What has been going on?

Well, not much and a whole lot . . . .

I am now a 5 day a week bike commuter. I recently went all the way to bike geekdom and purchased a side pannier (saddlebag) for my bike. It is much roomier than the small trunk that I had on my bike's commuter rack, so I can carry more stuff - - - I don't think that I will need to use my Mondays to carry in all of my breakfasts, lunches, snacks t-shirts and socks, I can just put a couple of day's worth in the saddlebag. I know that sounds pretty exciting . . . but, to me, it is. I don't particularly care to ride the metro and buses, especially the buses. Normally when I get on a bus, it is very crowded and it stops every two blocks for a mile or so, sometimes, I see folks get on the bus two blocks from the metro stop, and then get off at the metro stop which I find very frustrating. That was why I was walking to and from the metro stop, but . . . . . .

I recently had to stop walking to and from the metro stop because my foot has taken a turn for the not healing so fast. I am not sure what I did, but the plantar faciitis came back with a vengeance earlier this week. When I trace it back, I think it was wearing my Army boots a couple of times (when it snowed once, walking to the metro). I coupled that with a run that I got a little too froggy on (running too far too fast, sigh) and I think I will not be running for a while, sigh. I will see the podiatrist this week and see what he has to say, hopefully it is just a matter of staying off of it for a while.

The only thing that I have to figure out is how to do my weekly stop at the YES, Organic Food Market on Georgia AVE. It was only three blocks from the Metro stop. I think I can make a modification to my riding route and get to it from a side street, rather than going down Georgia AVE (one of the more frustrating roads to ride on, lots of traffic and stoplights). I normally stop there and get some fruit and honey, they have an organic honey that is really good, made by bees that frequent orange blossoms down in Florida, and it is pretty in-expensive for that sort of honey. Those orange blossom loving bees make a mighty fine honey.

Outside of biking to work, hmmm, what has been going on?

Last night me and a couple of friends went to see a play at the Kennedy Center (yes, that Kennedy Center). They are doing a two week showing of Indian (the country, not American Indians) culture, displays, art, textiles, etc.

Link to the Maximum India Web page

Pretty interesting stuff, we had some Indian food at the cafeteria (pretty good flavor, but on the pricey side, of course, it is the Kennedy Center) and watched an Indian interpretation of an Ibsen play: When the Dead Awaken. I am not much into plays, especially if they are done in an obscure Indian language. About 30% of the dialogue was shown as subtitles on monitors next to the stage, but it seemed to be a lot of screaming and laughing, with some interesting use of props. Description from the web page:

"Selected for its universal human themes of death and resurrection, When We Dead Awaken directed by writer, director, and actor Ratan Thiyam puts an Eastern twist on Henrik Ibsen's final play of the same name. Chorus Repertory Theatre's production revolves around the buried symbolism in names and occupations. A sculptor who has grown cold to his wife is led to climb a great mountain by an intriguing woman. But the monolith proves to be too much for the sculptor in this enigmatic play that hints that when we wake up to our reality, there is little around to recognize. In this adaptation, scenes from the original play have been picked up and interpolated, without distorting the original idea and using unaltered dialogues from the original text. Performed in Manipuri with English surtitles. A free Explore the Arts discussion follows the performance on March 4."

We didn't stick around for the Explore the Arts discussion.

A member of our running club was interested in it, so we went with him. The play was performed in Manipuri, a part of north east India, near Burma. I have no idea how someone from Manipur discovered Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright. Interesting symbolism in the production. I think I will stick to English plays from now on though.

Other news:

Husker update: Bo has made my year, he let Sean Watson go, so maybe the Husker offense will pick up and have a distinct identity. I think the entire Husker nation breathed a sigh of relief.

A new officer has come into our organization, he is from western Iowa, and went to the University of Nebraska at Kearney (formerly Kearney State College). He has the same huge Husker magnet that I do, so I figured out he was a Husker fan. That should make this fall a little more interesting.

Survivor update:

If you are not watching this season of Survivor, sorry for you. It is probably the best season in the past several years, there are some true characters on the show. I really enjoy watching it and discussing it with the two other folks on the Joint Staff that watch it as well. One of my Survivor buddies DVRs the show and watches it several times over a weekend. That is dedication.

Movie review:

I haven't seen too many movies here lately. The most recent two were Toy Story 3, which I did enjoy. I saw the first two, so I Netflixed the 3d one. Good story, and a fitting end to a Pixar empire.

I also watched Winter's Bone (Link to the NY Times Review), which was very, umm, gritty? If you want to watch a painful to watch movie about how the meth industry has affected rural America (the movie is set in the Ozarks), this is it. Very similar to Precious a few years ago, intense and hard to watch. I probably won't be driving through rural Missouri for a while.