Thursday, April 30, 2009

Why Blogging is Evil

I'm going to try to embed a hilarious video of Patton Oswalt arguing why blogging is the root of all evil. I've never embedded a video before. This is so exciting, getting to embed. It's - dare I say - hot.

My favorite part is with the commentors at the end. What do you think?

(10 minutes passes...)

Damn it, it didn't work. I have to use a hyperlink.

Click here to see it.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Music Lesson

My wife works on Monday and Wednesday, and I get the kids ready to go to daycare and get on the school bus. A Pink Floyd mix CD played in my car on the way to daycare. I love Pink Floyd, they're my all-time favorite band.

"The Happiest Days of our Lives" was the first song. It starts with the sound of a helicopter, and then a teacher's voice yells, "You! Yes, you! Stand still, laddie!"

"What's this song about?" my elder son asked.

"It's about a boy who didn't go to a nice school," I explained.

"What was wrong with it?"

"Well, a long time ago, teachers could be mean to kids. They made fun of them sometimes, and could even spank them," I said, hoping he would realize how good he has it. No real problem there, or when the song transitioned into "Another Brink in the Wall- Part II," which, if you are a reclusive ingrate and didn't already know this vital piece of music history, is the "We don't need no education" song.

No problem so far. School isn't fun sometimes. Easy to explain, without going into the depths of the dark sarcasm in the classroom. Plus, both kids love the line "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" Maybe because I say it every time they don't eat their dinner and then ask for a treat, so now they know where that line comes from.

The next song was Young Lust.

"What's this song called?" The Inquisitor asked, striving to understand. I told him "Young Love" because I really didn't want to get into the differences between love and lust.

"What's it about?" was the inevitable follow up.

It's interesting, because "A rock star looking to gang bang a bunch of hot groupies" is both the correct and the incorrect answer. It's correct, because that's what the song is really about; it's incorrect, because the person asking is in first grade.

So I did what any of you would do. I yelled at the car in front of me, to create a diversion.

"Ohhhh," David Gilmore sang, "I need a dirty woman..."

"What did he say?" was the inevitable follow up.

"Come on, turn!"

I think that next time we're going to listen to Chicka-Chicka Boom-Boom.

Don't Quit Your Day Job

No, I'm not frustrated with my progress in finding an agent, I've put it on hold to re-write my manuscript. And I'm comfortable with how the re-write is going. It's slow, but what is coming out is a thousand-percent improvement over the prior drafts.

I've just been really busy with work lately. It's the good kind of busy, though. I'm in sales, so that translates to opportunities with a high probability of closing, several of them. There are also new viable opportunities hitting my pipeline, which makes me feel good about where the economy is headed. It's about f&^%ing time!

My other blog, The Public Query Slushpile, has also been a vortex of free time. I'm not complaining. Really, I'm not! I think it's very cool that it is so successful. I think about the queries and the comments, then the revised queries, and I see how much people are helping each other out and it totally makes me feel all warm inside. Or maybe it's the coffee doing that, who knows.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Travel Story- Part III

Dude, you totally have to start at the beginning. Didn't you read Part II? Click here to read Part I.

By now it was about 12:30 am Pacific Time (3:30 am Eastern Time). I am surprised that we noticed this.

We ended up staying at the bar until 2:00 am Pacific Time (5:00 am Eastern Time). We had many engrossing conversations with the regulars, including a large Mexican gentleman who was the VP of some company and who traveled 265 days a year. He let us know about the wonders of Priceline, and how he was able to stay at 5 star hotels in any city he traveled to for $89 a night. They should fire William Shatner and put this guy in their commercials, he was both enthusiastic and convincing.

There was also an Australian gentleman who worked for Microsoft. He was very nice indeed, and I told him that I did not blame him in any way for sending The Wiggles to our country. He told us the fascinating story of how The Wiggles used to be a cover band called the Cockroaches. Realizing they were not good enough to make a living playing music to adults, and recognizing an under-served youth market, they changed their tune and became overnight sensations. They became the richest entertainers in Australia, out-earning the likes of AC/DC and Nicole Kidman. Whatever. They are still disturbing.

