There’s a block sale going on in our neighborhood right now. And it’s kind of a mad house. I guess people around Yakima go a bit ape about garage sales and when you can hit 50 garages in one stop, that tends to draw a crowd. A bunch of houses have little food and drink stands set up and are selling things like homemade empenadas and tamales or prepackaged Costco products at a markup. It reminds me a little of Festival in Grand Rapids, except that everywhere you walk it smells like a Goodwill store and not like fried elephant ears. I’d post a picture, but Mary is in Sun Valley, ID for the weekend for work and I think she has our camera.
I didn’t really have anything to sell today, but I did put out a “free” sign on the driveway and dumped the kitchen mirror doors and some other stuff that the previous owner had left in the garage. They probably would’ve gone for a few bucks, but I didn’t feel like sitting out in the sun chit-chatting. So I walked the dogs and came back to an empty driveway. Later I bought a hat for 50 cents (Zirkle Fruit Company) and a weed whacker for 10 bucks.
Sounds like fun. No decent sofas for sale there? A chair or two?
Furniture went pretty quickly and usually had some sort of questionable Rorschach stain on a cushion.
We moved Mother’s Day weekend and for a couple of weeks I’d been trying to use the GRFreecycle web site to give away some of the old 711 Ethel stuff that was in my basement only to get contacted by these flakes who would never come by to pick it up.
On moving day, I put a bunch of stuff out on Burton with a free sign and some guys took most of it in an hour. Also, I saw VandeWerken (he stopped by) and met his girlfriend.
Also, I’ve been running lately and I’m curious to know what your typically time for a 5K or 10K was back when you were on GR Christian’s cross country team. I looked at the results of the 5K and 10K for the River Bank Run and I was surprised my times on a treadmill (which may differ somewhat from outdoor running) would have put me in the top 30 overall.
We did the same thing when we moved. That neighborhood gobbles curb junk up.
Yeah, treadmill time is a bit deceiving. If I really try I can still put up a sub-five minute mile on a treadmill, but would be keeling over trying to do that on regular ground. I think you have to crank up the incline about 10 percent to mimic reality.
My high school 5k times for the one year I ran cross country were usually right around high 16 minutes. Sometimes mid-16s. Good enough to at least be in the hunt for tops in the City League (ended up second). I never tried a 10k.
Where’d you guys move to?
We got a house by 68th and Kalamazoo in one of the sub-divisions off 68th. We’re on a street called Terra Cotta. It’s in Gaines Township but our mailing address is Caledonia and it’s Kentwood school district. You can google map it – 6902 Terra Cotta.
The last two Tuesdays I actually ran a bunch of laps around a circle in my subdivision which I’m estimating to be .4 miles around but I need a better method of judging distance than driving around in my car or guessing based on how long it took me.
Even with my treadmill advantage – my best time for a 5K would probably be around 18 and I’ve done a 10K in 39:30. But I have lost some weight – I’m down to under 150.