https://xkcd.com/539/

I downloaded this December 1 and have gotten at least three solutions every day since.

I'm giving the physical version to my mom for Christmas. She likes mind puzzles like this, and I hope it will help her keep her mind active at 75 years old.

If there's more of a click than most others, I think it's worth pursuing. If it isn't going to work you'll know by the end of her break.

That's easy to say as the person I'm interested in lives five minutes away and not eight hours, but her busy life (and to a lesser extent my own busy life) is limiting. If it might work out, it's worth working around.

Dating: I've been talking with this girl I met at the YMCA. We do the same class every week. We text about once a day, sometimes less. She seems really busy, and when we talk I feel like she's really engaged in getting to know me better. She brought up dating without talking about us dating. Just, she seems open to it on however long of a timeline it might take.

I might find someone on an app that would reply within an hour and be up for dinner this weekend, but I'm far and away more excited about the girl from the Y. While I'd love to talk and meet up more often, I have my life and the sense I get is she has hers. I want to integrate a partner into my life and have a huge amount of respect for someone else looking to do the same.

So yeah, good luck with whatever you decide to do. I'm 42 and haven't found the right person. If it's her, if it takes another two months to do something together again and two more to have a proper first date, that time is an insignificant blip.

I accepted an offer on my condo. 99.9% excited to complete the sale, but a sliver is sad to let go of the home my old cats knew.

But then on to home projects.

I'm probably going to do this race again next year, and I'm looking at the Des Moines 70.3 in June as well.

I've started admitting out loud that I think I want to do an Ironman. Not next year, but maybe 2024. I've toyed with the idea of doing a destination race, too, maybe for the full IM to get a course that isn't so hilly. It gets really pricy, though. Fly to New York to hike? Ok. Flying to a triathlon is all those costs plus race entry plus getting my bike there. Those are not insignificant costs.

But we only live once, right?

Thanks! I've never practiced transitions but gave them a lot of thought my first couple races. Now I still think about it when I'm getting my transition area ready on race day because I'm piling up gear in the order I intend to use it.

I really want to get a good 70.3 run in. I probably need more bike-run workouts, and maybe I need to be smarter about my run volume. I ordered the book "80/20 Triathlon" that's popular. I think it's all about 80% of workouts being Z1/Z2 efforts. We'll see how it goes.