World of Pain

I’m the type of person that loves to workout. I don’t feel like myself if I don’t. Nothing gives me more joy than a good, challenging, physical session. I’m all over anything that requires me to push myself and test my limits. Not every day mind. I do look forward to those recovery days in between the tougher sessions, when all I have is a warm-up and some stretching, but generally I’m a whore for the tough workouts. The only thing I find is that I’m unable to train without a goal. Something specific I’m aiming towards. I just have no interest in working out for no good reason. There needs to be a reason.

That being said, I have given myself a bit of a break lately. When I got back from my pace-making tour of Europe, almost 4 weeks ago, I decided to rest my weary self or rather my body demanded it of me, when I picked up my jet-lag with a twist illness. But even prior to that, in order to get myself light and fast for the racing, I had stopped lifting weights. Honestly, its been a good 2 months now since I entered a weight room, let alone lifted a weight.

But the road racing season is about to kick off again here in Atlanta and because my friend Mike and I did pretty well in the couple of races we ran in last year, we’ve decided to put in some mileage and give them another go this year. And since I’m always on the hunt for a challenge and a reason to workout, this is the perfect excuse. So yesterday, after a 2-month hiatus, I returned to the weight room. And when I tell you every muscle in my body is crying out in pain right now, I mean every muscle in my body, IS crying out in pain.

I DO NOT have full range of motion in any of my muscle groups. Not my neck, not my shoulders, not my pecks, not my stomach, not my ass, not my saddle bags (that area between the top of the hamstring and the glutes), not my hamstring, quads or calves. Nothing. I hurt like a mofo. I feel like a crash victim and I’m walking around at a pace much slower than my norm and in a style, which is very reflective of Frankenstein. It hurts to sit, it hurts to stand. I need to lower myself very slowly onto any type of seat. The car, the toilet, the office chair, all of it. And once down, don’t get me started on trying to get myself back up. Stairs are also proving a nightmare, up or down, it doesn’t really matter, all of it hurts.

I know my pain is temporary and once my muscles re-adapt, I’ll be just fine, as long as I can survive the rest of the week. It’s amazing the damage a few squats, lunges, bench press, step-ups etc.... can do to a body. But on a positive note, cos we should always focus on the positive, Wednesday, I get to do it all again, so Thursday my pain should be much worse. Good times ahead.

Slan Abhaile (Irish for "Safe Trip Home")

Its hard to believe that the 8 days are up and my family are now headed back to Ireland. The week just seemed to go by too fast. Maybe cos we spent much of our time sightseeing, shopping, pubbing and eating. All the ingredients necessary for an action packed vacation.

For their last evening, Husband and I took everyone out to an amazing fondue restaurant. Neither my parents or my brother had ever been exposed to the fondue experience before, so it was a real adventure and a new and interesting way for us to end the week on a high note.

"Have a safe trip home family. I just realised when ye left, that I forgot to get ye to sign our guest book. Oh well, I'll just bring it with me when I'm headed your way again, soon."

Yes, We have NO Gas

The world as we know it is ending here in Atlanta. Something very drastic has happened. So drastic that it has caused me to rethink my life and its style and how if Armageddon were to happen tomorrow, I have no plan.

We have NO GAS/PETROL.

I am not kidding. All the gas stations are dry. Yesterday I was driving my parents back from a day of hard shopping at the mall, when my car, Fenway is his name, started to “ping”. “Ping” is Fenway’s way of letting me know he is now getting very thirsty and when I get a spare second over the next 20 miles or so, could I please just throw some gas in the tank. And since he refuses to stop “pinging” until he gets his way, I tend to respond pretty quickly. However, the first gas station I pulled into had all their pumps locked up and signs reading “No Gas”. That’s weird, I thought, never heard of a gas station running out of gas before. Never mind, plenty more stations along this road. But each and every station I pulled into was the same. Pumps all bagged up, notices saying “No Gas” and many even had that yellow and black crime scene tape out and around the station itself to keep people away. Now you know when you see that special issue pow’lease CSI tape, things are not good. Something big is going down. The sight of it instinctively made me nervous. “What is going on?” I said to my dad. “Why is there no gas?” The more gas stations I went to, the more I felt like I had entered some sort of twilight zone. I swear, I was waiting for the sky above to turn black and the wind to pick up to a level that indicated Mr. Armageddon was just around the corner.

I was baffled. Repeatedly I was asking, “What is going on? I just don’t understand this”, because I didn’t. I knew the economy was in recession, but seriously, up to this point I felt it was just a bit of a horror story the media had latched onto in an effort to justify hiking up the prices on commonly purchased goods and to curtail the trend of impulsive spending on fabulous but nonessential items by the trigger happy credit card generation. That was until Wall Street took its big fat nosedive last week and now this, dried up gas pumps.

I am fortunate enough not to have a large portion of my wealth tied up in any Wall Street stocks and bonds. Mine is more tied up in the jeans and shoes kind, which some would argue provides zero return on investment. I happen to disagree. You just can't put a price on looking and feeling fabulous. But this situation with the gas right now, is kind of a big reality check that things are actually worse, or definitely feel worse, than I had previously understood.

