I got up this morning at my normal time and it was cloudy but there was no snow on the ground. Well……. that didn’t last long. Colorado finally decided to start participating in Winter. Where’s our trophy? Anyways by the time Jesse went to go walk the dogs there was already over an inch in the grass.
As always I worked for a good portion of the morning and then went and got my hour in the pool. I got in just about a mile and a half. I am still so unsure of these workouts written by others. I am not sure if it is really preparing me properly for the distance I need to swim. I understand the points of all of the sets, but just feel that they are not doing what they should. I also do have a little concern about my shoulder.
It wasn’t a bad swim, and I had the pool basically to myself because of the weather, but I just wasn’t feeling it today. And, my times are not really getting better….. need to figure out what was up with that. My endurance is improving but my times are not. I think I need to work more on endurance right now. I have to get up to a 5K in a single swim, if I accomplish that I know I will be able to complete the first swim of the Mountain Lake Swim Series 2026 in June. My should is my worrying unknown.
Anyways, came back home and found one of our neighbors had shoveled the sidewalk all the way around the cule’d sack (or however you spell that), so I got out and did our driveway and the porch steps. He was nice enough to shovel a path to the front door. Anyways, the snow is really heavy this time, almost like New England snow.
And then came back and worked the rest of the day. After that was finished I let Res and Climber out in the yard because I was sure they had to go out something awful.
Res, took very ginger steps into the white stuff before he realized what it was and it wouldn’t hurt him and then he decided to just have some fun! He went under his pine tree for some protection from the “falling sky”. And then it was Climber’s turn. Climber does not have a care in the world and she got out in it, did a few laps, fell on her butt, and then took care of business and back into the house we went.
Sorry, It’s the only picture I could get, I didn’t have my phone outside with me. And then I decided that I had to start working on getting snow out of the yard. This is heavy and the normal snow thrower we use is not doing that great with it. I don’t think this is going to last that long anyways, snow does not like upper 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.
I got about 1/3 of the back yard shoveled but my shoulder is taking the brunt of that. I may have strained it again, it is going to take a heating pad tonight.
I was good today, no complaining, and I remain grateful for my technical background which allows me to do my job, the move to Colorado because things keep getting crazier in Florida, and some of my doctors who continue to try to figure out why I keep having some heart related “issues”.
Anyways, that’s it for the evening. Stay out of a snow bank, and I will see you all tomorrow.
Well….. this morning didn’t start the way it should have and didn’t end the way it should have either. I got up at my normal time and let the dogs out, gave them their snacks, and started my coffee. When I logged into the work system I was rewarded with a surprise; I needed to be on a Teams video training session (and I was a participant of the group doing the training) at 7:45 in the morning. I found this out around 6:45. Oh, well you can guess how the rest of my day went…. I had to do a quick change of plans, adjust, and get myself put together real quick.
Res and Climber have no such concerns, they just relaxed through it all.
Thankfully the training was almost painless, next time I want to be in the same room with the majority of the people being trained. I like remote work but it is very difficult not to see facial expressions, or have people see mine, in the training classes.
I missed my swim today, but I was able to get out for a longer walk during the lunch break.
Total distance: 4.86 mi Max elevation: 5680 ft Min elevation: 5560 ft Total climbing: 368 ft Total descent: -355 ft Average speed: 4.41 mi/h Average cadence: Average heart rate: 116 Average temperature: 24.3 Total time: 01:06:21
It was a nice day out along the trail. You can see the snow in the mountains and then everywhere else is really dry. That is supposed to change overnight and during the day tomorrow. We really need to snow (frozen water). We will even take rain. The main reservoir is down to about 80% right now and it should have much more in it. The are warning us of water shortages this summer.
The meeting lasted until late and I wrapped up my day by finishing all the pricing and the cause of loss requests that I had. An afternoon walk for the dogs, dinner, and now resting.
