My Mind: Lifesized

Recently I started my workout routine again. It has been slow going but I am determined to start the Ultimate Frisbee training season in better shape physically and mentally this year. I'm hardly an impact player on our team, and admittedly last year I was hardly a role player either but I am hoping to keep this pipe dream alive and hope to try for one more year of playing mixed club before moving along to the pastures of the masters division. So I began doing the Crossfit warm up and workouts about three weeks ago. After a week of slow going, things started to pick up and I am now feeling like I'm getting back in shape a little. I need to work on the cardio big time and I also need to concentrate more on what I am putting into my body. I'm a big fan of protein and love the Zone bars. Last week I made a sideways remark about the price to Jen and said I should try to make my own...she called me on it and so I spent a little time surfing the net looking for homemade p

Each year I make a "Best of" compilation of the best new music I've come across issued that year. This annual tradition dates back a couple of decades to the days of cassette tapes when I'd trade my best of tapes with Pat Gallagher, a fellow Purdue student and the first person I knew who listened to The Replacements. Pat always seemed to be the man when it came to new music and I miss getting his compilations. In the past three or four years, I've been exchanging compilation CD's with Mark "Weed" Need, who happens to be the hippest law professor I've ever known and surely the hippest Indiana University has ever employed. Although Weed's compilations tend to lean heavily towards the alt.country genre, they are still fabulous gifts and lead me to broaden my musical horizons each year. Alas, 2006 was not a banner year for me in the realm of discovering music. Not only did my spending priorities change from those of my single-man lifestyle,

We know a couple of things already about Liam; he loves to take a bath and he loves to snuggle after a bath. He also loves to hear sounds like clucks and whistles and tongue blows. He is fascinated by his aqua mobile sent by Aunt Nancy. Of course everyone thinks their baby is perfect and we're no exception. About a week ago, Liam decided to answer my repeated clucks with one of his own. Now he waits to hear a cluck and then will smile and cluck back. He is tracking and holding his head steady by himself. We think he's awfully advanced and suspect he will start talking any day now...or at least making sounds that I can pretend are words.

This morning it was -8 degrees (-22 Celsius) here in Missoula, which was nothing compared to the -30 in Butte and the -47 in West Yellowstone; in short Montana has been hit by a deep winter freeze. Despite the fact that it is too cold to enjoy many things outdoors, the sun is shining brightly into my kitchen window and I am enjoying looking out and over the house behind us into the Sapphire Mountains looming nearby. I converted my old blog to the new Blogger platform yesterday, changing the layout in the process. during the conversion I was looking at some statistics and saw just how sharply the number of posts I make has dropped off, from almost daily to not even monthly anymore...so I'll add that to my list of resolutions for the new year...that I will once again start posting regularly. I thought I'd start by posting some of the highlights of my crazy 2006: In 2006 I got almost 35 days of snowboarding in, including my first out of bounds experience. I enjoyed another seaso