Say What?

I woke up last Monday morning at 4:10 after only four hours of sleep. I laid there trying to drift off again knowing that I'd need more sleep than what I'd had if I was to make it through the day in a somewhat coherent state. It wasn't happening. I headed downstairs and shoveled a bowl of Kashi cereal into the machine before lacing up my shoes and stepping out into the predawn darkness to go walking.  There would be time to catch another hour or two of sleep before work when I got back if I needed to. Maybe it was the idea of being out there when most everybody else was still asleep that was appealing to me most but there was a definite tranquility that was working for me and I was feeding off it. My music collection on Google Music keeping me company. I passed another guy walking toward me on the lighted path along Highway 50 as I made my way toward the McDonald's on the south side of the city; my halfway point and where I had a date with a medium orange juice and ...

I had to take my 2001 Nissan Frontier pickup-truck in on Tuesday to replace the rear main-seal. I'm determined to get at least another couple of years use from it. I brought it to a friend Keith recommended; a friend he used to race with years ago—Bruce at Ultimate Automotive in Apple Valley. Rather than have Tammy drive me home I decided to walk and rather than take a direct route home, I took a roundabout way. Since I can't ride outdoors and I really do need my dose of sunshine, I think I'll adopt walking as something in addition to my CompuTrainer that I'll do this summer to stay fit. My Google Music collection kept me company—all of my music totally accessible while I meandered the 8.5 miles home. Having spent so many years as a runner ( a recent post about those days), I never seriously considered walking as an alternative. Funny how one's perspective changes over time. I see myself getting as excited to go for a walk as I used to about a run. It occurre...

I'm probably more of a weather geek than most but that's because of the amount of time I spend outdoors on my bike. I appreciate a site that provides good wind and temperature forecast details as well as one that maintains a history of this data. I think I've stumbled onto the pièce de résistance of weather sites. Check it out . Note the slider along the bottom that takes you back in time; in this case (Minneapolis) as far back January 1st, 1948. My retirement countdown is on and as of this writing, I have at most 661 days left before I push back from the scope one last time. Not that I want to wish my life away but how fast will 661 days pass by? My blog is a perfect tool to help me put into perspective my time remaining. Using this calendar-calculator I can plug in the number of days I want to go either forward or backward in time to see what the date would be. 661 days in reverse takes me to May 19th, 2010. Looking at my blog I find this post from May 16, 2010. Not ...

I got a recent text from Rachel: "Hey so i have to use missys car to get to the cities this morning for dance. So i used the gas card to fill her tank." I had to smile. The "gas card" she refers to is a credit card that she's had for years and woud use to fill her tank. I'd just never heard her call it a "gas card". She recently posted a photo to Facebook taken by a professional photographer from last weekend's dance competition. The photo had a huge watermark across it so I wrote "Hey, feel free to order this photo or any others you'd like to have...you can put them on the "gas card" :-) I love that kid! There's a question I've been kicking around in my head much more than ever lately: when will I retire? It's not as though I need to define the date and lock it in, but for reasons I'm not entirely sure about, I need a plan. And so I have one. January 2nd, 2014. Actually, the date reflects the latest I...