You gave me too much money

While reading a blog post from Terry I was reminded of an incident that happened earlier this week. He was talking about getting change from a clerk at the fabric store. Ours happened at Sam’s.

We went through the whole ordeal of picking out our items and standing dutifully in line. My wife noticed that it took the cashier a long time to make change for the man in front of us. She said that she has a knack for picking the bright ones.

When it was finally our turn the bill rang up to $268 pesos (about $25). She handed him $318 so that she would get $50 back. He then tried to give her back the extra $18 because “the $300 is enough to cover the bill.” He said this in such a way as to say, “hey, lady, are you too stupid to understand that $300 is more than $268?”

She gave him back the $18 and said that it was so she would get $50 back. He looked at her like she was an alien. He rung the amount up in his register and, what do you know, it said he needed to give her $50. I think he was not at all embarassed but, rather, surprised that the magic worked like that. How did she know that it would say $50?

Companies actually trust people like this to handle money?

Famous Friday: Gordon Scott’s Tiree Blog

I have mentioned Gordon’s blog a few times in the past. I first learned about the site through a podcast that we mutually listen to.

Gordon lives on the Isle of Tiree in Scotland. He is a fellow runner and often blogs about his running adventures on the island. Mostly though, the site is about the island itself. He is passionate about his family and the time they spend together on the island and on vacations. And, also he shares some interesting things to do on a slow afternoon.

One thing I have enjoyed about reading his blog is to see how someone several years older than I can have the childlike passion for running that I have. We both discovered running about the same time and we both are elated with some days and workouts and despondent after others. We are not that much different.

Why hate the time change?

clockI have heard so many people talk about how much they hate the coming time change (it happens a week earlier in Mexico than in the US). It has never made sense to me to make a big deal out of it. Usually the people that I hear complaining about it are people who do not travel. Those of us who do have to deal with time changes on a regular basis.

Yesterday I was speaking with a lady who went on and on about how much the time change bothers her physically. Her blood pressure goes up for about a week until her body can get used to it. I think the fact that her pressure goes up has more to do with how much she is worried about the change than it is anything physical. She was quite animated in our conversation yesterday. It is obvious that she is making herself sick over it. It could very well be a physical problem, though I have never heard of anyone’s blood pressure going out of whack just because they moved from one time zone to another. I very much tend to think that the bigger problem comes from how much she is making an issue out of it. Interestingly, the time change in the spring (when she ‘loses’ an hour) does not bother her.

One lady I met a couple of years ago stormed around for two weeks ranting about how much she hates the time change. “They are robbing me of an hour of sleep!” “That is my time! My hour! What gives them the right to think they can take it away from me?” She was not joking either. She was so overly excited about it that I thought she was joking. I laughed at her…and then found out she was serious.

No one is stealing an hour from them, or giving it back later. I realize that it takes and shifts the time that they get up in relation to where the sun is in the sky. Don’t they realize that sunrise/sunset changes every day? It just happens more slowly on a daily basis than the twice a year hour change. I don’t know that I have ever felt like I was cheated out of an hour. I just go to bed when I am ready and get up when I am ready.

Oh, to have been a runner

I was playing around in Google Earth tonight and decided to look up some old places where I used to live in the town of Odessa, Texas. It really is a lovely place, though the pictures that Google has were apparently taken in the winter. Looks pretty barren. It only looks like that 10 months out of the year.Old running grounds

Click the picture to get a full size view of one of my homes. Those spider web lines are dirt roads leading through the oil fields. We had full reign out there. Some of my best memories from high school happened out there in the oil patch. We carried guns and rifles to shoot snakes and anything else that we fancied. The closest neighbor was about a mile away. We trekked all through those roads. Funny we did not do bicycles. Either we were out in a car, truck, motorcycle or, mostly, just walking around.

From our driveway I could have “run around the block” and been able to do a 6 mile loop while only setting foot on 2 paved roads. Those trails would have been great places to run. And I do remember running them, but not for endurance training. We ran them when we were running from some animal usually.

Of course, I would have never been out there on a training run without a hand gun. I saw some of the biggest rattlers in my life out there. That was a good reason to wear thick boots most of the time. I am not sure what the boots would do for my running pace.

Back in the routine

Today I went back to my exercise class. I have been out of it for a couple of months while training for my half marathon. Looking back on it now, I think I should have continued to go one day a week. It would have meant doing some kind of hard exercise 5-6 days a week, but I think it would have helped me keep my core strength up. By the end of all the running I felt a bit under toned/developed. I tried to keep up a weight lifting routine to supplement the running, but I just was not disciplined enough.

I remember saying this same thing last year. That is why I worked harder at the weights this time around. But, alas, I still did not keep it up like I should have. I just hope I don’t end up as sore as I did last year.