Pictures and Running

As promised, here is my picture post! This first one is of Jimmy actually playing poker during the tournament. He was "surprised and impressed" that I watched him play for so long. But of course I did! It was fun and interesting and definitely not something I'll have the opportunity to do very often.


The next one is the view from one of Jimmy's friend's room. Freaking amazing.


This is one of the beach. I didn't actually swim in the ocean, but I did walk in the sand for a while, and it was downright beautiful. The water was so turquoise, the sand so creamy.


The next one is a tank full of jellyfish. Random, I know, but one of the coolest things about this resort was that they have this awesome network of aquariums, with walkways going under, around, above, and through them, so the animals swim all around you. I thought this was a cool shot, even though it doesn't really capture the coolness of all the aquariums (aquaria?).


And finally, just because this picture is hilarious, here are my doggies earlier today. We went for a great run this morning, and then Rye discovered a new way to sleep in the sun; we call him the sun dial dog, because he literally scoots around the extra bedroom on the floor all day, following the path of the sun. If you catch him before about 10:00 am, the sunlight is still on the wall, not the floor, so he can't sleep in it yet. He used to just back up against the wall and wait for it to hit the floor, but since I've gotten home from my trip, I stacked my suitcase against the wall and, well, see for yourself:


I love it that Huck has this look on his face like, "Do you see this? You have got to be kidding me."

In other news, I was doubly inspired yesterday. While walking the dogs, these three girls ran by me, and my first reaction was a pang of jealousy; why do they have someone to run with and I don't? My second reaction was, "Wait, isn't the pollution level pretty high today?" And it was - yesterday it was in the high 90's, I believe, which is the yellow "sensitive individuals should consider limiting outdoor exertion" level. Usually when it gets in the high yellow zone, I don't run, since my chest used to get pretty tight on those days. But these girls were running in it just fine, apparently.

So the upshot of that brief encounter is 1) I went running today, even though the pollution index was like 105, and I was totally and completely fine. This is somewhat good and somewhat bad. On the one hand, it's great that I've adjusted my sensitivity to the pollution, since it apparently doesn't affect me like it did at first, and now I can run when the levels are higher. On the other hand... seriously? I'm used to having 2.5 micrometer particles gunking up my lungs now? That's depressing.

And 2) I got on this website called exercisefriends.com and started looking for a running partner. I found this girl who posted an "ad" a few years ago looking for a fellow 20-something female to train for the San Francisco Marathon with her, and I sent her an email to see if she's still living in Berkeley, still interested in training for SF '09, and if she might want to grab a cup of coffee to make sure neither of us are 45 year old creepy stalker dudes before we set up a running date. I'm really hoping I hear back from her soon!

Ok, that's all for now.