Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Goodbye!

It is the final day of 2013, and thus time to wrap up this blog. 10 out of the 13 core resolutions completed is not too bad, right? This was one heck of an experiment, and I am in disbelief I stuck through consistently updating this blog at least a few times a month throughout the year. Just a few moments ago, I wrapped up my annual New Year's Eve tradition of watching the cheesy, ensemble cast flick New Year's Eve. What can I say, it is a guilty pleasure of mine. I can thank the character Ingrid in that flick for inspiring me to come up with a list of resolutions for the year.

Thank you to whoever you are for coming here and taking the time to check up on my progress. I gave it my best shot, I wish I could have came through on all of them, but some are just not meant to be. I do believe, a quick resolution recap is in order. For you readers coming to this blog late to the party, feel free to click on one of the numbered resolution tags/labels on the right hand side navigation bar, and it will display all the appropriate blogs associated with each resolution! If you do not feel like sifting through the 50+ blogs I typed up over the years, I do not blame you, so here is a quick summary of how I fared on each resolution:

Resolution 1 - Run Half Marathon - Complete After going on a 100+ day diet/training regimen, I went in and ran my first ever half marathon race in Fargo! I also ended up running two more halfs later on in the year, and just a couple days ago I registered for my first ever full marathon this coming May in Fargo!

Resolution 2 - Drop 23 Pounds in 104 days - Only dropped 15 I wanted to get to 170, but I only ended up dropping 15 pounds to get to 178 come half marathon race time, but finished the year at 175! I have another 100 day diet plan set up in prep for the full marathon, and would like to be in tip top shape for my most ambitious race yet and weigh in at 165 come race time, so more aggressive training and dieting is in order!

Resolution 3 - Start Seeing Someone - Fail Rest assured, I will have my day in the sun, I will just let fate decide when that day is.

Resolution 4 - Learn to Dance - Fail? I danced a few times throughout the year, with actual people too, and tried to learn it somewhat properly via Just Dance 4, but I am certainly no competent dancer at this point, and I could have gave this resolution a better effort.

Resolution 5 - Go Back to College - Decided I went to the campus and talked to the advisor and gave this a lot of serious thought for a good week, but ultimately decided if I do go back for more schooling it is going to be for something I 100% want.

Resolution 6 - Catch up Printing Photos - Complete I gots me photo album all up to date! And not no Facebook album, but a real life, honest to goodness, tangible, real photo album!

Resolution 7 - End the Podcast - Complete After cranking out a few last episodes at the beginning of the year, we ended On Tap's seven year run with a four hour epic final episode. I would link it here but our archives went down a couple months ago.

Resolution 8 - Knock 6 Specific Games out of the Backlog - Epic Fail As you recall in the previous blog, I whiffed quite horribly at this goal and only finished one of the six games I was shooting for by the end of the year.

Resolution 9 - Watch all 10 Clint Eastwood box set movies - Complete Just knocked this one out yesterday, you film buffs make sure to check out the blogs under that resolution as I wrote a review for all 10 films in the collection, as well as a bonus 11th review too

Resolution 10 - Return to MGC - Complete I made my return to the annual video game convention in Milwaukee as part of my epic March vacation that also consisted of....

Resolution 11 - Go to DC - Complete ...I always wanted to vacation in Washington DC, and I had a blast there checking out the museums and other sites. Still so much more I want to see there, and I hope to one day return again.

Resolution 12 - Have an Amazing 30th Birthday - Complete A few awesome friends pulled through on this one in the final hour for me and made this day extra special for me!

Resolution 13 - Defeat Suppression - Complete Defeated!.

Bonus Resolution 1 - Live to see the 49ers Appear in Another Super Bowl - Complete Unfortunately the game ended in heartbreak and I went bipolar for a day.

Bonus Resolution 2 - Get Back into Baseball - Complete I reconnected with my sports pastime, and managed to average watching one Twins game a week and made it down to Target Field to watch their final game of the season!

Bonus Resolution 3 - #30daysofrunning - Complete A local running community encouraged everyone to run as many days as possible for month of June, and I did not do 30, but I think I will chalk up 26 as a win considering I was out of town for a few days.

Bonus Resolution 4 - Finish the Year Competing in 12 Races - Complete I participated in 14 by the year's end, and somehow, someway managed to win one of them too!

I know I hinted at possibly doing a 2014 resolutions quest blog, but I do not know if I have it in me to do all this regular updating again. I am glad this got me back into some form of writing again, as it was much different and a fresh change from what I was accustomed to what I described I use to do in the intro blog. Maybe I will take a year off from blogging, or maybe take a couple weeks off and return fully charged, who knows? I do know of at least a few goals I have in mind for 2014, and I will at least be trying my best for those, with or without a blog at my side.

Keep checking back here for future blogs and updates, but in case I do not return, well, as a wise man once said....

Monday, December 30, 2013

Resolution 8 - Beat 6 Specific Games - Super Epic Fail

Two years ago I would have guaranteed that this would have been at least the one resolution I knew I would have completed. My, how times change. As I stated in my previous blog under this resolution, I was just making a little headway when I finished the last DLC expansion for Fallout 3, making it the first of six games I crossed off from my massive backlog.

I made a decent amount of progress in two other games this year, and a little bit into another, but did not even touch the other two. I failed miserably at this resolution. What can I say? I guess I am just losing my drive at playing video games, but I think that is more of a good thing in the long run. I would rather be more active in having a social life and in sports than sitting at home by my lonesome on the couch with a controller in my hand. I think there will still be a place in my life to game, but just with nowhere near as much time as I use to dedicate to it.

I guess I shall recap what progress I did make in the games I was chipping away at. I did play a good chunk of Mass Effect 2 this year, the timer says I invested just over 25 hours last time I checked. I made it into disc two, and where I got the second set of dossiers of squad members to recruit for the be-all, end-all suicide mission. I also knocked out a few of the DLC missions for it as well. I am going to guess I was about 60% of the way through that game. This unfortunately meant I did not get a chance to start the campaign of Mass Effect 3, though for what it is worth, I did bust it out a couple of times to play the online multiplayer with a couple of friends.

The 4th Ace Attorney game, Apollo Justice, saw me halt my progress at day two of the trial of the third case in the game. I still find myself enjoying that game in 15 minute chunks right before bed. Who knows when I will finish this game at the rate I am playing it, let alone start the 5th Ace Attorney game. Last month the 6th one was released in America for the 3DS. I cannot explain why I love being a videogame attorney with such an extraordinary cast of characters.

Finally, I only busted out Skyrim once this year, but that was when a friend was over and he showed me how to exploit several glitches and really improve my character in the game. I felt a little dirty in doing so though afterwards as it felt like it made all the time I invested into my character thus far a waste, but I did end up with far more better spells, weapons and armor at disposal as a result of it. I still do have a save right before he hooked me up with that stuff though, so we shall see where it takes me.

I want to give props to two other games I want to recognize, but we were not on my to beat list. I played a bit of Forza Horizon throughout the year and came close to finishing the single player portion of that game as I was on the final wristband level of events that were available to me. I also played a good chunk of the core Borderlands 2 campaign in online coop with a friend. I have no idea how far we are because I am sure a ton of time was spent on side quests and not the main storyline quests. But we were having a blast with it before we got sidetracked by the holidays.

That wraps it up for this resolution. A big 'ol epic fail, but at least I gave this one somewhat of an effort, as pitiful as it was.

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 100% Complete

With only a day to spare of 2013, I have finally vanquished the 10th and final film of the Clint Eastwood collection with the 2006 classic, Letters from Iwo Jima (trailer). This is the second film of the collection of which Eastwood only directs and not stars in, with the other being Mystic River. This is the third World War II movie of the collection. However this one was made a few decades after Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes, and takes place on the Japanese front.

