Sixty-seventh posting - pasta

Vegas, baby!

Last week I went to Vegas – my first trip. Dancing girls, booze till dawn, maxing out every credit card, almost losing my new house in a down-to-the-wire Baccarat game with James Bond at one end of the table and Hans Bloefeld at the other – plus I got married and divorced in one night. Amazing!

Seriously folks, it was relatively uneventful, although Las Vegas is certainly a remarkable city.

My destination was an international health and fitness show, held at the Convention Center. I stayed at the Hilton next to it – not one of the cool and sexy hotels everyone knows on The Strip – but this had its share of casinos, restaurants, and multiple towers with 29 floors of rooms.

After delays in Portland and San Francisco, my flight finally arrived at two o’clock in the morning. From the air, Vegas looked neatly planned, but extraordinarily lit up like, well, a city. The tree-huggin’ liberal I am, all I could think about was how much wasted electricity and water was being used here in the middle of the desert. The taxi driver took me along The Strip, and the constant “Look At Me” messages from lights and signs and advertisements amazed me. I didn’t expect to, but I didn’t see a single grocery store along our route.

I was too tired to go out, so I went to sleep, too – in a canopied bed with a mirrored ceiling. Yes, sadly, my first mirrored-ceilinged bed, and I was in it alone.

The next morning, I went to the convention center where my company had a huge booth. I had no responsibilities for the show, except to meet some of my international colleagues and get to know some our commercial sales people. In general, it seems like the fitness industry is made up of 3 kinds of people: Gym Rats, Enthusiasts, and Freaks. Gym Rats are the (mostly) guys who’ve spent hours in the gym, a little more pasty-white, a little more heavy metal, and a little more wife-beater-t-shirts than the rest of us. The Enthusiasts are the people who think about being fit and health, but it doesn’t drive their lives. Most people I work with seem to be this. The Freaks – a most intriguing group – are the super-tanned, super-beefy, super-muscled guys and gals who’ve never been afraid to inject a little “enhancement” into their veins, or grow hoarse from screaming to passersby about a machine that’ll buck you like a bronco to burn burn burn those calories, or show a little too much skin in a public, wintertime tradeshow.

On the second day, we’d recruited an extreme athlete to try to break the world’s 24 hour indoor distance record on one of our treadmills. He started at 8AM, and kept running and running. He could take minute breaks ever other hour or so to pee, but otherwise, it was him on the treadmill (and his wife and the UNLV track coach by his side to feed him and replace his DVDs). In case you were wondering, his first three DVDs were Passion of Christ, Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, and an Indiana Jones movie. Interesting. Anyway, he didn’t break the record, in part because sometime around 2 in the morning, he was trying to eat some pasta and passed out, zipping off the end of the treadmill, and slammed the pasta onto his shoes. He quickly woke up, brushed himself off, and started up again, but it completely broke his stride (and the strength of his stomach), so he didn’t make it. I guess he came close, and we got some decent press about it, but I still think he was crazy to do this kind of thing. Nuts.

That’s all for now – hopefully I can start making these shorter again. Next entry will be on my new place. Maybe someone can help me name my fish… NATHAN

By the way, as I’m looking out the airplane, I see we are flying by another jet at exactly our elevation – we had been right beside its slipstream (or whatever the smoke/cloud from its tail is called). Amazing.

Sixty-first posting - 30 years

This is it, friends. I have just signed my name sixteen hundred times, and committed myself to the mortgage company for what seems like an eternity. Thirty year fixed mortgage. Yes, if you do the math, it’s 2036. I’ll be sixty-six years old. My parents’ ages. At this point, I’d put them in the “old” category. Sheesh.

After signing my life away, Stephanie (my realtor…more later) and I went to my new house and met the sellers. Mark and Melanie are in their mid 30s and met while they were working at a nursery. For those of you who don’t know, I am a fan of plants. Think they’re pretty. Think they’re essential. And so on. I have never, however, thought of myself as a plant person. Turns out that Mark (a “water feature” specialist) and Melanie (a flower specialist) made my new yard so darn pretty that it took them almost an hour to tell me about every plant. One tidbit to note: my new place has blueberry bushes and native plant species appropriate to the area. Yeah -- even my yard is crunchy liberal! Oh, and my two new fish ponds sometimes attract racoons and herons. Double yeah!

Monday my realtor gets my keys (in Oregon this whole process takes days). Soon, yes, but before I actually get them I leave to go to Las Vegas before actually going to my house. My first time to Vegas, so I'm psyched. Unfortunately, OU already lost in the NCAA's -- so much for betting for them. Then next Friday – one week from tomorrow – I move in. Yikes. It’s definitely exciting, but I’ll miss The Pearl – where I’m living now – and my early morning running partner, Jen.

Last thing – and because I haven’t really used this space for sharing my phenomenal athletic prowess – on Sunday, I raced in the Shamrock Run, a 15K that’s one of Portland’s bigger events. My pace was 8min10sec, with a final time around 1:18. Final time still isn’t posted, but I can admit that it was a pretty freakin’ fast time for me – particularly over nearly 10 miles.

Sorry for such a long posting. More later. NATHAN

Sixtieth posting - race

Tonight my heart raced for an entire hour as I watched The Amazing Race. First of all, I think this is the coolest show in the world. Sure, I've shared with you the greatness of American Idol, but tonight I skipped the last hour to watch TAR. Second, the pairs are well chosen, and while I like Double D, the Nerds, and the Florida guys, I have to admit that the not so slightly effeminate pair made me laugh more than once. My favorite moment, though, was when one couple referred to one guy (the asshole, who told his wife not to question him) as Scott Peterson. This is going to be a good show. Finally, who is going to compete with me on the next Amazing Race??!! NATHAN