Friday, the 2nd was my first day back at work and I feel like I never left. On a positive note, I had to wonder how I survived without the place for the last 13 months. Work is good, it's not always perfect, but I missed it. The week consisted of some office work and two days of recerting my rules card. Now, I'm back training in Northern Ontario nights where I belong. My first night shift was fine, I never hit “the wall” which confirms the fact that I am a night person. Some people will do anything to hold days but I'd much rather smash all the knuckles on my hand with a hammer. I'll be weeks away from retirement and still working nights.

If you would have told me that I was going to miss my job this much four years ago I would have told you to lay off the crack. I'm back to riding my bike and it's my plan to ride as long as the weather doesn't drop below -30. I'll probably combine riding with the C-Train in the winter but that has to do with how dark some of my route is more than the weather. June was a busy month. The first weekend in June we took the boy camping in Banff. We stayed at Tunnel Mountain because it seemed like a good idea to have full hook-ups with a baby in tow. We had a great view of Mount Rundle and although the weather wasn't great, we managed to take the boy out for a couple of hikes as well as out to the hot springs. He also got to come to brunch at Banff Park Lodge, a tradition in the house of Evil.

The last weekend in June was my first 5 km run. I ran in the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra Fun Run with a finish time of 36:11. I was happy with that time for my first run and the CPO aspect of the run seemed an excellent cross over from where I've come from in life. The CPO raised over $13,000 for their youth programs and as it turns out it was the first year for the run. I can't wait to run again and need to choose another run as soon as I get my schedule figured out. I need to learn to start slow when I run because I think that if I would have started at a slower pace, I would have come in under 35.

My first tri is just around the corner and I'm nervous. Not because I haven't trained hard and not because I don't think that I can't do all the events but because it will be new and unknown. I'm going to do the transition clinic and as far as I can see the event is organized with newbies like me in mind. I found an inexpensive wetsuit at Costco (I couldn't have rented one for cheaper than the one I bought) and the helpful staff at the tri store got me into a tri suit. This is a purpose built piece of spandex that I couldn't look worse in but is so freakin' comfortable that I wish I could just wear it under my clothes all the time.

I'm almost at the halfway mark toward my first graduate degree, currently discussing IT's good, bad and ugly side. This week I'll be tackling an essay topic that looks into privacy issues created in the realm of social networking. I remain somewhat removed from the whole insanity. While I keep this blog, I'm not on Facebook, Twitter or any other such networks. I get anxious in big groups of people where I feel like I have no control so I'm unlikely to sign up for such things. I replaced my broken Blackberry with an iPhone the other day, I wish that I'd gone with another Blackberry. I'm getting old because I really just want to make phone calls, text and get my email. So far my favourite app is one that links with a map and tracks my running and cycling and gives me my stats at the end. I thought that this was pretty fancy until a friend at work showed me an app that lists people who want to hook-up (and I do mean that in the naughty way). The app actually informs the searcher where said hook-ups are by utilising the GPS. Variations on the app exist in a “what's your pleasure” sort of way including gay, straight, married and looking, etc.

My running app suddenly seems so tame and old-fashioned. The rampage of technology marches on and I'm afraid that I've fallen out long ago.

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