No text

Cocktail Hour: Latin Crooners

To the person who was looking for the Cocktail Hour: Latin Crooners CD last night: I found it just a few minutes after you left. Call me.

Stop Podcasting Yourself 155

This afternoon I listened to the latest Stop Podcasting Yourself episode while walking the dogs through the trails and by the river as light rain fell. I've only listened to the last few episodes (there's one episode a week), and this one was my favourite by far. Why wasn't I turned on to this podcast earlier? Whyyyy?! One of the hosts is Graham Clark - Biscotti and I have seen him do standup comedy a few times around Vancouver. He was featured on the NBC show "Last Comic Standing". He's funny. I don't know who Dave Shumka is, but he's funny too.

Click here for this week's episode featuring Alicia Tobin.

Once upon a tweet

I joined Twitter a long time ago. I stayed with it long enough to post 245 tweets (mostly inane stuff, and a significant amount aimed at - or replies to - a couple of people), with the most recent one being on May 2, 2010. From May 12, 2010, until today, 25 Twitter users have signed up to follow me. Why?! Is it based on past tweets that struck a chord with them? Did a past tweet have synergy with a product they're selling? The thing is, more than 50 million tweets are posted every single day (source), so surely there must be something more recent and relevant than anything I ever posted that could help my newest followers. Maybe the new followers simply liked my background - a wallpapered image of my dogs. Okay, but they'd first have to be on my page, and what would have brought them there? My ten-month-old declaration that green grapes are delicious?

Valentine's Day 2011

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Biscotti and I had an enjoyable, low-key evening. Our children spent time with their maternal grandparents as the two of us went for dinner just the two of us, which is a rare event. We usually have either the kids or other friends/family with us, or both. After dinner we picked up the monkeys, took them home, tucked them in bed, then watched last night's How I Met Your Mother before firing up some first-season episodes of Glee. We watched all 3 episodes from disc 3 while heavy rain and thunder and lightning occurred outside. At 1 a.m. it was time to hit the sack.

My alarm was set for 7:45 this morning, allowing me time to get up and leave the house for a run before 8:25. I finally stood up at 8:07, and was putting on my running underpants when I realized it was garbage and recycling day, which meant putting our junk curbside by 7 a.m. - oops! I sped things up and was carrying the recycling to the curb as the truck was two houses from reaching us - phew! The garbage truck always comes a couple of hours later, so that was fine. The run was a Bellini-and-ribs heavy one, and there were many broken branches and a few downed trees cluttering the trails (oh right, that storm the night before), but I still managed to keep my time-to-distance ratio (also known as my pace, I guess) respectable.

The shooting of John T. Williams by Seattle police officer Ian Birk

On August 30, 2010, a man from British Columbia was shot and killed by a Seattle police officer. 50-year-old John T. Williams "was a member of the Ditidaht First Nation, also a member nation of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth. The Ditidaht First Nation is a small, remote community on the west coast of Vancouver Island" (source). The police officer was Ian Birk. Here is Seattle police spokeswoman Renee Witt on the same day of the shooting:



A video taken from inside Birk's patrol car was released on December 17, 2010. Here it is (Williams appears at 0:51 and the audio begins at 1:03):



The two videos and their discrepancies speak for themselves, but I'll add that Williams was hearing impaired.

Marathon Quest 250 is over

Do you remember this post about the Albertan who planned to run 250 marathons in 2010 with hopes of raising $250,000 for Right to Play? Well, he did run number 250 on New Year's Eve, but fell a little short of his money goal. I am in awe of his accomplishment.

No, really, it's small

When I first started running regularly, I was slow and unconfident. Okay, I wasn't that slow, but I was unconfident. On the trails in Pacific Spirit Park, whenever I was gaining on another runner I would slow my pace. I knew that at any time my body could reach its limit and say, "it's stopping time", and I didn't want that to happen right after passing a runner. "Hey! Look at me! You so slow and me so fast! Look at me pass you with ease! Wheeeeee! Oh, my bad. After you..."

This continued after our move and as I began running the local trails. Now though, my endurance has picked up considerably, along with my confidence, and I now have no qualms about gaining on and passing other runners. Let them look at my small ass as it gets even smaller off in the distance.

Small ass?, you ask. Yes, I answer.

Having said all that, today was an exercise in perseverance. I haven't run much lately because I've been working more than usual and the weather's been lousy and in the past week I've been fighting a battle against illness (which is now at a standstill at sorethroat hill). My pace today was sooooo slow. Fortunately it was midday on a weekday and just three days before Christmas day, so the trails were nearly vacant 'cept for me and the doggies. So, yeah, I've been feeling like crap, but keeping up the regular running would do me a world of good, so make sure I keep it up, okay? Thanks.

To be fair (to me), it *has* started raining

Sleepy. Want to take the dogs for a snowy walk. Sleepy. Want to take the dogs for a snowy walk. Sleepy. Want to take the dogs for a snowy walk. Sleepy. Want to take the dogs for- zzzzzzzzzzz

It's so pretty and white outside, and it's mid-afternoon with plenty of daylight left, but working overnights this week has me in rest mode right now. A power nap is where it's at. The weather forecast is for rain and warmer temperatures, so after the final two overnights the snow will likely be all gone. Not cool.

David Letterman - Chilean Miner, Edison Peña