Exciting Exercising week - and my building

Hi all - good things happening this week! Tuesday and Wednesday night were some awesome softball games. Wednesday night I came home to this catastrophe in my complex.
More on that later. Then Thursday I stayed home in order to sleep in despite the construction crews, then worked from a coffee shop and went swimming at the pool in Central Park that has lap swim from 7-8:30 every weekday night! So much fun after not swimming for awhile... And now it's Friday - yippee!

So first - Tuesday's softball game. 5:30 game - nice humid weather. I totally bruise myself during batting practice - for some reason the end of the bat on my follow through hits the back side of my wrist. And when repeatedly hit, forms a large goose egg :-). But the game... So after the 2nd inning we were down like 8-1. Yippee for us. For some reason we weren't working as a team. Then all of a sudden we worked as a team. We got some great hits, kept getting like 3-4 runs per inning and then shut them down at D(defense). So then all of a sudden it's the bottom of the inning and we're up like 13-10! I was so jazzed - it's more fun when it's competitive and you don't feel bad for the errors that've been happening. I was batting really poorly that day too. So we jsut needed to stop them in that last inning. Unfortunately our star pitcher (he really is good) walked like 3 people in a row. So needless to say they scored - 2 runs. So it was 13-12 and the runner that was to tie the game was on 3rd. But we got some outs in there - pop flies, and 1 at a base. And we won! Go Bytecodes! Love that camaradie feeling :-). Great day :-).

Wednesday - another game. Got some more batting practice which was great. Did some good throwing - also fun. And did warmup sprints - I'm the only one that does them. Even warmer day. I'm hazier on the scores here, but our coach gave us the advice to start out strong and shut them down at D (as opposed to Tuesday). And that really helped because we did :-). We had some great out-field catches. And again - after we learned NOT to hit it to their center outfielder, we were great. We were getting around the bases. I got a nice base hit (which someone told me was an RBI), and then ran the bases to get a run. Actually I almost got out at home, but since I don't know how to slide I ran around the catcher (who wasn't very good) and tagged the bag while the ball rolled past! Go me :-). Got some good outs, too - fielded a ground ball and threw to first. Caught an awesome pop-fly - I think everyone was surprised I caught it, but it hit the sweet spot :-). And I swear I got a person out at 2nd when the short stop threw it to me, but he was called safe. But I felt like a good team player :-). I just need to work on batting and having a faster start off the plate! Anyway, our team pulled together and won by like 5 runs in the end! We were really excited! Literally our team has sucked the whole season - we are 4th of 4 teams... But apparently it took the season to pull us together as a team because we are now in the CHAMPIONSHIP GAME! We'll play next week Wednesday at 5:30 and I'm so excited. :-). I love pulling together as a team and encouraging each other and being positive. Softball is great.

So I get a ride home from my crazy Manhattan friend who likes to share his life story :-). He's really nice. But lo and behold I come to 97th and Columbus (my corner) and see at least 5 fire trucks. And 97th is closed off to traffic. Firefighters everywhere and flashy lights. So I had a bit of warning - when I called Naveen to tell him I was coming home from softball, he told me about what happened. So context: There is a huge construction site literally under my building (well, in front but we look down on it from floor 16). They start promptly at 7am everyday using cranes and the big machines with claws that haul dirt - lucky for us it sounds like a jet plane landed there and they were compacting it like trash - crushing metal and glass into a ball. It's loud :-). The site itself is a bit hole - they are supposedly putting in a Whole Foods, but maybe there will be an underground parking lot because they've dug down by a few stories. So I guess they were doing some dynamite blasting that day... The have huge steel beams holding up the dirt walls of this big hole. Well, apparently Wednesday night, after the crew had gone home, one of the walls basically collapsed, the steel beams fell at an angle into the hole. This might've been ok but this particular wall was semi-under another building in our complex and might be a structural necessity. So they evacuated the building, and those folks couldn't come back until the next day - glad we aren't in that building! I heard they went to a neighborhood school. But there were more firetrucks on the site too (at least 8?) and tenants were up in arms. It was neat to have a view of all of this from our window :-). They stopped the construction work, but not before they took most of Wednesday night and all of Thursday to construct a huge pile of dirt and rocks in the hole created so it would be more structurally sound. Yay noise. Some excitement... :-).

Thursday was a good day - I stayed home in order to get sleep. It's really a shame I work best at night - it doesn't work with anyone else's schedule. But I slept in which was nice :-). Then worked for the afternoon from Starbucks with Naveen. Then we came home and I biked to Central Park's pool! I just found out about their program to open up the pool to adult lap swimmers in the morning and evening - early bird and night owl. Get this - it's 7-8:30am and pm. Doesn't seem particularly early or late to me :-). But the bike ride over there was really nice. And I got a card saying I'm a night owl lap swimmer :-). Central Park's pool is huge - in the winter it's a skating rink. And it's funny - they section off like a slice in the far part of the pool for 2 lanes. Only 2. Although we use the areas on either side of the ropes as lanes too, so there are 4. But it wasn't crowded - maybe 4 people per lane. And the culture was nice and friendly - the guys that sat around the edge of the pool were talking about doing triathlons and a 4 mile swim across Long Island Channel for charity this weekend... I felt on familiar turf :-). I was nervous because I hadn't swam in over a month, but I love the water. It was so beautiful to be swimming in Central Park - well, the bike ride was beautiful too :-)! The laps were long - 55m. So I did 14 laps - over 1/2 mile. I was proud of myself! Did it in 25 minutes - added only a few minutes to my times of a month and a half ago. Or 2 months ago? Wow time flies. Everything felt natural (although I was sore afterwards) and fun. There were gray skies, but after I got in the chilly water, it didn't bother me. Beautiful time to swim. The last lap I looked up at the sky and was just happy to be there. I'm always proud of myself after swimming - well, any exercise. Good feelings :-). Went home and finished up laundry and to bed!

Today was fun - my whole group went out to Indian food for lunch - a buffet and they had dosai! Some of my group members are very cool people to talk to.

Wow, so I just realized everything I was excited about this week was exercise. Must be because I didn't go out to dinner :-) or other events. Yay paper deadline. We are going out to sushi tonight though - yum! And really - wish me luck on the paper. I hope I'm still sane at the end of this, but currently I'd just like to see performance numbers that are good. Happy Weekend!