SWF’s Story

This past Sunday I ran my first half marathon. I ran the 13.1 miles in 2 hours and 35 minutes. I ran in the San Francisco First Half Marathon which routed me all along the piers on Fisherman’s Wharf, past Fort Mason and Crissy Field, over the Golden Gate bridge and back, with the finish line in Golden Gate park.

It sounds crazy, but I can honestly say that I have never experienced anything so wonderful! Part of it was just accomplishing this goal that seemed so unattainable. I had never run a distance longer than a 5k before I started training in March and even the 4 mile distance on the training schedule seemed daunting. I could barely believe it when I ran 7 miles for the first time. Then came the disappointment when I got sick a month before the race and missed all the longer runs on the schedule. I frantically tried two weeks before the race to make up for the lost time, but the last three weeks a runner is supposed to taper their distance and rest up. So, it was amazing to me when I crossed the finish line 15 minutes before the time I declared it would take me on my registration form. 

The other part that made the whole experience enjoyable is that I kept the same pace throughout the race. I ran an 11:53 mile consistently from beginning to end. I am really proud that I did not slow down as the race went on and despite the hills on the course There were people that sped up and passed me to have me pass them a mile later which was very satisfying. 

I would also be lying if I said the few days after did not rock my world too. I was relatively sore for the rest of race day on Sunday, but not so bad on Monday. The biggest benefit was that I let myself eat or drink anything I wanted without regard for calorie content. My ipod said I burned 1675 calories before breakfast on Sunday, so I was able to eat a 1100 calorie piece of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory without any guilt

I am now pondering which half marathon to run next. I am determined to get a 2 hour and 15 minute time. I think this is definitely an attainable goal considering how hilly the San Francisco course was and given the setbacks with my training. Before getting sick in June, I was running 9 miles in an hour and a half. I look forward to besting my time in the next race. A couple possibilities are the Rock n’ Roll half marathon in San Jose in October. In this one, there are 16 local bands lined up along the course playing while we run which I think sounds pretty cool. Plus, it is local, so there is very little travel required. The other one is the Disney Princess half marathon in Disneyworld in Orlando. The inaugural Princess half marathon was last year, so it is relatively new, but I think it would be super cool to run one in a tiara…maybe a tutu around my shorts Chad’s family may be planning a trip to Disneyworld next year and it would be really sweet if it happened to be on the same weekend as this race!

Race results: https://www.runraceresults.com/secure/raceresults.cfm?ID=RCLF2009

If this link does not work, you can go to http://www.runsfm.com/home.html and search the First Half Marathon for bib #23351.

Things I love about living in California:

1. No humidity
2. No winter and/or snow. Bonus points for living within 3 hours of Lake Tahoe where I can experience snow and ski if I want to
3. I forget what “season” it is because it is either rainy or dry, but always somewhat warm.
4. I can run outside year-round
5. I sleep with my window open 10 months out of the year
6. Breathtaking scenery
7. THE OCEAN
8. Wine country
9. There is a big city nearby complete with plays, museums, etc.
10. NO BUGS, not even mosquitoes
11. I absolutely LOVE the wildlife. I can go to the beach and watch the sea lions jump and birds dive into the water to catch fish. This also means I run into the occasional large snake on my runs in the mountains, but nothing that freaks me out too badly…
12. Everyone is so laid back and life is a lot more relaxed

 …it was the one armed man! So, when I was home this weekend I heard THE FUNNIEST story I have heard in a long time. She is working as a law clerk/court officer for a different judge at the same court where I used to work. Part of the job (as many of you have heard me complain about before) is escorting prisoners from the city jail on the third floor up to the courtrooms on the sixth floor. There is no requirement that a new law clerk/court officer have a law enforcement background, but part of the new employee training is in how to use the handcuffs. No self-defense training though…

My job was made easier by the fact that my judge’s courtroom was right by the elevator, so I did not have to escort any prisoners through hallways with the public present. Christina, however, is not so lucky and actually walks a long way through the hallways past family, friends, and enemies of the defendants. 

Christina was telling me that awhile back she had the most unusual handcuffing experience at work. She said she requested the defendant and jail personnel escorted him from the cells to the holding area where she was to handcuff him before taking him upstairs. One problem…he only had one hand. How do you handcuff a one-handed person? Do you attach it to his arm above the elbow? She said she asked the jail for assistance and they just gave her dumb looks and/or laughed at her. 

She ended up putting belly chains on him (which law clerk/court officers are NOT trained to use. Jail personnel are supposed to put those on).  However, after she chained up his ankles and wound the chains around his waist, she still ran into the same problem – - where to attach the one handcuff. It should not be left hanging because it will swing around and can be used as a weapon, but there was no place to attach it. The defendant ended up seeing her predicament and told her it was no problem and he seemed nice enough, so she just left it hanging. 

