Memo to U-Haul: Join the 90s, plz, kthxbai

So, I dunno, 10 days ago I reserved a UHaul truck using their website for Sunday. I had to provide credit card info during the process on a page called "payment" and so I assumed I was, you know, paying for the truck.

Well, no.

I called today to double check, and, no, you can't prepay. It's impossible. Not online, not over the phone. Gotta pay in person.

So I had to scramble to Western-Union the money to my uncle down there, because they can't front the cash.

So, yeah, how hard is it to manage this process? Oh well, at least we didn't have to do it on Sunday when he was picking up the truck....

Book Review: Guns, Germs, and Steel

First, the book: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Binary review: thumbs up!

Every time I sat down with this book, I learned something that made me grin somewhere in my head.

The idea behind this book is pretty simple: try to explain how throughout history various cultures have advanced at different rates and in different ways than other cultures, how they conquered or squeezed out those other cultures, and how that led us to where we are today. It does so using all the branches of historical science and does an excellent job tying it all together.

I think I feel in love with this book when I read a line about how the difference between two primitive grain crops could explain much of the way our world was today. Manifest destiny my ass -- we're just lucky.

To point out some flaws, I guess I would say that the book has trouble finding an audience it really wants to talk to. As a serious scholar, I would need to dive into more detail. You could probably write a book based on each chapter in his book. But as a casual observer, I could probably have used less detail. The book could have been half its length and I would still have believed him :).

That doesn't mean the book is too long. Nor is it too detailed. It's just a very hard market to nail. I, personally, didn't need as much information as he gave. But I'm glad it's there, because it reassures me that he isn't some quack just out to make a buck.

The other flaw with the book is that I sometimes feel, reading it, as if he's preaching to the choir. He isn't just documenting history here, he's trying to change the minds of people who feel that somehow the fact that western civ has conquered the world shows some kind of "specialness" on the part of our culture (or worse, our people). What he doesn't realize (or chooses to ignore) is that the people he's railing against are the people who will turn around and say that "God"
granted XYZ culture dominance over the others and that his scientific mumbo jumbo is just the mechanism for that. In other words, it's enlightening and educating, but I don't think he's "converting" any closed-minded racists or xenophobes with his work. Meh, I don't know.

I should also be fair and point out the fact that the author comes across as a bit biased, both towards his own theories and perhaps against western civ at large. Hard to explain, but you'll see what I mean if you read it. Something of an overcompensation, perhaps?

Anyway. I only point these flaws out because I feel the need to be complete. I would recommend this book without reservation to anyone with a critical mind.

I should post more often, I know.

Tuesday is weigh-in day, right? Up a pound, unfortunately.

If I'm good I'll write a book review later....

Progress Report

One week into my "new beginnings" in mid-April and I've somehow managed to lose a couple pounds despite all the sabotage.

Apr 12: 190.5
Apr 19: 188

The exercise is steadily increasing and the diet is improving but still up and down.

In other news, it's going to hit 85 today. It was 70 when I got to work. I'm wearing shorts. Hope nobody complains!

New Beginnings in Mid-April?

Got on the scale this morning and saw a number which I wasn't happy to see. I started this whole thing last July and weighed 231. I have been as low as 183 and told myself I wouldn't let myself top 190 again, even though I've hovered between 183 and 188.

Today I hit 190 again.

It just hammered the point home which someone so kindly pointed out to me last week -- you can always find a reason it's not a good time to focus on this stuff.

So I've decided to set some spring goals and work towards them.

My goal is to drop ten pounds by July 1. That will put me at a 50 pound loss in one year.

I will accomplish this goal by returning to Calorie counting (FitDay, here I come) and maintaining a healthy Calorie deficiency. I will increase my activity so that I am exercising 5-6 days a week, even if running is only 3-4 of those days. This is what I did last year, and what I've been lazy about since January.

I am posting this because by coming out and saying it, I'll push myself to actually do it.

