What I feared might happen already has. The cold weather and a couple nights of less than 8 hours of sleep have left me fighting flu symptoms. This really frustrates me because now I'm already behind on the training schedule. It has me cursing the day I ever met Mr. Mononucleosis oh so many years ago, when he left my immune system forever changed.

I realize that last post sounded pretty harsh. I guess I just get worn out sometimes from being the one people call when there's a mess to clean up. I really like trouble-shooting and all that. But I can barely keep my head above water fixing my own mistakes, let alone somebody else's.

I hate it when someone else can't get something right so I have to do it for them. It's not like I don't have enough on my plate already. And besides, how unfair is that? Why should I be punished for someone else's ineptness?

I'm so glad the weekend's almost here....

There's this girl who's always at the gym running at the same time as me. I always thought there was something funny about the way she ran, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it until the other day. You see, I noticed that when she runs, her heels never touch the ground. Seriously. The girl runs on tip-toes. She always wears sweatpants so I can't really tell, but I bet underneath she's got monstrous calves. Just think, running like that is kind of like doing thousands of calf raises. I wonder why she does it. Has she spent too much time in high heels rendering her unable to shift her weight back to her heels? Or is she doing it on purpose? Maybe she likes the springy, bouncy look of running like that. These are the things you think about while running on the treadmill.

One of the reasons I'm so crazy about the movie The Big Lebowski is that the main character, Jeff Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), is known simply as The Dude, "or His Dudeness...or El Duderino, if brevity's not your thing." How cool would it be to be known as The Dude? (Even his answering machine plays, "You have reached The Dude. Leave a message.") If I wasn't a chick (and I smoked a lot of hash) I think I would most certainly want to be called The Dude. There's something about the name that just exudes languid, laissez-faire attitude, just like the character in the movie. When asked how he's doing, The Dude replies, "Strikes and gutters. Ups and downs.... The Dude abides." The Dude abides.

Okay, so don't laugh, but I've started training to do a triathlon sometime this spring or summer. I haven't picked one out yet because, well, because I'm not in good enough shape to do one yet. But that's why I'm undertaking this exercise. So I will try to keep posting the training schedule in the left column of the blog to motivate myself and to get others to shame me into seeing this thing through.

Having a window seat at work is nice...until it drops to 10 degrees out. The cheap, poorly installed glass leaks like a sieve. I lost count of how many cups of coffee and tea I've had today. And I'm still chilled to the bone. It's hard to get any work done when you're practically convulsing from the cold.

I knew Beth would come through. About an hour after posting last night, I got an e-mail confirmation that we are in complete agreement regarding Bringing It All Back Home. She also feels that listening to the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street is a life-changing experience. I have yet to listen to this album, but I'm going to try to get to it soon.

I also give Beth credit for putting up with the blockhead who was adamant that Bob Dylan is "terrible" and "overrated". I don't know if I'd be able to restrain myself cleaning that guy's clock.

Okay, I know not everyone feels as strongly about music as I do. But I'm sure just about everybody has at least one piece of music that has really grabbed them. You know the one. You can still remember exactly where you were when you first heard it. You were so entranced by it, that everything else receded into the background and it was just you and the music. Fine. Maybe I'm a little looney, but this has happened to me on more than one occasion. So here, in no particular order, is the music that has grabbed me:

- Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd - I can still vividly recall the first time I popped this album in and listened to it all the way through. I was completely entranced from beginning to end. The way the songs are entwined throughout each other and fit together is perfect. To this day I am still unable to put this album on and just cherry-pick a song or two. The album is so much greater than the sum of its parts.

- Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini - I was in my car when I first heard this piece in its entirety on the radio. I sat in my car in a parking lot and listened to all 25 minutes of it, unable to tear myself away.

- Neil Young's Harvest - After the Gold Rush is great, but it didn't capture me like this simple album.

- Eminem's "Lose Yourself" - This one surprised me. But the first time I came across it on the radio, I was enthralled. Again, I sat in my parked car because I had to hear it all, the whole story. Gripping lyrics.

