Kris' WoW playing is killing me. I can't upload pictures in the evening when he's home, lest I destroy his lag time. I can't upload photos during the day when he's not home, because that's when I'm working. I guess there's the 4 hours when we're both asleep that I could use, but that requires either I get up and push the "upload now" button, or he pushes it before he goes to bed. Or, we need a faster internet connection so that uploading 600 pictures doesn't take for-ev-ver, as it does now.

I definitely need to find my balance again. These last two weeks have completely wrecked me. Resolution #23 for this year has been to live deliberately, which means actually being balanced enough to adjust to the changes and adversity coming at me. I feel I've lost much of that balance these last few weeks, and very much need it back. I can't believe it's the nineteenth already this month. I feel I have so little to show for it.

The rain tonight was interesting. It's been a while since I was outside during the rain. I had forgotten how the world smells during a rain storm. It's so easy to be distracted when hustling through the rain, trying not to get wet. Stopping for a moment, allowing myself to just be during the downpour, to hear the rain as it taps my hood, to smell the air, to feel the rain as it soaks through my pants (knowing full well I won't melt when it does), was a nice change the usual dash.

Not having Jessica and Gaby around makes the house a lot more quiet and a little lonely. Given we've known each other for approaching three decades now (no, no, Jess, you're not *that* old), we share a level of intimacy about each other that makes me uncomfortable in retrospect. She knows stories from our childhood that I've spent years running from. She knows the small words, said casually, without thinking, that have had huge impacts in my life. It's easy to just let my guard down with her, in ways that I don't with any of the friends I've made as an adult. I don't know if it's fear of rejection or judgement from my (local) friends, or if I'm not that person any more and just accidently slipping back into the roles we played as children.

Today was a hard day, but not because of the tasks at hand. My motivation was low today, probably due to feeling slightly ill all day. Around 3 in the afternoon, I gave up trying to work, and went to read a book instead. I figured if I couldn't concentrate on work, faking it wasn't going to help. Might as well do something I enjoy doing. Well, that, and make progress on resolution #9.

I walked into the kitchen today to hear the rain falling in a much different way than I'm used to hearing it. Instead of the usual falling rain outside the window and the rain spout from the gutter noise in the distance, I heard a small waterfall out the kitchen window to the back.

Confused, I put on my rainjacket, wandered into the garage for the ladder, and outside to find the cause.

Just outside the kitchen window is a gutter seam. When I stuck my hand in the gutter, it was full to the top with water and leaves, and overflowing at the seam. "Great," I thought. "Just great. Our gutters are clogged. Lovely."

I climbed down off the ladder, folded it back up, and put it back in the garage. I wandered back into the house, to the office where (I know, I know, you'll be shocked at this part) Kris was playing World of Warcraft (surprised, eh?). "The gutters are clogged. I'll clean them tomorrow."

"Uh, okay."

I'm not sure Kris really registered what I was saying.

As I walked back into the kitchen, I thought about the situation for a bit. We don't actually have any trees around the house that could be leaving leaves on the roof that would fall into the gutter.

I put my jacket back on, grabbed my camera and the ladder and went back outside, this time to the rain spout. I went to the one next to the powerlines, not sure why I went to that one, but I did.

I stuck my hand into the spout and realized there was something in there. Only a little weirded out, I grabbed hold. And pulled.

I had about 2 seconds to pull out my camera before I was completely drenched by the downpour out of the seam from the gutter. I really wish I had a rain barrel or underground cistern to hold all of this water. Maybe the next house will be more water savvy that this one.

Today's sprint workout was quick last Saturday's workout. Following along the Special K workout, today's workout was "easy" as

   1 stinker, 2 stinkettes, 3 suicides

A stinker is:

Sprint 50 yards out and back 3 times in a row for a total of 300 yards. If you are feeling really ambitious, do this in under 1 minute. Rest one and a half minutes afterwards.

A stinkette is:

Sprint 25 yards out and back 6 times in a row for a total of 300 yards. If you are feeling really ambitious, do this in under 1 minute 5 seconds. Rest one and a half minutes afterwards.

And a suicide is:

Run 5 yards out and back then increase to running 10, 15, 20, and 25 yards out and back. Rest 25 seconds afterwards.

Kris went with me today. He thought we were running 1-3-5 instead of 1-2-3, but he was willing to give in. I'm not quite sure how I managed to convince him to step away from the computer and his WoW guild, but he was happy to go with me, and even thanked me for getting him out of the house. Given he's the one that usually gets me moving, the role reversal was humourous.

Bella also came along, for a second run around of the day. She was surprisingly good, staying near us, sniffing dogs and other people, but always returning to us. She ran a little bit with us, but not much. Just enough to be cute.

My times were good, but very much beginning of the season results. My stinker was about 1:20. My stinkettes were 1:20 and 1:15, the second one when my legs finally warmed up. My suicides were :47, :46 and :45. Kris was consistently 10-15 seconds in front of me for the stinkers and stinkettes, but only about 5-6 seconds in front of me for the suicides, except the last one, which was only about 4 seconds. I really wanted to stay with him, but, well, yeah.

My college team is also running these workouts, which is pretty awesome. I need to make sure to send them the pointers of:

1. Always turn facing the same direction to even out which foot you turn off of, and practice cutting off both feet
2. Don't touch the ground on the turns. It's unnecessary. You wouldn't do that in a game when cutting.
3. Accelerate the arms to accelerate the feet when starting to change directions.
4. Turn your head quickly when changing directions, and focus immediately on your goal (usually of the end cone). This quick turning will cause your shoulders and hips to turn quickly also, and you'll change directions more quickly.
5. And, the stinkettes are very much the length of a normal cut. Think of them as cuts and clears, and visualize this on-the-field scenario as you run.

