Bloggin' Branton

I'm currently in Iowa, where it's always cold and there is plenty of ice on the sidewalks. So for the past week, I've been running on the treadmill.

Treadmills and I have never really gotten along. They bore me. But this week, I've managed to get four runs in. Each one has gotten less tedious. The first run, I had to keep increasing the pace to stay focused. The second run, I did a (very) short interval run to keep it interesting. The third and fourth runs, I was able to just hold a steady pace for three miles.

When I get back to Seattle, I think it would be useful to be able to do some runs on a treadmill during the winter. What can I do to decrease the boredom? I imagine listening to music might help, though I've never done that while running.

I just got back from our first Saturday morning football game. It was a gorgeous morning. Sun shining, field soft but not a swamp, warm enough to get down to short sleeves once you warmed up. There were nine of us, which was a decent number. After about six possessions I wasn't dirty yet and decided that was wrong so I started playing harder and quickly got muddy.

I was happy with my two drives as QB. I got a bunch of short completions on the first drive and got a TD. On the second, I lofted one into the back of the endzone for a TD and the defender said, "I didn't think he could throw it that far." To be honest, I kinda surprised myself too.

I never really played much football, other than backyard games with my buddy Adam as a kid. So I'm not very good... but it was a blast. We all decided we should play regularly so I think it's going to become a monthly thing.

If you've been following me on Twitter, then you already know that I'm moving. If you haven't, now you know.

At the end of the month, I'll be moving in with my friends Mitch and Stacy down in Issaquah. They've got a nice big basement, with a kitchen, bathroom, laundry facilities, bedroom, etc. It's been quite a while since I've lived with anyone, but this will be different than before. The basement is completely separated (aside from the entrance) so I could go days without seeing them if I need to hole up for some reason. They will need to come downstairs to do their laundry, though.

There are a whole lot of reasons I decided to make the move. In no particular order...

• My condo is too big for me. It's 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms for just me. I end up not using at least 50% of my space.
  
• I'll have more social interaction in my day-to-day life. During the week, I often go to work, come home, and never see any non-work friends.
• I like Mitch and Stacy. Their kid is pretty cute, too. And they promised they wouldn't expect free babysitting. (But seriously, who would trust me with a child?)
• I like Issaquah. It's a cool town and closer to the wilderness stuff that I don't do nearly enough. Hopefully I will more often when I'm closer.
  
• It helps them out to have a renter that they know, since their laundry is downstairs.
• Renting my place out will be a nice source of supplemental income. (I'll be charging more than I'm paying.)
  
• My HOA fees and any improvements I make to my condo have magically become tax-deductible.
• Moving is a good opportunity to get rid of junk you haven't used since the last time you moved.
  
• I've been in a bit of a rut and I needed a change of scenery.
  

Of course, there are a few negatives too:

• Stacy is alergic to cats, so I'll be finding a new home for Nutmeg. This was my biggest reservation about the situation.
• I'll have a longer commute to work. It's likely that I'll end up riding the bus, though.
• It's further away from my favorite local poker room. There's a new one opening closer, but I doubt it'll be of interest to me.
  
• They live up a huge hill, which is bad for both running and winter driving.
• Moving is a big pain.
• Managing a rental property is (probably) a big pain.

Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have a completely empty condo. I plan on selling most of my books, DVDs, and video games that I no longer use. I've also got a bunch of electronics that are collecting dust. Once the place is empty and I've moved, I'll make a few improvements to the place and find some renters. Should be an adventure.

I've previously mentioned that I don't buy DVDs. Today, I made an exception for How I Met Your Mother. It's just that good.

I've avoided Twitter for a long time. I didn't see how it could be useful. But with my Vegas trip, I saw the light. A group of people in the same city who might want to know what everyone else is up to at any random time. You don't want to have to call everyone and bug them. Twitter seems perfect. (Of course, only two of us are on it so it won't actually be useful.)

If you don't know what Twitter is, it's a service designed around the question, "What are you doing?" It's an entire service that's designed to do status updates. It's far better than Facebook status updates but not nearly the number of people are on the service. Each update has a 140 character maximum and you can update it using the web, a text message, or any number of small programs on your computer. Once you get several friends on it, it's really pretty cool. The best explanation I've seen though is this two and a half minute video: Twitter in Plain English.

My Twitter updates will be more frequent than my Facebook updates. That means that you'll get more details, which could be good or bad. A few samples of individual tweets:

My reaction to Running-Log.com being removed from Google and notice that I figured it out and did what I could to fix it.
My thoughts on current weather in Seattle.
Mentioning that I'm done with work and going to play poker for a bit.
I'm eating breakfast.

If you're interested in this sort of thing... well... here it is.

Oops. I managed to get my website removed from Google. I'd suggest you don't go and do that yourself.

So now here I am with a popular running log website that used to be #1 or #2 on Google for seven years and now it's not even in the index anymore. It's like the New York Mets of 2007. Anyway, I haven't written much about my activity on Running-Log.com lately, so I thought I'd update people on what's been going on.

The site is up and running strong. There's been no downtime, the user base is growing, the teams are coming back, and features are getting added. I've heard a lot of good things from users who came back about how the site is a lot more usable than it used to be. I'm looking forward to the next batch of improvements, which will add graphs for all the important data that people put into the site, both for teams and individuals.

Unfortunately, my training has been lacking. I need to get back out on the road! As soon as this Vegas trip is over...