty scripted. She tried standing on her feet for that interview and failed miserably, so I wonder how she's going to make up for that during the debate. The evidence against her keeps growing and I think Thursday will be a very telling moment.

A few weeks ago my parents came up to visit and brought my old Play Station. Yesterday my copy of Final Fantasy VII arrived in the mail and I'm really excited to play it. I remember the huge hype and excitement when I was in 7th or 8th grade and it came out and how even now it is hailed as one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Unfortunatley I never got a chance to play much of the game (or Final Fantasy IIX or IX) so I'm excited, as a fan of the RPG genre, to finally get to play it through.

After teaching last Thursday I finally got on the wall and climbed for the first time in what feels like months. It didn't go very well. I still remember how to make all the motions but I don't have any of my arm, core, or hand strength. I've certianly done this before with climbing but it doesn't get any less frustrating.

Last Monday Laura was doored by a woman in Brookline Village. She ended up getting away with just a broken elbow but the whole experience was terrifying. The two of us spend some painful hours in an ER where we got jerked around by the doctors. The next day I called Jenn because I had no idea what to do, and she reccomeneded a doctor at Boston Medical. We went and he was great, and since then Laura has been doing a lot better. Her elbow still hurts a lot, but the swelling has gone down a lot and her range of motion has improved as well.

She has another appointment next week where hopefully we'll learn that everything is healing well and that there are no more problems.

This past weekend I crushed my 12 mile run. I know that the middle six miles I was cruising really hard both down and up Heartbreak, and I know that the last three miles were a bit slower because I was pretty tired. I ended up averaging 7:49 per mile, which means that I was going faster than that for the middle six. This week is the last up week before the taper and Lisa and Ia re hoping to have a more successful 20 miler than we did two weeks ago.

I've been doing my best to crank out my last Wood Elves before October 1st. Last week I had a lot of painting time while I was taking care of Laura and I managed to finish my last Waywatcher.

Waywatcher Noble

This is the noble model, but since I couldn't find 6 distinct Waywatcher sculpts I brought this guy in to finish out the squad. I'm not as happy with this guy as I was with the blonde or gray haired Waywatchers, but I think he looks good and I'm one model closer to being done.

This weekend I made a really good start on the Wildrider Noble who is the last model I need to paint. I have him broken down into three sections, main body, arms, and horse. I finished the body (the largest part) and I hope to finish the arms tonight. Once that's done it will be a single night's work to finish off the horse and then I'll be done with the elves!

I put up a few ebay auctions for some models that I won't be using, specifically a OOP Space Marine Land Speeder and some Knights of Chaos. Both auctions have watchers and one already has a bid.

I also bought some tiny rare earth magnets after reading this post over at All Thinkgs 40k to play around with magnetizing my Space Marines.

I've been here (and by that I mean driving across the country) for the past week.

The blog ends with our arrival in Vegas sometime on Friday night. I was exhausted and passed right out. Saturday we spent at the pool drinking beer and swimming (sometimes at the same time!) before donning suits and heading out to the casinos. I ended up losing 200 bucks playing blackjack and craps, but it was a fun time. I'm going to miss Spoony a lot, but he'll be around for ultimate and we made plans to meet up at some big Warhammer tournament sometime next year.

I only managed one run over the past week, which is a bit troubling to me. The one was a gorgeous 2 hour, 14 mile run along the coast of Lake Michigan that I was feeling really good about. I'm planning on doing 4 miles today, and increasing one or two miles every day depending on how I'm feeling.

At this point I don't think I'll be able to qualify for Boston this year, but I'm still going to train hard and do my best. I think I over-simplified the type of training I'm going to need to do in order to qualify, but I think the mistakes I made this time around will help me later on.

Spoon and I stopped at a comics / gaming store in Albuquerque so I could get a copy of White Dwarf to read in the airport. I ended up getting a few back issues and I really enjoyed reading it. There are all sorts of good tutorials and articles and tons of detailed shots of very well painted miniatures. I ordered a subscription today along with the Dark Elves and High Elves Army books. I've also been doing some more research into my Crimson Fists, so I need to get in gear and finish off those seven Wood Elves.

My laptop still hasn't arrived, but I know they've charged my credit card; hopefully it arrives soon.

My running has been going a lot better lately. Whatever stomach problems were ailing me over the previous few weeks seem to have largely left. Most of my runs go off without any problems and hopefully I am back on track. Currently I have run 825 miles this year (and 875 since I started training for the Boston Marathon in December).