11 weeks. A pound a week would beat my goal.

It starts today. I actually measured my cereal this morning, looked at the bowl and said, "Yep, portion control." Funny how you get comfortable and just assume you're still giving yourself one serving when in fact you're more than doubling it....

I'm heading to the gym for some elliptical and bike work, since I ran last night and need to "rest".

Toilet Humor

I sent this to a friend in email but realized it belonged here:

I don't usually bitch about people's bathroom habits, because while it's a limitless source of amusement, we've heard it all before. Don't talk to me while I'm in there, don't talk on the phone, blah blah blah.

So, yeah. This one was bizarre enough to send on. A guy humming "My Country 'tis of Thee" the entire time he's in the stall.

Weird enough, but now I have it stuck in my head, and every time I think of it I wonder, "Why is that stuck in my head" and the answer is "Oh yeah, that guy in the fucking bathroom." Thanks, humming in the john guy.

Music Review

I bought a few CDs last week, in response to a BMG music club "featured selection" I was interested in. Brief thoughts on the purchases:

Megadeth - The System Has Failed
This album could have been recorded a decade or more ago, and in this case this is a compliment. Megadeth has of late been somewhat fickle; I haven't bought their last few albums and the singles I've heard and/or downloaded have been ok but not great. This album is solid in the way their older stuff was. Maybe that's a step backwards for them, but as far as I'm concerned I'm happy to have one more album of heavy old school Megadeth thrash-like metal. Thumbs up for fans of the genre :).

Modest Mouse - Good News for Poeple Who Like Bad News or some such long title
Meh. I got this on a whim and it's, well, acceptable. I'm not going to write home about it, but I'm not going to rip it out of my rotation. I get the feeling if I was in the right mood I would enjoy it more but I'm not sure I'm ever in that mood. Neutral rating.

Ramones - Anthology Hey Ho Let's Go (2 disc "greatest hits")
How did I get this far in life and never buy a fucking Ramones album? I don't know. But I did, and this was a great set to rectify this with. Solid gems, many of which are already well known due to radio play, but I'm excited to finally "own" them. Plenty of songs I haven't heard a lot, or even at all, too. Awesome, thumbs up for anybody who claims to enjoy rock music in any of its stylings.

While I'm throwing out reviews, I'll mention an album I "rediscovered" the other day I sat down the other day and listened to David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" and was very pleasantly surprised. Good stuff; I feel like a little piece of my musical background has filled itself in. Thumbs up but probably not for folks who don't already have a soft spot for 70s-epic rock songs.

Race images

Race Report: Holyoke 10K. My first!

The weather forecast was perfect for a run; 45 degrees and sunny.

We were on the road by 9, and by 10 had reached Holyoka MA, site of the 30th Annual Holyoke St. Patrick's Day Parade 10K Road Race.

Our first stop was to retrieve my T-shirt and timing chip. Already the place was alive with runners, gray haired fit-looking men, tall thin brunettes in ponytails, college-aged guys who clearly spent more time lifting than running ... and more. Everybody was represented.

We soon met up with Steve & Brenda and their 3 kids, and we strolled around the area. This is a huge event; last year over 2400 runners completed the race. It's the first day of a 2-day St. Patrick's event that culminates in a huge parade televised nationwide on armed forces television. In other words, the town was hopping. Runners, spectators, and support crew were everywhere. It felt really surreal to be walking around in full running gear and be smelling the hot grease smells you normally associate with fairgrounds. Sausage vendors, french fry carts, vendors of cheesy Irish toys; you name it, it was there.

And it was all green, of course.

First we watched the kids run their "fun run" race; a couple hundred feet through the actual finish line we'd all go through later. Then we milled about some more as the crowd grew thicker and more diverse; music playing from a half-dozen directions at once, Irish drinking songs being the order of the day. A crowd gathered in the outdoor area near a bar, enjoying a few lunchtime Guinesses and getting ready to cheer us on.

