Since the election is coming up, I requested an absentee ballot through the mail – in Ohio, voters are encouraged to do so. I also requested an absentee ballot for the Ohio primary election in March, but I never received it. Therefore, I went to vote in person, but since I requested an absentee ballot, they made me fill out a provisional ballot to make sure I wasn’t voting twice. They also gave me a phone number to call to check if my provisional ballot was counted, but when I called it, nobody seemed to know what was going on. Eventually, they told me that my provisional ballot was counted, but they may have just said that to get me off the line. Anyway, I hope that this time I receive my absentee ballot in the mail.

Tags: Ohio primary, Ohio primary election

I’m reading two books right now. One is a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami called Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. I enjoyed Murakami’s memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running so much that I wanted to read something else by him. Also, I picked up a copy of Dot.con by John Cassidy at Half Price Books. It talks about the stock-market boom of the mid-to-late nineties. I think a book like this gets more interesting as time goes on because events can be put in more perspective. Still, all of this happened only about ten years ago – it’s amazing how much things have changed in such a short period of time.

Tags: book, books, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Haruki Murakami, Dot.con, John Cassidy

When I go to Japan to run my marathon next March, I plan to use a Japan Rail Pass. The Japan Rail Pass pretty much pays for itself just by using it to travel from Narita International Airport into Tokyo and back. I plan to buy a seven-day pass and arrive in Tokyo two days before my marathon. For example, if I get into the Tokyo Marathon on March 22nd, I’ll arrive in Tokyo on March 20th, and since I’ll have a seven-day pass, I’ll stay in Japan for a full week and leave on March 26th. That will give me three full days after the marathon to just hang out, although I assume I’ll be pretty sore at that point. I’ll have unlimited access to almost all transportation provided by Japan Railways (JR), so I should be able to enjoy myself there. It would be nice to stay even longer than a week, but I don’t think I could afford a hotel in Tokyo for any longer than that!

Tags: marathon, marathons, Tokyo Marathon, running, Japan Rail Pass

I’m really looking forward to cheering on the runners at the Columbus Marathon next month – it’s only a little over a month a way now. My plan is to officially start training for my March marathon in Japan the Saturday after the Columbus Marathon, so that would be October 25. Unfortunately, I don’t know for sure which marathon I’ll be training for until mid-November. That’s when I’ll find out whether I got into the Tokyo Marathon or not. I’m really hoping that I’ll get in, because that’s the premier marathon in Japan these days. I even saw an ad for it in Runner’s World magazine, so they’re definitely promoting it this year. However, if I don’t get in, I’ll still be going to run a marathon in Japan – it will just be one of the smaller marathons.

Tags: marathon, marathons, Columbus Marathon, Tokyo Marathon, running

I’m currently writing practice problems for the applied math portion of the test that needs to be taken to become an air traffic controller. They’re pretty easy questions, so I should be done with them within a few days. I also came across a blog that keeps track of and lists almost all of the math-writing opportunities out there. The person who maintains this blog is basically doing the same thing that I’ve been doing for myself for the last year. Now that I found this blog, I’ll let the person who maintains it do my job-hunting for me. I’ve already gotten a number of leads from this blog. The person who maintains it does a great job, and I’m grateful for the help.

Tags: math, mathematics

Yesterday, just for fun, I went down to the Ohio State University campus and ran The Human Race 10K. Because it was on the Ohio State campus, almost all of the other runners were college students. I finished the 10K (6.2 miles) in 41:34. That’s a pace of 6:43 per mile for 6.2 miles on a hot morning, which isn’t too bad at all for me. I was wondering what kind of shape I’m in right now, and I think that this shows that I have a pretty good base level of fitness. I’m certainly not in marathon shape, but once I start training, I definitely won’t be starting from zero. It was fun passing all of those college students. I beat all but a few of those young whippersnappers. Hopefully, it got a few people interested in running. Also, I saw the movie Vicky Christina Barcelona, directed by Woody Allen.

Tags: running, The Human Race, The Human Race 10K, Vicky Christina Barcelona