And no good music list would be complete without....Bob Dylan. His stuff fascinates me more than anyone else, but the album that really gripped me was Bringing It All Back Home. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to hear it in context, when it first came out. I mean, Blood on the Tracks is probably my favorite all-time album, but the energy of Bringing It All Back Home is something else. Combine that with some of the best love songs of Bob's career, and you've got one magnetic album.

I'll see if I can drudge up a few more favorites. Feel free to send me yours.

Make sure to cast your ballot for the 2004 Bloggies and make your favorite blogger rich and famous. Okay, well, maybe not rich and famous. But you can at least give your favorite blogger a pat on the back.

Okay, so maybe you don't have what it takes to be the National Air Guitar Champion. There's always the International Rock Paper Scissors Championship.

Walking to work when it's 10 degrees out (wind chill of -5) is not fun. I got an ice cream headache just breathing!

Saturday night I kicked off another year of concerts. And there's no better way to kick things off than with a Clarks show. If memory serves correctly, this is the 13th time I've seen these guys, so I was starting the new year in familiar territory.

The show was at Seven Springs Ski Resort in their main conference hall. (Think your run-of-the-mill banquet hall and you've got a good picture of the venue.) Not ideal (the AC didn't have a fighting chance at keeping up), but intimate, which is always a plus.

It's always good to have a hometown opener for a hometown band and Grapevine fit the bill nicely. I quite honestly can't remember if I've seen them before, but I did enjoy their set. Their straight-forward, no-frills rock is the perfect thing to warm up the crowd without upstaging the headliner.

But really, everybody was there to see the Clarks. The reason why these guys inspire such devotion from fans isn't just their catchy hooks, I think the underdog factor also comes into play. After something like 15 years together, still touring full time doing small-venue shows, these guys give "street cred" a whole new meaning. Heck, even I have to admit that as much as I'd like to see them succeed in getting a hit after all that work, my devotion would likely dwindle a little if they hit it big. I'd probably have to go find myself a new underdog to root for.

Anyway, the concert, of course, was a blast. And why shouldn't it be? After 15 years on the road, if there's one thing these guys know, it's how to put on a live show. The setlist was good, a nice variety of new and old, although I must admit that I miss hearing more of the older stuff like "Stop!" and "Apartment Song." I did, however get to hear "Courtney" for the first time in, I'd say, three or four years. Total surprise. There was also a few tracks from the new album coming out this spring. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were a little heavier and more rock-oriented than what they have released in recent history. Can't wait to check out the album. Highlight? Boy, that's tough. But I'd have to say that it was great to hear their cover of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On"...or "Cigarette", arguably the best lyrics in their catalog. Second place: Lead singer Scott Blasey getting hit in the nuts by a penny flung on stage by a zealous fan as the band was launching into "Penny on the Floor." Worst part: the two hooched-out 50-year-olds in front of us trying to hit on the early twentysomething lead singer of Grapevine. Ew.

Next concert on the schedule? Bright Eyes.

I've always been rather skeptical of the Chip Clip. I mean, how much staleness protection can you get from just folding a bag and clipping it? It's not like you're sealing it with a Ziploc (R) or anything.

Ain't life grand?

I should have figured that a month ago when I planned a weekend trip to a ski resort with Cherie and Mirm, that something would go awry. Nonetheless, I was still taken by surprise when the forecast for last weekend showed highs in the low 60s...with rain. I didn't know whether to pack mittens and the snowmobile suit, or shorts and flip-flops. But as usual, the Three Musketeers managed to turn what most would consider a total bust into an absolute blast. Skiing was pretty much a no-go since the hills were slush and had more bald spots than a Rogaine convention. But tubing was a great substitute. A misty rain threatened to ruin our fun, but the precipitation held back until the last run of our two-hour session. Just as we reached the top of the hill, it started raining. And I'm not talking wimpy drizzly rain. I'm talking full-on coming down in buckets rain. But I have to say, that it was probably the best run of the day. Now I'm not saying I was itching to run up the hill and do it again, but it was fun to do it once. Most of the way down I had my head buried in my arm because rain was hurting my face, and when I rolled off the tube at the bottom of the hill I looked like a drowned rat, but I was grinning ear-to-ear like a 5-year-old.

We followed the tubing up with a hot shower, some pizza, and a Clarks concert. Tomorrow I'll try to publish a review of my first concert of the year.