I don't like crowds. Everyone close to me knows this fact, knows that groups of about 40 is my limit, knows that I'd rather "gouge my eyes out with hot forks of displeasure" than fight the good cheer of the shopping crowds around Christmas time.

So, when Kris asked me to run errands with him today, errands that included shopping, I carefully weighed the joy of spending a rare day with Kris against the value of the four months of my soon-to-be shortened life that I'd lose from the stress of crowds, and answered, "Sure!"

I made it to Starbucks before the thought of the impending crowds made me ball up into a classic defensive pose and wish I were anywhere but in the car driving to the mall.

Kris must have sensed the "Everyone, why are you not home sloth-like watching television? Why must you all be on the streets right now?" vibes eminating from my body, because around that moment, he gave me the most beautiful, the most joyous, the happiest gift he has given me in the last year:

He followed my driving directions, and turned left when I suggested it.

He hasn't done that since 2004.

Every year, each the adults on my mom's side of the family puts his name in the proverbial hat, and draws out a name. Instead of giving 11 gifts, one to everyone in this family, and spending several hundreds of dollars on gifts, each of us buys one gift for the name we pulled out of the hat, spending around $20 on said gift.

The kids, of course, get any number of gifts, because, well, how do you tell a grandparent or auntie she can't buy lots of gifts for the (not-so) little ones? (Hint: you can't.)

The problem with gifts, however, finding a good one for your recipient. Getting someone a gift he wants is always good, but one that fits in with my ideals is good, too: something that is used or used up, instead of something that sits on a shelf, never looked at or used.

So, Seekrit Santa, to make your life easier, here's what I want for Christmas this year, mostly under $20:

• Balloon or flat whisk (not french)
• Olive oil from Sciabica's
• scone mixes (blueberry, cranberry-orange, lemon-blueberry)
• iTunes gift card (check!)
• Update: Chuck calendar

So, there you go, Seekrit Santa. I'll use any of these gives. Thanks, Santa!

So, to attend workouts at the Velocity Sports training facility, I've been taking Caltrain up to San Carlos. Thus far, I've been leaving from work so as to maximize my late afternoon productivity.

Each time I've trained north, to my surprise, the conductor has asked for tickets. And also to my surprise, each of the conductors in the last two times I've trained has found a violator in my car. In the past when I've trained, my ticket hasn't been checked, but those times are admittedly over a year old, and clearly both policies and cultures can change a lot in that amount of time. The checking in retrospect should not surprise me.

The number of violators certainly does, though.

Wednesday's violator was a regular rider who had a monthly pass. Either by accident or by design, he forgot his November pass and was trying to ride the train on November 29th with a December monthly pass. The conductor made him get off the train at the next stop and purchase a one way ticket for the rest of his journey, after loudly announcing to everyone on the train that next month's passes are valid next month, not this month.

Today's incident was a little more boisterous and, admittedly, more entertaining. A couple young men were on the train, moving from car to car, in front of, I later realized, the approaching conductor. The conductor, however, changed his ticket checking pattern, and approached the young men directly, asking for their tickets. Apparently, based on their completely impossible to ignore, loud conversation, the conductor had seen them hop on the train several trains back, and somehow knew they didn't have tickets. They may be somewhat regular hoppers, I don't know.

So, the violators tried to defend themselves, saying they weren't on the train illegally, they were allowed on the train, they have their tickets right here, yes right here, why you gots to be dissin' me man, all while stepping off the train. The conductor followed in a badgering tone, where's your ticket, if you have your ticket where is it, let's see your ticket, come on I've see you on this train every day for this past week and you never show your ticket.

The men started threatening the conductor after stepping off the train. I watched the whole incident amused, and in full recognition that what the conductor did, he did well, and I suspect there are few people who could do as well as he could. He was over six feet tall, and well over 200, maybe 220 pounds. Threats from two young punks didn't faze him one bit. I had to admire him a bit for the way he handled the two of them, and wonder, once again, what life must be like for someone who doesn't worry about physical safety nearly all the time when in public.

As a side note, as I left the train, I passed a woman getting off the train who had helped me on Wednesday. She stared at me confused, a have-I-seen-you some-place-before look on her face, which I'm sure was made worse by the full I-recognize-you as-the-woman-who-helped-me grin on my face.

I snapped at Mike today.

I snapped at him, and I'm angry with myself for having done so. One of several of my goals/tasks/areas of improvement upon returning from vacation (or, maybe I should say, "vacation") has been to remain calm at work, and in general. I know that Mike and Doyle know my buttons and can easily push them, sending me into a fury of anger - awareness of this should help me avoid the fury, but hasn't quite so far.

And it's annoying me. Not that I should expect miracles, instant personality fixes, just decide to change and done. If it were that easy, I'd be perfect and life would be boring.

But at least I wouldn't be snapping at Mike.

Mike was talking about his parent-teacher conference he and Kate went to this morning. The previous one had high marks for Liza, with a subnote that she can be bossy at times. I asked for an update on that "blemish" in Liza's A+ record, and tossed an empty Gatorade bottle in the side trash next to our desks.

