Sonnet 87

♦ My old employer, code name Dyn-o-mite!, recently had a national magazine do a flattering profile on them. It took all of my restraint to not post a comment on the online version of the story – corporate clients and industry personalities alike were lauding the products that my old company produces as top-notch and accurate. Nothing could be further from the truth: the products are shoddily researched, lazily produced, and never revised. The quoted vice-president hates the place and hates to innovate even more; the acquaintance also quoted would love to leave but doesn’t have the guts to; that the owner of the company was coherently quoted at all is a miracle because she’s 60 going on mummy. IP dissuaded me from posting anything remotely indicative of the true level of work done at Dyn-o-mite!, but I have to say that he’s no fun.

(I must add that I was guilty of disinterest at Dyn-o-mite!, but not at my client’s expense. My sins were more along the line of making my contempt for the place heartily known to everyone there while still managing to do the job within the crappy parameters I was given. I sometimes teeter dangerously close to that line at my new position only because I hate working with academics. Bunch of whiny non-know-it-alls!)

♦ I dragged myself out of bed this morning to go for a run and use my nifty Forerunner 405. As I said before, my training is iffy at this point, but I do want to start running again to build up my endurance. I initially climbed back into bed after the alarm went off, but convinced myself pretty quickly that I would regret this 45 minutes later when I realized I could’ve put in a nice three-miler instead of lying in bed dozing. Dozing is good but I want that endurance back. So I made myself get up, dressed, and out the door. The run felt very good – I took it easy and told myself that my old running endurance was not built in a day, just like my new-found strength was not built in a day. I need to take it easy, document my progress, and continue to chip away at the running laziness that has fermented in my soul these past two years. Documenting the progress will be easy thanks to the Forerunner and the foot pod.

As far as running races goes, I’m still thinking that New York will be a no-go this year. However, part of building up my running would be to ensure a strong performance next year. I would like to begin running local races as prep. I was thinking to myself this morning that running local races would be great, but the Metro doesn’t run early enough on weekends. Then I remembered that I am the proud co-owner of a beautiful new Mazda3! I can get my own ass to the race sites! So I’m currently on the prowl for an upcoming race that’ll let me get back into racing gently.

♦ My family is currently dropping off Mathgeek at MIT. When I last spoke to them, they were setting up his room and my mother was horrified. She is convinced, and was seconded by Mathgeek himself, that U-M rooms are much nicer. Be that as it may, it’s not the room that’s the draw, it’s the education. But MIT rooms apparently have air-conditioning, something which Michigan definitely does not. I don’t have much else to say except this: good luck, Mathgeek!