Day 7.087: Rug Capital

A few days ago, I started the countdown to our move with a last "Rug City" creation. The post is here, but I'll repost the photos to save you flicking back-and-forth:

There were some proposed solutions in the comments, but the local commenters knew the truth, now revealed thanks to Google Earth.

It is Albany, New York - the Empire State Plaza to be more specific - including the Egg, the State Museum, the Corning Tower and with a guest appearance by the Capitol Building.

Tomorrow, the packers arrive to start dismantling our home and on Thursday we will wake up for the last time as residents of New York.

Day 7.086: A cake-off

This morning we completed our goodbye-filled weekend with a send-off at church. We've only been going there for about a year and a half, but we were so welcomed that it feels like much longer.

It seems all-too-recently that they had a cake after the service to celebrate our membership, today we had another one to mark our departure.

A piece of it made it to Maine with me

Actually, it was a bit more than that as you might be able to discern.

Day 7.082: I can carry it...

...it's light.

I can hear Exile #3 now, "You're not funny."

As for today - more back-and-forth on documents for our new mortgage interspersed with working and running. All good I think.

Day 7.080: Wrapping up

Well, the movers are booked and, unless several very unlikely things all occur to upset the plans, we will be leaving our house in the Capital District for the last time on April 10th (Day 7.090).

It's a sad and scary thought, but the last five months have been sufficiently difficult - both logistically and emotionally - that it is mostly a great relief!

(I don't know why, but Exile #3 decided she needed to wear all the bows from E5N1's birthday party gifts!)

Day 7.076: I ran a what?

All of these things have something in common:

They don't look very much like the route map I posted yesterday.

All but one of them were suggested (not the specific pictures - just the things) by either commenters on this blog, my Facebook friends or my running forum buddies.

If we count "licensed to carry small arms" as a T-rex vote, then that wins with three votes. Two votes went to each of aardvark, dog and kangaroo. There was a strong thread of puppets with Kermit, Sam the Eagle, Cookie Monster and Big Bird all featuring. Sherlock Holmes and The Stig round out the guesses - leaving just...drum roll...the mouse.

Yes I thought it looked like a mouse, but what do I know. I may have been influenced by the fact that one got into my desk drawer at work and tucked into a snack I'd left there over the weekend.

All of this nonsense did lead me to these people though - hat tip to ilanarama for that one!

Day 7.075: Picture a long midweek run...

Some of my Facebook friends have been trying to work out what my route from this morning's run looks like.

There is a right answer (in terms of what I thought it looked like when I designed it), but the other answers are just as much (probably more) fun so feel free to jump in in the comments!

Day 7.073: Don't ask me why!

One sunrise, one confused expression, two runs, two lighthouses, three goofy smiles, four selfies, no good reason.

Day 7.070: Sleeping around...

...seven hours a night is a challenge when marathon training and even that is probably not enough.

That was my phone screen as I was going to bed last night. It was just after 9 and first alarm was set for 3:55 am - seriously, who knew that was a possible beginning-of-the-day time?! - so that I could run my 12 miles, have a shower and get to work on time. As you can see - on shorter run days I allow myself to lie in until 4:25!

The real story however involves the previous night. Wednesday night was my big night this week because Thursday was one of my two scheduled rest days. So I could get to bed, sleep for maybe 8 hours, catch up a little...yeah...no that didn't happen.

Firstly, I stayed up too late playing 2048 (are you thanking me yet?), but it was still going to be OK when I was going to bed about 10:30 pm until at about 1 am when I was pulled unceremoniously from my sleep by a car alarm going off in the apartment complex parking lot - right outside my window. Oh well, you can't win them all - at all as I discovered when, having got back to sleep my phone rang at 2:30 because Exile #2 was in the house with three kids and a malfunctioning carbon monoxide detector. Sometimes you just have to roll with it!

Day 7.069: Throwback Thursday #1

So, Throwback Thursday is a thing on the interwebs - it's Thursday - post an old picture. I've done it on Facebook a bit, now I'm doing it here.

I looked back seven years in the blog - then went back another week to find a nice photo. This is what I found. Wow.

If you're interested, you can read the post here - one of the many culture-shock stories of Year 0.

As for the present day, our real estate transactions are in progress, as are move preparations, marathon training, a still-fairly-new job and all the normal things of life. None of which is very interesting to write about so you won't get to read about it (any more than that). Not today anyway.

Day 7.068: You can thank me later

I have just discovered (thanks to today's XKCD) 2048. It's a very addictive puzzle game that you can play on your computer or mobile device. Click here to try for yourself!

I've since introduced the rest of the family, and a cross-section of my Facebook friends to the fun.

Here is my best score to date - check out the 1024 tile (not, however, the eponymous 2048 yet)!

Enjoy and - when you're ready to complain because your whole life has fallen apart - read the second sentence again and don't say I didn't warn you!

Day 7.067: New England and England (new)

I haven't spent much time tweaking my PC at work. My personal touches did not go far beyond choosing a wallpaper image from the options provided by Windows - this rather Maine-ish lighthouse.

My Dad sent the image on the right - taken today on my parents' walking holiday in the Lake District. It made me a little homesick for a moment for that kind of landscape.

Not that the landscape round here is bad at all - as I remembered when I looked back at the other screen!

Day 7.066: A slight slip-up

Here's another picture from the "Rug City + marbles" session last weekend. It has nothing to do with the rest of this post.

