Be the best lettuce photographer!

What an amazing weekend!

Friday evening, getting some theory and doing some star shots. I learned the trick of using the live view screen to focus to infinity properly. One of the best pieces of advice from Neil is, "Shoot lettuce if that's what you love! Shoot it chopped, shredded, with the Calgary Tower, whatever makes you happy. Be the best lettuce photographer."

Saturday road trip to shoot a deserted farmhouse and grain elevator, several scenic panoramic outlooks, a ferry ride, and dramatic skies. In addition we were in search of dark skies and lettuce to shoot, but failed on that front. The clouds rolled in about sunset, and the lettuce was elusive all day. We had to console ourselves with a rainy skyline.

Sunday all day, importing photos into Lightroom and working with them. Basic editing. More advanced techniques. HDR in Photomatix. Panoramas. Assembling star shots in Starstax. Compositing in Photoshop. Plus all sorts of tips and ideas.

Most importantly, practicing with the photos we had taken. (I took 607 photos.)There are many different ways to use Lightroom to achieve various effects, and none of them are wrong, per say. The idea is to tweak the photo to match the vision for what you want it to be. This might to make it a better photo, looking as close as possible to what our eyes would see. Or you might want to to dress it up to emphasize certain elements of the scene, or de-emphasize others. Or maybe you like the look of Mordor skies as applied to a placid Alberta prairie landscape. Maybe you want your lettuce to look really really green.

This course was superb value for money! We were all a little disappointed that we didn't find clear skies, but that's the weather for you, and that's the only letdown of the weekend. I'm now happily playing with images, learning what more I can do with them.

Here's a couple of panorama examples. These have been slightly dressed up to look better, but really the main thing was getting them stitched together to look nice. You might want to blow them up to full screen. The way I took the second one gives the original a huge amount of detail that only comes up when you zoom, but then the original is 28 MB. When I get a few minutes I'm going to put it on the TV and see how it looks. I'm wondering how big I could print it out, though if I was going to do that I'd try to tweak the sky some more.

Here's something from Friday night, when it turned out to be the darkest skies for us. I'm glad we went out.

It looks a little like a ladder in the sky, doesn't it? In fact it's an airplane. The sides of the ladder are the steady landing lights, and the rungs are the blinking lights. I took many shots in two sequences and there's all sorts of stuff in there. Several airplanes, a satellite, and moving clouds.

Here's an assembled view of the other sequence of the photos, done to show star motion, two airplanes, and highlight the clouds a bit because they were a cool colour.

I've had one failure at attempting to move the photos into iMovie to show the stars quite still but the clouds moving across the stars. Stay tuned.

Now I'm just bubbling with ideas of stuff to shoot, places to explore, and ways to manipulate those images. So would you be if you had taken the course with us.

Autumn gardening in Calgary, and a rant

The plants have had a big year, growing tall, developing their roots and bulbs, and blooming their little faces off. That takes nutrients. Linda has noted the soil level has fallen quite a bit since the garden was planted, and has a plan. The delivery guy was helpful in dropping the big bags right where they were wanted. It saves me much wheelbarrow work. I am thankful.

Plus we are starting to get frost at night. The white fabric is cheap. The pelicans help to protect the plants.

Here's some more plants all draped up. We have plans for Halloween to use this fabric. Hopefully there will be a little breeze, and we can send billowing clouds of the fabric towards the little trick or treaters.

Others plants are still working on their blooms. I call them optimists. I'm not sure if they're behind because of recovering from the many hail storms, or they are late bloomers anyways. I am rooting for them, being a bit of a late bloomer myself.

The big event this weekend is the photography course put on by the famous Neil Zeller. I'm so eager to go I'm already packed.

Lets see, what haven't I talked about. Oh yeah. Running. Last you heard we ended the 26 K run at 22 K. I've been hurting in an achy way ever since.  Twinges in hams and calves. I woke up the other day to spasming muscles in the back of my knee, extending down into the calf, and up into the thigh. Not hard and painful like a charlie horse, just little contractions that I didn't ask for. My resting heart rate has been elevated, and my sleep has been crap the last several nights. I suspect over training, or my body not recovering from the last workout.

Doing easy mobility work has twingy moments. The Tuesday swim was ok, but the water running after didn't last long. Fighting off a runny nose cold hasn't been helping.

The Saturday schedule calls for 28 K, and I'd been thinking of moving that to today. I don't think I can cope with staying up late (for me), doing a long run, and then going out for another late night, and then spending all day working with the images.