Eastwood makes it pretty clear the Japanese are done for, as the first act of the movie is the troops preparing fortifications and defenses on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. The troops know it, the officers and commanders know it too, yet the film is also clear of them dying for honor of their country, and conveys this through various letters from the featured officers and soldiers throughout the film. The main soldier featured goes by Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), and I could not help but grieve for him throughout the film as island of Iwo Jima falls and the film fills out Saigo's backstory.

The other main featured Japanese actor is General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe). Him and Saigo have a few brief encounters sporadically throughout the film, but they are extremely well done exchanges for as brief as they are, especially in the film's closing moments. I did not see this as a politically driven "why did we invade here" movie, like Green Zone, but more of a empathetic look at what it is like to be from the soldier's perspective of going into a battle you know they are going to lose, and what they are laying on the line and why they are doing so. It reminded me a bit of the last battle in The Last Samurai, but this was far more well done.

This was probably one of the few movies I can think of only watching and having this emotion of nonstop sadness throughout from beginning to end. I know what is coming, it is bleak, and the film pulls no punches. I hate to recommend watching a heartbreaker of a film, but there is a part of me that loves powerful movies, and this one is incredibly powerful. As with all the Eastwood movies I have covered here, Netflix has the disc, but it is not up on streaming, but if you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Thanks again to everyone for joining me throughout the year as I reviewed almost one Clint Eastwood movie a month for 2013. Going by my traffic stats, this was the most popular resolution by far on the blog. Even one person recently got me two more Clint Eastwood DVDs for Christmas last week in the form of Blood Work and Paint Your Wagon (Thanks John!). I have no idea if I will review those ones, but I have been bouncing around the idea of reviewing one Star Trek film a month next year since there are exactly 12 of those in existence as of this writing, so we will see where 2014 takes me! Shoot me a tweet on Twitter @Gruel if you have any requests!

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Million Dollar Baby
Unforgiven
Trouble With the Curve
Mystic River
The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Friday, December 6, 2013

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 90% Complete

I originally bought the DVD for today's Eastwood Quest entry, Million Dollar Baby several years ago but it unfortunately sat in the backlog forever. I eventually sold it to the local used movie and game shop in town after I picked it up as part of the Eastwood BluRay collection last year. Today I finally got around to watching it. You can ask me a million times why I let the 2004 Oscar Winner for best picture and 175/250th ranked best movie of all time from IMDB.com sit in my collection forever without viewing and the best response I could muster would be to just stare at you blankly and state "I have no idea." I should KO myself for committing such a sin.

Million Dollar Baby features late boxing bloomer, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) trying to win the respect of and gain the tutelage of long time boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood). Dunn is adamant about not training girls, but after showing enough fortitude and determination, and after the encouragement of his associate Eddie Scrap (Morgan Freeman), Dunn takes her under his wings and works her up the ranks of the female boxing world to a prestigious WBA title fight where the unthinkable happens and the film takes on a whole new turn.

Swank is fantastic at portraying the good 'ol southern girl from Missouri who refuses to quit, and scrape and claw her way from the bottom rungs of life to become a top ranked contender. The whole time I was rooting for her to win over Eastwood's character. Eventually it happens, and Freeman and Eastwood are amazing at being the old wise guard that provide her the knowledge to make her an amazing fighter. The three of them just jive together perfectly.

I feel this blog about the film is going awful because I simply am at a loss of words at how to go about the unexpected turn this film takes about 70% in, and how it plays out following it. It plays out unbelievably well, and I love how the final act is pretty damn rare out of sports movies, and it just goes to show the risks Eastwood took with this film instead of going with the cookie cutter sports film ending. Do not be an idiot like me and wait nine years to watch this classic, it does not matter if you are a fan of boxing or not, you will undoubtedly love Million Dollar Baby. As with all the Eastwood movies I have covered here, Netflix has the disc, but it is not up on streaming, but if you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Unforgiven
Trouble With the Curve
Mystic River
The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Bonus Resolution 4 - Finish 12 Races in a Year - 14 Down!

I just managed to squeeze in a race in November a couple days before the end of the month on Thanksgiving morning! It was a 5K and called the Turkey Trot which took place on a part of the greenway bike path by Riverside Park. Even better, I got to run the race with friends Adam and Justine. This race had a special gimmick to it where you predict how you finish ahead of time, and all smartphones, and GPS watches were banned from the race so you cannot tell how fast you were going. The three people who got the closest to their times would be declared the winners and awarded with a Pumpkin Pie.

It was a fairly chilly and brisk day with a race temp of around 15 degrees I believe so I made sure to rock extra layers and my face mask. I was thinking high hopes for this 5K and shooting for a new PR and thought I could beat my old UND 5K record of 26:22, so I forecasted myself with a 25:55. I ended up finishing just over four minutes off with a time of 29:58. I thought I had a pretty good pace going and shortly after the halfway mark I trailed about 50 feet behind a runner for the remainder who I felt was running about a solid 8:30-8:40 pace, but I presumed way wrong. For what it is worth, I did not bring my MP3 player out of fear of it being called out as a smartphone/GPS unit used to gauge time, so not having my usual running times I feel definitely hindered me in the grand scheme of things.

I feel a little guilty not running along with Adam and Justine for the race in hindsight. This would have been the perfect race to run with a group on a holiday that is all about coming together. I made sure to wait up for them at the finished line where we all shared high fives all around. Shortly after I finished my sister stopped by to congratulate me on the run, which was a nice surprise. It was still a fun time, and always great to run with friends. I believe there is one more local 5k/10k race later this year, so I may just finish the year with 15 race. Keep checking back here to stay posted!

5K

UND Autism - 4/20/13 - 26:22 - 23rd out of 74
Arthritis Foundation Zombie Run - 10/12/13 - 29:06 - 1st Place Survivor, 2nd out of 67 overall
Turkey Trot - 11/28/13 - 29:58 - 19th/64
Uffda Mud Run - 9/7/13 - ??:?? - Finished
Color Run - 9/21/13 - ??:?? - Finished

10k

Hillsboro Run - 6/13/13 - 50:17 - 23rd out of 55
Dewey Memorial - 6/1/13 - 50:21 - 15th out of 56
Firecracker - 7/4/13 - 53:13 - 42nd out of 92
Frozen Feat - 2/16/13 - 53:57 - 50th out of 108
TRF Pioneer - 9/14/13 - Disqualified

Half Marathon

Fargo Mini - 10/19/13 - 1:52:11 - 162nd out of 528
Grand Forks Wild Hog - 9/28/13 - 1:53:25 - 184th out of 649
Fargo Rocks - 5/18/13 - 2:02:48 - 2062nd out of 5526

MISC

ENDTRAILS 12 Hour Endurance Race - 10/27/13 - Finished four 6.1 mile laps in 7:13:00 - 23rd out of 36

Resolution 3 - Start Seeing Someone - Epic Fail (Most Likely)

This has been another blog I have not been looking forward to writing up, but I kept telling myself I am not holding anything back so here goes. It has been five years since the last girl I saw, and it would be a stretch to call it a relationship, we went on a few dates over the course of a month and that was it. I have lost track how many times I have heard from countless friends and family to get a girlfriend. They are 100% right, but for them to understand my position and why it is so difficult for me to make that change....well, I will now try put it into the right words.

I only have myself to blame because I am unbelievably shy and bashful when it comes to the dating game. There is a big part of me inside that really wants to start seeing someone again, and that is why I put this resolution on the list in high hopes that it would help provide me with that drive to overcome my worst fears. Those fears are another part of me that is a incredibly hard to overcome force that is absolutely petrified of turning into the same people I promised myself not to become and being an awful burden on a special someone. If I somehow manage to hurt someone the same way I saw many family and friends get hurt coming out of relationships, then I just do not know how I could have that on my conscience.