I was getting antsy. My stomach wasn't really settled; I hadn't eaten lunch, I felt off-kilter. I never run at 1:00; always either first thing in the morning or a couple hours after a light breakfast. It was a weird time for me. The kids were getting antsy too; they knew they had a long afternoon ahead of them, with a lot of waiting.

12:30. The call came out. "Runners to the starting line." We ambled over there, and hundreds of others followed. Over the next half hour more and more runners would crowd behind the starting line. Nervous snippets of conversation, folks catching up with each other, talking about the race, talking about running, talking about family. A group of high school girls formed in front of us, wearing shirts saying, "Kiss me if you catch me." Steve joked that he'd sprint ahead and trip them so I had a chance to test their pledge.

The sheer variety of runners was amazing. The sun beat down on a motley crew of single-minded individuals from a thousand backgrounds. 12-year old kids giggled nervously, grandfathers stretched calmly, and we shifted our weight from foot to foot and wished we had worn shorts.

When the starting gun fired, it took us all by surprise. No announcements, no buildup, just "bang!" As an event chopper buzzed the crowd the elite runners took off at an intimidating pace. A few hundred people back, we slowly shuffled our feet for a hundred yards until it opened up enough that we could begin an easy jog. We ran past Jess who was watching the kids, waved with stupid grins, and took off.

Right away, I knew the pace was too fast. We were pounding the pavement, keeping up with everyone around us without a problem. My breath was coming fast and heavy, but my legs were fine. "You'll be fine once your muscles loosen up," Steve assured me. I wasn't so sure. When we passed mile one, I knew I was right: it had only taken us 10 minutes. I had never maintained that pace for more than 3 miles before.

At the first water station, I grabbed an ice-cold plastic cup of water, gunned it, and tossed it aside like a true runner. I must admit, that felt pretty cool.

It felt even cooler to be part of this huge mass of runners, filling up a city street with poice barriers keeping traffic away. On the sides of the route, like spectators at a parade, random onlookers cheered us on, some calling names, others just shouting encouragement. I'll comment more on this later; it's a memory that will last forever.

Soon, the hills started. Or, I should say, hill. The middle 2.5-3 miles of the race is one long uphill. Sure, it has steeper and almost level sections, but it's a hill. And running the second mile in only 11:00 did nothing to make the hill easier. Add to this that I had never drank water mid-run before, and I felt like the whole glass of water was still sitting at the very base of my throat, ready to be puked up at any instant.

I was in real trouble, a fact which I tried to express to Steve without much success. I had developed a cramp in my side in the middle of the second mile, and after running with it for about a mile I knew it was going to really mess me up. That and the puke-feeling was too much. I slowed down. "I think I need to walk for a second." Steve refused. He grilled me. Where did it hurt, what was wrong? "Just change how you're running." I tried what he suggested, and it helped a little, but after less than a minute it was overwhelming. "I'm serious," I said, and dropped to a walk.

I hated to do it. I knew I could do this race without walking. I knew it. But this was too much to handle. I was walking; walking fast, but walking. And so early in the race. I was discouraged, but the pain immediately lessened. After only about ten seconds I got back into an easy jog pace. The cramp was loosening, and then it was gone. I sped up a little, but there was no way I was getting back into a 10:00 pace, not up that hill.

Even at 48 degrees, the sun was HOT as we climbed the hill. It was a real labor. I can't remember what time it was when we passed 3 miles, but I was seriously questioning my sanity and my decision to even take up running at that point. I knew I was halfway done but I was so much more than halfway drained. Still, the hill's end was close, or so I kept hearing. I just knew that if I had 3 more miles of that hill, I was going to die.

