It was announced at the start of work that we'd be trying to reconcile our entire store's inventory in one day. Reconciling the inventory involves scanning items and sometimes counting items. It's work that a third grader could do. The challenge came in the sheer number of products we had in the store to scan.

So we all got to work, enthusiastic about achieving our goal of being finished by the end of the day. I had a load of energy and moved as fast as I could. Amazingly, we reconciled the inventory with an hour to spare.

After work I went home and had a bowl of soup. Then it was off to Fern's place. We chatted and joked for a while before heading for the gym. At the gym I had an amazing amount of energy. John Post was there and we ended up riding the same course together on the Espresso bikes. We upped the pace on the last half of the 5.8 mile course and raced for the finishing line. My bike did something weird (it spun out) just when I was putting in my big sprint for the finish, so John beat me across the line. Next, I rode a pretty challenging 10 mile course, Outlaw Rock. Again I felt good. I managed to maintain an average cadence of 90+ and produce an average power of 302 watts. My best average power to date for a course that I think was around 7-8 miles is 337 watts.

I spent some extra time stretching after the ride. Then I rode home through the snow, made myself a couple of protein shakes, and watched the 08 Tour for nearly an hour.

I met Fern at Alias this morning and enjoyed the usual-Parmesan bagel with honey raisin walnut cream cheese, and house coffee.

Oh, but first, last night Fern and I hit the town for a very short while. We stopped in at Pengillies. It's one of the only non-smoking bars in town. Since it was a Saturday night and one of Boise's most popular musicians (Jeremiah James) was performing, the bar was absolutely packed. After I gave up, Fern succeeded in procuring a beer, which we shared. Neither one of us is particularly social creatures, and with people packed like sardines all around us, we found little joy n' comfort in the experience. So we didn't stick around long-just long enough to drink our beer. And that was the night...

Back to today. I went to work this morning meaning to get a lot done; but once again, slow business and the fun loving nature of my fellow employees really turned my mood away from hard work. I didn't do much, but got to several small starts anyway.

I called Fern as I was leaving. She wasn't doing very well she said when I asked her. She had a good reason to be upset, but I don't feel like its my place to talk about it here on this blog. I can say that I rushed over to her place to try to offer some comfort. Ultimately, she chose to deal with things mainly by herself tonight.

I did manage to get a workout in at the Y. I pedaled the recumbent Expresso bike for about 45 minutes, riding the first 5 courses on the beginner course and taking a hard n' fast tact on most of them.

I went home and called Fern. I suggested that pizza and a movie might be the thing for her tonight. I ordered the pizza and cleaned up. Fern decided to stay home, so Eric and I sat back and watched a stage of the 08 Tour that took the riders over the highest mountain pass used in the race. It was stunning scenery.

Finally, I spent a little time on RichardDawkins.net, responding to a response to one of my comments about the issue of forcing unfit mothers to take contraception to avoid unwanted pregnancies and uncared for babies.

Met Fern at Alia's bagel n' coffee joint. Had just that. Read the paper and chatted. Went for a hike on the newish Polecat trail. T'was a bit icy and muddy, but doable. T'was very nice and sunny outside. Talked n' hiked for 'bout an hour. Headed for the war museum near the airport. Checked it out, goofed around. Stopped at the newish MoxiJava on Vista Ave. Spent close to an hour reading time mag while Fern knitted. Pleasant. Then home for a break. Decided to review the days activities on this here blog at approx 6pm. For some reason left out subject in all sentences. Technically, not sentences...

I slept in today 'till about 11:30am. Was going to do something productive, but ended up being a couch potato for about an hour, eating two bowls of cereal while watching an exciting stage of the 08 Tour with Eric. Then I got ready to go to the gym. At the Y I spent about 25 minutes on an Espresso bike, stretched, and spent another 50 minutes on the bike. I meant to work on maintaining a high rpm because my legs were feeling a bit heavy and tired after my attacks yesterday, but one pedal on the machine was making a squeaky noise at high revs, so I ended up pedaling slowly and doing some one-legged exercises for much of the last 50 minutes. Next, I used the gyms new machines to do some upper body work. In the mean time, Fern arrived (she took a half day off). We both left around the same time. I stopped in at Subway for some lunch before heading over to Fern's for a quick flick (A PBS production about Snowflake the albino gorilla). Then I went home to clean up for this evening's activities. Back at Fern's, neither one of us could really think of anything to do that excited us. My suggestion was to go to some dive bars we've never been to before and have some beer, chat, maybe play some games or sing karaoke. But I wasn't that passionate about the idea. I hoped that once we found ourselves at a new place, drinking beer and talking, we'd have some fun. I soon realized that it probably didn't matter what we were going to do, I just wasn't feeling my perkiest, liveliest, fun-lovingest, and decisive self. And once I realized that, I really fell into a funk. Nevertheless, Fern did her best to cheer me up, and we had some good eats and a few laughs anyway. We ended up walking downtown and having some appetizers (pupus) and beer at The Reef, then stopping by Urban Outfitters to find something to spend Fern's gift certificate on. I decided to head home fairly early, as soon as we walked back to her place. A funky Josh is not a fun Josh. I'm hoping to sleep it off tonight.

