Chuffed

There are lots of times I've been chuffed. It's not everybody that can lose a bunch of weight and go from being a sedentary blob to being able to complete an Ironman. There are times I've done really good stuff at work, or at home, and that feels good.

Then there are times, and I'm sure you'll pardon me if I gloss over them, when I wonder what on earth I was thinking, or sadly consider how it all went caddywhompus. It's fortunate for me that nobody noticed, because I'm not much of a noticeable guy. I don't think anything I've done would make the fail blog, though I suspect my bike crash that produced those horrible dentistry photos might come close. I still wonder what happened. (For my newer readers, search for "graphic followup" or go back to early September 2008 in my archive. I don't want to make it too easy to find, because you have to really want to see these. I did respectably well in a gnarliest injury contest that Steve in a Speedo put on. You've been warned.)

Some of the things I get chuffed about are meaningless to other people. People that don't get blogging, or writing in general, won't get how I feel about the blog. I started almost by accident, because several other people I was buddies with and being coached by the same person started them. The early posts are pretty boring, much of them just workout info, but there are few gems in there. Feedback and comments from readers make me really happy. I often respond to comments, but not always. Depends on how much time I have. Recently I changed my blogging schedule, so I'm being kept a bit busier.

Today's swim was between chuffed and antichuffed. The times were ok, but I wasn't in the groove at all. No water feel, or very little of it. I was feeling a bit out of breath somehow for the pace. The kids swooshing by like sharks in the next lane didn't help. One was doing a flutter kick almost as fast as my pull, and about the same speed as front crawl. In the water about 35 minutes.

Coming out of the pool I stopped to admire the sunrise. Very nice! That put a smile on my face.

Tonight at dance is quickstep, something we've only done a couple of times.

My major bit of curiosity is the readership of my February word posts. Most of them have about 30 readers. I only see hits that go directly to the post, people that come to the blog home page can read it, but they get counted differently, and I'm not sure I trust that number. Since mid-December, when a not quite anti-gun rant went way above normal readership, things have been pretty steady. The Run for Sherry generated about three times the normal readership, I'm assuming from other SUAR fans. That's a bit of a special thing, so I understand that. The huge, puzzling winner in the readership counts is Retractable. It's become the 6th most read post in a matter of a week or so. I have not the slightest idea why. There are no boobs in it. Nothing to attract search engine attention like my all time number one post. No photos, no rant, (a very minor swipe at politicians, so minor it hardly counts) no naughty words, no innuendo, no tags at all in fact. Nobody has told me it's on reddit or something similar. It's a mystery.