I tried again to run today.  I got close to four miles in and figured I needed to turn around.  I felt the muscle pain I have been feeling and figured it wasn't worth it.  If I had been up for it I would have gone 20 miles.

It was a beautiful morning and I had that at least.  I called my wife (I have taken to carrying a cell phone) and she came and got me.  I walked and ran a total of five miles.  I need to take another couple of days off.

My tipping point is this weekend.  If I can run far, I can do 50 miles.  If not, I need to scale back.  My second option is to do 50K (31 miles) or to do a relay (legs of 12, 22 and 26) with one or two other people. 

Again, the run was a flop.  Ah well.  I'll try again.

I created a wiki for my work with students to help them get information.  I originally had the idea of posting my schedule so that students could just look it up.  I wanted to let them see, as a reminder, when we were scheduled to meet.  Eventually, I wanted them to be able to make changes.  So if I made an appointment with them and then they found out they had a game and had to leave mid-day, they could go in and make a change to free slot.

It hasn't been so easy.  I have a great calendar option but it is not private.  What I need is ease.  I want anyone to be able to see it.  If I have to invite people before they can see it, they just won't use it.  It needs to be public.  What I need is ONE page, with my calendar, that is password protected.  I really just want to avoid any old yahoo from stumbling across the page and making changes or seeing student names.

So I have tried to make it happen and I can't quite figure it out.  I am using PBwiki and if it won't work I just may need to try another product out there.  I am confident this can be a helpful tool.  The calendar is important because I have many students forget their appointments or tell me afterward that they could not make it.  I want to give them more power. 

I used this wiki, when we were planning a field trip, to keep track of numbers of students.  We had a limit and many of us were getting information from our own students.  It worked fairly well to help us keep track so we did not get too many signed up.  That is the idea.

I recently discovered a YouTube video that explains a wiki pretty simply.  It even is a bit entertaining:

Our compost bin started growing vegetables for us this summer.  Normally I would just yank them out, so it will all break down better and turn to compost.  I let a few plants go this time and they are growing like gangbusters.  We have tomatoes and pumpkins and squash escaping the wire box.  The squash was a surprise as I thought they were pumpkin plants. 

Take a look:

Last year the children pulled most of the apples off our apple tree during the summer.  They pretended they were food which, of course, they are.  This time they have pulled off only a few.  They (the apples) are just about ripe and there are many.  Apple pie, here we come.

Somewhere, the stars shine.  I cannot see them.  Clouds hustle across the night sky.  The wind blows hard, bending the late summer boughs.  Earlier, I watched the field wave like water trying to reach shore.

The darkness is deep tonight.  A storm is not far.  It reaches its long arms of sky up the lake valley and over the mountains and dips its fingers through my windows.  Its coolness sooths my face.  Rain will fall tomorrow.

Rain will dampen the dry soil and feed the tall grass.  The grass will stretch once more, try to get its seeds as high as it can to offer them to the wind.  In a month, the wind will pull the fluff of goldenrod so it laces the pines.  Milkweed puffs will float across the river.  They will be filled with tomorrow's rain.

Crickets and frogs sing, alto to the wind's bass.  Late summer symphony, the maples bow low throughout the performance.  What do I wish on a night like this?  For my children to sleep with peaceful dreams?  For my wife to love me?  For the turning of seasons and my wonder of it?  How can I wish for more than what I have when the world is so beautiful?

I rose early.  The morning was warm, almost 70 degrees, and the air was humid.  I donned synthetic shirt and shorts, socks and hat, slipped into running shoes, and walked into the morning.

My plan was to run 20 miles.  I had the option to do a shorter run.  I could have cut off in several places and done 15, 11, 7.5 or 4 miles.  I only got in three.  I could tell I wouldn't make it 20 by the first mile.  Another half mile in and I knew my chips were cashed in.  In fact, I said that out loud:  "My chips are cashed in," and tossed my hands forward as if they were filled with betting chips and the twilit road was a felt-covered table.

