4 Random Notes

• 1: TRAINING UPDATES:

Not too much new here: still running when I can, and my right hip/sacrum is still achy at times (running or not). My ankle is still sore, but it's getting better month-by-month - it's not holding me back.

And I'm still making gains in the pool. This past week, I did 16x100 with a longer break than I used to (0:30 instead of 0:20). I averaged 1:24.5 / 100, which was exactly 2 seconds faster/100 than when I had 0:20 rest just 2 weeks before. Just for some long-term comparison, back in July of 2014, I did only 10x100 with 0:30 rest with a 1:26.2 average. Back in July of 2011, I did 10x100 with over 0:30 rest with a 1:25.2 average. I looked back to July of 2010 when I tried to do 10x100 with 0:30 rest with some middle school swimmers. I had to skip the 6th and 9th interval, but I had a crazy fast average of 1:22.8 for the 8 that I did. Maybe I can aim to get my 10x100 (or even 15x100) times down to that by the middle of summer. Maybe. Probably not. But possibly.


• 2: ROOT BEER:

Recently, Henry and I brewed our first batch of homemade root beer. Here's a quick photo from this post on my root beer blog of Henry with our finished gallon of root beer before it was bottled and left to ferment for a few days:

Oh yeah, he's pantless... as he usually is.

Check out a bunch of photos of us brewing our first batch of root beer on my root beer blog.


• 3: CHARLIE:

As I mentioned in my last post, we had Grandpa Clem's funeral on Friday. My sister snapped a cute photo of my folks with Charlie after the funeral as we were all eating:

• 4: UPCOMING EXHIBITION:

As I just announced on my photo blog, I recently found out I was one of about 40 artists selected (from the nearly 350 pieces entered) to be in an alumni exhibition at the Form+Content Gallery in Minneapolis:

I've actually done a lot of work to get this event to happen as part of CVA Action (the non-profit group that I'm the vice president of). I had nothing to do with picking the work, so don't call foul! (The juror was the Executive Director at the Minnesota Museum of American Art.) I was on the exhibition committee working to get the process underway, and I worked with the designer to get the postcards done. I'm also helping to get a night of lectures given by local artists and designers put together - look for that on March 21st. But in the meantime, stop by the Form+Content Gallery on the 28th of this month for the opening! I'll be there exhibiting with some other great artists.

Have a great week!