Photo shoes

I need to get out more. Last night there was an art show in an unlikely location, the Strides store on Canyon Meadows. Neil Zeller was showing off some of his work, joined by Chris Molloy.

It's always nice to catch up to Neil and see what he's got on the go. Lots. Every time I go to one of his shows I get introduced to more photo people. I'd never met Chris before, and we had a great chat about his work, and about photography in general.

The ostensible point of going was to buy new running shoes. The current ones are up to about 350 K, and are starting to show it. I like to get another pair before the current pair completely die. These new ones will be indoor at the Repsol track till the weather gets nice, and I'll probably run the June half marathon in them.

Of course, the photographer in me now looks at that iPhone shot that I would have been happy with a few months ago, and notes that the whites are blown out. Still, for complicated reasons I wanted the shoes in the blog, so I could put the new shoes tag on it, and didn't want to use the good camera, and then go through the workflow to get a photo.

You're wondering about that first photo. Come on, admit it. That's from Fish Creek a couple weeks ago. As I write it's snowing again, but I'm still thinking of going to see what's nice to shoot. I'd been thinking of going out for a sunrise shot, but slept in a bit, and now I'm glad I didn't go.

Just now I've got some novel ideas, and I've got Curtis lounging on my desk, encouraging me. He's a very literary cat, wanting me to express my thoughts, so I can get to the important business of cuddling him. Sometimes he reaches out to use the trackpad or keyboard himself. He takes up a lot of desk.

Celina, of course, has to get in on the action as well. She specializes in providing adversity for me to overcome, as an actuality for character metaphor. Her actual advice is usually verbal, expressed in the cat imperative tone they are so good at.

Fitness catchup amazeballs!

After a couple of big essays, here (50 years of progress), and here  (something only slightly less important than your own breathing), I need to get you caught up on the ongoing fitness stuff. Because it IS ongoing. The rest of my life, I hope. This isn't a "get fit" once and done thing.

Last Wed was a run that felt horrible. I thought the phone was lying to me, and told me 5 K when it felt like much less. The run was 5K 35 min.  I had tried turning on the app internal pedometer.

Tonight I did the same route with the pedometer off. The map looked the same, within a few meters. Well, other than the colours being different. Why? Because I ran a whole lot faster! I ran 6K in 37:14 and that's my fastest 6 K, even though the last K was recovering from A BLISTERING 5K 30:14 time! Thats 6:03 per K which for me is an amazing pace.  The left is the fast one.

This consistency shit is paying off!

Friday, 1:10 water running with Katie then swim 1K 19 minutes feeling tired.

Sat run 13K run 1:37 at 7:22 pace along the north rim of Fish Creek over in the SE. I hadn't seen much of it before since the path I usually take is way off to the south side of the park. We were both struggling a little, and we had a couple monster hills up out of Fish Creek, but it was all good. Afterward I dropped in a Strides and got another pair of shoes identical to the ones I have now.  Along the way there was this. It looks threatening but we didn't get rained on.

Sunday swim 1K 18:30 feeling in the groove. 50 m in 40 seconds, 100 m in 92 seconds.

Holiday Monday was a gong show in the pool. A pregnant lady barged into the lane I was sharing with a fast girl, and tried to run me over. I hadn't known she was there, and talking to the fast girl after, she hadn't known either. The pregnant lady just plopped down the ladder in front of her. Even with that, and 5 other people joining us, I pounded out 1 K 18:30. I hadn't intended to try to be fast, but with someone swimming just a bit faster in the other half of the lane, my inner shark came out. She was swimming 400's with a pull buoy and I couldn't quite keep up in the middle of my one K.

Afterward we went up to the track. iSmoothrun says I ran 4.95 K in 30:09 and I don't believe it. Sure there were some fast laps as I pushed hard, but there were lots of slow laps, dodging the tourists. That was brutal.  I suppose I should be counting laps, then I'd know how far for sure. Take this one with a grain of salt.

Then today. Swam 1.5 K, 27:40 nice and relaxed, evenly splitting the 500's, 9:10, 9:15, 9:15. Then an 88 second 100 m. All of it felt really good. My inner shark was feeling mellow since I had a lane to myself and I was comfortably faster than all the other swimmers in a nearly empty pool. It was nice cruising back and forth, trying to maintain form. I was imagining a secret watcher (there's a joke there) with a clipboard, counting strokes per 50 and writing down intervals, and I didn't want to disappoint her. I mean the watcher. The secret one.

