Lane's Ramblings

Thanks, Mel. I know everything will get there. I think now I need to start pushing harder instead of waiting around. Proof read your thesis? I didn't say that I was having trouble sleeping. Just kidding.

How much fun have we had the last few days? My last post was Thursday and it is now Sunday night so I hope something happened. Friday I went to Ula's father's farm and, yes, I did see a baby cow, which was just under a week old. She was very cute and can run very fast. We took Pepe (the small white fluffy dog) and Grady (the bigger, working dog - he's a kelpie crossed with something that we're not sure about; a kelpie is a herding dog used for sheep and cows) because they love to run around in the fields. We're still unsure about Grady's recall so for most of the day I had him on a 10 meter rope so he couldn't get too far. A lot of times I just let him drag it without me holding it but that's enough for him to think that he can't get anywhere. He did well and came when I called him. He did this well enough that at the end of the day I took him completely off the leash and let him roam around, though not too far away from me. He did well.

One story about when he was still on the 10 meter rope. We were trying to stay away from the cows because Pepe likes to chase them and if she got too close to the calf then the adult cows would have something to say about that so we were just over a hill out of line of sight. We were along the fence and Grady found an opening and very quickly slipped through the barbed wire before I could do anything. Now we were on opposite sides of the fence with me holding onto the rope; not good. I tried to coax him through the opening but he touched the wire and jumped back. I tied the rope short to the post and went to walk the long way around (with Pepe) to get him on the other side. This paddock has been closed off to the cows and the gates are tied shut, which meant that the only way I could get to the other side was by jumping the gate (you can't jump the fence because it's just wire). I tied Pepe up, did a litle one foot on the gate and one on the horizontal pole, which gave me a bit of a flashback to jumping the fence before my last marathon (I have one this coming Sunday) and messing up my leg, and there I was on the other side. I looked up to Grady.. and he was back on the original side! Sigh.

Saturday I finished "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby. I'll have to do a write-up for this one because it was quite good. I still haven't seen the movie. Maybe I'll do that. Right now I'm reading "How Language Works" by David Crystal, which is not what I thought it would be. I'm also going to start Dominion by Matthew Scully tomorrow.

I took Grady to obedience school and he just could not pay attention. All he wanted to do was run around and play. And this week was test week. Lucky for him we're in the beginners' class and everyone passes. Ula and I also took him through the flyball jumps (Pepe does flyball - link) and he did quite well with that, I think (as if I know how well a beginner should do at flyball).

Saturday night some friends had us over for dinner. Nice area, very wooded and hilly - reminded me of Boxford (where I grew up).

Sunday I woke up to run and had a bit of an easy one. I'm having trouble with my knee and I have a marathon this coming weekend and I'm a bit nervous.

I'm rushing through the rest of the weekend. This afternoon I met up with Tori and her friend's kids for an Aussie Rules Football match - the Western Bulldogs vs the North Melbourne Kangaroos. I have nothing invested in either team so I was fine with the Doggies winning. I got to have a few beers, hang out at the stadium; it was fun.

Last thing that I did was make some bread dough. I first started trying to make bread 7 or 8 years ago and never got back into it but here I am. It's something that I really want to be able to do so I hope that I can stick to it and learn a lot. It's not easy at all. I made some last week and it was at least edible. Tonight I made up the dough and will cook it tomorrow night. I'll let you know how it goes.

We're going to try blogging again. How do you feel about that?

My problem is that I don't find my life very exciting. I live in the suburbs, I don't have a job, and I pretty much sit around and read, train for an upcoming marathon, and take care of the dogs. I suppose it's more complicated than that but that's how I explain it to people, why I don't call anyone, and why I don't really email anymore. Not to mention but in the employed world everything's fast paced; you have 30 seconds to push out a 3 paragraph email to a friend 10 time zones away. But here, sitting at home, where's the rush? 10 days later you get the "are you still alive?" follow up.

But (as many times before) I feel something coming out. An explosion of want and need to express myself through words. Ok, fine, it's more of a leaking than an explosion but let's get through this anyway.

At the moment I'm drinking scotch (pretty good), going through Nick Hornby's "The Polysyllabic Spree" (read it earlier this year) to see if I should read any of the books that he mentioned, and scrolling through Business Week's 'World's Most Expensive Cities 2009' (so far not shocking or exciting).

I've been doing a lot of sudoku lately (on lovatts.com.au because I like the set up) to try to sharpen my brain a little bit. I'm doing other stuff too, I'm just talking about this at the moment. I've also tried their crosswords but I'm not a big fan - they have too many answers that are plural nouns. Mostly I do the level 2 puzzles but occasionally I do level 1 if I don't have much time (I'm about to start a level 3) and usually finish in under 30 minutes (today was less than 15). When I did one on the train the other day (in the free paper) it was noticeably more difficult even though it was marked as 'novice'. (side note - No 17 on the 'most expensive list is Manhattan; does that count as its own city? Also, I'm surprised at the number of African cities on the list.) In the end I had two 3s in the same block and gave up.

This morning while I was reading ("High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby) I remembered that I had recorded a soccer match from the night before (Confederation Cup - it's being played in South Africa so comes on around 3am here). But Ula's mother was here and I didn't really want to seem as if I sat around reading fiction and watching soccer so I didn't turn it on. A few chapters later I went to the computer to check the news sites and it's plastered everywhere, "The US upsets Spain!" Damn. That's the game I recorded and the US, who was very flat in the first two games and somehow squeaked into the semi-finals (I still don't understand how) when the beat Egypt, just upset the number 1 ranked team in the world who happened to be playing with a 35 game unbeaten streak. Aside - I am not a US national team fan, nor am I jumping on the bandwagon, it's just a coincidence that I was born and raised in the country that the team that I am happy for is representing. I would be just as happy if it were Senegal or India (probably more so). They played well in that game and so did Spain and they had a lot of chances. If they beat Brazil in the final then I'll be happy again. But I'm still picking a different team to back for the World Cup next year.

Tomorrow I'm going to Ula's father's farm to give the dogs a bit of a run around and hopefully see some baby cows - they have 3 cows, 2 are pregnant and due any day. I was there last week and nothing.

This writing took about 10 minutes while being distracted so maybe I can do this regularly.

BTW - finished level 3 sudoku in 17:46. I have to go feed the dogs.