When we left the bar, we were noticeably intoxicated. We were coherent enough to get to our new hotel, however, and we did our best to appear sober as we walked into the magnificent lobby and approached the registration desk. There were two people ready to assist us. Their hair was perfectly groomed. I fished out the business card of the man at the bar who reserved our rooms and handed it to the clerk as I tried to explain our situation. The clerk immediately acknowledged our reservation, and several people got to work finalizing our registration.

At this time, it is important to note that Jeff and I were also traveling with another colleague who was not on the same flight as we were leaving Columbus. His flight was also delayed, and he missed his connection in Phoenix and had to stay the night there. He is unfortunate to have missed out on the Grant Gateway Adventure. Jeff and I considered having him stay there the next night, but we decided against it. While I was getting us checked in, I mentioned that we would have another person that would need an additional room the next night. They asked me his last name. Tassniyom does not just roll off of the tongue when you’re sober, and I had a heck of a time trying to sound it out and spell it for them.

“T-A-S-I…no, wait…T-A-S-S-Y…no wait, that’s not it. Tassniyom. T-A-S-S-N-Y…no…” I was trying my hardest. It was not good enough.

“Why don’t we just reserve it in your name?” the clerk suggested helpfully.

“Good idea,” I had no choice but to agree.

If you are ever in San Francisco, I highly recommend you stay at the Palace at 2 New Montgomery Street. It is elegant, spacious rooms, excellent service, and conveniently located in the heart of downtown. The only odd thing is that the corridors of the hotel all reminded me of that hotel from The Shining, and I kept expecting to see two creepy little girls around every corner.

Somehow Jeff and I both got up on time the next morning and made it to our client’s office. Our colleague made it in mid-morning. We were able to get our system installed, and we even spent a good deal of time going above and beyond the call of duty to help them troubleshoot problems in the wiring of their telephone system. When you own the business, you take an extra amount of pride in your work, and we were all focused on doing the absolute best job we could.

At one point we had to take a cab to a Graybar store for some telephone cables. We went up and down hills in a manner that would make the roller coaster engineers at Cedar Point drool with envy. It is no small miracle that we survived.

That evening we had dinner at Ariolo’s on the Fisherman’s Warf. It was a great seafood dinner. They had seafood stuffed everything. Appetizers, salads, pasta dishes, entrees. When they brought the dessert tray around I was tempted to order a piece of seafood stuffed cheesecake, but they did not have any. They did, however, have the best tiramisu I have ever eaten.

Our flights out were at 4:00 am on Saturday. A little jetlag mixed with very little sleep is an interesting combination that has adverse physical effects on the body. I hope to experience it again.

We arrived at the Oakland Airport and got to the security checkpoint. I forgot to remove my one-quart Ziploc bag with my shaving cream, aftershave, etc. and the Heroes at the TSA had to search my bag. God bless them. They keep us all safe. Someone should make a movie about the Heroes at the TSA. The Trailer could go something like this:

In a world where shaving cream is more dangerous than a razor blade…”

Or

In a world where a small plastic bottle of water can bring air transportation to its knees…”

Thanks to the diligent efforts of the Heroes at the TSA, we are safe. We may be thirsty, our breath might stink, and we guys may have a five-o’clock shadow, but that is the Price of Freedom. It is worth every penny, I tell you.

Jeff and I got in line for breakfast. The workers there moved very slowly, apparently to create the illusion of freshness. It was a delicious egg, ham and cheese croissant with a lukewarm bottle of fruit juice flavored sugar water. At first I was perturbed that my beverage was not chilled, but then I read the label, which said Refrigerate After Opening. They were just following instructions by not refrigerating it before I got to it.

Speaking of following instructions, when we were on the plane coming home, United Airlines played their Safety Video. This is the first thing they said:

Please remove the Safety Card from the seat pocket in front of you.

The kicker is, they never tell you to put the card back!! I checked the seat pocket in front of me. Skymall? Check. Barf bag? Check. Hemispheres, the United Airlines magazine? Check. Safety card? Safety card? Bueller?

Nothing. The card was gone. It seems as though a previous passenger had diligently followed the directions, removed the card, and did not replace it. My personal safety was in jeopardy. I would not know what to do in the event of a water landing. I could have had trouble buckling my seat belt, and I would not have had the advantage of a personal reference card. It was an outrage, which is why I feel the urge to file a class action lawsuit against United Airlines for endangering all of their passengers. They may as well have been handing out toothpaste and shaving cream, they were so reckless in their procedures. What an utter disregard for the lives and security of me and my fellow travelers. I almost needed the barf bag, I was so disgusted.

