Don't mind me...

Don't mind me, I'm just e-mailing myself a 2-megapixel photo that I took from my Blackberry of Notre Dame dominating the Hawaii Bowl that I'm watching on Andrea's Blackberry that is logged into my Slingbox Pro HD that is connecting my DirecTV HD-DVR to the innerwebs wirelessly.



No big whoop.

I've only been waiting since JANUARY FREAKING FOURTH!

‘Tis the Season...

For holiday music!

Christmas music is great. I love the old stuff by Bing and Dean and Elvis, the ridiculous stuff like Porky Pig and Alvin and the Chipmunks, the modern stuff like U2 and the Barenaked Ladies, and even the stuff that I only heard once and even then it might have been a dream (I swear, I heard a song called "Christmas in Painesville" when I was a kid. Hmm. Now that I think about it... maybe it *wasn't* about the town I grew up by in Ohio.)

And now, faithful blog readers (hi Mom and James!), I present you some thoughts on my favorite Christmas songs.

Prank caller
When they were getting Band Aid together, and Boy George picked up his phone and heard that they wanted him to join Paul McCartney, Sting, David Bowie, Bono, Phil Collins and Annie Lennox, etc, did he think it was a prank call? You want me to what? With who? Really? This can't be right... Never has anyone been so out of place amongst a talented group of performers since Christian Laettner made the final cuts for the original Dream Team.


It gets me every time.
How do you make a hanky dance? You put a little boogie in it! It's jokes like these (thanks Gramma!) that get me every damn time. I'm a sucker. In that vain, call the 12 Pains of Christmas my boogie to your hanky. "She's a witch, I hate her." "Now why the hell aren't they blinking?" "I don't even know half these people". Quite simply, every song should incorporate a line with this exact same tone: "Fine, you so smart?! You rig up the lights!" Gold.

So simple.... so effective
Why was music invented, boys and girls? Music was invented to get chicks, pure and simple. Don't try to argue this point with me. Which is why I love Dean Martin's "Baby It's Cold Outside". Logistically, you've done the leg work, you have the young lady over your house. But now she want's to leave, something something about "what would the neighbors think?". But then Mother Nature comes to the rescue with loads and loads of snow. All protests to leave are met with the same ROCK SOLID retort: it's cold outside. Simple, direct, effective. And it will forever make me sad that today this air-tight logic might get you 10-20 for false imprisonment.

*"Just another half a drink more"... it was probably this.
**Whoever commissioned this sin against nature should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Don't judge me
Everyone has a guilty pleasure movie. A movie that when it comes on, you have to watch. You're not proud of the fact that you watch the movie, like the movie, know every line from the movie. You don't share this with a lot of people, like any other addiction perhaps. You don't seek it out, per se, it seeks YOU out. Damn you TNT! My guilty-pleasure movie is A League of Their Own. Something about Geena Davis doing the splits in a skirt to catch a ball, Madonna and her fear that her "bosoms" might fall out of her shirt while making a catch, and Kit's Mary Ann to Dottie's Ginger are just all too much to handle. Bonus points for an inspire performance by Jon Lovitz. Go Peaches! *Checks tvguide.com, wonders if we get the OXYGEN network, calls DIRECTV. Whew!

Anyway, glass houses, people. Glass houses. Everyone has a guilty-pleasures movie. I'm not saying that Andrea's is While You Were Sleeping but we did watch it last night. More accurately, I watched it while she *listened* to it from the kitchen at her request. Yes, just listening still counts, darlin'.

After watching that movie last night in its entirety, some questions:
-Where do you get those tattered gray gloves with the finger-tips missing that make you look poor? They would help my street cred immeasurably.
-Were they paying Bill Pullman by the word? Or was he unable to memorize his lines? Maybe there's something to the silent-sophisticated thing after all.
-How was Lucy possibly able to withstand Joe Jr.'s good looks, persistence, and charm? Is she a robot or something?
-Lastly, I ask this: really? Really? It took a week to come clean on this huge lie? Did you think you were going to get away with it? That's fraud, my friend. Lock her up. I mean, when you think about it, this movie really never should have happened.

Unregardless, my guilty pleasure Christmas song (see how I brought that back around?) is Christmas Wrapping by The Waitressess. No, I'm not proud of it. But give it a listen. It's hypnotic. Oh Waitresses, you do indeed know what guys want.

Runs that aren't races...

...in beautiful places with bright shiny faces and moderate paces. So tie up your laces for a run that erases your blues awwwwwaaayyyyy!!
-Andrea

Yesterday was a bitter sweet day for Team Vazac. We headed up to Rodeo Beach for a trail non-race put on by the good folks over at Pacific Coast Trail Runs. Only seven weeks into my post-bilateral sports hernia life, I was relegated to being superfan.

Andrea, of course, rocked the house. She finished only 18 seconds off the podium in the 20k race, after having not run as much as she'd like to over the past 5+ weeks. Check out this form! After the race she proved how little the hills took out of her by rubbing her belly and patting her head at the same time.