My inability to get gas anywhere that day was kind of scary and even though Fenway continued to “ping” about his emptiness, there was absolutely nothing I could do. The next day I heard that one of our local gas stations had managed to get some gas and would be selling it for a couple of hours that morning. So I immediately jumped in the car a drove down there. But it seemed like everyone else had gotten the same memo, cos when I tell you there were several lines of cars that wrapped around every inch of the car park and out onto the street, I am not kidding. The pow’lease where on hand in an effort to maintain an orderly, peaceful system of queuing and acquiring said gas. It was just nuts. I had no idea where any of the lines started or ended so I drove around in fear that I would join it at the wrong point, or cut someone off unawares, resulting in a possible riot like situation. But as luck would have it, Husband called to say another gas station was selling gas a little further up the road, and right now there were only 5 or 6 cars in line. So that’s where I went. And after a short 30 minute wait and a limit of $50 per car, I got gas. I didn’t even look to see how much I was getting charged per gallon. It didn’t matter. Not to me. Not to anyone else in line. We were just so relieved to actually get the stuff we would have paid whatever they asked and more.

Luckily, I have no plans on driving anywhere any time soon. From now on there will be plenty more walking and biking going on and Fenway will only be brought out when absolutely necessary or for special occasions.

Ruby Falls

Yesterday saw the Shinkins clan head out to Chattanooga, Tennessee to check out the Ruby Falls and Lookout Mountain. About a year ago I was watching the Foodnetwork and they were doing a show on Southern Dining where they featured the Ruby Falls. I was so impressed, that I have for the longest time wanted to go and see them for myself. And with the family over for a visit and the falls just a short 2 hour drive away, there was no reason to not take the opportunity and go.

The coolest thing about this waterfall, is that its just over 2000ft down into Lookout Mountain. They have no idea where it comes from, all they know is that its there and it flows through the mountain and eventually out into the Tennessee River.

We started off by taking an elevator ride down the first 260ft. Once out of the elevator we walked the remaining 1740ft through the most amazing cave like scenery until we reached the actual waterfall. And this thing was amazing. The fact that they have developed a very impressive light show to go along with your viewing experience, helps take your level of amazement even higher. We stayed down there for a good 30 minutes or so, just watching and enjoying and wondering about the whole thing.



The Ruby Falls, in all its glory.


Some of the changing colours we saw during the spectacular light show.

You can just make out my family right in front of the falls.

Look at the excited and impressed little faces.

Once out of the caves, we walked to the viewing station at the top of Lookout Mountain where we could enjoy views of the Tennessee river and of Tennessee itself. I realized that I've not actually been in any of the photos on the trip so far, due to the fact that I've been behind the camera much of the time. But here I am, finally.

Here Conor and I are very happy and relieved to be sitting down to some food. After a long drive and our big adventure in the caves, hunger got us.

High Flying Birthdays

Today was a big day, so there are lots of pictures to go along with this blog. First of all it was Husbands birthday. Happy Birthday Husband. And because its been about 2 months since he got any flying done, he decided to spend part of his special day up in the cloudless sky. But he was not alone. Both my dad and my brother had the honor of joining him on his expedition. Such a lads day out playing with the big boy toys, honestly, they couldn't have been happier.

This is "Foxy", the plane that brings Husband so much joy.

Dad and Husband do the final checks on "Foxy" before they get ready for the off.

The pilot/birthday boy is focused and ready.

Conor (my brother) and Dad have the ear-muffs on and secure all windows and doors for departure.

There they go.

Later in the evening we threw Husband a little BBQ/birthday party.

The cake was ablaze from the sheer number of candles necessary to represent his age.

Chocolate cake, I wonder who chose that?!?

And it wouldn't be a party without a Jack Sparrow piñata.

Husband and intern Gordy hook up the piñata so we can all get a good crack at him.

Husband gets his mandatory spins before he is let loose on Jack Sparrow.

A couple of good spanks and Jack was injured pretty bad.

Then mam stepped up to give him a few smacks and sent much of the candy flying.

Finally, Conor stepped up to finish poor Jack off.

A brutal decapitation.

Poor Jack.




But the scavengers were more worried about grabbing all the candy.

Its Pumpkin Time

My parents and brother arrived safely to Atlanta on Saturday and to kick off their vacation, Sunday I decided to take them deep into the boonies of Georgia, just to scare them a little. And it worked. My mother was in fear that our vehicle would breakdown or run out of gas and then " the Rednecks would get us" as she put it. My dad kept making banjo noises in an effort to recreate the theme tune from "Deliverance" and my brother was just in shock at the size and condition of some of the houses and trucks people were driving, out in the middle of nothingness. I however, have been exposed to this scene many times before, so I just enjoyed watching their reactions.



Since Monday is the official start of Fall here in the US, we stopped off at a pumpkin farm to pick ourselves out a fine big pumpkin to decorate the garden. This is not something we do in Ireland, so we were very impressed with the size and variety of pumpkins there was to choose from.



Here my dad arms himself with a wheelbarrow and we head off to choose ourselves some pumpkins.

We took our time finding the perfect pumpkin, well, dad did.

And of course we had to throw in some of the cute tiny ones too.

Once we got our goods loaded up, it was onwards to Amicalola Falls where we hiked to the top of the falls and once there, enjoyed a seriously good brunch at Amicalola lodge which overlooks much of the Georgia Mountains.

The family at the falls. Only 425 more steps from here to the top.

But we all made it.

And after brunch, we took some time out to sit back and enjoy the view, retirement home style.

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