I got on the scale this afternoon and am down to 218 pounds, which is a good direction for me. My goal is 210 so, if I keep it up I may be able to reach that by June. Sort of important for me to be able to fit into a wet suit for the Mountain Lake Swim series. June 14th will be coming up fast. Reminds me, I need to make hotel reservations. I will do that later.
We are all done for the day, but it has been a good day, I have been able to maintain a positive attitude for the day, I haven’t really complained about anything and accomplished all my goals/tasks. Things that I am grateful or thankful for today:
My health
My ability to adjust to different plans/functions on very short notice
That I have a quiet office downstairs and that I can close the door when I need to be on a video call. The dogs are friendly and want to say “hello” to everyone.
Jesse’s patience when I have to be on these calls and he has both dogs in his office all day.
The trees are starting to bud here in Aurora, CO. Day started as it normally does, get up, dogs out, dogs snack, my coffee, Jesse’s coffee, log into work and see what trouble I can get into. Today didn’t end up too bad, I was able to talk with a bunch of technicians I needed to and I got some app testing done. Just want to point out that the photograph on this page is probably the most photographed and uploaded location photograph in our system. I use it for every single test claim that I do. Fun fact over.
I was able to get to the rec center for lunch today, a little late, but it still worked out well. The pool was almost empty and I was able to get in a really great workout. I think this is one of the first times I have followed someone else’s workout plan and it worked out pretty well. I did 2100 yards and I started increasing my freestyle to get ready for the June start of the Mountain Swim Series.
I have to work on speed a bit. It is really sad that some of my breaststroke lengths have almost the same times as freestyle. That is a hard one for me to see since freestyle is supposed to be a faster stroke. I do need to make sure I can do a full 2 miles in freestyle, so that is something I am going to work on. But, I was happy with it overall. I think I will probably do the same workout tomorrow.
When I got back I finished out my day with some pricing, some cause of loss determinations and a few more technician calls. All in all a good day. Then I had some rest/relaxation time. Which of the dogs shown below was the good dawg?
ResClimber
And you only get one guess. Yeh, Climber has been challenging for the last few days. It’s time to really work on it and calm her down a bit. Part of the problem is that she has not been getting long walks and I have not been playing ball with her in the yard. I have been a bit concerned about her pulled muscle and have been trying very hard to keep her calmer. I think I have to go back to play time with her in the next few days. Res even snarked at her yesterday as she was pulling on his last nerve.
I did take the proverbial plunge this evening and registered for the Solstice Sunrise Swim 2026 ( and I chose the 2.4 mile option with wet suit. It commits me and I was able to get in before the registration fees went up. I know that it’s going to be a challenge, but it will be a good challenge. It will be my first open water swim since August 2018 when I did the Pan American Open Water Championships. I did the 5K swim in 1:57:52.60 (https://my.raceresult.com/103945/#1_1D1153) in the 50-54 age group. I am now in the 10 year older age group, and this will be a lake swim, a bit different than an ocean swim.
Anyways, that takes care of my looking forward activity, it’s all about my June goals. For my Positive Outlook (no complaining) I think I did pretty good today. As to my being thankful list:
Colorado weather this year has been awesome. I just hope it continues without a deep freeze so that we don’t loose any blooms that may be starting on the apple tree.
Our pack, Res and Climber, they may drive me nuts occasionally, but overall they are really good dogs.
A steady job (as far as I know), and a manager that does believe in training.
My wide skill-set and experiences that make me who I am today.
My love of water, the one place in the world that I really feel “at home” and I miss when I do not get to swim for a while.
I think that just about does it for today. So, good night and I will talk to you tomorrow.
The crocuses and tulips are starting to pop their heads up in the garden I just cleaned out. We have been in the 60’s and 70’s for the last few weeks, but it looks like we may get some cooler weather in the next few days and I hope they survive.
