Rudolph Run 5k

It was cold and windy, but no rain or snow this morning. Five of us braved the cold weather to participate in the annual Christmas 5k. It is a local run with little frills, but some of the best events are the small ones. It is kinda cool when the race director knows your name.

Last year we dedicated the race to Alyssa who had just found out she had breast cancer. This year she is cancer free and was there to run with us. A nice bit of closure.

It was also Amy's first time running a 5k. She walked the event last year, but this time she did a run/walk. She had done all her training indoors on a treadmill, so breathing in the 35 degree air and fighting the hills made it a bit tough, but she finished well and promised to run another 5k. We welcome another sucker runner to the fold.

The twelve ornaments of Christmas

The two ornaments above are ones that my Grandmother made years ago. She was my Mom's mother. And she wasn't 'Grandma', she was 'Nannie'. Even folks at work called her Nannie. She was a wonderful woman, very loving and caring, but she would shake her finger at you when you were in trouble.

I can remember many holidays spent at her house, our ever expanding family crowded around the table. It was quite an event to graduate from the kids table to the adult table. I remember the glass dish with butter mints on the dining room bureau, the game cabinet in the living room with games from my mother's youth, and all the other treasures in her basement. Her house was Home.

TGI the weekend

Well it was a blustery day here in the northwest. We have been enjoying a very mild November and December, but the weather has turned. Temperatures moved into the 30's and winds were steady all day. The typical "Storm of the Century" weather coverage this morning was predicting temps in the 20's and possible snow tonight. They have backed off a bit on the dire predictions, but winter weather is here.

It was a long day at work fighting the wind and sideways rain. When the high winds whipped across the roof of the truck, it rippled like the sound effects metal used to simulate thunder. Pine trees were swaying, and garbage cans were rolling down the road. If a house didn't have a sufficient enough covered area to protect the packages from the rain, we had to put them in large plastic bags. For a job that depends on shaving seconds, this makes it tough to stay on schedule.

Tomorrow morning is the local Rudolph Run 5k. I am pretty smoked from a week of running packages in work boots, so this 5k will definitely be just for fun. Friends and I have run this event the last few years, and it is a nice way to wrap up the year. As I head off to bed I hope that the threat of snow has been exaggerated.

Have a great weekend.

The twelve ornaments of Christmas

The bird ornament above is one of three that decorate our tree - one red, yellow and blue. They are made of wood, rather delicate, and have about an inch and a half wingspan. They are ornaments from when I was growing up, and they are the first ones I put on our tree each year. They are probably older than I am.

When I was growing up I really liked flying ornaments, I'm not sure why. I also had an ornament with a reindeer flying a biplane, but it disappeared somewhere over the years. There was also a family favorite called "Joy Bird". It was a big, yellow, construction paper bird made by my older brother. It had 'Joy' in big black letters on the side, and the bird was wearing a ball cap and sneakers. It was a classic.

Happy Birthday Amy!

Wait a second

"With a brutal economic slowdown, 2008 may feel as if it will never end. Now the world's timekeepers are making it even longer by adding a leap second to the last day of the year.

Along with the economy, the Earth itself is slowing down, requiring timekeepers to add an extra second to their atomic clocks to keep in sync with Earth's slightly slowing rotation. So an extra second will be tacked on to Dec. 31 after 6:59:59 p.m. and before 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time."


"The Earth is rotating slower and slower over time, while the atomic clocks are not slowing down. On one average day the difference is around 0.002 seconds,which means around 1 second in 500 days. In order to synchronize the atomic clocks with the Earth's observed rotation, the atomic clocks are occasionally instructed to add an extra second – the leap second. Leap seconds are inserted so that the difference between the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) and UT1 (mean solar time - observed Earth rotation) is kept below 0.9 seconds. "

Associated Press
Time and date.com

Quote(s) of the day

“Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.” --Plato

"Every time I fail I assume I will be a stronger person for it." --Joan Benoit Samuelson

Quote of the day

Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else.

- Eleanor Roosevelt, human rights activist

The person you are trying to reach is unavailable

The Dawg Run has a rant on phones this morning. I can sympathize - I am not a fan of talking on the phone, but carrying one around is a necessary evil for my regular line of work.

