Sunday, May 24, 2009
2009 Beer Mile
I’m hosting a beer mile on Father’s Day. Read all about it at http://www.menees.com/BeerMile/. If you’re a local runner, come join us!
Labels: Running
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Aaron’s Birthday Cakes
Almost every year of Aaron’s life we’ve made a custom birthday cake for him. Amy’s mom used to make them for her, so we started doing it for Aaron on his first birthday. We’ve only missed one year so far. Most of the cakes are made by baking multiple 9” x 13” flat cakes and then cutting and re-assembling the pieces to the desired shape. At Aaron’s 2008 party, someone asked me to see pictures of all the cakes we’ve made for Aaron, so I finally got them together.
| Year | Aaron Turned | Cake (click each image for a larger version) |
| 2002 | 1 | Elmo cake made with a special pan. |
| 2003 | 2 | Hand-drawn Larry the Cucumber. |
| 2004 | 3 | We didn’t make a custom cake this year because we had Aaron’s party at the Nashville Zoo, and they wouldn’t let us bring in our own cake. They said no outside food was allowed in the zoo because it might be harmful to the animals (and a few actually came to his party). |
| 2005 | 4 | Crocodile with licorice lips and candy corn teeth. |
| 2006 | 5 | Tank with cookie wheels. |
| 2007 | 6 | Monster truck. |
| 2008 | 7 | R2-D2 was the original plan, but after cutting it out I had enough scrap pieces left over to make a UT cake and two footballs too.  |
Labels: Personal
Menees Knife #9
It’s been a long time since I posted anything about knifemaking. I’ve basically given it up for now in favor of running. Someday I’d like to get back into knifemaking, but I want to get some better supplies before I do (e.g., a Bader bench grinder and some ATS-34 steel).
I made my last knife in July of 2007, but I never got around to posting about it until today. It’s the only knife I’ve made with bolsters, and they were interesting to work with. They made sanding the handle more challenging because I didn’t want to scuff up the bolsters. I wish I’d had thicker metal to make the bolsters out of though. The handle feels too thin in the front, but I had to sand the wood down to line up with the bolsters.
This knife turned out ok, but I kind of stopped mid-stream on it. It’s been two years, so I can’t remember why. But this knife was just for practice anyway. It’s not made out of knife-grade steel, and I never even put an edge on it. The pictures above were taken in the shop on a paper towel, so they’re not very good. The blade actually has a swedge (a non-sharpened false edge) on top, but it’s difficult to see in the pictures.
Material: Random stainless steel with walnut handles and 1/8" steel pins.
Blade Length: 3 7/8"
Overall Length: 8 1/8"
Made: July, 2007
Labels: Knifemaking
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Spring ’09 Racing Results
All the races I had targeted for my Spring ’09 Racing season are over with now. The April races didn’t go as well as I had hoped, but May has been a good month.
- 4/11 Purity 10K – I sicked out of this race because I had the black plague, swine flu, or something awful that weekend.
- 4/18 Union City Civitan 5K – 20:12, 2nd overall, AG 1st (blog post)
- 4/25 Country Music Half – 1:44:45, horrible bonk! (blog post)
- 5/2 Wild Thang 9M Trail Run – 1:07:24, AG 2nd
- 5/9 Girls on the Run 5K – 19:35, AG 3rd, PR
It’s good to finish with a PR. So far this year, despite a great training season, I’ve only gotten PRs in 5K and 1Mi races. I’ve only run one 10K (Race Judicata), and it was very hilly and on a day I ran a double. For a 10K PR I was counting on the Purity 10K, which is fast and flat, but that didn’t work out due to illness. Now I’ve decided to skip the GJCC Triathlon on Memorial Day and run the Hendersonville Classic 10K instead. It’s not flat, but it’s not as hilly or a double like the Race Judicata 10K. Hopefully, I can get a new 10K PR at Hendersonville.
I’m also running the Downhill At Dawn Half Marathon in Asheville, NC on June 6th. The Nashville Striders provide race management for it, and the whole family is going to Asheville so I can run it. Hopefully, that will be a PR day too, but at least it will be a chance to redeem myself after giving up in the Country Music Half. Plus we're going to see the Biltmore Estate while we’re there, and it's totally awesome!
Labels: Running
