Dawg Dash

This year's Dawg Dash went better than expected - I finished in 51:44 despite not running all that much since moving to the DC area. Unfortunately I couldn't map since my Garmin was dead but the course was the same as last year's.

Francesca's post-race waffle fest was a hit, drawing more people than last year even though a few (Krisanne, Eric) have moved away from Seattle! Joe was in town, and it is always interesting to catch up with him.

In the evening I had dinner with Kandi and family. Their kids are growing huge amounts now that I only see them once a year. Sam is a junior, Jacob is in 6th grade and basically fluent in Spanish (he's in the immersion program), Ellie is in school now... wow!

New Car - Prius

I got a "new" car... a 2008 Prius. I've been thinking about getting a hybrid for years, and decided now was a good time, since I either had to register my Camry in Maryland, or get a new car. Since my Camry was getting up there (160K miles, 13 years old), and the Maryland vehicle inspection policy tries to both recover money for the state (sales-tax-free state Delaware is next door!) and weed out unsound cars, I opted for replacement - I'm sure I would have had to sink more money into the Camry.

I'm not complaining - my Camry was excellent over the years! But co-workers told me Maryland is super picky on vehicle inspections, because it is only done once for the life of the car. One coworker thinks this actually leads to more clunkers on the road, since once a car passes, it never has to get inspected again, and thus people tend to drive cars into the ground. Cars gets dinged for nicks in the windshield, rust, etc. and getting that fixed for a car I'd plan to replace next year anyway...