In the end I always like to go with my gut feeling, and my gut tells me that one day I will meet that girl where we will be perfect for each other, but I have no idea when that day will occur. Could be within a week or two to sneak in this resolution before the chime of the new year, or it could very well be a couple months, years or even decades out for all I know. Just getting this out in the open is a huge weight off my back, and now that it is out there for all to consume, well, I will just have to have faith in your judgment of me. Unless something magical happens by the end of the year in the next few weeks, consider this resolution as a big whopping fail.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Resolution 6 - Catch Up Printing Photos - Update!

A few days ago I took advantage again of Target.com's incredibly easy to use online print ordering service and picked them up at my local Target within an hour. I only printed off two photos for a special frame I picked up. As I alluded in the last entry under this resolution, I wanted to try and get some frames up with my favorite photos as a way to have some proper decor in my place. I finally got around to picking up another frame, a pretty nice one too which I had a half off coupon for which the frame held two 5x7 photos.

If you have not read a certain entry from one of my running blogs, please click here to read how I somehow managed to win a 5k, a surprising feat which I doubt I will be able to pull off again. It seemed right to print off a couple of photos to have that moment on the wall forever. Even though the event happened a little over a month ago, it was only until about a week back that I thought we only had one group photo from the friends I ran with that day. That photo is the bottom picture of the frame. Then about a week back I stumbled upon an email in my junk folder from the race coordinator's saying their flicker account is updated with a couple hundred photos from that race day. I guess was so distracted from disastrous weather that day I had no idea there were photographers there.

Sure enough, I found quite a few photos of our group, and one's where we all crossed the finish line, so it only seemed fitting to have the other photo of me crossing the finish, all the while being completely oblivious that I won the race. I updated the old blog entry too with a couple of photos so make sure to check it out. So enough hype, here is a horrible phone photo I took of the frame on my wall, just underneath it you can see the top part of the bib number I wore that day, and pinned to it is the first place medal I received.....I am still in disbelief that even happened, but catching a glimpse of this everyday will remind me that it did in fact transpire.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Bonus Resolution 4 - Finish 12 Races in a Year - 13 Down

A couple weekends ago I attempted the most ambitious race I have participated in yet. This was a 12 hour endurance race taking place at Turtle River State Park, which is about 20 minutes away from town. The race was officially called Extreme North Dakota's Terrifying Run Amongst Innumerable Lost Souls, or END-TRAILS for short.

The goal is simple, run as many 6.1 mile/10k laps as you can in 12 hours. Take as short or long breaks as you desire in between laps. The most amount of miles I ran in a single day before was 14 and a half. I went in with the mindset that I could handle five laps for just over 30 miles for the day if I take 30-60 minute breaks between laps. I really wanted to do this race because I like running out at Turtle River. I only went there once earlier this year and had a blast, except it was muggy and humid, and swarms of mosquitoes devouring my friends and I as we ran through the woods. This time it was nice and cool and remained in the mid 40s for most of the day. This made for no bugs at all, and way better conditions compared to my last time out there.

Local coffee shop, Dakota Harvest Bakers furnished the event and provided plenty of snacks, soups and beverages for everyone at the race. I had no idea what they would have so I brought along a little running fuel of my own in the form of water, coffee, trail mix and granola bars. The beginning of the course was right by the parking lot, so it made getting to my vehicle really convenient to unwind at in between laps. There was a nice heated lodge there too for race HQ where I spent a decent amount of time at too, but of the 50 runners there that day, minus the coordinator I had a fun little chat with, none of the several I attempted to talk to were all that talkative that day, so I spent most of my breaks just relaxing in my car.

The first two laps of the race went great. Especially the first lap. I did not bust out headphones the first lap because it was mostly narrow trails and wanted to hear other runners coming and going as we passed each other so I just took in all the sights and sounds on the first lap. As I expected I ran this first lap strong and had a pretty good time out there, minus one part where in a part of the trail that wounded out in an open area around the woods I came within 10 yards of getting trampled by a deer that darted by me. I really liked the course, and it was well marked and easy to see where to make the turns. I had some fears it would not be going in because of my memories of running there in the summer where there were many trails that branched off from each other and it was easy to get lost in the woods there.

I finished the first lap in under an hour, and took a half hour break. I stretched out a bit coming in from the lap and before heading out for the second lap. The second lap went just as smooth as the first. In hindsight, I should have took it a lot easier and went with a more casual jog to preserve energy the second lap, but I was feeling good throughout it and kept thinking, I will just take slightly longer breaks throughout the day and I will have no problem hitting my five lap goal. I finished lap two, and took a 45 minute break this time. Since it was right around Halloween there of course was a costume contest, so if you ended up running one lap in costume you were entered in the contest. I busted out my classic Hulk Hogan tshirt, bandana, wig and foam championship belt and let Hulkamania run wild, literally, on lap three. I made the Hulkster proud that day!

Lap three actually was when I felt the day start to catch up with me. Even though I rested and stretched before lap three, within a minute of starting it my right knee immediately ached so I immediately slowed down to a casual jog for the entire third lap, and snuck in a little five minute walk break halfway through it. It was a chore to get that lap in but I was still hell bent on getting five laps in and I altered my plan to just finish the day with casual jogs and more walk breaks, and longer breaks between laps.

Eventually I finished lap three, and I was really sore by the end of it. I took an hour and a half break this time and got some of the provided soup for lunch and failed at trying to sneak a nap in as I tossed and turned in my truck. I started lap four convinced that I would just really slowly jog this lap through like the last one, but a minute in again my right knee was telling me to stop. It was really aching this time as I was pushing it like I never did before in terms of mileage and the type of terrain I was running on. There are plentiful amounts of inclines and declines on the twisty paths that dominate the woods and they undoubtedly took a toll on me. For the entire fourth lap both of my legs felt like Jello, scratch that, they felt more like Cream of Wheat mush.

About two minutes into the fourth lap with my knees already in pain and with the wind really picking up I debated on turning around and going back and withdrawing from the race, but I eventually convinced myself I was going to finish four laps, even if I spent half of the fourth lap walking it. That is exactly what I did. I ran for two miles, then walked for quite a bit, and was only able to run in little two to three minute intervals again before my legs kept giving out on me and I spent more and more time walking. I noticed the same thing happening with a lot of the field at this point, and kept running across more runners taking more walking breaks or getting passed by people running considerably slower than they were at the start.

I finally survived and finished the final lap at a little over seven hours into the day. I stretched out for a good long time after that lap while I briefly contemplated only walking a fifth lap before wisely deciding against it and went up to the time clock area and withdrew from the race. This race killed me and took a toll on me, I should have took off a day or two from work after the race to fully recover, as I felt like I was hobbling around the entire work week. As I type this I am coming off a four day break, and feel much better now 8 days after the race and am planning on going out on my first run since the race. I do not regret doing this race that kicked my ass, it was a challenging endeavor no doubt, but I went out there and gave it my best effort.

5K

UND Autism - 4/20/13 - 26:22 - 23rd out of 74
Arthritis Foundation Zombie Run - 10/12/13 - 29:06 - 1st Place Survivor, 2nd out of 67 overall
Uffda Mud Run - 9/7/13 - ??:?? - Finished
Color Run - 9/21/13 - ??:?? - Finished

10k


Hillsboro Run - 6/13/13 - 50:17 - 23rd out of 55
Dewey Memorial - 6/1/13 - 50:21 - 15th out of 56
Firecracker - 7/4/13 - 53:13 - 42nd out of 92
Frozen Feat - 2/16/13 - 53:57 - 50th out of 108
TRF Pioneer - 9/14/13 - Disqualified

Half Marathon

Fargo Mini - 10/19/13 - 1:52:11 - 162nd out of 528
Grand Forks Wild Hog - 9/28/13 - 1:53:25 - 184th out of 649
Fargo Rocks - 5/18/13 - 2:02:48 - 2062nd out of 5526

MISC

ENDTRAILS 12 Hour Endurance Race - 10/27/13 - Finished 4 6.1 mile laps in 7:13:00 - 23rd out of 36

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 80% Complete

After watching the latest Clint Eastwood collection film, the 1992 academy award winning Unforgiven (trailer), I still love it for the fact that I am still so flummoxed at who to root for in this film. I have no idea if that was by design or not, but I applaud it for showing that everyone in this film has their positive and negative qualities, take 'em or leave 'em.

