Not a good day for breathing around here. We're having more uncharacteristically
windy weather. Given that prevailing winds over most of the US are from the west,
and that the Southern California fires are due west of us, you can see the
problem. Oddly enough, though the morning news kept talking about the smoke here,
they listed particulates as being only at a moderate level. Far as I'm concerned
when the air moves from transparent to translucent so that more distant mountains
are invisible and the closer ones show in outline only, the air quality is
somewhat worse than moderate.
Because of that and the possibility of
more wind, I elected not to row this morning. I got to sleep (well, lay in bed
trying to) for a whole extra 40 minutes and then I got up and erged for an entire
hour plus cooldown, over 11 km, so I didn't even lose my Good Girl In-Shape
Brownie Points for the day. Rudder elected to go to the lake anyway, since he had
to derig a boat so it can be driven (by someone else for a change!) to
Natchitoches, LA, for the marathon he's rowing there a week from Saturday. I
believe he did row after that, thereby straddling that fine line between dedicated
and not too bright.
I am having a very comfortable day today. As I
may or may not having mentioned, I have a very cool job that is labeled with a
strong contender for World's Goofiest Title: I am a Six Sigma Engineering Black
Belt. (I could translate but it takes too long. Suffice it to say I help develop,
teach, and implement efficient software development processes. I can translate
that too but my fingers are tired; the basic idea is to cut down on defects and
wasted time.) At any rate, I decided to dress up for Halloween as a real
black belt. After last Sunday's regatta we were haning out with a rower who is
also the only serious karateka I know and she very kindly agreed to loan me her gi
complete with actual black belt. It's slightly large (everybody's bigger than I
am; in her case it's mostly along the vertical axis) but these things turn out to
be extemely comfortable. One of these days, I'd like to study martial arts so
maybe someday I'll have my own. That can go on the to-do-when-I-have-time list
right after getting my IFR. (Instrument Flight Rating.)