The Adventures of Cowboy Hazel

I’m writing this from 30,000 feet in the air, somewhere over New Jersey, I believe. This is the first time I’ve been on a flight since I got this laptop and I have to admit, I was overly excited to be able to use it in flight. Now, as I’m doing so, however, I realize that it’s not nearly as cool as it seems. These seats are horribly small and the person in front of me is reclining, so my keyboard is pretty much two inches away from my stomach. Eh…

Anyway, I’m flying back to Colorado to spend some time at my parents’ house. It should be a good trip, even though I wasn’t really able to take any time off of work. I’m going to be working from there and the time zone difference means that I have to wake up really early every day. That sucks. My flight doesn’t get in until one o’clock tonight, then we have to drive to my parents house, and I have to be up for work at 6:30.

I was planning on doing a long run tomorrow to see how the elevation affects me, but I’m not going to be able to because of some serious soreness in my legs. I’ve run each of the last five days at a sub-seven minute pace and it’s taking its toll on my muscles. My right calf was cramping up today and I was having some troubles with my left knee too. I think I’ll take tomorrow and Friday off to give them a little recovery time and then get a long run on Saturday. Of course, the Bolder Boulder is Monday, so I’ll probably take Sunday off as well.

I had a couple beers back at the airport bar and now I have to pee, but I’m in the window seat and the guy next to me is asleep (and snoring.) I’ll have to wake him up in a bit, I’m sure.

Flying sucks. I really don’t like this whole being on a plane thing. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that this is my first flight since last October. In fact, other than a quick trip to Atlantic City on New Year’s, this is my first time leaving NYC in nine months. Crazy.

Not much else to report. My fingers hurt so I’m going to quit this nonsense. Good night.

I was craving pizza today so I decided to head up to the Patsy’s on 117th. As soon as I walked outside, I heard yelling. I didn’t think that much of it, though, because you hear a fair amount of yelling up here in el barrio. But, as soon as I got to the corner I realized this was more intense than the typical. There was a big Mexican guy standing there in front of Dunkin Donuts holding a baseball bat, looking real pissed off and about to swing the bat at this high school kid. The kid is like two inches away from the Mexican’s face and yelling, “Get the fuck outta here! Just get the fuck outta here!,” over and over. People stop and watch until finally one of the kid’s friends stepped between him and the Mexican and forced them apart from each other. The Mexican got back into his car and drove off and the kids started walking up First Avenue.

Summer has arrived.

A quandary has arisen. To keep the cell phone number or abandon it? This question is one that has been lying beneath the surface for quite some time now. You may not know this (I usually try to keep it as hushed up as possible (Oh shit, why am I posting it on my blog?)) but I lived in Brooklyn for two and a half months in early 2007. (Did I just use double parentheses? That was awesome!) And, during that time (actually a couple months before that time — I paid an extra fee to have T-Mobile switch my number while I was still in Boston), I traded in my 617 number for a 347 number because I was anxious to cut all ties with the bean town. Before moving to New York, I had an overly fond view of the boroughs (especially Brooklyn) and was happy to take an area code that implied that I was not from Manhattan. I’m the first to admit that I have been wrong in my life. The whole moving to Boston thing and liking the Red Sox thing (please can we just get over this — Sareeka, especially, it kills me when you bring this up) was obviously a huge, huge mistake. Yes, I’m embarrassed and I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. But, we’re getting side-tracked here. The point is, in the aftermath of that gargantuan folly, another smaller preposterousness occurred. I (yes, me, Robert James Reese, I am sad to admit) thought that Brooklyn was a more honorable place than Manhattan and accordingly aligned myself with the secondary borough as much as possible. As a result, my phone number is 347-853-5200. I would worry about posting that here, but it is already posted on my business site and if it hasn’t been spammed from there, it probably won’t be spammed from here. So, I have an awesome cell number that ends in double zeros, but it is from a lame area code. 347 is a secondary area code for all boroughs except Manhattan. It’s not even the 718 (which is the primary area code for those same areas). A rerun of the episode of Seinfield where Elaine gets a 646 number because of Kramer’s fax machine happened to be on last night and that made me think of this a bit. Also, my cell phone crashed on me three times today, which made me start to seriously consider getting a new carrier and/or cell phone. I was originally planning to wait for the first launch of Google’s Android platform, but I am worried that the first edition of that is not going to be that stable. And , AT&T is supposedly offering a $200 rebate on the iPhone with a two year contract and that’s better than anything that will be offered with the brand new Android Platform so I’m thinking that looks pretty good. I definitely want to get a browser capable phone so that I can expand my own network into mobile web content and test it, but I don’t want to have to lay down serious cash to do so. Maybe switching to AT&T with this new promotion is the answer? But, if so, what do I do with my mobile number? Thanks to recent legislation, I have the right to move my T-Mobile number to AT&T. But, do I want to? The pros for keeping the 347 number: It ends in double zeros — How cool is that? Also, I have a thousand businesses cards printed with that number on it. If I change the phone number, I’ll have to get new ones. Cons: I don’t want people to think I’m from the boroughs and some people don’t even know 347 is a NYC Area Code — Diana thought it was Florida. What do I do?

