www.kevinkmp.com

today i volunteered at the nyc triathlon. volunteers get guaranteed entry for 2009, plus it's fun to help out the athletes and get inspired by their buffness and general awesomeness. it was freakin hot out today, and i came home a bit dehydrated...but i really shouldn't complain, seeing as i didn't bust my ass to get into the hudson river at 5:50 a.m., swim a mile, bike 25, and run 6. ow. (but i will next year!)

there was some serious drama at the finish line today...i timed a bathroom break so i could sneak over to the finish line and see the first men come through the gate. the first guy won handily (at just under 1:47, i might add...which means after his swim and bike he did the 10k in somewhere around 30 minutes...just sayin). but the second place guy, about 500 yards from the finish, sort of just...lost control of his legs. it didn't look like cramping, more like dehydration leading to complete muscle fatigue. dude just crumpled to the ground. he started crawling, rolling, doing whatever he could to finish. three guys passed him to the line. medics came out. the guys who finished before him gathered around him to try to help and encourage. it was intense. i had to get back to my post so i don't know exactly how it ended. i think he finally finished 5th. damn.

on a brighter note, there were also several teams of a blind person tethered to a volunteer athlete, doing the whole race together. i saw a lot of people kicking ass with one artificial leg, or two artificial legs, or in wheelchairs using only their arms. toward the end, i saw two dudes with matching jerseys walking away from the finish area; they were clearly teammates who had finished way earlier. they spotted one of the last runners struggling in, and the two guys flanked him and ran with him into central park, yelling for the crowd to make some noise for the dude. it's neat to see people come together like that, and encourage each other instead of being all cutthroat and competitive all the time.

and i'm stoked for next sunday. countdown to running domination. or at least a strong finish. :)

Overheard at the Pitchfork Music Fest in Chicago by a cliche hipster while listening to Public Enemy perform "Welcome to the Terrordome" (referencing the "Funky Drummer" break):

"Dude, they totally stole this beat from Madonna!"

i am officially a permanent employee. of a hedge fund! never thought i'd see the day.

salary and health coverage and 401k, oh my. and 4 weeks vacation. although part of me is bummed to be sorta selling my musical soul, i'm more excited than sad...i feel like i'm gaining financial stability now, which will help da singies in the long run. and i can wear jeans every day, and go to auditions on my lunch hour without having to say i'm "at a doctor's appointment" every day. seems like a pretty good deal to me.

this gives me hope for hip hop.

hi, under-age-35 nyc dwellers (or frequent visitors) who read this journal.

if you like theatre, and you're not a member of this, you need to be. like, now.

http://www.hiptix.com

i just got tickets to "sunday in the park with george" for 15 bucks. and might go see "les liaisons dangereuses" for 21. get on it.

it's official! i will be running in the nyc half marathon on july 27!!!

http://nyrr.org/races/2008/nychalf/index.asp

step one in my plan for ironman domination. :)

girl talking on phone: "oh really, he works for avon now? ...and he's straight? wow, good for him!"

After a long weekend its hard to get back into the swing of things. Although I didn't get everything I wanted to get done completed last weekend I think we made a pretty good dent. Even got the porch ready complete with all the flower boxes and planters cleaned out and replanted.

This upcoming weekend I have a few more little projects to accomplish including putting together a scrap book page for my girlfriend's baby shower on sunday. Yeah... Because Im so creative.... We have to create a scrapbook page that introduces ourselves to their baby. While I admit that the effort and sentiment is really sweet I am not a scrapbook kinda gal. I'm trying to not let my inner curmudgeon out all over this page but its very difficult. I'm sure it will be even more difficult on sunday when the girls make me play baby shower games.... So if you happen to hear about my freak accident involving repeatedly sticking a decorative toothpick that I got from a crustless cucumber tea sandwich into my eye....you'll know why it happened. Or at least you know what tactic I used to excuse myself from the aformentioned game playing.

This is baby shower 1 of the 3 I have to go to this month....Next one is next saturday...less than 7 days later.... Apperently people had a great autum/winter....and that one is for my YOUNGER cousin who got married AFTER I did. And the whole family will be there. Since you are all very smart people I think you can see where this is going. Oh so much fun. Can't wait. (see decorative toothpick comment) The upside is that I'll have my cousin/lil sister with me. Since she's jumping ship and moving to NYC next month I may be able to use her as a human shield. Its true... I have no shame. Anyway...happy friday....

I have completely checked out at work. They just told us after weeks and weeks of working every day and all the stress that our project will be postponed so our team (all 4 of us) can go work on another project that some slightly more inexperienced folks have hosed up.

Its the correct decision to make to be sure.....Its actually one of those decisions that you rarely ever see managment make. Most of the time I expect my managment staff to say hey....get it done... even if your work is now dependant on other service groups that you have no control over. Or, Get it done and throw more bodies at it. The other project is a much higher priority, can carry large fines if its not implemented on time, and is overloading the same resources we need to use for our project and timelines. Since our project services the internal IT staff, technically we can launch whenever. Anyway, I get why the decision was made. Its just a bitter pill to swallow considering the effort already expended.

