The latest bulletins from BeeeejWorld:

As of last night, I apparently have a new roommate. My friend Andrea's colleague Raj looks to be moving in at the end of the month to replace Pat. For a while I was quite stressed, not knowing whether I'd have a new roommate, have to move out on my own or what... it even looked for a while like little_odd_duck and I might end up sharing an apartment in Prospect Heights, which probably would've been tons of fun, but the logistics on that one never came together the way we'd hoped. In any event I'm relieved not to have to move.

I'm now two sessions into an intensive, ten-session program with my once and future trainer Adam, and I'm simultaneously in agony and feeling great. Even though I'm still technically in training for "America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride" in Lake Tahoe June 1, and even though the commute to my new job involves a fair amount of walking to and from the subway, I've become quite the slug, so this is much needed. We're treating my knee gingerly, but thus far it has been performing quite excellently.

It had been rumored for a while, but it's now official; Cornell men's hockey will play a pair of games at University of North Dakota this coming Thanksgiving weekend, Friday and Saturday, November 28 and 29. It's obviously a little early to be making plans about it, but I really do intend to go; it'd be a shame for the team to face a new opponent (well, relatively - we lost to them in the national quarterfinals in 1997, when they won the championship a couple of games later) without the strongest possible road-fan support there. I know a lot of other Lynah Faithful are planning to go as well, and it sounds like the most cost-effective way of doing it will be flying into Minneapolis/St. Paul and driving the rest of the way in a convoy of carpooled rental cars. Well, the most cost-effective way from New York City would probably be the $170 Amtrak route, but that takes nearly 48 hours each way, so I'd miss Thanksgiving. I hope those Faithful reading this will consider joining those of us already planning to do so.

This evening's sundown marks the beginning of Passover. Chag Sameach to those celebrating! I still haven't picked up any kosher Coke this year... I'd better get around to that soon.

Oh, and that other thing? The absurdly long-term thing about which I finally found some courage and no longer had any regrets? Yeah, that didn't work out. It wasn't a surprise to me, and it hurt - again. But I meant what I said, I have no regrets this time. It's amazing how much easier it is to sleep when that's true. I only hope I can find that courage again in the future, when it really matters.

Not an awful lot to report about yesterday. I slept in, packed up, checked my bags with the hotel for later, and checked out. Everyone else had much earlier flights, so I was on my own for the day. I wandered up the 16th St. Mall initially looking for a new place to have lunch, hopefully one with outdoor seating since it was such a gorgeous day. But when I got near the Appaloosa Grill again and saw that they had patio seating, I couldn't resist. This time I had a New Belgium Blue Paddle beer, queso with chips, and another bison cheddarburger (man, they're good). During lunch, I was able to check e-mail and surf the net courtesy of Denver's free downtown wi-fi, which was awfully handy.

Then I wandered down to Broadway and the cultural center, where I visited the Denver Art Museum for a while. The collection is nice, but nothing that made me feel really good about spending $20 on it; the architecture was far more interesting.





I stopped by a cafe near the Westin for some iced tea, a brownie, and more free wi-fi. Finally, I ended up in the bar at the Westin, where Jim the bartender kept me in complimentary Cokes for the rest of the evening while I caught up on e-mail and did some writing. On the recommendation of the concierge (a different one this time), my hankering for Chinese take-out led me to J.J.'s Bistro a few blocks away, and I brought back probably the best Mongolian beef I've ever had. Yummy!

Finally, it was off to the airport via shuttle. I enjoyed the ride a great deal because the van was packed with friendly Boston College hockey fans, including a middle-aged couple who have also been going every year about as long as I have. The redeye departed about an hour late due to equipment trouble, but we made it to Newark smoothly, and I managed a few brief catnaps here and there. After a shower and a change, I made it to work for most of a normal day. Now it's time for some sleep, and soon it'll be time for plotting and scheming for next year's Frozen Four in Washington, DC.