Then the fast run tonight I talked about earlier. This has been good. Looking forward to the 10 K race this weekend, but I'm looking forward even more to seeing my buddy Janice from the east coast.

I've got a bunch of other blog stuff to catch up on. The great mapping project. The novel. Garden news. Did I tell you we bought a new car? So much stuff to talk about, but there's a cat demanding my attention. He's been giving me such sad looks.

The opposite of stillness

So I had my ass run off today. I'm chugging back from a run in new territory, when my run buddy says we can't leave it there, we have to round up to an even number." So we do. I'm so obedient!

It was all good! My run buddy is the best ever. Over the last couple days I switched shoes. Not running shoes, my every day shoes. I got to wondering why my calves and hams and quads have been so tight. Then I realized all that started about the last time I bought shoes, and these don't really have a heel on them. Zero drop. They've been pulling my calves with every step.

I went back to the previous shoes and the first morning I could feel the difference. Two days and it's like I have new legs again. So this morning I was into MEC for new shoes, and my run buddy came along to marvel at the male shoe selection process. The guy brought out 4 pairs based on size and what I said I wanted. The first were ok, but not quite right. The second were good. I walked around a bit, then said they were good to go, didn't need to try the others on.

Let's just say my running buddy was dumbfounded with astonishment. She admitted she'd have tried on the others, and sent the staff person scurrying back for more, just in case. That's a quote, just in case. Not me. Pants shopping, if the first pair don't fit, I abandon shop and go back another week. Shopping is usually an ordeal to be completed as quick as humanly possible.

The wind was howling when we got out of the store. We'd originally thought to run along the Bow near downtown, but that's wide open to the wind. Plus I've run on that before. I will again, but we decided not today. We parked out at Edworthy Park, and ran west. The path got a bit confused and didn't do what I thought it did, but that's ok. I've never run out there before. There's some very classy houses in that little street  in Bowness. I remember that as sort of a run down neighbourhood.

10 K, 1:16 or so. I haven't run 10 K since last September. It felt pretty good overall. My feet felt a bit heavy, but quads and calves were good. No niggles.

We interrupted this irregularly scheduled blog for

for

CAT PHOTOS!

Stupid blogger rearranging them, and me too lazy to fix them. Besides, I know my readers love it when the story goes to cats.

The next diversion is humidity. The bane of runners, and houses in winter. Our house had become so humid. Turning the humidity control thingy down didn't do anything. Then we realized water was still flowing through the humidifier. Sigh. The shut off valve didn't work so I had to disassemble it and jury rig a solution.

Last week the plumber was here, fixed all that, and we determined that the solenoid valve, pictured below, was stuck open. That's ok. We left it a while with the water supply off, to let the house humidity sort itself out.

Then Thursday night we came home to find the furnace going through the startup cycle again and again. Big sigh. We've have this before. Furnace company. They were out on Friday and fixed it, easy and quick. Warm house again. (There's another detour in there that I'll get to.) Mentioned the solenoid valve.

He said the solenoid failed because of high water pressure, and that the solution is to install a pressure reducer and a new solenoid, for $1200. Yikes! Meanwhile the plumber had suggested if the shutoff valve had scaled up, which it had, it was entirely reasonable to assume that the solenoid valve had too. That seems reasonable to me too, especially when that much money is involved.

So this story is still playing out. The valve is soaking in some vinegar right now, and maybe later some CLR. If it's still gucked up, I haven't lost anything and I'll buy a new one and install it myself, saving more than a thousand ever loving dollars! Then do the same thing in a few years if the water pressure or scale gets to it again.

So the other detour was a swim on Friday morning. Water ran briefly with Katie, then settled into a very nice 1K 18:30 relaxed and smooth. Then another 500 m of other stuff, including 100 m in 88 seconds without really trying too hard. Gotta love that.

Back to the run. This morning I was up early and managed to catch another great sunrise. Then off to MEC and Edworthy. Still with me?

My favourite run buddy looking chic in sunglasses and classy jacket.

On the way back I paused and grabbed a quick shot of the sunlight playing off the water of the Bow. Later on the clouds went away and it turned into a beautiful winter day.

We ran past Angela's, then back to round it out to an even 10 K. I'm sure Katie and many of my other even number buddies will approve. Even though we nearly froze our tails off walking that last half K back into the wind.