Now that today has arrived, I'm asking my legs what they think. 28 K is right out. In fact, I'm dubious about 10 K. Stay tuned.

I was into Chinook mall to check out the screen on the new 27 inch iMac. Along the way I saw this totally incongruous sign.

(Rant on!)
What's wrong with this picture? To start with, there isn't a lot we can do about the adults addicted to tobacco. I feel for them, and I weep for the impact it has on our so-called health care system. But we should be doing everything in our power to prevent people from getting the habit in the first place. Tobacco is a foul, noxious product that has absolutely no redeeming societal value, and should have no place in the modern world. None.

That said, it's been legal, and we need to deal with the consequences for much of the next human lifetime. Places like Shefield should exist to supply the unfortunate, under strict conditions. That should be the only place to legally get tobacco in any form. And those places should not be next to a child oriented store. They should be regulated similar to the places selling alcohol.  Test them by sending in underage kids, and if they don't check the ID, they are shut down.

I was thinking about the health care system as I woke up this morning. There is a whole wave of pre-geezer people that are going to be putting increased demand on the system as their bodies fail them. I'm one of them, healthier than most, but the path is inevitable. All we can do is manage how steep the decline is, and how many rocks are in the path. The health system should make this easier, and keep people out of hospitals.

Let's take automobile collisions, or as I like to call them, demonstrations of driver incompetence. DDI for short. One of the unfortunate side effects is cluttering up the medical system. People don't get killed nice and clean, oh no. There are whole teams of highly trained people devoted to getting the injured out of the mangled vehicles and delivered to a hospital. Some of them die sooner or later., how sad for them and their families. Some are injured to a lesser degree, but might take up a bed for much longer while they recover, and many never recover fully. In some ways that's even sadder. Even those not injured will likely be assessed, which takes valuable medical resources.

I've said it before, I'd like to see car simulators built to objectively test people's driving skills, and measure the lack. And boy do I see a lot of skill lacking, or the willingness to employ the skills, which comes to the same thing. You see it too, don't lie to me. Such a test every 5 years or so upon license renewal seems fine, and of course, after a DDI. We should be doing lots more to reduce the number of dead an injured, not just for their sake, though that's reason enough, but to lessen the burden on the health system.

We should be looking hard at people that are involved in any sort of a DDI. Those single vehicle "incidents" we hear about on the radio so often? If it's not a medical event, it's a DDI, unless you convince me the driver was distracted by some amazing event like a meteor strike nearby.  Changing weather doesn't count, this is Canada, the weather changes abruptly so drive that way. After a DDI the driver(s) involved should have to justify why they should be continued to be allowed to drive, and should have to pass an advanced driver safety course. The course and following drivers test should be marked by the infamous Russian judge.

Just yesterday I watched a woman trying to get out of a tight parking spot in a big vehicle, while holding a phone to her ear. I was watching carefully so I didn't get run over. I caught her eye, did the phone holding gesture, while shaking my head at her. She just got angry and revved the engine more. Fortunately I was beside the vehicle, not in front or behind, but I was beginning to worry about the surrounding vehicles. What could be so important that she couldn't complete the call while parked, then devote her full attention, such as it is, to the difficult task facing her? I don't think she had completely grasped the concept of turning the steering wheel this way, while backing, to make the front of the car point that way. Sigh.

I wish I knew what caused people to make choices that they know are bad for them. Driving is one of the most dangerous things a Canadian can do. The manufacturers have made cars ever safer, yet people are devoting less thought to driving. They know they can't (not in the legal sense, but that it's nearly impossible to) text and drive, but seem compelled to pick up the phone.

People know that smoking tobacco is a disgusting habit that will damage their health, and that of the people around them, yet they continue. Worse, they somehow start.

People make poor food choices, sometimes because that's all they can afford. I've been asked at work where I get the food I bring for lunch, it smells so good. I tell them it's often what we had for dinner the night before. Yes, they say, but where did you get it? Umm, Linda cooked it. They don't get it. Many of the people I worked with over the last while not only don't cook, they can't cook, unless heating up canned contents counts. Not.

Trinkets like the iPhone are all very well, but there's lots of days I think there are some fundamental things wrong with our society. Do you agree? Stories you can share?

A 4 lens comparison

August 28th was overcast, so I dug out all my lenses for a comparison. Overcast is good because it's nice even light that doesn't change much throughout the shoot.

