Archive for the ‘Perspective’ Category
excuses, excuses...
I don’t do cold, wind, snow, sleet, driving rain, and I don’t do oppressive heat and humidity. Last Sunday instead of torturing myself on Old Waterford Road, I got out the old air compressor and pumped up the tires on my bike for the first time this season. Ahhhh.. such a relief to have a little moving air crossing my face.
It’s nice to have an outdoor option that is a bit more tolerable when I just can’t bring myself to run.
Let’s hope the last couple of weeks isn’t a harbinger of what the rest of the summer will be.
Weekend Runs
I’m probably game for the short route from Faith Chapel on Saturday. Shade on the W & OD on Sunday from Greenberry’s will be nice, too.
I'm sorry to hear you're frustrated. I'll do my best to resolve the issue. Are you ready to get started?
I remember DOS 3.2, when you issued commands at the C:/ prompt. Simple commands, like: copy, move, list, delete.
Those were the days, my friend. (…yeah, yeah… “We thought they’d never end.” )
In the radiolab podcast about Limits that I referenced last week, another story was about the Limits of Science. Scientists have created a computer program that can deduce mathematical relationships in nature, through simple observation. The mathematics work out every time and therefore the scientists are sure that they are correct. The catch? The scientists don’t have a clue WHY they are correct — they can’t explain the mathematical equation that the computer developed.
Cue the clip from 2001: A Space Odyssey where Hal won’t open the pod bay doors.
My printer (which is a printer/copier/scanner/fax all rolled into one) is several years old, and I’ve been very happy with it (except that it goes through ink faster than the club goes through water after the Taylorstown run). It was working perfectly well up until about three weeks ago when, coincidentally, my Windows XP software went through one of those automatic updates that you sort of hold your breath and click OK to allow. After that, every time I booted up the computer (do they still use the phrase “booting up?”) I’d get a strange error that Windows was trying to configure my fax and would I please insert the CD into the drive.
As if I still had the installation CD for the printer! (OK.. I probably still have it, but alert readers of this blog will remember that I have a little problem with organization.)
I spent the better part of Monday chatting in a little servlet application with the HP support personnel. It was a “two-steps forward, three back” situation as I kept having to go back and back with more information, or a new symptom of the problem.
I never got the same person twice, of course, so I kept having to repeat my problem and give them time to research the issue and get back to me. I’m never sure whether I’m talking to a real person or whether it’s a sophisticated computer program that can parse my sentences — not unlike the Verizon cyberwench that I hate with a passion. After Monday’s experience, I decided that they probably are real people, (most likely in India, however), because some of them seemed to make fewer typos, and grasp my problem more quickly.
Lincoln was pretty helpful. Paloma, on the other had, walked me through refreshing all of my USB ports by uninstalling them, one by one. This seemed to be working very well, until I hit the one that controlled the mouse. By the time I got that rectified and came back to talk to Nash P. I was not a happy camper.
To make a long and very tedious story as brief as I possibly can, I’ve been uninstalling and re-installing and even (gasp) editing the registry, all under the careful tutelage of whoever (or whatever) is on the other end of that little aplet.
Is it too much to hope that one day I could get back to where I was not so long ago: with outdated printer software that worked just fine and really didn’t need to be updated, except that someone at HP thinks you can’t just leave it alone… you have to update it.
They’ve updated it to the point now where it doesn’t recognize my printer at the other end of the USB cable.
Nice.
At some point in my ordeal on Monday, I glanced up at the corner of the little servlet ap and realized someone had selected EXACTLY the correct image. Except for the obvious gender/age difference, that picture could have been taken of me, at any time during those 5 hours. Just sitting there staring at the monitor, one hand on the mouse and the other holding up my chin.
At least it was a bit of comic relief in an otherwise frustrating day — a day that ended with absolutely no resolution to the problem.
On, on, on… past exhaustion and boredom. Just. Keep. Going. (that’s the best I’m going to be able to do to tie this to running).
Perhaps my next step is to try very hard to find that original CD — the one that still has the outdated software on it that worked just fine. It might just work.
Weekend Runs
I’m going out of town this weekend, but the Hamilton Elementary run looks like a good time. Sorry I’m going to miss it.
It has to begin somewhere...
I’m always amazed at what people believe they can do. Or maybe they don’t have any idea of what it is they are going to create, they just do SOMETHING and then it grows and grows.
“The first Earth Day was organized from an office that smelled like hamburger grease and teemed with flies. … it was a bunch of 20-somethings working in an office over a diner.”
I guess I was 17: If the first Earth Day happened 40 years ago, that’s what the math would indicate. I vaguely remember it. Might have even been some mention of it at school. Seemed like a pretty good idea.
Turns out it was just a bunch of young people — kids really – who didn’t know they couldn’t possibly do anything that would change anything — who thought something should be done and so they did it.