But they were right. By mile 4, things had changed. Gravity was working for us, not against us. Steve kept trying to get me to speed up, but even with the hill helping me I couldn't really get it going. Still, I was stunned by the time: 4 miles in around 45 minutes, give or take. At this point, I realized something: even at my slowest run, or even a brisk walk, I could finish this race in around 1:15, my earlier goal. This flipped a switch in my head, and the mental weariness began to melt off a little. Of course, the physical weariness was getting stronger. While the cramp and nausea had subsided, I had been running long enough where my body was starting to tire. My knees were sore, my feet were starting to ache, and the repeated shock of hitting the ground, especially down hill, was echoing in my head.

But we were on the home stretch. As we neared mile 5, more and more people crowded along the side of the course. Kids would stand on the curb with their hands out, for us to slap as we ran by. Random folks on their porches with beers in their hands would yell, "Looking good! You can do this! All downhill from here!" Every single time this happened I smiled; those people helped more than they know.

I did speed up. Of course, so did everyone else. Mile 5. 56 minutes. Brenda said that if we managed a 4 minute mile we'd just about break the 60 minute mark. I laughed, or tried to. It was getting hard to communicate. My head was starting to hurt; I felt like I could feel my pulse in my entire scalp.

The attitude among the other racers was great, though. Folks would yell back at the spectators; we all talked about what we were waiting for at the finish. Around mile 4, someone said, "come on, 2 more miles and you can have a beer." After agreeing this was a good idea, I said what I really wanted was to lie down. A woman near me said, "No, beer's good." I offered a compromise. How about lying down with a beer?

Between mile 5 and mile 6, we poured it on. They just kept speeding up. Steve and Brenda kept pointing out where we could pass someone, kept talking about how close we were. Finally, we could see the marker for mile 6. A couple runners next to me slowed way down; I overheard them say they wanted to sprint the final .2 and needed to rest up. I think if I had stopped like that I would never have started again.

We rounded the corner, and I literally shivered all over. It was awesome. We could see the finish, the huge marker over the road. The final .2 was all uphill, but we could see the end. And thousands of people lined the final part of the course, from already-finished runners to random revelers, they were all applauding. "We finish together," Steve said, and turned on the gas. I gave it all I had.

I have never pushed myself as hard as I did right then. Every step hurt, but every step took me past a dozen or more people applauding and hollering. I could feel every heartbeat in my temples. My body was rebelling, but I wasn't listening.

We passed the finish mark together with the clock overhead somewhere around 1:09:30. My wife stood right at the finish, cheering me on, and I didn't even see her. I couldn't think about anything but how good it was going to feel to stop. We crossed the line, and we slowed immediately to a walk. "Keep going, to the back of the chute," we were told, and we moved, slowly, achingly, gasping for air.

We grasped each others' hands, we half-hugged, we took off our timing chips and walked like wounded soldiers leaning on each other towards the water table, where we drank up and tried to catch our breath. My headache went away immediately, but the pain in my feet and knee just got worse. Exhaustion caught up with me; everything caught up with me.

It's been 6 hours since then.

My feet still hurt, my knee still hurts, and I'm exhausted.

But what I'll remember forever is the way that last turn felt, seeing all those people and that finish line.

My goal for this race was 1:15, and I thought it was an aggressive but reachable goal. We beat that time by over 5 minutes. I'm not sure it was the smartest idea to keep that pace up, but it worked (this time).

They're already talking about their next race, a 4-mile in West Springfield sometime in April.

Right now I'll be thrilled just to get another normal training run in. I doubt any race will top this one, for a long time. Maybe ever.

Thanks, everybody, who helped make this possible for me. Who encouraged me or gave me a reason to keep doing it.

(and we never did catch those girls; those young kids are faster than you'd think)

Book Review: Pattern Recognition

I finished Pattern Recognition (William Gibson) yesterday, and I figured I'd write up some thoughts on the subject.

I think the easiest way to describe how I feel about this book is that I wanted to stop reading it about 75% of the way through it, knowing that the setup was inevitably going to outdo the payoff. And I was right, of course. Not that the ending was bad, just that this type of story spends so much time setting up the ending that there's no way to make it fit your expectations.