Mike immediately stopped talking about Liza and her bossy ways, to boss me, ordering me to, "Throw that away in the recycling!"

Now, there are several things wrong with this order, including,

1. I'm the one that moves the trash from that trash can to the big one in the other room, and cleans out the recycling from the little can to the big can. If I do it now, or I do it in two days matters little to me. I don't recall when I last saw Mike empty that trash can.
2. The cleaners will separate out the trash on the twice a month when they clean the office. If they see the recycling, they'll pull it out and put it in the proper place.
3. The City of Sunnyvale will separate the recycling from the trash, and recycle what they can. Sure, it's easier for the city residents to each separate out the known recycling, but the job is still done before items end up in the landfill

When I refused to remove the empty bottle from the trashcan, knowing full well I'll be the one moving the trash anyway, and can remove it then, Mike and Doyle started cajoling, annoying and picking on me. "Oh, do you hate the environment?" "Master Gardener but environmental hater," and "Not such a big environmentalist afterall, are we?"

Images of Mike's coffee-a-day paper cups danced in my head. I immediately began calculating the number of miles each of us drives daily. I recalled full trash cans overflowing in front of his house, and the once a month trash cans we'd put out.

I managed all of maybe two minutes of this before I let loose a fury of, "Look at the amount of trash your household has produced and compare it to the amount of trash my house has produced and you'll see which of the two of us has a greater environmental impact. THEN you can call me a hater, because I assure you even with that bottle in the trash, my footprint is significantly less than yours."

Mike and Doyle looked at each other. Clearly I'm not able to handle this harrassment. I thought I was doing well, accepting ribbing from friends and teasing from teammates. That I snapped indicates that no, I'm still sensitive to it.

And it annoys me.

I clearly need a thicker hide. Just not sure where to get one...

In these last few weeks, I've come to realize that, yes, I need structure for my workouts. I certainly have the best intentions when it comes to exercising, but the lure of sleep, or fixing one more bug, or reading another chapter in King Solomon's Mines, via Daily Lit (which I highly recommend as an easy way to read a book, less than five minutes a day to literature bliss). Or, heaven forbid, it's cold out. Cold and dark, bad combination for my evening workouts, to be sure.

ASA Baseball was great for structured workouts, the small class size (that would be two: Kris and I) also helped. Gino was fantastic. The facilities were ridiculously close. Yeah, I miss those workouts. Miss them, and have spent the last year trying to find a good replacement.

A couple months ago, Paul Youn made a mention of a sports training facility, Velocity Sports, in San Carlos. Based on the various injuries I had during the season, waiting until after the season ended seemed like a good idea. Now that the season is over, I followed up on Paul's suggestion and made arrangements for Kris and I to check out Velocity Sports.

The facility is two blocks away from the San Carlos train station, and about 20 minutes away from work by car for Kris. San Carlos isn't terribly convenient, but the location is somewhat workable. I trained up, Kris drove, and we had our first class.

When we showed up, there were ten other people already in the lobby, waiting for the class to start. I followed Kris in, and we joined the rest of the class to go over a roller-stick warmup, followed by walking dynamic stretches, crouch-extend-crouch-jumps, step-ups, sprints and situps. The class size made addressing specific needs difficult, but I thought the trainer did fairly well with what he had. Normally, classes are limited to 10 people, but three people showed up unexpectedly (Kris and I were both expected).

Honestly, looking at the description of the classes, I was expecting to have a hard time with the class. I was expecting to jump into Gino's fourth month classes, with ladders, med ball throws, upper body impossibilities like clapping pushups, and six minutes of intense abs. What I wasn't expecting to be the fourth fastest person in the class. Kris says fifth, but I'm convinced I could beat one of the guys he thought was faster.

We did the sprints as shuttles: we divided into two groups, each group standing in a line thirty yards apart, facing each other. One person would sprint the thirty yards toward the other group. The next person in the opposing group would start sprinting when the previous person crossed the thirty yards next to him. We did six sprints total.

After three sprints, several of the people in my group turned to me when Kris ran past on his sprint. "Wow!" they exclaimed, "did he run track in college? He's fast!" Confused, I looked around, and realized they were asking about Kris. "Oh, no, he played baseball in college, but we both play ultimate frisbee." "OH!" they all exclaimed. Apparently that explained everything.

When I told Kris about the story afterward, he laughed. Yes, he was the fastest there, but clearly the bar was set low if he was, "Wow, he's fast!" fast. We continued to laugh most of the way home.

I think we'll be signing up for the offseason workouts there. The train makes the deal. The morning sessions have fewer people, so we'll probably try those.

Velocity Sports also has team training, where a team can rent the facility for an hour for group training tailored to its needs. The rate is reasonable ($175/hour), so I'm going to suggest offseason training for the team. If we can get 12 people signed up for 10 weeks of training once a week, it'll be $120 per person, but tailored for us. Could be fun.