The battery in my "fancy" phone is almost toast. This is the phone/PDA with e-mail and web access, as well as all my calendar and contact information. The battery won't last 8 hours on standby and will drain with a couple of phone calls. I have a cheaper/simpler back up phone that I normally take out running or biking. The fancy phone is bulky and expensive so I don't want to carry it or risk dropping it.

With the battery issues, I have been carrying the cheaper phone with me on the UPS truck. So no e-mail during the day. Not many folks are calling these days, plus I can't hear the ringer over the diesel engine so I may miss the call anyway. Being untethered has been kinda nice. I could use a little focus in my life right now, and being away from the "bing" of a new e-mail every few minutes is refreshing.

What was your name?

I am terrible at remembering names. A times it seems like I am trying to not remember their name. When someone tells me their name, it is like my mind says "what is that shinny thing over there" to distract me, and the name is gone.

I am trying to improve, and I am getting lots of practice delivering packages during the day. We have regular business stops where we need to get a signature when we drop off a package. As most signatures are illegible, I need to ask them their name to clarify who I left the package with. I don't want to ask the same person "what was your name" every day, so I am trying my best to focus. It is an uphill battle with all the new faces, but it is getting better.

Happy Birthday Dave!

Stringing up the lights

Today Christmas officially began in our household. We made our annual pilgrimage to Home Depot to pick out a Christmas tree, but their trees were looking a little peaked this year. There was another lot a half a mile away that was sponsored by Chubby and Tubby. Chubby and Tubby was a discount store in the Seattle area opened in the 1940's, and they sold relatively inexpensive Christmas trees each season. The last store closed a few years ago, but they are sponsoring three tree lots this year staffed by some former employees. There were a few Charlie Brown trees at a discount, but their regular trees weren't so cheap this year. We splurged on a Grand Fir and its a beaut.

We threw in a couple of our favorite Christmas CDs and started digging out our decorations. One of the best parts of decorating the tree is going through all the ornaments each year. Some we have bought together as a couple, but many are from our youth. I've inherited ornaments that used to decorate my family tree, and there are handmade ornaments made by my Mom and Grandmother. Each has a little memory attached to it.

One thing missing from our tree is candy canes. We always had them on our family tree growing up, and I can remember sneaking a few off the tree in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I'd grab them off the back of the tree where I though no one would notice. I know I can just buy a big ol' box of them now, but it would be more fun to sneak one off the tree each day.

Deliver(ance)

Well Black Friday gave way to Cyber Monday and our trucks are full. Delivering packages goes further into the earlier-darkening night. I spend the last hour or more running packages with a headlamp on. It is a good thing my driver knows the neighborhood so well as so few of the houses have lights on by their house numbers. Our house, like too many others, doesn't have house numbers at all. We didn't like the ones on there before the paint job, and haven't replaced them yet. Take pity on your poor delivery people and put those numbers where we can see them (day or night).

We actually received a UPS package yesterday, and my driver handed it to me as I hopped on the truck. I ran it back inside and wondered all day what it might be. A Christmas anticipation (Thanks Kevin!).

The shelves of our truck are full and the floor stacked four feet high with packages. UPS survives only with incredible amounts of organization, and tis the season when they need it the most. Unfortunately when systems get overloaded, organization takes a beating. A half empty garage is easy to organize with shelves, bins and labels, but when it starts getting filled to capacity, you tend to give in and just toss any additional items anywhere.

I'm still enjoying the job, but I am taking a bit of a beating. Walking is a great way to recover from a full or half marathon - running and climbing stairs all day, not so much. I decided to wear a pedometer to see how far I was running each day, but unfortunately the bouncing of the van adds to the clicking off of miles. I stashed it in the van yesterday instead of on my belt to do a little subtraction, and it looks like I am running between five and seven miles in short sprints each day.

There were lots of flat screen tv's from Costco on the van yesterday, so there must have been a good sale I missed. Guitar Hero III is popular this year, and yesterday marked the release of the Harry Potter lite book The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Amazon had some clever muggle packaging to mark the occasion.