Let's back up a bit. First off, Gibson does an amazing job with immersion. Sometimes I felt he was too clever for his own good with his analogies, but this is probably my own bias and not something inherent in his writing. Other times I felt that he lingered too long on trying to make me identify with Cayce's anxiety in a given situation. It got to the point where some passages were hard to read because I was so wrapped up in getting inside Cayce's weird head. This, again, is probably just my own taste.

The next big thing going on in this book is his use of the online world in a significant story way. He talks about web forums, hotmail accounts, google, and the net culture in general in a very familiar way. I kept going back and forth on how I felt about this. Basically, he's done what geeks are always asking for; he's made an exciting story involving these elements of the online world without granting them supernatural powers. Nobody hacked into the White House web page to launch a nuclear missile or anything. On the other hand, I live this world every day of the week and it's kind of boring. So, yeah, three cheers for getting it mostly right, but the reward for that is kind of pedestrian. It's not like "wow, he got the Mafia family structure -down pat-" ... it's like "wow, he got forum flame wars -down pat-." W00t, I guess.

Meh. I don't know.

I guess the key to understanding this book is that it isn't science fiction. This is a thriller/mystery in the same way a Dan Brown book is, though I enjoyed it more. We're not dealing with the technology of tomorrow as derived on today, but rather the technology of today as a big player in a somewhat generic thriller, with the same problem a lot of thrillers have: the ending doesn't flow smoothly out of the story, and leaves you mentally trying to piece everything together, trying to make sure the rules he's set up over the past few hundred pages haven't been broken. Sometimes that's part of the fun; for whatever reason this time around I was just glad to know it wasn't a complete screwjob at the end (OMG, it's all a dream, or some such).

All in all I was happy with the book. I enjoyed it (almost) every time I picked it up. But it's not going on any top ten lists any time soon, and I'm not going to go out of my way to look for other books like it.

Fair enough?

Binary rating: Thumbs up.

Seven Days

My first race is March 19, 7 days from today.

Today was supposed to be my last "long run" before the race, but the snow outside kept me indoors and the treadmill started squealing at 3 miles, so a short run it was. Oh well!

I conserve energy and keep my legs fresh this week by running short runs only, including a speed drill Monday and some nice slow recovery runs Wednesday and Thursday.

In other news, sitting in a silent house sipping a cup of coffee, watching it snow, your body simultaneously beaten and refreshed by a run and a hot shower ... does it get any better?

SW III Trailer, March 10/11

In a perfect world, the news that a new Star Wars Episode 3 trailer was debuting on March 10 (on TV, 11th in theaters) would be no big deal.

Instead, I mentally start counting down.

Damnit, it's like a reflex. I can't even control it.

Training snapshot

Still working on 10K training. Steve says I'm worrying too much about this but it's hard for me to not be competitive, even knowing I'm "competing" against myself.

Snapshot of my last few runs:

Saturday: 6 miles in 90:00
Monday: 3 miles in 30:00
Wednesday 4 miles in 44:30

Tomorrow is a slow 3 mile recovery run, and Saturday I will probably do 5 miles with Steve.

Running, Eating, and Playing Games

Ok, I gotta update more often.

On the home front, things are going pretty well. My mother is getting more and more stable, which is really good to see. Let's just hope it continues.

Thursday we played Munchkin with our friends Clint&Kate, and it was a rocking good time. Friday we grabbed some Chinese food and veg'd out in front of the TV.

Saturday I got in a 6 mile run, slow as hell but I finished it. Today I'm supposed to 3 miles fast, and I'm looking forward to it being done and over with in a much quicker time :). I am NOT looking forward to running 6 miles again this weekend.