Unforgiven takes place in the fictional Old West town of Big Whisky. It starts off with a couple of cowboys who got a little too rowdy and roughed up a prostitute and essentially went away unpunished by the town sheriff(Gene Hackman). The hoes decided to take revenge into their own hands and put a $1000 bounty on their lives. Aspiring bounty hunter, The Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) tracks down legendary, but retired outlaw Will Munny (Clint Eastwood) to lure him back for one last job. Munny brings along his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) for the journey, and the three make haste to Big Whisky.

I find it a little amusing that Clint Eastwood has been portraying an over the hill old guy for over 20 years now. Unforgiven gets that point across from the start where Munny just does not have that good of a shot as he use to, and even has trouble saddling up onto a horse. Logan is the same way, both former criminals have cleansed their past and moved onto better lives, but take on this final job to set things right forever for them, but have many problems bringing back their old selves to get the job done. Eastwood gets this point across masterfully throughout the film.

Watching the behind the scenes documentaries on the disc, I guess I should find it as no surprise they constructed this set from scratch. Eastwood set a rule to have no cars out there and made the entire cast and crew report to duty via wagon and horse. I love how Unforgiven portrays its version of the West. Especially when Munny, Schofield and Logan are out riding the trails in the country and making it feel like you are free out there to do whatever you desire.

One other thing that got to me from the behind the scenes features is that Eastwood made it sound like the protagonists and antagonists are pretty black and white. As I alluded to in the intro, I could not disagree more. The antagonist is town sheriff Little Bill. The film does portray him in quite the negative light as taking the law into his own hands, and even more so as making his deputies look like absolute cowards and petrified of outnumbering one gunmen 10-to-1 in a couple of scenes. I get it, Little Bill is corrupt and sadistic, but he is the town sheriff, and he has the town's best interests at stake, right? Ok, so Eastwood and gang are the heroes right? Well, both Logan and Munny are former notorious outlaw who murdered countless innocents, and are now out at it again as assassins, so why should I root for them? In the end, I found myself rooting for who Eastwood wanted me to, and again I tip my hat to him for making me question the moral compasses of the main characters. It just goes to show you that everyone has their light and dark sides, just that Unforgiven is one of those few films that has the guts to show the extreme sides of both.

My favorite scene in the film is when one of the prostitutes takes her time to ride up to a meeting place with Schofield and Munny. Schofield goes on a rambling diatribe talking himself up, then loses it all while Munny just stands there and nods along like it is another day. The scene proceeds to knock it out of the park when the prostitute, delivers some unsettling news to Munny, and the way Munny digests the news in his calm, collective manner let's you know that it is on, and the table is set for the final showdown. Of course I am going to provide you a YouTube link to this legendary clip so you all can take it in again, just be forewarned I danced around some major spoilers in the scene so you may want to hold off on watching it if you have not seen the film yet.

Unforgiven netted Eastwood two Oscars, one for Best Picture and another for Best Director. Yesterday was the second time I saw it, and it still holds up amazingly well today. It is far and beyond the cliché wild west genre film, and of the last 25 years it ranks right up there with Tombstone and Django Unchained as my favorite westerns. As I mentioned before in these blogs, my first memories of Eastwood were for the many westerns he did in the early stages of his career, but of the ten film collection in this set, this is the only western to appear in it, and they easily made the best choice. As with all the Eastwood movies I have covered here, Netflix has the disc, but it is not up on streaming, but I give this one of my highest recommendations yet to track down and add to your film library. If you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Trouble With the Curve
Mystic River
The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Bonus Resolution 4 - Finish 12 Races in a Year - 12 Down, Complete!!

Cannot believe I managed to knock this out before the end of October. But last weekend marked the 12th race of this year, which will mean at least an average of one race a month. What better race to achieve that milestone with than a half marathon. I was pretty reluctant on signing up for this one since I just did a half in Grand Forks a few weeks prior, but then some personal life happenings transpired that forced my hand into signing up for the Fargo Mini Marathon not too long before the registration deadlines expired.

I was a little worried that I was going into the race with a severe lack of sleep. I was able to carb up at the local Noodles and Company before going to work early the night before the race, which resulted in me getting off work a little earlier than usual so I was luckily able to squeeze in a two hour nap before booking it to Fargo. Race packet pick up took place only on the day before the race, so a friend of mine in Fargo picked it up for me, and I met up with them in the morning once I drove into Fargo. As luck would have it, they were only a short three minute drive from the event center where the race started.

The weather was another gloomy overcast out with temps in the mid 30s, so it was brisk to say the least. I kept thinking it looked like it was going to pour on us at any point during the race, but thankfully we all managed to evade any hint of precipitation that day. Only major blow to deal with were some hefty winds that picked up during the final couple of miles, but I will take that over getting doused for nearly two hours like I did in Grand Forks. The Fargo Mini operated like the half in Grand Forks, where the 5K started about 10 minutes before, and then the 10k and Half racers started together and split off during the race.

I did not want a repeat of the Wild Hog where I started off too fast and was getting passed by everyone after the halfway point into the race and then have my legs feel like lead the last two miles, so I started off at a more gradual pace for the first couple of miles where I passed a fair amount of people and got passed by about an equal amount as the pack thinned out. Around mile two, I picked up on a pacer around what seemed like was my ideal race pace of around 8:40-8:45 minutes a mile. I kept up with the girl in the purple headband and sweater until she split away with the rest of the 10k runners at mile four.

About a mile or two later, I want to say around mile six I found another similar paced lady who I managed to keep up with and stay behind. I liked her pace as she must have gradually been increasing and we were slowly but surely starting to pass ahead of the field. This felt great and I told myself whatever I did that I must maintain pace and stay within 30-45 seconds behind her so I do not lose steam. Somehow, someway I managed to pull this off for the remaining six to seven miles of the race.

The last three miles especially breezed by as it felt like she started amping up her pace and I still managed to keep up with her. Those last six to seven miles were the best six to seven miles race miles I experienced this year. Aside from taking in the race that curved in and out of a lot of new development in Fargo and West Fargo, it felt flatout awesome to maintain a solid race pace, and not get passed by a single person in the final half of the race while managing to pass roughly 30 other competitors in that same stretch. I had to say thank you to the girl I was following during the race and we had a fun little chat about the race and other races we did this year in the finishing area for a bit. I dug the mini's form of finisher medals in the form of hockey pucks, which is fitting since the event center hosting it is the home of the minor league hockey team, the Fargo Force.

I ended up finishing with a time of 1:52:11, which beat my old PR I set at the Wild Hog by a minute and fourteen seconds. I placed 162nd out of 528 overall in the half. I felt great about my performance, and I guess the trick must be going into it coming off work the night before and just a couple hours of sleep. I had a great day to celebrate afterwards and met up with a couple of Fargo friends I have not seen in awhile for lunch, and meeting up later on that evening with a few awesome coworkers for drinks and dinner. It resulted in me passing out nice and full and buzzed and happy. A great way to feel after hitting this goal. I am signed up for one more race this weekend, and there are a couple more before the end of the year that I am still debating on signing up for so stay tuned here for future race logs!

