Paddling along

Today was my last day in the Masters swim program. This is the "adult swim team" I joined for the summer. It's kind of expensive when combined with my regular gym membership, and I can't go more than twice or three times a week, so I decided to just do it for three months.

I really like it and am sad to have to stop. It's been fun to feel myself getting better throughout the summer. Swimming really makes you learn about your body's strengths and weaknesses.

My arms are awfully wimpy, while my legs are stronger. My freestyle, which I always considered my strongest stroke, is just average. But my backstroke isn't bad surprisingly.

It will be getting cooler soon anyway, so it would be hard to swim anyway.

Lesson learned: My breast stroke still needs some work.

Swamped

You think I'd be tired of writing considering how much of it I did this week. But here I am.

There was a murder, a car accident, a body found and a horse accident last weekend, which sent me into a writing frenzy from Sunday afternoon till now. I wrote six stories in 24 hours. I worked 12 hours today. And I'm gearing up for more fun tomorrow.

In fact, I really should be finishing up my eighth story this week right now. I'm procrastinating.

Despite my whining, I am actually enjoying it. We don't get crazy stories like the bizzare murder I'm covering now. It involves a shooting, a car being crashed into a ravine and a body that was missing until today.

Lesson learned: Big news comes in storms.

Runk and Willow go hiking

I'm way late on this, but I'm going to write it anyway. When you meet deadlines at work everyday, it's hard to meet your own for a blog.

But last weekend, by friend Anna came to visit. Like I said in my previous blogs, she's one of my best friends. We met in high school and it had been awhile. Anyway, we made up for lost time.

Anna's visit, day 1: I tend to take people who visit to this swimming hole where a river cuts through some caves. It's close, it's pretty amazing and not that many people are usually. there.


Anna's visit, day 2: We upped the activity level the next day, hiking Half Dome in Yosemite. It's a 16.4 mile hike that's rated "extremely strenuous." The last bit, you have to pull yourself up a rock face by cables, which are posted in the rock on either side of you.

Being the great friend that I am, I neglected to remember that Anna has a certain fear of heights. She was shaking so hard I thought she was going to rattle right off the cables. At one point, she panted, "This is like having a baby." But she was a trooper and make it to the top and back down.


Anna's visit, day 3: After the marathon day we had, we decided to sleep in an go find a swimming hole. Then we got ice cream.


Anna's visit, day 4: We headed up to Sonora Pass for a hike that a friend recommended to me. It was pretty dramatic up there, and really quiet.


Anna left on Monday night, after a quick stop to a nearby reservoir. It went by too quick, but I think we managed to catch up on the past three years.

Lesson learned: I need to call Anna more often.

Arriving soon

My best friend from high school is coming to visit tonight. In fact, I should be driving to go pick her up at the airport, but her flight was delayed.

I wrote a blog entry about Anna awhile back, one of the last times I saw her.

It's been three years since I graduated from college, and neither one of us has been to see each other. Our reunions are usually when we both head home to Montana for holidays. But only about a month ago, I told her I wanted her to come, and she said OK. Then she bought her ticket. See I told you she was the best.

Lesson learned: Flight punctuality and excitement are inversely proportionate.

Keeping tradition

Last weekend I went to visit my mom in the Tahoe area to see a Shakespeare play, in our yearly tradition. Actually I think last year's was one of my blog posts. It's crazy to think it's been a year already.

As usual, the play was fantastic. We saw Taming of the Shrew. It was set in the traditional time, but there were all this misplaced references to pop-culture embedded in the story line. For example, Bianca was completely dressed in pink and wore white sunglasses. She answered her cell phone "Good morrow."

I think the stars are brighter when you are sitting in the sand on Lake Tahoe.

The great thing about that area is that at any given time, there are always people bike riding — whether it's road, bike or mountain — on the road. And most drivers, probably because they are bikers themselves, don't try to run you off the road like they do where I live.

We also took our own bike ride, on a windy trail that leads to a reservoir. The whole trip is about 30 miles, which isn't out of the realm of what I usually do. Maybe it was the wine we drank the night before, maybe it was that the last ten miles were all up hill, or maybe I'm out of biking shape, but I was exhausted afterwards. It was still fun. Mom and I played the movie game (like the name game but with movie titles) for about three hours.

Lessons learned: There aren't many movies that begin with "K."

My very first drug bust

Yesterday, I was sitting in the cockpit of a helicopter, with headphones covering my ears as the pilot hit a bunch of switches thinking, "Wow, I get to do a lot of crazy stuff because of my job."

Case in point was yesterday's marijuana drug bust. Our county has a team of officers, who along with state agents, go out to destroy marijuana plantations. I met them at 6 a.m. at their office, and they brought me a long for one such bust.

Many of the grows, as they call them, are too secluded to access easily, so they clip the agents into a cord that hangs from a helicopter and fly them in two at a time. It's called short-hauling, and it looks both terrifying and really fun at the same time.


I didn't get to short-haul, of course, because you have to be trained and certified or whatever, but they did take me up in a helicopter to see the garden from above. I thought I would freak out once I got up in the air, but I felt strangely secure.


The rest of the time, I just watched them work. It's pretty amazing what they do.

Lesson learned: Don't step on the short line cable, it will cost you $5. Luckily, that's a lesson that it only took hearing for me to learn.

Summer nights

I love summer. I want it to last forever. I say that knowing perfectly well that I don't really mean it. It's just nights like this that I have that short-lived wish. I just got home from barbecuing at my friends Jenn and Paul's house.

We sat outside under an umbrella and had shish kabobs, rice and fruit. Sarah and I took turns holding Paul and Jenn's new baby, Riley, and helping her in the kitchen. It was all very grown up.

But tonight was one of those where it was the perfect temperature to sit outside in a short-sleeved shirt after the sun went down. It was fun for the Jenn, Sarah and I to be together again after a hiatus. We haven't hung out like that since last summer, or at least fall, when Jenn and Paul's lives was very different. They didn't have a house or a baby then.

Holding a baby at this stage in life for me is a funny mix of "Wow, I'm not ready for this" and entertaining thoughts of what it would be like to have one. This is why I might leave it to friends to have kids for a little while longer. I can come hold them and feed them and bounce them for awhile, then give them back.

Lesson learned: Riley is great, but I like his mom best.

Fighting fire, jailbird style

In what seems like a theme this week, I went out to the prison today for a feature on the area firefighting inmate camps. I think whoever came up with the idea to employ inmates to fight fire for $1 an hour is pretty brilliant. They actually have it pretty cush compared to the greater inmate population. They have a weight area, basketball court, TV room, their laundry done for them, chefs to make their meals, a game room, etc. Yep, it's pretty much like summer camp for convicts.

Then again, they put in some pretty long hours doing community service projects and fighting 100-foot flames. That might not be so luxurious.

Lesson learned: Don't do crime. It's not worth it.

Riding along

I had my first police ride-a-long last weekend. From 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Friday and Saturday I was Deputy Paul's new best friend. I was a little disappointed that there were no high speed chases or Taserings. Am I a bad person for wanting someone to commit a crime just so I can witness the arrest?

Anyway, it was interesting to see police work in action. I was there for a burglary investigation and a drug arrest. I also spent a considerable amount of time in the hospital waiting for the deputy to follow up on a few cases. It's amazing how it can be crazy one moment and boring the next.

Lessons learned: Just don't do crime. It's not worth it.