Riding around with Paul has been another nice change of pace. The last four or five years I have been working largely alone. Without daily social interaction, an already introverted personality has turned farther inward. This has taken a toll on friendships and on the wife. I often describe myself as a loner who happens to have a large number of friends, but that isn't really accurate. It isn't that I prefer to be alone, it is just that I can be content without others around. But content isn't happy, and I need to aim a little higher.

The sunset was beautiful last night as I ran around my town. Have a great weekend everybody.

Dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century

When the Mom-in-law visited over Thanksgiving, she brought early Christmas presents with her. She gave the wife and I each a Kindle, Amazon's wireless electronic reader. Knowing that we were both big readers, she figured we'd enjoy the latest technology. After a few days using the Kindle, it is a pretty cool device.

The screen is one of the more impressive features. Amazon's calls the technology "electronic paper", and it is pretty similar to reading a printed page. There is none of the electronic glow and glare of a typical computer screen, so there is none of the eye strain associated with it. The bonus features of doing your reading on the Kindle include:

• The ability to carry about 200 books with you. You can also delete any of the books and download any of them later if you wish.

• An included electronic dictionary so you can look up any words while you are reading. You can also look up the terms on Wikipedia as well.

• You can create bookmarks, highlight passages, make notes and store clippings for later reference. The clippings can be saved to your computer as well.

• You can purchase books for $9.99 or less and have them sent wirelessly to your Kindle for free. This can save quite a bit of money and time, especially on best sellers and new releases still in hardback.

• You can download samples of any of the books before you buy.

• You can also subscribe to newspapers and magazines and have them sent wirelessly to your Kindle, again at noticeable savings.

I have downloaded a sample of one of the books on my to-read list. I think I will especially enjoy using the Kindle for non-fiction reads. The ability to take notes and look up terms all on one device will be helpful. This will also come in handy for book club discussions.

The Kindle is one of those things I was interested in, but would not have purchased for myself anytime soon. And those are the best kind of presents. I have a stack books staring me in the face, so my regular use of the Kindle will probably a month or so away. I only wish I had it before I bought the Nicolas Sparks book for book club. Then I could have read it anonymously.

Weekend couch time

My Mom-in-law came up to visit over the Thanksgiving holiday. She lives about 2 1/2 hours away by car, and we always appreciate when she comes up to spend time with us. As we were all a little run down, and trying to avoid spending extra money these days, we stayed in during the evenings to watch a couple of movies. We rented Juno and The Bucket List.

Juno is about a teen girl named Juno who gets pregnant and decides to give the baby up for adoption. The movie's attraction is in the quirky characters and Juno's snappy/sarcastic dialogue. The adoptive parents are Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman, and though they seem to have it all initially, in the end they aren't as prepared for adoption as they think. Juno's parents in the movie are more understanding and supportive than she expects. Overall it was an enjoyable movie.

I enjoyed The Bucket List. From the previews I expected a pretty formulaic movie, but I was pleasantly surprised. With Jack Nicholson, you can expect some over the top moments, but I didn't feel him dominating the movie like I expected. And I always enjoy Morgan Freeman. Their characters share a room in the hospital as they are both being treated for different forms of cancer. Their relationship is initially abrasive, but after going through chemo together they form an uneasy friendship.

Freeman's character recalls a teacher's exercise of writing a bucket list of all the things you want to do in your life before you "kick the bucket". He starts to write one, but after a couple of entries he gets the news that he has less than a year to live. He crumples up the list thinking "what is the point now". Nicholson's character finds the list, convinces Freeman that it is now more important than ever, and offers to fund the adventure. He adds his own entries to the list like skydiving, getting a tattoo and kissing the most beautiful girl in the world to the list.

They jet around the world to a safari in Africa, the pyramids in Egypt, and the Great Wall of China. Along the way they delve into topics of philosophy, religion, family and regrets. There are some predictable moments, but I found the movie to be pretty satisfying.

After the movie, my Mom-in-law asked what was on my bucket list. I didn't really have an answer. I have some goals and things I'd like to do, but I'm not sure they are big enough to be on a bucket list. I've been fortunate to have some great adventures, and I have lots of stuff in my bucket already (to mix metaphors). The goals these days are smaller and as a couple.