Yesterday I came to a realization.
Running hills isn’t fun!
That would explain why I have such a feeling of dread when it is that time of the week. The depression. The avoidance of actually doing it. I try and stay away from things that aren’t fun, but I’ve signed up for the race, so I’m stuck.
I did the hill training yesterday instead of Wednesday because of the blind date. I only got out at 7:00 PM. I might have been later except I wanted to get home and see the next episode of Stargate SG-1, after last week’s cliffhanger.
All that said, it went surprisingly well. I had new runners, because my last have started to die. The hill didn’t have many other people using it either. I think that helped a lot because I didn’t feel the need to try and pass the person in front of me. So I could take the hills at a comfortable pace. After the session I felt good, and got home just in time to find a rerun being played.
Hopefully I”ll remember this good feeling for next week.

Yesterday I saw a play called “Three Days of Rain”. I don’t know what it is about Shadow Theatre, but lately, all of their plays are… well they leave me empty. They are dramas, and very rarely funny. They never seem to conclude and leave me confused. Maybe if I was more intelligent I would get more from them.
As it is, the first half seemed to be revealing bigger and bigger secrets about a family. I was getting interested. Then the second half went back thirty years and revealed… nothing.
I wouldn’t recommend it to a friend.

Blind date tonight.
I’ve been nervous about it all day. The most popular piece advice given to me is to not be myself.
The person who set me up commented that I strike him as a person who is never afraid of anything.

Ah, my old foe irony. We meet again.

I’m thinking of joining the conservative party of Alberta. It’s not because of any great love of them, but just so I have a chance to have a voice in this province.
As it stands, the conservatives will always win. Nothing will change that.
Everyone in the Tory party gets to select a leader or decide when there should be a leadership election. As an average tax-paying citizen, I don’t get that right. So I should spend some money and join.

Payback sucks.
Yesterday I went running with a friend. I use the word in its most liberal sense. He hadn’t been out exercising in awhile and he was using me to get himself motivated. He only wanted an eight km run, which is so short, I really don’t need to tie my shoes. He conked out halfway through and we walked most of the rest. At Victoria hill, he wanted to run it, and he did start out with a good pace. That lasted halfway up the hill and we walked the rest. At the top he found a bench and collapsed on it. According to him, if he didn’t lie down he would throw up.
Me, I was just enjoying the nice weather. Not even sure I broke a sweat. (Yes, I’m bragging. It just makes my fall that much more entertaining.)
After he made the best french toast I have ever had. He likes to cook, and I am perfectly willing to be the guy who eats what he makes.
However, payback came today. For the past year I have had a shoulder injury. That normally doesn’t sound like it would prevent me from running, but the shoulder muscles are shared with the lungs. So, after awhile, trouble breathing. It has slowly been getting better, and so I have been able to do further runs. It’s been about a year and a half since I have run 32 km. (Can you tell where I am going with this?)
Today was a run scheduled to be that distance. For the first 45 minutes it was rather awkward because my right calf was tight and I was wondering how far I would be able to go. That went away when I warmed up and we continued on the rather hilly route. When you go that far you pretty much cover a good chunk of the city. Kinsmen. Snow valley. Qu’appelle bridge. The legislature.
The last seven kilometers did me in. I got a stitch in my side. It went away when I walked, but that is only for one minute for every ten minutes of running. I kept up, falling behind a bit as we went along. I completed it about a minute behind the pack. But I did it. And now I feel terrible. (Note: We actually ran 33 km.)
My legs hurt, and so I don’t really want to take long steps. I don’t need to vomit, but I’m not that far off.
To celebrate I’m going to go to McDonalds and gorge myself on a quarter pounder with cheese. Mmmm. Greasy!
Let’s hope I can make the walk there.

In a way it is disturbing.
This morning I woke up with a semi-headache. Basically my left eye had an ache and I felt sort of blah. I still pulled myself to work, feeling pretty uncomfortable. I assumed the pain would go away eventually. After lunch I had had enough. I went to the first-aid kit and pulled out an aspirin. Popped it and went back to work.
Now I am feeling no headache. I’m alert and ready for anything. Better living through chemicals.
Generally I don’t like the thought of taking chemicals to feel better. If I take that pill that makes you happy (I forget the name, it’s not Viagra) I will feel better, but will I still be me. The magical effect of an aspirin makes a very convincing argument.

On Friday I drove down to Priddis. I had originally intended to leave on Saturday so I could pick my sister up at the airport. However the weather report indicated that there would be heavy snow starting that night, so I figured it would be better to get there sooner, than later.
On Wednesday I had filled the car with gas, and purchased a car wash as well. I didn’t use the wash immediately. I had planned to go and get the car cleaned right before I left so my sister would have a clean car awaiting her. Of course, when I went to the gas station to get to the car wash, they had a big sign saying it was closed. Bait and switch. So the inside of the car is all clean from where I cleaned it, but the outside looks horrible. I did not make a good first impression with it.
The trip down was otherwise uneventful. I do seem to have picked up a strange habit. Above the highway, at certain points, there are large light signs that flash important messages about how it is wrong to drink and drive. Whenever I go under one, I make sure I’m drinking. A coke of course, but it is the thought that counts. I think I may be speeding as well, when I go under them, but I’m not as sure about that.
It was St. Patrick’s day, so I suppose it would be the appropriate time to be drinking. Lunch that day was at Chili’s, which seemed to be doing their best to be as un-Irish as possible. Not a lick of green anywhere. I suppose if we wanted Irish and Tex-Mex, it would have been better to go to a place called Chilegans. But no such place exists.
If it is St. Patrick’s day, it means I have had my shoulder injury for a year now. Last year at this time I was at The Druid in a lot of pain from it. That’s kind of depressing.

