You are nurturing, kind, and lucky.
Like mother nature, you want to help everyone.
You are good at keeping secrets and tend to be secretive.

A seeker of harmony, you are a natural peacemaker. You are good natured and people enjoy your company.
You put people at ease and make them feel at home with you.


Editor's note: "Nurturing"..."mother nature"? What's that about?
What do you think? What's your World's Shortest Personality Test profile? Are they accurate? Please share...

GrX Hoops Draft Night

Tomorrow night is GRX Comp League Draft Night. Now where is my stat sheet of all the players I scouted. Oh how I compare thee: the last time I did something like this, we had about 12 people in a room drafting...for Fantasy Football. We ordered pizza and by the end of the night I was exhausted.

This time there will be five of us (Mark, Euge, Nick, Wils, and myself) while Chris will teleconference (via his cellphone loudspeaker..haha) during the draft. The draft order is as follows: Wilson, myself, Chris, Mark, Eugene, Nick. The first two rounds are to draft in order 1-6 and will serpentine in rounds 3-9. Bare in mind Nick's team won the Spring league and Eugene's team came in third place. I hope my draft will be somewhat successful GOSH!!! I am pretty excited though. Are you NOT excited?!?

51:18. Not bad, not bad. I could have pushed it but I wanted to save my reserve for the last mile, which was a good thing. The funny thing was I fell into this pace with this girl and her boyfriend for the last half of the loop (last 3 miles), beginning at Crissy Field Beach. We definitely drafted each other. For the last mile I decided to take off. At the last quarter mile or so, they chased me and passed me across the finish line. Classic group run push and pull. It felt great.

Editor's Updated Note: My 10K Santa Cruz race time was 55:52. So I was able to shave 4:34 off on this run.

The weather in SF was perfect (in retrospect) for running, a little chilly and misty from the fog, mixed with the ocean breeze. In all there were thirteen of us who showed up for the run. One girl from our group placed second overall for her category, with a blistering 7.21 minute mile, crossing the finish line at 46 minutes or so. Nuts man nuts.

Reading Kat's blog regarding why we run kinda reminds me of that line in Batman Begins: "Why do we fall, sir? So that we might better learn to pick ourselves up." Why do we run? So we can run better/faster next time around.

When I was in college, I used to walk to my classes down what was appropriately called "Bruin Walk." Mass and mass of students throughtout the day would file through this path on the way to their respective classes.

On the way down Bruin Walk from Dysktra Hall (a dorm) you would pass the tennis court, the Cosby Track & Field, the gym, the Athletic Director's building — among various other buildings, notably Ackerman Hall. I remembered wondering as I strolled by what is the Athletic Director Building. The building is non-descript with dark windows. However once inside you have entered a mini Hall of Fame building, what with all the John Wooden quotes as well as quotes of pass fabled-athletes.

• User Interface (information flow, user interaction)
• Layout (grid system, columns, navigation structures, accessibility)
• Graphic (visual, color, brandings)
• Typography (types/fonts, style rules)

DTR (Or when is it appropriate to Define The Relationship)

Thursday: Our wonderful Knot2Us small group facilitators unveiled a strategy to tip the unbalanced "singles" scale at GrX by having an all important orange color-coded bonfire night at Pacifica State beach. The location was chosen in order to minimize flirting as it's very difficult to figure out who's who in complete darkness...except for the randomn flickering fire...which in a way could be romantic — but I digress.

We discussed among many important topics such as: Do girls prefer an expensive diamond ring or a down payment for a condo/townhouse/house. The girls offered their insights: Why not an AND. Why does it have to be OR? They were joking, of course. Other important topics were: "How should women say 'No' when they're not interested." That is "How does a guy know his chance with a girl is one in a hundred or one in a million?" Progress was slow but we'll have an update on the "singles" scale with perhaps another round of discussion, where we'll try to answer more than three of the twenty prepared questions...in two hours.

So GrX Falls Hoop season is quickly approaching. As a newly minted captain I've got to start "scouting" for players during these open gym nights. Problem is I don't know 80% of the guys playing and the guys I do know are heavily being headhunted, sort of.