5K

UND Autism - 4/20/13 - 26:22 - 23rd out of 74
Arthritis Foundation Zombie Run - 10/12/13 - 29:06 - 1st Place Survivor, 2nd out of 67 overall
Uffda Mud Run - 9/7/13 - ??:?? - Finished
Color Run - 9/21/13 - ??:?? - Finished

10k

Hillsboro Run - 6/13/13 - 50:17 - 23rd out of 55
Dewey Memorial - 6/1/13 - 50:21 - 15th out of 56
Firecracker - 7/4/13 - 53:13 - 42nd out of 92
Frozen Feat - 2/16/13 - 53:57 - 50th out of 108
TRF Pioneer - 9/14/13 - Disqualified

Half Marathon

Fargo Mini - 10/19/13 - 1:52:11 - 162nd out of 528
Grand Forks Wild Hog - 9/28/13 - 1:53:25 - 184th out of 649
Fargo Rocks - 5/18/13 - 2:02:48 - 2062nd out of 5526

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Bonus Resolution 4 - Finish 12 Races in a Year - 11 Down

I hate zombies. I am not talking about being terrified of them, I am speaking of not being a fan of the zombie fad that has been going around this past decade or so. My brother has been a huge zombie nut for quite a few years, and I made the mistake of attending a pair of zombie pub crawls in Fargo with him where both ended up being disastrous nights. I think that is one of the reasons I am not all about this zombie craze, the other being the fervor over The Walking Dead television show. You hear so much good buzz for a television show, and it makes me want to ignore it out of spite. I have never watched an episode, but I did play the Telltale developed episodic Xbox 360 game last year which I found to be quite awesome.

So yeah...zombies, when I first heard of the Zombie Run 5K taking place in town I intentionally ignored it. But a few of the people I ran The Color Run with last month are zombie fans and were forming a team again for this run, and I am all for running with friends so Derek, Brooke, Jesa, Ryan and myself hooked up to form team Zombies Ate My Neighbors. How the Zombie Run works is that you wear a pair of flags exactly like flag football back in the elementary school days, and interspersed throughout the 5K course are pairs of zombies about every third mile. Obviously they are going for your flags, if they get both of them before you finish you are "zombified" and eliminated from the final race "survivor" standing, though you are still welcomed to finish the course. One handy tip from another team before the race was to keep an eye out for zombies in piles of leaves.

Keeping up with my streak of awful weather for races carrying over from the Wild Hog half, the rain was coming down hard and this time the wind was in full gear too. Walking from the parking lot to the Choice Gym where the race was taking place at and enduring that morning's weather proved to be a bit much. It also proved to be too much for many of the 110 registered contestants, because of that field only 67 showed up for the race.

Come awful rain and wind, the race still took place. And team Awesome Classic Super Nintendo Game started off together near the back of the pack! A couple minutes into the race Ryan and I split off from Derek, Brooke and Jesa and decided we will do our best to stay together and joked that we would shove each other into the awaiting zombie horde so we could preserve our precious flags!

After about every third mile, we ran into a pair of zombies, and early on they were manageable to avoid because there were usually a pack of other runners around us to distract them, and if they got close to us a quick little juke and turning up the jets for a few seconds was enough to shake them off. For about the second half of the race though when Ryan and I made our way through most of the field and the pack thinned out it proved to be more challenging and there were at least a few times where I felt a few good tugs on my flags, but miraculously they remained on me. That was probably the only upside to the awful weather, where the rain made the flags a bit slippery to get a good grip of.

Also, for the last half of the race them zombies were getting quite crafty at hiding places that I am not accustomed to in the movies. They were hiding in cars and behind fences and trees. It got to the point where anything I suspected of being a hiding spot for the last half of the race I just sped up momentarily and bolted in hopes of having the zombies decide I was not even worth pursuing. That and working in tandem with Ryan was a nice strategy where we pointed out where we saw potential zombies and tried juking in opposite directions to throw them off. It paid off for both of us because we both finished with both of our flags. Derek unfortunately lost both of his after an illegal zombie double team. Brooke lost one of hers and Jesa kept both. So overall our team kept 7 of its 10 flags, not bad!

Ryan and I ran into a little bit of bad luck during the race though. Good thing I decided not to wear headphones this time. Ryan and I were following another runner as we went past another checkpoint, and about a good block after we past the checkpoint we heard one of the race checkpoint coordinators yelling at us to come back and take a different turn we ran past. We lost two blocks and had to catch back up with the field, and we figured we lost a good minute that way. Finally, during the last stretch going back to the gym as we approached the parking lot at Choice I could not remember which parking lot entrance we came out of at the beginning, and there were no arrows pointing at which one to take with no coordinators nearby to point us where to go, so I did not want to risking cutting the race short and getting disqualified again so I took the longest way around the parking lot, and according to my GPS tracker Ryan and I ran an extra quarter mile all together. Thankfully, the people manning the time clock at the finish had mercy on us and saw us miss the turn, but said not to worry about since it was not labeled and no one was there to point where to go.

I finished about ten seconds ahead of Ryan as he started to slow down in the final stretch and he told me to finish ahead of him. With about a mile left we saw no one in front of us and we kept thinking there were at least a few more people who started off really fast and probably finished quite a bit faster than us. We waited up for Derek, Brooke and Jesa to finish and gave high fives all around. We warmed up inside the gym with some post race refreshments and decided to wait around for the awards to be given out because Ryan and I were thinking maybe we cracked the top 5 or at least got a top time in our age bracket.

When they went down the Top 3 Zombie Survivors, I was surprised when I heard Ryan's name as second place, and then I realized that I was going to be first. It felt weird, I guess I did not have a big victory rush because they did not inform either Ryan and I about this as we crossed the finish line so I did not have that awesome Hollywood moment at the finish line. It still felt pretty good though to win a race, as I thought that day would never, ever happen. It is worth mentioning my own Roger Maris asterisk however. Technically, I won the race, although there was one person that finished ahead of me but he got both of his flags taken from the zombie horde and thus he was "eliminated" from the official standings. Ryan and I won the best time in our 20-29 male and 30-39 male brackets respectively too.

Since it was a smaller race, and more focused on fundraising there was no big trophy for the finish, but I did get a first place branded medal and a Zombie Run themed tshirt, hat and mug for my efforts! I may have had to go through the most bitter weather yet and endure some crazy zombies in the process, but I can finally lay claim to winning a race! I had no idea I had this in me, but am very grateful it did happen and that I was there to take in the moment with a few friends at my side. Only one more race to go before I hit 12 for the year! I am officially registered for a race the last weekend of this month, but if things go my way I may make it out to one more this weekend too.

5K

UND Autism - 4/20/13 - 26:22 - 23rd out of 74
Arthritis Foundation Zombie Run - 10/12/13 - 29:06 - 1st Place Survivor, 2nd out of 67 overall
Uffda Mud Run - 9/7/13 - ??:?? - Finished
Color Run - 9/21/13 - ??:?? - Finished

10k

Hillsboro Run - 6/13/13 - 50:17 - 23rd out of 55
Dewey Memorial - 6/1/13 - 50:21 - 15th out of 56
Firecracker - 7/4/13 - 53:13 - 42nd out of 92
Frozen Feat - 2/16/13 - 53:57 - 50th out of 108
TRF Pioneer - 9/14/13 - Disqualified

Half Marathon

Fargo Rocks - 5/18/13 - 2:02:48 - 2062nd out of 5526
Grand Forks Wild Hog - 9/28/13 - 1:53:25 - 184th out of 649

Monday, October 7, 2013

Bonus Resolution 2 - Get Back Into Baseball - Season Wrap-Up

Right now baseball is in the midst of the postseason. Unfortunately the Twins are not in it. They had a disastrous year finishing 66-96, which was 27 game behind first place in their division. I had a heck of a year keeping up with them though. I managed to keep track of every game they played this season thanks to the handy MLB At Bat app on my phone and kept up with daily stats and game write ups. They had a promising first several weeks of the season when they managing to hover around the .500 mark until they hit a few slumps they were unable to battle out of. I think their best part of the season was the first two and a half to three weeks after the all-star break where I think they only lost just a few games during that stretch.