So no big run for me.  No 50 miles, no 50 kilometers, no 28 mile relay leg, no 12 mile relay leg.  I am done with this one. 

I can't deny I am disappointed, even angry, but what will that get me?  At this point I need take 2-3 weeks off completely, then keep running.  I need to find another goal and aim for that.  Those 20 miles runs are pretty dang good stuff.  Doing the long ones again I have remembered just how incredible it feels to get out there and put in the miles. Running all day is just an extension of that.

As I write, my friend Spike is running the Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run.  It is in the mountains of Utah, 100 miles, described on their web site this way:

The Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run is held in Utah the first weekend after Labor Day each year. The run stretches from Layton, Utah to The Homestead in Midway, Utah and covers some of the most beautiful scenery the Wasatch Mountains have to offer. There is a cumulative elevation gain of approximately 26,882 feet, as well as a cumulative loss of approximately 26,131 feet throughout the course. This is a premier run that will test the endurance of any runner.

He is a machine, and the one who got me interested in running farther than 26.2 miles.  The last I checked (they mark times for each runner at each check-in station) he was doing well.  As of now he is over 9 hours into it and has gone over 40 miles.  His status is here.

If he can pull that off, I can get in 50 at some point.  I am too close to the race to make this one happen, but I will get one in at some point.  Spike inspires me and a little muscle sprain won't stop me.  I will run over the winter and see what happens come spring. 

As of right now, my friend Spike, mentioned in the last post, is just about done with the Wasatch Front 100.  He is probably about 10 miles from the end.  My wife and I followed his progress yesterday and couldn't go to bed until we saw that he had left one of the checkpoints.  We saw that he had stopped but had not yet started up again.  He spent about 15 minutes there.

I am pretty blown away by the effort and the accomplishment.  The thing is, I want to do it, too.  I want to run all day and night on trails and in the woods.  I need to talk to that guy to see how I might get that done. 

I was up at 2:00 this morning.  I couldn't sleep--too much busyness in the brain.  I got up and checked to see how he was doing.  I was happy to see he was still at it.  He must be damn tired by now, running on auto-pilot.  He has been going for about 24 hours. 

It is pretty nuts.  And it is pretty appealing.

Well, he finished.  Thousands of feet of elevation gain and loss and 100 miles.  He came in 20th place in a field of 162 finishers.  There were 263 runners who started. 

His time:  26 hours, 28 minutes.  He finished about 7:30 AM Mountain Time.

What did you do with those 26 and a half hours? 

Way to go, Spike.  Well done.

Every time I get the electric bill I look to see how much electricity we used in the past month.  I don't just look at the amount and write a check.  I compare the past month to the same time last year to see where we stand. 

This past bill was for August.  We used about 300 kilowatts for the month.  The year before, however, we used only about 270.  That is an eleven percent increase.  Granted, 300 kilowatts is not huge.  But still, why did we use more?

Was it because we used the clothes dryer more because we had lots of rainy days?  Did we watch more videos?  Did we leave the oven on?  I am not sure.  But it makes me want to use less.

One thing I have wanted to for way too long without doing it is to plug in our television, DVD player and stereo to a power strip.  They all reside in one place and could easily be plugged into a power strip that we can turn off when we are not using it  (read more about electricity "vampires" here).

The disadvantage of doing this is that the machines are not "ready" all the time.  They may take a few seconds to warm up.  The clocks on them will also not keep the right time.  We never use those clocks anyway, and who can't wait a few extra seconds for a movie? 

So I will do that tomorrow.  Seriously.  I will head to Staples or some other place to buy electronics supplies and get a couple.  We could use another one upstairs.  Then we'ss see who uses 300 kilowatts of electricity in August.  Eventually, I hope to get our usage down to 400 or below for every month of the year. 

Maybe we will use the dryer in January, but heck, why use the stereo when we are asleep?  I mean, who's listening?