Take Andy Fitz for example. He's a monster. After last season he's like honey and we [captains] are a bunch of bees...buzzing about him. I'm sure he'll go pretty high up on the draft list, if not the #1 pick for most captains. He's 6'5" with grand handling skills. To top it off he's a pastor so naturally during fellowship he's a great asset to have as he'll close us in prayers.

Weekend Recap: Played Grx Hoops with Eugene, Dai, and Will. A bit overcrowded or a great turnout depending on how one views it.

Overheard On The Court

Will: "This is a high school court?"
Eugene: "That guy reminded me of me when I was tall and lanky." (Mumbling to myself: "He even looks like Eugene.")

Walking Towards Our Cars Afterward

Will: "What are those..?"
Eugene, Dai, Me: "Locker rooms mayynnnnn."
Eugene: "They go in the locker."

I'm not a believer of taking baby steps. I'd guess it depends on the situation but in general I'm more of a trial-by-fire type of guy. But lately it feels like I might be overextending just a bit — becoming core, taking leadership training classes, heading off to the mid-west for a conference, and training for my first marathon. Oh yeah...bring it!

'Cos you never know where you're gonna get (or end up). I started out fine on my long run and ended up quite lost. Somewhere on Stevens Creek Trail I ended up a couple of blocks away from Kat's house. At least I got to know the neighborhood (actually Middlefield and Moffett) quite well...did you know there was a 7-11 on Middlefield and Whisman. Bet you didn't!

What made it goofier was that when I got back to Kat's place (both Sharline and Kat were doing 8 mile runs) they were waiting for me since I had Kat's apartment key. I think Kat was about to file a missing person's report when she saw me came in, "We thought you got lost."

No that's not some girl. The Dish is a 3.7 mile loop west of Stanford. You get there (Junipero Serra Blvd & Stanford Ave) and the first thing you see is the haystack arts and then the hill. After you "run" up that hill you get nice views of the Bay. Other nice loops: UCLA outerloop; Shoreline loop; Lake Merced loop; Golden Gate loop (12th & Anza through the buffalo field pass the windwill out to Pacific Hwy back); Marina Green up Fort Mason to Ferry Building loop back; Monkey Bar in Marina Green through Chrissy field touch Hopper's Hand at Fort Point loop back. I have to say though that first hill at The Dish beats them all.

Summer Feastings

Maybe I'm getting older but I can't digest food as well anymore. Went to Castro with Derek last night for Mongolian bbq. For the next two hours that food just sat in my stomache. Afterward we stopped at Books Inc. and I browsed through a couple of books, even read a couple chapters of Better Off. The whole time I had to walk around the bookstore — passing the psychology, religion, children's book, non-fiction, fiction, sci-fi, the magazine racks, and then back to psychology. I was doing my old loops...around the bookstore.

Week 1: I am paying for    ~ 3.5    Big Macs (576 cal/serving)

Steve Buscemi is awesome. He's ugly cosmetically challenged which gives all of us hope we can one day be actors...including me. But of course he can act and I can't. So nevermind.

Last night I watched on Comedy Central one of my favorite Coen Bros. film — Big Lebowski. Walter, the Dude, Jesus (pronounced Hayseus),...and of course Steve Buscemi's character Donny where he's the typical third wheel relegated to jumping into mid conversations. Hilarious!

Fargo by far is my favorite Steve Buscemi film. (also from the Coen Bros.)

12 weeks though is the ideal time frame to train for a half marathon. Hmmm that half marathon is looking good right now. But I'm sure my decision will be better once I actually read these guides and plan it out.

I placed this entry in the "FUN" categories because I tell 'ya it was fun. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the RunSFM (Run San Francisco Marathon) that occurred this Sunday. Granted our group only completed the 5K run the concensus seemed to be that everyone had a blast.

I think for me what made it fun was that we all came together a few days before to "train" for the race and the panicky feeling I had organizing it — time to meet, driving people, where to park, where to eat, driving back for late church services. We trained at different speeds and pace and some of us had second thoughts about running or training. And came Sunday everyone did pretty well. We were united with that common purpose of just having fun and you know not worry too much about the run. Before the run I prayed to God for our group for a fun run and that we all get across the finish line safely and He provided.