I found out recently that Kenny Florian, one of my favorite UFC fighters, is opening a training center in Brookline. I've toyed with the idea of taking Jiu-Jitsu classes and this was a really cool opportunity to do that. I signed up for their mailing list and got an e-mail today letting me know that there would be early registration this Friday and that classes would be starting on September 2nd. While these dates suck for me, I'm still really interested and will keep checking their website to see what's going on.

Last night Laura and I went to look at a bike for her in Cambridge. She took a ride on this bike (a Redline 925) and really liked it. She's been having some issues finding a bike that would fit her, but this one seemed to work really well. We're going to do a little bit more research before she commits to anything but this guy seemed pretty awesome.

After the bike shop we went to Newbury Comics and I bought a few CDs. I got the new Gaslight Anthem album which I've been listening to online for a while, a CD by the Flobots (which was the first hip-hop record I've ever purchased) and Boston's self titled album. Since Keely is taking his records back in September I was going to be without his Boston LP, which was pretty unacceptable. They've all been really good albums thus far and I think they'll be a lot of fun on the road trip.

After a good evening drinking with Jason (his last night in Boston - sad!) Laura and I woke up early on Saturday morning to build bookshelves.

Lumber arrives by night.

Framed.

Assembling the shelves.

Done!

Action shot!

This was a ton of fun and a great way to spend most of a Saturday. I learned a lot about making things like this (measure everything, don't assume anything) and when I get the lumber for for the smaller shelf I'm pretty sure I won't have any of the problems we had with the first two.

The top shelf there are miscellaneous unpainted models, including some Vostroyans, Chaos Marines, and a fair amount of Khador minis from Warmachine. Below that is 1000 - 1500 points of Space Marines that will be my project after the Wood Elves get done. Under them, barely visible, is about 1700 points of Wood Elves.

My running took a pretty big down-turn this weekend. Lisa and I embarked on what was supposed to be a 17 mile run down and back up Heartbreak Hill, but we both ended up walking the final three miles to our respective houses. My legs felt terrible the whole 8.5 miles out and while they felt a little better on the trek up Heartbreak (weird) by the time we got to the top I was totally spent.

I don't really know what's been going on with my running. I'm going to try to start paying more attention to my diet and being more rigorous sticking to my schedule but I'm not really convinced that either of those things are the culprit.

Spoony and I are going out to Framingham tonight to get some fish for my tank. If all goes well I'll come home tonight with a small school of Neons and possibly some Corys.

Apparently I missed most of July here.

Marathon training has been going pretty well. I've been a lot less tense about nailing workouts this time around. I'm still doing all of them, but I'm a lot more willing to play with my two rest days and shuffle around the schedule to fit in with my life, as opposed to fitting my life into my marathon training. I am a bit concerned about my ability to qualify for Boston though. The idea of 7:15 miles is pretty daunting and I haven't done much to improve my time. I did run 4 miles yesterday at 6:53 pace, but I was pretty tired out at the end. I might talk to some friends who know what they're doing to see what I should be doing.

My climbing has been almost non-existent since the beginning of the month. Laura and I keep making plans and then canceling them because we're both exhausted from the week. We're looking to get there this week sometime, but who can say.

Wildwood was awesome, except for Drew breaking his clavicle. We didn't win a trophy due to massive thunderstorms, but the ultimate was fun and the party was great. Laura and I had a lot of fun together and I hope to repeat again next year.

This past weekend was Dar and Katie's wedding. I will admit to being in denial right up until the ceremony itself, but something about all the tuxes, dresses, flowers, and church made me finally deal with it. The ceremony was very nice and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. The reception was also a very classy affair with lots of food, dancing, and booze (at one point I had three drinks in front of me). Daryl and Katie seemed genuinely happy and that is probably the point.

I finished a unit of Wildriders for my Elf army, which leaves me with only 7 more models until completion.

I have (I think) all of the models I want for my Crimson Fist army at this point, which I will start painting once the elves are done. Through the wonders of ebay I purchased $290.00 worth of figures for $219.37, which is 25% off retail. This hobby is pretty damn expensive but being patient and smart on ebay really helps.

Last week I started training for the Bay State Marathon which runs on October 19th. Lisa and I will be training together again but this time we're looking to take the next step in our program. We're going to be doing the Intermediate II schedule from halhigdon.com (last time we did the Intermediate I) and also incorporating tempo runs, pace work, and possibly some core work as well.