The idea here was to set up the tripod and exchange the lenses, shooting at both ends of the zoom, with the lens as wide open as it goes, adjusting shutter speed for consistent exposure. I didn't play any games with focus, just let the autofocus do it's thing. The centre cross hairs were aimed at the lily just below the house number, just above the red geraniums. I exported them from Lightroom without doing any manipulation to the image.

The iPhone does this.

The order I shot the lenses was the Tokina 11-20 f2.8 wide angle, then the Canon 18-55 mm kit lens, then the Sigma 17-50 mm f2.8, then the Canon 100 mm f2.8 Macro. I was mostly interested in comparing the kit lens to the Sigma. Here they are.

11mm This is a great setting for a big landscape shot.

20 mm

kit lens 18 mm

Sigma lens 18 mm (to match kit lens)

 kit lens 55 mm  (should have dialed back to 50, but wanted to give it every advantage.)

Sigma lens 50 mm

Canon 100 mm, at f2.8. The autofocus picked up on some of the flowers in front of the central lily so things are subtly out of focus, as to be expected with such a shallow depth of field.

Here's a tiny piece of the above photo, showing what's in focus.

Canon 100 mm, at f32.  This should have the effect of increasing the depth of field, and bringing everything to the same focus.

Here's those same little white flowers, and you can tell the white flowers aren't quite as sharp, but the orange ones are sharper. I may have rushed the autofocus.

So you've scrolled through. Big deal, you think, I can't see much difference in photo quality. Here's the money shot, comparing the kit to the Sigma at max zoom. Kit lens first, then the Sigma. This is zoomed 3:1 into the photo itself. Keep in mind the camera was about 28 feet away from this flower. Now do you see why photographers shell out for better lenses?

Here's the Tokina at 11 mm, using lightroom to zoom in 3:1 like the above two shots. No surprise that it's starting to pixelate.

Just for fun, here's the Tokina at 20 mm, with the same 3:1 zoom in Lightroom. Now scroll up and look at that kit lens again. I'm surprised at this.

The other thing I discovered happened as I was playing with different ways of doing things. I had displayed photos on the big TV to show Michelle and Amy the triathlon photos, but I hadn't compared the tv to the laptop.

Tonight I had the bright idea of displaying the photo on the tv, with the laptop having the various Lightroom screens. I thought maybe that would be better use of screen real estate. That doesn't work in any practical sense because of the lag between changing the controls and seeing the change on the screen. Oh well.

I took Linda through the last bunch of shooting I and compared the two screens across flowers, clouds, buildings, a river, and other shots. Holy crap! The laptop (a Macbook Air from mid 2013) looks washed out compared to the tv screen. I succumbed to the lure of Apple porn, and scoped out the new iMac. Holy doodle. $4K or so, tricked out the way I want it. I'm afraid to go into the actual store and look.

The long run glow

Todays long run brought to you by the Nose Creek path, from 32nd ave beside the Rockyview building, all the way up to the Huntington Hills golf course. We had turned around there during an 18 K run with Patricia, so this filled in my map further north.

It was cool overnight so we started a little after 9. The start was good. Maybe too good, as we discussed on the way back. There was a reason for the discussion. My legs were still feeling a little tired from the Wednesday run that I haven't told you about yet, and the massage.

So lets rewind a bit. I hadn't been sure how my last day at work would go. Perhaps I'd be told to not come in at all. I had hopes...

I ended up having to go in, so I planned for the 15 K hard run for the morning. I dropped Linda off at the LRT and came back to get changed. I got started at dawn, and it was lovely. Every time I looked the sunrise was a little different. The plan was to warm up, and then do 5 x(1K at 5K pace and 1 K easy). Except I goofed and that's not what the phone told me. I ended up doing it by keeping track myself. You can bet I didn't go over.

There was some thought of doing it around the reservoir, but decided that if I needed to bail out for some reason, that would make life difficult. I chugged a loop the loop pattern around the neighbourhood and it all went well. 15 K, 1:40:33, average 6:42 pace. The fast K were all just over 6 minutes, so I'm pretty pleased. All the easy ones were about 7 minute K pace. Overall felt pretty good, glad it wasn't any longer.

Then the last day at work. Then the massage. She worked me over pretty good, but she could have done ever so much more. The right ham needed it so bad.

