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sorry, no pics for this one. soooo, Atlanta was hosting the inagural ING marathon on March 25th. several of my friends had been training for months, but i had been nursing a sore leg and had not jogged for about 2 months. for some reason my friends (most notably jason, drew and blake) thought it was a not-bad idea for me to run the half marathon. please keep in mind that i had not run more than 7 miles in my life – ever.

so my training regimen consisted of this. at dinner the night before (with stephen’s dad and a bunch of friends) i had only 2 drinks, and i got to bed at a reasonable 12:30 AM. i had told everyone at dinner that the odds of me running were about 30%. i told the guys that if i woke up at 5:30 (unlikely) i would run. well, as luck would have it, i did indeed wake up at 5:30 and (being a man of my word) was forced to run.

i was told there wasn’t much i needed to know, and then on the train people were talking about body glide. i felt like i had been let down by my friends for not having described this compound to me, and immediately began to fear for my nipples – ultimately they would survive just fine.

anyway, blake’s friend steph agreed to run with me, and my plan hinged on the fact that i knew i could run 8 miles, and that would get me to the park which means i would be right next to my house and could just go home. however, time flies when you’re only running 10 minute miles and your ipod is cranking out one winning song after another and just 2 h ours and 15 minutes later i was crossing the finish line. it was slow, but i survived – special thx to steph, i would NEVER have done it without you.

on a side note, mo, jason and drew all cranked out wicked fast marathons and blake set a record for most times stopping to use a bathroom in a half marathon and still beat steph and me.

well, i’m sure everyone was jonesin for an update on the fantasy baseball draft update. i know it’s like a monkey on my back.

well, we were very excited that our draft angel was still there this year and had not indeed been killed by the fans of the Dominican team last year. as you can see below, when she is near, all other girls (and one dude in a red shirt) just fade into the background.

here i gauge chris carpenter’s fastball, point out a possible flaw in his mechanics and predict his season’s impending end.

here the Braves ground crew executes the “chain of water”. Masterfully done, guys.

this guy is a huge napoleon dynamite fan (i can only surmise).

and this guy with the woeful batting average didn’t get drafted at all. not even by missle mike. i’m not even sure he got his name on a jersey.

here missle mike gives his evaluation of smoltz’s draft potential.

this kid was “protect[ing] the house.” there is no excuse for allowing your kid to wear this shirt. none! it is never hot enough that he needs that much “wickability” and he’s never doing anything where muscle fatigue is that much of a potential problem.

speaking of things you should never let your kid do…..

if you’re ever on an operating table and you look up and see the face of a doctor that looks anything like that kid flee. flee very veeeery quickly.

we still haven’t set up the oft-referenced and much anticipated brad v todd sprint showdown but we did find someone who could likely pace the two racers.

the draft itself featured all the pageantry and spectacle that you one would expect. here we offer up a 5 car bomb salute as missle mike makes his first pick of the draft and begins his annual string 17 rounds of misinformed and unadvisable decisions.

as we are a very cultured group, we decided to learn more about other cultures during the draft and winged on over to china.

what we discovered was SHOCKING!!! china is actually tiny. i tower over even the tallest buildings and “not the legend” even comes up to 3rd floor windows. i think we should use this newfound knowledge to force the chinese to allow the yuan to float freely on the currency market. if they refuse, we send not the legend over to “negotiate.”

here larry climbs the “oh-so-famous” mount nipple. i’m not sure of of the historical significance of the natural feature, but larry felt it worth scaling.

that’s about it for coverage of this year’s draft. for some reason i did very little photographing and filming this year. i promise to do better next year – yeah, like you care.

soooo, i decided to wing on up to DC to check out the WHO at Verizon Center with my friends Jeff and Todd and my brother Jeremy. We had a pretty fun weekend there, highlighted by either the girl who claimed she had political asylum, or the one whose belt was “Hermes” (as i was instructed). my response “that’s french, right?”

anyway, i got some jeans to replace my favorite pair (which i had presciently predicted would suffer a hole in the knee on there very next wash cycle) and the concert was great as well. it was a treat to see how fired up Todd gets for the WHO (even moreseo than i would imagine he does for “Baseball Tonight).

so, here is a picture from the concert

and here is a video from the show, just b/c i thought their stage videos were cool. i apologize for the sound quality. i am not a professional – i’m not even proficient. oh, and that video may also include footage of todd debating jimmy carter’s merits with someone in a bar.

one last photo, this one from the 3D sharks movie at IMAX. if you are considering seeing this – DON’T!!!! i can’t emphasize this strongly enough. these are the wussiest sharks of all time. they kill NOTHING!! i knew we were in trouble when the very opening scene remarked how sharks are misuderstood and people are the real predators. i figured it would be tough for them to follow that up with great whites leaping out of the water to crush seals in 3D. now, THAT would be worth $8. anyway, this is a picture of jeff and i before we all took naps in the IMAX theater.

oh, yeah, forgot one other thing we did. we went to the air and space museum with todd. holy cow! that’s like going to a peanut exhibit with jimmy carter or going to a “pot” museum with ricky williams. seriously – impressive knowledge and appreciation of airplanes with that dude.