I heard yet another news story this morning about another pol that asked who respondents might vote for for president.  Yet again, it noted how close this race is.  I am sick of it.

If Americans hear enough just how close this race is, then they will base their decisions in large part on those pol results.  Americans are not smart.  We reelected George W. Bush.  Clearly we are not able to look at what is happening and make decisions based on information.  We vote based on other factors, including pol results.

Pols are quick snippets that supposedly give us a sense of the country as a whole.  Maybe they do to some degree, but here is what I want.  Candidates all (can you imagine more than two candidates on equal footing when voting time comes?) get to put out there what they believe, who they are, and what they plan to do.  Then on voting day, everyone (everyone would vote in my scenario) would cast their ballot for the candidate they think would be best, with no undue influence by the media.

It is one thing to have pundits out there claiming they know what they are talking about.  It is one thing to have bloggers blathering about what they think.  But pols claim to be scientific.  They claim to be legitimate.  When they say that the race is close, the implication is that half of the voters are for each candidate.

Americans want to vote for a winner.  They will vote for their person on their side, and they want to be on the winning side.  We are fickle.  If you really did not see a difference between John Kerry and George Bush in the last election, if you were on the fence, then there is no way you were paying attention.  If you can't decide who to vote for yet, with the deluge of information available, then you need to read more.

I am sick of the pols.  Give us information, let us hear the candidates, and sure, offer some analysis, but please, let us figure it out for ourselves.  We should vote for the candidate, in any election, who makes sense for us to vote for.  Why should it matter who is "ahead" in September?

So I see someone walking near me, or I see a stranger's face in a passing car and I can't help asking questions.  Who is that?  Why are they driving that direction at that time?  Why is she walking so quickly?  Who is that?

There are stories everywhere.  When I am in a crowd of strangers I am sometimes overwhelmed with questions.  Every person has a story and I wonder about the details.  Why is she wearing that ratty jacket?  Is it her only jacket?  Is it her favorite?  Does it have its own story?  And that guy with the thick glasses frames--is he trying to be hip?  Or has he had those for decades? 

I am especially curious about people near my home.  Does that person live close to me and I have simply never seen him?  Is she new to the area?  Maybe that woman is visiting this town for the first time--if so, what does she think of it?

You get the idea.  Some people tend to wonder what others think of them.  That is their default question.  They wonder what impression they make on strangers, on coworkers, on those they meet for the first time.  Like most people, I wonder about this as well, but it is not what comes to mind first.  I genuinely want to know about the lives of others.

Classic small talk means asking others about their lives.  But it too often means only half listening to the answers.  I am not good at small talk because I want to know the answers and I want to give the answers if asked.  I can't float through a conversation that has little meaning, when the other person isn't as interested as I am.

There is too much wonder in the lives of all of us, whether we know it or not.  We are all interesting, if only because no one has the same life as anyone else.  Who are you and why are you here?  I am curious.  I am ready to listen.

I went to the physical therapist today to see if she might check out my calf and give me some good ideas for recovery.  I went to Excel Physical Therapy, the same folks who helped me out after I had back surgery way back.  Once again, I was treated well.

Sure enough, I have a pulled muscle.  It sure seemed like it, but it was good to see someone who has seen them more than I have confirm this.  I guess I know a little after all.  When Stacy, the PT who did my assessment, finally got in there to feel what was going on, she said, "Oh yeah, you pulled something in there."  Just some focused prodding brought out the tenderness in me.

I don't feel it just hanging out, walking around, doing the daily slacker stuff.  But it is definitely injured.  The manipulation made that clear.  With some ultrasound and stretching, it did feel better, however, even after one short visit.  So I have a healing plan.

Step one is to stretch and to take it easy.  Step two is to go back for ultrasound a couple times each week for a few weeks.  Step three is to ice it occasionally.  Step four is to drink beer and watch season two of Heroes.

