Streak ended...

I'm not entirely sure when the last day was that I did no swim at least a mile. I think it may have been last January. I already knew I wouldn't be swimming next Monday since the gym closes on Christmas. So my streak had an end in sight. But, this morning, I gave up after what turned out to be a slow 1,100 yards with many stops for catching my breath.

I came home and collapsed back into bed for an hour. I feel better now but I'm really not happy about having my swimming affected by this. That's not at all acceptable.

When I got up this morning, I was huffing and puffing and short of breath getting into my suit and into the car. I pushed through anyway when clearly I should have stopped and let my lungs catch up.

The plan for tomorrow is to wake up when I wake up and take my time and make sure I am breathing ok before I even head out. Normally I need to get there asap so I can be back on the road home before the work rush hour. But this week the roads won't be packed so timing won't matter at all.

This better be fucking temporary. Messing with my swimming is serious shit.

And speaking of serious shit, Amtrak opened up a new route this morning with a new station in Tacoma and expanded schedules. It was a huge freakin' deal with celebrations that started yesterday. The inaugural run was this morning and the train was packed with train buffs all hyped up for the first run. This guy's tweets is kind of chilling.





The train is dangling off the overpass onto the interstate highway on the new section of track. Yikes. Another reason to be grateful that there isn't the usual traffic this morning. I hate comparisons like this but even so, there are a whole lotta people having a way worse morning that I am.

I have nothing that I have to do today and that very well be exactly what I end up doing... nothing.

Adjusted for Old Age...

Years and years ago - late 80's - I worked for a guy named Joe. He was actually the boss of my boss at IBM and a pure gem of a guy, He was one of those guys who never ever loses you no matter what and has a memory for people that is astonishing.

Good Connecticut Catholic married to the same - Mary - with a house full of kids and then grand kids and then great grand kids. Every single year I got his family newsletter and a picture of the ever growing clan. I long since lost track of who was who outside of Joe and Mary but I enjoyed the newsletter anyway.

This year, I got the Christmas card but when I opened it, no newsletter with photo fell out. Instead was a lovely Christmas note followed by "No newsletter - Happy Holidays adjusted for old age". Both Joe and Mary have to be in their 90's now but they still got it for sure and still crack me up.

I did nearly nothing today and kind of got into after a bit. I sat right here in my chair and worked on my databases - databasi? I finished cataloging all the patterns and all the fabrics! Now I just need to make sure I keep them current. I think that part won't be as tedious. I did figure out that syncing with the spreadsheet and making across the board changes there then re-syncing was an easy way to make global changes. This will make it all far more robust.

I have not been moving much so breathing is fine and no coughing unless I try to take a deep breath and even then, not so terrible. So all in all a better day than it looked like it would be when staring at it from this morning.

The water temperature in the pool was chilly yesterday and fucking cold today. Cold as in take your breath away cold and I had no spare breath to donate to the cause so it added to the not fun. But, I sent a text to 'Joe' asking him about it. I have no clue who 'Joe' is but he sent me a text right after I joined and said if I ever had a question or needed anything to pop him a text. So I did. And I got an answer back that was thoughtful and to the point (basically, they are on it and it's not broken, just needs adjusting). I so very much appreciate having someone so easy to contact who listens and responds. I still love my new gym.

Oh! Just spied this!! "A winter storm is expected to roll into Western Washington later Monday, bringing heavy snow in the mountains and flurries to the Seattle area." We will likely not see a flake but still, it's fun to think about.

I just read that there is currently no ETA on re-opening Interstate 5 due to the train crash investigation. Because of the land topography and highway structure around that section, that is truly bad news for everyone needing that road. The viable alternatives are like going from Tacoma to Seattle by way of Dallas, Tx.