Category: Life with Pratts

Only five months ago I replaced the bulbs in the microwave oven that light the stovetop. And now one of them has already burned out again. Rather than wait for the other one to go out I replaced them both.

Yesterday we were about to leave to go out to dinner, when an intense hail storm hit. They were the size and shape of Mentos candy. In this video you can hear them hitting the skylights on the porch which, fortunately, weren’t damaged.

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After the hail there was heavy rain. Ten seconds into this video you can see that the downspout next to the garage couldn’t keep up.

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Later, at Legal Seafood in Framingham, MA, Eric’s salad was delivered with hair in it. That’s a first for us at any Legal Seafood restaurant, and it took way too long for a replacement salad to be delivered. It should have been complimentary, but it wasn’t. Boo, Legal Seafood!

I debated with myself whether or not to say something about this, but at this point I think it should be said. My twin sister Jean is having some personal problems, and she’ll be offline for a while. Please join me in wishing Jeanie Beanie a speedy recovery, and we look forward to her return as my #1 comment writer.

Mr. D.F. Rogers wrote to ask…

Is DogRat Dead?

And this was my reply…

No, Denny, the blog is not dead, but putting the Storage Area Network back together at work has been the only thing on my mind for a week now. Today I went through one of the most stressful experiences of my career. The day started at 7am, and I’m totally wiped. I managed to get something working that was completely broken, that absolutely *had* to be working at 1pm, and I did it with only three minutes to spare. Talk about stress. I don’t have the spare brain cells to even think about blogging. It’s just not on my mind right now.

My Achilles tendon is doing a lot better. I’m running short distances without pain, but I couldn’t make up for nearly two months of lost training, so I will be merely a spectator at the Boston Marathon starting line tomorrow morning. Nevertheless, I went into the city with Eric today to pick up my swag bag. Then I visited what I’ll call the quitter’s corral to return my transponder chip and bib. Registration cost me $200, and for my money I’m getting a $30 shirt.

This year there are two interesting American entries in the race. The Grand Master, Boston’s own Bill Rodgers, says he’ll be jogging it in four hours, which is literally half the speed of his heyday. The last time he ran it, which was the first time I ran Boston, ten years ago, Rodgers dropped out at Heartbreak Hill. Rodgers had prostate cancer surgery last year.

It was also ten years ago that I first read about Ryan Hall, who was in high school and running the mile in just over four minutes. Now he’s a marathoner, and he has a shot at being the first American to win in Boston since Greg Meyer way back in 1983.