Okay, so there is a difference between nerds and geeks.  It might be a subtle difference, or a difference that doesn’t manifest itself in an obvious way, yet it’s fundamental.  American society tends to lump geeks and nerds into one large category because they both look so, well, dorky.  I submit that their outward appearances are one of only two manners in which they are similar, the other being a single-minded interest in a topic or topics. However, geeks tend to lose themselves in sci-fi, fantasy, computers or the like, but still like to socialize with the human race.  They might be socially awkward, but they prefer to surround themselves with others who are also socially awkward share their interests, so it all works out.  Nerds, on the other hand, are characterized by interests that are more scholarly in nature.  The social skills of a nerd are more atrophied than non-existent.  Because nerds tend to be more solitary, given the nature of academia as an individual endeavor.  Thus they spend more brainpower on whatever their academic field is rather than the latest craze in fashion.

I could write a manifesto on the differences between geeks and nerds, but that’ll do as a nutshell description.  I feel singlularly qualified to delineate the differences since in my life I’ve dabbled in geekdom, nerdiness, and the general masses.  I grew out of my geek phase, thought seriously about being a nerd while in college, then discovered that booze is the great equalizer and ultimately went to too many frat parties to qualify for either category.  Dice says that my singular interest in Victorian literature qualifies me for nerd status, but I contend that he’s too much of a nerd to know better.

I guess it’s obvious that I have abandoned my July Challenge.  It was necessary for my long term health.  As I always say, running is a lifelong activity; there’s plenty of time to run that marathon at some point.  But you certainly won’t ever do it if you eff up your joints.  Lately I’ve been rockin’ the stationary bike and the elliptical, and not only is it keeping my fitness level up, but it’s really breaking up the monotony of running every single day.  Last week I did run a little too much and so this week I’m keeping the running mileage to fewer than 3 miles a day, no matter what.  Even if I feel strong (which I did last night) I’ll still get off and use one of the machines.  Also, I’m going to start weight sessions starting this week or next, just to throw that into the mix as well.

My gym is doing an initiative called the BX 100, where you’re supposed to run 100 miles in about 5 or 6 weeks.  I joined it before my knee issue, and it started 1 July.  The best part about it is that you can count bike or elliptical miles as well as running miles.  If you complete the challenge you get one month free membership.  I am totally rockin’ this challenge!

Last night I had a dream that Dice and I were running a half marathon. But we dawdled so much (mostly because of me) that we didn’t make it to the start until a full hour after the race had started.  Then the warden-like lady wouldn’t let us start until she gave us the say-so, but out of spite she didn’t give us permission until another half an hour had gone by.  It was frustrating, but we also thought about giving up.  Then I woke up and never learned if we ran the race or not.

Speaking of races, I’m thinking about an upcoming race.  In order to get seeded into the slowest corral at next year’s Peachtree (and I won’t run the Peachtree unless I can get into one of the seeded categories: a girl I know ran it with the masses this year and she didn’t cross the start until 8:50!  That’s an hour and 20 minutes after the start!) I will need to run a 10K in under 55 minutes.  Considering my PR for the 10K distance is 56 minutes and change, this is an achievable goal.  Oh, and did I mention I got that PR at last year’s Buckhead Sizzler?  Yep.  So I’ll run it again this year and hope for a better time.  Of course, this requires me to actually be able to run by then, heh.

Today is another 95 degree day with a million percent humidity.  Thank cheeseness for the air conditioned gym!

A successful weekend despite two extended highway traffic incidents.  Friday night we went to the UJoint with the Canadians and T&R, plus dogs.  It cooled off a bit, enough so that sitting out on the patio was very pleasant.  My aforementioned glass of wine was fine.  The nice thing about the UJoint is that not only are their wines not bad at all, but they serve them in very substantial wine glasses.  These aren’t delicate crystal, don’tcha know.  They’re heavy wine glasses that make you feel like you’re drinking something substantial.  While there’s a time and a place for delicate crystal, there’s also something satisfying about a fortified wine glass.  Also, I had the grilled cheese sandwich with tots.  Crunchy, tasty tots.

