I guess I’m becoming more in-shape. At least my stamina is improving. I’m doing 4.5 miles around a lake whenever possible, up to several times a week. At first I was just walking it, but the last couple of times I have been running for portions of the circuit. At some point I’d like to be perfectly fine with running the whole thing. It used to be that when I would run, my joints and muscles would complain, during and especially afterwards. Now, while I still feel a bit of complaining a day or two after I run, I’m not feeling joint and muscle pain during the run itself, so I’m able to run farther. Now my breathing seems to be my limiting factor. I stop running when I seem to be breathing too hard. At some point I expect that to mellow out some more, and that’ll probably be the point that I can run the whole circuit.
This morning I tried to pick up that turtle shell I found last week, but it fell apart when I picked it up, apparently it had become weak from soaking in the lake.
This morning I saw two women on the path, one of them was wearing a stocking on her right leg, I could see the seam going up the back of her leg. I wonder if that lends itself to support in the same way that a knee wrap would.
During the last period of time I was obsessing on letterboxing as a hobby, I actually took the time and effort to plant one. At the time I was working in Arlington, and I was reading a lot about the Vince Foster controversy. A lightbulb clicked on, and it was near the anniversary of his death (July 20, 1993) so I quickly carved a pretty decent stamp of his torso and face, and planted it near the place where his body was found (near the north Cannon at Fort Marcy Park, according to the published report).
I heard from a fellow letterboxer as late as last fall that the box was still in place, and remained a favorite among DC area letterboxers. This was very encouraging to me, and I hope to some day soon revisit the letterbox, and perhaps exchange the logbook for a fresh one.
One visitor said that on his last visit, he/she took a multicolored imprint of the stamp, gray for his hair, blue for his jacket, red for his tie, etc. I wrote and asked if I could have a photo of that stamp. He obliged:
If you read Sunday’s post, you’ll know that the girls and I went letterboxing at Alum Spring Park in Fredericksburg. The box we found was not far from a place called “Fat Annie’s Old Swimming Hole,” which we found interesting and decided to read up on after the trip.
Apparently this place has a ton of history. According to HistoryPoint,
- As the years passed, local boys headed out to Alum Spring to a deep pool upstream from the cliff area in the bed of Hazel Run. There they skinny-dipped, much to he distress of a large lady named Annie who lived nearby in the 1920s. She chased them away over and over, but they always came back and named the pool in their tormentor’s honor. Please note: there’s no swimming in Fat Annie’s Swimming Hole today.
Alum Spring was also a place known for violent conflict. From the same website:
- The narrow pathway between the Alum Spring rock and the mill pond was the Dueling Path. Robert A. Hodge, the person responsible for the present Alum Spring Park’s existence, tells its tragic story in this excerpt from his book, Alum Spring Park: A History: In or about March of 1790 the members of the Masonic Lodge No. 4 of Fredericksburg gave a large and brilliant ball. Among those in attendance were members William Glassell and Robert Ritchie. William Glassell, a native of Scotland, was a successful merchant and respected citizen who had married a sister of Anthony Buck, the latter a highly esteemed auctioneer of the town. Glassell had escorted to the ball a young, attractive and respected orphan girl who was living in his home. Mr. Ritchie was originally from Essex County down the river from Fredericksburg, but doing business in the town. He was not married. During the course of the evening at the Masonic Ball, and somewhat under the influence of wine, Ritchie offered a distinct insult to Glassell’s young guest, then refused to make a suitable apology when called upon to do so. Glassell sent a formal challenge which Ritchie accepted, choosing pistols as the weapons and Alum Spring as the place. Ritchie, knowing Glassell was an excellent marksman, was concerned enough over the event to make his will which was dated 27 March 1790 and if probated left all his legacy to his sister, Elenora. Glassell had second thoughts and, through friends, attempted to get Ritchie to reconsider. Ritchie refused and the duel took place on the pathway along the Alum Spring Rock in front of the clear mill pond. At first shot, Ritchie fell to the ground, mortally wounded. Glassell hurried to his side and asked forgiveness, which was refused. After Ritchie’s death, a murder warrant was issued. Glassell was taken before a magistrate, but was acquitted.
letterboxing this weekend. I decided to work some more letterboxing into my morning walk. I found one of the four boxes listed at Cassandra’s Pokemon Adventure. The other three must have been gathered together somewhere for an early morning swim.