OK, step four may not actually aid the healing process, but I just got the first DVD of the second season of Heroes from Netflix.  Sitting and watching some video entertainment will, if nothing else, make me feel a little better about halting my training.  And the beer might provide some its own therapy.

I keep all this talk about Sarah Palin.  Here is what I see:  people who call themselves Democrats do what they can to find fault, and people who call themselves Republicans do what they can to find virtue.  If she were a Democrat, the same people would have different opinions about her.

I heard a Vermont Republican say recently, "politics is not about family."  That was a good example of justifying what you want to see.  Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for what was, in essence, a family matter.  I know they said it was about lying but that is hypocritical bung.  If they cared so much about lying then our current president would have been impeached long ago.

Sarah Palin is far from perfect.  I think she is scary, in fact.  But those who have already decided to vote Republican will find her to be a saint.  They will claim that she represents average Americans, just like the wealthy John McKain who rails against what he calls the elite.  The elite in this country are mostly Republicans but you won't hear them talk about that.  Sarah Palin fits right into that crowd.

I will not vote for the McKain/Palin ticket.  Lots of people will.  If McKain gets elected, I may have to consider moving to Sweden.  I know Americans are not that bright, but sheesh, after Bush, how could you in good conscience vote Republican.  Unless you have already justified why their elitist policies benefit you.

I had another physical therapy appointment this afternoon and they gave me the new treatment.  This muscle of mine is really knotted up and, although it has been slowly improving, it still is mighty tight. 

Last time they tried ultrasound, which worked pretty well.  It loosened things somewhat and I felt sore afterward.  Today they tried something different.  Stacey put some kind of pad thing under my leg (it was warm, and felt great!) and then did the old ultrasound.

I asked her if it would hurt and she said that most people would not say it hurts, but more that it feels uncomfortable or just plain weird.  She had that right.  The idea is that it makes the muscle contract a whole bunch of times, tires it out and forces it to relax because it is too tired to stay tense. 

Let me tell you, it felt weird all right.  I was twitching like a freshly beheaded fish.  It made both my legs twitch.  My right leg was twitching in sympathy.  Dang it felt odd, sometimes hot, sometimes prickly, sometimes sharp.  Then she poked at it with her fingers.  She didn't use much pressure but daggone it felt painful. 

This could take a while.  It is, as it were, kind of a bummer.  It will heal, I am sure, and at least it doesn't hurt just to walk about and be.  And then I will get back into running.  This sure is taking a long time.  But I guess if I want to run and ultramarathon, it just simply is going to take a long time.  As Yoda would say, "patient you must be."  And I will be.

My daughter hasn't been feeling quite right lately.  Yesterday she came home from school with a slightly swollen eye.  Pinkeye?  That would suck.  This morning it was almost swollen closed.  No school for her today.

The problem is that on Tuesdays both my wife and I depend on day care for both of our children.  We had no one to call on at the last minute this time, so I stayed home.  It is a bit of a hassle.  I had to cancel two big meetings and seven small meetings.  But I guess that is the way it goes, eh?  It seems like a load of stress in the short term but ends up working out fine in the long run.

She does have a poofy eye.  This afternoon she sits quietly looking at books and pretending to be teaching a class of children.  From her left side, no problem--just a slightly ragged kid in jammies.  But from the right side it looks like she got into a fight.  Except for the occasional tears, which is really just a nice way of saying eye seepage goo.

So the two of us chill at home, and I try to get some work done.  I have done a little and that has been good.  But I will have some catching up to do.  I have a booked calendar at this point so that may take a while.  But again, will I remember that in a few months?  Not really.  It will all work out just fine. 

No problem.  Except that eye goo.  Frankly, it kind of grosses me out.

My sister recently mentioned to me that she is still waivering on who to vote for for president.  If you are in the same boat, take a peak at this interview that John McCain gave recently.  Then tell me you still might consider him.

