Thursday, March 17, 2011

St. Patrick's Day hodge podge

From India to America back to India to America (rinse and repeat)
How much sense does this make? Here I am, an American, reviewing, correcting and editing Web page copy written by someone in India about a proofreading service based here in the United States that proofs papers and whatever for students and academics to guarantee that the English used is appropriate and accurate. Meaning that the service does a lot of proofing for non-native English speakers. This seems kinda goofy and a bit circuitous to me. On the other hand, it might be an interesting business for me to investigate as another client. I'm betting most of it is done over the Internet anyhow.

Checked it out: - the jobs are by bid, they take a 12% bite off the top and use PayPal to pay so there's another 3% nibble. Saw lots of available reviewers and no projects -- more supply than demand.

Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans
I don't remember how we got on the subject yesterday at breakfast but John and I were reminiscing about really early TV shows - circa 1955 and later. I remember watching Captain Kangaroo and being really irritated with him (even as a child) that he'd announce the time as "it's 20 minutes after the hour..." or "it's 15 minutes before the hour..." and I thought that was really dumb. And irritating because I was learning to tell time and knowing the hour would have been really  helpful. I didn't figure it out until much later that it was because he was live across different time zones so he couldn't say it was 20 minutes after 9 or 15 minutes before 10. Still, I was ticked about it and just found him useless to watch as a result. John pointed out that that was a rather poor reason for me not to have watched Captain Kangaroo. Whatever. The doofus (Captain Kangaroo, not John) annoyed me enough that I didn't watch.

Geese! Ducks! Goldfinches!
We are finally starting to see some signs of spring in our area. Yeay! Bridget and I were walking last week and saw hundreds of geese and ducks returning to the area. There have been goldfinches (which stay here in cold weather but lose their gold coloring) with gold feathers at the feeders. Thank goodness!

Week 7 of 5K Training
I've been doing my training for the May1st 5K I'll (hopefully) be running. I'm up to three minute runs interspersed with three minutes of walking. Amazingly, I am recovering my breath faster and feeling much less winded. The organizers just keep telling us to trust them that we'll be able to run the whole 5K (3.1 miles) by May 1st. I'm just not worrying about it and will put my trust in their hands.

We have had the most rotten weather on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings in which to do our group workouts -- all together there are about 300 of us crazies out there for the group runs. Last Wednesday (a week ago) it was pouring rain. Last night there was a very sharp wind that kept the 40 degree temperatures from feeling moderate. We've had everything: wind, rain, ice, *now (the white stuff whose name rhymes with blow). They made it perfectly clear at the beginning that we go out regardless of the weather.

For my other two training runs/walks, I've loaded up my iPod with some great music and just do the neighborhood streets. It's beautiful out today and I ***should*** do my work out today but I suspect it will be postponed until tomorrow and more crappy weather. Ah well. They have definitely taught me that weather shouldn't be an issue regardless of what it's doing outside. Just go.

I have dropped a couple pounds in the process but more I can tell the difference in the tightness of my legs and my endurance. Luckily the plantar fasciitis and knee/hip issues haven't been a lasting problem. I'm hoping that I can keep any physical problems at bay so I can do this. While I don't really feel like an athlete yet, I'm starting to think I could be one. And I'm really loving the running parts of all this.

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