"I'm not alone"

"I wish I was / 'cause then I'd know / I was down because ..."

What a day. Not much on the streets but snow -- very pretty snow, but just snow -- and camera troubles make for a frustrating run. I guess you get what you pay for. I paid $35 for a faux Flip video camera and it's a little finicky. The on/off button has a 3-second delay (you have to hold it at least that long for the camera to power on or shut off. And sometimes it just won't power on. Maybe the batteries are low. Maybe it's just cheap. Glad I didn't pay the $90 list price. Not to settle for thwarting me with power problems, the darned U-Video camera decided to not save any of the stills I captured today. Not to fear, I returned with my good digital camera and retook the images I wanted.

What do you do when the street ends? Well,
some folks make tracks off-road!

That is until I dropped the thing in the snow! Yeah, I stopped to photograph a sign I had shot with the U-Video and when I removed my glove for a better contact with the shutter button, the lanyard slipped off my wrist and the Nikon went into the soft snow. I quickly retrieved it and did my best to wipe off the wet stuff. I kept it powered on during the ride home so as to minimize moisture infiltration. Gave it a good wipe-down and lens-cleaning when I got inside and left it lens open on the register for a couple of air cycles to ensure it got dry. I think it's gonna be OK.

Anyway, the leg/butt/hip felt pretty good today. It's not perfect, but I can run. That feels good. I gained weight and felt crummy in the week without exercise. It dawned on me this morning, though, that I could have kept doing sit-ups even while I wasn't in the running regimen. D'Oh!

Energy drain?

So there it is. Other than trouble, a rather uneventful run. It was beautiful, though. Snow was falling; big, white, soft, pretty flakes. Like a moving picture postcard a la Harry Potter. I shot some video of the sun sparkling on the fallen snow, which I'll try to post later. The only other thing that caught my eye was the variety of street signs I ran past. (I almost wrote "ran into," in the colloquial sense, but I didn't want anyone to think I actually ran into a sign.) OK, so that reminds me of a story from my trip to Sweden in 2004. On a drive around town with my first host, Bobby Hommerberg, we were winding through a park and came upon a runner steadying himself against a lamp post as he stretched his hamstrings. Bobby felt compelled to defend his countryman by explanation: "He's exercising. I don't want you to think all Swedes go around f***ing lamp posts." What a riot.

Interesting juxtaposition.

Today's Stats

Temp: 16 degrees F

Distance: 4.3 miles

Treasure: 3 cans.

iPod Playlist (shuffle)

Fire on the Mountain - Rob Thomas

... More trouble. iPod went silent. When I checked, it had completed shuffling through all 409 songs in memory, so I hit shuffle again to start over. Trouble is, that then deleted the play history. Thus all I know is the first and last song today. C'est la vie.

Something's Missing - John Mayer