Eight minute mile! No, not really. I did do 4, not 3, laps around my block, but I took short breaks to walk and lie on the grass between each one. End of lap times: 2:42, 5:33, 8:05 (with final sprint), 11:05. No pains except after that sprint.

While I was lying down, a white woman in a black backless eveningish gown walked by, and crossed Kimball. Not on the way to or from any CTA stops. Or any obvious gownish destinations, at 11:30am.

After my runs I went to the river park, and saw an old Chinese woman picking what looked blackberries from a tree. My presence seemed to scare her off. I tasted a berry, seemed okay, though I was too paranoid about strange berries to swallow. I'm such a city kid.

A few evenings ago I passed a whole family of raccoons in someone's front yard, on one of the side streets. A couple climed a tree, a couple more tried to just freeze on the grass, more might have tried to retreat.

I've uploaded more galleries, with less selection and as yet no shrinkage of the main images, so anything you click on would be huge.
http://mindstalk.net/AlbPark
http://mindstalk.net/2007June21Home

Girls I actually know; our garden in Chicago; someone's pet macaws outside of Charcoal Delights tonight; my sister; a synagogue turned Korean church -- check the railings.

My dating seems to be "when I uploaded the photos", which has some correlation with when the photos were actually taken but not a perfect one.

http://mindstalk.net/2007June8/

A few days ago I finally bought a digital camera. Impulse decision, as I passed Radio Shack. Consumer Reports has had the Canon Powershot A5-- line as Best Buys, and the current $170 camera was the A550. Might have been smarter to get an older model on eBay; oh well. I unpacked it on the Megabus to Indy, and got the 2GB SmartDisk out of its blister pack while armed only with a key. Woot! Then I took lots of photos, mostly of clouds and a girl passenger. Later some photos of my apartment, and me, and some campus ones I haven't downloaded.

http://mindstalk.net/2007June3gall/

Gallery includes a picture of me (mefaire_small) at Ren Faire, taken by lyceum's friend gothicsquish

seemybooksHUGE is pretty big, but is detailed enough to let you read spine titles. Also, that's about a third of my books. Maybe fewer, considering the case packed with paperbacks.

busgirl_thumbs, at full size (not online), lets me read some writing on the back of her left hand. Looks like FRIDGE. No idea why. I suspect that's better than 20/20 vision, i.e. even if I wore my glasses I wouldn't have read that myself.

The credit card computers got alarmed at my card trying to buy $200 of electronics in Chicago. I'm pleased, frankly; it's good to know they can catch that.