What's interesting about the graph is my run cadence slowly dropping off (purple line). My pace is all over the place (orange line), which isn't a surprise given being careful with ice on the paths, and paying attention to the route so I could get back. But the elevation! That's the gray line. We ran back to the starting point. This path is pretty darned flat.

The coffee and treats at Angela's were really good. My first time there. Overall a winner of a day, and that's before cleaning some wine bottles. More paths to highlight in on my 2016 map.

We might have run past another run buddies house, and we'd have waved if we knew for sure where. She knows who she is.

Oh, and the reason for the title is the most recent blog. This was active, that wasn't.

But it's a DRY heat

Poor me. I had not known the Purple Perk had such awesome treats! I was dithering there, that's for sure.

I got in a bit of a swim first. They were about to move the bulkhead so I didn't want to start a timed swim or anything. I'm getting my pool stroke back, so that's good. Water ran a bit. Hot tub.

Then over to the Perk to meet Katie for coffee. As some of you might remember, Katie coached me to Ironman in 2010, and we've been buddies ever since. I live vicariously through her, what with all her various adventures. Other than saying hello at the pool in passing, we haven't chatted for a little while, so it was good to get caught up.

Treats. Yum!

Over to Strides. The Mizuno shoes I got a couple weeks ago were not comfortable to run in. They were very good about trading them in. The new ones are Brooks. I took them for an easy 3 K run, 20:30, in 31 C, and I have happy feet. My lower quads are still a bit stiff and sore, but they relaxed a bit during the run. Where my knees actually hurt during the last run, on this one my legs felt just a bit unstable and niggelly. I'm hoping in a couple runs they will settle down.

Linda had got us two garden boxes. I assembled it and dug out what passed for grass there. There will be some Irises going in there.

Today is a full month of blogging every day. I hope you're not getting tired of me. (What's that you say? You can send your complaints to keith.cartmell@bitemybutt.com.) It's been fun. So far no writers block. I sit, I start writing. Grumble about Photostream sometimes. Try to fend off the cats so I can type. There are days I'm positive Curtis wants to demonstrate his literary talents.

Keep your eyes peeled for a new feature. I might get rid of the top 10 by readership, and substitute different ones chosen by a sophisticated algorithm to appeal to my readers. Which translates to the ones I think are interesting, or you might have missed.

Lastly, Harper is about to, or just has called an election. Longest and most expensive in recent Canadian history. How like him. I can't help myself, there are likely to be rants about the whole darned thing. So stay tuned. I'll try to make it clear in the title, so if you don't want to read, you can give them a miss. But why would you want to miss my trenchant commentary?

We are sitting outside, enjoying the dry heat, eating Rocky Road ice cream, drinking wine, and chatting. So nice.

You'd think I'd done the whole race!

Did you miss it? Best finisher photo EVER!

This has been a creaky week. Monday I was in the pool for a nice relaxing swim, trying to stretch out and get my pool stroke back.

Who am I kidding? It was all about the hot tub.

Yes, I know you love my honesty. It's why I haven't risen to the top of the corporate hierarchy. Oh well. Though I did swim a K or so and mostly it felt pretty good.

Chatted with Madi, Jordan, and Rose, which was nice, I haven't seen Rose in a while.

The rest of the day was wandering around like a half slaughtered sheep, starting to do something, forgetting what it was part way through, starting something else, then reverting. At least there was some nice cuddle time with Curtis and Celina.

Curtis ended up having a big day, going to the vet, them having a hole in their schedule to do a biopsy of the paw that has some sort of infection happening. His front paws have had it, and we could understand how they could get a sliver or something, since he is always putting his paws into something. But his back paw? We tried the same antibiotic that worked before, and it didn't this time. The various suggested further treatments were all guesswork, and one of the shots has the possibility of causing diabetes. Not in our cat! The biopsy should tell us what we are dealing with, and what the actual treatment is.

He's had a woozy couple of days, but seems to be perking up. As long as he isn't licking or chewing at the stitches in his paw, there will be no cone of shame.

Tuesday I was walking like a crippled man. My calves were killing me! I went to bed early. I'd planned on swimming Wednesday and bailed on it. My legs got better throughout the day, and so I decided to head out for a short easy run.