I arose early yesterday, put on my cold weather riding gear, and headed downstairs with my rental bike. Alicia, the Denver TNT chapter's assistant coach for the group doing America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride (a.k.a. the Tahoe Century), picked me up at my hotel, and we managed to fit both our bikes in the back of her car. A short drive later, we were at Maple Grove Park in Golden, west of Denver, to meet the rest of the team. I'd foolishly forgotten to check whether my rental bike had water bottle cages, and we were about to figure out a way for me to give each of my two bottles to a different rider so I could get my water and my Accelerade handed off to me whenever I needed it (which probably would have been a huge pain in the ass), when team member Emily volunteered her bottle cages and her allen wrench tool to move them to my bike; she was wearing a camelback for her fluids anyway, so she didn't need them.

The main goal of the day's ride was to climb the switchback route up Lookout Mountain, but first we did fifteen miles in and around Golden, then the same fifteen miles back - past the Coors Brewery, and around some hilly but not awful terrain. The real problem was the brutal headwinds on our way out to Foothills Road - and for me, the additional problem was the thin air at this altitude. I was sucking wind most of the way, even after we turned around and caught the tailwinds.



We paused in downtown Golden for a photo:



Then the team set out to climb the aforementioned Lookout Mountain:



I was game to try, but one of my strengths as a bicyclist is that I know my limitations... and with the air problem, I just wasn't going to make it. A quarter of the way up, I let Alicia know I was heading back down and would wait for them after their descent. I grabbed a sandwich at Woody's Pizza, then hung out at Starbucks and nursed my rather uncomfortably hairy lungs until the group returned a while later. Then I rode back out to the park with Alicia, where we repacked the car and headed back to Denver. She was heading past the Bicycle Doctor on her way home anyway, so she very graciously just dropped me off at the hotel and returned the bike for me.

I didn't have time for a nap, just a shower, before the first ever all-Jesuit Frozen Four championship game, Boston College vs. Notre Dame. During the first intermission, Rita and I were chatting about post-game plans for the group when a random guy in a Cornell jersey approached us; turns out he lives in Denver and had actually made his choice about a job offer a year and a half ago based partly on the Frozen Four being here this year (and hoping that Cornell might make it, though this was definitely the wrong season for that).



The game itself was pretty exciting, though the final score wouldn't make you think so. Notre Dame, who had upset three "better" teams in the first three rounds to get to the finals, fought valiantly, and at one point had even scored what looked like their second goal to make the score 3-2, but the goal was called back, and BC put the nail in the coffin less than a minute later to make it 4-1.

Afterwards the group went to Appaloosa Grill on the 16th Street Mall for dinner, where I had a very good bison cheddarburger and a locally brewed New Belgium Mighty Arrow IPA.





I was pretty exhausted (and a little sunburnt) from the long day, so it was right off to bed with me.

So on Wednesday, after a lovely evening at the Power of Film Gala (about which more later), I stayed up the rest of the night and then took an early Thursday morning flight from Newark to Denver for the 2008 Frozen Four. Everything went smoothly on the trip out - well, almost everything. I was on line to check my suitcase when I suddenly remembered I couldn't bring my toiletry bag (which included a can of shaving cream) in my carry-on, and I quickly reached in to move it to my suitcase... grabbing it, unfortunately, by the head of my razor, and cutting my finger open. It bled pretty copiously for such a small cut (I later realized I'd actually taken a good chunk off, not just cut it), but with some Continental Airlines staff help we got it under control before I boarded.

When you have to fly for several hours, very few things beat being able to do it for free (or for miles, anyway), in the aisle seat of an exit row, with nobody in the middle seat, with a power outlet underneath you. On my laptop I watched "Across the Universe," which was really wonderful (I started with "Michael Clayton," which froze 59 seconds in - thanks, Netflix!), and finally started reading Limitations, a Scott Turow novel that the New York Times Magazine had serialized a couple of years ago, and which Mom had saved for me.

A quick trip to my hotel later, I napped for a few hours, then went to see some hockey.

The early game, #2 North Dakota vs. #3 Boston College, was supposed to have been the more competitive of the semifinals, but somebody must have forgotten to tell them, because it didn't work out that way. North Dakota clearly had the better of the physical game, and a crisp, clean power play, but that didn't last long or get them very far. Defensive breakdowns quickly led to Boston College breakaways and 2-on-1s and short-handed goals, and Sioux goalie (and Hobey Baker candidate) Jean-Philippe Lamoureux got hung out to dry.

