I Live in Iowa: Week 112

Another week living the dream! (That's such a profound statement, I should blog on it again...)

Work, is going great! I digress, testing = finding problems. However, that is the point isn't it? To continually make things better. The only way to do that is try something new and when it breaks, or part of it breaks, figure out why, fix it, and by then the next thing will break. In my life, that is happening, in real time. It happened multiple times this past week! None of the issues discovered thus far are a result of my incompetence or inexperience. Which makes them all the more fascinating. They give me significant opportunities to learn about potential issues in the future.

That was a little vague, for example, without micromanaging I can ask a particular person to check one particular configuration, and easily save hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars. In other words, knowing where to look is the first step in finding a problem.

My time working at the winery went well. Due to a little rain the attendance at the Toast and Jam event I worked was sparsely attended, but we had a few comments that it was the best band we had ever had, which is always a good sign. Secondly, we had visitors from South America so I had the chance to practice my Spanish, and while it gets more rusty every year, it's still there. Good enough for a couple questions and answers.

Running had a nice 20 miler in 2:14:37, and 45 miles total because I came down with a soar throat. I've already written that to death so let's move on. I am up to 167 consecutive days run in a row.

I high jumped four feet four inches!! Can you believe it! I almost had 4'6" but my heels clipped the bar. I didn't know you were supposed to lift your feet up. I've never attempted anything seriously higher than like 4'. The back story is I went into the gym to lift weights and the high jump mat and standards were out, so I decided it was a great time to try. I jumped 3'6" first, my former PR, and made it easily on the first jump, same for 3'9". At 4' I stopped making it easily. I had been jumping off both feet as uncoordinated as I am, but then I figured out the whole physics of jump off the outside leg while bringing the inside one up quick and high, with an ever so slight torso twist back. I've spent scores of hours watching high jump and even taken some coaching lessons on how to coach it. I get the physics of it, but doing it is a different matter. Once I put it together I made 4' easily. I cleared it a second time just to be sure it wasn't a fluke. As I sailed over the bar I realized I could go higher. At 4'2" I cleared it again easily. At 4'4" I once again cleared it on the first jump. Up to 4'6" the bar went. I think it became a mental game at the point. Plus, I had run a few miles and done half of my lifting before even starting to jump. After three misses at 4'6" I was done. My legs did not have the pep left after probably a dozen jumps. As an innovative training method, I warmed up jumping a few 3' hurdles like I would for the steeplechase.

Saturday I traveled to the great white north, Minnesota to visit a slew of relatives. I'll blog about that at least once more this week. Suffice to say for now that seeing aging relatives is almost always a very good thing to do with my time.