Other interesting finds, a large (about 15″ long) turtle shell with bones in it, and a Sky Runner free-flight electric airplane, which looks as if it has been converted to RC. I left them there for someone else to find.
The girls each had a friend over for a sleepover yesterday. We took them to the pool in the afternoon, then had pizza for dinner, then I took all four girls out letterboxing. We searched for two (Battle Box and Paper Boy) and only found one (Paper Boy). But that single find got our guests hooked on letterboxing, so we went first thing this morning and searched for four more. We found Alum Springs Cliff Dweller and Pushing Up Daisies #41, but were unable to locate Train Station and Mary Washington Trail. All in all, though, finding three out of six in two days is not a bad score at all.
If you know me, you know my stance on spam, and you’ll know that it pleases me to hear that the king of spam has been sentenced to 47 months in jail. According to this article, he got a lighter sentence because as far as spammers go, he was less malicious than other big spammers — he didn’t damage anyone’s computer, direct users to pornographic sites, or send out malicious code, as other spammers have done.
What I would like spammers to understand is the financial burden they place on others when they do what they do. Bandwidth costs money. Mail servers cost money to maintain. End-users don’t WANT the messages, so they complain to their ISPs, who have to pay support technicians to field those calls. I have seen spam incidents incur thousands of dollars in costs, from overloading mail servers to lost revenue, and I was working for a relatively small ISP operation at the time. Imagine how much spam costs the AOLs and Yahoos of the world.
A federal appeals court has reversed the half a million dollar fine that the FCC imposed on CBS for “allowing” Janet Jackson’s boobage exposure during that superbowl halftime event. This is a great thing, I guess, but the legal system is taking all of the illusion out of everyday life. During the case, Janet said that the “decision” for the “breast reveal” was made at the last minute. All of those people who thought it was an accident, and probably believe that professional wrestling is “real” as well, … well, I guess they can go on believing what they want anyway, because we all know they don’t know how to read.
I made the unwise decision this weekend to try and take four young ladies fishing. Four young ladies whose primary interests seem to focus more on Pokemon, iCarly, the Sims, Club Penguin, and other “screen entertainment” phenomena which are age-appropriate for them. Just me, and four girls.
Yeah, I know. I didn’t think it would be as much of a pain as it was. They were actually somewhat interested, which might surprise some people. The problem is less about interest than about experience and scheduling. First, I couldn’t get them up and out early enough, so we ended up on the riverbanks at about 9AM, at which point it was already 80 degrees or so. Then there’s the scheduling of the rigging, baiting and detangling of the lines. It’s pretty much a full-time adult job to keep two kids fishing, much less four.
Wasn’t too bad, though. Only lost two lures, and one or two bait hooks. Or maybe it was three lures, I can’t remember. There’s a lot of debris in the river where we were fishing. Next time, bobbers to keep the hooks away from the bottom. Or maybe some sort of weedless lures/hooks.
I fished a couple of times last week at Burke Lake, briefly, before/after work, and didn’t lose any gear there.
I took the girls to Lake Anna this weekend to camp with their uncle, aunt and cousins. Fun for all. Roasted marshmallows, boating, tubing, swimming, and sleeping on rocks. Just the experience that every kid needs. Their uncle has a yellow 2004 18.5′ SeaRay which is great for tubing. The water was between 80 and 85 degrees, probably owing at least a little bit to the nuclear plant.
Allie was very much in charge throughout the trip, and Sophie took special pains to play caretaker to Sky.
The five of them played nicely on the beach for quite some time.
Dark Reading has an excellent article on Nate Lawson’s Black Hat research into vulnerabilities in FasTrak toll devices. Check it out.