This first week of training was pretty rough. I jumped right back into 5 days of running per week after not running for almost 4 weeks. My body is pretty tired and sore but I worked through it and after my 10 miles yesterday I am feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I think the hardest run I did was the 6 miler on Saturday because I pushed the pace pretty hard on the way home and paid for it. I toned it down for the 10 miles on Sunday and managed to run pretty evenly (somewhere between 8 and 9 minutes per mile) and strongly the whole time.

Runs: 5
Miles: 28.4
Time: 3:51:50

The other weekend Laura, Jason, and I took a trip out to Quincy for some climbing. I set the anchors and did a pretty good job. I was nervous about the whole thing but I think I was pretty successful. The climbs weren't very hard but there were some interesting ones.

Today is Laura and my two year anniversary. To celebrate, we went to the ICA on Saturday, had sushi for dinner, and saw Get Smart. Tonight we're going to a place called Shabu Zen in Allston. Neither one of us has been to a restaurant like this before but it looks pretty exciting. It's been a wonderful two years thus far, and I anticipate more of the same.

I haven't made a whole lot of progress on my Wood Elves in the past few weeks. I managed to paint up the last four Dryads in the army, which leaves 5 Wild Riders, 6 Waywatchers, and 1 Wild Rider Noble left for the army. Of that, I've made a start on one Wild Rider horse.

Branchwraith, Branchnymph, and two two Dryads

I've also made a discovery that is a bit disconcerting. Apparently, Games Workshop has stopped production of half of their Waywatcher models. Currently I have six models for the unit, but only three unique sculpts. I don't like having duplicate models in a single unit but I am not sure where I am going to get an additional three models with different sculpts. Games Workshop does make a Waywatcher Noble model, but that still leaves me two models short. The idea of hacking up and converting metal models is not appealing so hopefully ebay or the interwebs will provide a solution.

I have all the models I need for about 1000 points of Crimson Fists sitting on my desk. I'd like to get them assembled and play a game or two with Spoony. Once 5th edition and the new codex comes out I will buy some more models and take it up to 1500 or 2000 points. I've started a second test model to try a few different things out and I think I'm closing in on what the final scheme will be.

This has not been a stellar week. Laura had some dental work done last Thursday and was put on anti-biotics. On Sunday (maybe?) she developed developed a rash and it became clear that she was allergic to the anti-biotic. We were hoping to tough it out but ended up in the ER on Tuesday morning where we were told that she was just going to have to deal with everything but that eventually she would be ok. I went into work late and left early because I was exhausted. Around midnight we went back to the ER, and stayed there until 6am while the doctors made sure she was still ok. They determined she was and we both went home to sleep. At this point she developed sores in her mouth (either from the reaction or the dental work) and hasn't been able to eat solid food for a few days now. She went into the ER for a third time yesterday, and again they decided that even though she was miserable there wasn't anything they could do.

I haven't slept much since Sunday night and have been worried sick. I know she's going to be fine but it sucks that I can't do anything to make her feel better.

Total number of runs: 48
Total number of miles: 279.05
Total time: 38 hours, 06 minutes, 20 seconds

I've had several good runs over the past two weeks (several of the weekend 7 milers and Wednesday's 8 miler with Lisa) and one bad run (Sunday's 11 miler that I ran alone and with an Ipod). Overall I'm very happy with where my training is and I feel very confident heading into the longer runs.

In the coming weeks Lisa and I will do 17, 18, 13, 20, 12, and 20 before hitting the taper. Even 9 weeks ago when I started this whole thing, runs of that size would have been very daunting. Right now though, I'm really excited to tackle them and I know that I will do them well. This gives me a lot of confidence for the marathon itself, which I wasn't expecting to have.

Last night I did the final details on the last four Dryads, which leaves me with only the basing to finish. I am pretty proud of myself for getting motivated and painting 16 models in two weeks. At this rate I will have this army painted in a few months.

Spoony's friend Matt came to our place this past weekend and the three of us played a round robin tournament at 500 points - Matt beat both of us, and I beat Spoony. My victory over Spoony came because of some good rolling on my part and some bad rolling on his, but I also think my list starts off at an advantage over his due to all of my shooting and his lack of an armour save.

In the first turn against Matt I killed off his unit of fast cavalry, which I thought won me the game right away. However, my inexperience at the game led me to charge a ranked up unit of his infantry with my Glade Riders and Noble, and after a few rounds of combat he had killed most of my army. He had static combat resolution and a good armour save in his favor, and I just didn't have the volume of attacks needed to overcome that - lesson learned.

My Warmachine models arrived, and they're a bitch to assemble. They look fantastic though, and I'm both excited and intimidated to start painting them.