Clearing Away the Dust

Well, I'm back in the Super Webs for a couple days before I break again for the New Year. It has been a wild ride from boozing and running myself into holiday cheer. Not to mention the driving involved to get this party across Northeast Ohio. The ozone above this great state got a little thinner last week.

Christmas Storied
The holiday began on the 23rd with my office party. The last Flashback Friday of the year was written at my desk as usual, but with a dram of homemade Irish creme in my coffee. The first beer was imbibed around 1 p.m.

During our gift exchange, I traded a bottle of wine for two tree ornaments and two small bottles of Courvoisier V.S.O.P. cognac, which will appear later in the story.

By 3 p.m., we had moved the office party down to a local pub for Christmas Ales and gab. Before I left the scene, I bamboozled convinced my coworkers to join me for A Christmas Story, a perfect recipe for finishing my holiday shopping.

That night was a friend's birthday party (one of those poor Christmas Eve babies). There was some Old Rasputin and a terrible reminder of why no one should ever drink Unicum, ever.

Christmas Eve came and went with a delicious dinner of sushi and an hour's drive north for some presenting, Johnnie Walker Red Label and a very difficult to pour shot of very fine Tequila (the name of which I have forgotten, so it must have been good).

I capped the evening with the first bottle of Courvoisier so that Santa would not find me up past bedtime.

Ah, Christmas morning. My stocking was full with---among other things you'll see below---a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label. Santa, you are too kind.

Later that day and another hour's drive away, I cracked a bottle Rolling Rock for the first and only beer along the way.

After dinner and a drive of an hour and a half, I drank some sparkling red wine from many a carafe.

And somewhere awhile off track was that other bottle of cognac.

But there is one present I'm still waiting for, and it's one that I'm hoping will be at my door.

The gift is one that will keep me in good cheer. Yes, that package of Hibernation Ale will soon be here.

And that will end this lyrical bend.

Sweet New Gear
Someone must have gotten tired of seeing the wax and wain of screw shoes and YakTrax on this blog. In my stocking was a brand new pair of YakTrax Pro. Of course, all the snow melted two days before Christmas so I have yet to test them. However, I was impressed by how easy it was to afix them to my shoes.

Santa also brought me a cool two-toned New Balance tech shirt, which was nice to wear during the 60-degree swelter on Saturday. I probably won't get to don it again until June.

Rounding out the new running ensemble was a nice fly-weight jacket, the Zoot Sports Ultra Ether Jacket. It's totally radical. It holds in the heat (and the sweat) better than a sauna. It repels precipitation like Superman repels bullets. And it can break wind all day without smelling foul.

And thankfully, I did not get a, get a, get a Garmin.

I must have been really good this year.

Slow Progress
My continued quest to break 1,000 miles has been a slow march, but my mountain has been cut in half since my last post. Despite a busy holiday schedule I managed a 22-mile week, knocking out my first 10-miler in two months. The next three days will be a challenge.

Mile Tracker 1,000: 22 miles to go

[Drunkard's note: Yes, Ms. V, regarding your comment, Vermouth is alcohol, a rather distasteful wine unless it's properly hidden with gin or cooked with food.]