Mixed bag

I was all hot to trot got get into the pool this morning and try swimming again. My buddy Katie had encouraged me to show up, then she decided to do a bike workout instead. So there I was, wandering disconsolately around the pool deck, looking for her. The problem is that I'm really shortsighted, and have to peer carefully. I've goofed a couple times. Oops.

It only took 300 m to lose my form. Sigh. Take a few weeks off and the swim fitness goes to hell. Swam another 200 m anyways, thrashing, watching the kids in the next lane swoosh by. Then water ran for 20 minutes, feeling pretty good.

During the swim I had a bit of an insight. There's one chunk of the novel that I now realize could work set quite a bit earlier than it is now, with very minor changes. One of my readers had commented that she would love to have a doctor as nice as the ones in the book. It occurred to me that it would be a good (if minor) story arc to see the medical system being a bit of a jerk during Hardisty's bike crash follow up, and showing how that changes along with some other changes. The thought of "what would happen if doctors were rated by follow up surveys?" came to mind. After all, every time I get any service work done on the car, Honda sends me a survey. When I give blood, a survey. Lots of other occasions. How would doctors behave if some fraction of their pay were dependent on customer satisfaction about their manner? Hmmmm. In other news, I'm still revising. Still hoping to have it ready to pitch by August.

On the way into work I got some nice photos. There's a story with one of them. I was just loving the colour of Banker's Hall as I was walking along, and had to stop for a photo. These are just as the iPhone saw them.

Many office buildings hang art on the walls. I noticed this one for the first time, and it's not more than 15 feet from my office. I have to pass it to get to my office, and to go almost anywhere. This morning I was standing there looking at it, wondering if I'd ever seen it before. I didn't think so, but wasn't going to be astonished if one of my co-workers said, no, it's been there since we got here.

This is almost exactly what you'd see coming out of the woman's washroom. I was standing in the doorway (it was shut!) to take this shot. I wonder what they think of it? Maybe if I ask one of them I'll find out how long it's been there.

One of my blog buddies mentioned that I needed to update my blog a bit. That photo up at the top was just a bit overwhelming. On almost any screen you have to scroll down to get to the real content. So I tried resizing it at work, and it went away. That was a bit of a surprise. So I fixed that when I got home, and started looking at some of the other templates.

Now, I'm not particularly an adventurous guy. I don't get out much. Good enough is good enough for me. If it works, I tend to leave it alone. Even things that don't really work any more, like slippers with a hole in the bottom, tend to be used well past their best before date. So that picture has been up since September 2010, so 3.5 years, and that's enough, I guess. Upon being prodded. Now that I think of it, I don't have the faintest idea what picture was there before, or even if there was a picture.

So, if you have any comments on the revised photo, or the template, feel free to comment. Even if you don't have a comment on that, you can leave a comment about the brilliant content of my blog.

Warmth!

It continues to be warm. Yay! The rivers were flowing down the street. So far the storm drains are keeping up.

Michelle and I went out to 37 street, ran down into and out of Fish Creek, then did it again by a different route. Still lots of sloppy ice down there. We ran a little over 7 K in 51 minutes. Mostly nice and easy, but working on the hills a bit. I was in shorts and my favourite tech T, and she was bright in a pink run skirt and matching outfit. Very cheerful. I've never in my life considered wearing matching workout gear.

We didn't get a joint selfie. Sorry. But then if she was in the photo, none of you would look at me and my white legs. If you don't know who Shut Up and Run is, follow the link, you will be amused.

So far, there is still no photo of me with both feet off the ground running. The first photographer that can do that, providing the rest of the photo isn't gross, is going to make good coin!

Due to popular demand, here she is, in all her pink glory. Even though there is all kinds of snow and ice, it really was quite warm, maybe 10 C. So nice.

Bleached a ton of wine bottles today. It's a very soothing activity, in between bouts of chipping soft ice.

Lastly, I had not known this was a thing. It is, and it's awesome!

