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My New Favorite Running Route
I think I have a new favorite running route. It’s a nice five mile loop that begins on bike trails and ends on quiet residential streets.
I begin at 48th and Highway 2, though it would be easy to begin anywhere on the loop. If you don’t live on or near the loop, the parking lot at 40th and Highway 2 makes a good starting point.
From 48th and Highway 2, I head west on the newly-christened Boosalis Trail toward Shopko. Then I catch the northbound Rock Island Trail, which features several shaded areas, depending on the time of day. I go under Sheridan Boulevard and continue about a quarter mile until I reach Van Dorn Street. (Note that Van Dorn doesn’t actually cross the trail.) I take a right across the park to 33rd, then turn south. I head back to Sheridan, where I turn east. I follow Sheridan until it meets Calvert Street, hop on Calvert for a half block, and then turn south on 44th Street. 44th Street appears to end at Prescott, but I continue south by taking the sidewalk between the houses. Once I hit Pioneers Boulevard I take either 44th, 45th, 46th, or 47th Street, depending on my mood. Whatever the case, I continue until I hit Gertie, zigzag down to Claire, and pop out on 48th. And boom, I’ve just gone approximately 5.25 miles.
I like this route because it’s one big loop, so there is no repeated scenery; there are very few traffic interruptions; and there is plenty of shade at various points throughout the run. There are also a couple easy alterations for shorter mileage:
- From the Rock Island Trail, turn east on Calvert Street. Follow Calvert to 44th Street, then continue as above. This route is about 4.5 miles.
- From the Boosalis Trail, turn north on 33rd Street. Turn east on Calvert and continue to 44th Street, as above. This route is about 3.9 miles.
There’s also this lasso:
It’s not usually one of my favorite routes, but since it stays primarily on good bike trails it works out well for for intervals and fartleks.
What are some of your favorite running routes of various distances around town?
Edited to add: If you don’t already use it, check out Gmaps Pedometer. It’s great for mapping out routes and measuring mileage.
Photos, Photos, and More Photos
Yesterday I posted a whole bunch of family photos to my Flickr account. Three of the recent sets include: Robbie’s 2nd birthday; our recent trip to Albuquerque; and Father’s Day. Some sneak peaks:
Riding on dad’s shoulders:
Fascinated by Grandpa Rick:
Cousin Sam shows off his six-pack:
Mr. Wilson’s Cute Little Garden
After hours of muscle-straining labor, my garden finally looks like a garden again. It was a long process.
First I tore out the old rock path that runs from the patio to the side yard, bisecting the garden. When I originally put it in I didn’t lay down any weed blocker, and then I didn’t maintain it very well. As a result, it aged poorly. Have you ever tried to remove a bunch of rocks that have lodged themselves in the underlying ground? What. A. Pain.
Once I finally had (almost) all the rocks out, I reworked the ground and leveled things out. Then I laid out pavers to act as a border between the path and the garden. I wanted to line up the border pavers with the pavers that make up the patio, which required widening the path a couple inches on each side, not only for the pavers, but also to make room to install the plastic edgers that would hold the pavers in place.
Then I thought, “Those old rocks are all dirty and dingy. I need new rocks. But what to do with the old rocks?” I just love creating more work for myself. I decided to extend the path around the side of the garage, using the old rocks next to the garage where they didn’t need to be as pretty. That meant buying a bunch of new rocks for the garden path.
Long story short, the new path through the garden is finished, and it looks awesome. Now to start work on the extended part that will go along the side of the garage. That part shouldn’t take more than 3 or 4 hours.
I also have most of my garden planted. This year’s crop includes:
- Jalapeno
- “Fooled You” chile (look and taste like jalapenos but are much milder)
- Hungarian wax chile (I love these for a mild zing)
- Habanero (4 plants! What am I going to do with 4 plants worth of habanero?!)
