10nineteen

Koa and I went to see a Texas Stars hockey game the other night and had a wonderful time. I had gotten two free tickets from HEB for a playoff game and I was expecting our seats to be up high away from the action, but to our surprise, the seats were second-row!

Being so close to the action was really exciting and intense. You could hear all the checks into the boards and when fans banged on the glass, it was so loud! What made it extra-fun was that it was a playoff game and the Texas Stars hockey fans were so into it! The whole game was wildly entertaining, even the intermissions if you can believe that. There was a lot of dancing, t-shirt giveaways, and even a contest on the ice. In addition, there was a giant Mighty Fine Burgers Mylar blimp that puttered around the arena by remote control, dropping free burger coupons as it went by. Unfortunately we didn’t get one of them but it was still fun to see.

What made it a perfect night was that the Texas Stars won the game 4-2 (including an empty-netter), and took the opening series from the Oklahoma City Barons. I’d love to go back for another game sometime, but hopefully we can score some free tickets again!

So, some good news and bad news (but mostly good news). I’ve been suffering from a sore knee for about six months now, and for maybe two months, I couldn’t do any running. Instead, I have been walking my normal route in order to give my knee a chance to get better. That’s the good news! How can not being able to run be good news? Well, slowing down has actually been a really good experience. Since I was restricted to walking, I think I became more mindful (what does that even mean?) about… well all sorts of stuff. I alluded to this in a previous post, that I give more attention to my surroundings (things like the trees, sky, weather, smells in the air, sounds of the birds and barking dogs in the distance). But I’m also mindful of  how my knee is doing, and an extension of that is to be more attuned to the rest of my body (how my arms are swinging, how my breathing is, my posture, how I hold my head). So that leads me to the bad news, which isn’t really bad news, or perhaps just temporary. I’ve been kind of running asymmetrically. That is a nice way of saying that I’m running with a limp. But at least I am able to run now! And that makes me pretty happy. And when I combine running with my new-found mindfulness (that is a strange word), I am enjoying it a lot more than I used to!

Here’s my latest running activity:

If you want to connect via Strava, that would be cool!

Here’s a snapshot of my Dell Venue 8 Pro’s start screen. I think it is kind of interesting that the live tiles are pointers to your personality and interest. Instead of just shortcuts to apps, there’s a window into the content. As you can see, I’m still into K-On! and my manga. I’ve had my tablet for a few months now and I have a pretty good routine with it. Specifically, I use it to update one of my blogs over at Ameba. I find the Bluetooth keyboard with pointing nub is indispensable for blogging (and a mouse is even better) but for just reading my kindle books, RSS feeds, twitter, and email, the tablet by itself is super!