As expected, time has continued to march along in an orderly fashion. Saturday still follows Friday. Friday still follows Thursday. Etcera. The only difference is that time seems to be marching much quicker than it used to. I hear that cliché so often, but it really is true. What causes this?

Well, my past week (which was over in what seemed like a blink of an eye) was rather full yet uninteresting. Nathaniel was out from San Diego, so I had to go into the office three days this week. That combined with the rainy weather and the fact that I was trying to let my legs recover from a recent surge in mileage caused me to take five days off from running. I got out for only my second run of the week this morning.

It was a good run. I met up with Antonio and Michael in Central Park and we did the normal loop except we had to make a couple slight detours because of a big Revlon walk for cancer thing that was going on. I finished it feeling strong and ready to do more which is rare running with those two — they’re both much better runners than me. I didn’t even have that much trouble with the hills. I hope that this positive momentum in my running continues.

The week at the office was busy. I didn’t get a chance to work on my big multivariate testing project at all because my time was spent fixing other problems, doing small improvements here and there, and attending various meetings. It was definitely a switch from my typical routine. But, I have to say that I actually did enjoy it. This whole office job thing isn’t nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Of course, it’s a lot better on the weeks that I get to work from home…

Nathaniel came up to my place Wednesday night and we brainstormed on the games site we’re working on. That whole thing is scaring me a little because the deadline is June 15th and I have at least 80 hours (this is totally a guess, it might end up being much more) worth of work to do on it before then. Coming up with that time is going to be tough, especially since I’m going to be back in Colorado for the last half of this month. I really need to keep working hard the whole time I’m there, but I don’t see how that’s going to happen. I’m going to see three Rockies games with my mom, I’m running the Bolder Boulder, my friend’s brother is getting married, and besides all that, this will probably be my only trip home this year so I want to see all my friends. So, yeah, I’m pretty much not going to be able to sleep if I want to fit everything in.

Thursday night, I attended the worst baseball game ever. You know those bumper stickers, “The worst day fishing is better than the best day working”? Well, that’s how I feel about baseball. I didn’t think it was possible to not enjoy a baseball game. That is, of course, until Thursday night. It started raining halfway during the first inning and never let up. With the temperature was in the mid-forties, the rain made this the coldest night I have ever experienced in my entire life. The deep, wet cold seeped into my bones and froze me to the core. I had a few beers and tried to tough it out and enjoy the game. But the Yankees made enjoying the game tough to do — they were playing dismally. Finally, at the end of the sixth inning, I moved down to the lower deck below the roof (there were plenty of empty seats by this point), and then the Yanks gave up two more runs. It was 8-4 at the end of the seventh and I couldn’t take it anymore. I left the game early — something that I never do.

Before leaving, I stopped in the bathroom. After waiting in line (dancing the I-have-to-pee-so-bad dance) for a couple minutes, I finally get to the front of the line and a urinal opens up for me. I walk over but couldn’t get my button-fly jeans undone because my fingers were so frozen. Considering that I had a few beers in me and had been holding it for a while, this looked like it could turn into a embarrassing situation quickly. I tried blowing on my fingers to unthaw them, but it wasn’t working. I still couldn’t get my fingers to unbutton my jeans. Fortunately, they were somewhat baggy jeans and so, after some creative problem-solving, I was able to just slide them down over my hips without unbuttoning them. That in itself would have been embarrassing, but I’m pretty sure that everyone else in there was even drunker than me and didn’t pay any attention. Still, note to self: Wear zipper fly jeans next time it’s cold and rainy and you’re going to be sitting outside for long periods of time.

Other than that, it’s pretty much been the typical run of the mill stuff. Nothing too interesting to report. I’ve been reading a lot, but nothing too substantial. Just fun books. (If you’re curious which ones, see the reading log.) I went on a date last night. I had a good time, but I couldn’t really tell if the girl was into me or not. Time will tell. I found a new favorite house wine — 2003 Chateau Cabezac Tradition Minervois. I bought a few bottles earlier in the week and have pretty much depleted them. While talking to Nathaniel, I came up with some new ideas and expanded upon old ideas for the Lantenengo Network. I really want to kick this whole thing up a notch because my dismal advertising revenue is just not going to cut it. After we get this games site done, I am going to make improving my network, attracting new visitors, and monetizing that traffic a top priority. I want to be at a million hits a month by the end of this year. That’s a big goal, but I think it can be done. Plus, nobody ever said go little or go home…