Three Good Things about The Blackout...

Perhaps you heard...Southern California experienced a pretty massive power outage yesterday afternoon and evening. It lasted (for us) about 8 hours, although I think there may still be peeps without power. Even still, I know some of you on the east coast who were without power for days are thinking "SoCal wussies...we didn't have power for three DAYS after Irene!" and to be honest, I'd be the first to concede the point.

In any event, I had planned on running after work yesterday, once it cooled off, but since there was no power, I ended up attending to other things... 

No matter, there were three VERY GOOD THINGS that did occur as a result of the outage.

• I didn't have to work today. Was supposed to do a full day workshop at Cal State San Marcos, but it is closed for the day, so I have the day off!
• Betty came over as we were activating our "Family Emergency Plan"* which meant opening a bottle of wine and sitting by the pool and then sitting in the pool because it was so dang hot.



We have a really well developed emergency plan.

• While I was looking for a cable to charge DramaGirls phone with my battery charger, I found the nose piece to my Nike Vomero Sunglasses. I LOVE these sunglasses, but losing the nosepiece has been an ongoing issue for me. I thought I'd lost it AGAIN somewhere in Kansas City, but when I opened a case that I keep the battery charger supplies in, I found it. Apparently, I had cleverly put it there in KC, so that I WOULDN'T lose it. I'm such a genius!

So that you know, you were saved from reading a really boring post about the saga of the Nike Sunglasses and the Lost Nosepiece, part 5. Instead, if you want to know, you can go here, and here, and here.

So, the power is back on, I have the day off,  I have my favorite running sunglasses EVAH, and all is well with the world!

___________________________
* I saw a tweet that SDG&E (the power company) was advising people to "Activate their personal family emergency plan." Walter and I figured we'd already done that.

Foto Friday - The Family

We had some family photos taken about a month ago by our friends and neighbors Paul and Amy Reams. They really made all of us really good.

I really have no comments about any of the photos...but, I mean, aren't we adorable?

 

DramaGirl's eye. Amy took this one. I like their style of photography. We took some more "traditional" ones with everyone all looking forward, but really, these are some of my favorites

I think Walter looks like he's going to bite me

And he's a good kisser (we took several takes to get this shot)

Anyway, you should know that I've just posted some of my families pix today. Actually we took pictures of the whole clan (grandparents to babies...) I think there were about 20 of us in the whole family shot...and BTW, getting 20 people to look at the camera and smile at the same time is no small feat (at least not in THIS family).

Here's more (if you are so inclined to see more photos of the whole family - Walter's side)

Full disclosure: I paid Amy and Paul to take our family pix. I am not getting compensation for bragging about what an awesome job they did. However, in the interest of even fuller disclosure, they do live in one of our rental properties, so I do have, I guess, somewhat of an interest in their gaining some additional clients. On the other hand, they both have other jobs, so I'm not too worried about whether or not they'll pay rent as a result of this.


___________________________
Hey...Betty made an error. She THOUGHT she registered for the Surf City 1/2 Marathon, but somehow her registration didn't go through, so she's looking for a bib. It's all very odd, because I thought that I checked everyone's registrations about a month ago and saw it there, but it's not there now. The race is sold out, so she can't buy it now.

So, if you know of someone who has a Surf City 1/2 Marathon bib and is not going to be able to run, please email me and let me know. We'd really appreciate it.

More Herd Running

Our Rockin' and Running training group posted some pix of this past Saturday's run on the San Diego Bay on it's website. As I (and lots of other SoCal bloggers) have mentioned, it rained A LOT last week. You can see how wet the streets are, but the sun came out and it was a wonderful morning for a run.

Here are some of our finer moments...

BBJ...mostly his arm...in blue

Fly like the wind Mik

Me and my new friend John...

One of the great things about the track club (besides having a personal photographer) is meeting new people. I ran most of the time within a few steps of this guy. We ended up running the last mile together. At this point, about 2.5 miles into the run, I didn't realize he was right behind me.

 

 Betty. I thought she was nuts for wearing shorts. Turned out to be a good decision.

 Elsie...bummed that she forgot her sunglasses (yeah, that sun reflecting off the wet streets? Brutal!)

Couldn't find a trackclub picture of Santiago, but that may be because the photographer is afraid of him.

Other news this week in semi-long-bullet format

• Have I mentioned, after all my whining and bitching and moaning about what a crazy teaching schedule I had last fall, I have THE BEST schedule this spring. My Tuesday/Thursday course load is pretty full (I teach almost straight through from 9am to 4pm) but the rest of the week is SUH-WHEEEEET. On Monday I just have two short classes, with a nice long break between and on Wednesday, I have a one hour class at 8am, and then I'm done teaching for the day...which gives me lots of time on Wednesdays to get planned, grade papers, and, of course, mess around on the blog and on FB.So...you can probably expect regular Wednesday posts (and comments) from me for the next couple of months. Ah...midweek Heffernews. Can't wait!
• The herd IS running Surf City 1/2 in two weeks. Yes, I'm crazy for even attempting it, but I can't have the herd going to Orange County without me!
• You'll definitely read more of my ranting about my crazy weekend next week, but suffice it to say that next Friday-Sunday should be EXCITING as I fly from one city to the next, one event to the next. Three events, three cities, two days. Should be fun.
• Penny is being an absolute ROCKSTAR-GODDESS, and is picking up the herd's race bibs and tags from the Surf City expo for us, since none of the herd will be in HB (Huntington Beach) the day before the race. She is an honorary heffer for this!
• I have continued being a GymRat and have been to the gym on both Monday and Tuesday nights.
• Tonight is the SDTC track workout. The three person relay...can't wait for THAT!
• This weekend's long run is in Carlsbad. I love running in Carlsbad. I didn't do the Carlsbad 1/2 last week, so this will have to suffice.
  
• An finally...one of my best friends from high school/college has started a fitness blog called Training to be a Superhero and she has one lonely follower (me). If you've got a few seconds, go check her out. She is completely a funny and entertaining writer and you'll love her. I promise.