Peachtree Road Race

It's only 5 days away now. It'll actually "count" as part of my marathon training...I'm supposed to do 4/8/4/cross/weights/16 next week, so I'll probably do it as a 4, then take off 2.2 of the 8 miles. I just hope I'm not too sore after my 15 miler on Saturday.

Today was an easy 4 miler. One of those that I didn't have much hope for but ended up being a good run. Thank god for A/C at the PCAC though!

No storms of note...just some waves but they're all getting destroyed by wind shear. That should die down as we move into July.

Depression, where are you?

The forecasters have informed us that at any time today, Tropical Depression 2 or even Beryl could form near Cape Fear, North Carolina. No word yet, but I'll "break in" if anything happens. This could be bad for DC b/c they really don't need any more rain.

Wimbledon kind of started yesterday, but today was the first full day of play, thanks to heavy rains in the area. I guess they'll play until darkness, which is about 4:20 PM EDT (9:22 GMT to be exact). I watched before work & while working out (just weights & cross-training today).

Only 2 months until football season! I'm on a bit of a Better Than Ezra & Jude kick now. The Bittersweet One made me a CD with songs such as Southern Thing, Desparately Wanting & Brad & Suzie on it. It reminds me of football season, Athens & Katrina b/c I got the CD in early September 2005. Good times.

Water Restrictions change again...

Well, the Total Outdoor watering ban didn't have much of an effect as a result of rain all night Saturday and all day Sunday. I'm talking about buckets...to the point that streams flooded & trees fell over. Therefore I would not have been watering on Sunday anyway. I can water tomorrow morning if need be, but something tells me the grass won't need it, except possibly the patch around the huge Pecan tree.

In addition, the tropics are fairly quiet. The wind shear is just too high, but that is "normal" for this time of year (as opposed to last year, when nothing about hurricane season was "normal" or even followed the laws of meterology sometimes). There is one system right off of Florida that may emerge back over water & then form TD-2 off the Coast of Carolina. We'll see.

Finally, UNC plays tonight in the final game of the College World Series against Oregon State in Omaha. I never thought I'd say this, but "Go Heels!".

NEW WATER RESTRICTIONS FOR CITY OF ATLANTA

Effective immediately, NO WATERING...yikes!

Click here.

Too Hot to Ride Dirty

1) The IOC has narrowed down the field to 3 candidates for the 2014 Winter Games: Frontrunner Salzburg, Austria (near Germany), Sochi, Russia (near Georgia (not this one!) & Ukraine) & PyeongChange, Korea (would be 1st for Asia). More here. No Olympics for GA, Spain, Kazakstan, or Bulgaria.

2) I went to my 1st Braves game of the season last night to see "Our Atlanta Braves" fall to the Toronto Blue Jays. Highlight of the night? Oh! Canada (b/c we were playing the one & only MLB Canadian team).

3) The storm predicted (TD-2) for SC/GA this weekend looks no longer thanks to wind shear...too bad b/c we could've used the rain & no one is scared of a Depression.

4) The Americans were ousted in the 1st round of the World Cup thanks to Ghana. Now, I've said this before, but every child in America plays soccer & we can't field a team of good guys?

5) It's HOT here...97 currently & feels like 98. Temps should get to maybe 102 today w/a heat index of 110...yikes. Oh yeah, it still hasn't rained!

6) Last but not least, after the World Cup, bowling came on sponsored by Denny's & Motel 6. Isn't it funny how bowling gets those sponsors & Mercedes is reserved for the likes of tennis & golf?

7) Last, a great article in the AJC about Atlanta: The City Too Busy to Win Any Titles.

NEW WATER RESTRICTIONS FOR GEORGIA

Looks like no watering for me between 10 AM & 4 PM...still have the Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday schedule though. So it won't really affect me (b/c of work) except for Sundays when I'm home.

Click.

First Day of Summer

1) The Weather Channel has been reporting like crazy the 1st day of summer, w/Mike Bettes in Barnstable Co., Mass, Jorma Duran in Mackinac (pronounced Mak-e-naw) Island, & Mike Seidel in Death Valley, CA (where the temp at 4 am was 93!).

2) Speaking of hot, it's going to be in the high 90's here...this would be the first time (if it hits 97) that it's been this hot since 2002. I guess that's what happens when you get no rain for over a month!

3) Word on the street is that TD-2 could form off the N. Fl, SC, or GA coast on Friday or Saturday. If it does happen though, chances aren't likely that it'll turn into Beryl.

4) Stupid slogan of the day..."It's betta in Marietta" (pronounced May-retta).

Olympics/Peachtree, etc.

Since I didn't post much earlier...

July is going to be the Olympic Month in Atlanta. It was 10 years ago July 19 that the Olympics started...I'm excited b/c the Olympics museum is opening on July 15. Don't you worry that I'll be the 1st one there! 10 years ago I was about to be a high school senior & I was watching at home from Austin, TX...I've never been in the same time zone as an Olympics.

Also, Peachtree is coming up quickly...I'm SO excited...especially having a sub-seeded #....I don't have to sift through the Dunwoody moms to get a good spot!

All quiet...

