It's been awhile since I did a MeMonday.  Have I mentioned how much I like the new film/lens pack from Hipstamatic? Diego Lens + Uchitel20 Film.

I ran one single mile today.  It felt OK so I'm going to do two miles on Wednesday.  

If you haven't already, check out Pam's post from Saturday.

I hate it when I have all kinds of time to take a good photo but don't and then have to settle for something stupid like this.

You can read the story of this windmill here.

My heel seems to be improving although it still hurts.  My wife thinks I should go to a running store and have them custom fit me with a pair of shoes.

Madison had to record a video for speech class.  I was the camera man for this episode of how to make an apple pie.

After some WebMD, I have decided I have plantar fasciitis, which is a fancy way to say my heel hurts.  This may be my favorite picture I've ever taken of the covered bridge.

I helped my Grandma put away her flag for the fall/winter and visited for awhile.  She's in the middle of telling me not to take her picture so I only snapped one.

The pain in my leg has moved to my heel but I decided to take a trip out to the park anyway.

I did about everything but take a photos today.  Madison left her wallet at home and sent me a text asking if I could look for it.  This is where it was.  

I ran a 5K today and it didn't go so well.  The pain I felt at the end of the half marathon returned and hobbled the last mile of the 5K.  I'm going to take a week off from running hoping to clear up the pain.

I was looking through some old photos today and I found a batch from 2004 where I did a lot of arms length portraits with other people.  It made me realize once again how important these kinds of photos are.  They aren't much to look at today, but nine years from now I'll be glad I have it.  Below is one from nine years ago.  We are in front of Sue, the T-Rex at Chicago's Field Museum.

My workplace was vandalized last night.  A couple windows broke out of the building and the company truck took a beating.

I'm running a 5K this weekend and the turn around is at the top of this hill.  When viewed through a wide angle lens this hill doesn't seem like a big deal.  Hopefully it won't feel like a big deal on Saturday.

Tonight was our 19th anniversary.  We went to a restaurant in LeClaire, Iowa called Sneaky Pete's.  It's claim to fame is that if you wear a neck tie they cut it off and hang it from the ceiling. 

It's been awhile since we've had any rain.  Today it wouldn't stop.

Saturday night at our house.  I really like this new combo from Hipstamatic.  Diego Lens and Uchitel 20 Film.

Wow, have I fallen behind on posting!  This is a Agfa PB20 ReadySet that a friend picked up at an estate sale.  I would love to see some of the photos it took back in it's day.

I wanted to try this add a beard technique.  It's not quite realistic enough for this close of a photo but it was fun to try.

I ran tonight for the first time since the half marathon.  I had to go really slow, I'm still tired from the race.  I'm going to take two more days off and run again on Saturday.

I didn't add those weird rays coming up out of the sky, they were really there.

I seriously almost forgot to take a photo today. I was heading for bead and realized it so I just popped off an arms length selfie with Hipstamatic set on random.  It came out with MattyALN Lens, Sugar film and Laser Lemon Gel Flash. Scary.

I finished my first half marathon today.  I ran a little slower than I wanted to but when I look at the big picture I'm OK with my time.  Here's the big picture:

For Christmas 2009 we bought the kids a Wii.  We also got the Wii Fit game which came with a board that could be used as a scale.  Based on my height the Wii said I was overweight.   I couldn't believe it.  I had always been the 90 lb weakling type, not the overweight type.  I used the Wii Fit to get back to a "normal" weight and then tried running as a way to keep the weight off.  Around that time I remember my cousin talking about training for a half marathon.  I was doing the couch to 5K program and still closer to the couch than the 5K.  Running 13.1 miles seemed impossible.  The idea of running the 7 mile Bix was a far off dream but 13.1 was just plain crazy talk.  So... the fact that I even wanted to do this race is an accomplishment regardless of my time.

Now to the photo.  The course is very hilly and I didn't want to force myself to keep my average pace on the predominately uphill miles or coast on the downhill miles so I made a goal pace for each mile.  I couldn't remember all 13 so I wrote them on my arm.  I don't think there are any math nerds who read this blog so I won't write about how I arrived at these numbers.  If you want to know, ask in the comments and I will gladly explain.  I was a few seconds under these numbers for the first seven miles but at mile 8 I started to tire.  I did OK through mile 11 but then hit the wall.  The last two miles were both over 11:00 minutes.  

During the last half mile my left calf started to cramp and immediately after the race the pain extended into my hamstring.  Now, several hours after the race, my left knee is a little sore.  The interesting thing is that my left leg is my "good" leg.  My right, surgically repaired knee feels great, or as the kids would say, "It's Gucci".

It was announced that Lightroom will now be part of the Photoshop subscription.  The change hasn't taken effect yet but I went ahead and downloaded the trial version to play with.  I have seen a few tutorials by Serge Ramelli where he really brings out colors in sunsets using Lightroom.  Tonight's sunset wasn't that spectacular but I thought this was a good first try with LR.

Tonight Madison drove to Clinton, IA (about 15 miles away) with one her friends to buy hair dye.  It was a weird feeling letting her take the car out by herself.

She's officially sixteen.  She went to the DMV after school, got her license, and drove us all to the Olive Garden.

There was quite a commotion down the street tonight.  This truck initially tried to turn right, which was wrong.  He couldn't make the turn and had to regroup and get this thing going left.  All eleven axels,  I've never seen anything like it.  The story I heard was that the scout car that plans the route had it turning left but the route has to be submitted to the state and someone at the state changed the route to turn right.  

No run tonight, just a walk around town.

We have a covered bridge in town that I have never found very photogenic.  It's not a cool old covered bridge like the one Olga photographed the other day.  Ours was built in 2001 to replace what was always called "The Red Bridge"

Madison turns 16 next week so we had a family party at my Mom's house today.