Today was a little bit of a rushed start, I had a new every other week 8:00AM MT meeting with my manager and the scheduling manager to address any tech issues that needed to be resolved. The meeting was very productive and I was able to clear a bunch of issues off of my reports. This is a good thing because I stress when the reports get too long and there is a bunch of old stuff on there. After my meeting I spent some time doing some pricing and some COLD (Cause of Loss Determinations) requests and then answering processor questions. Had a few resolution tickets to review as well.
It’s time to start thinking about our next software release of our diagnostic wizard. I just received the new version for iOS (iPhone) and I am waiting for the next version of the Android. I have to re-do most of the training documentation, it’s due, I created most of it about 3 years ago and things have changed and we are being much more detailed orientated, I think that is wonderful. I now have a deadline and I need to make it. Tomorrow I will start testing.
Anyways, I took my lunch break a little later than I normally do, but it worked out perfectly. I was able to get into a lane in the pool pretty much by myself and had a decent workout. I am having a little bit of shoulder discomfort so I am going to change up how I do things a bit. I found a decent training plan for an open water swim event on US Masters Swimming and I think I am going to give that a try. I normally do not use training plans but I think it’s time to try one. Anyways, today’s swim was good, even though my watch “stole” 75 yards from my swim, when I say my watch stole 75 yards it means that it missed 3 turns for some reason. Normally this is because I mess up and don’t twist fast enough at the walls. I probably should start using flip turns again. Maybe on my next trip I can spend some time in the hotel pool one evening and try to work on my turns, nobody knows me so it won’t be embarrassing.
Today was a 1625 yard (actually 1700 with the stolen yards added back in) and I averaged 1:54/100yard, the 0:50/100yard best pace at the bottom left of the image above is wrong. That was part of the miscount. Since high school swimming I have never come close to that. My sets were a little different today as well. I am trying very hard not to stress my left shoulder.
Anyways, after I got done I came back home and spent the rest of my day at my desk. I did get a lot accomplished. Once I was done with that I also was able to spend a few minutes on my HAM packet station, KO4AW and fixed a radio and some programming issues. I really need to get on the roof and fix the 2M/40cm antenna. I think I put part of it together wrong and the SWR is WAY off. I am still not sure what I am going to do about my HF radio, but that needs some more thought and work. I have just about given up on HF radio. I also need to put my portable satellite antenna together one day soon so that I can see what that will take to do.
I took the dogs for their afternoon walk while Jesse was doing some canning, they must have been feeling the weather changes incoming. It was an interesting walk, both of them were acting like overgrown puppies. Also, we had two kids getting a ride in a remote controlled electric 4 wheeler. Res and Climber were both VERY interested in it. I guess it looked like something fun to chase. Nope, not happening.
So, we are now basically done with our day, and it’s time to do my daily:
Looking Forward: I am planning and making progress for my June 14th start of the Mountain Lake Swim Series. This is what my workout plans are all about right now.
Be Positive: Nothing negative to complain about today so why complain? That’s a pretty good attitude as well.
Be Thankful:
My health – Things have gotten so much better in recent years, I just have to learn to take care of myself better.
Jesse – this is on here daily.
Res and Climber – “The Pack”, seems strange sometimes to call them the pack when we are down from a pack number of 7 (including Gizmo), and have lost all of the originals due to old age over the years. Two seems like a low number for The Pack.
I have to also be thankful for a good job, people I like working with, and my recent promotion.
So, everyone out there have a good night and I will see you tomorrow. Oh, before I forget, I am going to open up this blog for people to subscribe to and comment on. It will be highly moderated so I don’t start getting all of the spam/advertising crap that seems to follow most blogs. This is a sign of things to come. Google Advertising told me I lacked relevant content so I am working on that.
After my normal morning stuff, it feels so great to be caught up with work, I did get over to the Rec Center for a decent swim today. There were actually lanes available and it was quiet over there today. I can’t figure out the pattern over there yet, for some reason many days it’s busy and then it dies off, and then becomes busy again. It’s really strange at time. But, it was more than just the average swim, it was a Milestone swim for me!! Literally. It is the first time I was able to do the full mile, non-stop, since 2017. And…. my average pace was decent.
