Friday, May 22, 2015

Now, where was I again?

Well, that zoomed by even faster. Up, off to work, try to keep SQL from creating more errors as I try to match a simple appearing spreadsheet to a couple of databases, home, do stuff, fall into bed. Repeat.

Over the cool and rainy long weekend we had our furnace fail. Again. It last failed less than a month ago. Monday Dwayne The (mini-) Rock Johnson showed up. No really, this guy could be his younger brother. Fortunately it failed the same way, then he started it while playing with some wires. A few minutes later he diagnosed a loose connection within one of the connector clips. Which means it might not have been the gas valve at all. We had a cool weekend wearing sweaters.

I was out for a short ride around the neighbourhood to test out the new bike fit. So far so good.

It might have been the cold, but I was a slug throughout the week. Yup. A slug. Well, I did get a pummeling massage, then go to yoga. Oh yes, I ran at lunch on Thursday. The map has me running through buildings and dodging traffic on 3rd St. It does not show me dodging the shower head that fell off while cleaning up after. The run was really good, 5.4 K in 35:39, with the first K being held up waiting for the lights to change a bunch of times.

Gotta love running downtown, in the summer. That's all I'll say about that.

Friday I was up early and at the pool, almost as if I had to go to the office later. But no! I met up with Michelle and Deb to see if I could give her some pointers on her swim. I could. I did. As you all know, I love giving advice. What's better, I can see Deb was following it. By the end of the session she was swimming faster, and I could see the difference in her stroke. The trick is to practice it. Lots. Both of them were even getting flip turns to work!

There used to be a day where stereo equipment could be repaired, at least the good stuff could be. For a while I was a bit of an audiophile, but realized the better equipment was better than my ears. Still, I ended up taking some equipment to get serviced. The best guy in the city for sure, and probably in western Canada was a guy named Volker. He loved working on high end stereo equipment, and he was good. Very good. He mostly retired because he couldn't stand to work on the junk that was becoming so prevalent, even at the high end of things. "It looks nice on the outside, but most of it is crap on the inside, and I don't want to touch it," he'd say.

Unfortunately he passed away suddenly and his funeral was today. He wasn't even 70 yet. I'd planned on taking today off work anyways, and I'm glad I did. They didn't quote this during the Catholic ceremony, but it's my favourite bible quote, "You know not the day or the hour." None of us know when our time will come. I'm thinking more and more strongly that I have to make sure I'm enjoying what I'm doing.  Yes, I still need to earn money, but I can do without the x many dollars I would have earned today. Instead I enjoyed some time with friends in the pool, attended a solemn life ceremony, puttered around the house with Linda, and got some writing done. A good day, and we haven't even cracked the wine and settled in on the patio. Linda is still planting at this moment.

Garden stuff. Don't these peonies look like alien tentacles growing out of the ground? And the little cheerful metal flower is a solar powered light. I'm going to stay up late tonight to test them. Dark at 10:30 or so.







1 comment:

  1. Thanks for your advice as always Keith. I'm happy to have it along the way as my swim evolves. As you say, I don't have any "habits" yet... good or bad to break. That was a great day with a nice visit and I'm thrilled Deb enjoyed the coaching so much. It was really cool to see her grin over the flip turn.

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