Thursday, my first day of official "retirement" started busy. Swim. Donate some nearly perfect blood.  I was disappointed to see that the main donation clinic has the same crappy cookies as the mobile clinics. The chairs are more comfortable. My nurse had a beautiful singing voice going along with the oldies station, in between their memorized patter. 72 donations. Run some errands on the way home. Nap. BBQ.

Slept in, drank coffee, ran some more errands. Scoped out a starting place along the canal for the 32 K run in a few weeks. I want that one to be FLAT. As in, no hills. Started getting a nose sniffle after eating a spicy lunch. Watched Love and Friendship and loved it. I just love movies with witty dialogue.

Saturday the schedule says 26 K run. We started about a 7 min/K pace, and I felt great! I was happy running along looking at new scenery. The sun was up, and surprisingly warm already. I was sweating, Michelle was glowing. We followed the path, though it got a bit confusing, and we turned around where we would have ended up going into some northern neighbourhood. I was nervous. The customs might be different there.

Back and then up beside the golf course where there was a scenic lookout. I got some iphone photographs.

Up to about 12 K it went really well, then it got a bit hilly and we slowed down a little. I did, at least, I think Michelle was still ready to bound along. Walking up the hills felt pretty good. The wheels started coming off my wagon about 19 K. My legs, especially right ham were sending stiff notes of protest upstairs. 20 K was 7:35 pace slowest yet, 21 slower yet at 8:02 and several walk breaks, half marathon time of 2:32:34, and at 22 hearing 8:14 pace I was done. I figured no point in running myself into an injury, and I did not want to suffer through 4 more K taking nearly a half hour. Yuck. If it had been a 23 K run, maybe, but who does 23? Nice walk back to the car to cool down, and stretch. (As of later my legs are feeling better.)

Overall I'm pretty pleased. We discussed if we'd gone out too fast, but my legs were happy with the pace, and we were chatchatchat. (why are none of you surprised?) Sometimes I find running slower to be harder. It was all good till my legs got tired of the game. I'd had good nutrition all along, drinking about a litre of energy drink, plus eating maybe half a cliffs bar.  The hydration pack is working out really well.

The recent reads are

I am not an advanced marathoner, but it's Katie's bible. I think my training course is based on it. My difficulty with many non-fiction books is finding the sweet spot between "subject x for dummies" that doesn't tell me anything I don't already know just from being a breathing adult at least somewhat aware of the world. Some of those authors should be ashamed of themselves. The other end of the spectrum is "everything under the sun about subject x.1.2.3 (and not x.1.2.2 which is outdated as you should know) by and for experts." The info I might want is in there, but I'm not likely to find it, buried as it is under mountains of related material.

This is on the subject expert side of things, especially the training plans. I don't have it in front of me as I write, but I think the base plan was build around someone who routinely does about twice the weekly milage I do. I had slowly worked myself up to 100 K per month, and felt pretty good about that, although I fully realize there are some who do that nearly weekly. I figure I'm just barely at the point of being fit enough to get through a marathon, and with any luck I won't get sick or injured. Being able to sleep extra this month should be a big help.

The problem with the retirement book is that it's old. Not sure it's outdated, but it's from  almost 10 years ago. Our financial advisors are telling us this stuff and more beside. I zoomed through it, not finding anything I didn't already know. If you are new to the subject it's pretty good. I've covered some of the basic basics earlier in this blog. Spend much less than you earn. Debt is an emergency. Some of it is long term manageable debt, but work on getting rid of it. Credit card debt is an all hands on deck adrenaline fueled emergency. Until you've taken care of most of your debt, you don't need this book.

I'm not sure what's next on the reading list.

Keith has left the building

Today was my last day with Penn West. It's been quite a ride, almost 4.5 years. It started with one team building something cool. Then many of them got fired including my boss and her boss, and eventually the guy that fired them.  Eventually that cool project got unplugged and thrown away. I got paid for it, and if they don't want to use it, that's not my problem. Still, that was sad, and it was useful even in the part done state.

I was rescued and joined another team, where we were migrating data and working with an implementation team to set up processes. Interesting and fun in many ways. All of them got fired during the great blood bath a year ago. That was when I spent several weeks nearly alone in a corner of the 5th floor. It was spooky, having the lights come on as I walked in, and then the lights would go out as I settled into work. What just killed me about the whole thing is that if I'd had to pick two people to stay, I wouldn't be one of the people I'd pick. (The other guy's contract was ending in a few weeks so they let him work it out.) I have no idea why they kept me, out of all the other employees and contractors that got the boot.