For the most part, I managed to stick with my goal and catch at least one Twins game a week on television whether it be at a restaurant or sports bar, or watching cable at a friend's or family member's house. There were probably a few weeks where I missed a game, but there were also at least a few weeks to make up for it where I caught two games that week. And when I thought it was not going to happen, I finally made it out to Target Field once this year to catch a Twins game. It just happened to take place on September 30, the final game of the regular season against the Indians. As luck would have it, I was going down to the Twin Cities that weekend with a couple friends to catch the Nine Inch Nails concert the night before. The concert was a blast by the way, and NIN did not disappoint! I checked the schedule and was ecstatic to find their last game of the season was going on at home the next day.

I did not think my two friends were going to go since they are not sports fans and was planning on going to the game alone since I drove down met up with them separately. But when I brought up I was going they said they would go along with me to my surprise. I probably should have went alone because one friend kept making fun of the game while we were there and kept getting under my skin throughout the game. Oh well, I still managed to have a semi-decent time out there, and for being a late September game, we had some lucky weather with clear bright skies and temps in the low 70s. Since I was there I had to get a overpriced beer and hot dog too! Target Field is still as magnificent as I remember from two years ago. A five star facility all around. Unfortunately the Twins lost 5-1, but I did get to see my favorite reliever Casey Fien, get an inning of action, and I was glad to see Scott Diamond get a September call up start and for the most part had a quality start, minus a trio of fielding errors in the 6th which ultimately cost the game for the Twinkies. It was also special to see All-Star closer, Glen Perkins give a big speech in front of the team before the game essentially apologizing for the lackluster season and promised to make up for it next season.

I do have some final season thoughts, just keep in mind I still do not consider myself a baseball stat junkie but am just going by my observations throughout the year and what I have read on the daily game recaps. I was bummed to see Justin Morneau traded, I understand he may not be as powerful as he once was, but he was their next best player this year behind Mauer. At least we got a decent player from the Pirates in return in Presly, and I guess I will be rooting for Morneau in the postseason with the Pirates as they are currently up 2-1. I hope Mauer makes a full recovery and does not have any unfortunate long lasting effects from his season ending concussion. I kept hearing how Morneau was never the same after his 2010 concussion, and that would be terrible if the same happens to Mauer.

I want Aaron Hicks to be given another chance in 2014 and hope he plays all next year in the Majors. He was probably called up a year too early as he really struggled in the first several weeks of the season. I believe he finished with around a .198 average, but minus his atrocious first several weeks and I bet he was probably batting right around .230ish until he got called down in July. I believe the only main regular starters that lasted all season were Ryan Doumit and Brian Dozier. Doumit had a couple of hot streaks during the year, but the last month or two of the season he appeared to be in a slump, and during the game I was at he kept striking out. Dozier had a real strong last few months and came through with some clutch homers and a lot of big hits.

I hope the Twins keep Florimon as my underdog pick. I cannot explain it, but I feel there is something there and he can be at least somewhat reliable for getting on base once a game. As far as pitching goes, my vote for best/least worst starter goes to Kevin Correia. I saw him pitch his way out of a few nasty jams, and have at least several strong performances this year. Reading some of his post game interviews got me on his side too where he owned up to his mistakes but had at least in my view justifiable explanations for them. I hope Diamond sticks in the rotation too all of next season. He just kept getting bad breaks this year after a standout rookie season. The games I saw him pitch he usually looked strong through the 4th, but would usually collapse in the 5th or 6th. I hope Worley gets his act together too, the Twins were really banking on him after they acquired him from Philly, but he whiffed big time. It sounded like he had a strong second half of the season in the minors until he got hurt, so maybe that got him a reality check and he will have a decent 2014 start. The Twins have an awesome bullpen and I absolutely hope they stick with at least Duensing, Burton and especially Fien and Perkins.

That does it for this baseball season. I will still keep up with the Pirates in the post season and root for Morneau, but I am glad I managed to stick with the Twins all year, and am looking forward to doing it again next season!

Monday, September 30, 2013

Bonus Resolution 4 - Finish 12 Races in a Year - 10 Down

As I alluded to last blog, it ended up being a crazy September for races. I did end up racing in a race every weekend of the month. I should not be surprised though as it seems from looking at various race schedules that September and October are the busiest months of the year. I wanted to update this resolution a week or two earlier so I did not have to write up about three blogs in one entry, so I will do my best to not go too overboard here.
First up we have the Thief River Falls Pioneer 10K I ran in on 9/14. Thief River Falls is about an hour away from where I live, and I decided to go run there because it is near where my mom's boyfriend lives and I thought I would hang out with them for the day while I was out there. This is a yearly 5k/10k event they do in Thief River Falls, and they made it a color run for the first time this year. They had members of their local swim team throwing that glorious colored powder at us at various intervals of the race.

I want to do my best to forget about this race. It started off great, it was the smallest 10K field I have competed in at around 35 entrants, and I started out really strong, and was holding up in 6th place and maintaining pace and looking to have my first ever top 10 finish and sub-50 minute 10K! Well, it was not meant to be. Around the halfway mark, a race volunteer waved me off a side street and directed me down a path that went a few blocks the halfway point where I turned around and headed back where I came from. There were no other racers immediately in front of or behind me as we were pretty spread out in the front of the pack. Where I got back to the point where I turned in from there was a big pack of racers were coming in off the side street and the race volunteer had her back to me as she waived them to where I was coming from. I presumed I had to go back where I came from so that is exactly what I did.

A few minutes later though, I saw the 3rd, 4th and 5th place racers together coming in off a side street who were previously about a good two or three minutes ahead of me. It was then I realized I screwed up and did a wrong turn and was suppose to keep going past the race volunteer an extra few blocks. I found out later one racer (the one in the photo with me to the right actually) tried shouting at me, but he was too far back and I had my headphones on. I found the timekeeper right after the race and told him not to count my time because of my error. I wish the race could have been labeled better, as some points were clearly marked by signs and other only had volunteers pointing where to go, and when you have a big pack of racers going by in both directions, oversights like that are bound to happen.

The next weekend on 9/21 had the official Color Run come to Grand Forks. I believe The Color Run was the initial color race that started the craze and its few imitators just two years ago. I was not going to do it, but a few friends and coworkers were making a team, and since this is a race that is not timed and purely recreational, I figured it would be a terrific way to enjoy a race with some friends and get super doused in color along the way. Over 4,000 people registered for the race, and they cleared out a good couple mile stretch of 42nd St. to make room for everybody. I joined up with Derek, Brooke, Ryan and Justine for the race. We all started together, but the field was so jam packed that we all eventually split off from each other. There was a very hyper DJ MCing the event which helped give the race the most straight up fun atmosphere of all the races I have been a part of. After the race, the DJ was getting everyone to dance and throw their own packets of color at each other in a little concert area around the finish line. We all jammed out there for about a half hour afterwards and made sure that the guy going around in a leafblower hosed as much color off us as possible before we headed back home.

Finally, I closed out September with the Wild Hog Half Marathon on 9/28. For some reason I was not as nervous for this race as the Fargo Half Marathon I trained so hard for in May. I guess in the back of my mind I had a feeling what I was in for this time around. I kept up my practice runs accordingly, and intentionally did not run for four days before the race to bank as much energy as I could for race day. I felt well prepared going into the race and was actually able to get some sleep the night before the race this time too! Unfortunately, I was not counting on it raining throughout the entire race. It was not a downpour by any means, but a nice and steady rain that held up from the beginning until the end. I threw on a light windbreaker to help keep me a little dry, but was probably more paranoid about it slowing me down and preventing me from hitting the two hour goal I set for myself for the race.

