The title is a bit of a joke. I started at Honda back when the earth was cooling, as a mainframe computer operator. Before then, OS360 was introduced circa 1965 and it was still good enough for the 1980's. In 1985 ish, they introduced OS370, a minor upgrade. Think on that. 20 years before a minor upgrade. Nowadays, the operating system changes faster than I change my underwear. Strike that last bit, it sounds ominous.
Here is how my week has progressed: Friday: Upgrade my work laptop from Window XP (no, not joking) to Windows 7. Monday: Install specialized software until just after the cows came home. Tuesday (today), buy a new laptop with Windows 8.1. Now I'm not Amish, although they think so at work, but this week has been a precipitously steep learning curve. First point, for the designers of Win8.1: Are you out of your cotton-picking minds? Who would consider such an obscure, counter-intuitive system as a good idea? I actually want to FIND C drive. I like to dictate the file path so that way out in the future, such as tomorrow, I can FIND the @%#@$ file. I understand hierarchical databases; I don't understand mansy pansy fog-overlaid file storage, where you find what you stored by wishing on a star.
But let's move on to a topic that has caused me some angst in the last month or so. Maple syrup production. I have 73 liters so far. For those who will be demanding their age category prize of syrup at this year's Creemore Vertical Challenge, this translates into "I have enough for the race". I don't have enough for personal and (this is funny) I don't have the 100 liters that people have already ordered, including the dreaded MMSC (militant maple syrup consumers), who believe that pain is a conscionable method of making me understand what and who are important in the grand scheme of things. The good new is that it will be -10 tonight. I have a very shaky and short reprieve from the budding season, when I will lose all hope (yee who enter here) of filling the outstanding orders...
Running? It is not going very well, but I did get a run in with Everhard, a neighbour who normally runs at twice my speed. Everhard brought a couple of friends who were in need of some hill training. Soon the vertical trash talk started and Lance displayed some fine sarcasm while talking of the 4K hill on Collingwood Street (part of which is hill #1 on the CVC course) by thanking us for choosing such an easy hill...
So, I am resigned to a slow and painful "long training run" at the Pick Your Poison race in 2 weeks. I hoped to ramp up the training to make it more of a race. However, the first (for me) race of the season is meant for meeting up with running friends and talking about the long winter!
Dig Deep.
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