- Serrano
- Cayenne
- A Thai chile I can’t recall the name of (perfect for adding to summer veggie stir fries)
- Anaheim
- Italian roasting peppers (great for kabobs)
- Red, yellow, and green bell peppers
- Eggplant (a request from The Missus)
- Cucumber (most will go to my mom so she can make cinnamon pickles)
Yes, I went crazy with the peppers and chiles this year. I still need zucchini or some sort of squash. I also have a couple spots open for other plants, if anybody has any suggestions. Both spots are in full sun. One spot has loose, quickly-draining soil and is close to the house (so it will be warm). The other spot’s soil is a bit denser and retains moisture better.
Disappointingly, I didn’t get any cilantro this year. After a couple years of cilantro practically taking over my garden, not a single plant came up this year. I don’t know what I did to make it mad.
What’s in your garden this year?
Birthday Photos
Inside are a few more photos from Robbie’s birthday festivities this weekend.
Two!
Yowzers, I can hardly believe my little boy turned two today.
No, wait, that’s a lie. I can definitely believe it. When Robert turned one, it felt weird. But he has seemed like a two year-old for a couple months now. This birthday didn’t sneak up on me like the last one did. There’s no disguising the arrival of the Terrible Twos. Not that Robbie is all that terrible yet, but he can throw a fit when he’s motivated.
Now that Robbie is two, all sorts of doors will open for him:
He doesn’t sit still very often:
This didn’t turn out half bad, considering I just held out the camera and clicked:
Don’t mess with this guy!
Robbie is going to clean up this town:
For the record, Robbie weighs in at a slim-and-trim 25 pounds and he stands 33 inches tall. That puts him squarely in the 30th percentile. (In contrast, his cousin Sam is 7 months younger but could eat Robbie for breakfast.)
This morning Robbie got to open his presents from mom and dad. The two big winners were a book about vehicles and a nifty “bike”. Tonight he will get to eat at either Gateway (for the carousel) or Red Robin (for the “balaloons"). And then tomorrow is his birthday party at the awesome Antelope Park playground. We’ll be there from about 1:00 until 2:30 or 3:00. Stop on by and say hi!
Tuckered, But Smiling
Whew, I’m tired. Last night marked my 27th match of the high school soccer season, which began back on March 13. I have three more matches this week, bringing my regular season total up to an even 30, followed by six district matches next week. Thirty-six high school games is a lot to squeeze into seven weeks, especially when you consider that number doesn’t include the college spring games, indoor games, and Latino league games I did during that same stretch. I don’t know what sort of assignments I’ll get at the state tournament—or if I’ll get any at all—but by the end of the high school season it’s likely I will surpass the 50 game mark in just two months.
On the plus side, my conditioning is as good as it has been in a while. I have lost ten pounds since the start of the season, and I generally feel pretty good running around on the field. I even survived Sunday’s slate of three 90-minute games in pretty good shape. (It helped that I got to top it all off with a trip to Cristina’s in Crete for one of their awesome empanadas smothered in spicy green chile.) There’s a downside, too. My energy level is dropping, and that nagging twinge in my hamstring from the second week of the season isn’t getting any better with all the abuse I’ve heaped on it. But I’ll be fine. I have enough fuel in the tank to get me through districts, and then I’ll have a week off before state.
And I have emotional health on my side. On Friday I teamed up with an awesome company to do software development and support, along with a little website development. That makes two partnerships with very strong, respected companies to go along with the other contract jobs I pick up here and there. As a freelancer, having two stable sources of income is a huge weight off my shoulders. Plus, it means I can focus more on the fun side of contract gigs, rather than having to see each job as “that one covers next week’s groceries, that one will take care of the car insurance...”.
It doesn’t hurt that it’s spring. I can’t wait to have some time to work in the yard and garden, and to just spend time outside doing as little as possible. That sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
Monkeys and Llamas and Trains, Oh My!
The Missus had to work for a couple hours on Saturday, so I decided that Robbie and I would go to the zoo. What started out as a boys day on the town turned into a family affair; we were joined by my parents and my sister’s family. If you’re planning to go to the zoo, be forewarned that it’s still in rough shape from the winter. They didn’t finish all of their off-season projects. If you like things “neat and tidy”, you may want to wait a month or so. Plus, things will be more green by then. But if your kid is like Robbie, he won’t give a hoot about that.