I remember when our rivers were polluted, and the skies over our major cities were dark with smog, and you didn’t think too much about tossing trash out of your car as you drove down the highway.
Little by little, one person at a time — Change happens.
Weekend Runs
I see a lot of little raindrops on the forecast map for both Saturday and Sunday. Could be dicey (for me, at least!).
If I have ever done the Bluemont run (Sunday), I can’t remember it. Maybe the predicted showers will just be here and there — or later in the day.
Hey.. it could happen.
YUCK!!!
Last Saturday after the Faith Chapel run in Lucketts, I noticed an advertising banner for the Saturday night bluegrass concert at the old schoolhouse in Lucketts. I like bluegrass music and for several years I have intended to check this venue out. Since it was such a lovely day last Saturday, I decided the time was right. Before last Saturday, I thought – in general — bluegrass was bluegrass. However I now know that not all bluegrass singers are created equal.
Last Saturday’s band was The Hazel Dickens Band.
What can I say about Hazel Dickens? Since my mother taught me that “If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all,” let me just say… Bless her heart.
The old schoolhouse at Lucketts was packed to the gills last Saturday — full of people who probably know a lot more about bluegrass than I do, and when we left at the first intermission, there didn’t seem to be a mass exodus.
Did all those people hear something different than I did? I know there is a sophistication that happens with repeated exposure to things like music, but I don’t know why you would subject yourself to that the second time?
I’d like to go back another Saturday for another evening of bluegrass at the old schoolhouse, but I’m definitely going to do a little research first the next time.
Google is my friend.
Weekend runs
Looks like the weather will be good for another twofer this weekend!
Market Station on Saturday — might be an opportunity to go from Purcellville to Paeonian Springs.
Rust Library on Sunday — walk up those hills, baby!
Are we going up or down?
(No, this is not a picture of Amelia. My daughter-in-law’s blood pressure has stabilized and the doctor is now letting nature take its course.)
I’ve sat through my share of graduation keynote speeches. The only one I remember was Scott Hamilton, the Olympic Gold Medal figure skater, who spoke at my daughter’s graduation ceremony from Ithaca College in 2004.
He spoke of the tremendous high points in his life, and he told of the incredible challenges he had overcome, including a mysterious childhood illness that caused him to stop growing, testicular cancer and a brain tumor. He’s not unusual for this, I suppose — few people have lives that are completely struggle-free (and would you want that even if you could?). What was unusual was his perspective on it.
He said that he used to think that after every victory in his life, he had been cut down with a hardship.
At some point, however, he realized that the opposite was actually true — for every lowpoint in his life, a victory had followed.
Within a week, Sandra Bullock was celebrated for being the worst actress of the year and also the best actress of the year. And now, if tabloid reports are true, her real-life circumstances are eerily similar to the plot in another movie she made in 1998 entitled Hope Floats.
At the very end of Hope Floats she narrates:
Beginnings are scary. Endings are usually sad, but it’s what’s in the middle that counts. So, when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance to float up. And it will..
For every ending there is a beginning of something else and another chance for success. I like that. A lot.
I’m having these thoughts today because I’m taking a friend of mine out to walk/run the last two miles of the Taylorstown run this afternoon. It’s really a beautiful couple of miles, and I’m glad I didn’t let my apprehension about the difficulty of the “run” stop me from going out to check it out that first time.
I don’t have to run uphill.. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I can do that.
Peaks and valleys — a lot more interesting than the flat track at the rec center.
Weekend Runs
I haven’t done the Faith Chapel run yet and it looks like Saturday is going to be a beautiful day for it. I see a <5 mile option that looks quite suitable.
Good old Greenberry’s on Sunday would be a very nice twofer.
…unless Amelia makes her grand entrance, in which case I’ll be enjoying another peak in my personal life doing the grandma thing.
It's melting... melting... melting....!
The glacier that is my front yard is beginning to recede. (I’m still waiting for a verdict on the shrubs up by the house. The front yard faces north, so it takes a LONG for anything to melt in the front yard.)
I don’t see anything awful in the 7-day forecast.
The stock market seems to be holding its own for the time being.
The Girl Scout cookies that I ordered from the little girl who lives next door arrived yesterday.
I’m recovering fairly quickly from a little stomach something my grandson brought home from pre-school that laid waste to the entire family this week.
I finally got around to loading up the Theme from Rocky(the first one) onto my iPod. Can’t believe it took me so long. I can almost picture myself bounding up a flight of stairs two at a time (after I completely recover fromt he little stomach something, of course!)
The vernal equinox is only 16 days away.
All these things lead me to conclude:
Life is good, my friends. Life is good.
Weekend Runs
The Saturday run is from Market Station. I might just be up for that by then. No muss, no fuss, just a friendly out and back on the W & OD. (no 10K loop for me!).
This could be really ugly when the sun comes out...
My insurance company sends me too much snail mail, and so does my mortgage company. Since I’ve got my payment going out automatically, I don’t need to see the monthly statements, or pay attention to the equity loan offers and refinancing deals.