Saturday we went to Macon to visit the other half of the Handitards.  They have a very cute little house, and the city of Macon is indeed very nice.  We had lunch at a cafe that makes their own potato chips and also serves the MOST ENORMOUS pieces of cake.  Like, one piece of cake is meant to be shared by at least 4 people.  Afterwards we went to the Harriet Tubman museum which had an exhibit on the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. the Board of Education.  A very, um, thorough exhibit.  It was like the never-ending exhibit.  We also drove around Mercer which is where they are both working now.  Cute campus.  For Baptists, heh.

On the way home from Macon we got stuck in horrendous stopped traffic on 75 North.  Ugh.  I think it took us an hour to travel about 5 miles and made the drive home twice as long.  After we got home we decided to go to Stella for dinner, where I had the Tuscan Chicken entree.  Which is spinach fettucine with chicken and sundried tomatoes in a very light cream sauce.  Oh, it was very good!  I enjoyed it so much that I finished the entire plate, and I wasn’t all that hungry!  Dice got the pepperoni pizza, as usual.

Sunday we went to Formula 1 where there were new people who just joined our group.  Which is always nice.  This was the last race that happens at a decent hour; the next race is back to the crack of dawn.  I don’t mind, I’m usually up at that hour anyway.  On the way home we got stuck in even worse traffic on 85 south.  It took us an hour and a half to go two miles.  We know this because the backup started as we were on the on-ramp, and the next exit was two miles away.  Which took us an hour and a half to traverse.  Not to mention the fact that it was 95 degrees out and the air conditioning doesn’t work so well when the car is just sitting, so it was hot, frustrating and annoying.  It turns out that just past the exit we finally got to, they narrowed the highway from 5 lanes to 1.  Ouch!

This week marks a newly re-affirmed commitment to health for me.  Since before our trip to LA I’ve been very bad about my eating habits.  This has to stop.  So as of today my eating habits will center around whole, unprocessed foods, and not much of it.  My balance will be a couple of tasty dinners.  Since everyone needs a balance, the trick is finding out what works most effectively.  Some people need one treat a day, while others can save it for one bigger treat less frequently.  I’m of the latter variety, I can wait it out if I know that a big payoff is coming at some point.  This week I am having a fancy dinner on Thursday evening, so that’s going to be the payoff for the near future.  I hope it’ll be worth it!

Yes, yes, yes.  We were good doobies yesterday and went to the gym and then went home and had our salads for dinner.  We are dog-watching for K&M as well, so we spent an hour down at their house visiting with the wee doggies.  Thinking about it on the way home, I’m more displeased with the organizers of Taste of East Atlanta for having the event end at 8:00 pm.  I realize that many people eat dinner between 5:00-8:00 pm, but I’m sure that many other people, like us, eat later.  Heck, even on an early day we never eat before 8:00 pm!  I adore Taste of East Atlanta, but they lost my attendance this year.

The highlight for this weekend will be tomorrow’s visit to Macon!  The Handitards will be reunited again for One! Night! Only!  Or, to be more precise, one afternoon.  I’m looking forward to seeing their new digs, and seeing Macon.  I’ve never actually been to Macon, the closest I got was driving past on our way to Savannah this past May.  Ray and Michael say it’s actually very cute, and I’m sure it is.

Today I stumbled across an Email Aptitude Test for Noobs.  Oh, how I wish I had had this to send to [insert the name of every person in my family, as well as a few on my friends] every time they sent me forwards, internet hoaxes, or complained that they lost money after sending it to a Nigerian prince.  Or, the worst by far, are when they SEND MESSAGES WRITTEN ENTIRELY IN CAPS.  The problem is, they’re your family so you can’t kill them.  In the future, I’ll send them the aforementioned test.  Which really isn’t so much of a test as a list of instructions.

