Overdue post...

Wow, what a week.

I flew outta Richmond at 6:45pm last Tuesday for Addison, TX, 15 miles north of Dallas. I was heading down for a 2 day Bootcamp style class for McAfee EPO upgrade training. (EPO is a McAfee product for centrally managing all the McAfee VirusScan installations in the environment. One of the duties that my team is responsible for is McAfee VirusScan across roughly 1200 servers.) The class was great. I really learned a lot about tweaking our current installation of EPO and some great info on the new version. Our instructor was really good and even took us out and showed us around Addison and Dallas both Wednesday and Thursday nights. Nothing like having your instructor buy you drinks and shots all night! He took us to a restaurant in Dallas on Thursday evening, Cuba Libre, which had some of the best food I've eaten in a long time! The bartender made the best Mojito that I've ever had! Being half Cuban, that restaurant was my kind of place! With all this learning and partying, I did manage to squeeze in a 4 mile run on Thursday afternoon. Kinda cool to strap on the Garmin and run around a city that you have never been to! 7:01 pace for 4.14 miles. So, I'm still fast even after two nights of drinking! The weather was really nice, mid 60s with zero humidity. Almost cold, but very comfortable for a run!

I got back to Richmond about 1pm on Friday and headed to work to get my expense report turned in and get through some email. My new position comes with a TON of email! In hindsight, I probably should have spent less time drinking and more time checking email during my evenings in Dallas. I now have close to 500 emails in my Inbox! I left with about 100! Oh well, hard to stay in a hotel room in a city you've never been to.

Friday evening Nikki had her work Christmas party which was fun. They chartered a bus to drive us to the party, which was about 30 minutes from Richmond, so that we could partake in some beverages along the ride. We had a great time and it was really good to see Nikki after 4 days. The only downside was that Nikki had taken the kids to my Mom's house earlier Friday morning, so I didn't get to see them when I got back into town. Going on 4 days without seeing them. : (

Saturday morning Nikki's Dad and Brother, Kevin, met us at our house to leave for Morgantown, WV. About a 5 and a half hour drive. Kelly, the younger Brother, was graduating from WVU on Sunday. Before we left, Nikki and I realize that we need to have someone come over and water our Christmas Tree. Yes, we needed a Sitter for our Christmas Tree! I got in touch with my good friend and neighbor, Mark, who agreed to come over and keep our Children's Christmas dreams alive!

In Morgantown, we got lucky and had cloudy, foggy, and rainy (heavy at times) weather all weekend! It was nasty and cold up there. Had a few more drinks at a party for Kelly and his friends that evening. I resisted wearing all my VT Hokie stuff up there, since they are pretty big rivals of ours and I didn't want to take anything away from Kelly's weekend by trying to make a scene.

The Graduation on Sunday was really nice, in WVU's Basketball Coliseum. Pretty big place. Very nice ceremony. I even nudged Kevin to holler Kelly's name right before they started announcing Graduates. When he yelled, it was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Kelly's name echoed throughout the whole Coliseum and we could see Kelly raise his hands in acknowledgement! It was good to see Kelly again and be there for his Graduation. Congrats Kelly, we love you!

On Sunday evening we all take it pretty easy, knowing that we are getting up early Monday morning to head back to Richmond. Just a nice dinner with Kelly's girlfriend, Jess, and her family.

After a stop at Kelly's place to pack up and take home some of his stuff, we hit the road back home. We get back to town and I head over to pick up my dog, Allie, who was very happy to see me. Then Nikki gets home after picking up the kids from my Mom's house. Boy were they happy to see me, as was I! : ) I hadn't seen them in almost a week and really missed them. It was good to be back home with my family! I love them all so much!

Now that my drinking binge and sleep deprived nights are behind me, for now, I'm glad to be back home and back into my routine. I'll be better about updating my blog, especially as I flesh out my 2008 Race Schedule. I'll also have some pictures up from this past weekend, so look for those.

On an Ironman training note, I went to see my Sports Doctor today, Dr. Stadler, to get a physical done with some blood work. Nothing wrong, just want to make sure I'm in good working order before my Ironman training really gets started. Haven't had a full physical in almost 10 years. I'll have a Gait Analysis done in a couple weeks to check out my running form, which I think feels good, but we'll see.