I make several different piles when I go through my mail:
Bill — set aside to pay.
Statement — set aside to reconcile.
Junk — straight to trash.
Other junk — to be shredded
Other stuff — worry about later.
The envelope from the mortgage company was going into the last pile, but since it was a pretty slow mail day, I went ahead and opened it.
Holy Canoly, there was a check for $200 in it! Seems my escrow account has gotten larger than it needs to be (the bad news is this has happened because my taxes have no doubt gone down because the value of my townhouse has gone down), and they are going to be lowering my monthly payments, and they sent me the overage.
Woohoo. Found money!
Grateful for small favors
And I wasn’t under this when it fell from my neighbor’s roof:
Yeah.. I’m putting this in the “It was a good week” column.
I’ve spent my time this week running at the rec center, and walking indoors at Dulles Town Center, where I’ve been enjoying watching some Police K-9 teams training some dogs in the food court in the mornings.
(At least I hope it is a training exercise! )
Weekend Runs:
The parking lot of Dulles Town Center has some mighty huge MOUNTAINS of snow piled here and there within the lot, but for the most part, the perimeter is clean. I’ve run around the perimeter in the past before the mall is open and it works reasonably well. It’s about 1.4 miles in circumference, and it’s not completely flat. I might head out there Sunday morning.
If anyone else is interested, let me know.
Does my insurance cover a collapse?
After I had finished digging out my driveway last weekend, I saw some of my neighbors tossing snow off their decks and I considered whether or not I should follow suit. My initial decision was negative. As predictions for yet another major snowstorm started to bubble up in the forecast, I started to think seriously about the possibility that my deck would collapse.
Now, since I’m not able to immediately lay my hands on the latest epistle from my insurance company outlining precisely what my coverage is, I finally decided on Monday to eat my Powdermilk Biscuits and do what needed to be done. My deck has a southern exposure and with the sun shining that morning, it was actually quite pleasant out there. I got most of the snow off — definitely to the point where there was no longer a danger of collapse — and then a funny thing happened:
All clear -- at least for 48 hours...
I hit wood. A little bit here and a little bit there, and then I started to see the possibility of the entire deck being cleared off down to the wood and I just kept going. The longer the remaining snow was exposed to the strong sun, and the more I kept shaving, the softer the icy/slushy stuff at the bottom got and the easier it got to keep going.
I suspect it is something like this that must happen in order to turn a wimpy runner into an ultra-marathoner.
Weekend Runs
I see absolutely zero possibility there.
I just hope the rec center opens again one of these days. Never thought I’d say it but… I need to run!
...before the melt...
The arrival of Groundhog Day this week, plus the now-familiar forecast for more snow have not surprisingly brought back memories of the 1993 movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Evidently there’s still more to come.
With a 90% chance of snow on Saturday and predictions of an accumulation to rival that received last December 19, I don’t know what else to say except… who am I kidding to even pretend that I’m going to be outside running this weekend?
I have made a rather interesting discovery — listening to a podcast of This American Life or Radiolab seems to work just as well as music does to give my mind something to do when I run. That was a bit of a surprise.
…and I’m sorry that you’re not going to be able to get Sonny and Cher out of your head for the rest of the day.
Really. I’m sorry.
It was a very good year....
I was commenting to my daughter the other day that I needed to get my Christmas letter written. She said she didn’t really get the whole thing about sending Christmas cards. I gave her the stock reply that it’s how you keep in touch with people over the years.
She said, “That’s what Facebook is for.”
I didn’t have much of a snappy comeback. I didn’t have any comeback at all, actually.
So, since I’m not on Facebook, I used the weekend to get my Christmas letter written. When I do this, I always take a look at the ones I wrote in previous years to kind of get ideas for where I’m going to go with it for the current year.
In 2007, I commented that on the morning of my 55th birthday I had run 2 miles. I was pretty proud of that.
I can do four miles now without too much trouble. One morning last fall I did six.
I’m going in the right direction. That’s what’s important to me.
Weekend runs
I’m not so sure I’m going to be in the mood to run outside yet. I’m thinking there’s still going to be a lot of ice and snow to contend with.
I was running this morning at the Claude Moore Recreation Center and it occurred to me that maybe there might be interest in running there either Saturday or Sunday and then going out for breakfast after. They’ve got a locker room so we could shower and change before we left. If you just can’t stomach the idea of running on the track, there is a large lap pool, as well as a recreational pool and of course the usual gym equipment.
If you live in Loudoun Country, it will cost you $5.50. If you’re a senior (over 55), it’s just $3.75. (Bring ID to prove residency.)
They open at 8 am both mornings. (Cool thing is, no one is going to leave without you if you’re late!)
You’ll need to bring a lock for the locker, and a towel if you plan to shower/change afterwards.
I think that’s where I’ll be Sunday. Anyone care to join me?