Luckily we made it back to Columbus safely. I was glad to finally be home, to recuperate until the time came for me to embark on another grand adventure. Next time, someone else will have to book the hotel room, though.

Click here to re-read the entire story from the beginning.

Travel Story- Part II

Dude, you totally have to start at the beginning. Click here to read Part I.

We finished registering and we went up to our rooms, and I am impressed that we were brave enough to step into the elevator.

Have you ever heard the stories of the Chinese immigrants that are smuggled into this country on cargo ships in steel containers? I think the rooms at the Grant Gateway were designed for these people, for they bear a striking resemblance to those steel containers. The immigrants could use them much like a scuba diver uses a pressure chamber, slowly acclimating themselves to the American environment in the familiarity of the confined space in which they arrived.

I have to admire the engineering genius who fit the bed into the room. I think it may have been constructed there, because I cannot see how it could have fit otherwise. There was an old-fashioned heater in the room, consisting of a very hot gas pipe emerging from the wall, half-heartedly concealed by a metal cage. The air conditioning and only form of ventilation was the open window to the fire escape. The room had a bathroom, but I did not stay long enough to absorb its sordid details.

I dropped my bags and quickly escaped back into the hallway, where Jeff was running out of his room. We were hungry, but the sight of the rooms caused a sudden shift in our priorities. We needed a drink first, to ease the shock of the Grant Gateway.

We had passed a small but inviting Cigar Bar on the way up the hill to the Grant Gateway, so we headed in that direction. We scouted for other restaurants or bars in the area, but the Cigar Bar was the most appealing so we went in.

We each ordered a beer, and then asked the bartender if he knew of any other hotels in the area.

“Where are you staying?” he asked.

“The Grant Gateway, right up the hill,” I told him. He was not familiar with it, even though it was only a block away.

“How much are they charging?” he asked out of curiosity. I told him.

“Seventy dollars a night’s a great rate for downtown,” he said.

“It’s a roach motel,” I told him.

“Chinese run?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

I nodded. A look of understanding crossed his face. “Give me a minute,” he said.

We quickly downed our beers and waited for him to come back so we could order more. We were also curious to know if he found another hotel. He let us know that the Omni was right around the corner. It was recently renovated, and the rooms went for $300 a night. He said there were a few more options, so we waited as he made a couple more calls and we drank a couple more beers.

When he returned, he had a disparaging look on his face. He called the Renaissance, and their rooms were $279 a night but they had no vacancies. They had referred him to another hotel, which also had expensive rooms but no vacancies. As we finished another beer, our luck finally kicked in. A gentleman sitting at the other end of the bar was a manager at the Palace Hotel, and elegant historical landmark that was not only nearby, they had vacancies. It is a hotel that has boarded Presidents Bush (41) and Clinton. The very, very nice and helpful man had called the front desk for us and told them to hold two rooms for us at a rate of $169 a night. We were overjoyed. He gave us his business card and said all we needed to do was show it to the receptionist and we would be taken care of.

This was cause for celebration, so we ordered another round. This round of beers also prepared us for the task of retrieving our luggage from the Grant Gateway.

After we finished the beers, we trudged back up the hill, laughing at our initial misfortune [NOTE: If the Grant Gateway served food, it would be followed with Misfortune Cookies]. We tried hard to appear sober as we went inside and went straight up to our rooms. We grabbed our bags and went to the lobby to check out.

The oriental gentleman with the unkempt hair looked surprised to see us.

“We’re checking out,” I told him. “The rooms are not to our satisfaction.”

As he began to process our check-out, he kindly let us know that they would still charge us for the rooms. I kindly let him know that we would dispute those charges.

“You cannot go check into room, then go out drinking and come back and check out,” he said, visibly perturbed. “If you don’t want pay you come right back down and say we no like the room.”

While he may have had a point about the drinking, I was following a different logical path. And given the number of Sudoku puzzles I completed on the plane, I am certain my grasp of logic was dead on.

“We couldn’t do that until we found another place to stay. We went out and found another place to stay, and we came back,” I reasoned. He didn’t get it.

“You can’t go to a restaurant and eat and not pay,” he argued.

