Well, it’s official. Today marks my last day consulting for DOT.COMM. Dare I say it’s bittersweet to be leaving this wonderful job?
Of course not. You all KNOW that starting tomorrow I will be working FULL time for DOT.COMM. But it’s been kinda fun joking about how Friday was my last day, yada yada yada. It’s not at all bittersweet. What it is is absolutely exciting! What changes? Well, nothing much, really. Except the name on my electronic paycheck will no longer be TEKSystems… it’ll say DOT.COMM. I’ll get paid every two weeks instead of weekly (I’ll kind of miss that part, actually – though my absolute favorite would be to get paid 1x a month; apparently the average person can’t handle only getting paid once a month.)
What else is new? I’m really enjoying my walking. I’m trying to walk at least 3 miles every night after work. Though, with summer heat finally arriving, I’m not sure how practical that’s going to be. After work, the heat will be it’s most brutal. And I know that if I forget my hat, I simply can’t walk. Period.
Friday night, instead of my 3 mile walk, Scott and I parked in front of the office and walked the 3/4 mile down to Omaha’s Summer Arts Festival. We enjoyed wandering around the exhibits for an hour or so in the heat. Ugh… to the heat anyhow. We found the PERFECT art piece for our bedroom, oh my goodness was it nice. The colors were spot on for what we’re doing. Unfortunately, the price tag wasn’t quite so spot on. At $1100 for HALF of the art work it’s just out of our league. Always will be!
Yesterday, I went for my first major walk in my training. I walked from Lewis Central High School which is down by the Iowa School for the Deaf on US275, west around the southern shore of Lake Manawa, then up the western side of the lake, bordering Indian Creek, and eventually ending up at the Western Historic Trails Center and Museum. That’s a distance of just about 8 1/2 miles! I started out at 7:15 a.m., expecting to complete the walk in 2 hours 40 minutes, and was only about 15 minutes off. And that’s only because about a mile shy of my destination, I started chaffing, and that slowed me down. Well, that doesn’t account for ALL of the 15 minutes. Some of it was waiting for a light to change crossing 24th St. There are very few pedestrians in the area, so once you push the button to get a crossing signal, you have to wait for the light to go through a complete cycle before it finally gives you the go ahead. I timed it… 2 1/2 minutes from the third time I pushed the button (pushing repeatedly is always a good way to get something to work faster, you know!) And my expectation of 2:40 did not take in to consideration any rest breaks. I took maybe a total of 7 minutes rest along the route, mainly to dig water out of my little day pack.
Many of you know I have a bad habit of not taking enough water on these kinds of excursions. You’ll be happy to know I took MORE than enough water for 8 miles (6 full bottles) but I also took good care to keep hydrated.
But, as I said, I did start to chafe. That slowed me down the rest of Saturday. The walk took a bit more out of me than I expected. Lots of work to do between now and October 1 if I’m going to walk SIXTY miles!
Here’s one of the more interesting stretches of trail.