For the Fargo half, I started off trailing the ten minute a mile pacer for the first few miles before gradually increasing my speed and finishing with around a 9 minute a mile pace. So for the Wild Hog, I went to follow the pacer who had a 1 hour 50 minute finish time which I believe was around a 8 minute 30 second pace. Shortly into the race though, I saw the pacer for the 1 hour 45 minute mark and recognized him from a few group runs I did with a local running club in town this summer and I remember keeping up with him on those runs before so I thought I would try and keep up with him here. Silly me neglected those group runs in the summer were only five mile runs, and around that mark I started to gradually lose pace and sight of him. I was not getting passed by too many people though and found a new pacer by a guy in a makeshift garbage bag poncho I was able to follow.

I was still gradually losing pace and getting passed by a runner or two every couple of minutes but was keeping up with garbage bag man fine. I brought two energy gels with me I took around the 1/3 and 2/3 marks of the race and was only stopping at every other water aid station so I did not have gobs of it swishing around in my stomach. Around mile 10 though, I saw garbage bag man really slow down and stopped to walk for a breather. I was not anticipating this and it messed with my race psyche. I kept on trucking and found a running couple to trail behind, but after about mile 11 my legs started to feel like lead and my speed really started to decrease. Not too long later the 1 hour 50 minute pacer past me, and I did my best to keep up with her but it was no use as she kept getting further. At this point though I was giving it my all and told myself I was not going to stop at all and was going to run this out no matter how heavy my legs felt. I got passed by quite a few people those last two miles, but I finished strong and was all smiles as I saw my finishing time of 1:53:25. Not too bad considering the atrocious weather, and for running on empty the last two miles. There is another half marathon in Fargo in a couple weeks, right now my legs are still recovering and I do not know if I got that run in me, but if I do, or whenever I run my next half I would like to believe I could conquer that 1 hour 50 minute barrier.

Ok, I lied, that was not brief at all and I was my usual long winded self. If you managed to read this entire blog, thank you for sticking with me! I am now at 10 races in the books for the year, with only needing two more to meet this resolution. I am already signed up for one at the end of the month, and I know of at least a couple more before the end of the year and am just debating which one to sign up for. I will make sure to keep you all posted, so please keep checking back!

5K

UND Autism - 4/20/13 - 26:22 - 23rd out of 74
Uffda Mud Run - 9/7/13 - ??:?? - Finished
Color Run - 9/21/13 - ??:?? - Finished

10k

Hillsboro Run - 6/13/13 - 50:17 - 23rd out of 55
Dewey Memorial - 6/1/13 - 50:21 - 15th out of 56
Firecracker - 7/4/13 - 53:13 - 42nd out of 92
Frozen Feat - 2/16/13 - 53:57 - 50th out of 108
TRF Pioneer - 9/14/13 - Disqualified

Half Marathon

Fargo Rocks - 5/18/13 - 2:02:48 - 2062nd out of 5526
Grand Forks Wild Hog - 9/28/13 - 1:53:25 - 182nd out of 645

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - Bonus Installment

Clint Eastwood. Baseball. That is all you need to know, watch this film now.

I loved baseball movies as a kid. From 1989-94, there was a flood of them in my impressionable years that left many lasting memories. Some of them I still love and re-watch to this day like the Major League trilogy, Field of Dreams, The Scout and The Sandlot. While others probably hit at the right age for me and I refuse repeated viewings of them because I just know in my gut they will not appeal to me the same way they did back then with prime examples being Little Big League, Angels in the Outfield and Rookie of the Year.

In more recent years however I strayed away from baseball flicks, or not many have stuck out to me. This last year saw two films with Moneyball and the film that is the focus of this blog, Trouble With the Curve (Trailer) make an awesome return to baseball movie greatness. For the first time in 20 years, Clint Eastwood got out of the director's chair and back to just being an actor. The director here actually is a longtime assistant director of Clint's who is making his directorial debut, Robert Lorenz.

Clint plays elder baseball scout Gus, whose age is rapidly catching up with him, and is early in the film diagnosed with glaucoma when he realizes his vision is betraying him. His doctor advises him to get it checked out, but Gus has to be on the road to analyze the latest hot prospect so his best friend and fellow associate Pete (John Goodman) convinces his daughter Mickie (Amy Adams) to accompany him for this last trek of the season to make sure he still has his eyes in check. They run into former top prospect Johnny Flannigan (Justin Timberlake) who flamed out early in The Show and is now a scout himself.

Eastwood is sublime at playing old, cranky and stubborn, and that is exactly the persona behind Gus as he keeps brushing aside his Glaucoma issues and ignoring his daughter trying to get the truth out of him on why they grew so apart over the years. Watching Eastwood and Adams overcome the hurdles of their character's relationship was a battle I enjoyed. Their conflict keeps building and building, with Adams especially doing an awesome part in showing how Gus's stubbornness rubbed onto her as she holds her own whenever Mickie and Gus go at it. Justin Timberlake is spot on in his supporting role, full of determination of rising through the scouting ranks and landing an announcing gig, but the inevitable feelings he has for Mickie throws a wrench in his scouting plans.

The only part of the film I thought that could have been done better was there really was no resolution to Gus's glaucoma, as it more or less takes a backseat in the film's final act where the film turns into whether or not their team makes a move on the hot prospect at the upcoming draft. I like how they handle the draft and the fallout from it, but the film gets you feeling for Gus and his failing vision and to see how that issue gets brushed to the side in the final half hour is kind of disappointing. Luckily all of the other issues explored in the movie are dealt with properly and have a gratifying sense of finality.

I really enjoyed Trouble With the Curve for the same reasons I enjoyed Moneyball. While baseball may appear to be the focus of both films, it is not of the actual game itself but more of the behind the scenes office/scouting shenanigans that are used to enhance and develop the characters and had you rooting for them until the end to see if they overcame their conflicts and find that lasting resolve. Moneyball has awesome, strong characters, but obviously with its connections to the book that changed the sport forever it keeps more of a focus on the game. While I will give the nudge to enjoying that movie as a whole more, I cannot deny that Trouble With the Curve does a better job at developing their characters and having me stick with them and care about the individuals more.

Trouble With the Curve is not part of the Clint Eastwood collection of movies I am covering. It is the only Eastwood movie I own that is not part of the 10-film collection I am working on reviewing, but I am going to a Twins game this weekend, the last game of the season as a matter of fact and really wanted to get in the mood for baseball, so here is a free bonus Clint Eastwood film review for you this month! If you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

Mystic River
The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino

Friday, September 13, 2013

Bonus Resolution 4 - Finish 12 Races in a Year - 7 Down

Last Saturday I participated in one of the toughest things I ever did in my life. A mud run. This one in particular, The Uffda Mud Run, was put on by local extreme endurance racing group, ENDracing, the same folks who put on the Winter Ultramarathon earlier this year that mother nature made me back out of. If you have never heard of these, they have been gaining popularity over the last few years with two of the more mainstream national mud runs put on by Tough Mudder and Warrior Dash. They usually are a 5 to 10k race with a couple dozen obstacles mixed in throughout, most of which guaranteeing you become a muddy mess by the end of the race.

I ran this race with my friend Sean. He ran the 10k on the 4th of July with me and I told him I would run a race with him in return, and why he decided to pick a mud run was beyond me and at first I was not even going to do it as I thought I would be nowhere fit enough to endure it. As time passed however and I found out this was essentially a recreational race for the sake of survival instead of competition and I decided I would give it my best shot, and if any of the 23 obstacles the race director kept daunting on the event Facebook page were too tough for me, I would do my best at them and move on to the next one.