I’ve decided not to run the Double Quick this year, which happens tomorrow. Although I usually run it every year, and in fact when I ran it last year I ran my PR for 5K distance at 26 minutes!  With the knee not doing so well, though, the last thing you want to do is race on it.  Also, I’m just apathetic about it, anyway.  And when you’re apathetic, you certainly won’t be breaking any records.  Just save your money and stay home.  I won’t race, but I’ll still take an easy run around the neighborhood.  It’ll be the first time I run on pavement in a couple weeks, and here’s hoping it doesn’t F-up my knee even more. Last night, though, I skipped the treadmill entirely and only did an extended session on the bike and the elliptical, and today, the knee feels much better!

I still haven’t decided where to have dinner this evening.  I’m open to suggestions, and/or company.  I can’t decide if I want to leave the village or not.  Either way, though, I’d like a nice glass of wine and something delicious to eat.  What else is new?

Bring on the weekend! I don’t know why I kept thinking it was a day later all week. Tuesday I woke up positive it was Wednesday.  And so on.  This morning I woke up thinking for sure it was finally Friday.  Which is completely dumb considering I only worked two hours on Monday.  Although I would also contend that since I woke up at 3:30 am on Monday, that one day (by the time I went to bed around 10 that evening), felt as long as two days.

So, I have bad news.  I don’t think we are going to make it to the Taste of East Atlanta this evening, and I really did want to go.  Unfortunately my devotion to my husband supersedes that want.  Or, more precisely, my dependence on a ride home from my husband.  See, he hasn’t gone to the gym (before this week) for about three weeks straight.  So there’s no way we can make it home, shower, and then walk up to the village by the time it ends at 8:00 pm.  I mean, we could make it there BY 8:00 pm, but since it ends then, that wouldn’t help much.  I wonder who thought up that genius idea to make it end so early?

But the good news is that by not going to Taste of East Atlanta tonight we can go out to eat tomorrow night.  Where shall we go?  In related news, I’m now a Zagat restaurant reviewer, and as such have received a free 2008-2009 Atlanta restaurant booklet.  Whee!  I started reading it last night before I had my dinner, and I had to put it down because it was making me so hungry!  Okay, so it’s not as impressive as it looks.  You fill out some surveys, they send you the booklet.  Still, I’m pretty darn happy with it.  And it’s free!

So I don’t know for sure, but I honestly think this past weekend was the best weekend I’ve had in a long time, notwithstanding some minor drawbacks.  A couple of highlights more than made up for the minor drawbacks, in my opinion.

We flew up to Boston Friday afternoon, landing in prime rush hour.  However in Boston, rush hour doesn’t mean that the highways turn into parking lots, or at least not the Pike, so we still managed to get to Grandma’s house within an hour, which is pretty good.  I had just enough time to take the world’s fastest shower before we rushed up to Worcester for a mini-reunion with a bunch of my good buds from high school.  We were still late, but at least I didn’t stink.  We had an excellent time, and it was so nice to see everyone and their spouses!  We had so much fun that we stayed way too late and had too many drinks.  All worth it, though, even the hangover the next day.

Saturday morning Grandma, Uncle Spencer, Dice and I went over to Aunt Dotty’s new residence for her 90th birthday party!  There were almost 20 friends and family there, including some cousins I hadn’t seen in several years.  It was a wonderful party, Dotty had a blast and we all had a good luncheon and a really delightful cake, which was vanilla with buttercream frosting, and a layer of strawberries in between the layers of cake.  Mmmmm!  After the party we went back to Grandma’s and did nothing until we could decently go to bed.  I stayed up the latest watching the Red Sox game (such a treat!) but I think I was probably in bed with the light off by 9:30.  Yeah, that’s how we roll!

Sunday morning we took it easy until Dotty came over (after church, naturally) and we went out for lobster rolls, a delicacy you cannot find in the south.  While they weren’t the best lobster rolls I’ve ever had, considering I can’t even find bad ones down here I was well pleased.  We had planned to visit the Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord on the way to the airport, but visiting with Dotty and Grandma was too tempting.  Sleepy Hollow cemetery will always be there, but aged relatives may not.

Then the trouble hit.  We made it to the airport in plenty of time, only to be told that our flight, as well as ALL flights to Atlanta, had been cancelled!  What?!  Apparently there was a storm in Atlanta.  The storm passed, but the airlines had already cancelled the flights and re-booked everyone, so there was basically no getting us out that night.  They booked us in first class on the early-morning flight, so we chalked it up to a minor inconvenience and got ourselves a very sketchy hotel room in Roxbury.

