Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

Keeping myself busy with work and training and attempting to get sleep. Last night was the first good night of sleep I’ve had in about a week and I’m hoping to follow up on it with another good one this evening. Between a weather front that’s been passing back and forth over DC (hot, cold, hot, cold, and always wet) and just being drained at work I was a mess the past week. It seems to be evening out finally (though the oil spill is not helping…), and I keep reminding myself that the work front should be busy but in a different way once the other fiscal attorney comes on board after Memorial Day.

I’m a bit disappointed with where my biking is at the moment. I’m mostly happy with swimming and running. I took a run clinic earlier this month from the guy who wrote the book on the style of running I use and that was enormously helpful. I’ve continued to try and focus on form while I run, and just by that I’ve been a bit quicker than I was before, though I’m having to watch the heart rate. The beepy-thingey has been my constant companion (a metronome like thing that allows me to try and turn the legs over at a certain rate), much to the amusement of other people on the trail I’m sure. Swimming’s been okay, and the changeover I did to 100s, with each one a focus on a particular aspect of the stroke, has also helped. Biking, on the other hand, I feel behind on mostly due to scheduling things on the weekends. Not sure where I’d make it up, though if I keep waking up at 3 am and not being able to crash I might just do it in the morning rather than the weekend. Silly body.

Continuing to read like mad on training stuff. And I’ve started doing some reading into Buddhist notions of the self. Interesting take on things, and one which seems to resonate. Not sure where that will go, but the reading is interesting.

Trying to play through the video game Infamous on both hard mode and trying to play it as the good guy, and it ain’t easy. My old tactics while playing the evil side (blow ’em all to hell as quickly as possible) don’t work; I keep getting an “execution” bad karma hit that throws the entire mission off. Very annoying. But, challenging, and I’m keeping at it off and on. That might go to the side though, I just got a copy of Prototype to try out.

Had a date or two. Trying to decide which way a crush is going. But nothing definitive on that front at the moment. Which may be for the best; once the new triathlete stuff is done this year, training starts to ramp up a lot.

I just saw a woman wearing black Crocs with her pants suit. It’s a shame they don’t give us honorary fashion police ticket books, or she’d have gotten one.

I need to teach my clients the concept of “admission against interest.” Just because someone has asked for information doesn’t mean you have to divulge everything, only what they asked for, narrowly tailored to fit the request. This is not an opportunity to throw on a hair shirt and get out the scourge, folks.

Saw Stardust this weekend. Marvelous film. Will enjoy getting it on DVD once it’s out – this was definitely an over-and-over-again type of film for me. And Michelle Pfeiffer was hot as the witch queen.

Rode out to BC’s place on Saturday. If that type of commute is going to become a regular thing, which it may, I’ll need to get another bike. I rode the tri bike, which meant carrying a bag on my back. Not terribly comfortable for 2 hours. I need a bike with a rack for panniers, and the mountain bike simply is not up to that kind of riding. Maybe in the spring I’ll look for a road bike. And figure out where to store a third bicycle.

Getting back into the swing of things, post head cold and pre-races. The swim is still the most nerve-inducing part, but I expect it to go more smoothly than previous races. I’m less anxious about it than I have been in the past, and I think it’ll be fine.

I’m glad I gave up the morning paper, I am making it through more in the way of other reading, but the magazine pile hasn’t really diminished. I have made it through 1.5 books, though, and the last Harry Potter is sitting out, beckoning.

Spent a good chunck of this morning with a splitting headache, both from physical sources (lack of sleep, the sore), and work itself (another Big Government Agency is proposing something that I can’t find any legal basis for doing). An overly heavy lunch and some advil helped somewhat, but not completely. Was very happy to leave, though it was a tad late.

The newbie program proceeds apace. Having a weekly conference call is helping tremendously this year to keep us focused and going (and to spread the work). I think we’re doing much better than last year at this.

I rearranged the living room furniture in anticipation of the new couch. Yeah, I have several weeks yet, but I wanted to experiment before the thing was actually here. I’m not entirely convinced this set up works, but we’ll see. The books from the one bookshelf are still all over the floor, so it’s hard to tell how it’ll look when it’s all together.

Quiet weekend here. Steven was in town and crashed here for the weekend, but my legs were bothering me (a side effect of the prednisone, I think), so I was rather more of a stick in the mud than usual. Was good to see him, but was disappointing I didn’t feel up to wandering out (or doing much of anything). Did get in a lot of gaming, both on the DS and the PC, which made me wonder if I really needed to upgrade the PC as little as I use it. Eventually, I’m sure, but it’s not a priority in the budget.

Also caught up on reading (not but so much you can do when the most comfortable long-term position is with your legs stretched out and relaxed), both the current book (“Ironcrown Moon” by Julian May) and delved into the ever-present pile of magazines. I’ve gotten “free” subscriptions to a couple of magazines over the years, and they end up sitting there until I spend 15 minutes to flip through them, see if there’s anything interesting to read (usually not), and toss ’em out. They end up costing more in psychic distress (clutter) than the “free” label would imply, so getting them out is always a good thing.

Been doing a bit of reading lately. Currently on the plate, aside from the usual magazines (Runner’s World, Instinct, Genre, Triathlete, etc.), are Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds, Blindness by Jose Saramago and Ironcrown Moon by Julian May. I’ve liked both Mr. Reynolds’ and Ms. May’s works. His are pure hard science sci-fi, and hers are I suppose technically also hard science, but with a hint of fantasy, given the mythological overtones in her Saga of Pleiocene Exile. Mr. Saragamo’s Nobel-winning novel was recommended, and loaned, by a co-worker.

Okay, just one comment (no spoilers) on Battlestar tonight – is it me or is the long hair and beard thing on Baltar making him look more and more christ-like?

I blame Susan Dennis, as if there were any need to blame someone, but to her goes the blame for getting me to go to the local library finally, some 7 months after I moved down to Southwest.

I’d not been to the local branch here, the Southwest Neighborhood Branch. I’d been to the Mt. Pleasant Branch many times, and I suppose I was spoiled by MtP and its Carnegie library building. Like all of Southwest, the library was reborn from the ashes of “Urban Renewal,” but unlike the cool modernist residential buildings that surround it, there is little of modernist design about it, other than the municipal cinderblock architecture (so reminiscent of my mother’s Junior High/Middle School library, where she worked for almost 30 years). Regardless of the design elements (or lack thereof), the building was in good repair, and did have a nice modern touch in the automatic doors for both entrance and exit.

The science fiction collection was rather small, two sets of bookshelves and a part of a third, but it will do me for now. I grabbed three books after renewing my card (“Your card has expired, and we have these new ones now, so which design would you like?”), updating my address and all that. They even have a keychain card, though I doubt I’ll use it since I don’t use any of the other ones I have (I consider them a nuisance at best – who wants to carry around all that extra crap in their pockets? CVS and Safeway have it right in that they allow you to just give or type in your phone number and be done with carrying more cards). I’ll have to bug the Friends group to add to the collection there. Or get creative with requests from other branches.

I also noted with some satisfaction that they have proper bike parking out front, of the reletively recent vintage that the city government is putting up here and there as they can. Glad they did so at a municipal building, and I’ll be using the bike to hop up there from here on out, I suspect.