However, when they went to leave the holding area, he put up his arm without a hand (it cannot be PC to call it a stump right?) and tried to hold the door open for her.  While this was a nice gesture, she could get in trouble for it, so she told him he had to keep his arms by his side. He then proceeded to loop the handcuff over the end of his hand without an arm and up above his elbow and then held it to his side. How does one react to that? It is so difficult to tell when someone has a good attitude toward a debilitation like that or whether they have no patience in dealing with people trying to make accommodations for them, especially in a situation involving the criminal justice system, like being handcuffed to be transported to a courtroom. 

Her situation ended all right, but I thought the story in general was worth sharing. I found both hilarious and frustrating. She is, like me, a law school graduate with no law enforcement background. It is not really all that safe for us to be handcuffing and transporting potentially dangerous criminals all on our own, yet the jail personnel just laughed at her. Granted their response MAY have been different if the guy had given them a hard time but not always. That job was awful exactly for that reason alone – - your safety and health lay in jail personnel and defendants’ hands.  I say health because I had an experience where I was in a room with multiple defendants taking information down for court appointed attorney applications when someone mentioned they had MRSA.  Just so people reading this know, MRSA is a antibiotic resistant staph infection.  If you get it, you have it for life and it may require hospital stays for weeks at a time for treatment.  So, for $27,000 a year, this single mother of three, as well as all the other court officers, put their health at risk? Luckily, I did not exhibit signs of it and still haven’t, but it is ridiculous that no one mentioned this BEFORE I entered the room. I have to say that besides the nice weather in California, I LOVE this new job a million times more than the job at the court.  I do, however, sacrifice some really funny stories  

I just got back from watching the Lady Spartans play basketball in Berkeley. I am disappointed they didn’t win, but I could get over that if Iowa State actually earned their win. I am sick and tired of refs dictating who wins games, especially when MSU is involved.  

I think this only came to mind because of the men’s game on Friday and then the women’s game today.  Friday night Kansas came real close to winning when the ref called a foul on MSU for tripping when the Kansas player clearly tripped over his own feet. The ref on the sideline should have had a clear view of this. What was he looking at?

Tonight the women played Iowa State who was higher ranked, but MSU still should have won the game.  The refs again called a tripping foul when the Iowa State player clearly tripped over her own feet. Not to mention the fact that the ref called a foul with less than ten seconds to go in the first half, the buzzer sounded, and he called off the foul because it was half? The Spartans were in one and one and very well could have made a difference not only momentum wise, but also since they only ended up losing by two points. I am also quite bitter about the fact that no foul was called in the last 15 seconds of the game when an MSU player was getting hacked to death trying to shoot under the basket. 

What is it with the referees? Is it too much to ask for competence in that profession? I am sure this is not limited to MSU, but being a Spartan fan I tend to remember the examples where MSU gets royally screwed.

Dilcos, you would be incorrect, kinda (I know! You aren’t used to hearing the incorrect part of that are you). The statistic is not about first time marriages, it is about the probability that a woman will get married. This was too long to post in a comment, so here is the calendar entry. Keep in mind, I am not one for numbers and/or statistics:

Every woman has some chance to marry.  It may be one to fifty, or it may be ten to one that she will.  Representing her entire chance at one hundred at certain points of her progress in time, it is found to be in the following ratio:

Woman’s age – - – likelihood of marriage

15 – 20 years – - 14.5%

20 – 25 years – - 52%

25 – 30 years – - 18%

30 – 35 years – - 15.5.%

35 – 40 years – - 3.75%

40 – 45 years – - 2.5%

45 – 50 years – - 3/4 of 1%

50 – 56 years – - 1/8 of 1%

greater than 60 years – - 1/10 of 1% or 1 in 1,000

Also, for everyone’s trivia enrichment, for all the forest fires in California every year, there isn’t a single one listed in the top ten largest wildfires (by acreage) to have devastated the US since 1997. Most listed actually have been located in Alaska. I found that interesting since when I drove out to California last year, there were wildfires around Lake Tahoe and I thought I-80 was going to be closed. I could smell the smoke in my car, but never saw any fire. Can’t wait for this summer…. :-/

First off, not related to this post’s subject at all, I would like to announce that this is the first post since I got my new laptop. I went Mac So far, I really like it, although it has been challenging adjusting to the different layout. The screen is amazingly sharp though! I think most of my frustrations arise from trying to get this darn external hard drive to work correctly with the laptop! Anyway….