And again, did I say, “non-stop”???
I probably could have done some more, but I don’t want to push it, and during the week I try to limit myself to a one hour lunch break. I don’t think anyone would give me a hard time if I went longer as I do a ton of work after hours, including answering tech calls, but I just don’t want to push it.
So for my Looking Ahead post for the day, as long as I maintain progress for the next 15 weeks I will be in very good shape for the Summer Solstice swim in the middle of June. I do want to work on my pace a little bit, I am not all comfortable being that close to the 2:00/100yd mark that I am at now, I need to bring that down a bit the 1:35-1:40/100yd average, but to do that I have to increase my freestyle and decrease the breaststroke. And, since I am really working on Open water, I do not use flip turns during freestyle because there are no walls in a lake or ocean, doing touch and turn turns is a much more accurate estimation of what will happen in a lake. The other reason I need to decrease my time is that the first event may be a wet suite event based on water temperature and I have a feeling my times will worsen with a wet suite. I looked up the water temperature at Union Reservoir during June and it is in the 60’s. That is going to be a little on the chilly side for me. That is an unknown that I have to work with, and I hate unknowns.
I forgot to post yesterday that I got the results back from the heart monitor that I had to wear again after my heart rate dropped so badly at one of my jogs over at Cherry Creek State Park. Unfortunately the HR monitor did not capture the drop but rather the area right around where I hit the symptom button. The positive side is that we did verify that my watch is reading my heart rate properly. The negative side is that no one has any idea of what happened. I am starting to wonder if hydration is causing the issue, or maybe when I am working out in the standing (vertical) position as this does not happen when I am swimming, and my swimming is far more strenuous, with higher heart rates, than my jogging and walking. I sent some additional information to the cardiologist, so I guess we will see if she has anything more to add, in the meantime I am not going to worry about it.
The park was almost deserted this evening when we took the dogs out for their evening walks. But we had a nice walk, it was almost 70 degrees outside today. Tomorrow is supposed to be a little rainy, so not sure how much walking will get done. Anyways, I am going to wrap it up this evening, with my parting thoughts for the Well Being challenges:
Things Thankful For
My health! It’s great news when the doctors can’t really find anything wrong. It tells me that nothing major is going on.
That we are not participating in Winter this year.
Jesse – my rock
My dogs, both Climber and Res are awesome in their own ways.
That I grew up loving to swim. It is always what gets me back into shape.
Our Aurora and Colorado environment. It is awesome to live here.
Be Positive, I was a good person today, I didn’t complain about anything or anyone, outside of some reminders that I needed to send for work. I don’t think coaching and letting technicians what they did incorrectly is not considered complaining, it’s part of my job.
It was a VERY productive day today. I got up this morning a little after my normal time, did the morning dogs out and snack business. I swear that all I am at times to my dogs is their snack dealer. After that I was able to sit down and file all of my email. Yup, I am one of those that has to have all of my email filed in the appropriate spots each and every month. I like starting the month off with clean email inboxes. My work one is usually kept pretty clean but my personal ones seem to get cluttered, even though I have so many scripts and filters to attempt to get things into the correct folders.
Anyways, I got that all done before Jesse got up, and after he got up and we had a cup of coffee, I took Res out for his morning walk. Well, that morning walk was more like a morning crawl. At a few points I thought he was going to lay down and take a nap. Nope, he really did not want to walk this morning. But, we did about 1.8 miles. It’s one of our shorter loops.
After Res comes Climber’s walk. I normally take her a lot further, but after her two instances last week I decided that she was getting the “Res Walk” experience.
So, we managed to do about 1.8 miles. She was really not in a mood to walk either, I am not really sure why, but she wasn’t, not as slow as Res was today, but somewhat close.
