Inside the Mind of Suz

Evan Turner continues his post NBA draft tour tonight in his hometown by throwing out the 1st pitch at the Cubs/Pirates game. He also gave a so-so rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the 7th inning stretch. But let’s be real. Has anyone ever heard a really good celebrity take on the popular tune? Hmmmm…

Good thing he has that whole basketball thing going for him, right? Still love me some ET, though!

Here are some pics of him at the game, all found on Twitter via Crowdreel (awesome, awesome resource for photos shared via Twitter. Check it out!)

Catch his ceremonial pitch from his Philly debut, Friday, after the jump…shot. (more…)

My trials and tribulations with Windows are well documented on my Twitter account. The saga took an ugly turn a couple of weeks ago when we had a sudden power outage. I didn’t know it at the time, but it pretty much sentenced my hard drive to death.

After we got power back my comp was acting really strange. Freezing and hanging at random times, when it hadn’t done so before. I was also have start up problems and receiving sporadic I/O errors. I tried repairing my Windows installation but it kept telling me that I needed drivers and wouldn’t accept the ones I was offering up. I began to pull my weave out.

A few times, there were glimmers of hope. I’d get Windows to load and get to browse around. I even wiped my disk and reinstalled Windows successfully. That only lasted a day, however.

Frustrated, I declared my desktop computer, Butch, dead.

I let him sit for a day and think about what he did and how he was going to make this up to me. Then I thought about how I didn’t want to give up on fixing this because it would be a while before I could afford another computer since I just got this one in October. I was contemplating selling one of my prize telephoto lenses, Bessie, to give me some cash.

Then I remember that Ubuntu was much more friendly to systems than Windows and would probably buy me some more time to figure out what was wrong with Butch. I loaded the live CD and installed it over Windows as my primary (and only) operating system. After everything was all configured Ubuntu flashed a warning alert after booting up that let me know that my main hard drive was thisclose to failing! Its exact words were “DISK FAILURE IS IMMINENT!” — and yes, it was in all caps!

So was this why I’d been having so many problems? The hard drive? I thought it was something more serious like the motherboard. Getting a replacement hard drive was a piece of cake solution! I went to Best Buy today and picked up a nice Western Digital Caviar Green 500 GB drive. I spent the better part of the evening installing it and Windows.

And now, I am writing this post from my desktop that has returned from the dead! And it’s all thanks to Ubuntu! Don’t sleep on it if you’re having Windows problems and can’t afford to upgrade to a Mac! I probably would have kept it, even on this new drive, if it weren’t for the fact that I need to be able to use iTunes for my iPhone. (Ubuntu isn’t compatible without jumping through a lot of hoops, and even then it’s not guaranteed to work)

BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

The only reason I watch the WNBA, the amazing Candace Parker, has been placed on the LA Sparks IR. (Yes, I’m aware basketball teams don’t have IRs, but just go with me here, ok?)

She dislocated her left shoulder in a recent game and is out for the remainder of the season now that it’s been revealed that the injured shoulder needs surgery.

So, what do I do now? Is it football season yet, or what?

In other CP3 news, Candace is up for the Subway Sportswoman of the Year at next week’s (June 27) BET Awards.

ETA: Candace tweeted her thanks for fan support after news spread that she was on the shelf for the rest of the season.

I have quite a few guilty pleasures on TV. I just started watching Betty White’s new show “Hot In Cleveland”, after all! I do watch some reality programs, but not of the competition variety, or any of the stupid crap on MTV. I like a lot of E!’s and Bravo’s shows, though.

One of those is the Rachel Zoe Project featuring megastylist Rachel Zoe. The new trailer for her upcoming 3rd season is out and I can’t wait!

Season 3 premieres Wednesday, August 3rd at 10 PM (ET)!

It happens every year. And every year, a voice in the back of my mind says “there’s no way!” or “I’m not sure we’re ready!”

What am I talking about? The Week 5, Day 3 Couch to 5k running workout that moves us up to one 20 minute run after only previously doing a max of 8 minutes. I always see it as this huge obstacle and almost dread it as it looms; this year was no different.

But every year I do it (with no stopping), and when I’m done I’m proud and almost surprised that I was able to complete the run.

At this stage of my c25k training, I’m usually pretty good to go after about 8-10 minutes. I’m able to settle into a comfortable stride with good and productive form. This is confirmed by how my pace (according to RunKeeper gets faster every 5 minute segment).

I completed the 20 minute run on Saturday and it was the most muggy and humid day of the year so far. So gross outside! At first I could barely breath and thought “oh boy, this is going to be a rough workout!”, but it really wasn’t bad once I got going.

I come to this conclusion every year, so I thought I’d share this small bit of wisdom to anyone who reads this. Even if you don’t think you’re going very fast, it doesn’t matter. Just know that if you continue to push through, chances are it probably will get easier. So keep running!

P.S. BEP’s “I Gotta Feeling” is pretty much the perfect song to use for a warm-up or cool down walk. Great BPM pace for me. Same with Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”, BEP’s “Let’s Get Retarded/It Started”, and Michael Jackson’s “Leave Me Alone”.

P.P.S. I had an old high school friend ask me about my podcasts on iTunes. I briefly shared with her that I had had trouble making my XML file iTunes compliant, so I abandoned all hope of getting it back on iTunes. Well, I’m trying again. Hopefully I can figure it out this time!