Since we had a free evening in Boston we took the T up to the North End and wandered into a restaurant for a drink.  It was nice there, and we were tired, so we had dinner right there at the bar.  I had the most delicious baked pasta dish: fusilli in alfredo sauce baked so the top was all crusty and hot.  It was pretty damn good, and I burnt my tongue trying to eat it too fast.  Then back to the hotel to sleep for our early morning flight.  I was so anxious about not getting up in time that I woke up at 3:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep.

We made it to the airport just before 6:00 am, and the lines were astronomical.  Our voucher didn’t work in the kiosk, so we got into the first class line to check in.  This was really, really lucky because the regular plebeian line was literally a half mile long and snaked out the door.  We waited in the first class line for at least 45 minutes, only to be told that this flight had been cancelled as well, along with 2 other Atlanta flights!  Outrageous!  Then they tried to book us on the 6:00 am flight the following day!  Also outrageous!  We got on the standby list for the 10:15 am flight and went through security and sat at the gate for 4 hours until the flight left without us on it.  Misery.

Eventually we were able to get seats on two separate flights that left about 45 minutes apart at mid-day.  I arrived in Atlanta about 2:30 and waited until Dice arrived a little after 3:00.  At which point we rushed home, changed clothes and went to work.  Because we are that dedicated.  After work, even though we were incredibly tired, we couldn’t face cooking dinner so, of course, we went to cheese dip.  A cheese dip visit was much needed, anyway, after all we’d been through.  It wasn’t all that horrible, but a 2-hour flight turned into a 24 anxious ordeal.  Meanwhile my boss kept telling me the weather was fine in Atlanta!  Trust me, I would rather have been in Atlanta.

I suppose it serves me right.  I’ve been having fantastic luck when it comes to traveling by air the past couple of years.  And if I had to get stuck somewhere for the night, Boston’s a good choice!

I’m back!  With many an exciting adventure to tell!  Unfortunately, the telling shan’t happen until tomorrow, when I have more time, and, hopefully, more storytelling inclination.  But I’m very busy at work right now, because I had to take most of yesterday off, which is part of the story, so I won’t ruin it now.

For those of you who want to get fat but are too cheap to pay for food, a solution!  Attend the Taste of East Atlanta event!  Food for a buck at participating restaurants.  Mmmmm.

A rare morning post!  Savor it with all the anticipation it deserves.  As usual when I manage to post early, this means I’m off somewhere.  Today we fly up to Massachusetts for the annual running of the bulls.  Or, in other words, my Great Aunt Dotty’s 90th birthday party.  Also a much anticipated meetup with my oldest friends in the world.  We’re meeting up tonight with spouses for dinner and good times.  All expectations are that it’s going to be WIGGIDY WIGGIDY WACK.  Or so Don has predicted, and of course I trust him implicitly.

In other news, you might remember me being on the fence about my July challenge due to knee pain?  Yeah.  It was pretty bad last night.  While I was running I was thinking, “I should really stop running right now, I’m just making it worse.  But of course I’ll power through.  I am such an idiot.”  And last night while I was lying in bed and my knee was really hurting, I realized I really AM an idiot.  Sigh.  So I’m going to take today and the weekend off, try to stay off it as much as possible, and hope for the best by Monday.  If it’s not better enough to run every day, then I’ll have to back down on the mileage for a bit.  Hmph!

Did anyone catch the fiasco around John McCain’s Viagra/birth control non-answer?  For those who haven’t heard, Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP, has been campaigning for McCain and the other day said something about how Viagra is covered by insurance but birth control pills aren’t, and women should get reimbursed for birth control.  Nothing big for Democrats, but the conservative base of the Republican party could go off kilter pretty quick after a comment like that.  NPR intimated that Carly Fiorina was on the short-list for possible running mates until she went off-script.  I don’t care about any of that (besides the fact that I think birth control should be covered, but that’s not the issue), what I do care about was McCain’s face when he was asked about it.  Wow, he looked so incredibly uncomfortable!  Crossed arms, eyes looking out into the distance, you could practically see him cringing on the inside.  If, as some pundits say, we often vote on character, that’s some pretty craptacular character right there.  Is it really that difficult for him to stand up for what he believes in?  Or, on the other hand, to say that he doesn’t agree with what Fiorina said?  Yes, apparently in an effort not to alienate any particular subset of people he instead made himself look like a fool. When his back is to the wall, McCain weasels.  Who’s whining now?

