Musings of a Geeky Kind

Right up front.  We're gonna say...

And now I'm gonna talk geeky, yo...

If there's one really, really awesome thing I can say about "The Force Awakens" it's that it's awakened (ha) this whole sleeper cell community of fans that have been quietly going back to their "real lives" after the craziness of the prequels.  Sure, the insanity of the massive Star Wars Celebration gave us some fuel for the fire (Celebration Anaheim was just this past April in 2015).  But the truth is that the Star Wars community - or at least the niche of it that I was a part of - basically became boring, mundane, normal people.  We carried on with jobs.  Relationships.  Bills.  Car issues.  All of this stuff that's just boring.  

And then cue the opening credits for "The Force Awakens".  

Now there is a community of people who used to post on StarWars.com back when we had message boards (remember "message boards", kids?) who have come together on Facebook.  They're sharing memes and theories and delving into analysis and articles and interviews.  They're trying to figure out "The Force Awakens" and all its secrets while also being simultaneously enthralled with "Rogue One", "Episode VIII" and "Episode IX".  These people that I knew back in the day when none of us really had a "real life" to speak of (or so it seemed) have no all put their real lives on hold to come back together and be nerds to the nth degree.

I got sucked into a nerdy discussion last night - which started with reading some threads in the Facebook group and then went into an in depth phone call with a friend of mine as we scoured Google images and Wiki pages for clues.

This is our story...

Dark Side 10K Sniffles and Schedules

Well, sadly, sickness has claimed more time than I wanted it to here lately.  Thankfully, it's just a cold that I've been fighting, but it's been a pretty rough one.  It kept me confined to the couch and house this cold, wintery weekend, and there was no way I could get out and do my training sessions for the Star Wars Dark Side 10K that's coming up at Walt Disney World in April.  That was the major bummer.

The husband is running this one with me, and it's our first ever 10K.  We've been as diligent as we can when it comes to training, and we did a lot of prep work working up to the start of our actual training schedule on December 16th.  Being as this is our first 10K and neither one of us is a runner by nature, we went with the training information provided by runDisney and trainer Jeff Galloway (pdf) - the run/walk method.  Knowing that we'd have to keep at least a 16 minute a mile pace in order to not get "swept" at the actual race, we selected a run/walk ratio of run 30 sec/walk 45 sec which is supposed to get you to a 15 minute mile pace.

We must be fast or doing it wrong or overdoing it or something, but at the 30/45 run/walk pace, we're actually average around 13.5-14 minutes miles.  So...yay?  I have no idea.  But it's working for us, and our bodies aren't crying out in agony...yet.

Technically, at this point in time, we should be on Week 4 of our training and have completed 9 training session total.  We've completed 5 of the 9.  One was skipped because of my early birthday present of going to see the Doctor Who Christmas Special on the big screen at the movie theater (this was a limited time thing, and Monday was the only day we could make it work).  Three more sessions were skipped due to sickness (one being just lightheaded/overtired and the other two being due to a nasty cold I picked up from work).  Our next running session is scheduled for Tuesday, but that might get pushed to Wednesday just to give me more time to recover from this bug.

At our current fitness level, we're able to run 2.2 miles in about 30-31 minutes.  We haven't done any distances longer than 2.2 miles at this time.  Our next "long" run was scheduled for this past Saturday, but thanks to my cold that didn't happen.  So I reworked our training schedule.  Week 4 will deviate a bit from what was originally planned.  We'll have 30 minutes work sessions on both Wednesday and Friday, and then Sunday will be our 2.5 mile run.

Hopefully I can get us back on track because I really want to be disciplined about this.  This is such a goal of mine right now - to complete this race and to feel awesome about it.  It's something I've never done, and it's going to be one heck of an adventure.

What "The Force Awakens" Did Right For Me

Okay.  I'm going to issue an apology.  The last couple of posts have been of a "complain and cry and then resolve your issues" kind of rambling.  They have been therapy - a therapy I wish to continue.

But not today.  Today I wanted to be happy because this week has been pretty long after coming back to work after the holidays.  It's Thursday.  It's only Thursday.  I didn't really feel like complaining on a Thursday, so we're gonna switch it up and talk about some of the things that The Force Awakens did right for me.

The key words here are "for me".  This movie is many things to many people, but I still stand by the fact that we all experience stories differently - even if we're all watching or reading the exact same thing.  So these are my opinions and feelings, and I just want to share 'em as sort of a...well, another type of therapy.  Just not the whiny "I was gonna go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters" or "It's worse.  He's overly critcal.  He never listens.  He doesn't understand.  It's not fair!" type of way.

So the warning.  Again.

 

The Force Awakens - Issue/Argument/Resolution - Part 2

Coming back from the holiday break at work makes me realized just how much of a geek I am known to be in my office.  First thing this morning, someone came over to my desk and stated, "So I finally got to see Star Wars" and then launched into their thoughts and a discussion of the movie.  It happened with another coworker maybe a couple of hours later, who shared their thoughts (and their spoiler out loud, which made me want to smack them a little).  And then at lunch time, a third coworker came over to discuss some podcasts they've recently listened to as well as their thoughts after their third viewing over the break.

So now that my office geek status has been firmly solidified in my head for 2016, I figured now would be a good time to continue on with our Issue/Argument/Resolution topic.

As a reminder, folks - you have been warned...