Running, Part II

As of yesterday's run, I doubled my mileage from January to February.

Conditions are crazy here in Bloomington, though. Most of the roads I run on have a good amount of traffic, and some of those roads are extremely narrow residential thoroughfares. This means that I often have to run on the sidewalk, which I try to avoid due to cracks in the sidewalk tripping me up. Running on asphalt is generally better for your legs than concrete, as well.

But yesterday, the roads were icy and crowded, so I did my run on the sidewalks. In some locations, it was fine - for some reason, a narrow path of non-ice had been carved out on the sidewalk. But in other spots, it was quite treacherous, and the entire path was frozen over for a number of yards. That slowed down my pace quite a bit, but it was still a good run.

McCain and Lobbyists

Regarding the Times story that broke today about McCain: this about as huge of a blow to McCain's chances at this stage in the game as one could imagine. Imagine this scenario: these allegations turn out to be false, Iseman and McCain clear up the currently muddied waters, and the Times somehow offers an apology for this story.

That would never happen - the story seems solid, and it follows the Rovian formula of attacking your opponent on his or her strongest issue. For McCain, it's his persona as a straight-shooting, honorable kind of guy. This is somewhat ironic, considering McCain's sharp attacks on Obama's oratory over the past two weeks.

But imagine this story is retracted. The damage is still done. What has happened? People unaware of McCain's checkered past with lobbyists and insider deals is now brought back up to the surface for political newcomers to see. Obama's talking points about removing or curbing the influence of lobbyists acquires a greater resonance. McCain loses momentum and is put on the defensive: is this the type of experience that he expects from Obama? These are things that can't be undone even in the wake of a retraction.

No, this is not very good for the McCain team.

And the actions of Alcalde & Fay don't offer much support for their lobbyist - they removed her bio from the firm's webpage.

The side note on all of this is why the Times held on to the story for so long - the Huffington Post is all over this issue. It seems, though, that the McCain team has been aware of the story for quite some time and has been fighting its publication. So no, it doesn't appear this was some sort of surprise for the GOP until after the primaries were all-but-finished. It does make one wonder, though - if you're the Republicans at the convention, how do you handle this?

A Surprise

The new Microsoft Office 2008 for Macs is actually quite good, considering how badly flawed the 2007 edition is for PC.

Running

I've already logged more miles during the month of February than I logged through September, October, and November combined.

It feels good to be done with interviews.

Giants Win!

What an amazing game. How many great plays were there for the Giants? Watching the Giants defense was watching hard-nosed, smashmouth football at its finest. It's going to be a long time before we forget this one.

What strikes me about this game: 1) the Giants just flat-out wanted this one more, and they wanted it badly. The defense was incredible - play after play, they kept on coming after the Patriots, bottling up holes, hitting hard, roughing up Brady. 2) Eli Manning - what type of maturation has this been for him since the Patriots and Giants first matched up during the regular season? What about the tremendous scramble and throw he made after being bottled up and grabbed? Amazing play from Manning - if you can't single out one individual on the Giants defense, then Eli deserves the MVP, which he did win. 3) Belichick's lack of class. Who walks off the field before the game's even done, after congratulating only the opposing coach. He didn't congratulate the Giants defensive players, or Eli, or Burress, or anyone. He just walked off. I suppose it's the same person who videotaped a Super Bowl practice just prior to one of the narrowest victories in Super Bowl history (the Rams). Completely classless. 4) On the flipside, how good must it feel to be Tom Coughlin? You go from being on the brink of losing your job to winning the Super Bowl over the 'greatest team ever'. Cheers to that guy.

It's February

And the birds outside my bedroom window are chirping away. The weather has been beautiful this weekend - 33 degrees today, but it feels warmer because the sun is bright and the snow outside has melted. No ice is left on the sidewalks, either, which made my run yesterday feel much less treacherous than the one I did on Friday evening, when I nearly fell on three or four separate occasions.