Just got back from a week of training and retreating.  Good times.  I am so thankful for time when I can have few responsibilities and I can really relax and not have any guilt feelings about it.  One afternoon I had absolutely no concept of what I would be doing, which was totally what I needed.  I ended up playing 4-5 games of NHL ‘09 with Rod, Johnny B, and Chris H.  Each evening also included some intense floor hockey in the gym — I don’t play enough normally.  And the skill level of the staff guys is so high that I really do get a full sweat going even if I’m playing forward or goalie.  To cool down on a few occasions I played ping pong with some of the guys as well, and I didn’t realize that Paul Malicki, Jon Baelde, or Jamie Strickland were so good.  They aren’t even Asian…. but I guess if you put any competitive guy with some sort of competitive game, they’ll get really good at it.  I didn’t like to admit it, but Jamie took me out at like 21-9 or something, so I humble myself.

After driving back from Bancroft, I went for a car wash to get all the dust and salt and dirt and snow off of the van.  There’s this place like 50m away from my house that offers self-serve spray wash (coin-operated).  It’s $4 for 4.5 minutes… that’s actually pretty expensive I think, but in the end $8 for a soap cycle and a rinse cycle is pretty decent since I got to clean it myself and they provide towels to wipe or buff as well.

I also went and picked up my MacBook Pro from the Mac Clinic since they had finished servicing it.  Now I have a new keyboard and top plate (the whole top surface including the keyboard, speaker panel, and trackpad.  So the keyboard and trackpad work now, and there’s no more parts slightly popping up or anything.  No charge, it was covered under the warranty.  I’ll likely purchase the extended AppleCare though, because I want this machine to last at least another 2 years…

And then to close the night I rented “Walk the Line” from the iTunes Store and watched it in bed.  What a great movie!  I didn’t really know anything about Johnny Cash before watching the movie.  What made me watch it was seeing a scene from the movie while at Staff Training, however.  It intrigued me enough to want to watch it, just from that one scene about “singing as if it’s your last song”.  However, most of the movie is pretty stark and dim about life and I felt heavy-hearted during all the scenes of marital tension and breakup.  That is so hard to watch.. But it was so well done.  The movie also redeemed Reese Witherspoon from the image I have of her in her previous movies.  To know that Joaquin Phoenix and Witherspoon both actually sang those songs for the movie is remarkable.  Mad respect.

Yay… I get to sleep in my own bed again.

Tags: car wash, movie, music, retreat, sports, training, walk the line

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