I love having a hot February vacation planned to get me through the winter months.

 

Me, too!  We are doing 6 days/5 nights in Jamaica at the Riu Montego Bay Adults Only All Inclusive in late February (19th through 24thth) and that will give us something to look forward to during the bitter months.  Also, we just booked DD and her boyfriend to go with us.  The boyfriend paid for his own, and we paid for DD.  This actually a graduation present for DD, but since she graduated last year during the whole pandemic frenzy, it is coming a bit late.  I told her they can do whatever they want with their time there, but they will have to have dinner with us a couple of times, and we will probably do an excursion together.

Since I will be laid up on Thanksgiving, I did a big breakfast fry-up yesterday - bacon, sausage, eggs, biscuits, friend potatoes, pancakes, fresh pineapple, blackberries and raspberries - and had the two kids over with their SOs and my brother came up from Cincinnati.  We had a nice visit with everyone, then spent the rest of the day running errands and doing household sturff.

Then today I cooked a ham, gravy, mashed potatoes, asparagus, broccoli salad, and pumpkin pie for lunch, then made spagetti for my workday lunches, and chili to put in the crock pot tomorrow morning for tomorrow's dinner.  Then we ran MORE errands, I colored my hair, and now am doing laundry.  Whew!  Trying to get as much done as I can before the surgery has be less productive...

Mike - I cannot find the post where you talk about your GD and a red shirt - what's up?

Tet - I always leave at least 2 feet between my car and the car in front or behind when parallel parking, to make sure I don't get trapped in the spot. If I came out and someone had boxed me in like that, especially actually touching my bumper, I would give it a few minutes to see if someone came, but if not, I would call the police.  No way can I leave my car for days because someone boxed me in.  I have to get to work!

20 minutes on the stationery bike today is all I got done before the foot called it enough.

BTY - after the 30th ‘versary pictures, I bet your T’giving feast one'll be pretty nice too. When do you start preparing?

When she tells me to.....

2650 yards swimming today, exactly the same as yesterday.   Shuffled the deck a little though.  600 yards each of breaststroke ( a little slower today for some reason), backstroke (faster, because I've been dogging it), and freestyle (still holding onto a 1:45/100 pace, which is where I think I should stay as a rule, for a while), then I extended the underwater dolphin kick by 50% - 750 total yards of this drill.   Push off, do about 6 underwater dolphin kicks, then swim roughly 1/2 the pool freestyle, catch a couple of breaths, repeat a total of 10 times for 250 yards, each of 3 sets.  Then a cool down of 100 yards of breaststroke.  A bit of a minicelebration afterward because my quads were not even close to cramping up from doing the breaststroke kick.

Enke! Nice having you back and hope you'll stick around for a while!

Hi Enke!!!  Glad to see you stopping in, and running again!

Bio, congrats on the JFK50!  It seems like an odd mix of trail, flat path, and pavement. I wonder where they came up with the course?

I sure wish we could do a mid-winter vacation.  Not happening as long as DH is still transfusion dependent.  He complains about the long cold winters here every year, but at least in the past we could get away in the van, or even fly somewhere.  Hopefully someday we can do that again.

Just us two here for Thanksgiving. DD and DSIL and grandbaby Levi are in Florida for the holiday with his family, but they'll be here for Christmas.

I ran 13.1 miles in the state park this afternoon, to check off my half marathon distance for November.  We got new snow overnight, but the blue sky and sunshine and 40 degrees made it quite nice.

I doubt if we overlapped since this was in the 1990s. I was mostly in Torino (Turin), working on a project for Comau, a robotics subsidiary of Fiat. I wasn't into cycling but definitely was running. Although my schedule didn't give me much time for it, I do recall a couple of runs (maybe on a weekend) along the narrow neighborhood streets where I was staying in a residence hotel in the vicinity of the Fiat Mirafiori factory. I also spent a little time in Milan, working for an aerospace company called Tecnospazio. Some of my work ended up being part of an experiment performed by a Russion Cosmonaut on the old Soyuz space station!

Roch (and Tet), I was assigned to Aviano AB (in the northeast corner of Italy, a province called Venezia Friuli Giulia--usually referred to as Friuli since it is different from Venezia) from Dec 1991 to Dec 1994.  So we probably were there about the same time.  The villages in that area were fairly small and while parking was generally difficult to find, most people seemed to park without interfering too much with things.  The few times I got to the larger cities (Venezia doesn't count, pretty much walk or take gondolas/water buses/water taxies everywhere) I noticed some cars parked that way and wondered why so I appreciate the answer to that mystery!  During my tour there I had to travel to Brindisi a few times, Ghedi AB (about 20km south of Lago d' Como) and Rimini (until the Italian Air Force closed that base--part of their drawdown after the cold war).  Had to visit American contingent units there a couple of times a year.  Rimini was right beside the Republic of San Marco and the Adriatic Sea, my NCO and I hated it when that base closed!

This week's DIY lesson was replacing broken floor tiles - hard on the knees and back, but otherwise reasonably successful.

Ran 4.9 miles late afternoon - sunny and 73F.

