Personal-Best

(Screenshot of Excel chart with the mighty MAC.)

I’m 65 years old.
I keep telling a friend of mine “We’re not getting any younger.”
He called yesterday (Saturday, August 15, 2009), and I mentioned I wasn’t sure I could keep up with house maintenance any more.
I’ve been mowing lawn almost continuously.
I mow about two acres with a residential zero-turn lawnmower.
It makes quick work of it, and I mow sections.
First the front, then the back, then the north and south wings; often multiple sections.
The front grows fastest, although everything grows pretty fast.
I’m mowing every five-six days; twice a week — every four days for the front.
No desire to farm it out yet. Mowing is just sitting on the mower and letting the Briggs & Stratton do the work.
But I feel bushed; so much I feel like I might hafta sell.
I don’t want to. We designed this house — it’s superinsulated.
So I go out this morning (Sunday, August 16, 2009) and run a Personal-Best.
I still run, despite advancing age. I still can.
I run at the so-called elitist country-club. For some time I’ve been running 2+ miles; from the Boughton (“BOW-tin” as in “wow”) Road parking-lot to the East Pond Sluiceway and back; around 24-25 minutes.
I decided to increase my distance, to almost four-five miles, an additional 15-16 minutes.
I’ve run it twice so far, and attempted again today.
36:57; usually it’s been over 39.
Boomin’-and-zoomin’, and no idea why.
So much for selling the house.

• “Mighty MAC” because all my siblings use Windows PCs, so the fact I use an Apple Macintosh proves I’m stupid, reprehensible, and of-the-Devil.
• Our “zero-turn” lawnmower is our 48-inch Husqvarna riding-mower; “zero-turn” because it’s a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so it can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time in half compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass. —Our Zero-Turn is powered by an 18-horse Briggs & Stratton overhead-valve V-twin.
• “We” is my wife of 41&1/2 years and I. We designed our house, although a contractor built it for us. A HUGE amount of research was required.
• “Superinsulation” is a concept of foot-thick exterior walls, and lots of blown insulation over the ceiling. —Other than that, the house looks pretty standard. Superinsulation minimizes heat- and cooling-load. We also minimized window openings, and airlocked all entrances. —No solar panels, or techno-gimcracks. Just superinsulation.
• “The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton Park, where I run and we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns. —It used to be the water-supply for the town of Fairport east of Rochester. As such it had two ponds (“East” and “West”) backed up by two large earthen dams. At the end of each dam is a concrete sluiceway. There is a “picnic-pavilion” off the West Pond — I run to that.