Saturday evening we got dinner out using a gift certificate we got at XMas from (again) Clint&Kate. It's always nice to eat out on a gift certificate, because you have an excuse to indulge yourself. We hit Borders after dinner and just browsed around. I bought a couple of books (I'll post about them as I get into them), as well as the new Tori Amos CD. This is the second new CD I've bought in 2K5 (first was U2's new one) after a substantial drought. Feel free to interpolate re: crackdown on file sharing, but really I've always bought the new albums by the select few artists whose work I consistently admire.

I say that, but then again this is only the 3rd U2 CD I've bought. Meh.

Sunday we got a lot of "have to do this" work done in the first half of the day. Homework, bills, housework, etc. I still have to get my car inspected, feh. Do that today I guess (no real choice :) ).

Over the weekend I also got in some good World of Warcraft time. My Warlock is L28, and I got up to 24 with my Mage playing with Clint. Good times! Still, the server Clint and I play on was down all day Saturday and into Sunday, and my primary guild server had a 30 minute queue Sunday night. So I spent a fair bit of time playing where I didn't want to be, feeling frustrated.

Days gone by

Damnit, I let a whole week go by without posting here. The whole point of this was to force myself to write more stuff down. That only works if I stick with it, right?

To be fair, I had an excuse. My mother was back in the hospital for a week after a medication change didn't go as well as hoped. She's doing okay now and is back home, though. My wife had a severe cold and I had a severe case of "playing too much World of Warcraft."

And now I have a severe case of "need to get some work done" so I'm gonna cut this short.

Musical Memories

Lately I've been listening to entire artists or albums rather than just leaving winamp on shuffle. Yesterday I went on an Iron Maiden binge, for example.

Today I browsed around until I stumbed onto an album I hadn't heard in years: Angel Rat, from Voivod.

Of course, there's a story behind this album.

As a high school student, I didn't have much in the way of musical experience. I ended up finding a college radio station out of Amherst College, where a late night DJ had a program called Disneyfist. I still remember this!

One late night while listening to Disneyfist, I dialed in and won this album. This was a major pain in the neck; I had to somehow get to Amherst and pick it up and had no car. I got it, eventually, and hell if I wasn't going to listen to it!

At first, I didn't really enjoy it much. But I didn't have as much music then as I do now (heh) so I ended up listening to it a dozen times or so and it really grew on me.

I eventually bought another one of their albums, which had a cover of Pink Floyd's Astronomy Domine, which cemented my decision that the band was something cool. I had never heard the original of course, and didn't until years later when I borrowed a Best Of album from my mother.

The story spirals out from there, of course, and it gets far less interesting (if possible).

But the entire story, and threads reaching out from it in dozens of directions, slowly filled my mind as the album progressed (peaking when the title track started). I can even summon up the smell of my bedroom when I had the album (and listened to it over and over) -- the cheap overstuffed living room chair I used as a computer desk combined with the odor of candle wax.

And that is why I love music. It's not that I particularly love this album, or this band. But how else could I so clearly summon such concrete memories of a time 15 years or so in the past?

Go buy an album and listen to it. Sometimes random shuffle just isn't the right thing to do.

Welcoming Steve home

Thursday, we went to the base to welcome Steve home, which was an interesting event. It was a pretty subdued occasion, only like a dozen soldiers were coming home, so even with a full family there to welcome each one you're not talking about a mob or anything. But it was definitely memorable.

To set the scene, we're inside, in like a big garage- or cafeteria-type room (concrete floor, tall ceiling, bare walls, and a garage door leading in). There are maybe 12 tables set up, and a big table with coffee, kool-aid, and pastries (manned by USO volunteers). You've got fifteen to twenty family groups here, toddlers with "welcome home daddy" signs and older parents looking kind of serious. You've got Marines in camo milling around talking to the families. There's this sort of "everything is normal, how's the kids, how about those Pats, lousy weather today, eh" vibe going on, which slowly erodes as time passes and people realize how close they are to seeing their loved ones again.