58 bottles of wine on the rack, 58 btls of wine, if one of those bottles

Whatever order the photos show up in. We are finally starting to see daylight going in to work in the morning. I got this photo from one of the +15s, it's pretty obvious which one. What I was hoping for was the orange of the sunrise. The direct photo of it didn't work, but the reflection shot did, sort of, if you look really carefully. 

What you can't see in this photo is the bowl of granola off to the right. Curtis is enroaching. I had to struggle with the spell checker to get that, and yes it's spelled right. He isn't interested in me, or even my coffee particularly. He wants my granola. He would walk on my keyboard to get there, if he thought I wouldn't notice.

It has warmed up. In the course of a short almost run (see yesterday's post) the side of the street went from solid ice to this. Today the water is running even more. Not spring yet, not even close. But we'll take it.

I spent some of today chipping ice, and trying to keep the run off from going down my sidewalk. Which is fun, but I gave myself a couple of blisters doing it. Such a weenie.

Much of the day was downstairs bottling wine. The white in the carboy before bottling. Such a beautiful colour, and a good hard layer of sediment. 

Stupid rotation wars. This is what they look like all dressed up. Now they're snuggled into the rack for 3 months.

The white was 28 bottles, and the red 30 bottles, which is a bit unusual. Usually I get 29 bottles. The white is very tasty. There were only a few drops left in the carboy after filling 30 bottles, and that was pretty tasty too. What am I saying? All my wine is tasty. 

Two kits are waiting for me in Red Deer, and as soon as they call to say the last one is in, I'm off to pick them up. If you want to come along and worship at the mecca of wine in Alberta, let me know. I usually head up on a weekend morning when the weather is nice.

There is lots of glass to clean, so I'll probably break out the bleach and spend part of tomorrow doing that, if I survive the run. I'll be sure to wear my road ID so my run buddy's know who to call if I collapse. I have faith they will drag me back to the parking lot. I hope.

Lastly, languid cats, snoozing in the afternoon sun. I wanted so much to join them. Curtis was snoring.

An outdoor almost run

It went from about -18 C (0F) to just above freezing today. When I started my "run", the ice had just begun to melt. By the time I got back, half an hour later, there was lots of actual liquid water in the street. As opposed to the mineral form of water we've had for months.

The run was nothing special, other than being the first run since the long weekend. I ran maybe 3.5 K tops, in 25 minutes. The GPS was not working, so no map. It all felt pretty good, though my legs were getting a bit tired toward the end. My lungs felt pretty good about it. I'm hoping to sleep really well tonight.

Let's not fool ourselves. Spring is months away. MONTHS! It will be no surprise to get a huge dump of snow in the next few weeks. One year we got more than a foot and a half on one day. Could be this year again. Never know. But at least this weekend is supposed to be warm. Sunday's run might be in shorts. I will do a selfie of the skinny white legs. That ought to put you all off your lunch.

This morning had an adventurous start. I was sitting there with my laptop. Curtis hopped up onto the arm of the chair I was in. There was a bit of a cough. I pushed him off, and moved the laptop. In that time he barfed out his breakfast, it landing on the chair just beside me, a few inches from the laptop keyboard. I'm sure Apple has tried to revive a laptop destroyed by cat vomit, but I'm sure glad I didn't have to ask them. I'd thought about swimming this morning, but cleaning up after that made me want to have a shower right then, not at the pool. Plus my nostrils were all whiney and whingy about the whole thing.

Still

Still almost -WTF cold out.
Still dregs of cold hanging on.
Still not running.
Still trying to convince the cats that forcible cuddling is good for them.
Still thinking about the next book to read.
Still working on revising novel.
Still waiting for the last wine kit to come in.
Still see that dust covered car in City hall parkade that hasn't moved in a couple months.
Still parking indoors because I'm a weenie.
Still making French Press coffee in the morning.
Still loving it.
Still going to bed early after a hit of NyQuil. Like now.

What's still up with you?

Not quite as planned

So after I put Linda on the bus to Edmonton, I came back home and fairly directly climbed on my bike. I haven't been there in a while.

