Five, five minute tasks; one of which took two hours.

I was feeling late-morning onset of lethargy setting in, so I decided to do a bunch of small tasks that needed doing:

--I took the tap out of our sugar maple tree, < 5 minutes

--I coiled up the siphon tube that we used to drain the basement when it floods in the Spring, 5 minutes.

--Added windshield washer fluid to two of our cars (the in-laws have one of the three for a road trip weekend). 5 minutes only because I wanted to explore the engine bay of my new car. It has a horizontally opposed four cylinder engine and so everything is oddly arranged.

--Adjusted the swing set. This is a home made setup which is essentially a 16' beam between two trees. Since trees are not always perfectly vertical, there was some odd shimming needed to make the beam level and true. I won't go into all the details, but due to the decay of some components, a new arrangement had to be made. All in all, it took a dozen tools and two hours to get the thing in shape. While I was up there I noticed some rot in the wood but I think the set will last another few years and the kids will be too old for it by then anyway.

--I took the lawnmower blade out and sharpened it using my electric grinding wheel, slightly more than 5 minutes.

For dessert; a bowl of spicy pork rinds, a beer and a brace of mini-candy bars.

Plus blogging.

Mint Julep

I realized too late yesterday that I should have had a mint julep. We have fresh mint coming up in the garden and it was Kentucky Derby day.

Maybe I will have one today on the theory that it is better, when it comes to delicious drinks, to have one later than never.

Today is Mother's Day and most events were so themed:

I ran the The Medical Center 6K in Nashua NH. The event is held on Mother's day because it raises money for a breast cancer related charity. My wife went for a morning jog today too, she didn't do the 6K because she was taking her mom out for lunch and wasn't sure she would be back from the race in time to make her reservation at the restaurant. It turns out she would have made it since I was home well before she left on her lunch date.

The kids made their mom breakfast while I was out. I helped Surenna charge the coffee maker before I left and showed her where the bacon was, as well as how to open the package. I guess the second part stuck, but not the first: She found a different package in the freezer rather than the fridge and managed to get it open. She didn't cook it because it was frozen.

When I got home, I made a few pieces of bacon, from the package in the refrigerator and a pancake from left-over batter. Tres-good!

Just before my wife left, I gave her the box of Whitman's milk chocolate sampler that I had gotten on the way home from the race.

Now I am waiting for the race results to be posted on line. They had posted paper results at the race up to finish times of 25:36 and less--my time was 25:45. I could have probably waited for 10 minutes to see the official time and place, but I wanted to make sure to see Vaish before she left for her lunch date.

Maybe I should just make a mint julep and chill-out.

Update: 208 50/106 M4049 26:01 6:59 David Pecchia 48 M 442 Chelmsford MA GLRR

The timers did not deduct the 16 seconds it took for me to reach the starting line. As is fairly common in races like this, lots of kids and other slow runners cluster at the head of the starting pack and slow-down all the faster runners behind them. I probably lost an additional 10-15 seconds trying to get around all the slow-pokes in the first 1/4 mile.