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this is the ideal January

Right now, it's in the mid-60s, and it's been like this for over a week. I've been out and about more in the last week than in the last several months (largely because my brother was visiting all last week).

Right now, I'm sitting in this tiny coffee shop called Cafe 504 which has good coffee, free wifi, and is a little over a mile away. This is gold for me, because I've been let down with a lot of other coffee shops in the area. It's tucked away in a small neighborhood, so it's not teeming with people. I might be coming back several times a week to work from here.

I've been riding my bike more often (meaning, so far, three times in the past week). It's growing on me a lot. Still not sure if I'll approach it as a sport like running, but it'll be nice to get around without a car or BART (even though I've been avoiding BART and CalTrain for several weeks now).

Speaking of running, Asma and I have finally figured out our knee problems! Despite the physical therapy, addition of leg exercises, and laying off running in general, we've both started to re-develop our knee pain that started back in November of 2007. We went to See Jane Run and the lady their did a gait analysis of Asma with Asma's current running shoes on. She said that the shoes seemed right for her feet, but that there was still some pronation. She suggested Asma try Superfeet and commented that her general gait looked a lot better.

It seemed pretty promising and made sense – I bought Superfeet for myself over two years ago, but I only used it for walking. It made an immediate difference back then, because my feet and calves no longer hurt from normal walking. But it never crossed my mind to try it in running shoes. (After all, with motion control and all that, one would expect the shoe to take care of supporting the arch better.)

When we got back home, Asma went for a short run and said she felt absolutely no problems with her knees. I went out for a short run today and am extremely happy to say that I also had no issues with my knees and calves feeling off in any way. And this despite my left knee feeling strange prior to running (probably from riding yesterday) and my right knee slightly off from a run on Saturday.

So all those months of taking it easy, and the thoughts of me not being able to run long distances ever, may have been for nothing. We'll still need to give things a try over longer distances (+3 miles), but we're hopeful now that we won't run into these issues again as long as we crosstrain.

My days aren't structured in a traditional way, which is good and bad. I just need to get out of the apartment more to work and I'll feel a little more balanced, I think.

Ok, time to pack up and grab some things from Trader Joe's before I head home. We're visiting DC on Friday. I'm worried about the cold.

Oakland blackouts

Riot police out in force in Oakland

Last night, Asma and I were just chilling when we started to notice odd things outside. Part of our block was blocked off at one point, and there were multiple helicopters flying around downtown, a couple with spotlights shining down. And there was a larger police presence than usual.

It turned out to be a protest against the shooting of Oscar Grant that had been going on for hours and had just recently made its way into downtown.

We went to check it out and were surprised to see the number of people, and, on top of that, a lot of police in riot gear. We were at the end of the mass of people clustered in the city center. The police were breaking it apart, moving groups in different directions. The group we ended up following set two cars on fire and broke a lot of car windows and some store fronts.

It was eerie and tense at times. I got to smell tear gas for the first time. Out of the three protests I've ever been to, I actually enjoyed being part of this. This is what I expect people to do when they're angry. Don't plan shit out in advance and have the roads nicely blocked off. Go out and actually disrupt things.

At the same time, I really wish that people didn't have to set cars on fire and break glass. If they're really mad at the police, they should be attacking the police. Obviously that has harsher consequences, but they're the people you're protesting against, not everyone else.

The crowd seemed to thin out over time, but I wish more people were protesting from the start. Oscar did not have to get shot. The video evidence is pretty clear that it was beyond excessive.

Wake up.