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The Events that are: My Life

Things that go on in my life that cannot be catagorized somewhere else, sort of a catch-all

U2 360° North American Tour Postponed

Normally, I wouldn’t make note of U2, or any other band, postponing a tour. But, there are special circumstances….I have tickets to this tour!

From www.forbes.com:

(LOS ANGELES, CA) May 25, 2010 – As announced earlier today, Live Nation has confirmed that the U2 360° North American Tour will be postponed until 2011.

U2’s Bono has now been discharged from Ludwig Maximilians-University (LMU) Hospital in Munich where he underwent emergency surgery on Friday, following a back injury. In order to fully recover, he is under doctor’s orders to start a rehabilitation program and to recuperate for at least eight weeks.

This will necessitate the postponement of 16 shows on the U2 360° Tour from Salt Lake City on June 3rd, through to New Jersey’s Meadowlands Stadium on July 19th.

U2 was scheduled to perform in Seattle on June 20th. I cleared my schedule and bought tickets and was getting pumped to go, seeing as it was less than a month away. And now I have to wait until 2011?? What if I’m no longer in Seattle in 20111? Ugh.

  1. I’m not saying that I’m moving, but you never know ↩

For the week of 2010-05-23 in Tweets

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12 Months, 12 Books

I have a new goal for this calendar year: Read 12 books in 12 months!

I’m already off to a great start. I finally finished “Mere Christianity”1 in January when I was in Haiti (although that doesn’t count because I started it in 2009.

When I was in Haiti, I also read:

In the last month, I also finished reading:

And now I’m in the middle of:

As long as I can finish by the end of the month, I’ll be on track. Here’s what I think is up next (in no particular order):

That still leaves me one book short of the twelve I want to read, which is not for lack of having a list. I want to keep at least one spot deliberately open so I can choose something excellent as I discover new books.

The types of books I’ve listed above are the types of book I generally like to read. Based on that, what books would you recommend I look into?

In the meantime, I’m going to leave you with this excellent bit from Hustling God2 that I’ve been reflecting on lately:

When I wake up in the morning, I can jump in the shower, grab a cup of coffee, and rush off to work to be productive. Inevitably that will destine me to a day of running. Like Jacob, I will either be running to make something happen, or running away because it didn’t happen as it was supposed to. But if sometime in the morning I become still with prayer and the words of God, then it will occur to me that all of the important things have already been accomplished today. The sun came up and the earth stayed on its axis without any help from me. The Psalms remind me of that. I have awakened to a world I did not create to receive a salvation I did not earn. The Gospels make that clear every time I read them. And I need that reminder, because there are so many temptations in the course of the day to be my own savior, which is always, always, a temptation to hurry in the wrong direction.

  1. An excellent, although somewhat dense, book. I recommend reading it, although take your time; it took me the better part of 6 months. ↩

  2. Page 64 ↩

For the week of 2010-05-09 in Tweets

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Race Results and Andrew Signs Up for a Sprint Triathlon

I ran my first ever race a month and a half ago, the St. Patrick’s Day Dash. Here’s me running the race:

Photo by Al Cruise. ©2010 FotoJack.com

My official stats are:
Bib number: 9885
Overall place: 2844 out of 7892
Division place (Males 22-25): 170 out of 267
Gender place: 1799 out of 3529
Time: 36:241
Pace: 9:35

Not to bad for my first go. I didn’t hit my target of 8 minute miles, but I think part of that was due to the vertical inclination of the race (which I created using this Path Profiler):

Ignore the 4.47 miles, that’s incorrect. It was closer to 3.7 miles.

I had one little rest towards the top of the climb, but other than that I felt really good about my time and I was amazingly consistent given the vertical nature of my climb. I’m pretty sure the path around Green Lake doesn’t vary in altitude by more than 10 feet. Also, my Nike+ needs to be calibrated again…it keeps over estimating my runs by about 20%, which I feel is ridiculous.

After my big race, I took a week off and then ran one day. Then took the next month off, mostly because I was lazy and didn’t have a reason to run (I don’t enjoy running for the sake of running).

I do like competition though, so I signed up for the Benaroya Research Institute Triathlon at Seafair Sprint Triathlon. Am I crazy?! Probably.

It’s a 0.5 miles swim, 12 mile bike ride, and 3.1 mile run. And it takes place on July 18th at 7am in the morning!

Source: http://www.seafair.com/events/triathlon/coursemap.asp

I’m not actually entirely sure how I’m going to train for this. I don’t even have a bicycle. I think the good news is that I can swim2.

My plan for now is to pick up running again, which I started yesterday with a run around the long loop of Green Lake, and then intermix bicycle and swim training. Lingering questions include:

  • Can I actually swim 0.5 miles in open water?
  • How do transitions works?
  • How long will this event take me? Early estimates are looking at close to two hours.

There are some training clinics I’m going to be going to, but I wonder if they will be enough for this endeavor. Anyway, expect future updates here. And if you’ve ever done something like this, I am now taking any and all suggestions.

  1. Average time: 40:48 ↩

  2. Back in the Day™ (circa 1995), I used to be on swim team. Most recently, I did a swim class in college, but that was four years ago (What?! How could that be four years ago?)  ↩

For the week of 2010-04-25 in Tweets

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