I did my best to step up my training for this as I heard some of the early obstacles revealed involved a few wall climbs. I have never got back in the habit of doing pull ups/sit ups/push ups, so for the past month I started doing sets of reps of all three of those a few times a week. Additionally, three of the obstacles involved crossing the Red River, and I cannot even remember the last time I went swimming for it must have been around a decade, so I went out and got a couple of practice swims in over the last couple of weeks.

So the big race day finally happened last Saturday, and I met up with Sean near the starting line and our wave took off at 11am. A lot of the early obstacles were relatively straightforward. A few were mazes consisting of tires, logs, boulders and netting to navigate through. Of course there were a few early mud pits too. They definitely stepped up in difficulty as we moved on though; or as the race director stated, "I like to eat my peas first before we get to the steak."

The set of three walls to climb were a decent hurdle for me. I got over the 4' wall no problem, but for the 6' and 8' wall Sean and I gave each other a boost over. The latter mud pits got increasingly more difficult to traverse through, and were deep enough so it was troublesome to walk through so my only option was to doggie paddle my way through them to get the heck out of there. And this is speculation on my part, but I am pretty sure whoever made a few of the latter mud pits had some fun because they reeked like someone dumped tons of cow pies in them.

I only failed two obstacles. One was called something along the lines of "Fjording the Rough" and it featured the deepest and thickest mud of the whole course. It was about three feet deep, and I took about three or four steps in and found it nearly impossible to move and saw the other runners barely moving at all in front of me. I had a good feeling if I kept on trucking I would definitely lose a shoe and/or get stuck. Even the race director said afterwards he did not anticipate this obstacle to be so dastardly. So after my initial few steps, I turned around and made haste to the rest of the track. The other obstacle I failed started off with a trivia question. I got the question wrong and got an orange token. I then had to go into a 3' tank of ice water and find a corresponding orange colored golf ball. Since I got a trivia question wrong, only 25% of the golf balls at the bottom of the mud colored ice water tank were orange. You can see where this is going. I dove five times and each time came out with a blue ball, and each time shivering more and more of my own balls off. One of the volunteers must have took pity on me and threw me an orange ball, but I was so beyond cold at this point I bobbled it and lost it in the tank. I took that as my cue to get out before I get hypothermia though after about five minutes in the tank at this point. I had no idea the race photographers that were hired were taking my photo at this point, and they got a great shot of me as you can obviously see here.

The three river crossings went pretty well for the most part. The first one went through without a hitch as we pulled ourselves across the river via a rope above us tied to the river banks. The second was a bit of a challenge as four of us all had one arm clung to a inner tube, while we all tried to synchronize our swim with our remaining hand. This proved to be quite a challenge. Thank goodness there was barely a current to the river that day, it was actually cool and calm that morning, nearly perfect weather for the day. Eventually we made it across.

The final crossing, and the final obstacle was crossing the Red River itself. This was the obstacle I kept telling myself I had to beat in the weeks leading up in the race. You had the option of using a lifejacket or taking a ferry across the river, but I was set on swimming across on my own. I am no Michael Phelps by any means, and I was glad on my two practice swims I did I discovered I can at least still somewhat competently swim and felt confident enough in my abilities to do the swim without a life jacket. Of course they had to pick the widest part of the river along the track to swim across. I have no idea what the official measurement was, but I would approximate it to be around 1/6 of a mile. I dove in off a dock constructed just for the race and went in guns blazing. I American Crawled my way across and went in with a mindset thinking of the handful of people I legitimately hated throughout my life and that I am going finish this in spite of them. That got me going pretty good, and the last quarter of the swim I started to finally lose steam and for the last quarter of the river I started to worry as I dragged into a slow doggie paddle for the remainder of the swim, but eventually I made it across. It felt quite powerful emerging from the river. I have no idea how to properly put it into context, but it felt very uplifting and like I was getting past a whole new hurdle in life I have been wanting to overcome for quite sometime now. In other words, it felt great.

A short little climb up a riverbank, and a little sprint to the finish line marked an official finish/survival of the Uffda Mud Run. I received a spiffy looking keychain bottle opener at the finish line and quickly made haste to a water hose set up nearby so Sean and I could spray ourselves down. My shoes were totally trashed at this point and instead of hosing them off I tossed them into a growing pile of other disposed shoes. I was a little sore for the next couple of days, and I got a few expected little cuts and bruises all over me. This run definitely kicked my ass, but it was worth it and I am glad I finished. I can say without a doubt I would not do this race on my own, but if I found another couple of friends to do it with me I would for sure. It was invaluable to have a friend with me here so we could help each other out by assisting with boosts, cheering each other on to keep our spirits up and just flat out enduring the event with each other until the very end.

Latest Race Log

5K

UND Autism 5k - 4/20/13 - 26:22 - 23rd out of 74
Uffda Mud Run - 9/7/13 - ??:?? - Finished

10k

Hillsboro Run - 6/13/13 - 50:17 - 23rd out of 55
Dewey Memorial - 6/1/13 - 50:21 - 15th out of 56
Firecracker - 7/4/13 - 53:13 - 42nd out of 92
Frozen Feat - 2/16/13 - 53:57 - 50th out of 108

Half Marathon

Fargo - 5/18/13 - 2:02:48 - 2062nd out of 5526

Resolution 13 - Defeat Suppression - Complete

Defeated!

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Resolution 9 - Clint Eastwood Quest - 70% Complete

So the seventh film in the Clint Eastwood BluRay Collection I am choosing to watch, is 2003's Mystic River (Trailer). This is the first film in the collection I have seen thus far that does not star Eastwood, but he is the director of this film. Only other movie I can think of I saw that just saw Eastwood directing only was Invictus from a few years ago. I am not even a rugby fan, but I loved that movie so much I went out and tracked down a Rugby game for my PS2 immediately afterwards.

Mystic River starts off with three friends growing up in Boston playing street hockey, when a horrible incident occurs that puts them on their separate paths until one of their children is abducted a few decades later and the three of them unintentionally wind up mixed together in the thick of it all. Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn) is the unfortunate one with his daughter gone missing. Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon) is the detective leading up the case to find her along with his partner Whitey (Laurence Fishburne). Finally we have Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins) who is still feeling the side effects from that horrible aforementioned childhood incident and happened to be at one of the places where Jimmy's daughter was last seen.

The film takes the next two hours to unravel the crime drama from all angles. The whole time it keeps dangling nuggets without directly saying who the culprit is, but it keeps nudging you into thinking it is one of two candidates. I love how this film is paced, and for being over two hours it never felt it overstayed its welcome because there is such a diverse cast where every character seems to have their moments. While Penn, Robbins and Bacon are the major players, even most of the supporting roles manage to get a scene or two to call their own. Boyle's wife Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden), has no idea what to make of her husband after the incident and does a tremendous job looking as perturbed and troubled as he is. Brendan Harris (Tom Guiry) is the now widowed boyfriend of the missing daughter, and just like Boyle, you never know what his true motives are until the very end cause he so brilliantly manages to stay in the shades of gray throughout the entire film.

I kept thinking throughout the movie when things finally come to a head, I will not see what is coming and sure enough I did not. Perhaps I am horrible for predicting twists, but I enjoyed how the final moments played out, and I can safely say Mystic River did not have an awful twist for the sake of just having a twist like in films such as Hancock. The twist here made total sense, and the way they explained it too should have had me guessing about it earlier.

If you like your crime dramas/thrillers then you will definitely enjoy Mystic River. Eastwood redeemed himself from the last film I blogged about in this collection, The Rookie. I do not see it up on Netflix instant streaming, but the disc is there for rental. If you want to follow along on the Clint Eastwood collection fun with me, here is a link to the box set I have off Amazon.

Past Eastwood Collection Blogs

The Rookie
Absolute Power
Dirty Harry
Kelly's Heroes
Where Eagles Dare
Gran Torino