This post is really boring

Today started out so unbelievably awful, I'm surprised I made it through to lunch. The awfulness started last night when I discovered I had been blocked from accessing my bank accounts online. I had made a large payment (think, "car insurance"), and received a call from theft prevention services. When I called them back, they asked for information they not only had no right to know, they had no way of knowing if my answers were correct. Worse, they were asking these questions while I was standing at an airport (yes, my fault for, heaven forbid, returning a Panicked Call from my bank when walking through an airport). I kept thinking, wait, you're asking for my account number, full name, AND social security number, when I'm surrounded by 200 people I don't know? Are you retarded?

Now, being locked out of an account isn't much of a big deal, but spending lots of money for a fast internet connection, have it working for exactly one day after waiting 20 days for it to be up and running, then have it go down on the second day might be enough to start the trend of a frustrating day.

Following hard on the bank annoyances and internet connection outages came the realization that the conference I was attending was exactly not the level I either expected it to be, or needed it to be. When the second question out of the first presenter's mouth is "How many people are new to this?" and 95% of the audience raises its hands, and you're an intermediate to expert in the area, well, yeah, you're in the wrong place, new experience or not. I'm so used to being surrounded by Unbelievably Experienced And Intelligent People, I often forget there are mere mortals out there, people who don't have the gobs and gobs of experience.

Go fig.

So, I left the conference, dealt with the bank, switched to my slower internet connection, thankful we had it, and sure, why not, it's only $20 a month (oh, wait, that's $240 a year), and started to work. I needed to get this work done, so off I go. I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel of all of these projects I've been so overwhelmed with. YAY! So, I started the login process to the client's systems to push every thing live...

and discovered my security fob died.

Will this day never end?

Answer? Yes.

I managed to borrow another fob from the client (with a note to get Doyle's fob back), dropped off my fob, talked to Jessica (though, really, that wasn't such a great conversation, with some health issues with Gab that needs be taken care of. Turns out, that little speed demon can be made faster, we have the technology to create the world's first bionic Gaby! Oh wait, no, not that, something else, but it was still a bummer of a call), managed to complete a crapload of client tasks, checking off my cards one by one, and decided to go for a run. A run. A nice long(ish) run, instead of my recent sprint workouts.

I started off really strong, a nice good paced jog, maybe a run, standing straight, leaning from the hips, running to the (volume set low!) tunes in my ears. I began to ponder what an always-connected life would be like. Sure, I was just going out for a run, but I wouldn't mind a snapshot every moment or so of where I was running, maybe leaving a camera here and there to snap a cool photo of the flowers I passed. Those thoughts kept me entertained for a mile or so. Until I started thinking of Scott.

I think of him a lot when I run. I'm a bit older than he was when he in our lives. How very different our lives have been, yet, how very much influenced by his presence. He showed me a lot of what the world could be, even if it never was for him.

He emailed me a couple years back. I never emailed him back, though. Mostly out of loyalty to Mom. Why would I contact him, if he had hurt my Mom so much? He found me through this site (though, back when it was on hodsden.org, and not here - here I'm a heck of a lot easier to find). I don't know, I wish I had emailed him back, talked to him (or at least email him). See what he's up to, see if he moved beyond the demons that have haunted him for so long. CC Kelly saw him a few times over the years, I think through his jobs at the National Guard, flying helicopters. I find it interesting that those damned helicopters were so much a part of him.

How different would our lives have been if he played ultimate? Or some other sport that we could have played with him, that he could have taught us about? Sure, I was the football manager in junior high and high school (my first varsity letter was in football), and he enabled that with introductions (I mean, come on, how freaking weird in retrospect is that? The schools football manager? Some dopey, dorky, quiet, wisp of a girl lugging around these tackling dummies and pads? WTF? Also in retrospect, it was very, very cool. Seriously, how many of your female friends lettered in football? At least one.).

Eventually, I tired on my run. I feel I'm perpetually out of shape when I run. I think I'd probably feel that way even if I were in shape, since running never gets any easier, the times just get faster.

The "tired" as of late have been more "drained" than tired. Drained of energy, like I use up all I have and simply am. No more running, just being. Sometimes it's okay, but other times, like yesterday, it's frustrating. Eventually, though, my tired became pain, as my right knee starting having sharp, piercing pains on every step. Happily, I quickly discovered a fix to the pain.

Run faster.

If I run lifting my knees higher, hence running faster and not merely jogging, then they didn't run. So, faster home I ran. Double benefit!

I spent the first 10 minutes home pulling weeds from the front yard. I've been very poor at stretching as of late, so while I was warm, I bent over into a hamstring stretch, extended my arms, and started pulling weeds from the front yard. I'm planning on planting a whole slew of yellow poppies in the front, so up came all the annoying weeds to make room.

That run was a turning point for the day. I managed to run, stretch, pull weeds and, to my surprise, catch a call from Ben. If only Kris had a job he could do anywhere. We'd be in Seattle faster than you can blink. Hello, Ben! Hello, Lisa! Hello, Jake!

Instead, we're here. Dog walk, sushi, three hours of client work, one site up, one greasemonkey script and one blog post later, and the day that started out so sucky suck, is now over. Time for bed.