Yesterday we were given permission by Tom to close George's a couple of hours early. Before heading home, Larry and I had an especially long philosophical discussion. We covered a lot of topics, but mainly debated his assertion that the theory of evolution is being taught as though it were uncontroversial, and that the theory is little more than a baseless human construct, a philosophy that's been presented as the absolute truth. Larry complains that the scientific community and our institutions of learning have tyrannically suppressed any legitimate challenges to the theory of evolution. I, of course, defended the theory as the best, most thorough scientific theory (and perhaps the ONLY theory) we've got to explain life on this planet (other than life's origins). I defended theories in general as being legitimate means of discovering greater truths. And I defended science by observing that it is one of the most democratic, flexible, and trustworthy forms of discovering truth and correcting falsehoods. It was an interesting discussion, primarily because I think it again brought to the fore some of the problems we have with gauging the integrity, the truthfulness, and the quality of knowledge. At the end, we talked a bit about morality, with Larry expressing his feeling that morality will soon be a thing of the past, and with myself pointing out that a true morality is finally emerging from our reprehensible history.

The rest of the day consisted of dinner at home, hanging out at Fern's, going for a walk, and spending the night at her apartment. Eric had invited a gal over to our apartment for New Year's Eve, and wanted to be left alone. I had no problems obliging. In fact, I slept pretty well at Fern's, which is cool because we've usually had issues with comfort/insomnia when trying to share a bed in the past. Oh, and we opted to not celebrate the new year, what with our pissy attitudes about pointless traditions and the fact that we were quite tired and unwilling to spend a bunch of money on alcohol.

So I was at her place this morning. We ended up going to Java for coffee and "breakfast" (usually we have something small like a bagel or muffin when we do breakfast together, like Saturday mornings). We then decided to get ready to go to the YMCA, to get a workout in relatively early in the day. I set off for home to gather up my gym clothes. But on the way I realized that I still had time to make it to Georges before noon in order to take part in the traditional New Year's Day road ride. I called Fern and she wasn't up for it (she hurt her tail bone a couple of days ago). So I rushed, got ready, joined up with 50 or so other riders at George's, and headed out. I had a pretty good time. I didn't feel my best, but felt good enough to make a couple of moves off the front of the group on Gowen Road. I was just having fun. The roads were a little wet and some sections still had some snow/ice on the edges, but the temperatures were in the lower 40s, so we all remained safe and comfortable all the way home. The ride ended up being about one hour, fourtyfive minutes long.

After the ride, after cleaning up, and after lunch, Fern stopped by and we headed out to the mall for some random fun n' shopping. It was apparent when we saw the crowds that we weren't the only ones who couldn't think of much to do on this grey, dreary January day. At the mall, while Fern enjoyed a bowl of tomato soup, we chatted about living in Boise, living in new places, and vacationing right. At Macy's I found the perfect long sleeved shirt, but it cost $90. So I skipped that and stocked up on my favorite wardrobe item-white, cotton, Alfani Tshirts.

Fern became overcome with tiredness. She dropped me off at Dawson Taylor's Coffee Shop and headed home for a short nap. I sat in a comfy chouch (chair/couch) and read my Sagan book.

An hour later, Fern picked me up and we stopped in at Winco to pick up dinner on the way to my apartment. I selected rib eye steaks, Brussels sprouts, and mashed potatoes and cooked them after getting home. We relaxed, ate dinner, and watched a movie written by Woody Allen (we've been on a Woody Allen kick lately). It was a hilarious movie about a playwright (John Cusack) whose plans get all mixed up, and in turn gets mixed up with the mob. Fern left after the movie. Both of us have been feeling like we're just not getting enough sleep. My theory is that we're getting about the same amount of sleep we normally get, its just that the winter season is having its affect.