I bought this calendar of daily miscellany. Part of me just likes learning trivia and part of me thought it might result in some blog posts. So, the first one that I really had a reaction to was the probability that a woman would get married based on age, but I really thought most other people wouldn’t care about that. Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, another interesting one came up – - field sobriety tests. Most people know about these, but just in case (or for those who can’t remember attempting them) the three most used sobriety tests as suggested by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:

1. Walk and Turn: One is asked to take nine steps heel-to-toe on a line, turn one foot, and returns in the same manner.  Using arms to balance, taking an incorrect number of steps, beginning before instructions are finished are a few things considered to be signs of impairment;
2. One Leg Stand: One is asked to stand with one foot six inches above the ground and count aloud in thousands.  Signs of impairment include swaying, hopping, or putting one’s foot down; and
3. Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus: Nystagmus is an involuntary jerking of the eyes that is exaggerated by alcohol. One is asked to track a slowly moving object (such as a pen or a flashlight) with each eye as a policeman watches the angle at which the jerking begins, the type of jerking when the eye is as far to one side as possible, and whether the eye is able to smoothly trace the object.  Displaying four signs of impairment between the two eyes is highly correlated with a BAC greater than 0.08.

The third one seems plausible because it seems an involuntary indication of impairment.  #1 and #2 – - I can’t do those sober. I certainly couldn’t do the whole say the alphabet backwards thing sober either. 

Oh, another interesting fact for those who didn’t get my email – - I am running a half marathon in July in San Francisco. I am pretty excited and more than a little nervous, but it will be good for me. In conjunction with the marathon, I am raising money for breast cancer research. If you or someone you know is interested in donating, please check out the website at: https://secure2.merchantcart.net/runsfm//MyWebPage.cfm?pID=380771

Thanks in advance with your support! I will be posting updates on my training. I actually started today, but it was just running 2-3 miles which i am used to anyway. The real test will be my first 6 or 7 mile run. Nonetheless, this experience will no doubt inspire a post or two! The Marathon/Half Marathon’s website is: http://www.runsfm.com/home.html

I love a good rain.  However, in Lansing, rain or snow would bring with it an overcast sky, more often than not for a week at a time…even if it was not still raining.  So, I was a little anxious when it came to be rainy season here in Cali.  There was no need to dread weeks on end of overcast sky though, it is fantastic!  It doesn’t necessarily rain all day long everyday, just sporadically here and there. More importantly, there is never a day when it is overcast all day long.  The sun is ALWAYS trying to shine.  Everyday for the past two weeks it has been raining when I have left for work and everyday I have seen at least one rainbow in the sky because the sun is still shining while it is raining.  Every now and then I am treated to a double rainbow.  During my 27 years of living in Michigan, I saw maybe ten rainbows.  I have seen ten in the past three weeks! What was a rare occurrence in Lansing seems to be an everyday occurrence here during the rainy season and it is beautiful. 

Frequent rainbows explain another phenomena….people wandering aimlessly around the area with no apparent purpose.  In the Midwest, everyone moves with a purpose. People drive for the most part like they have someplace to be.  Here, that is not the case. In fact, the other day I was leaving the Taco Bell drive through and this elderly man just sauntered past the drive slowly looking all over the place like he was in no hurry.  Perfect example of typical behavior for this area.  Although other people, like some driving on the highways are in an incredible hurry and often cut you off.  Anyway, the rainbows explain this behavior.  Think about it this way – - it is incredibly expensive to live in California and yet all these people apparently do not work because they act like they have nowhere to be.  Isn’t it obvious? They are leprechaun-gold thieves and/or rainbow catchers!  They wander around waiting for a rainbow to appear and then when they see one, chase it and steal the pot of gold from the leprechaun. 

Does anyone know if the plural of Lexus is Lexi? I am referring to the car make. Anyway, before living in California, I used to like the cars. I always thought they were really good looking vehicles. Now I can’t look at one without feeling nauseous. People who drive them here are always complete idiots and I can’t get over it. I now associate a Lexus with a complete moron driver. So far, I still hold on to my love for Audis and Volkswagen Jettas….and yes, only Jettas.  I hope no one ruins those for me too!

Ok, so I have been MIA for a really long time. Not as long as Russ, but a long time

I have been back and forth between DC and Cali a lot over the past three months. There were a couple of two week trips in there so I got in a lot of museums. I went to the Archives, Natural History, American Art, Botanical Gardens, and the Native American Museum (which had great food!). Oh, and the National Portrait Gallery, which I had never even heard of before, but absolutely LOVED it. The first trip to DC for two weeks they had an exhibit of Ansel Adams’ works and it was amazing. Most of the weather has been really cold, including the two weeks I was there over my birthday I was hoping that this year would be the first of many to spend my birthday on the beach, but my plan was foiled by work. Boooo!