On Saturday afternoon, I arrived at my hotel more than 30 minutes before the wedding was due to start. The wedding venue was less than 15 minutes away. I did a quick bag drop in my room then asked the hotel to call me a taxi. So far so good. A few minutes later a taxi arrived. Even better.

This is when it started to go less well. The taxi was not for me. I waited. I waited some more. They called the taxi company again (he'll be right there). More waiting. Even more waiting. The taxi company called the hotel (not a good sign). They would be twenty minutes. It was now 5 minutes before the ceremony was due to start. They called another taxi company - they said ten minutes (at least I might make it by the end). Then a couple of minutes later the first taxi company's taxi showed up. I got in.

It doesn't get better yet.

The driver confirmed the address with me - then spent what felt like ten minutes typing the address into his ancient Garmin GPS. Then we were off - down to the road and make a right turn. I wasn't sure of the route, but that didn't feel right. I tried to see the Garmin, but it didn't seem to be saying anything. A few minutes later it woke up - Recalculating - continue for 0.1 miles and make a U-turn. Great. Just great. I may have muttered something under my breath. The driver pulled over just before a blind turn on the 55 mph one-lane-each-way-with-double-lines, let a car go past us and went for the U-turn. He didn't make it. We were now doing a 3-point turn. By a blind bend. On a fast narrow road.

Then, as we were side-on blocking the whole road, a car came round the blind bend.

We survived that moment of excitement and a few minutes later, we were driving back past the hotel - some 40 minutes after I'd called for the taxi. We eventually arrived at the church. I was too rushed/happy-to-be-alive to be upset by then. I walked in just in turn to hear the end of a song and them being declared husband and wife - well that was the point I suppose.

The rest of the day was - happily - a vast improvement and I wasn't the last to arrive at the church - my friends walked in a couple of minutes behind me (for less dramatic reasons) only in time to hear the bagpiper lead the recessional.

Day 7.063: A cycle in the winter

This is a graph of my monthly running miles since...well, since I started running.

That's July 2011 at the left. The two big bumps peaking in the late summer months are my two previous marathon training cycles - and yes I am in the middle of a third cycle.

It's the first time I've tried to do serious training in the winter and it's definitely a different experience. Working the runs around winter storms, running on snow and ice and through slushy puddles and having to bundle up in enough layers to go out when it's sub-zero Fahrenheit but still be able to run are all challenges that just don't come up in the summer.

My current peak should end up looking almost exactly the same as the previous one since I'm following the same training plan. Hopefully I will have another good race in May. At times it's nice to have something to focus on that isn't to do with new houses, schools, jobs and cities, but all that needs to be factored in too. Hopefully I can continue to fit everything in.

Day 7.062: Moving stories

Today I was accused of sounding "a tad melancholy recently". Well that won't do!

The truth is that the sale of this house:

seems to be going fine and I've been reluctant to tempt fate by mentioning it.

Whereas the purchase of a house in Maine has been going less smoothly and I've not really known what to say about it. Hence the melancholic diversions. Sorry.

On top of that, I'm in the midst of marathon training so I tend to be up early to run and tired (but only occasionally actually melancholy) in the evenings when I normally write this. Sorry.

Hopefully there will be some better entertainment to come.

Day 7.061: Breaking my habit

This is the second consecutive week that I have not been cooking any of my Portland-staple Indian food. No particular reason except the general chaos and its relationship to: having time to cook, having time to shop, eating at "home" in the apartment for a few consecutive days to make the cook-and-reheat cycle make sense.

So, tonight it was pasta, salad and garlic bread:

I'm not exactly suffering.

Day 7.059: Daylight savings? Don't wake me up!

Ah, the clocks went forward yesterday and today I had to get up for work (but fortunately not to run - just for work was hard enough!)

Here is a nearly perfect song from a good (but not in my opinion great) album by Lianne La Havas:


HUNGER TV: LIANNE LA HAVAS - DON'T WAKE ME UP from Hunger TV on Vimeo.

and no, the relevance does not go beyond the title, but the excellence does!

Day 7.058: One person ruffle

I remember seeing a film where a wife or girlfriend returned from a trip to see the bed and conclude that it was too messy for it to have been made that way by her other half alone. If I recall correctly, she described it as a "two person ruffle". I can't remember if she was right, but let me tell you I can make a bed pretty messy on my own.

Day 7.056: Structural inspection

It wasn't a slam-dunk today (to willfully use a US sporting term) at the house in Maine. However, I'm now home and I've been looking at the photos and videos that have appeared on the computer in my three week absence.

Most of them seem to have been taken by E5N1. Some of the videos are comedy gold, but I haven't got the energy to deal with them this evening, so here is a still picture that I would have been rather pleased with if I'd taken it.

Straight out of the camera for your pleasure - check out those walls!

Day 7.055: Getting here

Today was a normal run, work, eat, Skype day but tomorrow has all sorts of excitement.

We have just one last hurdle to cross in the sale of our home, and tomorrow, the big one in the purchase of the new one happens. I will be spending a couple of hours at the house with a home inspector hoping to find everything that is wrong with it (and hoping that that is very little!).

After that, I'm heading home to work out what we need to do with the last few weekends I have to sort things out there for the move.  See you on the other side!

Day 7.052: I'll get it in the spring

This is one of two (or maybe three) bicycles I've seen completely swallowed by snow banks this winter. This one looks almost ready to be rescued, but I suspect it's still quite well held by the icy snow.

It does make me wonder how this happened - did someone ride it to work one day and then leave it when the snow closed in later that day and just think, "I'll get it in the spring"?