No rest for the weary, or lazy.

Did the blogging world miss me for a few days? Very busy weekend for yours truly, by my standards anyway. Here we go...

Running update: 10 miles on Saturday morning. Despite the...let's say it all together now...heat and humidity, I had a great run. I felt strong and was even the lead coach for the Yellow runners for a couple of miles. That probably won't happen again but it was motivating. Averaged about a 9:15 pace, with a 9:02, 9:08 and a 9:07 thrown in the middle of the run (when I was leading). Yay! Not too shabby for this time of year. (Granted, this is very close to, if not faster than, my usual marathon pace, and I should be running the Saturday runs slower than my goal pace, but when I feel it, I feel it, knowing a bad run could be just around the corner. However, Kathleen makes some good points about running long runs too fast. Sometimes I just can't help myself!) This of course meant that I burned alot of calories and could eat whatever I wanted that night, which I did...

The Melting Pot: If you have not experienced the joy of fondue, you are missing out! The Melting Pot is one of my very favorite restaurants, and I managed to talk my friend Joe into trying it out. I did most of the eating, since I'm a freak for cheese (appetizer) and chocolate with peanut butter (dessert). And the main course was delicious, with lobster, chicken, steak, shrimp, lamb or pork - can't remember, and some veggies. Yes, I, the mushroom-hater, ate some mushrooms, and they were good. Joe swears that his youthful appearance is attributable to his fondness for mushrooms (the kind you eat, not the kind that make you happy). Joe noted that as I ate the mushrooms, I was beginning to look younger and younger. Oh Joe, such the charmer! I'm sure it was the wine talking. Anyway, if you haven't been, I highly recommend this place. Go hungry though.

Movie reviews: I saw three movies this weekend. Two I rented on Friday night, for my pre-Saturday-morning-long-run ritual of watching a movie or two on Friday and eating popcorn. First up, "27 Dresses." Cute, but predictable. I don't need to tell anyone that this is a chick flick.

Second up, "30 Days of Night." OMG, this was a GREAT movie, seriously. Its been out for a while but I just got around to renting it. Yes, its a vampire movie, but very different from your Tom Cruise/Brad Pitt/Lost Boys/romanticized versions of vampires. This movie is scary, creepy, a smidge (or more) gory and just plain chilling, if you like these types of movies. I do, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this movie.

And, last but not least, I saw "The Dark Knight" with my dad yesterday, who met me out at Katy Mills Mall for the movie and some dinner. Yes, I got some shopping in too! Yay! Anyway, the movie of course lived up to the hype. A great movie. I don't know what more I can add to what's already been written about it. If you haven't seen it, I recommend that you do, but watch "Batman Begins" first. Christian Bale is an awesome Batman, and ridiculously hot. I'll take an heaping order of that fineness, please!

Careful what you wish for: So, I was cruising along I-10 back to town after the movie and ended up getting stuck in stand-still traffic for over an hour. Ugh. I pulled out my Blackberry to see if I could find out what was going on via the Internet. A huge accident blocked the entire freeway. Okay, I've been stuck in accident traffic before, but according to the web, the accident happened around 5:15 and it was already after 6 by the time I hit the traffic jam. I always kid to myself that if I'm going to be stuck in accident traffic, there better be some carnage for me to see once I pass the site. This never happens though, as everything is usually cleared by the time I make it to the site. Not yesterday. As traffic slowly made its way around the scene (I guess the officers finally opened two lanes that were initially blocked off for construction), I noticed eight cop cars with the cops out there with their cameras and measuring things and video tapes. Then I saw it. The crumpled motorcycle and pools of blood on the freeway. Big pools of blood, one right by the motorcycle and a few other blood spots around it. I immediately thought (1) no helmet, (2) someone died, and (3) I don't ever want to see that much blood in person again. In the movies its fine, in real life, not so much. Heard later on the news that a motorcyclist and his female passenger were racing in and out of traffic, hit a car, flew off the bike, and were both killed instantly. No helmets on either. Motorcycles scare the crap out of me. I realize there are many, many safe riders out there, but these hotshots are nothing but a horrible accident waiting to happen. I can't imagine what it must have been like to witness this tragedy.