I Come In Peace

The sickness continues. Yah. At least I was able to sell my tickets for Thursday night's Caps game, and tonight is an away one.

I have to say that I was disappointed in having to miss that game, though. Watching it on TV just isn't quite the same. I was pretty surprised that the Caps not only broke the streak, they shut out the Blue Jackets by a pretty hefty margin -- 5-0. It was almost like the Boudreau era again. 

Anyway, if you didn't already know, I was recently accepted into the Subaru Ambassador program. I guess having some notoriety and a stickered up WRX is good for something. ;) 

Cool #subaruambassador icon for my #Subaru badge of ownership. :)

A photo posted by Karen (@kiirenza) on Jan 6, 2017 at 11:38am PST

I actually got word of my acceptance in a sort of roundabout way. The original "welcome" email never came through, not even to my spam folder, but I received a message on how to order swag and ambassador gear. I figured maybe I'd be getting a letter via snailmail, and since our USPS mailperson is notoriously awful, maybe I received the email before the letter.

So, I ordered some swag and gear, since I had $150 to burn up before January 1st. A week later (and after my order arrived), I still haven't received anything official from Subaru. So, I sent an inquiry.

Sure enough, there had been a glitch in the emails going out that day, and mine was among them. They resent the email, and I've since also received my "starter kit."

In the meantime, I posted up a "contest" of sorts on my Triskelion Racing Facebook page for what I billed as a winter prize pack.


While the local Maryland Subaru group had people that seemed interested, I guess it was either too complicated for them, or too much effort to post a photo. Their loss! In the end, some of my friends from Ohio were the big winners. I guess that's good for them, since they've had a lot more snow than we have in Maryland so far.

I got a lot of neat little things to give away, including some diecast Subaru vehicles (a Legacy GT, an Outback and a WRX) that will be in an upcoming prize pack, some pet-related stuff, ice scrapers (evidently a big ticket item right now) and some other stuff.

If you see me around, especially in the Subaru, say something. I will have gear to give away on the spot too. And no, I haven't coughed or sneezed on it, so it should be sickness free. :p

Summer Hockey

While I play in a year-round women's league that has a "spring/summer season," it's nice to be able to get on the ice outside of scheduled games. I got the chance to do exactly that with some pickup hockey on Saturday as part of my friend Mark's sixtieth birthday party being put on by his husband John.

Opening faceoff

Like my league games, there was quite a diversity of skill levels, though the goalies were probably both better than what I usually face. Our goalie, Daniel, plays in the "B" league, which is one of the upper tiers.

The red team should've just been called the "dark jersey" team. ;)

We played for about 45 minutes straight, Pat taking a bunch of photos from the scorekeeper's box and also keeping score (Lisa showed him quickly how to run the scoreboard so he could). Then we took about a ten minute break, followed with 20 more minutes of skating until the ice resurfacer essentially kicked us off.

Pat managed to even get a few shots of me looking like I knew what I was doing.

In the end, I think the red team just got a little too worn down for our good, and the white team managed to score a couple of quick goals. But they didn't realize we had an ace in the scorekeeper's box. ;)

Hey, it's Mark's birthday, so his team should win, right? ;)

Thanks for the great time, John and Mark!

Dog Days

It's tough being a puppy

Yah! Someone's here to see me!

I went by Mom's to drop off some things for the road trip (like Hershey bars for the s'mores that will be made), and when I got there, Bruce was outside in his gazebo. We went inside shortly thereafter, where I presented him with a toy I'd bought.

gnaw, gnaw, gnaw

Thanks, Auntie! 

Yeah, he loved it. It's a little bone with a rubber area in the middle, and you can put these rawhide disks on it, too. He managed to get one of the two disks off after two or so hours of gnawing, and Mom said he finally got the other one off this morning. Yet, he is still playing with it -- fetch, gnawing, etc. So, I will call it a huge hit.

Between the new toy and taking him outside again while we checked out how to install a new porch light on the RV and then letting him run around on his long leash, Bruce was dead tired by the time I needed to leave so I could grab dinner prior to my hockey game.

Fighting sleep, and losing

As for the hockey game.... 0-0 tie. Tough one, but we stay ahead of the Black team, in second place for now.

Less than three weeks until the road trip! :D

New Year

Yeah, I've been bad about updating. So many things going on... I should have done my writeup on my Nationals trip, but I was pretty disappointed in how I did, so I never really got around to it. Maybe this weekend, since it's too cold to do much else.

It's four days into 2014, and I figured I'd share some of my "resolutions." I'm not quite sure why a new calendar year always seems to be a good time to try to change things -- I know I've made mid-year resolutions before, and actually stuck with them better than any "new year's" ones. Anyway, here we go.

• Journaling more. I used to write in a journal a lot. Not daily, but routinely enough that I filled up seven or so journals over the years. I started back in 1987, but stopped in recent years. I need to pick it back up, and not just in the journal, but also here, since blogging is a kind of journal. So, I guess this post is a start on this resolution, eh?
• Procrastinate less. I'm really bad at procrastinating, and not just with stuff for work. My propensity for putting things off just cost me a lot of money all at once, and that's not acceptable. If I had just taken the time to get something looked at on my black Camaro when I first started hearing it, I wouldn't be installing a new differential and gear set in it now. I know I'll never stop procrastinating altogether, but I need to consider the consequences better.
• I'm not exactly sure how to phrase this one, but essentially, I want to take more risks with my fun stuff. I need to push the boundaries of my comfort zone in order to improve, both with hockey and with autocross. I hate skating backwards, and I'm not very confident with stopping near the boards, and both of these things hurt me on the ice in the long run. In autocross, I need to just stop worrying so much about the car, and as Chris always said, "Just fucking drive." 
• Wander more. There is so much to see out there, even close by. 

 So, there you have it. We'll see how successful I am. :)