A big congrats to our friends Donna & Dave who exceeded even our high expectations in their first ever trail race. They were nervous about the 8k race (with over 1000 feet of climbing) at first, but I promised that the proper medical support would be on hand. This is a very tough race, here is the first of many, many hills. Their post-race reward? Growlers! Side note: never mess with Donna in the finishes chute. She'll get you every time.

Congrats to all the racers! (sniff sniff, single tear....)

Wonderful Wald Women

What could better than spending the weekend with a Wald woman? Spending the weekend with TWO Wald women! Especially after you are able to convince one of them to hop on the SV650. No one else can get away with riding such a hot bike in sandals.


Andrea's sister Molly was in San Francisco this weekend and we had a grand old time. We wore Santa hats, cruised up to Wine Country, met up with some friends, and basically just enjoyed our time underneath the Leprechaun Angel.

Anyone who has visited Team Vazac knows that the first and last stop of my privately led tour of SF is the South End Rowing Club. Nothing like being immortalized with your name spelled wrong! Thanks Tim! I demand a recount.

Bygones.

I know what you're asking. Hey Charlie! Did you try to kiss Andrea at all? And if so, were your advances perhaps rebuked?

Perhaps so. Maybe even twice.

Molly, we had a blast with you. Thanks for coming. Next time the weather will be better, we promise! Check out what you missed by only a couple of hours. Never thought I'd see THIS in San Francisco.

Sippin' Cris in Compton

As is so often the case when Andrea's little brother John comes to San Francisco, we had a whirlwind weekend. First time he came to town was when I turned 30. After polishing off a bottle of Johnny Walker Gold, sprinting around the lagoon loop with my best bud James, we had a crazy all-day bbq out at Crissy Field. The next day we imbibed a bit up in Wine Country in style, of course. How else would you get around but a stretch Hummer? The second time John came out, Team Will-Pedal-For-Drinks DOMINATED the field at the Wildflower Half Ironman down at Lake San Antonio, CA. John ripped up the field in his first ever open-water swim and Andrea soared through the course like she was floating. The only disappointing part of that was that HE looked better in MY wetsuit than I ever have. One of these visits we'll get John out to SF and just sit on the couch, maybe play some Parcheesi. Last weekend, however, wasn't that visit.

John landed Thanksgiving morning to breakfast carmel rolls. No better magic trick than making 1000 Calories disappear in 2 bites! After hitting the Lyon Steps and cruising for chicks out near Fort Point, he settled in with us for the Thanksgiving Feast that Andrea had prepared. Oh, and we might have drank some champagne, as well.

Friday morning we drove down to LA for the bi-annual Notre Dame Beatdown at the hands of the University of Spoiled Children (USC). Compton is lovely this time of year, let's just say that we weren't the ONLY ones in town with a beer in hand before 7:30am. The day was a blur. After cursing at DirecTV (another fun Thanksgiving tradition!) I got our SatGo to work. We got the grill fired up, the pizzas were assembled, we tapped the keg, ate some cake off the ground, tinkled just a little bit, we called our bookies (those 32.5 points were just too many to give up), we filled wine bottles with beer for a couple spirited games of 'cups', ate some brats, and passed-back bracelets to gain access to the 'A' toilets as if we were 20 trying to sneak into the Boat Club. A complete blur. Tickets were lost. Couples were separated, most were reunited. Oh, and the Irish lost. It was ugly, but with no real hope of winning, it wasn't as disappointing as 2002, 2004, or 2006. Thanks Charlie Weis for lowering our expectations! Yay!

(Side story: we stayed at the same hotel as the USC players. Were we in awe of these goliaths? Not I. My mind was constantly processing which player was most worthy of Gillooly-ing. My eyes were busy looking for dropped steroids needles. Every encounter between a player and a suit was closely monitored, just waiting to see if they would slip up and the flow of cash would be obvious. Brian Cushing was probably the scariest of them all. #10 is a bad man on the field. And if he found out that I was showing everyone this picture of him, I mean, what would he do to me? Would he snap into a 'roid rage? Likely. But then he wouldn't be able to play the next day. That's win-win-win, my friends. I was clearly conflicted.)

After drinking Cris with LenDale White Saturday night (he promised me that he wouldn't rush for more than 200 yards against my Browns the next week.... I'm going to hold you to that, LenDale!) we woke up bright and early for that long, slow, sleepy drive back up to SF, with our tail between our legs. We got a great jump on the day so I decided to take the Wald twins (have you hung out with Andrea and John? Too many similarities to mention... quite scary) to some of my favorite spots up the coast. First we hit La Super-Rica Taqueria in Santa Barbara. John loved his taco, I loved my -fill in the blank Mexican food with meat and sauce and a shell, I think it was the #11-, and we're pretty sure Andrea liked her bottled water. Still doing well on time, and not quite full yet, we swung by the famous Jocko's in Nipomo, CA.

Did we monkey around? What do you think.....?

We got John back to SFO exactly TWENTY-FIVE minutes before takeoff. He tore into the airport, sidestepped security, stiff-armed the ticket taker, and flew back to PHX. Whew!