Weather wise not a bad early winter day in the northcountry. Not too cold, just a “spit” of snow. I was offered the opportunity to not check in at work this AM, something I greatly desired, but there were things that I really needed to attend to this AM at work so with great reluctance refused the offer. Yes I fully accept the fact that I was a complete and total idiot…offers like that don’t grow on trees…but anyways I was done in and hour and a half.

Have spent a calm day since then, a little tube, a little PC games, a little Internet, a quiet day, a restful day, although I had intended to make a deal of meals today, just had a simple omelet for lunch, and some ham salad in pitas for supper. The steak I had thawed will have to wait until the ‘morrow.

Cat aggie and I watched the movie “firebirds”…actually, frankly a well below average flick, but I was bored…and actually aggie didn’t watch the movie at all but rather wedged herself between the arm of my recliner and my body, hoping that I would pet, scratch her 20 lb body…which of course I dutifully did…much to her pleasure.

Anyways when the flick was done I caught the last hour of “codebreakers” on espn, not a movie I would every watched if not in the throws of boredom, but one of the adverts was for the movie about Roger Bannister and the breaking of the 4 minute mile. A thing I can at least comprehend and be amazed at. I have or at almost 58 (as of this Monday), I had limited athletic skills, apart from endurance and the ability to run…well I could not run short distances competitively, but middle

distance and long distance wasn’t bad. I know what it required of me to run miles under 4:20…I ran several, including a 4:11 relay spit…so I have at least a relative feel for the demands on the body…and more the demands on the spirit and the mental exertion that would be required to go the last 11.1 seconds (and in the modern era more then that) to run the times that R.B. ran, not to mention the mind blowing times that are the current standard…I could not have ever done, frankly totally wrong body time, legs way too short, but I can totally comprehend the effort required, the dedication required. A sprint is by enlarge physical training and GD given ability, middle and long distances, while training and physically ability are prerequisites, the key is a will, a mental focus a internal desire to compete, to achieve. My personal athletic career was marked by few naturally gifts, but a desire to compete that verged on insanity…the only gifts I had were endurance and an absurd, and quite destructive desire to compete. The young man who had possession of this body thought it indestructible…the old man who now has it as the home of his soul and spirit knows assuredly that the young man was mistaken.

The Sundays of advent church wise are a reduction in my responsibilities…normally I have to be there at 8 for sound check and sing with worship team in first and second service, and teach adult Christian Ed in between. But with the fact that the Christmas carols take center stage in the advent season, worship team is on hiatus until the new year. Usually first and second services are mirrors of each other. But this week the kids program is only in second service, and next the choir’s cantata is only in the second service. Normally I go to first service and only stay through second until my commitments are done… but will probably go to second service the next two weeks. I have not sung with the choir this fall, as with the commitments to worship team and northcountry choral…a third musically group would be a stretch on my vocally endurance…although I do intend to sing with the church choir in the spring season…maybe. I am a tenor…and a high tenor at that…and while the normal choir music does not ever “test” the top range of my ability…I still am a tenor. Unfortunately we have several very good church choir tenors in the local church group. So because I can sing bass as well, well I don’t have the range to sing bass II but then most if not all of the bass parts in our church choir are bass I/baritone parts, I am usually asked to sing that part…and frankly I’d rather not… you may assume that it’s an “ego thing”…and it isn’t…it’s just…well…boring…

(At this point trollie’s cats inform him that he is in the process of writing a novella…trollie ignores his cats (well as much as possible because if a cat does not want to be ignored it is a proven fact that a cat can not be ignored if it is in a state where it refuses to be ignored)…

It is late and I should have confined myself to bed and the possibility of sleep and rest for my old bones hours ago and yet I persist in making an absurdly long post to my blog that virtually no one will ever read…unless I re-read my achieves again…

Nite all