weekly roundup

This has been a middling-uneventful week, although I suppose I have some excuse for that - in addition to marathon training and wrapping up a project at work, I'm also preparing for a trip to Ireland (which I plan to chronicle here).  I did manage to go to one wine bar with my less-serious book club (we read Penelope Lively's Family Album, which was worth reading even if we didn't discuss it all that much), Cellar 58, where the waiter was extremely anxious for us to order food and extremely tardy (over an hour, for simple-to-prepare plates, when it wasn't particularly crowded) in delivering it.  The amount butter and salt contained in my egg-on-bread dish made up for some, but not all, of that.

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For the first time ever, I managed to properly explore Summer Streets - by running through it.  I covered the whole distance, plus the Brooklyn Bridge, twice, and although the "activities" seemed a little deserted (with the exception of the sand-building area) I was impressed by the number and professionalism of the volunteers and police officers, the water stations, and the link with Central Park.  I managed to run about 14.5 miles with minimal unpleasantness - a good note on which to take a hiatus from training for a couple of weeks while I'm out of town (I'll be walking a lot, of course, and during part of my trip I'll be biking 30-40 miles a day, so it's not as if I wont be getting exercise... just not of the running variety).

Also, I finally saw Harry Potter, in IMAX 3-D of course.  To be honest, I can't say that it was awesome - but then, I don't think any one of the Harry Potter movies is awesome.  They're all good, but most of the awesomeness is in their sum.  The books are similar, although they're obviously an awful lot better.

I'm leaving for Ireland Tuesday after work.  I am mostly packed, but I don't feel at all prepared.  I suppose that's normal.