Today is the, for some, much anticipated Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Where it started I couldn't tell you but for several years it has been a day to celebrate.  Why?  Why indeed?  But then again, why not?

This day has taken off it seems.  Just a few years ago it was hard to find anyone who knew about this.  Now I see it all over.  All this week, Doug Savage has posted pirate cartoons on his web site, Savage Chickens.  This is today's:


That Talk Like a Pirate Day has gone mainstream can be evidenced by an email my wife received today.  It was for Boden, the clothing company, promoting a sale for this day only.  It included this text:  "Ahoy there Bodenlubbers.  Cap'n Redbeard 'ere.  It be "INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY', and we've stashed our treasure chest with 8 pieces o' Boden gold."  It included a translation about how this sale would take place.

I talked with some colleagues about how they were celebrating the day, and they were sorry that they missed it, as the day was well underway by then.  My response was appropriate, I thought:  "Ah but matey, yer sun ain't set jist yet, now 'as it?"

'Ave yerself a fine one.

That is what I have been the past few days.  When this fever goes away I will be glad.  I feel a little better today, but whew, far from 100%.

A couple night ago I woke up sweating, my pajamas soaked through enough I could have wrung them out.  I did not.  But I did change.

I polished off one bottle of Tylenol and have been taking it throughout the day.  I would have napped today, as I did yesterday, if my little boy weren't home sick with me.  He wasn't up for napping.

I am hoping in the morning I will be back.  See you then.

I ran across this poem recently and it really struck me:

They moved in unison
like dancers in a ballet,
the spider, twenty inches from my rifle,
the VC, twenty feet farther out, in line,
each slowly sliding a leg forward.
I let the man take one more step
so as not to kill the bug.

… Food for Thought: 3 A.M., by David Connolly

I think about these wars we are fighting every day and I can't shake the idea that as a nation we are so removed not only from the greater conflict and what it means but from the everyday experiences of the soldiers on both sides who are fighting.  This poem is from 30 years ago but still seems apt.

I read this on a recent posting on the Voices in Wartime Blog, which sprang from the Poets Against the War project. 

Buying Windmills

When they started pulling tainted milk products I thought
Oh crap, it's time to stop with the chocolate.
But then, thinking further, I thought
it's only a little milk and what
about dark chocolate, which is better for me anyway?
That is how I started spending a fortune
on expensive chocolate bars
and on expensive stock picks,
which really isn't that far a leap, as you know
if you have ever purchased either.

How far would you be willing to go
to justify doing what you want to do?
What if you were hooked on Sugar Babies?
Would you tell yourself they must be fine
because, really, they are so small
and there just is no substitute?
And what is one more online trade
when the price is so low? It has to go up soon
because, after all, the company sells windmills.

Close to 10:00 last night my wife and I looked out the window after hearing mysterious loud noises and saw the horizon aglow.  It was clearly a fire.  It was coming from the center of town.  We watched for a while and tried to get information without leaving home, but learned nothing.

It turns out it was the cheese factory in town.  All the sources I read about said the flames were "100 feet high."  WPTZ has an online report from today, however, that notes witnesses seeing flames "200 feet high."  Are they exaggerating?

When we lived in Bolton there were three major building fires on our block.  This is the second one since we have moved (the first was a house not far from here).  I haven't see the scene, but the photos make it look pretty bad.  No one was hurt, luckily, but it looks to be a whopper in terms of damage.  Messy stuff.  It still amazes me that such huge fires are still possible, despite fire prevention and protection. 

I am not looking forward to hearing about any other fires.  The house that burned a while back belonged to the folks who own the local hardware store.  We wondered last night if that were the source of the fire.  It was not, of course.  Hopefully the fire departments from across Chittenden County who responded will have had enough excitement for now, and they can keep their equipment clean for a while.

We got to sleep eventually, but we worried awake for a while.  There was little for us to do, however.  So we stayed where we were.  Safe in bed.