Today I ran twenty-four miles with the Premier Sports Marathoner in Training (MIT) group, and it seemed to go pretty well. This was my last scheduled big run before the Boston Marathon. Technically, now I’m supposed to taper – next week my schedule calls for twelve miles. However, I’m still considering sneaking in one more twenty-mile run next week. I’ve haven’t completely decided yet, and now isn’t a very good time to ask me, because I’m very tired. I should get some much-needed rest during the next couple days, though, and then I’ll decide for sure how far I want to run next week. Whatever I do, I think I’m in very good shape right now. I’m hoping for a good marathon.

Tags: marathon, marathons, Boston Marathon, running

After quite a while, I finally got a repayment notice from Monica Wanja Mwangi, the Kenyan woman to whom I made a small loan through Kiva. I don’t care about the money, but because of all of the turmoil in Kenya recently, I was just glad to hear something. I wasn’t sure if anything had happened to her.

Also, I recently made a couple online purchases. One was the book Selling Ben Cheever by Benjamin Cheever, which I’m currently reading, and the other was Norah Jones’ CD Not Too Late. I’ve already listened to it a few times, and even though it didn’t get nearly as good reviews as her previous CDs, I like it just as much, if not more. I guess that makes me a die-hard Norah Jones fan. I’ll definitely take the CD to Boston with me in a few weeks to help me relax before the Boston Marathon.

Tags: Kiva, Selling Ben Cheever, Book, Books, Benjamin Cheever, Not Too Late, Norah Jones

After getting very lucky for a long time juggling the work from my three clients, recently all three clients have converged. I just finished writing some high-school teacher’s-resource-appendix exercises for client A (located in Columbus), but I had to turn down some additional work from client A for now, because I’ve accepted some work writing the mathematics portions of practice SAT tests for client B (located in Pennsylvania), and tomorrow I expect to be offered a contract from client C (located in Georgia) to write the mathematics portions of practice ACT tests. Things are starting to get very busy for me. However, I don’t mind too much, because I really like writing the practice SAT and ACT tests. These are great opportunities that I expect to benefit from well into the future.

Tags: math, mathematics

I mentioned in an earlier post that I ordered the books Flatland by Edwin Abbott and Sphereland by Dionys Burger online. (The books are both included in the same volume.) I’m just getting around to reading them, and they’re very interesting. I’m really surprised that I was never required to read these books at some point during a mathematics or physics class, because they definitely make some concepts clear to me that were never very clear before.

For example, I remember hearing at some point that the three-dimensional space that we live in is curved, but that never really meant anything to me before I read Sphereland. Now the concept is perfectly clear to me. It might sound like these books are really complicated, but they’re not. They’re very easy to read and quite entertaining, so if you’re at all interested in mathematics or physics, you’ll want to consider checking them out!

Tags: math, mathematics, Flatland, Edwin Abbott, Sphereland, Dionys Burger, book, books

I just finished running twelve miles in a blizzard. I’m not exaggerating – click here for details. The weather was so bad that the Premier Sports Marathoner in Training (MIT) group run for this week was cancelled, but a guy from the group and I wanted to get in our run, so I woke up at 5 AM this morning and drove (with almost zero visibility) through the blizzard to his house, and we got in our training for the Boston Marathon. I was hoping that by the time we finished that the plows would have been out to plow the highways, but on the drive back home the roads and the visibility were even worse than before. Luckily, I made it home safely, but I saw some cars in the ditch along the side of the highway (when I could see anything at all). Next week is twenty-two miles. Hopefully, we’ll have better weather.

Tags: marathon, marathons, Boston Marathon, running

I just got back from casting my vote at the Ohio primary election. Originally, I requested an absentee ballot (as voters in Ohio are encouraged to do), but I never received it in the mail. Therefore, when I arrived at the polling station (Aladdin Shrine Center in Columbus), they told me that I would have to cast a provisional ballot, and they directed me to the provisional ballot table. There the lady at the table asked me if I wanted a Democratic or Republican ballot (she obviously doesn’t know me very well).

Next, I showed my driver’s license and filled out a short form, and I then went to one of the voting booths and filled out my ballot, which took me about 10 seconds, since I only voted for my preferred presidential nominee. I then dropped my provisional ballot in the ballot box, and I was given a piece of paper with a phone number on it that I could call to verify that my provisional ballot was counted. All in all, I was in and out of there in about 10 minutes. The lady at the provisional ballot table said that they had been very busy. It will be quite interesting if the election comes down to the provisional ballots, but I suspect that it will be decided before then.

Tags: Ohio primary, Ohio primary election