Six times.

North Dakota finally put one on the board with close to nine minutes left in the game, but it wasn't nearly enough; the Eagles had too much of a step on them. Final, 6-1.

After the first semi, most of the Cornell contingent present (or at least most of the ELynah Forum contingent) met to coordinate nighttime plans and put faces to names:



The second semifinal, in which #1 Michigan was heavily favored over #4 Notre Dame, turned out to be far more entertaining - though for a while, Notre Dame seemed to be doing its best Boston College impression, and was up 3-0 fairly quickly. But the Wolverines fought back to a 3-3 tie, and then after the Fighting Irish made it 4-3, also tied it up at 4. We went to sudden-death overtime, in which the Irish just clearly had more steam left, and finally capitalized with their fifth and winning goal to end the game.

Saturday evening, it seemed, would feature the first all-Jesuit Frozen Four championship game in history.

A different subset of the Cornell contingent went out for legal beverages and food across the river(s) from downtown at the charming and friendly My Brother's Bar, whose most notable feature seems to be that they retail Girl Scout Cookies. My J.C.B. - Jalapeño and Cream Cheese Burger - was quite yummy, as was my locally-brewed Great Divide Denver Pale Ale.



After a long walk back to the hotel, I settled in for a good night's sleep.

Largely due to my training schedule for El Tour de Tucson (which is in five days, by the way!!), I haven't really taken a weekend entirely for myself in a few months. Since my bike was already on its way to Arizona, this weekend I took a roadtrip.

I stopped off in Dobbs Ferry to pick up Dad's car, and dropped off a piece of my birthday cake for him in return... then after a long, traffic-filled drive to New Haven, I saw the Cornell men's hockey team defeat Yale 2-1 in a hard-fought, exciting game that would've been a shut-out for Ben Scrivens but for Yale's goal with 5.7 seconds left. At the game, I saw my distant cousin David and met some of his friends, and hung out with my friends Anne, Jeff (and his son Brian, who already wants to go to Cornell's School of Hotel Administration when it's time for college in ten years), Kevin, and Arik.

A snack and a quick, traffic-free drive to Providence later, I was sleeping on the couch of my friends John & Micaela. Despite their best efforts, their adorable toddler Maggie woke me bright and early, and we all went out for a relaxed breakfast. I drove down to Cranston for lunch with my fraternity brother Pete, who's now the rabbi for Temple Sinai, a Reform congregation covering Cranston and Warwick; we hadn't really sat down and talked in many years, and it was great to catch up with him.

Then while John, Micaela, and Maggie went to a party for a friend of Maggie's, I napped... rather briefly, because their babysitter showed up an hour early and kept calling. Finally John and Micaela and I went off to Meehan Auditorium, where we saw a hard-working Cornell team and another good night from Ben Scrivens in net overcome a larger, faster Brown team to defeat them 4-1. At the game I also had the pleasure of finally meeting Al, a frequent poster on the eLynah Forum and a fan of Cornell hockey for nearly fifty years. (John commented on how unusual it is for him to introduce me to anybody...!)

Afterwards, Rich joined John, Micaela and me for dinner, drinks, and dessert to celebrate Micaela's birthday at restaurant/bar/nightclub Paragon (motto: "We'll keep turning up the music until you get the hell out, unhip non-clubbing hockey people"). While I stayed up digesting, I suddenly remembered my friends Phillip and Lauren had moved to Providence earlier in the year, and dropped them an e-mail. They called first thing in the morning (after Maggie had woken me up a couple of times), and we made plans for lunch. After my goodbyes to Hayes family, I drove the 3/4 mile from their house to the Karlssons', got the grand tour of the house that used to be Phillip's parents', and hung out with them and lunched with them and their two year old daughter Ebba and 7 month old son Ronin, who alas is getting over the croupe.

When I got home last night I e-mailed contact information for Phillip and Lauren to John & Micaela and vice versa, as they had all commented on the coincidence of two sets of my friends with toddlers (and several Cornell degrees) living in fairly close proximity. Then I had a light dinner while watching "Flags of Our Fathers" (not bad; nice to see Jesse Bradford getting work again), went to bed early, and got a delicious night's sleep.