The tropics look especially quiet. Apparently there may be 1 more named storm in June, but maybe not. On average, there is 1 storm named in June every other year. Last year there were 2 & we've already had Alberto.

Atlanta is drying up quickly. The local jurisdictions are imposing their own restrictions....for instance there is a daytime ban in place for N. Fulton & City of Roswell. The only problem is that the bans seem to change each day. City of Atlanta is under a voluntary ban, but I'm still watering on Sundays, Tuesdays & Thursdays under the original statewide guidelines...no penalties means I'm not going to pay attention. If there is mandatory guidelines however, I will comply.

Alberto still

We got up this morning only to be looking at pictures of Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh, where we stayed last weekend for the wedding. In fact, the exact gas station where we fueled up had 4 feet of water in it yesterday, & they were rescuing cars from the Crabtree Valley Mall parking lot. Pictures here.

A Yankee (Massachusetts) driver tried to run me over in a crosswalk on Peachtree just now. Don't they know that down here, we let pedestrians cross, especially when we have the WALK sign???

I found this cool running tool today. It's a route maker, where you can either make a route or use other people's routes to break up the running monotony. Speaking of which, I only had 3 miles to do today, but I have 13 this weekend in the heat. Yikes.

Remnants of Alberto

So the most overhyped Tropical Storm in history (seeing that Allison was probably the most covered) is now just a Depression sitting somewhere close to Raleigh, North Carolina. Stephanie Abrams (who I've seen at Padriacs one night) was covering the storm this morning from Atlantic Beach, NC. Generally Alberto proved to be beneficial b/c it brought much needed rainfall to central Florida & no real damage.

Other than that nothing new is brewing out there...no Beryl to speak of as of yet.

Tropical Storm Alberto/Ridin' Dirty

1) Tropical Storm Alberto: The storm made landfall at 12:30 today in Taylor County, Florida, near Adams Beach. The max winds were 70 mph. It's now still a T.S. 55 miles due east of Tallahassee...a good & uneventful first storm of the season. Is it just me though or does it seem ridiculous that The Weather Channel is in alert mode? What will they do for a Cat 5?

2) Ridin' Dirty: This is my new favorite song & the theme of the Virginia Beach wedding. It's by Chamillionaire, a Dirty South rapper from Houston/Aldine (i.e. the ghetto).

3) Is it bad to think that it's kind of funny that J.J. Reddick got a DUI? I hate Duke.

4) Check out this website: Anonymous Law Firm. Very funny, TBS-style.

Lots of stuff

1) The City of Atlanta, along with South Fulton County & Forsyth County has just declared it illegal to wash cars and water our lawns....looks like a lot of hand-watering for me! I hope this doesn't last long...we could have used the rain from Alberto.

2) Speaking of Alberto, it is forecast to turn into a Hurricane at any second, & is forecast to strike the bend of Florida (~ Cedar Key/Levy County) sometime tomorrow afternoon as a Cat 1 or Cat 2. Click here for the latest advisories. Updates as warranted.

3) Finally, it's World Cup time & the US was down 2-nil to Czech Republic last time I saw. How come we have so many kids loving to play soccer but we can't field a decent national team (& if we do it's considered a "fluke")?

I Hate I-95/New Orleans: Proud to Swim Home

As to the 2nd part of that, it's a bumper sticker I saw on I-95 southbound today...very clever.

As to the 1st part, traffic was miserable all the way from the N Glebe Road exit on I-395 to about Ashland and even beyond. You know it's bad when at noon on the radio they are talking about rush hour starting! It's different than Atlanta though b/c on I-95 the traffic starts & stos randomly & people are bumper to bumper. In Atlanta people are just bumper to bumper at a stop the whole time.

Also, check out the Palm Beach Storm Blog (in the links on the left)...TD-1 looks somewhat imminent...forecast (very roughly) to hit somewhere between Tampa & New Orleans sometime early next week. Yikes!

Virginia and the start of Hurricane Season

So far no tropical storms or even depressions have formed. If you'd like to keep up, go to NOAA's National Hurricane Center website. I will also add a link to the left. This was probably the most hyped start of hurricane season I've ever seen, even though the actual day means nothing & the season doesn't "officially" start until TD-1 &/or Tropical Storm Alberto forms.

The Virginia Beach wedding was lots of fun...way too much food & way too many drinks, both of which I'm still recovering from. There was "that groomsman" that got way to wasted at the rehearsal & was mentioned in almost every single toast at the Wedding morning brunch and the wedding reception itself. Also, if for some reason we ever live in Virginia Beach, I'm moving to Bay Colony. It's a little slice of Richmond in the City of Virginia Beach (23451). Although, I don't actually think I would like to live in VB b/c it's flood-prone in hurricanes, it hardly snows there & the economy is too heavily based in the military.

Today I did my 12 mile run all through Richmond which took me just about 2 hours. I did the entire length of Monument, from J.E.B. Stuart to Horsepen, went down Three Chopt, over on Grove to the "Center of the Universe" (Libbie & Grove Avenues), up to Patterson, down Leonard Parkway (the Peachtree Hills of Richmond) & then back down Monument.