I think the blood pumping through my brain makes me more lucid, that’s why.

November 9, 2003

Every time I got for a jog or a walk, I remember things that I meant to post about in my blog. I guess it’s because I have time alone in my thoughts without distractions like television and my computers, and things come back to me.

One thing I meant to write about is that several weeks ago I saw a story on the news about a man who was arrested for killing his girlfriend in Washington County (my county), and when the local news (I always catch the end of it when I watch “Seinfeld” at 11) flashed his picture, he looked vaguely familiar. I Googled his name, got his address from the phone listings, and sure enough, he lives just “down the road” as it is, right along my walking/jogging path. I’ve seen him standing outside before smoking a cigarette, and he drives a blue Mustang, which is one of the reasons I remembered him. Today as I went past his house, there were a couple of cars parked in front of it and some kids playing in the driveway. Wonder what’s going on there, today?

So yes, you may be thinking, I went jogging. First time in about three or four weeks that I’ve done so, but since my jaunt through downtown Portland didn’t affect my knee much, I thought I’d give it a try. I didn’t take the same route that killed my knee in the first place, heavens no, but my old route that I got sick of. I figured that since I hadn’t done it in a long time, though, it wouldn’t be too bad. I didn’t take the uphill route, however. It was only a mile and a half jog, less than half of what caused me trouble in the first place, so I’m not expecting any knee troubles tomorrow. But in any case, it felt great to jog again. I was talking with someone the other day and I realized that jogging is my method of clearing my head, getting out and away from things. Sure, I could walk, but the straining of my muscles and the pounding of my heart is a totally different feeling. People keep telling me that I should walk instead of jog, but really, you can’t get that heavy cardiovascular exercise with walking. I need to get my heart pumping once in awhile, and I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. For the person I was talking to, it was shopping. For me, it’s jogging. I think one of the reasons that I’ve been going so stir-crazy in the last few weeks is that I haven’t been able to jog, waiting for my knee to heal. Now with my knee probably 99% healed, I can go back out there and take it easy, like I did at the beginning. I’ll probably go every day, but not on the same route that gave me trouble. I think it was the downhill part of it, frankly. If I could go 3.6 miles on a flat surface, I’ll bet I could easily do it.

The last week or so has seen me playing the game Diablo II with Dan yet again, though this time we’re playing cross-country and not cross-room or cross-campus. It’s a bit harder to coordinate times to play with a three-hour time difference. I know I’ve mentioned the game numerous times in the past but that’s only because I’ve played it so many times in the past. I picked it up in the summer of 2000 right when it came out, coincidently the same time my then-girlfriend Heather was visiting me here in Portland. She was flying standby home, and she couldn’t get a flight out of PDX, so she stayed an extra day and decided to get together with a friend (who also happened to be an ex-boyfriend of hers) who lives here in Portland. She said that I was remarkably calm and supportive of the idea, but that’s probably because I was looking forward to having some time to myself to play my game. I dropped her off, ran over to my Mom’s house, and then took it back to my Dad’s to get in a couple of hours of play time. When she saw how much time Dan and I spent playing the game our sophomore year, she finally understood what that was all about. Not that she liked it, though.

I have a feeling that this is going to be a interesting week, one way or another. I’m not sure what it is that’s telling me that, but it’s just a feeling that I have in my head. The job at the Multnomah Athletic Club is out, without them even getting a chance to meet me. I had arranged for an 8:30 AM interview on Saturday, but I was called on Friday night by the woman who I scheduled with and she said that they had decided to fill the part-time position from within instead of hiring new people. There goes that possibility. Now I’m down to one application still out there and another possibility, if I can get the second interview. I read this last week that something like 300,000 jobs had been created recently in the country, and now Bush is taking credit for the uptick in the economy. Here’s my question, though: how many of those are federally-created jobs involving military and federal spending? How many are actual jobs that college graduates such as myself could do? Probably not nearly that many.

And so here I am, Sunday afternoon, no plans for the rest of the day and no concrete plans for the rest of the week. As I said, I have a feeling it’s going to be an interesting week nonetheless. Time to go clean up. Later.

Posted in Geekery, General