We are considering doing a good deed. Last Saturday the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Dept. was set up outside REI, and when I stopped to pet the police dog (he sniffed me first! I wasn't going to pet a work dog, but he insisted), the recruiters stepped in to talk to us about the volunteer search & rescue team. We decided it sounds like a good thing to check out further, so we're going to an informational meeting tonight. You go through a month-long training course that includes first aid, maps and navigation, and a fitness test. Then when someone gets lost in a park here in Contra Costa County, they call up the volunteers to start searching. Since we like to hike anyway, it seems like a good idea to put our hiking to good use. And they use mountain bikers, too, to do a quick survey of the park before sending people out on foot, so they were happy to hear that Mike's a biker.

I think our decision to actually go through with it is mostly going to hinge on how much the training course actually costs. We'll find out the details tonight!

Yesterday was Day 2 of getting up early to run together: Successful. We're trying to do it 3 times a week.