My Dogs are Mooing

Well, Dog fans, I did it -- I completed my first half-marathon!  After surviving Redman I wasn't sure I was ready to jump back into a race so soon, but a friend from Jefferson City was doing the half-marathon at Bass Pro and convinced me to tag along.  Unfortunately this has been a crazy time of year -- parent/teacher conferences, robotics, state gifted conference -- so my training was little more than walking to the mailbox.  The night before the race we were fortunate enough to hear a speech from Frank Shorter, the marathon gold medalist from the 1972 Olympics.  His victory lap was famously disrupted by an imposter who jumped out of the crowd and raced ahead of him into the stadium.  The emcee for the evening decided to find the footage of the race, and towards the end Frank stood up in front of the screen with the most intent look on his face.  It turns out he had never seen that footage before, and we got to experience him experiencing that moment....

Now that the Halloween candy is on clearance, 'tis officially the season all up in this joint.  The stores are already in full Christmas swing.  I even heard "Winter Wonderland" playing, which was hard to take seriously when it was 75 degrees and sunny.  With Black Friday fast approaching, I've already seen some holiday hysteria: * I was in a store looking for lady stuff.  There were three nuns in the lady stuff department.  I was torn between wanting to stay as far from them as possible and wanting to sneak up behind them and see what they actually bought.  I know that they need unmentionables too, but I figured that was just standard issue with their habits, along with the sensible shoes and Clorox to keep their whites looking white.  Do they have to follow a dress code for their underpinnings, too? * A guy walking in front of me clearly had his shirt on inside out.  Was he a messy eater and figured, "hey, it works for the couch cushions..."?...