I’m on vacation in Priddis right now. My sister is here on holiday from Florida. It’s good to see her again.
Of course I wasn’t feeling as generous when she declared to my parents that the resort I had stayed at in Jamaica was Hedonism. I had been trying to shelter them from that information.
She has to do a lot of school work, and the weather here has been fairly bad. So I’ve spent time trying to clean up my computer. I’ve been going through all my old files and putting them in organized locations. A lot of the time I have the same file, maybe with minor differences, in multiple locations. I’m paring them down and keeping only the essentials.
I have a huge pile of “Magic: The Gathering” stories I had written in 1994. I tried to figure out exactly when I had written them by finding them on the newsgroup that I had posted them to. I found four of them there, and then suddenly nothing. It took me awhile to figure out that after some time I had started posting them to a mailing list instead. Which is a shame because it means that there is now no record of them on the internet.

It finally happened. I was able to cancel my subscription to the newspaper. It’s been a long journey, but finally I’ve been able to see the end.
The deal I was on ended, I called up and said I wanted to cancel, and the guy didn’t make me a cheap offer to continue. Like the last dozen times. I get the feeling his heart wasn’t really in the salesperson side of things. In any case, at the end of this month I will no longer have a newspaper.
I will have to get my Sudokus elsewhere. Comics will need to be read online.
I will still remain informed because I read Time magazine. But now I won’t have the additional burden of a newspaper.

Of course, this could all come crashing down if they call me up and offer me a “special” deal.

I really didn’t want to run today. I had a feeling of dread that made me drag myself around. Hill training feels like work instead of fun. But I’ve signed up for the K-100 relay and paid my money, so I better get on it.
Surprisingly, I did actually do the run. I only did six Emily Murphy hills. That’s about all I can stand. I like to believe that physically I could do more, but mentally six hills is my limit.

Is Snapple still available?
On Sunday I had a craving for a lemon Snapple. This was in the evening, on the day when I had had a long run in the morning where I probably didn’t have enough hydration. So, needless to say, I was thirsty.
Going home from the improv jam I went into Safeway and looked through the cold drink section and couldn’t find any. I stopped off at a 7-11 as well, and had the same story. Now that I think about it, I can’t recall the last time I saw a Snapple for sale.
They have a functioning website, but that proves nothing in Canada.

Years ago there was a show called Dark Angel on television. It was hyped a lot because it was made by James Cameron, who I am sure you are aware is well known for his science-fiction movies.
Anyway, I faithfully watched it for one and a half seasons. I was usually busy when it was playing, but I recorded it so I could catch it later. Then one day something happened and I lost the recording. A single episode was missed. I then noticed that I felt no sense of loss over this tragedy. Apparently I didn’t care. Only momentum was keeping me watching the show.
I never did watch another episode.
The television show Lost was hyped a lot and many people said it was good. So when it went into reruns I started watching it. Several episodes were skipped because the television network didn’t know how to broadcast a show consistently. Still I got the gist of what was going on and it was interesting.
Now in the second season, that interest is waning. Nothing ever happens. I think this is going to head the same way as “Dark Angel”.
The killer seems to be the last new episode broadcast. It was on the same time as a new show called Free Ride. I was out at the time so I could only record one. I had to see Free Ride because I knew the lead actor. (Literally. I was in a class he taught on improv. He’s a nice fellow.) I figured I could catch the missing (no pun intended) episode of Lost at some later date, or figure out how to bittorrent it. But I feel no need to do that. There is no sense of loss.
Maybe this is a chance to reclaim some more free time?

This weekend I made an accomplishment.
I have gone through all the old computers and sucked all the pertinent data off of them. All I have left to do is delete any old files lurking around and then I can chuck them off the balcony and let them be some lower dweller’s problem.
Maybe we’ll call the balcony plan B.

Holy gronk! I haven’t updated in awhile.
Nothing too exciting to report. My free time has been spent trying to clear off the data of old Macintosh computers. (And an old Newton.) It’s not exactly edge of your seat excitement, but it needs to be done. In my mind everything will go better once this is done. I can get rid of the old computers that litter this place. And then concentrate on other projects.
I need to make a “To Do” list of all the other projects I’ve been interested in.
I’m also impressed that I have been keeping my condo fairly clean. Usually if there is no threat of anyone visiting, it slides towards the bad. But I have been setting time aside to keep it in good condition. I have no fear of anyone dropping by at the last minute because I am ready for them. However I have probably jinxed myself by mentioning this.
Next week my sister will be visiting Calgary from Miami. I’m picking her up from the airport, despite being in a different city. Then I take her to the parent’s place. I haven’t seen her in a year and a half, so I’m looking forward to this. I just have to figure out how long it takes to drive to Calgary from Edmonton so I can hit the airport when her plane arrives.

Today I received an email from my father.
He was reminding me of a few things to take care of. But at the end of it, since it was his birthday recently, he mentioned how old he was. I found this kind of shocking. I don’t tend to think of the age of my parents. They are some nebulous age that doesn’t really concern me. To find out explicitly how old my father is has brought feelings of mortality up in me.
Some day I would like to have a child. If I don’t start on that project soon then my father would never know a grandchild. This is becoming a very real possibility.
I really have to start getting my life in order and get past some of the psychological hang-ups that seem to linger in my brain.