Lance Armstrong!

Hey ya'll,

In case the picture that the title-link sent you to made you nervous--there is no need to fret.
I'm not injured.
I've finally figured out how to push myself past that second hill on my daily bike ride and, as a result, I now spend roughly 1.5-1.75 hours on a bike every day. I basically doubled my usual route, then do that whole route three times.
That's pretty cool because I can feel myself growing strong and more able, even in such a short period of time.
Unfortunately I need to be careful. I'm positive that I could pull off another lap or two per day. But my knees, particularly that blasted right knee just can't do it. I mean... I would make it back home, no problem. but the second I get out of the shower, or wake up in the mornings, my knees are just sooo swollen. Oh, it makes that long walk to brush my teeth in the mornings THAT much harder.
So I'm trying very hard to take care of myself and not overdo it.
Fortunately there have been some things breaking my routine that have forced me to take some needed breaks.
For example, the day of the lasagna party: I came home late (6:20ish, usually I'm home by 5:40 at the latest). then there was a house full of people waiting for me so we could demolish excessive amounts of lasagna. And then the WINGS game! By the end of the game it was awfully dark and I'd hate to hurt myself by riding into a pothole, or something, or even worse, getting hit by a car, just because I was dumb enough to ride my bike (mostly) off-road at night. Plus...I was full of lasagna and chagrin from the Wings game, that night. So I took it off.
So yeah...I've had a few similar examples which have forced me to slow it down a bit, and that's for the best.

It should be noted that this past weekend was actually my first weekend that I spent entirely in the Saug'. It was actually pretty fun.
I was SOOO looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday--So of course I was awoken at 8:30 by Auntie so that I could go setup and facilitate the end-of-the-year party at the Dance School that Auntie started(and is now run by her daughter). It was fun, though. Lots of little people running around...What amazes me is the digestive abilities of some of the tiny tiny tiny people:
4 boxes of popcorn, 8 sno cones, the cups of sno cone syrup, 3 big plumes of cotton candy, and a whole pizza...That was not uncommon. Those little dancers are digestive devils. Ingesting ingrates. Devouring demons. Gobbling goblins. Feeding fiends. Slurping savages. Brownie barbarians. Vacuous villians. Binging beasts. In short--Munching Mephistopoles.

Terrifying.

AND! I can't believe I almost forgot to tell everyone!! I actually got a little sundburnt! But mostly just tan!
I was only sunburnt on one little corner of ONE elbow. So i figure...I'm probably the coolest, ever.

Umm... Saturday evening was the next Wings game.
Great game. And Hudler took alot of my advice. He was dramatically more active. Moved alot more. Took more than one shot (subsequently quadrupaling his shot-count in the playoffs!). and really made an impact. Plus! i read an article in the newspaper where they interviewed him! I love that kid. Apparently he's a "Powerplay specialist" which explains why we had...3 or 4 powerplay goals last game! Woo whoo!
I think we can finish this series on Tuesday and the Wings can bring that cup home with them...I look forward to it.

On Sunday I was actually afforded the opportunity to sleep in...I was out of bed and game to go at 10am...I dont know what you people have done to me, but I dont like it. 10am is too early for any soul to be "ok" with. Whatever...
But then the Mal-Pal came in town to visit. Apparently her sister works in town so she decided to some see me for a few hours while her sister was working!
So we walked the town a bit and then headed over to Auntie and Muncle's and had barbequed chicken and played Euchre and such....I got butt KICKED in euchre....not an easy thing for me to admit.

But she left in the late evening and then I just got to chill out for a little while on my own. I played some guitar and watched the Faber vs. Brown fight. Way too much pomp. Too much hype. 3 hours of pre-fights...and then a big sissy fight. Dont tell them I said that. But it was fairly disappointing.

But then I got to put my but in bed because I was dead-tired by 11:30(tell anyone and I'll kill you). I read a little bit. And I went to bed.

I'm enjoying having internet at home, now, as well as at the office.
I've been able to do a lot of reading and research into lots of the troubles, up-and-comers, tools, and statistics of all the newly fashionable media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, YFrog, Tinker, Ping.fm, and some others.

By doing all of this reading and research I've spent quite a bit of time actually trying to use and test all of the applications, their add-ons, and competitors, as well as reading up on their upcoming 1-ups.

All of this amounts to really one thing: I've posted on hundreds of blogs, "contact us" sites, FAQs, and content sites. If you ever see an article written by a pretentious tech-snob that happens to have the letters "shephe" in the title...well...it's me. I've grown especially fond of "MasterShephe". (pronounced "Master chef" OR "Master Shief" depending on if you think I cook alot or if you think i'm a big Halo nerd :-p ) So yeah...

That's about all I've got, right now. I'm thinking about starting another blog so that I can talk about all these applications and other such tech stuff...You know. in order to draw a larger crowd. I guess we'll see if I get around to that.

Hope everyone is doing well. Call me if you miss me!

Take care everybody!