I know, right? As if I didn't already have enough to do...

So, first of all, happy father's day, if it is appropriate to say so...and thanks to all for the condolences on the passing of Mr. Frey. Funeral is Tuesday the 17th, so if you will be near Pittsburgh on that day...

I mentioned last weekend that maybe we'd relax this weekend. Didn't happen of course. Sofia spent the whole weekend competing--thankfully (for her mother and I) this is the last horse show of the year. She'll spend the summer recharging her batteries and reconnecting with the horses without all the pressure of a looming competition. I've been trying to upload video of her shows, but Firefox ("Fox on the world" as Dylan calls it--so cute!) keeps crashing for some reason. The short version is that she did VERY well, and we are so proud of her. She jumped both days, yesterday she went through the whole course but knocked down the very last jump. Today she did a clean round and then competed in the jump off. She ended up knocking down a bar during the jump off, but not too shabby for the youngest competitor in the under-14 year old category, no?

Anyway, this week coming up is shaping up to be a good one too--we sure have been busy lately. We stayed at the horse club until midnight last night (w/o the kiddos) but I still managed to get up early this morning and go for my run. I cut it a bit short this morning, but I felt really, really good around the six mile mark, good enough to pick up the pace by about 90 seconds per mile. I'm not too worried about cutting the distance short though...I run a big loop and I'm never very far from home, so if I need to I can always get back relatively quickly. But the bigger reason I'm not disappointed is that I'm getting ready to start my train-up for my big fall race.

So, in addition to posting to this blog, taking my classes, working, spending quality time with the family, and doing various other things too (I'm going to take Thursday off, for example, and go SCUBA diving...) I'm "organizing" a race...the quotes are there because it's a virtual race. Meaning I don't actually have to "organize" anything. I realized that in order to keep myself motivated, I need to have a goal. So I was talking to a friend of mine who is a veteran marathoner and we came up with a plan. No pressure to do so, but if you like, you are more than welcome to play along too...link to our blog is here: DAS Virtual Marathon. I'll post about my running stuff on this blog from time to time, I suppose, but I'll be posting much more about it over there. You're welcome to come check it out...and even participate (if not the full marathon, there's plenty of stuff for lesser, shorter distances). It's mostly for my own motivation anyway--so far I have about seven people committed in one way or another. See you out on the trail!

Recently

Man, we sure have been busy lately. It's horse show season, and as I write this, Sofia is competing for the second time in two days. Yesterday didn't go so well, but we explained to her that as she is the only 8 year old competing in the 14 and under category--she still has many years to get better. Some day the kids will say, "oh no, here comes Sofia, she always wins."

Even so, we try to find time to relax (the kids learned the word "connotation" this morning. Example: "relax" = good connotation, "lazy" = bad connotation. We were actually being lazy this morning, but we called it relaxing instead.) By relax, I mean, of course, that I had finished my 10 mile run this morning while Sofia and Stefanie got ready for the second full day out at the horse show. Oh, well. Maybe we'll relax next weekend. Probably not, though.

Anyway, lots on our plates these days, and I'm really behind in my reading too. I've got Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: A Brief History, and Measuring Heaven: Pythagoras and His Influence on Thought and Art in Antiquity and Middle Ages, and The Music of Pythagoras, and The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library (were you able to detect a trend?) to read before the end of the month. And that's not counting all three of the books on Shelby Foote, the three books on Greece and the Peloponnesian War, and the two books on historiography that I have in my book basket. I'm already mostly done with the last five on the list, but I've got them all going at the same time. The TV has only been on once in the last three weeks that I can remember, not a bad thing, I think. And that was just last night to watch the Belmont Stakes--we were rooting for Big Brown, but happy to see at least that the jockey didn't run him into the ground.

And then there's work. Here are some press articles from my latest project (a 24 hours visit takes a month and a half of prep work): Tunisia takes its turn in Ward’s PR push and Ceremony recalls WWII fallen in Tunisia. Every logistical aspect of the visit, the band, the airplanes (two of 'em), the vehicles to move all the people around, hotel arrangements, lunches, receptions--the whole nine--all belong to me. This isn't the only thing I do, but it's a big part of it.

Anyway, I guess I should stop procrastinating and write the Wall Street Journal article summary that is also staring at me in my To-Do List (I'm done with that program in September, by the way).

Haven't updated total mileage in a long time, I've had some problems with my iPod, Nike+, I've lost about 15 miles, but I'll count them anyway. Total = 285 miles.

As promised--video of Sofia's horse show

Now this is a bit disturbing. The fall occurs at about the 35 second mark in the video. Like I said, she's fine and rode yesterday and today too. The only think that broke was her helmet. Kid, glasses, horse: all were fine afterward. She got up with a face full of dirt (and a few tears too) and then got back up on the horse and cantered out of the arena to a great deal of applause.

Sofia's exciting day

Most important part first: she's ok. The only thing that got broken was her helmet. The only thing that was injured was her pride.

Sofia competed in a horse show today out at the military club. Jumps were set to about sixty centimeters, a height that she doesn't have a problem with.

She started out fine, she was doing really well over the first few jumps. Jump five though was fairly close to jump four...it could have been a double, but they were just too far apart to justify. Nonetheless, Sofia's horse didn't realize this and jumped a few yards too early. The horses knees hit the bar and the horse and rider did a face plant. My friend has promised me the video so you can see for yourself. Once he does I'll try to figure out how to post it here.

Kids...what can you do?

Sadly, our winning streak has come to an end

So for about the last year we've been able to avoid injuries. If you'll recall, 2006 was a bit of an injury-filled year for us. To recap a bit: Dylan lost a tooth in a playground incident; Dylan had stitches to repair the fingernail he nearly lost; Dylan had to have the glue-stitches (vice actual string stitches) on the back of his head; David probably should have had stitches, but didn't, on the top of his head where the dogs tooth impaled him; Stefanie still has the scar where her skin went necrotic from the spider bite on her leg.

You'll notice though that Sofia is nowhere mentioned in the list—thus it is only fitting that it was she who broke our winning streak. She was riding on the beach this afternoon when her horse bucked. She got launched—he ran over and passed her. While he was running his hoof came down on her jaw and chin. When I (David) rushed over from work to the riding club, I took a look and realized immediately that, albeit in my non-expert medical opinion, she would need stitches. Hooray! Sofia got to join the stitches club finally. The wound was very deep on her chin. The doctor gave her a number of internal stitches as well as external to close it up. We're not sure exactly how many though—I guess it's a cultural thing; the Tunisians aren't worried about "how many".

At first it hurt of course, but the pain went away fairly quickly. She was crying and carrying on—because she didn't want to get stitches. Actually she was upset about two things, almost more than the stitches, she was upset about losing an earring that Cubbie had given her.

After it was all over, after the doctor visit and the trip to the ice cream parlor, she told me in the car: "you know what daddy? I want to get more stitches! It didn't hurt at all!" I explained to her that no, she didn't really want more stitches, but that I thought that it was cool that she got them from a horse injury. She's very proud now that she has bloodstains on her protective riding vest.

Hippoclub Dar Naouar

Hey! Check out hippoclubdarnaouar.com --especially the employees and photo gallery pages for some familiar faces...

You know your daughter is crazy about horses when she...

1. Tries to longe the dog 2. Takes the dog's collar off and tries to run it through the dog's mouth like a bit 3. Straddles every swing that she sits on so she can "work on [her] position" 4. Claims often to be too sick to go to school but never too sick to ride 5. Clucks at her brother to come to her or to scoot him over