Robbie had fun donating coins:
He loved watching the monkeys play:
This could have been a great shot of Robbie and his cousin Sam, but I was in such a rush to capture it, I screwed up the framing:
What are you looking at?
Robbie tells grandpa about the camels:
When will the train start moving?
The Human Brain is Awesome
Just a few days ago I asked The Missus, rhetorically, “Can a person form a memory of something he doesn’t have the capability to describe?” In particular, I wondered if one of the reasons we don’t remember much about our childhoods is that we lack the language necessary to describe it to ourselves. If I as a one year-old can’t encode my perceptions of that thing in any coherent way, how can I later recall those perceptions in any useful form?
Today The Missus and Robbie (sort of) conducted an experiment. It was opening day at the zoo, and being such a nice (if windy) day, they just had to go. The Missus and I wondered if Robbie would remember anything at all about the zoo. After all, his last visit was when he was 17-months old, roughly six months ago. He had almost no vocabulary then; I think the only relevant word he knew six months ago was “doggy”, which he used to describe any animal with four legs.
So color me shocked when The Missus told me that not only did Robbie remember the zoo, he called out “Train! Train!” as they pulled into the driveway and before he had seen (or heard) the train. In other words, he remembered an aspect of the zoo that he didn’t have a word for the last time he saw it. He had stored a memory of the train in a way that was useful enough to him that he could give it a name as the memory rushed back. Six months later, despite all of the zillions of additional bits of knowledge and memories he has created in the mean time, Robbie managed to take a fuzzy memory of an object, associate it with the visual image of his current location, and come up with the correct word to describe the object.
I don’t know about you, but that fascinates the crap out of me.
Are Public Schools the Best Schools?
My father-in-law has built a successful career as a professor with an expertise in early childhood literacy. He has written and edited books, authored dozens of papers, presented at conferences around the world, and so on. The guy knows his stuff. Although I don’t always agree with his conclusions (or the routes he takes to get there), I can’t deny the guy knows America’s education system—especially early childhood and elementary education—as well as anybody. In many ways he has helped shape it.
The Missus and Robbie flew out to visit her parents this past weekend. Apparently “Grandpa Rick” really bonded well with Robbie. At one point while those two were playing, The Missus asked her father a question. “Do you think public schools do a good job educating kids?”
He stopped to choose his words before answering. “I think a good teacher in a good public school provides as good an education as you can find anywhere,” he began. “However, there are a lot of mediocre teachers, and mediocre schools, and mediocre administrators out there. There are a lot of ways for kids to get less of an education than they need and deserve.”
He then added, “If I were a parent deciding where to send my child to school, and if I had the resources, I would consider home schooling or a private school.”
When The Missus told me this upon her return, I couldn’t help but be surprised. My father-in-law has never been the private school type. He has always struck me as a staunch NEA backer, an ardent proponent of strong public schools. I’ve always thought that in his eyes, home schoolers are just wacky right-wing Christians, and private schoolers are either snooty rich folks or ... well, wacky right-wing Christians. But if I’m not mistaken, he almost suggested we go that route with Robbie.
We don’t exactly have the resources right now to keep Robbie out of public school, but who knows where we will stand in a few years when he is ready for kindergarten. Will we send him four blocks down the street to Zemann? I’m pretty sure we will. But when a pro all but says “You might want to think twice about that”, you can’t help but take some time to do just that.
Tuesday is Trash Day!
I don’t know how many other Lincoln households get excited about Tuesdays, but we here at the Wilson house sure get bubbly. Today was no different. Why the excitement? Why, Tuesday is trash day, of course!
I know, that doesn’t sound like cause for jubilation, but I assure you it is. For many weeks now Robbie has taken to stationing himself on the back of the couch, watching out the front window for the arrival of the big white Uribe Refuse truck. And when it arrives ... “BIG TRUCK TAKE TRASH!” Robbie gets so animated you’d think Clifford the Big Red Dog had just strolled through the yard.
