I didn't make any new year's resolutions this year, since, you know, not trying to boast here but I got it covered. At least as far as physical fitness goes. So instead I decided to start keeping track of my workouts to see how I do month to month and see where I can improve and whatnot. Made a spreadsheet and everything. I just summed the total miles I did for January and came up with 49.84. Which is pretty good but damn! I didn't know I was like 25 feet short of making it an even 50 miles. Anyways I'm a Canadian and miles don't actually mean anything to me. Let's do a quick conversion here- 80.2 kms! There we go. That sounds better.
I bring it up because Michelle went to a see a speaker at her Teacher's Convention and it was this ultra-runner who ran across the Sahara Desert. Basically for the hell of it. Him and two friends- they made a documentary about it which we watched, called Running the Sahara. Pretty amazing show. If you read any of the reviews or comments about it, the thing that will jump out at you is what one viewer called the "complete assholery" of one of the runners. It's definitely true he could be assholish. But as I remarked to Michelle, I've read a lot of books about extreme expeditions- like climbing Everest or kayaking the Arctic Circle and such, and these kinds of Type A heavy duty driven bully-tending people are often right there in the middle, because these are the types that actually finish extreme expeditions. Not to defend the behavioural flaws that come along with that. Just saying. Me, I'm much more laid back but then again I've never climbed Everest have I? I hitch-hiked across Canada and stuff like that, but that's not quite on the same level.
Hell, I think running 80 kms in a month is pretty good.

Anyways. Heading off for nightshift again tomorrow, so I might as well make the most of this post since I hardly ever have time to blog when I'm on nights.
Finished a bunch of books lately. We readA Prayer for Owen Meany for book club. I dunno, John Irving is pretty highly respected, and certainly his writing skillz are fine, I just had a hard time with the idea of using a miracle to explore ideas of faith and destiny and all that. Because you can write any miracle you want when you're the writer. Generated good discussion though.
I just finished Neal Stephenson's Reamde. You probably know Stephenson is my favourite writer ever- well, him and Dan Simmons, and he didn't disappoint. Just a lot of fun, this one. There was a story about China on the news while I was reading it and for a second I was sure it was gonna be about the explosion in Xiamen.
Also, at work, I read the entire Soldier Son Trilogy by Robin Hobb. It took me a loooong time to get through those books with the limited time I have to read at work lately, but I'm glad I read them. Quite a unique book, a fantasy more or less, set in a world that is roughly equivalent to Victorian England but with an American frontier sensibility, but just as a reference point. I dunno, hard to describe, I liked how it was kind of the Avatar/ Dances With Wolves story but with waaaay more shades of grey than you usually get with those types of stories.