After finally settling on a plan I went to Sydney for a three day holiday during Easter. The full report is over here.
I had a bad start with my running, tripping over while running downhill and landing hard on my arm and knee over the Easter weekend. I kept running for another fifteen kilometres afterwards, but my arm had gone numb and I couldn't lift it by about half way. I had serious pain in my arm for at least three weeks afterwards, but I didn't really miss out on training because of it. I also did my first interval sprint session in months, eight repeats of 600 metres. The same day my plantar fasciitis problem came back, for the first time in months, but it may have been because of a new pair of Nike Structure I had started wearing that are slighty too small.
 |
| Falling down. |
I entered two races for the month, the first was the 7km Sri Chinmoy at Centennial Park that I already covered in the holiday report, and the second was the 10km Sri Chinmoy at Princes Park. The whole race was completed in pouring rain, I started out alright but after about four kilometres my shoes and socks were soaked and my feet were slipping about in my shoes, making running a little difficult. I died off after about six kilometres, and more so in the final two kilometres with the hills. Some jerk tried to sprint past me at the end but I managed to hold him off. The pancakes were quite disappointing compared to the big thick ones they served in Sydney, they were more like thin crepes this time. The final result was 38:58 and seventh overall.
 |
| Race kick off. |
The AFL season is back underway and I attended the opening Thursday match between Carlton and Richmond, with a crowd of about 83,000. The first quarter was looking promising, then Carlton didn't score a goal for almost two quarters, so it's pretty clear they won't be any better this year. I was also considering going to Carlton vs. Essendon and possibly Carlton vs. Collingwood, but I made a good decision in both instances as the matches weren't even close. The NBA playoffs are also underway, but just prior to that I had a day working from home which coincided with the final day of the regular season - with lots of playoff positioning still up for grabs. Sadly every game that mattered was over by the end of the first quarter, and Oklahoma City missed the playoffs completely, but I've just about given up trying to support them since their move from Seattle, I may just have to wait for a new Sonics team instead.
 |
| AFL kick off. |
I purchased the NBA League Pass to watch the playoffs which has been quite good. In addition to watching the end of a few live games over the weekend I've also been watching the last quarter of most games during the week too. The website is a little poor, but it is still possible to skip to the final quarter of the games and not have the scores spoilt.
The Fantasy NBA season concluded, and with a bit of luck I managed to win both the ESPN and Yahoo leagues I had entered. We also kicked off the Fantasy AFL league a bit late, missing the first three rounds but having a belated draft night with pizza that was a bit of fun - unfortunately the pizza turned up right as the draft was starting, which made things a little difficult.
At work I have been so busy I barely have time to think, as well as trying to juggle multiple projects and responsibilities. I like being challenged and working hard, but this is probably about to become a bit too much. We are in the middle of interviewing for a contract role, so that will either free up some of my time, or waste more of my time trying to bring someone up to speed and manage their problems - possibly the second option. I also got stuck helping out with a major incident when some database servers failed, which meant I didn't get a break for my lunchtime run until after 3:00pm - a new record.
Sadly I added no new baking projects for the month, I did repeat a couple of recipes but I don't count them. I expect to get back on track in May though.
I made some good progress on my to do list, which is now getting slightly smaller:
- Queens Birthday holiday
- I came up with a good plan for New Zealand that wasn't too costly
- I decided against it though, mostly due to the expected weather
- Might do it at the end of the year instead
- Europe holiday
- Only slight progress, need to get the basic plan worked out soon
- Everything depends on the release of the Premier League schedule, which isn't out for a while still
- Finally used up the rest of my movie and video game vouchers that were about to expire
- Organised tickets for the Comedy Festival
- Finished shares research...
- Purchased shares
- 8 companies with a total investment of about $62,000 - for now...
- Only a couple of risky ones, particularly a child care company
- House research
- Kind of given up for now since the prices and competition keeps increasing with no end in sight
- An identical house to ours in the same estate recently sold for $730,000
- We paid $575,000 about four years ago
I saw two acts at this year's Comedy Festival, the first was Lawrence Leung's "The Escapist". It was an hour show at the Trades Hall, most of the jokes and the presentation was enjoyable and well presented, I didn't really like some of the magic topics though, 8 out of 10 overall. The second was Tripod's "This Gaming Life" which only ran for two nights at Hamer Hall. I didn't find it very interesting, went for too long and there wasn't even any game music. Speaking of which, they announced a "Video Games Live" show which is run together with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and they play nothing by licensed game music...only it's on the same day as Manchester City vs. Real Madrid in July so I'm going to miss out!
So that's it for another month, except for the summary:
- Books
- Black House by Stephen King
- Captivating story
- Didn't really have the suspenseful ending that it was building up to
- Have to go back and read The Talisman now
- 7 out of 10
- Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
- Taking a break from Stephen King temporarily
- Very short, only 4.5 hours at most
- A few weird differences from the first season of the TV series
- 8 out of 10
- Movies
- Fast And Furious 7
- Too long, particularly several car or fight scenes
- Too many ridiculous plots that made no sense
- 5 out of 10
- Music
- None
- I did buy a ticket to see Jebediah in June though
- TV
- The Challenge Battle Of The Exes 2
- Great as always
- The exiled contestants got a second chance like Survivor
- I didn't really like that idea, was never that good in Survivor either
- 10 out of 10
- Video Games
- None
- I did buy several new games though!
- Batman Arkham Origins (360)
- Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Returns (360)
- Uncharted 2 (PS3)
- Uncharted 3 (PS3)
- The first EB Games had the box but not the game!
- Second time lucky...
- And a batch order from Oz Game Shop
- Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
- Gears Of War 3 (360)
- Metroid Other M (Wii)
- Ni no Kuni (PS3)
- Rage (360)
- Watch Dogs (360)
- Zelda Twilight Princess (Wii)
No comments:
Post a Comment