Then some strangers came into to do some of the jobs of the fired people, and I was sort of part of that team. It was all very much of a word that sounds like firetruck. Lots of good stuff happened, but we weren't really a team. Once again I was the only person doing what I do, providing data and analysis on demand. The word silo comes to mind, though I hope not silage. I produced many complex spreadsheets that baffled my boss, which is a specialty of mine. (Only one has ever been not baffled.)

To say I have mixed feelings is an understatement. This has been a long, long gig by contractor standards. At the moment I'm glad it's over. The last little while has been some pretty tough sledding, adding pipelines to the database in a rough and ready way that hurt my soul. I know for a fact that someone, sometime down the road is going to be wondering what I was smoking while I did this. I did what I was told to do.

On the plus side, I learned a ton of stuff, some of which might prove to be marketable, even in this economic climate. SQL works on any kind of data, not just oil and gas. Some very generous people helped me through some tough spots and I'm not going to forget that.

I know that all contracts end, as do employee gigs, sooner or later. As I've said elsewhere, they usually end at one of two times. When you choose, or when the company chooses. I know which is easier on you. Though as a digression, I watched one of my buddies get a job offer, and on the way in to inform the boss, get the layoff notice.

Penn West chose the ending date here, mainly by not renewing. Given the economy, I wasn't going to pull the plug. After 5 or 6 renewals I can hardly complain.  It was rewarding to see the shock on my team's faces when they were told. They all feel there is work to be done there, and it's work I can do. Maybe they've got a cheaper person coming in. Or maybe it's just not going to get done. I gave them a list.

There were lots of good people there, but it was hard watching so many of them depart over the years. Well, except for a few idiots that only made things harder for the rest of us. Some of us celebrated their departure.

My biggest regrets? The way locations are set up in Maximo is an abomination. An LSD is a unique place, regardless of the equipment on it. By creating different kinds of locations (There are lots of LSD that have 3 or 4 kinds of locations, and one has or had 8) they create difficulties on many fronts. There are other ways to manage this. And serial numbers. I still get heartburn about this. Stripping punctuation from serial numbers is the second stupidest thing I heard the entire time. The first is a tie, between the big layoff a year ago, and learning the exact way Maximo stores some of the data and what that means for querying and loading data. Oh, and serial numbers are now going in with punctuation, though I don't think existing data is being corrected in any organized way. (I know an easy way of doing that, but noooo.)

I was thinking about it today as I was writing my farewell note, and I knew more people there at the the end of my first 6 months, than I know now.  At most of my jobs I've made friends that continue long past our times at that company. I'm still buddies with people I met at Nova in 1993. One person was hired at Penn West essentially on my say so, and it was really good to work with him again.   We're going for beer next week. There are several people I think I'm going to stay in touch with. Who knows, I might end up working with some of them again.

What's next? Vacation. I'm tired, and not just from running my ass off. (Down 3 pounds this month!) I'm looking forward to living like a retired person for a while. September has all sorts of stuff getting booked into it, so afternoon naps might be hard to come by. There are so many festivals and stuff in Calgary this time of year. Plus I'm in a 3 day photography course. An all day Maximo session. Beakerhead. Writing. Photography. Running. I may not get as many afternoon naps as I hope.

Work? Call me if you have an interesting project. But not this month.

An odd reflection during a photowalk

The first thing you need to know is that the Calgary tower is on the south side of Ninth Ave, right where Centre street ends.
The second thing is that Bankers Hall is on the other side of Ninth Ave, just west of 3rd Street, so several blocks west of the Tower.
Last thing is that the sun sets in the west, just to remind you.

Look at this photo. It was taken from St Patrick's Island, which is due east of downtown, at 7:12:15 PM. No photoshop trickery, just some cleanup in Lightroom.

Do you see it? The shadow of the Calgary Tower on Banker's Hall? Think about how interesting  the light to be to get that much light from the east, during sunset. It wasn't just a blink and you'll miss it. I've got a bunch of photos of it.  You can almost see the red in the reflection in some shots, though that might be a mind game.

You've got to love Neil Zeller photo walks. Last night started a bit blustery, but calmed down. As he said, sometimes the best light is in the crappiest weather. And I say, no such thing as bad weather, just poor clothing choices.

I had a good time, and all the people I chatted with did as well. Some highlights for me. I missed the osprey landing on it's nest in the street light sculpture by THAT much. Sigh. There's some photos of the nest, and I think some chicks peering out, but from the photo you can't tell. Might be just another stick. I got some nice building shots, and worked hard at trying to correct my tendency to aim too high. Coffee after (decaf) and chatting, watching downtown culture.