Okay, that was a low blow.

Since I’m already talking politics, I heard this morning that Obama might actually seriously be considering Al Gore.  We all know that I’m a die hard Hillary fan, and I want her to be president more than anything else.  But if anything were to reconcile me to anything but an Obama-Clinton ticket, it’d be Gore.  Up until now I had dismissed that as a possibility, thinking Gore probably wouldn’t want the job, but now I’m thinking, yeah, he might want it, he could run for president again afterwards, and he would solve a lot of Obama’s issues about inexperience.  And clearly, as is evidenced by myself, he would win over a lot of disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters.  Hear the NPR story from this morning’s Morning Edition.

Personally, I’m considering asking Dice to be my running mate.  That would solve most of my issues about reaching plates from upper cabinets and opening wine bottles. But he’ll probably say no.

July Challenge: 31.60/78.40 miles and 0/4 weight sessions.

Ack.  Dice’s plane was more than an hour late last night.  Well, to be precise, the flight he was meant to take was many hours late, but he managed to get a seat on the flight that had been scheduled to leave before his original flight, but in fact left an hour after his original flight was supposed to leave.  So, long story short, he didn’t land until after 9:00 which means we didn’t get home until almost 10:00.  Which is late given that it’s a skool night and there’s no way I could wind down enough to get to sleep at a reasonable hour.  So I had two glasses of wine (thanks, Tim & Robin!) and that did the trick.  And the good news is Dice is home safe and sound again.  Well, at least until tomorrow.

An interesting item: yesterday I learned that Texas A&M University calls their alumni association the Association of Former Students.  Heh.  This is a way to include people who didn’t officially graduate from Texas A&M.  And wrest their money from their (probably poor, considering they don’t have a degree) fingers.  Good job!

All this week we’ve had crazy thunderstorms.  While I’m glad we’re getting the much-needed rain, I’m tired of resetting all the clocks.

I’ve noticed lately that I’ve sort of dug myself a little hole and have settled down into it.  I wonder if that has anything to do with getting older?  Or, is what I’m settling into not so much a hole as a rut?  I think it’s the latter.  I think I need to wake myself up a little.  Then again, what’s so wrong with being in a rut, if it works for you?  That’s the question right there: does it actually work for you.  For me?  I don’t know.  Knowing myself (as I do), not bloody likely.

July Challenge: 27.10/82.90 miles and 0/4 weight sessions.

Still on the fence regarding the July challenge.  But I’ll probably still do it.  I think the difference this time is that it will be a true July challenge, in that it’ll begin on 1 July and and on 31 July, whereas usually my challenges begin on a Sunday and end on a Saturday, measuring exactly four weeks.  Because I’m OCD and anal retentive.

Last night I went grocery shopping on the way home, then I went home, did some chores and watched crap TV until 10, at which point I read for a while.  We had a major thunderstorm that cut the power at least four times.  After the second time I decided that setting the clock would be pointless until the storm passed.  Fortunately I don’t really sleep so I was able to set the clock and the alarm in the middle of the night when I awoke per my usual habit.  We’ve gotten rain at least three times this week!

These days I’ve been watching SportsCenter while at the gym.  It’s been a while since I’ve been able to watch it on a regular basis.  Naturally, I only enjoy it this time of year when it’s 75% baseball.  Sabathia wins his first game as a Brewer!  Giambi has a handlebar mustache!  Bonds might possibly go to the D-backs!  The Braves actually won a game!  Surprisingly there was nothing about the Tour de France.  Guess that’s too froggy for such macho men.

July Challenge: 27.10/82.90 miles and 0/4 weight sessions.