Scratch Paper

Today I started recording a song with mostly 4/4 but some measures of 3/4. I had not been too surprised to find no drum loops in 7/8. But GarageBand does not come with any drum loops in 3/4, either.

That I find disappointing, since even a loop that does not quite fit sounds better than me trying to play MIDI drums with the keyboard. Of course I could shell out for more drum loops somewhere on the Internet. Hmm.

Maybe I need to think about learning to put a drum part together.

San Francisco Airport

My electronic ticket said United Airlines, but all four legs were in Lufthansa planes. Lufthansa was okay. Except for the distance between seats in economy. Anyone over 6′ would have knees touching the seat ahead in a normal seated position.

Somewhere I read that United is having a tough financial time. Maybe they leave too much space between seats.

The people at Avis no longer had any economy cars when I arrived. So they gave me a Mustang. The car seems to have an unnecessarily big engine, and unnecessarily small windows. But maybe there are a lot of guys a few years older than me who come out to San Francisco and want to drive like Steve McQueen.

My training mostly went to pot this week. I have not slept enough. Normal, easy pace felt tiring. Plus, I ate too much, and not very well. Tossed and turned one night with leg cramps. Probably not enough fruit and vegetables.

No picture for this one. Just getting ready to fly more in one sitting than I ran all this week. 13 hrs. flying vs. 8 hrs. running.

Because I will be in a plane tomorrow I decided to run tomorrow’s run today, which brought me to 101.5 km (63.1 mi) for the week. It feels okay. The rest day is here.

Reading about marathoning and more serious running I see that few elite runners expect to compete effectively on “low” mileage. “Low” mileage means less than 100 mi/week. No doubt I would have to take both EPO and Prozac to recover from 100 mi/week and other things going on.

They look like ugly, miniature adults.

Tim has been very insistent about how right he is lately. I did not remember how early we come to the point where our parents know nothing, even about things they have been doing for years.

My own problem as an oldest child I find again and again on the weekend, or when I am on vacation. I am generally very disappointed with myself. (Some would say for good reason.) And I feel awful about relaxing.

So while doing the dishes yesterday, I got a kink in my back, and was walking bent double. Nathalie thought that was funny. Even funnier: what fixed my up again was not to go to the chiropractor, but to lift weights for 20 minutes.

Playing with GarageBand again before going back to work, Island.