Erika, Sorry about the iTunes troubles. I am terrible about backing stuff up. DH and I are both technical people, you'd think we'd have home computer setup perfectly, not so.. it's like the car mechanic that drives the junker. Legs are toast today from last nights hill circuits. I was suppose to run the down hill HARD, and I included a little flat section in it. The downhill was about 3 minutes of running under an 8:00 min pace. Was a combo intervals and hill workout after all. Couldn't sleep last night, at 2:00 a.m. I laid in the tanning bed, tan the fat. When you're legs are tired, and you're tired, I'm never sure if it's better to go jog 20-30 minutes or just take a day off. Sometimes those days off refresh me mentally. (I'm think Shan would tell me to keep moving.) I wish I had time to get to the pool, my favorite way to recover.

jhallum, You are my idol with the amazing running you're doing.

Erika, on the backup drive, I splurged and got one of the really nice ones with a built in USB/Firewire hub from http://www.macsales.com/. Its very nice but any external USB or Firewire drive will work fine (firewire 800 is much faster if your mac has that interface). 4 easy miles today in perfect weather (take that, Bugs). Self control was restored and I ran a consistent 9:00 pace.

YAYYYYYYY Jeremy! Hope to see you in the 80's this week! I agree it is WAY too beautiful not to be out enjoying it and like you I have a double day planned. Nice self control Dave! I need some of that (though I am doing MUCH better) Hope your foot is feeling better ASAP Erika! Bugs, enjoy whatever you decide to do today! I didn't get a second run in yesterday due to dh coming home with a major migraine. However I am now glad I didn't since today looks PERFECT for doubles! Got in 10 easy miles earlier and will do another 4-6 after dh gets home.

Erika, on the backup drive, I splurged and got one of the really nice ones with a built in USB/Firewire hub from http://www.macsales.com/. Its very nice but any external USB or Firewire drive will work fine (firewire 800 is much faster if your mac has that interface). 4 easy miles today in perfect weather (take that, Bugs). Self control was restored and I ran a consistent 9:00 pace.

+1. When I bought drives for faculty workstation backups in my old job (we had no centralized backups), we used to buy stuff like this all the time. For Macs with Firewire, go with something by Seagate, or maybe Maxtor, as they warranty the drives and enclosures for 3 years, not just the first year.

Hi Mr.I! Glad your running is going well... keep popping in from time to time. And yes, that is her. I agree... totally amazing. Bugs- what did you decide to do ? I thought about you when I was running because I was really tired before going out to run. I wasn't up at 2 am., but I didn't get enough sleep. I am glad I made myself go- the weather really helped to get me out the door, too. and, you have a tanning bed in your house? that's cool.

Dave, the carbonite referral is in your inbox -- no problem on the beer Yapper, I need your email address. I tried just typing in yapper, and the carbonite web page complained So here's the thing with a local backup server. We used to use one -- we had a server on the home network and all the computers automatically backed up every night. But we were worried -- what if the house burns down? What happens to all those pictures? I had a second server I kept off site. Pretty much of a pain in the butt. Then Harriet lost some information due to an automated microsoft windows upgrade screwup (for real), and we didn't recover the files before the automated backup wiped out the old data. We've learned our lesson. Oh, Erika - I forgot you have a mac. I'm not sure if carbonite would work with your mac. From the web site "Carbonite is also available for all Intel-based Macs running OS 10.4 (Tiger) or 10.5 (Leopard)."