a year ago, i had just ordered a brand new volleyball. perhaps this is as good as a day to mark the beginnings of the new me. i never really thought about how different i’ve become until i had some recent conversations with a couple of people.

a year ago i went biking with jimmy, josh, warren, and nelson, i think. i thought that i was going to die. i was borrowing jimmy’s uber nice bike and still i was having so much trouble i thought for sure that i would die. surely.

a year ago my interest in volleyball was just beginning, but i didn’t have much of an interest to play more than one night a week.

a year ago the thought of exercising was ludicrous.

a year ago the thought of waking up at 5:30AM to get to work was unimaginable.

so much has changed since a year ago.

how did we get here from there?

i went biking with [url=http://jimmy.ocliw.com]jimmy[/url] and nelson yesterday at fremont older. no pictures, though. i didn’t feel like bringing my camera with me, especially after i was told that this trail was harder than quicksilver…and quicksilver nearly killed me.

i actually thought that this trail wasn’t as bad as quicksilver, though. there were a few rough parts, but overall, i thought it was pretty cool. we biked along these rolling hills and then got to a single track part of the trail. that was pretty cool. i think that i do enjoy the single track tails more.

i am proud to say that i didn’t have to walk up any of the hills, though there was one where i was definitely tempted to get off my bike and walk up. after this ride, i think that i will definitely consider getting myself a new stem for my bike. i want to change my riding posture so it isn’t as relaxed as it is now and to be able to take hills a little bit more aggressively when going up them.

we ended up biking through rolling hills, under the shade of trees deep within the parks winding trails. the tail end of the trail brought us to a winery/farm. this was the same ranch that jen and i went horseback riding many a year ago. after we walked out bikes through the ranch, we came upon a road where we started to go downhill in speeds excess of 30 miles per hour. the maximum speed i biked at was 32.5 miles…the fastest i’ve ever gone yet. pretty crazy.

but this trail was fun and i’m actually looking forward to my next biking trip. biking by myself is a vastly different experience than biking with others and i think that i really do enjoy biking with other people. it’s a lot of fun. i’m still scouting out other locations. maybe i’ll go on another biking trip today. no volleyball this week, so i’ll have to find my exercise somewhere else, i suppose.

i was talking to a friend over the weekend and i was telling them about how i’m playing volleyball and biking and waking up early to go to work by 7 and they were shocked. they said they didn’t know who i was anymore, because the man i was a year ago was the complete opposite of all of these things. so true. so true. what in the world has happened?

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i’ve always been pretty bad about packing. a few years ago i used to overpack. completely overpack everything that i owned whenever i went anywhere. my mom always said that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

i remember my first ski trip, i brought a huge suitcase for a weekend long trip. compared to everyone else my suitcase was about twice as big as everyone else’s. i didn’t understand how people could get by. i brought extra changes of clothes, extra socks, extra everything.

over the years, i’ve gotten lazier and lazier and i wouldn’t finish packing until the last moment. i would just throw whatever was closeby to me into the suitcase and i’d go. i stil haven’t finished packing for the LA trip, but i already suspect that i’ll forget a bunch of things. i think the only thing that i really need is my suit, my camera, and my wallet.

my cousin told me once that all he really ever needed whenever he travelled was the clothes on his back and a wallet. everything else is just a creature comfort.

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friday, finally. this week has dragged on since thanh left for LA to prepare for her wedding. the work days have been ok, i’ve been trying to get as much done as quickly as possible because of the looming deadlines. i had two software launches this week and today is supposed to be the day that i relish in the glory that has come to fruition from all of the labors of the week.

instead, it feels like any other day.

in celebration of friday, i decided that i was going to wear one of my hawaiian shirts. i’m not sure why no one else i know has hawaiian shirts, but i think it should be my duty to start getting them for my friends. ah, yes, that should have been one of my new year’s resolutions: force bad fashion on my friends.

the day that i decide to wear a hawaiian shirt, it rains. of course. the morning commute to work was pretty brutal. there were two major accidents along the way making the drive unbearably long. my only consolation is that that is going to seem like nothing compared to the 6+ hour drive i have coming up later this evening as shirley, charles, amy, and i head down to thanh’s wedding.

i haven’t completely packed yet, but i figure that i’ll do that when i get home. i’m planning to go home a little early today. it’s been a long week and i’ve quite drained. the only ray of sunshine i’ve had today is that i stumbled across a stash of dubble bubble gum. man, i love that stuff.

one of the things my mom taught me early on was that it is always best to avoid conflict whenever possible. my mom is such a pacifist that she takes it to an extreme even to her own detriment. it does make me wonder, though, if avoidance is the key to safety. if you never put yourself in a situation where you may get into conflict, haven’t you saved yourself from the misery of that conflict?

how far do you go to avoid these sticky situations? sometimes i wonder.

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last sunday i got the pleasure of upref’ing my very first vball game. the league i play in is pretty loose so i didn’t really do much in terms of calling stuff, but it was kind of fun. i don’t know if it is something that i would like to do a lot…too many things to watch. at first i wasn’t even counting the number of touches and so that was kind of bad…luckily there was nothing horribly bad done. i wonder if i should get a volleyball whistle, though.

the funny thing is that my ears were ringing at the end of the night because of all of the whistle blowing.

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i don’t know what it is about today, but i have no desire to be at work anymore. i think part of it must stem from the fact that i have to work later tonight. there’s a launch to be scheduled and so i have to go and do stuff later this evening. it sucks because it kills my evening plans and i have no idea what to do about dinner.

i was thinking about making dinner tonight, but now that i have to work in the evening, it sort of takes time away from that. i wonder if i can find a quick recipe for something good. hmmmmm. what would i like to eat? it’s sort of hard to make dinner for one…i always end up making too much food and then i won’t be able to finish it off.

but anyhow, any motivation i have to do anything is pretty much gone right now. i’m not sure what it is. i’m not looking forward to doing anything else, either. i just want to not do anything. maybe part of the problem is that the things i have left to do just aren’t particularly fun. maybe that’s what it is. oh well, i should stop complaining now and just get it over with.

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after work yesterday i decided to go on a little bike ride. my body was finally recovering from the overdoes of volleyball over the weekend and so i had a little energy in me to go bike. i didn’t really have much of a route set, so i headed out into the great world.

one of the things that i really enjoy about biking is this sense of freedom i get when i do go biking. free to go where i want, even if i don’t know where that is. forge my own path and go where my whim takes me.

it was a short ride, about 9 miles yesterday averagig 10.9 miles per hour. long enough to work up a sweat, short enough to give me plenty of time to make dinner.

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i got a couple of bike hooks the other day and i finally got around to mounting them in the rafters of the garage so that i can hang my bike upside down. it looks like the hooks are going to stay in place and support the weight of the bike and lifting the bike over my head and hanging it in the garage wasn’t as hard as i thought it was.

this has lead me to believe that i have either gotten really buff overnight or that the bike is actually not as heavy as i had originally thought it was. as much as i would like to believe it is the former, i’m fairly certain it’s the latter.

now the big question is whether or not a car can park under it. it was too dark to take a picture last night, i guess i’ll do that today when i get home.

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as far as i can tell, this was the setlist for the dido concert on saturday:

stoned
here with me
see you when you’re 40
life for rent
hunter
isobel
my life
honestly ok
don’t leave home
who makes you feel
take my hand
mary’s in india
thank you
sand in my shoes
white flag

encore
do you have a little time
all you want
see the sun

mmmmm, good concert.

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