Enjoyed following Bio's progress yesterday, but with a certain amount of jealousy. Since the pandemic started we have been keeping isolated due to DW's existing medical conditions making her very high risk if she were to catch CoVid. I miss the group runs I used to do every week and haven't raced at all. My last trail race was the Loup Garou 40 mile in December 2019 - as there is also a 100 mile option the time cut-off of 30 hours applied to all distances (20, 40, 60 & 100 miles) so no time pressure, but I'd opted not to carry a light and I ran out of daylight a mile or so from the end despite trying to pace to finish at dusk. That was my longest race.

Looks like we will be 9 for Turkey Thursday. DW & I will be joined by DD and her DH and DGS1 (who live next door) and DS2, his DW and DGS3 & DGS4 (who we stayed with for 3 months last year after Hurricane Laura damaged our house).

Enkephalin!  You just made my day!

Steve - me too,

me too, me too.

However, though Seattle's weather's making up for it now, so sorry you seem to have missed the summer of love, oh, that's what the mayor called it, . . . summer of sun that had me enjoying 136 morning dry runs, walks, cycles, etc.  I hope you, at least, got to get out and enjoy it on the bike.

ps - if possible, please meet up with Econo and me at the Shanghai Garden when she and her herr are up for Sunday's post-Thanksgiving Half Marathon.  I forgot when but this is a good chance for her to let you know without me having to admit to her that I forgot.

pps - No parking at SG but we can change to the Ocean Star that has a parking lot, if more convenient.

Quick - yep, my favorite kind now too.

as there is also a 100 mile option the time cut-off of 30 hours applied to all distances (20, 40, 60 & 100 miles) so no time

9 for Turkey Thursday. DW & I will be joined by DD and her DH and DGS1 (who live next door) and DS2, his DW and DGS3 & DGS4

Quick - and I thought BTY was going get second place this year (assuming Jay's 20 or 30 is up at the top)

===========

Quick -  9

Moebo - 6.5

marj/henry - 6

falcon - 3

Wildchild - 2

Tet - 2

Holly - 2

ps Holly/Wild - with Quick already having nine, we could probably go there and not even be noticed.

I tend to park way off in the far edges of lots . . . 

erika - me too. what 's good for the goose is not good for the gander in this case

ps - with alarms beeping off before any touching bumpers occurs, it's pretty hard to bump bumpers as in the old days and, if it does happen, it's usually more of a touch than a bump and no damage, scratches, abrasions, etc. result.  However, it's a part of the territory for parallel parkers on busy streets.  As a result, when I can, I try to do my parallel parking at either end of the street so there's no cars in front or behind me respectively and, when there might be enough room to squeeze in two cars if I parked real close to one or the other of the parked cars, I usually park kind of in the middle so no one can try to squeeze in like I did.  Actually, it's kind of hilarious watching some people try to parallel park even when there's lots of room, passengers getting out and indicating when to turn the front wheel, how much room there is, etc.

Otherwise, in addition to parking in a far corner of the grocery store lot, mall, etc., I try to parallel park like Holly does with plenty of room in between cars, . . . but I'm not afraid not to if necessary as it was on Thursday.

Problem with head-to-head, side-by-side parking in lots is the usually narrow space widths (except Costco's spacious distances) so other cars are almost sure to have to bank the adjacent car's door.

Tet - I always leave at least 2 feet between my car and the car in front or behind when parallel parking, to make sure I don't get trapped in the spot. If I came out and someone had boxed me in like that, especially actually touching my bumper, I would give it a few minutes to see if someone came, but if not, I would call the police.  No way can I leave my car for days because someone boxed me in.  I have to get to work! 

 Mike - I cannot find the post where you talk about your GD and a red shirt - what's up?

Holly - actually, this might be the first time I knew something that someone else herein didn't and, of course, I stand to be corrected and told why it's signified by the color red but I'm pretty sure that red shirt means making the team as freshmen instead of having to work your way up.  In Mike's GD's case, even though she might be the best player on the team, because she is a "red shirt," the coach probably doesn't want to have her replace seniors who have given their all to the team too for the last four years even though their all now isn't as all as Mike's DW's all would be.

. . .  this is the fifth game (in five different cities) in seven days for the Caps, so I suspect they're running out of gas. Opportunity for your guys.

Tramps - thanks for the background information.

Five is kind of a magic number for the Kraken too as we have now lost five games in a row and hoping the Caps don't make it no. six but they're already ahead almost before the game started so I doubt it.  At least, the Kraken don't have to worry about the Seahawks taking away fans as, for the first time in more than ten years, they couldn't even score a single touchdown, or even field goal against a team last week that lost their first game of the season by a lopsided score of 38-3 and couldn't even beat the Minnesota Vikings today.

Roch--interesting that you prefer the simulated rides. (I suppose you'll love th e metaverse. ). I can see the appeal but for me a big part of run/walk/ride is getting out for the fresh air. I just like being outside. 

Tramps - me too not only about being outside that, as a skier, stream fisher, ptarmigan hunting in the alpines in the days when no inside to do anything in except play basketball when I was growing up but also about the camaraderie from the active populations of year-round cyclists here in Seattle, making small talk at crosswalks, intersections, waving when passing, etc. Sounds like BTY always gets plenty of interactions not only with cyclists but other users too on his rides. Wish he could ride all year round too.  Swimming sounds kind of solitary in comparison.

ps tramps - yay, Kraken made a goal too.

|