Now I have an abbreviated work week before flying off to Arizona on Thursday morning. Yay!

My birthday's on a Saturday this year. That already happens seldom enough that I like to take advantage of it. For instance, I was lucky enough to turn 21 on a Saturday, so mhaithaca and I were able to go drinking in Collegetown without worrying about classes the next day. Plus, my parents were able to come up for the weekend to surprise me, and the celebration started with dinner out and a Cornell hockey game (which Cornell won, but it was an exhibition game and I can't remember who the opponent was).

Five years ago, the last time my birthday was on a Saturday, I went out with a couple dozen friends for sangria, tapas, and general debauchery at Xunta in the East Village. A much smaller group of us ended up at Link near Union Square, where the debauchery continued. Since I didn't actually start this journal until several days later, I didn't blog about that evening until it became necessary to provide context for another entry.

Plus, for the second year in a row, my parents will be out of town for my birthday, so there won't be an invitation to dinner and a show or anything like that. There's no spouse or significant other to make plans for the evening as a treat. And, to top it off, my apartment is in shambles, and I love to throw parties just to force myself to clean the place up properly. So this sounds like an ideal opportunity.

So what's the catch? Well, if you've been following my other blog, tucsonorbust, you know that I'm training pretty hard for a 109-mile bike ride in Tucson on November 17. On November 9, we'll be putting our bikes on a truck for the trip to Arizona. So our last serious training ride - likely to be upwards of 80 or 90 miles - is going to be on November 3.

The day I turn 38.

I could wait until the following weekend, when I don't have a training ride (see "truck," above), but I'm planning to spend that in New Haven and Providence with friends, watching Cornell hockey games. And since I won't get to many games this year, I'm reluctant to give that up.

So I still think I want to throw a party on November 3. I'm convinced that I could do all the cleaning, shopping, and preparation during the preceeding few evenings after work. I even think I'll have the energy and stamina for partying as long as I get back from the training ride at a reasonable enough time to nap for a few hours before people are scheduled to arrive (and I can always pick a slightly later start time to give myself a longer nap window). This despite the fact that I didn't make it to someone else's party this past Saturday after a sixty-two mile training ride (though I can forgive myself that, since that party was in Carroll Gardens, a hefty subway ride away, instead of in my own living room).

What do you think? Am I barkers? Raving loony? A few sprockets short of a triple crank? Seriously, I wanna know.

Bite me, CornellFan.

I went ice skating today for the first time since my knee surgery! It's become an annual event at the Frozen Four, but this is the first time I've actually gone. So I skated for close to a half hour in an NHL arena, taking it slowly at first. My legs are tired, but the knee feels great.

Oddly, no scouts attempted to sign me!

St. Louis has been quite fun overall, and the food and beer are fantastic. I didn't even bother pretending I would try to keep kosher for Passover or stick to my low-carb diet while I'm here. But with all the walking we're doing (plus the skating), I'm not worried about regaining much weight, and I'll be right back to low-carb as of Monday morning.

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

...I'm taking a vacation. A short one, but one I need very badly. The last time I took a week or so just to go somewhere nice and relax was right after the Bar exam, when I went with friends to the coast of Maine, and I don't really count that, because it was urgent decompression. Prior to that, I'd spent a week in Florida with Jessica, followed by a few days in Atlanta with her family, but the weather had been pretty cold. I've been saying for a while now that I could really use a few uninterrupted days of warm, sunny weather on a quiet beach somewhere, and I've finally managed to schedule it.

After my cousin's wedding in Atlanta the weekend of March 3, I'm going to fly directly from there to Orlando. I'll stay with friends the first night, then I'll drive the short hop to New Smyrna Beach, about 15 miles north of Daytona, where I hope to enjoy four days and nights of uninterrupted warm, sunny weather on a quiet beach, plus some good writing time for my novel. Then I'll fly directly back to Laguardia - where, if the Cornell men's hockey team has secured a bye for the previous weekend, and if the flight lands relatively on time, I will immediately proceed to Ithaca for a weekend of ECACHL quarterfinals. :-D

That'll leave me unavailable for contract work that week, but hey, ya gotta break a few eggs, y'know what I mean?