Early Today (and later that night)

Wow, time flies when you're not blogging. Seriously, that week went by quicklike. We're rockin' a little Indian summer action here in New England: temps have been in the 80s all week. Tuesday night hockey started last night, but I missed it because I had too much work to do; I should have gone, because I didn't get a whole lot done anyway, between running to check the Blue Jays-Red Sox game on TV, helping Deb clear some stuff out of the guest room, and dealing with a certain toddler who woke up at 10:30.

The marathon training is proceeding. Got up to 18 miles on my long run on Sunday, but I aggravated my first real injury since training began: the arch in my right foot is really sore. I've never had this problem before, at least not to this extent. I think it might be caused by my new shoes, specifically by wearing my orthotics in them; my guess is I went from shoes where the arch support was worn down to new ones with stronger arch support, so maybe that was enough to cause a strain. I'm going to try and run in the shoes without the orthotics and see how that feels. I haven't run since Sunday, so hopefully I'll be able to run the next few days and then do 20 on Sunday. At the same time, I don't want to make this any worse.

Other stuff:

• The Katrina fallout continues. First FEMA Director Mike Brown had the decency to resign on Monday, then Bush admitted the government screwed up in its slow response, and now it comes out that Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff was the one who really delayed the federal response.
• As training camps begin this week in the NHL, several longtime mainstays are calling it quits. Last week it was defensemen Scott Stevens, Al MacInnis, and James Patrick, and forward Vinny Damphousse. This week, it was the legendary Mark Messier and Ron Francis. All but Damphousse and Patrick are first ballot Hall of Famers. The lockout unfortunately cost all these players (except possibly Stevens and MacInnis, who both had serious injury problems) a final season to soak in the accolades and farewells. There are still many other older players such as Steve Thomas and Mike Keane who still hope to latch on with teams but may find themselves victims of the salary cap.
• Think John Roberts is getting a little transfixed at his confirmation hearing? Great googily moogily.

Okay, more later. Have fun storming the castle.