2017 Winter January 16 Monday

40 degrees this morning, no walk.

Still raining, although at least it is 40 degrees, so there is no ice.  The weather changed yesterday afternoon from ice to rain and rained a lot harder, although not a hard rain by any means.  

Hoping I might be able to walk this morning, but still raining.  Plus I still have a small amount of cold left although that could be my asthma.  There is no question all of my life I have had “exercise induced asthma”, which explains why I coughed so much when I ran in races.   

I”m not quite sure why  no one advised me of that, probably because I thought the coughing when I exercised problem was normal.  The solution, at least now, is fairly simple, maybe it wan’t back then.

Reading a book “Nobody’s Fool” by Richard Russo.  I was surprised the book was written in 1993 and was apparently a widely known movie in 1994 or 95.  Shows how alert I was!

Anyway, it is one of those books that you wonder “why am i reading this”, but I keep on reading and getting caught up in the story.  I am about 25% through and am throughly caught up in the story, but still not exactly sure what the story is.  Maybe that is the story.

One thing I really hate (and try to avoid) is long paragraphs.  The book has long paragraphs and I almost quit reading the book because of the long paragraphs, but I kept on reading it.

One of my pet peeves on writing I reviewed when I was City Manager was long paragraphs, I always either shortened them, or asked them to shorten the paragraphs.  

There is something about a long paragraph which is very difficult for me to read.  Even if it is technically correct, a long paragraph is just not meant to be in my opinion!  

Of course, I feel the same way about long, complex sentences.  The shorter the better!

The book also has extremely long chapters, which i also don’t like, but at least I can understand the long chapters.  (Each chapter is one day.)

I was thinking while I was reading the book about the absence of cell phones, computers etc. and realized that 1993 was a time when both weren’t well known, although I think the first cell phone I got was in 1993, although it may have been a little earlier.   However it was still a few years before they became common place.

Actually, while cellphones were fairly common, I think the “smartphone” was what really took off, simplified (if slow) access to the internet on device you can put in your pocket.

Hopefully the weather will change back, it is supposed to be “spring like” weather for the next several weeks, thank goodness. 

I am looking forward to get back to walking.  I like a short break, but 8 days is a bit long!  I had to stop walking due to my “cold” and then then weather stopped it.  

I’m not sure what my longest “break” from walking has been, probably last winter when I had to stop for about a month due to coughing etc.  Fortunately doesn’t take long to get back into it

Today is a Holiday, Martin Luther King Day, so I am off work. 

That’s it for now, Monday, January 16, 2017.