ibanez, running, photograys in no particular order

The doofus glasses are here. I have to say its kind of nice, despite their *extreme* dork factor, to have photograys rather than to screw with contacts on the days my eyes feel somewhat gummy. There's not so much humidity out here, so unless I'm really trying to see how hard I can sweat exercising, sliding glasses aren't the problem they've been in other places that I've lived (sweat evaporates rather quickly in the dry (its not arid, but definitely dry) Sacramento clime. So I'm not sure that wearing glasses while running or cycling here is that big of an issue (since I no longer triathlon the swim part... not an issue).

Anyway, the only real reason to wear contacts, anyway, is vanity. It has been nice - since I picked them up yesterday - to not have to carry a pair of sunglasses *and* readers with me when I go out. The acid test was this morning after breakfast ... we took Mr. Dog with us to Cornerstone (ate at an outside table), and then after we hit the farmer's market under the Business 80 freeway, we went over to the dog park at 28th and C by Sutter's Landing. The park is sited on top of the former landfill and they put in crushed granite - sort of an offwhite - as the material for the dog park grounds (it drains well and doesn't have the dust issues that bare dirt would have around here). Anyway, since it is now almost summer here, everything is rapidly turning brown (even though we had a long Spring in terms of rainy days... this is the first year of near normal precip since I moved here in April '07. Folsom Lake is actually almost full and there's still lots of snow on the Sierras (and they were out today) even though its almost June), so the glare sun at the dog park, even though it was barely 10 in the morning, was pretty bad. The photograys performed flawlessly.

But I still feel like a dork. After dog park, we ran up to Roseville and picked up some framing The Blonde had done at Joanne's (pictures from Mom's house that I 'gave' to her - in other words, pictures that she liked that I'm sure Mom would have liked her to have had), and while was in that store, I walked down to The Guitar Center a few doors down and played with some of the shredding guitars they had out with a more powerful version of the Vox modeling amp I have (the 50 watt vs. the 30 watt version).

And I'm still sticking to my story that Ibanez, $ for $, makes the best electric guitar value in the world. I tried a Schecter (a US custom shop that eventually ended up as a front for guitars manufactured in Asia) and while it was OK, it was blown away by a cheaper Ibanez with the Floyd Rose style locking nut/tremelo setup that I tried a few minutes later. I just love Ibanez necks and their guitar setups in general.  Why pay 1000s for a Gibson, or Fender reproduction of a guitar design from the 1950s/60s when you can get a higher quality Ibanez for much, much less ($2500 or more for an ES-335, you can get the same guitar for < $1000 from Ibanez, and it is of higher quality and plays better).

I'm not paid, BTW, to pimp for Ibanez. I simply love their products.

(but hey, if Ibanez *wants* to pay me to pimp their products, I'd be happy to receive an offer I can't refuse).

And we watched Run, Fat Boy, Run tonight. Cute movie, very British in its sense of humor (despite its American Director). But I don't think anyone could train for a marathon in 3 weeks.  I spent summer and fall 2007 training for the '07 California International Marathon, and it was *hard*... I hit the infamous wall right before Watt Avenue on Fair Oaks. God, my feet *hurt* in new and interesting ways. The legs were more or less fine the entire run, but if your feet hurt, they *hurt*.

I keep toying with the idea of running another marathon. Notice I said "toying"...