After we got back and had breakfast, it was time for a little yard cleanup. We have some areas of plants mixed into the rocks in the backyard that I did not clean out before Winter hit. I am starting to see some new growth coming up so it was time to go clean those areas up and get rid of the old dead stuff. Took about an hour and filled one trashcan full of yard waste. We live in an area where composting is almost impossible and there is no other way to get rid of yard waste than to toss it into the garbage. I really don’t feel too bad about it because it ends up in the landfill and is fully bio-degradable. Worse things go into the landfill.
After that was done I decided to do something different and walk down to the Recreation Center for my swim workout. It’s a 2 mile walk down and a 2 mile walk back. Takes me a little less than 30 minutes in each direction, which helps be get my steps in. I am not sure this will be a daily occurrence since I just don’t have that much time, but it actually worked out pretty well. My trip down was pretty much downhill all the way, so it wasn’t bad.
Of course the return trip is pretty much up hill and after my swim it was pushing it a little.
I spent longer in the pool than normal because I am trying to increase my distance. I was able to get 3400 yards in, and took care of a whole bunch of the Garmin and Swim.com challenges for the month of March, on the first day of March. Sort of neat. I am really going to work hard on the swim.com ones for the rest of the month.
On the Garmin challenges I closed out the March 2026 Swim Week, and took care of a little over and hour and a half of the 4 hours of swimming challenge.
For the Swim.Com challenges I finished the March 1K, the March 2K, and finally I completed the March 3K. These challenges are designed to increase your distance in one swimming event. Hopefully by the end of the month I will be able to complete the 5K again, this ever elusive challenge I have not completed for almost 4 years since I stopped swimming open water in Florida due to health concerns. I also complete the Swim.Com March One Hour of Power challenge (do 1 hour in the pool). Not bad for the first day of March.
Jesse spent most of the day doing some canning and prepping our meals for the next week. We are trying to stay on the weight watchers diet so Jesse searches around for good recipes that are low in points.
Oh, onto some other new and “fun” stuff. We have health and mental well-being challenges available to us at work now through a platform called WellRight. If you complete all of the activities by year end you can earn up to 350.00 in gift cards. Yeh, it’s not much but the activities are sort of fun. Anyways, I have to work on three specific ones this month:
Over the next 30 days I need to list 90 things I am grateful for, be positive and not complain, and look forward to anticipated events. So, you all are going to be participating in this “well-being” journey.
Look Ahead So, for the look ahead to upcoming events. My goal is to be able to swim in the Mountain Swim Series this year. It’s been something I have wanted to do for a while, even before we moved to Colorado, but now that I am here I am looking forward to it. The first event is on my birthday, June 14th and that is my goal. Now, I do have to be realistic, the water at this time of year is a little chilly. While I really want to do the June event it is possible that this may not happen due to water temps. It has been years since I have swum in a wet suite and I am not even sure if I can get into mine right now. I think I need to drop another 10 pounds to make that happen. So, this is the event that I am trying to head to. My “early-bird” cuttoff time ends on March 15th, and after that the fees do go up, so I probably have to figure this out soon. For anyone interested in this race series: https://www.movemint.cc/series/mountain_swim_series_2026
Things I am thankful for 1. My health. We have had major scares over the last 12 years with my health, but it seems things are better now and I can return to doing some of the activities that I love. 2. Jesse. And this goes without saying, Jesse has been the rock I can rely on for the last 30+ years. 3. My dogs. While they may drive me nuts occasionally, and they don’t live long enough, we have been extremely lucky to have had great dogs over the years. 4. That we moved to Colorado. I am very happy to be out of Florida, especially with the political climate and the climate of hate that is in that state. 5. Our local community and the recreation that is nearby. I have ready access to a nice pool, gym, community center, and all of the walking trails and bike paths that can take me to anyplace in the Aurora, and Denver area.
OK, that’s 5. 45 more to go.
No Complaining I don’t think I complained about anything today. Overall a good day.
We had salmon, asperiggus, and shrimp for dinner this evening. And now I am going to spend the rest of the evening relaxing, sort of like Res is doing now.
