Homeward bound

After 34 days on the road, I am sitting at the airport on the verge of going home. Since April 20th, I have been to Minneapolis, Denver, Houston, back to Denver, and then to Detroit. I have shuffled between time zones so many times I am actually not interested in looking at clocks right now. I performed with Scott and road warriored with Josh. My tremendously patient fiance has been settling in the apartment we moved to 8 days after I left Chicago and have never seen (save a 30 second glimpse with the former resident watching me). I am not sure if Tiff will be meeting me with the puppy she could not wait for me to get or not, but I am assured I will be walking our future dog before I even know what me "irrelevant" closet looks like. Trust me when I say I feel that is fair. I have run in several major cities, but have been uable to keep up with Nike's brutal training program. I'll be picking up what I can when I get home. As for all the pictures, a series of photo entries will follow over the next few days. As for now, it's just simply this: Tiff, I am coming home!

Three Weeks, Three Cities

It's been a shade tough to get in and try to give an update here. I left Chicago and went to Minneapolis to rehearse on the 20th. From there Scott and I flew here to Colorado to do a week of shows in Denver. The perk was being home in Denver for the week. That also turned out to be the challenge as well. We were able to moonlight a little for Caldera and spend the rest of our time with loved ones. Awesome, but it resulted in two very tired campers by the end of the week. I'll take that kind of tired any time though. We flew to my original hometown, Houston, on Mon. of this last week. We performed there for 4 days and promptly left bright and early this morning.

All the while I have been trying to keep up with the unyielding training program for the marathon. I logged 14 miles in Minneapolis, 27 miles in Denver, and 19 miles in Houston. The different climates, oxygen levels, and terrains have been awesome.


The show was a blast too. Scotty is a tremendous tour partner and hell of a fun guy on stage to work with. After a rough start in Minnie, we ended up truly having a great time out there. It felt incredible to be up making people laugh again. As always, it felt as if we hit our stride as it was time to send everything back. It really is a gift to get to be on stage with someone you know so well and have a good time.




From here, I am working for Caldera. I have a few days in Colorado and then hit the road with Josh for Detroit. I had all but thought that might not be happening. Lo and behold it came through. He and I hit the road on Thur. and will be joined by the Malara bros. in motor city. Basically tomorrow will be my final day off till well after I return to Chicago. Tiff tells me the new apt is nice and assures me she will give me keys to our place when I get there. I am loading up on bribe gifts none the less.

All in all it has been fantastic getting to so many familiar places. I had a great time showing Scott where I grew up. Not having any family in Houston, I have only been back 3 times since we moved in 1989 to Denver. With so little connection to where I grew up, in many ways it feels like it might as well be Mars. I think Scott was a little glad to leave Texas though, as my restaurant tour was filling to say the least. Plus our hotel had no fridge and Blue Bell Ice Cream comes in pints and half gallons. That was a treat not to be missed, but you had to know you were in for the entire pint or nothing at all. It truly is the BEST ice cream in the country!

We were even able to find a Potbelly's in Houston! That shorted something in my mind as I sat there enjoying it last night. I was eating my favorite sub from Chicago while sitting with one of my closest friends from Colorado in my original hometown of Houston. Scott just laughed while I tried to take it in.

100 Miles!!

I hit the 100 mile mark in my training for the Chicago Marathon today. A brisk 6.6 miler ata mile high was were the milestone occured. Feels pretty good, I tell ya!So far on tour I have logged 14 miles running along the Mississippi in Minneapolis and now 23 miles running in Colorado's thin air. This is truly fun! I am excited for the marathon this fall!

My First 10K

I was getting the itch to grab some smokes again a couple weeks ago and thought I had better sign up for some runs that were a little closer that the marathon in October. I signed up for not one but two 10K's. The first was today. It was the Wrigley Start Early Run to help prevent child abuse. As I signed up only a couple weeks ago, I did not attempt and fund raising. I will, however, post something for the run on June 7th for Lincoln Park Zoo (one of the last free zoos in the country). If you are interested in donating towards preventing child abuse click here. Tiff got up this morning and went down with me. It was great to have the company and all the pictures here are courtesy of her support.

The run itself was fantastic. It was also my longest thus far. I liked it but found myself alone by the mile 3. I had some adrenaline going to start and probably got off to too quick of a go, but maintained for the distance. According to my Nike+, I ran my fastest mile thus far in my training at 7 min and 33 sec at the 2 mile marker. It was super fun. That's me in the picture recovering from being hit with silly string from Benny the Bull's mascot just before the finish line. What a surreal fun day in Chi-town!

*I just found out the results. My overall time was: 47:04 with a pace of 7:36 per mile. I placed 117th out of 676.

In other news, I hit the road for The National Theatre for Children on Monday. I am joined again by Scotty and we will hit Minneapolis for a quick rehearsal and probably be scolded for not being better on our Spanish lines (yes we have lines in Spanish on this one). Then we fly to Denver and work a day for Caldera before a week of shows around the Mile High city. Then we fly to my original hometown, Houston! I am super excited to get down there again!! I truly hope we don't have MY middle school there though. Paul Revere Middle School had a student parking for its 2500 students if that tells you anything. Then back to Denver and possibly off to Detroit for Caldera. The latter is still up in the air.

Stay tuned!

Opening Day, Easter and Opening Day

Run Motherfucker, Run

Yeah, I know it's bendy... but it's still me in front of Navy Pier. I ran there again today. No bendy picture this time as it has gotten a little nicer and I had no where to carry my phone. Speaking of which, I would love some input on running belts/packs. Also any headphones that are more inclined to stay in the ears? I celebrated a continuous week without a single cigarette by running 9.15 miles. I am signed up up now for a 10K on April 18th and another 10K on June 7th. That should keep me motivated.

Credit Card to avoid

Just putting this out there, if you have a Barclay credit card, I strongly recommend closing it. I had one through Frontier Airlines and enjoyed it for a long while. In Jan. I made a error on my account and the financial charges and APR were tremendous. It is the sort of situation that reminded me of vultures waiting to finish off the dying. The kill scenario is familiar though and Barclay is not the only ones utilizing this model. They jack the account to where it becomes an out of control system that you can not hope of paying off. Fortunately, I made a minor error and have since righted the account but am still enjoying one of the highest APR's I have seen in a long time. After several calls, some assuring me it would be taken care of. I finally closed the account today. Funny how the guy on the phone could not 1.) get me a supervisor, 2.) fix the problem I called about, or 3.)seem to muster anything like genuine customer concern. He could however close the account the instant I said waiting 2 billing cycles was unacceptable and waiting 48hrs for a call back was too long. Company's like this do not deserve the money we are sending them. They wait to make the highest profit possible from your mistakes. If you have the means to get rid of any Barclay credit cards, I recommend it. There are better places to do business.