1. Sunsets. Yeah, I’ll admit it – there’s something about watching the sun slip behind the planet that works wonders for my mind. First, there’s the longer shadows, then the indeterminable period of golden light, the dip behind the trees, the brilliant gold fade to orange fade to crimson through pink, and the final fade through purple to blue to grey to night. Wow.
2. Running on trails. The trees, the quiet, the soft crush of leaves underfoot, and the slight slipping and sliding – puts a smile on my face every time. Dirt on my shoes? Even more of a plus. Man, I cannot get enough of this stuff.
3. Food. Food is good. Good food is great. And running only lets me enjoy more of it.
All right – enough of the digression.
So, the trip to Natick this week was excellent. THe class ended up being better than I could have hoped, and I think it’ll help me at the office. The running in Natick ended up being wonderful, too. The capstone was Thursday afternoon – got out of class before sunset, and went and parked on MA 135, which I believe is the Boston Marathon route. Ran through Natick Center, and veered up Marion Street. Marion Street climbs straight up a hill until it runs into the 100 Acre-Plus Town Wood, which is lined with beautiful, wide trails. Phenomenal.
Left the wood just after the sun dipped below the treeline, and made my way back into town, flashing the nod and half-wave to the other runners enjoying the fabulous afternoon.
By the way – running on Rt 135 was amazing, just thinking of the history and effort that’s gone into the 111 marathons that have passed that way. I had supper last night with a couple of fraternity brothers, and a friend of one of them who’s run Boston like 8 times. The first couple, he jumped in as a Maverick (or whatever), but he’s qualified for like the last 6. Then, thinking about Jeff and the other RBF types who have made the wicket – well, let’s just stay thinking. I need to hold the (waist)line through the holidays, then drop 20 lbs, make it through another marathon season, and then maybe, MAYBE, it’ll be worth a think.
The class was at the Army’s Soilder Systems Laboratory. We got to see a couple of pretty cool demos, including chewing on one of the new, high-tech “Shelf Stable” sandwiches, and a “Hoo-Rah” bar, the DoD’s version of the PowerBar, which is worth every penny they spent researching it – delicious.
Tonite? Took the boys to movie night at the elementary school. Missy’s off at her office Christmas party, and I’m playing with the refurbished Airport Express I just picked up. Actually, there’s not much “Playing with” that needed to be done – I plugged it in, plugged in the speaker cable and ethernet cable from my existing home network, and it works like a champ. Pretty freakin’ cool to be able to send iTunes to real speakers.
Now to build the built-in’s in the basement…
Enjoy the weekend, y’all
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