For the past two weeks, a younger guy has noticed Robbie in the window. He always takes a second to stop and wave, which really gets Robbie going. “BYE!” he’ll holler while waving like mad. As the mornings get warmer, I’m sure Robbie will want to station himself on the front porch to watch the action. That will really be a thrill.
The joy of trash day lasts throughout the week. Over the past week, each night as I said goodnight Robbie reminded me “big truck take trash”. “Today is Thursday,” I would tell him. “Trash day is on Tuesday.” And Robbie would drift off to sleep, no doubt having fantastic dreams a la ”Trash of the Titans”.
Yesterday, Robbie and The Missus went to the Y, as is their routine. Inside the childcare area, Robbie’s friend Ty looked glum. “What’s wrong, Ty?” asked The Missus.
“It’s Monday,” he replied. “I wish it was Tuesday, cuz then my dad would be home”.
Robbie’s ears perked up. “TUESDAY?! BIG TRUCK TAKE TRASH!” As you can see, Robbie often speaks in capital letters.
And so, with yet another trash day gone by, we anxiously await the next one. Come back soon, trash men!
Who Wants a Chunk of My Marrow?
It’s official, I’m now a member of the National Marrow Donor Program. My card arrived on Friday.
Here’s hoping medical science makes my stay on the list very short. Not because I don’t want to donate, but because it would be fantastic if the stuff they need could be grown in a lab.
Speaking in Sentences
You know, it’s one thing to have Robbie learning word after word after word. But speaking in sentences? He isn’t that old already, is he? I had heard Robbie utter a few “near sentences” before. Things like “want up” ("pick me up") and “get off” ("take object A off of object B"). But those weren’t really sentences.
The other morning The Missus went into his room to wake him up. Apparently he had already been awake. When I walked in, The Missus was lifting Robbie from his bed.
“Well aren’t you wide-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning!”, I said.
“Bushy-tailed?” The Missus exclaimed in an questioning tone. She asked Robbie, “Do you have a tail?”
Robbie pursed his lips. “No”, he replied. Then, after thinking for a moment, he added, “Daisy had a tail”.
And there it was. Robbie’s first obvious, unmistakable, real-live sentence. It was a surreal moment as I was struck by the realization that Robbie is on the verge of not just speaking words but manipulating language. In retrospect, he has been manipulating language for many weeks, but in more subtle ways. For example, he has been forming more compound words all on his own, such as “big truck trash” (garbage truck).
I suppose it’s largely a first-time parent thing, but these little “lightbulb moments” of Robbie’s are really a hoot to watch. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
A Rare Taste of Spam
Tonight when I fired up my laptop a very unusual message awaited me in my e-mail inbox. The subject: VAlxiUM. I was in shock. I didn’t realize until that moment that it had been months since any spam had made its way all the way to my inbox. You read that right. I just checked; I hadn’t had a true spam message in my inbox in all of 2008. Nothing makes you realize how good anti-spam measures have become like the arrival of a rare piece of spam.
Random fact: Spam (the tasty [?!] kind) is made just up the road from us in Fremont.
Sick Kids are No Fun
Boy, Robbie sure had a rough day yesterday. After a promising start, he spent most of the day as a ragdoll on the couch. He didn’t even have the energy to sit up by himself. The worst came around dinner time when his fever peaked at 104.5. Fortunately, it dropped after that, and by 10:30 it was down to 99.5. This morning Robbie seems to be fever-free. He still doesn’t have the energy to walk very far (or even the ability to stand still without wobbling), and he’s only about 50% of his normal self. But he’s doing better.
Now the countdown is on for either The Missus or me to end up just as sick. The Missus already has a cold, so I think I’ll be the lucky recipient of the full shebang. If you enjoy your health, you may want to stay away from me for a few days.
You Know There’s a Bug Going Around When…
...the entire family is still in bed at 7:30 a.m. I ended up getting up and not feeling half bad. The Missus just has a bad cold. Robbie—who spent almost all of yesterday afternoon and evening in a semi-conscious daze—finally woke up relatively chipper, though his fever is still around 101.
The Wilsons have had a pretty healthy winter, so we can’t really complain. I just hope we’re all in tip-top shape for this weekend’s good weather.
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