Hi All,

Sunday, February 17th to February 23rd: 25.4 miles

I modified my running schedule due to work (which is a good thing):

Tuesday night: 7 miles, 20F, windy, no stops, about 8:30 pace
Thursday night: 7 miles, 20F, calm, no stops, 8:23 pace
Saturday afternoon: 11.4 miles, 36F, calm, no stops, 8:25 pace

I amped up my long run. I could have run more ... I just keep on going like the Energizer Bunny, I guess.

My new job at Kodak office on the IT Help Desk is interesting. Their help desk is designed for high and critical priority calls and handles a lot more people with more apps and accounts. Kodak has a lot of online FAQs so that users can handle a lot of their support. I have listened to calls, received training and slowly got my accounts up and running. I handled two tickets on Friday; one via email and one by calling the customer with an answer to her question. Next week I am told that I will answer some live calls with someone listening to help me. The drive on Route 31 is 33 miles one way.

I am still finishing up the kitchen. I am laying down contact paper in the cabinets and drawers right now. I will be rehanging the cabinet doors this week. Then the bathroom will be last, but not least.

I watched War from the RedBox at Wegmans in Newark. I have been watching action movies lately.

Both the Newark girls and boys basketball teams have made it to the quarterfinals in their respective Section V tournaments. The girls bracket link is here. The boys bracket link is here. I hope to catch both finals (if they make it that far).

I am still converting my VHS tapes (ST-DS9 and ST-Voyager right now) to DVD. I ran into quite a string of bad DVDs (10 or so) this week. Either that would not even load or would not close after the write. I have changed to another brand of DVD-Rs. The first two were good.

Today I am headed down to Ithaca for Michael's Wind Ensemble concert. The concert will be held away from Ithaca College at Cornell University's Bailey Hall. According to Michael, it will be loud ... he will be wearing earplugs.

Keep running, Doug

Update: I am back from Ithaca. The concert was awesome. Bailey Hall is a horsehorse auditorium with a balcony built especially for musical concerts. The last piece was Circus Maximus by John Corigliano. Here is a quote from the program:

"The Circus Maximus of ancient Rome was a real place - the largest arena in the world. 300,000 spectators were entertained by chariot races, hunts, and battles. The Roman need for grander and wilder amusement grew as its empire declined.

The parallels between the high decadence of Rome and our present time are obvious. Entertainment dominates our reality, and ever-more-extreme "reality" shows dominate our entertainment. Many of us have become as bemused by the violence and humiliation that flood the 500-plus channels of our television screens as the mobs of imperial Rome, who considered the devouring of human beings by starving lions just another Sunday show."

Back to the concert - there were trumpets, snares, trombones, etc stationed all around: behind, to the left, to the right and on the balcony. The trumpets heralded like the Roman trumpets. The climax in the sixth movement was quite loud, the climax at the end was punctuated by a shotgun blast.