Holy crap, that was awful. Even running really slowly I couldn't breath. My knees hurt, not in a warming up or niggle sort of way, but almost actual pain. I slowed down even more, played with my stride, stretched a bit more on a bus stop bench, and none of it did any good. My hips were hurting and the shirt I was wearing felt too tight. My shorts were riding up. I ended up taking off my new shoes and walking home in sock feet. That felt better. Even afterward I've been feeling funny twinges in my feet. I'll go back to the store and see if they can swap them out or something.

Here is an example of how good Linda is at gardening things. We bought a raised bed. Yes, I realize they're simple to make. Well, they are if you have the tools, and I don't. Not really.

I cleared out the worst of the grass. Linda did the fine tuning so it was to her liking, and I helped drag the bed back. I popped the level on it. Can you see how good she is?

Maybe not. Look more closely. Level. First time.

Here's the end result.

I'd drawn a little diagram on my wall at work to explain the difficulties of the swim, and have been asked to post it here. I'm so good to you guys. And yes, the note about data is out front where everybody passing by can read it. This helps them understand some of my behaviour at work. Big sighs. Head scratches. Staring thoughtfully at the computer screen. Scribbling little diagrams on my whiteboard. Muttering, which descends to cursing.

The dreaded ordeal

No, it wasn't the hail from the big thunderstorm last night. Linda was worried what might happen to the garden, but there was very little hail. The plants loved the rain. The worst that happened was that some of the white lilies had their blossoms a bit battered, but they were nearly there anyways.

There is a polymer sand between the slabs of patio stone in the back yard. The rain from the downspout overshot the catch barrel, and the force of it eroded some of the sand away. No biggie. I've got more, and I just did some repairs. Some places the sand is as hard as the stone around it, and some places are not. I guess it's exactly how much water the polymer gets, or something.

The dreaded ordeal was shopping. As my long time readers know, I hate shopping. I begrudgingly put up with buying. Advertising is beyond the pale. I've known my current run shoes, Asics Nimbus, purchased way back here, were slowly dying. There is just under 400 K on them according to my app, but I'm pretty sure I started the shoes before that app, and I can't remember if I started the clock properly. Plus I'm a big guy with lots of impact on my shoes. Now that I put the link there I realize those shoes are more than a year old. By running shoe standards that's even more ancient and decrepit than I am!

Enough teasing, here's the new shoes. Let's hope they last as long.

The important part of the day is that Linda made date square. A big pan of awesome datey goodness. I dare not post a photo of it for inducing paroxysm of ecstasy in my readers, and overloading the roads here as you all rushed over.

In the thinking department, I'm contemplating the raptures of taper. Yes, my big race is in a couple weeks! I can scarcely believe it. I wonder if I can get a swim lesson from Andy Potts while he's here. He's only usually the first guy out of the water at Kona, so I suspect he knows a thing or two about swimming in open water. In the mean time I need to think about how much I'll swim over the next couple weeks. I want to maintain my water feel and form, (such as it is), and yet not tire myself out. I want my taper to soak up and embed all that good fitness I've been working towards.

gears and zero drop

Is this not fearsome looking? How could I not buy it?

It already has the Linda seal of approval for how it worked over her shoulders.

Believe it or not, I went to a shoe sale the other day. One of these things is not quite like the others.

Mine were samplers in the $50 box. I don't have especially wide feet, but my little toes sometimes feel the pinch. When I saw how roomy the toe box was I had to try them. These are zero drop shoes, meaning the distance between both the heel and the ball of my foot to the floor is the same. Most shoes have a built up heel.

I've done a bit of barefoot running. A very little bit. It's good for reminding yourself of what a mid-foot stride is, since it's essentially impossible to run on your heels barefoot. Of course, that exposes your feet to anything that might be on the ground or path. Let's not talk about that.

I had thought I'd like to try a zero drop shoe, but was unwilling to bet full price on liking them. At less than half I'm willing to go for it. Today was actually my first run in them, and I don't have the first idea how far or long I went in them. Just knowing the neighborhood, I'm thinking not quite 2 K.

The GPS was terrible today, both apps lied their faces off. In 25 minutes running, they both thought I'd done nearly 7 K. NOT! I started with my Asics and ran maybe 2 K, just enough to feel warmed up. Then I changed into the Atra's and headed out. I was astonished how light and stable my feet felt. My quads were a bit tired but that's a typical thing these days. Toward the end I could feel the very beginning of a calf twinge, but if I hadn't been paying attention I probably wouldn't have noticed it. Then it was back into the Asics for maybe another K or so, which was almost a bit of a shamble at the end. My feet felt really clumsy in the Asics.

