Day Two Hundred Forty Seven

Dear Readers,
      Happy Labor Day everyone!  The day of the year that signals the end of summer and back to school for all those students out there.  I guess they called it labor day, because that is the time everyone gets back to laboring.  Students I mean.  Most of the rest of us are laboring year round.  I guess I should say, students and most teachers.  Unless they have summer jobs or are teaching summer school.  Everyone's last chance to go out and enjoy the summer.  Is it really though?  The summer doesn't actually end until September 21st.  We still officially have eighteen days left of summer.  And even then, here in Southern California, we still get good summer type weather until around late October.  Sometimes even longer than that.  We are truly blessed with what can seem like endless good weather.  We complain about it being too hot or too cold, but compared to most other parts of the world, we live in mild weather extremes.  So I hope you went out and spoiled yourself with our great weather we had today.  Hopefully you didn't have to deal with too many crowds out there.  I know the beach was packed today.
      Raina and I woke up semi early and had a pleasant six mile run out on the beach today.  Okay, it wasn't literally pleasant, but it was as pleasant as a six mile run can be.  It was blazing hot out there and the beach offers a nice breeze while running along the water.  Poor Raina though.  Her new shoes gave her some nasty blisters.  One on each foot.  Then, on top of that, she hurt her ankle.  So much so that she has had to ice it tonight.  I can't have her injured for long though.  My training partner has to keep going out with me.  Keep training with me, so we can get through another one of these nightmarish half marathons.  She keeps me going.  She is my motivation.  Especially when she is ahead of me.  Knowing that I can keep pushing myself to keep going.  Maybe I will try that famous hand clap and rubbing of the palms of my hands together before massaging her ankle Mr. Miyagi style.  Just like in Karate Kid.  Who am I kidding, I would probably just do more damage than help.  It would be a lot cooler if I could though.
      Our friend, Chris Jones, just had his birthday.  It always gets rolled up into celebrating the same time as Labor Day.  Every year it seems like we have a Labor Day barbeque and, oh yeah, we celebrate his birthday at the same time.  Chris also has had an old tube television set from the dawn of time that he still uses.  This thing is old school.  I think it actually had knobs to turn the channel and bunny ear antennas to get a signal.  So for his birthday we chipped in and brought him into the 21st century, by getting him a new HDTV.  Finally upgrading after denying to do it over and over again.  So, we just forced it onto him.  Perfect timing too, with football season starting the day after tomorrow.  Now he can keep up with his fantasy football team first hand.  And he can actually see the game without having to squint past the what seems like blurred vision.  Now he just has to upgrade his cable box to an HD box.  Might as well make full use of the television.  Hopefully he doesn't drag his feet too long and misses out on how great that television actually is.  Make sure he uses it to it's maximum potential.  Happy Birthday Jonesy!

This Day In History: 1189
Richard the LionHeart is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.

Born This Day: 1942
Al Jardine - American rock musician (The Beach Boys)

"I hate television.  I hate it as much as peanuts.  But I can't stop eating peanuts."

-Orson Welles

Check out my new shirt.  I truly am.