Then I was able to witness a cool event; I heard one person tell another "they're almost to the front gate." This got repeated through the crowd until I heard (seconds later) someone say, "They're in the parking lot!" It was like all the pent up energy keeping the crowd near-silent came to a boil and everybody was chattering and moving around to get ready. There are all these flashes going off as people took pictures, and this look of deadly seriousness started to appear on some of the women's faces. "My husband/son/whatever is about to see me and I'm locked in" kind of look. Hard to describe.

When the garage door opened, the whole crowd started clapping. The bus pulled in and as the door opened the applause got louder and people started hooting and whistling. Marine after Marine stepped out and got swarmed by their loved ones.

Steve got out, and his two sons threw down their signs and charged him. I actually got off a picture of him on his knees with his two boys in his arms, his daughter and wife a couple steps away running towards him. It was a magic moment. Seconds later, all four of them are totally burying him and he's practically hidden from everyone else. Finally they let up and he gets to shake hands and hug everybody who was there. Maybe 10 minutes of "hi, thanks for coming" "welcome home" "we missed you" etc went by, and then Brenda pushed him into the minivan and they drove off.

And we went home. It was kind of surreal, because you had all this anticipation, all this emotion, and then it was over. On an intellectual level we knew he was home, but something about it didn't feel solid, because the event itself took place at a weird spot.

This was cured on Saturday when we went back out there and spent a few hours with him and the family just shooting the shit. It was a relaxed time, and it sort of re-established the fact that he was home and things were returning to normal.

Welcome home, Steve. We missed you!

Dy-Nast-Y?

What a weekend!

Superbowl Sunday, obviously, was the highlight. I ran 5 miles in the morning and came home to watch the Pats step up BIG TIME. Go Pats! We'll be telling our kids (if we have kids, heh) about these years, I tell you.

Saturday was a more laid back day, lots of food preparation, TV watching, and video game playing. Not bad at all!

Along those lines, I have some random thoughts for you:

• Jess's brother Steve is on his way home; he should be back on US soil by now and perhaps home this weekend!
• Season One of 24 was groundbreaking, but a little weak at the end (to me).
• I still can't wait to start Season Two.
• Shrek 2 was still entertaining even the second time around.
• "Roving Rally" just doesn't have the same ring that Victory Parade does.
• WoW is still fun; I'm creeping up on having 4 or 5 L20 characters. Silly me.

It's Friday, and nobody wants to work. Discuss.

Ah, lunch break. Work beckons, but does so very weakly. Like a tiny little insect under a big glass dome.

So, for your pleasure, here are some random tidbits.

• I ran 3 miles today, bringing my weekly total to 13. This is the most I have run in a week, ever, so I feel pretty badass today.
• I am scheduled to run 5 miles on Sunday. Not sure how I'll do that, though. Treadmill? Home? Gym? Or outdoors? I need to find a 5-mile outdoor route if I'm going that way. Either way, 5 miles is most definitely a distance record for me.
• I heard from my brother for the first time in 8 months. Eight months! Evidently he's alive and mostly well, and has changed religions again (LDS evidently doesn't just refer to that Star Trek IV joke). Very interesting.
• Jess's brother Steve should be home from Iraq within a few weeks, maybe even two weeks. Here's hoping for a safe and uneventful series of flights home.
• My 2 all-day classes got canceled for next week. Hmm, I guess this means I can call Charter and get them to bring me HDTV!

Midweek Braindump

Sorry about that long post last time, got carried away. Today's is just a random mess.

I still have no HD cable; I emailed Charter and they haven't responded. I'll have to call them and do this the old-fashioned way. Damnit, join the 21st century, people.

The external HDD is working out great, though. Having all my music at my fingertips at work, no CD-swapping ... it's a beautiful thing. I'm hearing music I haven't heard in ages, because I just don't listen at home as often as I used to.

Steve should be coming home from Iraq in a couple weeks. Step one in that process is done; he's been moved from one place in Iraq to another. In about a week, he gets on a plane for California. A week or so after that, he should be home. We're all looking forward to that.