A 2 hour ride turned out to be a bit optimistic. My thinking was that I was supposed to run 16 K, and that would take 2 hours. I had a nice easy warm up, not pushing too hard. Even so, after an hour I noticed was was starting to feel a bit more feeble and I was losing my focus. At an hour and twenty minutes I called it. I was starting to hack and cough again, even though I wasn't breathing all that hard. Stretched, and rolled the ball into some spots where it was good for it.

It's still brutal out so after a shower I settled in and spent most of the day writing. That touching father daughter scene that I'd written about 10 years too late? Rewrote that so Erin is 15. It works much better this way.

Plus the cats. This is what I had the other day. It was very peaceful supervision.

What I got today were constant complaints about the service, or the lack of it from their perspective. Celina has figured out how to rattle the big container where the dry food is kept. It makes a horrible noise. We may have to put something on top of it, a big stuffed toy or something. Curtis has made serious attempts to lie on top of the laptop, while I'm typing on it. Life can be difficult.

It's still -WTF cold here. Another week, they say. Sigh.

The elk bison chipolte chili captured me

There was a very nice response to this weeks rant on drivers and pedestrians. It's one of the more popular things I've written recently. Thanks again for all the readers and commenters!

I'm still getting over my cold, and I realize you don't want to hear about that. So fine, I can't blame you. I was in the pool water running on Friday, the first exercise in about a week and a half, except for, well, you don't want to know about that. Or that either, unless you're a pervert.

The water run went well, about 40 minutes worth, leaving my legs feeling the best since before the massage on Wednesday that nearly killed me. I went in thinking my legs felt not bad. One benefit of being sick is that your legs get a chance to recover. All I had was some tightness in my thighs just above my knees. My hams felt good. Well, once A started digging in, I started whimpering like a little girl. My quads and IT band were all one locked up hot mess of tightness. She spent most of the massage working on just that. Poor woman has delusions of being able to work on my back sometimes. As if.

After the massage I was picked up by my hot date, and we went off to a reception at the Sports Hall of Fame, put on by the Scotiabank marathon people. This was in celebration of 50 years of doing the race, and honoring the people doing the 50K run. My buddy Michelle is doing this, and was kind enough to invite me.

I also ran into the famous Neil Zellor! It was nice to get caught up with him, even if he did want to take my picture. It was really interesting to stroll around the displays. So much stuff. Beer, nibbles, nice people to chat to, what could be better?

Thursday after work we went to the Home and Garden show. Or whatever this one is. There are a couple like it. If I'd had my wits about me I'd have started the run programs, just to see how far I walked. My legs were still tired. I was on a death march to seek out and capture some very specific vendors. I wasn't interested in anything else. I was afraid if I stopped moving I'd never get going again. Normally I like watching some of the leather-lunged vendors, but I wasn't in the mood.

It's back down to minus WTF cold again. No, serious. Call it a polar vortex if you must, but really, it's just a good old-fashioned Canadian winter. Why, I remember a time when it was this cold for months on end. Back when I walked to school uphill both ways.

Even so, I'm supposed to run 16 K this weekend. As you know, I've done my share of humble bragging about running in the cold, but between the icy sidewalks, the cold, and still getting over my illness, I think it would be stupid to run outside this weekend. Maybe if I was healthy, and the sidewalks weren't icy...

Watch tomorrow for a spin session. I figure it would take 2 hours to run 16K, so a 2 hour spin is on tap. I'll make sure the iPad is all charged up. Maybe there will be a tweetfest.

Lunch today was a mix and match chili. Not the nuclear spicy chili that Linda has done in the past. This has elk and bison with a package of dried chipolte peppers, along with the usual suspects of beans, celery, and a few other odds and ends, simmering several hours. It's a wonderful smoky sweet chili, perfect for a cold day.

I think this afternoon is going to be a contemplative day washing wine bottles, in prep for bottling next weekend. Some of the bottles need some bleach. My legs need a bit of stretching while waiting for things to happen.