“That doesn’t make sense. We didn’t eat anything,” I argued back. I looked at Jeff. He was trying to suppress his laughter, and he was making a very funny face in the process. Of course this made me start to laugh. Until this point I had been holding it together admirably.

“You can’t eat but not pay,” he said sounding like a broken record. He was clearly missing my point.

“Yes, but we did not stay here,” I said. “We left to find another place to stay. We found one, and now we are leaving.” Flawless logic. I didn’t feel the need to argue his point about our drinking, as it was part of our search for another place to stay because the bartender is the one who helped us find a place and the drinking was therefore necessary.

The oriental gentleman with the unkempt hair printed out two receipts and laid them on the counter for us to sign.

“I’m not signing those,” Jeff told him. It was his turn to speak because we used his credit card.

“You have to sign these,” the oriental gentleman with the unkempt hair told him.

“No, I do not,” Jeff reasoned, providing another display of flawless logic. He also worked on several Sudoku puzzles on the plane.

“Yes, you must sign these. We will charge you for the rooms,” the broken record kept playing its lame old tune.

“No,” Jeff said convincingly.

“I will have to ask management,” the broken record finally started a new track.

“You do that,” Jeff encouraged him.

We could see that our victory was at hand, so we picked up our bags and left before the guy went kung-fu on us. We went back down the hill to the Cigar Bar to celebrate with a round of drinks.

Click here to read Part III and the exciting conclusion of this adventure...

Travel Story- Part 1

This is an old story that I dug up to re-post. It's from 2006, waaay before I started this blog. It's fairly long, so I'm going to post it in sections. Oh, and one other thing...this is 100% true.

December 11, 2006 Back from California

Sometimes travel is boring and non-eventful. My most recent business trip did not fall into this category. It started upon arrival at the airport, with the immediate notice of a delay in my flight. No big deal yet, a one-hour delay is not a problem when you are facing a ninety minute layover. Still plenty of time. Until they delayed it again.

United Airlines, whose motto is More Leg Room [NOTE: not available on your flight], was thoughtful enough to automatically book us on another flight, so my colleagues and I were able to relax as we downed a couple beers at an airport bar and ate cheap – wait, scratch that – low-grade airport food. For some reason airport food is never cheap. I’ve only seen one Wendy’s in an airport, and I’m betting they are not more prevalent because of their Dollar Menu. They could not offer a Dollar Menu at an airport, because the other food vendors would probably maul them for upsetting the pricing scheme.

We finally got on board our flight and took off to Denver, where we took part in the Traveler’s Olympics. Our event was the Twenty Gate Sprint. We won!

The connecting flight to San Francisco was smooth. I did some work, which I had intended to do on the first flight but could not because a) there was not room to comfortably open my laptop, and b) we had those beers before we got on board the plane. After about an hour of diligent work I looked at the clock and saw that it was after midnight, which was very de-motivating indeed. I shut off the laptop and returned to my Sudoku puzzle book, which was much easier this flight than on the first leg. I attribute this both to the momentum you get when you solve several puzzles in a row and the metabolism of alcohol.

When we got to San Francisco we were amazed to see that the bags we had checked actually made it through. We took this as a sign that the rest of the trip would be smooth and there would be no further complications. How wrong we were.

We proceeded to the BART terminal to catch a train to the financial district and China Town, where we had hotel rooms reserved. It was 10:00pm Pacific Time, which was 1:00am Eastern Time, so we were understandably eager to get a bite to eat and get to bed.

We got off at Montgomery Street, and it was a short horizontal walk to our hotel. I say horizontal, because it was a long vertical walk. If you are not familiar with downtown San Francisco, it is anything but flat [NOTE: More to come on this exciting topic later].

We did not let the fact that we left our mountain climbing gear at home stop us from attempting to crest the summit of one of the downtown streets. When we got there, we saw the awning for our hotel, the Grant Gateway. It was a welcome sight.

Before I continue, I must shed some light on the background of this hotel and my choice to reserve rooms there. We were going to San Francisco to install our software at a client’s office and train them on how to use it. We had asked for recommendations on nearby hotels, and our client sent an email with websites for 5 or 6 nearby hotels. Because he lives there and does not need to stay in hotels, I cannot fault him for including the Grant Gateway in this list because, to be fair, it was the closest hotel to his office [NOTE: Horizontally speaking. It was at the top of the hill, and his office was at the bottom of the hill. If you count the incline, you need to effectively triple the distance. Especially considering that we were lugging luggage up the hill. Which, if you think about it, lugging is probably what luggage was made for].

