Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

I left the house at 6:45 this morning and got home around 11:15. In between I did 65 miles.
I won’t lie, it wasn’t good. Things were OK until about the 50-mile point and from there on everything but the road went downhill. By the time I got home the only parts of my body that weren’t screaming had gone numb. I don’t know if it was the heat (98 degrees by that point), the fact the last two weeks conspired to allow for very minimal mileage or the addition of 12 miles to my previous long ride. But the thought of doing another 44 miles does NOT seem like a remote possibility. The good news is I have until the end of November to get ready, and my longest training ride is only supposed to be 80-90% of the total event distance (109 miles).

Perhaps you noticed I didn’t post last night. We enjoyed a very good Mexican dinner at Mike & Karli’s and equally good conversation. By the time we got home I was past creative writing (I know what you’re thinking) and wanted to get to bed early for a good night’s sleep in prep for today’s ride.
I should have turned in at 6:30.

Yesterday afternoon Pam and I went up to Home Depot and Lowe’s (across the street from each other) and came home with an area rug and a lamp. The rug makes a huge difference and we really like it.
Earlier in the afternoon I ordered a wall clock. When we were moving my folks from their house to Ida Culver House we rented a truck and loaded it up with the furniture items designated for the much smaller place. Among the items was their Herman Miller grandfather clock. Alas, Scott and I didn’t pack it in as tightly as we should have. The end result was taking all the pieces to A Clock Shop, a very cool business in Lynnwood, not far from their house. I was struck by some of the oversized wall clocks among what seemed like a hundred timepieces on display. When I couldn’t find anything similar around here I called them up there for recommendations. He suggested the websites of two manufacturers, Herman Miller and Loricron. The one we liked (and could afford) was on Loricron’s site, but there’s no retailer nearby that carries them. So I called back and he happens to have the one we liked most in his store. He’ll send it out UPS Monday morning, and at a price $25 better than the best I could find on the internet. So besides getting a great deal on a clock we really like I’m pleased to patronize a small business run by what seem like very nice people.

I am on the email list of a couple who send out regular updates. For reasons we don’t need to go into here I don’t want to receive those updates, and I’d rather not take up the issue with them directly. How many times do I have to hit “Spam” before Yahoo mail figures out not to put their very frequent missives in my inbox? Why can’t Yahoo handle this simple task?

Calling it iconic doesn’t change the fact a blue football field is wrong. If God meant grass to be blue he coulda done that. It’s almost enough to make me root for Oregon State.

Tomorrow - chapter 2 of Jonah. Some interesting interpretive issues involved, but mostly a picture of what we all face sooner or later, coming to grips with our own failure. How do we respond?