Today after our workout at VS, my shower took far, far too long. I ended up in a rush to make the train, having Kris drop me off at the station on a drive-by wife dump at the curb.

He loves those adventures.

I rushed up the ramp to the platform, just in time to see the lights of the oncoming train approach. Not quite panicked, I rushed to the ticket kiosk, pulling out my index card holder where I have my 10 ride ticket stored.

Neatly tucked into the side pocket of my index card holder, right where the 10 ride ticket is supposed to be, I found Liza's rookie card, but no ticket.

I started to panic.

I pulled out my wallet as quickly as I could, the train having stopped at this point, and looked to see if I had cash to buy a ticket with. I had a twenty, and really didn't want 16 dollar coins, even if they were the presidential coins. I didn't have any smaller bills, so I grabbed the first credit card I could find and jammed it into the ticket machine.

Turning to plead with the conductor to wait for me, I purchased my ticket. The ticket was "Authorizing, please wait" when the conductor called, "All aboard! We can't wait!" When the ticket dropped, I grabbed it and, clutching all of my disheveled crap, raced for the open door as it started to shut.

I dove into the train just as the doors closed behind me, stumbled up the stairs and into a car, flopping down and dumping my bags onto the chair next to me. Once I had relaxed a bit, I pulled out my bag and started going through it, determined to find that 10 ride ticket.

I was so sure I had put the ticket into the index card holder, its approved location. I pulled out the holder, and looked at Liza's card again. I pulled it aside and looked at the holder again.

And found the 10 ride ticket, just where I had put it.

I need to trust myself more. Clearly. I knew the ticket was there, I just didn't believe in myself, that I had put it away, that it was where it should be. Too many self-doubts, that's for sure. Maybe if I trust in myself more, I'd be pleasantly surprised with the results. Can't be any worse than the train panic, that's for sure.

Down the hall from our offices is a security company of some sort. I think it's a computer or digital systems security company, I'm not sure. I can't say I ever bothered to find out.

When the really, really loud guy at the company with offices next door to our offices moved out, we consided renting the offices so that we could expand. We had eventual plans to expand, but nothing immediate. We didn't actively pursue the offices.

The security company, however, did.

They rented the offices, then promptly installed a telephone conference system, a ginormous white board, a big conference table, lots of not-really-comfy chairs, cubicles in the second office and a keypad lock on the door.

Our offices are in the back room of our two room office suite. Their conference room is also in the back room. There is a thin door between the two rooms.

What shocks me is that, for a security company, the employees of the company are incredibly lax in physical security of their operations. We hear every conference call conversation through the thin door. We walk into their office on a regular basis to see what's up with the rooms: they leave the front door open most of the time. We're privy to many internal business decisions. We'd know a lot more if Doyle would stop cranking his music player when the conversations start.

The experience makes me more paranoid (is that possible?) about my conversations. I'm more aware of my surroundings than I used to be, though I'm sure I still say more than I should. I should probably get that switch from my brain to my mouth checked out.

Today, around 1PM, a semi jack-knifed into the center divide, caught on fire, and stopped traffic on 101 in both directions. Because 101 South was way closed for four, five hours, traffic spilled over to Middlefield, Central and Alma, El Camino, Alameda and Junipero Serra and Foothill, and, of course, 280. Kris tried each of these streets, leaving at 4:30 to bring Annie home from her weekly dogwalk, before heading back up to Stanford for our sprint workout.

When he drove less than a mile in 20 minutes, he agreed to let me drive his clothes up to him when I came to practice, instead of his double driving. Seemed wise at the time.

After the run, and after I went to practice to coach, the last practice of the season where I had all of four teammates show up (making me wonder, is it school, or something I did?), Kris and I talked about how crazy the day was.

He commented that one more big rig exploding in the Bay Area, and he, too, would start believing in conspiracies. The big rig that exploded in Oakland a few weeks back took out part of the freeway, and disrupted traffic patterns, hence commerce, in the area. We talked about how, screw the exploding planes, disrupt the capitalist ecosystem in one of the most innovative areas in the country, to make a mark. One way to do that? Exploding tankers taking out freeways is one way.

Kris isn't prone to seeing anything negative, much less a conspiracy theory. For him to make this suggestion (and make it before I even thought of it) indicates just how suspicious he find these big-rig accidents of late.

Let's hope there's no third one.

Last night, we had another Mischief track workout at the Stanford Dish. Instead of running the Dish loop, however, we ran up one particular hill.

Up. And up. And up. And up. And up. And up.

The workout was three sets of six sprints up the hill. The hill wasn't particularly short, nor was it unnecessarily long. But it was hard. After the first set, my legs were moosh. After the second set, I wanted to puke. Apparently, I'm not the only one who wanted to puke: several others admitted to the desire, though no one actually vomitted.

Kris commented to me, "Don't overdo it. You get injured when you overdo it." My response was something like, "I need to overdo it, I have a roster spot to hold onto!" Unfortunately, the thought of stopping was appealing, and I stopped.

After about 10 minutes, my heartrate had dropped to normal, I had rested, walked around, and relaxed, and was completely regretting my decision to stop.

This morning, as I was half asleep, but rolling out of bed anyway for our morning workout at VS, Kris commented to me, "Consistency. As long as you're working out hard each day, you'll improve."

So, that's my new motivational word for the next few months. Consistency on my way back from injury.

I swear, the West Coast gets crap sometimes.

Take, for example, the new dollar coins, honoring presidents (fortunately, DEAD presidents so we won't have to see the village idiot on a coin for a long ass while).

Turns out, there are TWO of these coins out already: George Washington and John Adams (with Jefferson coming out in August). Not that I'd seen any before Kris handed me the 18 he received as change the day before.

And here I was stuck on the Susan B. Anthony coins.

Maybe this will inspire me to memorize all the presidents in order...

Nah.