As I was booking our travel, I looked at the websites and checked the rates for the hotels Peter recommended. The first was $300 a night. The second offered a distinctive price break at $279 a night. The third was right between the first two. The Grant Gateway as $70 a night. It was a great deal, featuring free wireless Internet, and the pictures of the lobby and the rooms looked quite elegant indeed. They were obviously taken at a different hotel.

When we crossed the threshold into the lobby, we began to sense that something was wrong. We went to the front desk to check in, and the oriental gentleman with the unkempt hair looked as though he was expecting us. I suspect we were the first fools to book rooms at that establishment in months.

There were a number of warning signs that should have inspired us to run away right then and there, but we were tired and hopeful [NOTE: And ignorant, which I’m adding as a note because I’m embarrassed and I doubt you’ll actually read these]. These warning signs included:

• The open door to the manager’s office, were a dilapidated bay of old bus-station lockers with a sign that said “Safe Deposit Box” stood in plain view
• The sign on the front desk that said Please Keep Your Baggage With You At All Times
• The other sign on the front desk that said No Visitors To Your Room Allowed After 11:00 pm
• The oriental gentleman with the unkempt hair behind the front desk
• The ice machine in the lobby, with a stack of dirty plastic buckets next to it and no plastic liners
• They had no toothpaste. I did not have a tube small enough to get through security at the airport (yes, you read that correctly) and when I asked for some the oriental gentleman with the unkempt hair looked at me as if I had just asked him to single-handedly tear down the Great Wall
• The rats [NOTE: We didn’t actually see the rats, but I am certain they were there.]

Click here to read Part II...

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Question from a 4 year old...

Daddy, if someone was parachuting from the sky, would they be hungry?

#

Still on the Run

In case you were wondering - and you all spend vast chunks of every day wondering about me, I'm sure - I am back on schedule for my half-marathon training.

Last Saturday, after I froze my ass off coaching my son's soccer game, my wife and I went for a long run. According to her, we talked about scaling it down, maybe just doing 8. My recollection was that we would go 10.

So we bundled up and got to running. Of course, by the time we started it was warmer out so I got really hot right away and had to peel away the layers. Still, I was not coughing and my legs felt pretty good. I think I got way high off of endorphins, because about 4 miles into it I thought about extending it to 12 miles. That's really what the training schedule said we should be doing, and I missed the long run the week before. Plus, we were going halfway and turning around, so that put the target at 6 miles, not really 12. Very achievable.

I was way ahead of my wife due to the fact that I am 6'1" and she is 5'2" (despite her steadfast claims she is really 5'3"...but than again, she always lies about her age, so can we really trust her on her height?). I looked down at my Garmin GPS watch.

"Kirk to Enterprise. Give me a bearing, Sulu," I commanded.

Just kidding. I'm not that big of a geek. Well, maybe I am, but still I didn't actually say that. I just saw that I hit 5 miles, so it was time to turn around and go back, so I kept going for another half mile before I turned around.

I was at about 5.75 miles when I met up with my wife. She knew I went past the 5 mile mark and she was P-I-S-S-S-S-E-D. But really, she only went a quarter-mile past, and that's not too far. She failed to appreciate this logic.

I was doing great until about 8 miles in, and after that the final 3 were the epitome of pain. I kept looking at my Garmin GPS watch.

"Scotty, beam me the f&^% out of here!"

Again, I just thought that up now and didn't really say it while I was running, but if I would have said it, I would have meant every word. Especially f&^%.

Once we got home, I fixed dinner. After we ate, our neighbor's kids came over for a sleepover (our neighbors were going to their friends 40th b-day party, and now they owe us a night of babysitting. Yay!). By the time we got the kids to bed, it was time to hide Easter baskets. All said and done, after we ran 11 miles we didn't get to sit down until about 1am, at which point we bypassed sitting and just collapsed into bed.

But wait, there's more!

The kids woke up at 6:45am Sunday morning and tried their damnedest to make as much noise as possible while they searched for their Easter baskets. They are really good at making noise. They should go pro. I realized that I wouldn't fall back asleep and crawled out of bed around 7:45am, downed some ibuprofen, and started an all day cooking marathon, the highlight of which was grilled pizzas - but that's another story...