Have a great rest of the evening and I will talk with you tomorrow.
I feel like I made progress today! The only thing still not done, and I will get it done before the evening is over, is to upload and enroll all of the new technicians at work onto our training platform, but I need to wait until the end of the business day to do that. Anyways, today started out pretty normally, I got my morning routine done, the dogs normal routing done and spent most of my morning doing pricing and cause of loss determinations for our processing team. Then I had a number of tech support issues to take care of.
I decided to escape for an hour or so around 10:15am (I am on Mountain Time) to try to get to the Rec Center to spend an hour in the pool. Nope, that wasn’t happening. I have decided that I always have to have a backup plan when I am going to the pool. Today when I got there, they had 2 people swimming per lane and one lane with a water walker in it along with two people swimming. Then there were people waiting. I am really struggling to find a time that I can count on to get my workout in.
Anyways, I decided that I was going to do my steep trails today to try and get my workout in and continue on my weight loss efforts. I am now 12 pounds away from my goal of 210 pounds. I will make it before my next well visit physical around June. That puts me out of the “at risk” BMI. I don’t totally buy into BMI so I will probably pay for a DexaScan visit before then so I have some concrete body imaging to go on. Anyways, I spent about an hour over at Switchgrass Park and Spring Creek Park.
They between these parks and trails they have a some nice hills that are coming very close to a hike and I wanted to get some climbing type work in today. I have no idea what the Flat 14ers sticker is, I guess that’s a reminder to look this up. Well…. there is nothing listed for the Flat 14ers in the Aurora area online. So I am not sure. I guess I will have to try and figure this out some other way.
Total distance: 5.54 mi Max elevation: 5749 ft Min elevation: 5637 ft Total climbing: 617 ft Total descent: -611 ft Average speed: 4.24 mi/h Average cadence: 57 Average heart rate: 110 Average temperature: Total time: 01:18:54
Had a nice walk, and got my hills in. After that I was able to go home and finish out the day without getting too stressed out. I have to figure out this pool issue, I feel at home in the water, more so than any other workout I can get. But, the trails are nice as well.
Tomorrow I am spending the day learning something new, for the fun of it, and I guess we will see. I will post more tomorrow about tomorrows activities. Anyways, I am done for tonight, I don’t want to think too much. I am going to take care of that one outstanding work issue and then head “offline”.
And it’s another Thursday and almost the end of this short month. It’s always strange to have a 28 day month instead of 30/31 days. I woke up this morning around 4:30am, of course that has to do with being on Eastern Time for the last few days, I was able to fall back asleep until our normal 6:20am getting up (or should I say mine). Got up, got the dogs out, and our coffee made.
Sat down and logged into work, before I even had a single cup of coffee I already had a technician trying to reach me. I didn’t answer him and sent him a text that I would call him after I had my first cup of coffee as I was on Mountain Time. He was having login issues, for some reason the iPhone attempts to pre-fill password blanks on Safari and this is very confusing for some people, the correct thing to do is delete that out and select your own secure passwords. That way you are not tied to the Apple Infrastructure.
Just realized I forgot to tell everyone that I did receive a promotion at work. I was brought in as a Technical Field Manager about 5 years ago. Over the years I have been more and more in a support role with technicians and processing. I have added the online education component to my world, and technician procedural and technical training. So, as of February 1st (though we just finalized all the paperwork on Monday) I am the Operations Support Manager for StrikeCheck and HVACi, all part of Alpine Intel. I am happy with the role.
I went out for my morning workout, did a little over 5 miles, and finished another one of the monthly challenges for Garmin. I like the Garmin challenges as it keeps me motivated to push myself.
