I have been unable to work up any kind of momentum to return to the two or three academic projects that I have outstanding like Hogwallop, or my Brother Brigham paper. Summer laziness has hit hard. So, Friday night I started soldering the ol' Rockmite in earnest, while Melissa was finishing up a book for her class. I'm about a third of the way done with the Rockmite. Maybe a quarter. I got a little (read very) obsessive compulsive about lead contamination due to the solder (solder is often made of a high percentage of lead, despite what this wikipedia page says). This means that I laid down cardboard over top of the kitchen table I was soldering on, used disposable rubber gloves and treated them as contaminated during and afterwards. This proceeded to freak Melissa out. I think one of the main sources of this freak out was that I don't want Caleb to have some kind of lead poisoning problem and end up learning disabled or something because of a dumb hobby. Afterwards, I googled "soldering kitchen table" and found this article in which somebody repeatedly emphasizes that soldering can only cause lead problems if you actually ingest the solder. That made me feel much better. Isn't it great what a random internet site can do for you, even though I have no idea who "ranger/- Warren" is or if he knows whereof he speaks?

On Saturday, I went for my second 8+ mile run in two weeks. Last week I went for my first run longer than 3 miles ever. It was relatively intense, and I had to stop after 4 miles and then start again a 20-ish minutes later. This last week, though we took a couple of breaks while waiting for red lights and such, I ran the whole time without any large walking stretches. 8.27 miles in 1 hour and 26 minutes. It felt great. Hopefully I'll be able to continue to do the occasional long run.