We said goodbye to Hassiba today. He had a good morning with us, and thanks to the very kind vet, was able to pass in his own home.

Ann and I dug him a final resting place in the back yard underneath some shade. Of course, we've been crying on and off all day. We miss him a lot.

The first day is hard because you keep finding yourself doing things without him for the first time; the first time you come downstairs and he's not there to greet you, the first time you sit down to dinner and he's not scouring the kitchen floor for scraps of cheese, the first time you go for a walk and don't call out to him that you'll be right back.

We're heartbroken, but that's only because we had such a wonderful friend in the first place. We'll always love him.

I know you haven't heard from me for a long while, but I needed to let you in on some bad news.

Our kitty Hassiba is not going to live much longer. He has a heart condition and there's just nothing that can be done. He was not supposed to make it this long, but I don't think he is willing to go until he gets enough to eat.

So, we're just spoiling him rotten and enjoying what time we have left with him.

This, on top of the news that a good friend has suffered a truly terrible loss, has made this a tough couple of weeks. When he does go, of course it will be tougher, but I have not forgotten how blessed I am. It's really been great to have Hassiba as a friend. We'll miss him, something awful.

I'm trying to get my Linux on. Each time I get started School comes back around and I fall back into panic mode, where something has to be done right away and so I lean back on Windows. What a crutch.

This time I think I'm pretty well off. I've got my firefox installed, and I've pretty much got the network to where I can pass things back and forth between Kubuntu and XP.

I know, I know. What do I need XP for? Just think of Linus and his security blanket. The peanut not the kernal developer.

I got one hell of a surprise today. I finished the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon in under four hours. I started the race thinking I'd make 4:20 if I was lucky. So, I'm a very happy boy. A very sore, very happy boy.

This is me waving to my lovely wife and telling her that I love her. I'm about to enter the Maw of Pain. Here, at mile eighteen , the course goes up, and then it goes up some more, and after that, you guessed it, up.

Here I am finishing. My wife caught the classic finishers shot, notice the clock in featured prominently in the picture. You're just going to have to trust me that it doesn't read 13:54.

The guy on my right is Brian. He finished with me. We started running together around mile fifteen, or so. He was a big help getting through some of the hills.

He would always stop at the water stations, and I didn't. Yet, he would always catch right up with me. gives me the sneaking suspicion that he could have left me behind whenever he wanted to. Thanks for sticking around Brian.

There once was a lumberjack.

He ate way too much Halloween candy and for his wickedness he was turned into a mouse

with horns.

But he got to keep the beard.

The end.

Oh, you think that's funny do you. Well, you won't be laughing when those nut grabs your nuts. Just listen to the song and heed the danger that is the undead peanut.

Jon Rosenberg is responsible. Click here to find out how.

Here it is; me finishing my first under four hour marathon. This was the scene yesterday in Louisville, KY. Ann is on the far right side of the picture and the clock is on the far left. I'm the one wearing the red hat, stopping his watch. My brother Victor took the photograph.

My brother's photo shows the glory. Here is the picture Ann is taking in the picture Victor took.

I ran my last long run before the Louisville Marathon on October 21st. It was a 20 miler and I did it in 2 hours and 50 miniutes, which completely kicks ass. At least it kicked mine. This is me after the run.

I started at the house and finished at the house. Here's the path I put in earlier this year, so that Ann could walk to the mailboxe without having to go through the wet grass. This view is leaving the house. See the mailbox in the distance?

And a close up.

That's my foot. That foot was especially happy to see the path. It wanted me to sit down.

Sunday, I will put in my last long run before my first marathon of the season, 20 miles. Then there's a three week taper where I run less and less, saving my legs for the race. There will be only two marathons, so it's a pretty short season; the Louisville Marathon, and the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon. Yep, just like last year, only faster...I hope. 

Training has been going well. I had a little setback a few weeks ago, but then, I apparently don't know how to train for a marathon without having a setback so, business as usual. I'm looking to do somewhere between a 3:45 and a 3:55 marathon in Louisville, and for the Flying Monkey I'm just hoping to cover the distance and survive the winged primate attacks.

Here are the shoes that I'll be wearing:

Mizuno Wave Rider 10

Wish me luck.

We enjoyed some great summer weather while we in Ireland. Before we arrived they were suffering one of the wettest summers ever. 

Here's a local man taking advantage of the warm sun in St. Stephen's Green.

This is a building on a corner of O'Connell Street.

I could show you any number of blurred shots where I tried to get a picture of sheep, but thanks to Ann's relatives, in Kildare county, Ann was able to take this up close shot of the famous, (or infamous, depending on who you ask), Bluebutt, quite possibly the most dangerous sheep in all of Ireland.

Karen and Kathleen, Ann's kin, showed us a number of sights in Ann's ancesteral stomping grounds, including this castle. The picture was pretty dark. I think it looks better in black and white.

Next is the headstopne of Laurence Levy an ancestor of Ann's. He was burried in 1781. The small marker to the side, is likely the gravestone of a child.