Total distance: 5.91 mi Max elevation: 5652 ft Min elevation: 5474 ft Total climbing: 686 ft Total descent: -683 ft Average speed: 4.29 mi/h Average cadence: 57 Average heart rate: 114 Average temperature: 23.6 Total time: 01:23:32
I have completed all of the February swimming challenges and then a majority of the February Walking and Health Challenges. Today I finished the one that has been eluding me, the Running Climb (vertical distance during runs). I did the power line trail today from the bottom to the top and fixed that issue. The photograph below is looking up towards the top of Power Line Trail, I had already done an equal climb from the bottom to the point I was standing.
I have made an honest effort on the February running challenges but had to cut back on that as we may be having some weird heart issues (not deadly, really not that dangerous, just irregular – it has been diagnosed, now we have to figure out if it’s worth doing something about). But, I am happy with the challenges I have completed.
I took Climber out to play in the backyard a little bit today and she was doing great, but when she went to the backdoor and stood there waiting to go in she held up her right front paw and started yelping. We crated Res real fast (we do not want a dog fight) and got her inside. She was back to normal almost immediately. I am having a really tough time figuring out what is going on with her. She was perfectly fine until she stopped. And then 5 minutes later after some water and laying down she was fine again as well. This is just really strange.
So, Res got a lone walk today, I wasn’t going to take a chance on taking her and having a problem in the middle of the park. I am starting to think she has something going on with her back, but I am not at the vet visit point yet as it could be something simple as needing some crate rest and no running.
Right now everyone is napping for the evening.
I will leave this open on my laptop to see if there is anything else I want to add for today, probably not, but maybe. Anyways, that’s it for today. I will talk with you all tomorrow.
And today was just another work day, while traveling. These days typically follow the same patterns. First, I get up, have a cup of coffee and log into work. I do a quick browse through my email and my tickets/tasks that have already come in, are past due, urgent, or need immediate attention due to the urgency of a file. Then, I take my laptop with me to go have breakfast downstairs.
Home2 Suites usually has a pretty good breakfast selection so I can usually find something good and something that works within my diet. Today was an everything bagel with fried egg, 1 slice of bacon, and a slice of Swiss cheese. Each sandwich was around 400 calories, and combine that with coffee by breakfast was right at 926 calories. The goal was around 700, but I am still OK.
After breakfast I went and did my morning inspection at another hotel nearby. It’s one of the chains that I do stay at, but I learned the lesson a long time ago, no matter how much I like the hotel, do not stay there the night before you do an insurance claim. That particular lesson was taught to me when a desk clerk figured out who I was, got the manager, and they put my into a room without any air conditioning in the middle of a Miami, FL Summer day. I think they felt it would help sway my opinion that their maintenance department actually did something. In this case the manager was awesome, probably would not have done that to me, and had a valid loss. Everyone knew they had a valid loss but they were wanting to verify repair vs replace.
In this case, as toasty as it was, it will probably be a replace.
Once I got done with the inspection and submitted my findings I realized that I was very close to the Rosen Aquatics Center. This facility used to be part of the YMCA, but during COVID the Y almost abandoned it. During COVID the Y just about lost everything, they really screwed up when they did not allow “traveling” members to travel. So Mr. Rosen purchased the facility to keep it open. I used to swim here about once a week or so when we lived in the area. It was almost a 40 minute drive, but when this pool is setup in Long Course (50 meters) it was well worth it.
This was the training home of Rowdy Gaines and many other future Olympians and would have been a loss to the community not to have it any longer. Anyways, $10.00 poorer for a day pass, I was able to get my swim workout in. I had to give up at the 2000 meter point because I was starting to worry about how much work was accumulating, and I had taken my one hour lunch break.
I was happy with it, would have liked to do another 1K to get myself to 3K in one session, but I really had to get back to work.
Spent the rest of my afternoon working, and then had some dinner, came back and read a little, listened into a net on one of the repeaters locally, bunch of old guys talking, and then uploaded my greyhound-data races for the last two weeks.
Now just sitting around watching TV, writing this blog post, and trying to plan tomorrow’s travels. At least on this trip I did not have a massive travel change and I am headed home tomorrow.
I think this is goodnight for the evening. I will see you all tomorrow.