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Short Story: Hell Yeah, It's Real!

Scott Bailey posted a short story on his blog, and I told him I would post one in return.

This is very short, but I like it. I submitted it for a contest, I think it was in Writer's Digest. The premise was "A couple quickly finds themselves in reality TV Hell" and this is what my twisted mind came up with...

Hell Yeah, It’s Real!
By Richard Daley

I died about three years ago, I think. I’m not really sure. I stopped counting after my first day in heaven. It’s pretty nice up here, and it can distract you from the memories of life on earth. There are still some things in heaven that make you think about earth. Things that really fuel your nostalgia, like a cool fall breeze feeding the flames of a campfire.

There are trees, lakes, mountains, and beaches. They are communal comfort items. It seems like each person who dies brings what they liked best on earth to heaven, so with each new soul, heaven gets a new gift to share with its occupants. We don’t have to use all the comfort items, though, and that’s a good thing because last week some lady’s contribution was a smelly old blanket she has as a kid. Once it was made available as a comfort item, all of heaven smelled like moth balls for a split second.

My contribution was something better than that. There is only one thing on earth that I could not live without: reality TV. I watched everything. Dancing. Singing. Comics. Dating. Assholes living together. Everything. I even counted professional wrestling as reality TV and watched that, too.

I may have a biased opinion, but I think reality TV made heaven better. Heaven feels earthier than ever before. It’s funny if you think about it. When we were alive we wanted to make heaven on earth, now we’re trying to make earth in heaven. At least the bad stuff is filtered out. All the bad stuff is safely tucked away in hell.

Hell. What a peculiar place. I’m really glad I didn’t go there. The souls in hell are like the afterlife’s version of rednecks. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all rednecks go to hell. Heck, I was a redneck. I did choose reality TV as my comfort item, remember? It’s just that the people in hell, they’re just so backwards. That’s why I chose them to be the subject of heaven’s first reality TV show, Hell Yeah, It’s Real!

My favorite episode was this husband and wife that didn’t know they died. I can’t even imagine how messed up their lives were that they didn’t even notice they were in hell, but I swear to you they didn’t. It was hilarious. She kept saying, “I’ll hate you as long as I live,” and the husband kept yelling, “One of these days I’ll kill you!” Everyone in heaven that was watching would laugh and laugh, because they were both already dead! Life is really good in heaven, it doesn’t take much to amuse us.

That couple was on again recently, and they were in top form. He was trying to get dressed because he was late to leave for the airport, and she was trying to get him to fix the car first. He kept yelling at her to forget about the car and help him find his tie. In the end, he found his tie and got dressed, and then realized that since the car was broken he couldn’t get to the airport anyways, and then the sparks really started flying! Then, like Groundhog Day, they went to bed and the same thing happened the next day. And the next...

We don’t feel bad watching people in hell. On earth, even I would feel guilty sometimes, like I was violating someone’s personal space. Not that that stopped me, but at least the guilty feeling helped me get into heaven. But for the people on Hell Yeah, It’s Real! it’s different. None of us feels bad for watching them. They deserve to be stuck on reality TV. After all, they are in hell…

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Dude, are you ever gonna post again?

Q: Dude, are you ever gonna post again?
A: Back off. I read the freaking title. Yes.

Q: When?
A: By the time you read this, I will have already posted.

Q: That's deep.
A: That wasn't a question. But yes, you're right. That was very deep. I suppose I inherited some time travel powers from my son.

Q: How can you inherit something from your children?
A: With time travel, anything is possible.

Q: How was your run this weekend?
A: Funny you should ask. The kids got me sick, and I wussed out.

Q: Really?
A: Really. I didn't totally wuss out for no reason. I mean, I Googled it first. And Google's response to "running when you are sick" was that if it is above the neck, go for it, below the neck don't push it. I have a head cold that worked its way into my chest, so I decided running 11 miles was not in my best interest. My wife did complete her run though. She kicks ass.

Q: What about the rest of the week's running schedule?
A: I'm in Chicago on business, and I may wake up and hit the treadmill at the hotel in the morning. That seems like a great idea right now, but at 6am I shall reserve the right to hold a contrary opinion on the matter...

Q: So I guess that's all for now?
A: True dat yo.