Well, Erin and I decided to join Team In Training to get some much needed exercise and to help a great cause. We started the season a few weeks late, but got a quick catch-up on Saturday with a run in San Jose; I ran 8 miles and Erin ran 5. I’m training for the Nike San Francisco Marathon and Erin is training for the half marathon at the same race. She’s run 2 marathons already and is going to try the half this time. Soon to be posted will be my fundraising webpage. Everyone get your checkbooks ready, we each need to raise $3,800 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Donations to Bryan can be made at: This link!

Donations to Erin can be made at: This link!

Here’s a picture from Tom and Arlene’s 2008 Christmas Card. I just found and scanned it, so there’s a little crud on the photo. They tore down the original farm after finding out it wasn’t sound enough to renovate, and this is the final result. A little different than the original building, but close enough and it suits their modern needs.

Saturday Erin and I hiked up Mission Peak, something we’ve both wanted to do for a long time. It’s about 6 miles round trip on an out and back hike, with about 2000′ of elevation gain. The trail is mostly fire road, with a smaller path near the peak, and lots of people were out enjoying themselves. Along the way we say lots of ground squirrels?

There was a strong Bay breeze and it was uncomfortably cold at the top, so we ate our trail mix quickly and headed back down. This picture is a very cool orientation post that has 3/4″ pipes welded into it. Originally the pipes were numbered and there were plaques describing what was to be seen through each hole. Unfortunately vandals have removed almost all the numbers so you’ve got to guess. It’s a really cool idea for a summit attraction though.

Erin, Oscar, Anna and I went up to Bear Valley this weekend and stayed at Rafi’s cabin (Ani’s brother). We got to spend 3 relaxing nights away from computers, traffic, work…. Mostly we slept and did some hiking.

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Click the picture below for a slide show of my photos from the trip:

Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom and Erin’s Mom and all other Mom’s out there. Erin and I took Judy to Country Gourmet this morning for breakfast, then spent the rest of the day helping her with the back yard landscaping. We hauled compost and bark from OSH, dug holes and transplanted stuff. It felt really nice to spend the day outside in the sun, sweaty and dirty.

Today I participated in the Climb California event for the American Lung Association. It was sponsored in part by my company, Bay Area Air Quality Management District. We climbed 52 stories for a total of 1,197 stairs! I thought it would be fairly easy, but man, that was a serious climb! I went in the bathroom at the top and hovered over the toilet for a few minutes, but fortunately held everything down. I’m not sure of my time yet, but I’ll post it when I find out. Here’s a picture of the Bank of America building from the plaza:

Here’s a view of Treasure Island and the Bay Bridge from the highest building in San Francisco:

204th Place, 12 minutes 45 seconds! out of 1086 competitors.