Throughout this I was getting the most amazing pace times, but I didn't believe a word of it. At the time I thought that whatever it was measuring, it would at least measure consistently, and I'd be able to tell where I changed shoes by the big change in the pace line. Tell me, can you see where I changed shoes?

Thought not. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. Here's the crazy map. Linda thinks it looks like a savage dog.

Friday was another swim lesson. My buddy is doing great! The biggest problem to overcome now is learning to roll to breathe. We did some exercises there, but I'm really pleased at the progress so far. I got kicked out of the teach pool for a bit, and I managed to get in some hard sprints.

Even when I swim I'm one of the first people into work these days, and I got this neat reflection shot just down the hall from my office.

And lastly, one of the more adorable photos of Curtis and Celina. How can I not publish this?

Celina was grumbling at me while I was writing, complaining that Curtis gets all the photo action, and that she's much the prettier kitty, so I should include more of her. So here she is.

New foot thingies

The day started with me stalking the photo-stalker. I got this shot, while she was working on hers. Total surprise for her! OEB is an awesome way to start the day! No food pics though, you would all go mad with envy.

A little later on in the day this happened. You can see Linda way off in the lead, me struggling pathetically trying to keep up. I was feeling quite disoriented up on the second floor. The vibrations in the floor were making me feel a bit queasy.

We were looking elsewhere too, and brought home these leather swatches. As you can see the cats are quite impressed. Which do you think goes with the cats?

Another bit of shopping at two different stores. The 11 year old plasma? Gone. Such an efficient place. You don't even have to get out of your car. Way back then I thought it was light. Now I think it's heavy.

Not far away is the Strides store. It was really crowded and at first I thought I'd come at a really busy time, but no. People were just back from the Saturday run and were socializing. My feet are strange. Last time size 11.5 was perfect. Today all of them felt tight so I went up to a 12. Perfect.

There was a woman trying on a pair of shoes even before I started. I tried and eliminated 4 pairs. Then got two more possible pairs, and I alternated between them before picking out the ones you can see. They are the something or other brand, model blahblahblah. Some of you might see them tomorrow. Even after I paid and was on the way out the door, she was still dithering.

On the right you can see the old fins with the broken heel strap. I've had them since well before doing IMC, so I guess they don't owe me anything. The new ones are there. The colour in the photo is odd though. The new fins are black, not navy blue.

Once home the busy day continued. We now have a clean BBQ. This used to take a long time with windex and paper towel. Now a putty knife and these micro-fibre e-clothes make it fast and easy.

I had meant to go to the library today and rent a Blu-Ray movie disc. But I didn't. However the renos there are complete. It sounds strange because it opened about the same time we built this house, and I still think of it being new, but I guess not. It's one of the busiest public library branches in North America. The library world has changed enormously in 30 years so it's no surprise the building needs to change.

Even in our house we've had two major renovations over the years, doing essentially the entire main floor, and adding some things to the basement. The back yard is getting done this year, and we are considering holding a 30th birthday party for the house this fall. Would you come to such an event? Have you ever been to a birthday party for a house?

So much weekend

The "cheering" for the Harvest Half went really well. I got a big hug with a shared selfie with Cori, seeing my buddy Nicole, and having Tina and Michelle recognize me enough to say hi.

Here's the shared selfie. And the group shot at coffee after. For those that saw some confusing Twitter traffic, this is the one I was referring to with me looking a bit demented. The word Linda used was crazed. You'd never know from Cori's nice smile that she's standing next to a suspected crazy person, and in the middle of a long race, where she did really well.

And one of Nicole with her buddy at the 7K mark.  

The meet up after, Tina, Tara, Michelle, Cori, Keith, Kev, and Susan. Lots of fun.

Yes, I admit, it is at a Starbucks. But lest I be drummed out of the Coffee Purists Club, I will point out I drank hot chocolate.

The rest of the day was spent puttering about the house, and watching Disc 3 of Elementary. I'm quite enjoying it.

Sunday I was up early for a planned (just) post dawn run. The sunrise was absolutely spectacular, leading me to dash out of the house in my slippers to get these shots. No post processing or anything. The colors were amazing! Times like this make me wish I had a better camera.