So now I'm sitting in a conference room with my colleague trying to figure out what we're supossed to do. But to be honest I really could not give a flying fig in space.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend. For those of you traveling, I hope that the traffic is lighter than you expect and you can find that rare cheap gas price.

I need a cold adult beverage.....

It's gearing up to be a live music summer!

So far, starting tonight, Kev and I have tickets for ALOT of concerts. Tonight it is to see Mike Ness (from Social Distortion fame)at Park West. We also have tickets to these shows too-
Erykah Badu (Backed by the Roots)
Neil freakin' Diamond
Public Enemy (performing "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" from beginning to end)
Alice Russell (a new fave of mine)
My Bloody Valentine
Stevie Wonder (for free!)

I'm sure there will be lots more to come, but damn I love me some good live music.

aciphex.

seriously? did no one say this out loud before deciding on this name?

helps your heartburn AND keeps your booty perky!

http://openeyedsneeze.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-before-e-party-people.html

W to tha O to tha R to tha D.

this simultaneously pissed me off and cracked me up.

one of the girls in my department, as of monday, went from a temp to a permanent employee. hooray, much rejoicing, et. al.

so today there is a biiiiig lunchtime celebration for her. an email is circulated which i do not receive. afterward, everyone is talking about how great the food is (and how much was left over, mind you). NO ONE invited me to go. i would have crashed, but it was in the company's other building, and i've never been there so wouldn't know where to get mah food on.

i just find it deliciously ironic. "congratulations! you're a real human being now, with health insurance and job security! let's have a party for you! but don't tell the peon in the corner! she's a temp; she's not human at all! yaaay for permanent employee sandwiches!"

quick hit. Chris had a birthday last week and to celebrate I made a 6 course meal and had a few friends over to celebrate. Here's the menu:

Goat cheese fritters on a salad of watercress and endive with a citris dressing and a tomato relish

Green Apple Sorbet (the shallots and garlic in the relish are pretty powerful so a pallet cleanser never hurts)

Potato and Leek soup

Dry aged NY strips with Pomme Frites and Asperagas

Poached Pears in a Port Wine Reduction over ice cream ( this is a mild pain since its a 2 day process but worth it)

Assorted Cheeses

....and there was supossed to be carrot cake but I got my signals crossed with another friend and that didnt happen. I think Im going to try my hand at it this weekend. I personally hate the stuff but since Chris loves it, I can try it.

All in all everyone had a great time. But next year he's getting a coke and a smile.

i had a costume fitting at the met today. they were rehearsing "first emperor" cuz i could hear it over the speakers. as i was getting on the elevator backstage, placido domingo walked by and said hello. i'm sure i blushed like a schoolgirl.

then the costume people were really really nice to me, even though we all knew that i'm just one of 120 chorus people, singing in one concert. they did a good job of making me feel fancypants.

it all made me feel a little better about going back to my desk job. means to an end, means to an end.

i haven't watched you in a long time. i'm bored with the contestants and the judges' banter and the ridiculous theme weeks you impose upon the poor contestants. but i tuned in recently, because you had dolly parton week, which was pretty awesome because dolly parton is freaking amazing. but that was an anomaly.

because just as my hopes began to rise again, you decide to have "neil diamond week."

first, these kids weren't even alive when he was cool. second, it's kind of like having "tom jones week." have they done that yet? in any case, sorta creepy to watch him be a "mentor" to the young ladies of the show. third, they might as well have "barry white week," because very few potential american idols have a vocal range which can begin to do justice to he of the sparkly shirt.

and just when i think it can't get any more painful than watching beautiful teenagers hip-hopping up classics like "sweet caroline" and "thank the lord for the night time," you make them sing a neil diamond MEDLEY containing (in my opinion) two of the most cheesetastic diamond hits, "cracklin' rose" and "song blue."

wow. seriously. wow. i either hate it or LOVE IT.

It is 2 days before May and it is snowing.

Best customer of the day:

High maintenance princess type with her designer dog to match her designer bag comes in this morning to drop off her Shi-Poo for a groom for the first time with our facility. After yammering away ad naseum to our groomer (who is very experienced) on how to do her job for 20 minutes, she left wiping away tears because she had to leave her "baby" for 2 hours.

Seriously?

UPDATE: Princess checked her dog out and threw a major whiny tantrum on how short her dog's groom turned out. Another customer checking her dog out just kept rolling her eyes. I need another raise.

[pertaining to a discussion about Lully's opera Armide]

gravytation: "Yeah, I was gonna say something about there being a LOT of dancing interludes... They was all like th' muthafuckin' fly girls, yo. Except Baroque."

radiohead is headlining lolla this year?!?!?

is anyone going? i've practically booked my flight already.