Bits & Pieces...

• It's apparently game day for one of my favorite people in the blog-o-verse; TriSaraTops is being induced into labor today, if all goes as she's been expecting (no pun intended! Ha!). She's been an awesome friend and resource to me since before we both did IMWI '06, and is one of those people it's hard to believe I've only "met" once. We've compared many notes in emails back & forth through the whole "'bout-to-have-a-baby" thing. Much love, prayers, and positivity headed in her general direction...

• Iron Wil has a pretty amazing story.

• Shout out to everybody racing the Twin Cities Marathon and Chicago Marathon this year - Bubba's in Chi-town, and our own TZilla's racing the TC10 miler as part of the marathon festivities. 'Zilla, care to chime in with a little race week rundown? Shout out too to Brazo, who's doing a mountain bike race this weekend (sweet!), and CoS, who killed a duathlon in Green Bay last weekend.

• Here's a general topic that's been floating about my brain waves lately - what happens now? The blog-o-sphere gets pretty quiet after Ironman, which is very understandable as everybody gets back to their other lives, away from the game a bit. But as far as I know...me & 'Zilla are the only ones out here rocking IMWI '09! Brazo's rolling to Louisville for '08...otherwise, there's an eerie quiet over the Ironscape. That's definitely weird for me, as I came into this part of it all in '06, when a whole crew of us were getting ready. And not that people won't emerge who are doing '08 or '09, or that there aren't a whole lot of people out there that I'm just not yet familiar with, or even that Ironman is the only thing interesting to talk about...but of the core crew that I've, y'know, grown up with...tumbleweed city, baby. Anyway. Just an observation. Feels a little like the halls of high school are empty.

• Oh, and if you ARE doing Ironman '08 or '09, please introduce yourself!

• Hand report: It's kind of a big purply mess right now (actually, improved this morning over last night, so that's good.) The impact point is easily marked because the skin broke there too, so radiating outward from there is this weird purply blob. That part is swollen, too, and also the creases in my hand - you know, those life line thingies or whatever palm readers look at - the top one is much darker, as I guess blood maybe collects in there or something? A la Steve, I tried to snap a picture for you this morning. Alas, it didn't really translate, so that would just be boring. Should've taken it last night!

• Fun things to say to other people when one hand is largely out of commission:

Can you give me a hand?
I think I deserve a hand for that.
You've gotta hand it to me...
On the other hand...

And follow any opportunity to say these things with "no pun intended". I first enjoyed this with my doctor, when he was telling me how he wanted to stitch up the smashed up skin part (which was a total over-reaction), but I said nah, I wasn't worried about that, then he said, "on the other hand, we could actually superglue it with medical grade superglue." Only he got as far as "On the other hand we could -" before I enthusiastically interrupted "No pun intended! Ha!" with a shit eating grin on my face, and he just paused and looked at me sideways a moment before politely chuckling and continuing on. So. Amy loves the jokes though. LOVES 'em!

Happy Tuesday everybody -