Here's a few other photos, just because. Let's see what order Blogger puts them in. My buddy shooting downtown, I think. Maybe the osprey nest. This isn't quite as dramatic as the one from the triathlon a few weeks ago.

The light on this was a lovely silvery sheen that doesn't quite come across in the photo, nor do the brilliant red boxes. Again, this is lit from the east during sunset.

I've become a bit of a fan of the Calgary Tower, and was a little surprised to see it peeking between some new condo buildings.

One of the last shots of the evening, getting some coloured reflections off the water. It started to rain very soon after.  Another half hour and it would have been dark enough for some long exposure shots so the reflections really show up. Another time.

There is a sledding hill on the island. I had remembered a better view of downtown from there, but I think it was winter and so no leaves on the trees. Still, the sky was pretty dramatic, and I chatted with an interesting guy about a company we had both worked for.

The light was worth going out into a blustery evening! I was out to the first photowalk and enjoyed it, but couldn't really take full advantage with only the iPhone. Now that I've got a real camera I'm going to make these a must on my calendar. It's a great way to start to get to know other photographers.

Oh, and if you really want to know which lens and the exposure details, feel free to leave a comment, then come back in a little while. I'm comment friendly.

Several firsts!

Once upon a time I got on my bike, this was long before Estela, and from home rode all around the reservoir and back. It was an epic journey for me. The hills were like cliffs and were higher than the Cliffs of Insanity. It took a really long time. The route looks like this now, and was slightly different back in the day.

Gradually I got faster, but it was always a big ride for me. Then I got Estela and discovered the hills weren't really that big and trying to ride her along that route at speed was not a good idea. Somewhere along the way I actually ran around the reservoir for the first time.

Today was a run from home, around the reservoir, and back to home. There was a walk before and after. 22 K, 2:42:49 run time, 7:24/K pace. I only remembered after I was supposed to negative split the distance, but I was pretty tired the last few K and couldn't have pushed much harder. The first 11 K was 1:20:14, so I was just over 2 minutes slower. Oh well.

I was working really hard to get last Wed run out of my head and succeeded. I didn't run or swim Thursday or Friday, and went to bed early both nights. Today I felt a bit tired going in, took a K or so to find a pace, and settled in fairly even, hills slowing us down a bit.  Although we passed a couple of people on the way up to North Glenmore. (Yay us!) We stopped for a bio break in North Glenmore, and I checked out a possible photo vantage point (nope), but otherwise it was a steady run. Well, aside from the third first. (keep reading.)

So I'm pretty pleased, in case you hadn't noticed! First time I've done this route as a run. (first first.)

Yesterday I got some good news I can't talk about yet. Soon. Afterward I was shopping through MEC and picked out a hydration pack. Usually for long runs I put a little aid station on the front porch and do loops, but this time we were talking about doing a long point to point run down in Fish Creek. What with one thing and another we decided not to, and went around the reservoir instead. I didn't want to try to carry everything in pockets, so pack it was.

It has lots of pockets, including a pocket in a pocket which is always neat. 2 L capacity, which seems about right. One of the pockets is waterproof and my phone fits in it, so that's good. It fit comfortably right from the start, and once Michelle showed me the trick of getting all the air out of the bladder, I was good to go. (I had a whole bunch of bladder jokes going through my mind during the run for inclusion in the blog, but I'm over that now.) I'm really pleased with how it worked out. No shifting around, no chafing. (second first.)

I know that some of my readers have their special run buddy, but sorry guys, I have the best one in the world. Really! We've run together in cold and hot, rain and dry, chatting about everything under the sun. But today was a first, showing that special bond of trust between long time run buddies. She trusted me to gently dig around in some soft moist folds of skin, removing an irritant she couldn't quite deal with.

What's that you say? What??!! You perverts. We were on a public path, and her pants were on. I dug a bug out of her eye. You guys! Sheesh. Anyways, that was the third first. All in one run! We even saw some friends heading into Heritage park, and chatted very briefly.

It was a nice run, legs feeling pretty good, even toward the end. They were tired of course, especially hip flexors, but we chugged along. Long walk afterward checking out the new pedestrian bridge. Showered, nibbled some cold pizza, and the cats graciously gave me a recovery purr on the quads. Such a sleepy little face.

Hope the weather holds for a photo walk with the famous Neil Zeller tonight.