Category: Random

I am amused.

I drafted this about a month and a bit ago. Just getting it up. Yes, I’m being lazy with respect to the blog.

As I mentioned earlier, two intrepid runners successfully completed the 2010 Disney Marathon on January 10 in Sunny, Warm, Balmy Florida.

Tim and Jenn, shown in the image, braved the deliciously warm weather in order to run the 26.2 miles starting at well-before-daybreak. Official start time was around 5:50 AM with their wave heading out around 6:00 or so in the glorious temperate air. Have I made enough allusions to the temperature yet?

Because it was fucking cold.

It’s Florida for dog’s sake! People sign up for this race because it’s a January marathon with average temperatures somewhere in the high fifties or low sixties. At race start, it was 26 degrees Fahrenheit.

For the racers, that might not have been a horrible thing, but the logistics of getting thousands of runners to the race start at Epcot mean that the racers are hanging around in the start corrals for literally hours. That’s a long time to be sitting in your race clothing waiting to go. Once they got started, Jenn and Tim told me that they warmed up fairly quickly, but they also never shed a single layer throughout the day.

As for the spectators. Brr. We arrived later than the racers, but we also had the privilege of standing around waiting for the gun—and then yet more standing as we waited for our runners to come around again at the fourth mile (the beginning of this course is a four mile loop that brings you back through the start gate a second time). We who came down to watch the race had packed appropriately for the weather, based on the predictions. However the predictions for race day were low thirties to low forties. The ten-degree drop is an extremely important ten degrees when it comes to clothing selection and we were a bit underdressed. Brr again. We ended up running from our viewing position at mile 0/4 to the monorail station simply to generate some heat.

Nevertheless, we survived and a good time was had by all. David, Sharon and I bounced around to five different viewing locations: Start, 4, 9, 13, Finish. There didn’t seem to be any easy or authorized way for us to get to locations other than those without purchasing park tickets. Tips for Spectators: At mile 0, you’re not going to see your runner unless they’re in the fast group. They start the runners in side-by-side corrals, but the majority of people are over on the far side of a four lane highway. It’s also predawn, i.e. dark. At mile 9.0, one of the “official” viewing spots, there are stands and a long line of fence that can be moved along to see runners. We were there just in time to see ours so we didn’t take any time to explore the area. The mile 13 viewing area was much better because there was plenty of room to spread out and find a spot where you weren’t trying to peer over or around another spectator. The photo at the top of this posting is from that area.

The finish was pretty busy and crowded as well. All of the spectator areas between where the runners came out of Epcot and the finish line were packed with people. We had to use some elbows to get up close enough to see our runners.

Jenn and Tim reported that running through Cinderella’s Castle at mile 11 was a blast, but that once you’d done that it was mostly all back-area park roads.

Jenn has been trying to convince me to go back and do this race but I’m not sure I’m happy with the amount of logistics and planning necessary to run and or spectate here.

I hate squirrels. One block diet agrees.

It’s invariably a bad thing when you read an item on Pharygunla and it clicks through to your home region’s newspaper. We’ve had a bit too many of those here in Georgia.

Apparently a married couple in Summerville decided to tatoo their children so they could be a part of the family. Law enforcement ensued.

I’ve made it a goal to carry my camera more and take pictures frequently. Last calendar year was spotty. This year will be helped by my new phone which has a reasonable camera on it.¹

In order to facilitate that goal I’m going to try and post a “picture a day” here on the Eyebrow. This will probably be the format: batches. Perhaps I’ll explain what’s going on. Perhaps you’ll have to click through to Flickr or twipic. It will depend on my mood.

Here we have the first seven days of 2009

¹: The T-Mobile Dash is a sucky piece of equipment that never took a good picture. The Blackberry 8900 is decent. My Digital Rebel XT is excellent

Our Jetpacks are closer than we think. I want to live in the future, and talks like this tell me that we’re getting there, fast.

What’s really amazing is how much it cost. $300! (plus time)

Jenn and I and a cast of Thousands (7 total) went to see Avatar this night. I’ve been looking forward to this movie for three years and I can say that it did not disappoint.

The 3D imagery was touted to be “the way it should be” and James Cameron delivered. Cameron is, of course, the man who gave us The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, T2 and Titanic. Every single one of those movies has been a Tour de Force and Avatar belongs right there with them. The 3D did not wrench your eyeballs around like Beowulf or Coraline did. This movie made it part of the background, part of the scenery so you didn’t even notice it most of the time. There were a few moments with objects sticking in the audience’s collective face, but they were not the rule. The 3D was awesome. This film will absolutely sweep the technical Oscars.

The story was fine. A bit trite and probably familiar to anyone who’s seen Ferngully, but it did not descend into absolute camp, nor were the characters straight from central casting. The one exception was the antagonist Colonel, but we knew what his role was from the get-go.

Whatever faults the story had, the action made up for. The battle scenes were spectacular with most of the main event happening in the sky to allow for the full blown three dimensional motion of character and camera to pop out of the 3D world. Seriously, it was great.

I will see this movie again, in the theater, for the full ticket price (which was steep). I hesitate to say whether we’ll purchase it for the home because a TV screen just would not do it justice.

Psyche is very interested in the Yoga instructor. Jenn is more interested in the stretching.

As you can see in the background, we have Christmas lights ready to go on the tree. The tree has been up for the last eight days. It’s made the house smell very nice, but we’ve been too lazy to drape it with the standard decor.

Unfortunately for the tree we’ll probably only get the lights and garland on before heading out to see Avatar.