The cemetery these graves were in, was well off the beaten path. Not far from the castle above, the cemetery was down a dirt road and tucked behind a grove of trees across a meadow.

The station at Newbridge, near where Karen and Kathleen live.

Ann is pictured here with Daniel O'Connell, a politician who championed Catholic Emancipation. He's a very big deal, (hence the very big statue).

Last but not least, a picture of the Temple Bar area, where people from all over the world go to drink and forget their cares and woes...(their hotel keys and manners at times, as well).

And there you have it. Our trip to Ireland in words and pictures. We had a great time and were especially delighted by the hospitality Karen and Kathleen showed us. I knew we were in good hands when Kathleen said, "Go on, have another biscuit. Go on." 

On the Galway leg of our trip we took several jaunts out into the
western Ireland country side. These first pictures are from the Burren.
The Burren used to be undersea several million years ago and consists
of hills covered in limestone.

Those lines running up over the mountains are called famine walls. The walls in the valley were typically build by sons dividing up inherited land. The famine walls however serve no purpose. During the potato famine the English "paid" the Irish to build the walls to nowhere as a form of famine relief. Why not have them build bridges, or roads, or something useful? Because better roads and bridges would serve to improve the economy of Ireland, and economic independence might just lead the Irish to establish governmental independence.

Doesn't that suck?

Why yes. Yes, it does.

This is a monastary.

Here are the ruins of a set of three churches. When more people moved into the area they just built another church.

Near the Burren is Poulnabrone. a tomb from the megolithic era. It is about four to five thousand years old. Bodies would be left on top of the large flat rock, so that animals and the weather could "clean" the flesh and organs from the bones. the bones were then buried in the tomb that lay underneath the structure.

A classic shot of cliffs on the western shore of Ireland. These are the Cliffs of Moher.

Below is Dunguaire Castle.

Above are the deer that stood motionless outside our hotel window for our entire stay at Galway. Amazing!

Windblown landscape from our second day trip into Connemara.

One of the world famous Connemara Ponies, which I had never heard of until I saw one.

Babbling brook. Better than a babbling blogger.

Kylemore Abbey.

On our third day trip we went to Inis Meáin, one of the Arran Islands. It is the least developed of the islands and provided a much needed break from the tourist crowds.

Fish laid out to dry.

Here I am trudging the very paths the farmers have been using for centuries.

Paths and walls. Walls and paths.

The coast of
Inis Meáin. Blue.

Next, back to Dublin.

We went to Dublin first.

In Dublin they are building things. Here's a view from our hotel room. Cranes were everywhere. 

They have a very tall spike.

Here's the spike from our hotel room about two miles away.

They celebrate their writers, by putting the writers pictures in windows and coloring the writers faces strangely.

At Christ Church Cathedral they have a heart shaped box with someone's actual heart inside. A collected body from a revered religious figure is called a relic. I call it creapy. The heart belonged to Archbishop Saint Laurence O'Toole, before it belonged to Christ Church Cathedral.

When they cleaned the organ they found a mummified cat

and a mummified rat.

How freakin' cool is that?

It also explains why the middle C was flat.

From the outside.

These are strangley colored heads, but I don't think they are meant to represent Irish writers.

Jonathan Swift wrote Gullivers Travels and was the dean of St. Patricks Cathedral from 1713-1745 and he looked a little something like this...

This is a picture of something very old with a celtic cross on it. I think it is to large to be a can opener, but to small to be the fossilized remains of a wooly mammoth.

We went to Galway next and then came back to Dublin, but those pictures are for later.

Ann and I were in Dublin a few days ago and now we're in Galway. I really love visiting sites with a history that reaches back to the middle ages.

I was thinking this morning and therein lies the problem. I think to much. There is virtually no room left up there for common sense. It's just to crowded. Squirrels, YouTube, marathons, social disintegration, war, peace, poverty, oppulence, flea circuses, connectionless protocols, the list just goes on and on.

Luckily, I'm going on vacation starting tomorrow.

As per my usual standard, I have suffered a running related injury and am currently sidelined. Luckily, I'll have plenty of time to heal before my next race. So, running is one less thing I'll have floating through my head during our trip to Ireland. I may get in a couple of short runs, but nothing drastic.

I will not be blogging from across the pond so if something pops up here before August 25th, be very suspicious, my security measures may have been breached and some nefarious character may be trying to use my good name to foist an unspeakable fraud upon you kind and loving presence.

Or maybe not.

I had an encouraging visit with my physical therapist this morning.

The gist of it is that my condition is not to serious. I'm not staring down a future as a cripple. At least not unless I try to weasel out of paying my bill. We're going to work on getting my disks back to where they're supposed to be, by doing a series of exercises, one that involves me pushing on my chin and another where I drop my head backward, while I stare at the ceiling. It's not manditory that I cackle insanely, as I drop my head backward and stare at the ceiling, but I think it adds flavor to the whole affair.

Of course now that my neck is getting straightened out my calf hurts. Yeah, I over did it running and I'll have to take a few weeks off. No problem, really. I've got plenty of time to heal up before my races.