Sophia got here in good time, in spite of the paving happening on the main access road for us. After a coffee and a bit of stretching we were off. Here's the park map of where we ran, starting at the rivet, going over to bridge 1, and up the Hill of Death. I was disappointed to see they had removed the signs where that had been scribed in. Here is a photo of it. I was going to do a shared selfie. From there we ran along the south side of the park past the wetlands, then down into the park proper to just past bridge 7 at the right side of the map.

Along the way I had to stop for this shot. Alberta does not get the flaming reds of Ontario maple trees, but still, I find the yellows, golds, and russet colors to be extremely beautiful. The reflection in the wetland pond was brilliant.

Here's the more conventional RunMeter map.

And our pace and elevation. Funny how the Hill of Death barely shows up on this one, when it really is a major hill, and some of the tiny gentle inclines show up as huge hills. We took a bit of a walk break just before turnaround around 6 K.

I'm pretty pleased. We were out for a nice relaxing run, and chatted most of the way. There was a bit of a different between our electronics. Maybe we didn't start exactly the same time.
 

The time has come for new shoes! New Balance something or others. The staff at Strides were very helpful. I was the only customer, so had both of them making suggestions and telling me all about them various choices. They were only mildly appalled to find my old ones were more than a year old. I'd missed several new models and they didn't think the current ones were appropriate.

Lastly, a nice cat shot. How could I not share it with you all?

A Saturday compendium

Lots of stuff today. For whatever reason I was up early this morning, catching up on Facebook and Twitter. Normally cats don't like citrus juice, but Curtis was very interested in the orange pineapple mixture we have on the go right now. Very interested. He likes to sit on my desk while I'm doing computer stuff. Every now and then he gives the computer keyboard commands that have taken me a while to figure out and fix. Here's a comparison to my my hand to give you an idea of his paw size.

My legs have been feeling better after the Wednesday massage. Downstairs for some limbering up, light stretching, mobility, a bit of core, and some meditation. I chose to try to meditate in Tree pose. Oddly enough, it's my arms that got tired first, trying to hold them above my head. My legs were perfectly happy with the pose. At first I thought my yoga teacher was nuts for saying it was meditative, but I'm beginning to get it. I have to admit that looking up to a ceiling of beams and sub-floor isn't the most enlightening view.

Then I was on my bike for 45 minutes of easy to moderate spin. This felt pretty good. My left knee still isn't very happy with standing. I had a cheerleader during my spin. Celina likes to encourage me to get all sweaty and finish, because then she's all over me as I stretch.

And

Earlier this week she was also 'helping' me type, but got all tangled up in the mouse.

Then out for some shopping. La Boulangerie is an amazing cafe. They used to have a booth at the Kingsland Farmer's Market, but that closed to our great sorrow. We needed a fix so we went all the way up to their 4th St store. Not surprisingly it was full, with a line up for goodies. Everything is yummy. We did take out, and pigged out on it throughout the day.

MEC for some new street shoes. My old ones were long past done. Parking was a bitch, and the place was full. The new shoes feel much more comfortable. There was no give in the old ones at all. For whatever reason, I'm very bad about hanging onto my old shoes too long. Like running shoes for nearly a year. My current ones are from the end of August, so are a bit over 6 months old, and if I believe Runmeter, have about 300 K. They still feel cushy, so they should be good for a while yet. Do you guys go by milage to replace shoes, or just when they lose their cushiness?

Then up to the Italian Supermarket. This is a great place to shop for stuff. Great prices. We get pasta, cheese, nuts, and a few other odds and ends here. Pity it's so far away. It, too, has been discovered and it's hard to get parking.

Then to one of my favourite places, the Calgary Farmer's Market, for a yummy lunch at Big D's. Shopping at Yum Bakery. Yes we loaded up on goodies. Strolled around a bit. I just love the vibe. They had a singer doing some pop standards, and I couldn't quite decide if I liked her voice or not.

Home for a nap, some reading, some puttering about, and playing with the mammals. Altogether a very nice Saturday.

Oh, almost forgot. I made it through a whole week with no coffee at work! Yay me! So far the rule, Life is too short for bad coffee, is working out well.

Oh, and spam! Or rather the lack of it. Ever since I turned off allowing anonymous commenting, I have had zero spam. ZERO! How awesome is that? Not need to turn on that stupid robot captcha thing I hate so much. Just disallow anonymous comments, and life will be good.