Friday, February 25, 2005

Knights of Columbus! This Week has been Freakin' Weird

I used to write about personal experences more in my old journal...I've gotten away from that lately but this week is too interesting not to write about.

A breif chronicle of one of the strangest weeks that I have experenced in a long freakin time:

Monday - No class in the morning, so I drove to school in the afternoon which was nice, to say the least. The day was pretty typical for a few hours, I worked on stuff, went to class, went to work. It was upon my arrival for work at Mozart's that things got weird. It was Heather (a cool shift leader). I was walking to clock in when Heather said: "ok Jordan, here's what's going on, we're closing the store (first time in six years that Mozart's has had to involuntarily close)...there was no one in the building and a couple dozen people on the deck who seemed almost as confused as I was. The confusion was probably brought on by the cloud of freon gas that had filled the front part of the store about twenty minutes earlier. Apparently the compressor for the bakery case essentially blew up, and a white cloud of gas filled the area, enveloping Heather...weird...it was her last night and she gets a cloud of freon in the face. A minute later the store was evacuated and my boss was on top of things. We waited outside for over an hour for the stuff to clear out (both Heather and my boss were really dizzy)...it would have probably been safe to reopen the store but in the interest of being safe we didn't...good thing. We got to chill out on the deck telling people that we were closed. I was pleasantly suprised at some of the reactions of people when they found out we were closed (ranging from genuine consternation to yelps of angish)...Mozart's is a very popular and well-loved place. We had a good conversation about that (my boss is a really cool guy)...I'll probably write about Mozart's itself, and mabye even my boss, in a future post. But yea, not an ordinary day at Mozart's and the first day in a weird week.

Tuesday - I ran...weird enough, but it was the distance, and where I ran which was really messed up. Tuesday had, once again, been fairly normal (apparently the weirdness likes to wait until around sunset to kick in), I got home from school. Mike went to work. I decided to take another attempt at jogging, where, as Ron Burgandy pointed out, you just run, for extended periods of time. I downed some gatorade and drove to the Congress Avenue Bridge (parking in the Statesman parking lot). I took off running down the town lake trail hoping that mabye, for the first time ever, I could run three miles without stopping. I ran along, managing to control my pace and breathing I made good progress as I admired all of the other people out trying to add an element of fitness to their lives, or at the very least enjoying the twilight hour in the beautiful city of Austin. Then it got weird...I crossed over the pedistrian bridge and was almost to Mopac when I realized that I still had alot left in the tank. So I kept running...I made it up a hill past Mopac and I realized that if I made it all the way to Mozart's I would have run around five miles...a seemingly impossible feat (but not so impossible...I just lack confidence in my physical abilities)...I had around two miles to go down Lake Austin Blvd...a long and fairly straght street that made the distance longer. I pushed and pushed myself and made it to the traffic light at Redbud Trail...just a few blocks more...I could do it...and I did...disproving myself. I love disproving myself...I was generally proud of myself. For me, running five miles is an olympian feat for me. I stumbled onto the deck at Mozart's...much to the suprise of my co-workers Becky and Matt who were sitting at a table. "I just ran here...*heavy breathing*... from the Congress Avenue Bridge...*more heavy breathing*..." I blurted...then I spent the next 30 minutes just walking around and doing some much deserved panting. Running to Mozart's was a surreal experence...it's out of the way, a place I could never image running to.

To be contenued...

3 comments:

Sean Raybuck said...

awesome. kudos for running

MW Rice said...

Jordan,
We missed you at the party man! Good job on running though. I gave that up years ago... now I swim and lift. Yeah, you needed to know that.. Are we living together or WHAT!!?>?
RiCe

Jordan_Ryan_Stewart said...

This blog features Comment Response on Demand:

Dude...I'm all for the idea...allthough we'll definitley have to talk it over...I've got this job and future internship in Austin issue that complicates my decision on which town to reside in.

Dude I wanted to go to the party...but there will be more parties and more good times I'm sure. I saw the pictures, it looked like a really good time.

Dude...

Dude...

Dude...