Cultured

I'm going to give today a perfect grade. It was nothing short of a rather relaxing day, doing and then folding laundry. Then ironing my work clothes. I was able to watch the beginning of the tour and the women's final on tennis. One thing that I like about the tour is how it reconnects to me the feeling that it's the month of July. It harkens back memories for me of watching the tour during the month. There was the time I watched a replay of it with Death* at running camp in 07. It was the first time that I really hung out with my roommate that week and I knew that this was a guy I need to hang out even more!

*Not his real name.

But the tour also allows me to maintain on my learning of the areas where it's been held. It's a refreshing course on history. I'm able to stay up to task on certain areas that I'm not sure if I know well. Also the fact that I can view in HD helps out a lot. The fascinating shots of the European countryside is another reason why I enjoy watching it.

The title of this post comes from the fact that I just got done reading the Washington Post (WaPo for short) and let me tell you, other than being the only individual who reads an actual newspaper on pages and not on a computer, that the writing is top notch. It's always humbling to read something someone writes and go, damn that's really good, theres no way I could do something like that. I noticed the language and the way the individual authors wrote their stories that I was getting something a bit better than the Charlotte Observer. Not to say that Charlotte is a stuck in the mud hillbilly type of town, but the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia area) is a higher media market, and thus attracts those from the upper echelon. I guess if you want to make a name for yourself you go to the place where your voice can be heard and where a mass audience will read your voice. I also don't think it hurts that Woodward and Bernstein wrote for the WaPo either. With that in mind I feel a certain sense of enlightenment right about now, although I wonder how much of my mind is turning to mush from the repeated viewings of Inception on HBO. I've probably watched bits and pieces of the movie about 10-15 times right now. It's a movie where I can watch it at any point and immediately get hooked.

With all that being said it's looking like another relaxing day, filled with a long run. I've explored the area a bit and will try out the C&O Trail tomorrow. I'm glad that this area is so conducive to running. I can go out from my place and within a half mile be at a trail. I really don't have any excuses for slacking off in training, aside from my job getting to the point where I reach a breaking point. But I have found methods to prevent that: reading and writing daily. Withe the abundance of trails I have areas to go out and just do my long run. I haven't reached the point where it gets boring, which was the case from time to time running at McMullen, McAlpine, or any of the roads in Charlotte. Right now I'm feeling good about a lot of things, but know that I have to be grounded in my approach. There's going to be a lot of obstacles that will in front of me, and I have to handle myself in the appropriate light. I feel that I have mellowed out a bit in the past couple years, and that I'm no longer tightly wound up. I still am super critical of myself and am already replaying instances where I fudged up. Also my interactions at some points and ways in which I could have handled it differently have come in to play. But other than that I'm getting into a groove. I'll probably have to wake up earlier in a week, but that's not to terrible. I just need to reinforce a line from one of my favorite movies:

"Everyday in everywhere were getting better and better"

Chief Inspector Dreyfuss

Although I don't really see the irony that this line was said in a mental hospital by someone who was put there because he tried to kill Jacque Clouseu. Of course putting "does your dog bit" doesn't have the same ring.