Time for some foam roller work on the hammies.

I've been trying to close a credit card account for three months now. I closed the account because I didn't need the rewards associated with the account (discounts on cars made by a particular manufacturer), as the rewards weren't completely as advertised. The deal was supposed to be 2% back a year up to a maximum about in as car rebate when you bought a new car, but, in reality, was a "we'll bump the price of the car up by the amount of the rebate for tax purposes" so you still pay the same amount in end, just to the state in sales tax instead of the dealership for the car.

Well, the bait-and-switch rebate and I'm not planning on buying a new car for a long, long time.

Now, I've been TRYING to close the account, but having no luck with the bills. After I closed the account via the phone, I called back for the balance amount, and sent a check in for that amount, figuring I was done. When my next bill arrived, it had another couple hundred dollars on the balance, which I paid five or so days of the due date.

Apparently, I didn't account for the Christmas rush of mail when mailing my payment in (yes, yes, I know, I know, "mailing a payment in?" Yes, I still write checks, I LIKE writing checks.). The January bill had a $39 late fee on the card.

Not that I knew it was on there. To me, I had paid the bill and paid on time, so I didn't bother opening the statement. By the time I did open it up, to scan the statement and file it away, it was too late to send in the payment on time. Let's see, I could send a rush electronic payment and pay $19, or send in a check for $39, plus another $39 late fee, but interest on the first $39.

Yeah, don't ask my why I didn't just call the credit card company and have the late fee waived. I didn't think of it at the time, but I should have.

So, I send the late fee and the rush fee via electronic check and pay the bill. Great, I'm done. This account is closed.

Except it's not.

I receive ANOTHER bill today with ANOTHER $15 rush payment processing fee, on TOP of the $19 rush payment fee AND the $39 late fee that I don't believe I should have had to pay in the first place.

I screamed when I opened the statement.

Kris came running.

In a frantic fit of anger, I cursed up a storm (now that Gaby wasn't in the house, I could curse up a storm for the 30 seconds it took me to explain to Kris what had happened). "I hate how they nickel and dime you," he said.

"Not so much nickel and dime as twenty and fifty dollar you," I responded.

Yeah.

So, this time, I DID call the credit card company. Could they please waive this yet-another-fee of $15? I've been trying to close this account for three months, and all I want is to have this account closed already. Please?

The customer reps answer?

"Well, ma'am, I can't waive the fee, no. But I can give you a $15 credit. Will that work for you?"

Um.... yes?

"Okay, the credit will appear on your statement within two business days. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Um.... no?

"Okay, have a nice day."

I think I will. $15 worth of a nice day

Jessica asked me what I wanted to do this evening. I hadn't been able to move around and run run run for a couple days now, so I asked if she wouldn't mind heading over to the local school and play with Gab on the playground equipment while I ran a sprint workout. She looked at me oddly, but said, sure, she'd be up for it.

So, with cones in arm, I ran ahead of Kris, Annie, Bella, Jessica and Gaby over to the school to run the first week's first workout. The first weeks first workout? WTF?

Well, I gave my team a modified version of the Special K season sprint workouts for their season. It's much easier to focus on sprints with a weekly set of goals to achieve, and I remember loving the results of the season of workouts that Kris wrote up. The workouts are a shortened version of the full season's worth of workouts, as the season ended in July that year: the Mixed division championship was in July, allowing all Mixed players a chance to play in the Open and Women's divisions in the fall.

Today's workout was:

   7x20, 5x40, 3x50, 3x90

The runs were done by sprinting at 100% for each of the distances, then jogging back to the starting cone and resting for a prescribed time. The rests between sprints were 25 seconds for the 20m sprints, 30 seconds for the 40m sprints, 45 seconds for the 50m sprints and 60 seconds for the 90m sprints. I messed up and used 20, 35, 45 and 45 seconds instead. Whoops.

I managed to set up the line of cones at 0, 20, 40, 50 and 90m and run the first three (of the eight I did, "just to be sure I did seven") 20m sprints before the rest of the group arrived. Gaby was excited to be running, and ran the next sprint with me, but only after being completely annoyed at the fact I didn't say, "GO!" so that she knew when to run. I apologized, and explained I was on a schedule, so needed to go when the timer said go, and not wait for her to get ready. She was annoyed, and went off to play on the monkey bars instead.

Some time during my 50m runs, a dog that looked remarkably like Toto decided my cones were the best toy in the world. He grabbed the 40 cone when I passed him and started running around. I was a little worried about running over him, but more worried about Gaby crushing me.

She started running with me when I started running the 50m sprints. She kicked off her flip-flops, and, when I said go, she ran down to the cones as I sprinted down to the cone. She didn't run the full distance, but rather, turned to run back to the cone when I rounded the 50m. She was usually about 10m or so behind me after I finished the sprint, took 10m to slow down, stopped and turned around. She'd start smiling really big, turn around, and start running back to the starting cone. She'd run back as quickly as she ran down, with my jogging behind her, not quite catching her.

The 90m sprints were a bit farther than she was willing to run, with her turning around at 60m or so. However, even with that lead, a quick run should allow me to catch up to her, right?

Nope.

She was still running a full run on her way back to the starting cone, her legs flying, her mom cheering her on.

I had to start working hard to catch her running back. The runs back nearly hurt more than the sprints down, trying to catch her. The last run back I think nearly did me in: I had to sprint the last 20m to catch her. Jessica was going to give me the photo finish, but I cheered her on, "YOU DID IT!"

Okay, sure, she had a head start, but, sheesh, getting outrun by an 8 year old? Then taunted by her? "How can you run faster than me?" Oh, little kid, if only I could cross the monkey bars as fast as you. That's my next goal.