Happy Thanksgiving! A cold check in.

I sit here at my computer waiting on the heat/air repair man. Sunday morning I awoke to my teeth chattering and the temperature inside my house hovering at a tropical 58°. Now I'm all for toughing out the weather when it comes to getting a ride or a run in... but when I'm trying to surf the internet or sleep... I would prefer something a little closer to 65+ at the minimum.  Even now as I type this (tough to type with wool gloves on) I look like this....

Triathlete? Negative, I am a meat popsicle.

Ok, maybe not that bad... but wool socks are on and the electric space heater is definitely doing work. It's pretty bad when you get up and are looking forward to going outside to run because you know it'll warm you up!

Tomorrow is the big day (Thanksgiving) and, for many of the people who bother to read this, it means it's also Turkey Trot day. I'll be hitting up a 5k myself early in the morning, hopefully breaking my PR in the process (Sub 19... I can dream, right?) After that it's off to either gorge myself in celebration or disgust, have a couple of drinks, and watch Christmas Vacation / Bad Santa for a few hours before turning in early for the battle that will be Black Friday.

Usually I'm pretty excited about BF, but this year not much has caught my eye. My computer is finished, I've got a 60" TV, and basically all the other "big ticket" items are just meh to me. I'd kind of like a Tablet (the ASUS 32gb Nexus is $229 at Office Depot) but I'm not sure I care enough to shell out the $ for it. If you're going to fight the mobs as well, here's one or two hot picks from my nerdy side :P

-Kmart has a 32" HDTV for $79
-Best Buy has a 40" HDTV for $179 (sub 200! who'd have thought it possible)
-Wal Mart has a 60" HDTV for $688
-Tigerdirect has a SSD drive (120gb) for $49.99 - I paid $70 two months ago and it was a deal then!
-Sears has the Barnes&Noble Ereader for $39
-Gamestop has the PS3 Bundle for $199
-Sams' Club has the Galaxy S3 for under a dollar if you pick up the 2-year plan
-Home Depot has a Magic Chef microwave for $38

Target also has the Gateway NV52L15u 15" laptop for $349... it's probably the best deal on a laptop this year (money spent to what you get) but it's still not a Black Friday worthy deal IMO.

Anyways, enough shopping advice from me. I'll be making a couple of stops to the local bike and running shops looking for any good deals that might be that way... I'd really like to score a nice hardtail mountain bike for around $600 - $900. Unfortunately that is prime real estate for the craptastic Suntour fork that is so commonly spec'ed on cheaper Mtn Bikes. Maybe my LBS will discount the Trek/GF Mamba they have on the floor.

Anyways, that was the quick update for the week. I'll update tomorrow with how the Turkey Trot went and what kind of post race binge / gluttony I took part in! Feel free to 1-up me if you can!

Everyone have a happy and safe holidays. Thanks for reading. Now, off to find another blanket to throw over the shoulders!

-Christopher Morelock

-edit:
A cold morning 5k and I was fighting through a bit of stomach issues. Nonetheless, I managed to PR with a 19:21 and finish 3rd in my AG. Woohoo... then the massive binge of turkey/ham/eggs/salad/potatoes/pie... whew. So full.