Happy Sunday! Happy USA Hockey won the Gold Day! First time since the miracle on ice in 1980, in 1980 the NHL did not participate in the Olympics, this win was complete with NHL players on both teams. This did not make it less impressive, congratulations guys!
Started off my day with a few cups of coffee and then taking Res and Climber out for their walks. Res wanted to go further this time and I let him, but we had our normal problem with him getting about 50% through the walk and he wants to give up. Anyway, we finished, he did close to 3 miles.
Total distance: 2.65 mi Max elevation: 5653 ft Min elevation: 5564 ft Total climbing: 157 ft Total descent: -153 ft Average speed: 3.55 mi/h Average cadence: Average heart rate: 91 Average temperature: 21.9 Total time: 00:47:47
Once I got Res back home Climber was raring to go! She was carrying on so bad we had trouble getting a leash on her. I did a slightly different walk with her today, but when we ended back up on Power Line Trail with her Prairie Dogs she knew exactly where she was and almost walked herself home. She acted like I was holder her back. She did over 4.75 miles.
Total distance: 4.73 mi Max elevation: 5657 ft Min elevation: 5522 ft Total climbing: 334 ft Total descent: -314 ft Average speed: 3.79 mi/h Average cadence: Average heart rate: 98 Average temperature: 21.1 Total time: 01:18:10
Jesse and I had breakfast (well, brunch) and I finally had a chance to get to the Central Recreation Center for a swim. I had really wanted to get a 3K yard swim in, but the pool was very crowded and I had to share lanes with other swimmers, and that always causes problems since I swim breaststroke and that is a very wide stroke compared with freestyle. At least I didn’t kick anyone. I did get 2K yards in, I am happy with my workout overall.
When I got back we had a little problem, Climber got up and was very wobbly and was limping a bit, actually a lot, and her back was arched pretty badly. We worked with her a bit, I went over every bone, every joint, and everything I could think of. I was finally able to get her onto a leash and walk her around the backyard. We made the decision not to take her to the ER Vet as she was acting a lot like Leona when she would hurt her back and neck. Jesse and I talked about it and decided that we would give her a carprofin and see how she was in the AM. I think she will probably need one more carprofin tomorrow afternoon and then she will be fine.
I think her a little over 3 miles yesterday and 4-1/2 miles today may have been a little much for her, I bet her muscles are hurting her a bit. We will see what it looks like in the morning.
I had to pack for my trip tomorrow as I had to list the number of bags I am dropping at my check-in. I decided that I was going to break out “Big Bertha” – the largest suitcase we have in the house and was going to try to do one bag. It worked, I am right under 60 pounds, I am allowed 70 pounds per bag. The reason I want to go to one bag? It’s getting to the point that two bags are really rough to handle sometimes. Of course I may curse that decision when I have to lift the thing into the back of a rental car.
We decided that at the afternoon walk time that Jesse would take Res and I would stay home with Climber. She slept through the walk, and was ready for dinner. I did have to lift her food bowl up a bit for dinner because she was having issues stretching her neck that far down. It’s almost like she ran into something, but neither of us saw what she ran into. This is going to be a “crate rest and leash walk” type of injury.
She was slightly better at our 9pm out time, and she is now resting in her crate. She will be handled very careful over the next 48 or so hours.
I spent some time with my Packet Radio station today. It has become abundantly clear to me the packet station on this property will not work. We are in a topographical hole in with the neighborhood around us. I am also starting to wonder if there is a connection between the radios and some of the growling Res has been doing at night. The timing almost makes sense, he growls early in the evening about every 10 minutes and that is the time period of the beacon systems on the station. OK, the radios are off for now as I just cannot figure out how to resolve this issue. The real answer is a very tall antenna, but let’s get real, that is not possible right now.
Anyways, that’s a wrap for tonight. Tomorrow is a travel day and we will see what comes up.
Anyways, it’s that time of the evening to say goodnight, and I will see you all tomorrow.
