Good Friday afternoon all.  I was working on a change order review where I had to spend a lot of time working on a spreadsheet, and when I came out of that for a walk around the office, holy smokes, where did everyone go?   It was like I fell asleep and woke up after work the office was closed or something.  Nope, just the last day of work before a major holiday - folks who come in do tend to leave a little after lunch.  But wow, not usually like this!

I woke up early enough this morning to get in a workout with the machines in the Y's gym prior to swimming, primarily because it was my first workout since August and I only did 1 set of 4 or 5 exercises - just enough to get back in the swing, and also because I now start my workday at 8:30 instead of 8:00. Tomorrow will be an easy "push" workout and today was an easy "pull".

I did a swim workout that included 10 25-yard underwater dolphin kicks and 10 25-yard breaststroke pull-outs.   2,600 yards in all for the whole workout.    When I have been doing the underwater dolphin kick drills lately, if at all, I have been doing them 50 yards at a time with 15 seconds rest.  Today I did 25's with 30-seconds rest, so that I was fresh for every one.  I think the point of these should be to do them correctly, which I've never really learned to do...rather than just suffering though them, which is what I usually do.

I passed my annual mileage goal of 300 miles earlier this month, and then reconnoitered so that my new goal is 325 miles.  I'm at 319 miles after today's swim, just 6 miles out and 7 days remaining in order to get there - the pool is closed on Christmas New Years.   That reminds me - the YMCA in Glens Falls is where a lot of the other Adirondack Masters swimmers are centered, and the club president organizes a New Years Day swim challenge - It's 100 100's!   10,000 yards to start off the new year.  Then they go out for donuts and bagels or something.   I guess it's about equal to a running or walking marathon, so I guess it isn't that weird, but it sounds uber challenging and uber boring to me.  400 lengths of the pool!  I ran a half-marathon on a 1/4 mile track once - that was bad enough!

In a corollary to the question about running being bad for the joints or whatever old saws that people still believe, I think you could use my experience at the cardiologist's waiting room each time I go in for a checkup.  Yeah, it's possible that some of my irregular heartbeat is training related.  Running on days when it was 90 degrees and humid is advised against, and they say you can do long-term damage to your heart that way.  And maybe I did.  But when I'm in the waiting room, I'm not surrounded by people who look like they have been running or swimming (or doing anything athletic) their entire lives.  I'm sure the same applies to waiting rooms at orthopedic surgeons' offices.

I'm going to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" at the old Palace Theater in downtown Albany tonight.  It's s tradition I've been following since my kids were in middle school youth group at our church and they're now in their late 20's and early 30's.  When I first started going it was smattering of people spread throughout the lower section of the grand old theater, and in recent years (COVID not included), the theater has been at least half full, and the crowd loves to get into it.  Lots of cheering (and crying) at the end.   Tickets are now free, thanks to a local general contractor who happens to be doing work on one of my client's facilities.   Cool!

Ah, first day of winter break. Mrs Bio and I did some food shopping then I went to the Y and hit the ARC trainer for 20 minutes, lifted some weights, and ran into a former student who is close to graduating with his mechanical engineering degree; haf a nice chat with him.

I cooked a shrimp scampi with orzo from the NYT cooking section that we like quite a bit.

I'm reading Stephen King's newest book, "Holly". It is very good and sucked me right in. I'll likely finish it in 2 days.