However, the weather here has been nicer than normal. I went to the beach a lot in January, including twice over the MLK holiday weekend. It was sunny and warm and I had a lot of fun watching the surfers. I hope to be one of them sometime next fall…

Speaking of the beach, it has been a shock to move away from the ocean, more so than I expected. I have moved to the Palo Alto area by Stanford University. It definitely has more stuff to do and more shops. In downtown, they have a cute two screen theater, an Apple store, a Cheesecake Factory, lots of little cafes, a Borders, a bike shop, etc. Lots of cute little shops. It even has a road into the university area lined with symmetrical, perfect looking palm trees. I even have palm trees around the new building I am living in! I didn’t even have those when I lived right by the ocean. I just miss the drive home along the ocean and the cool skies I used to see, along with the waves and sunsets. Yes, I know, I have said I hate sunsets. I think I just got kind of used to them….Hopefully I will someday move back closer to the ocean. There is something soothing about it.

Work is still going well. I don’t mind the travel at all. A lot of people asked me if I could deal with it, but I actually quite enjoy it. Mix up the scenery a little each month. It is nice to get out of the rigid office environment. Other places it might be different, but at mine the bosses are always watching. It is hard to describe why, but the office is in a state of transition. It will get better with a few changes in the staffing. In fact we will lose yet another person in the beginning of April. That will make the third person in five months either retiring or just leaving. It will be nice not to be the newest kid in town anymore

I joined a gym recently. I am making the formal announcement that I want to run a half marathon in October. There are a ton of races of varying lengths out here as everyone seems to love to exercise, but there is one in October hosted by Nike and I would like to run that one. They insist it is a flat course…yeah, right. Anyway, any amount of encouragement is welcome. I am trying to run 3-4 times a week on top of soccer on Sundays. It is all different types of running, plus some biking, elliptical, etc. I have run 5Ks before and I am going to try and find a 10K or two to run before October, but I have never before even considered running 12 or so miles in one run. I am afraid I will get bored….

Actually, an interesting thing happened to me on my way to the gym yesterday. I was driving on the 101 (which is the devil’s crowning glory IMO. No one that drives on that highway knows how to drive) to Mountain View where my gym is when I came up behind a cop car. The cop’s lights were on, so I turned the volume down on my radio (sorry mom and dad, I still listen to it way too loud) but there was no siren going. I waited to see if the cop was going to pull someone over, but oddly enough, no car made any attempt to pull over. Now this is a five lane highway and not one car behind or in front of the cop car in any of the five lanes makes any movement to slow down or pull over. I am hopelessly confused at this point, but I also haven’t taken the California driver’s test. I just try to follow the lead of other cars, but I am also kind of at the front of the pack. All of a sudden the cop car swerves across in front of me toward the median and continues to swerve back and forth across all five lanes of traffic. I am thinking I am witnessing a cop going crazy behind the wheel and hoping that the car just exits and soon. After about two miles, it suddenly stops in the middle of the road across 2-3 lanes of traffic perpendicular to the shoulder, so of course I stop. Apparently, this is what cops do when they want to gradually slow traffic down so they can remove a tire out of the middle of a highway. There was a person whose car lost an entire tire in the middle of the highway. Amazingly, this did not result in an accident, just a tire in the middle of the road. I then saw the person with their car stranded on the side of the road.

Um, has anyone else witnessed the yule log channel? On my cable at least there are two, count them two, television channels that show nothing but a yule log aflame and play snippets from Christmas movies and Christmas songs.  I sat entranced by this thing for at least ten minutes, all of it spent wondering who actually watches this…I guess me?

It reminded me of the Puppy Bowl that is on the Animal Network at the same time as the Super Bowl. All it is are a bunch of cute puppies playing for the entire time the game is on. At least the Puppy Bowl is cute with puppies romping around and playing! Much more fun to watch than a log on fire with crazy snippets from Christmas movies as the background….

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

P.S. If those in Michigan could melt the snow and heat the state by about 30 degrees before I get there (hopefully) on Friday, that would be awesome

This is the new car. I haven’t had her long enough to name her, but I am working on it. We bonded today by driving down Highway 1 to a beach in Pescadero. She handles beautifully around curves I was super nervous about going through the process all by myself but muddled through it. I don’t even have any kind of buyer’s remorse like I thought I would. I expected a huge panic attack the next day along the lines of, “Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into?” So far, I have not and in fact feel fantastic about getting it all on my own. I have always wanted a Jetta after all. I have been extremely jealous of my brother’s for the past, oh, almost 6 years? It feels fantastic to make my dream come true. I must give a shout to my parents for helping me learn responsible spending habits. The salesman said that I have ridiculously good credit for someone my age

Oh, and for those GM/Ford/other American car manufacturer fans, I really am sorry. I went around looking at Malibus and Impalas (I hated the Cobalt after test driving it) and no one could beat the price of the Jetta. The GM salesmen weren’t even willing to deal with me despite the state of the company right now. Oh, and the Jetta dealership gave me just as much as the GM dealership was going to give as trade in value for the Intrigue. That was a pleasant surprise!