Triple C Trio - The Fire Fightin' 5K in Rehoboth Beach Aug. 23 produced three mascots hanging out together – a cone, a cow and a carnivore. I took a photo of them walking away, and the T. Rex had its head on backward. I posed the question to AI about tyrannosaurus head rotation versus rapid eye movement  stereoscopic vision. I knew taking every college class three times would someday pay off. I learned that T. Rex had a lightly leaning-forward head because of the weight and therefore the head didn’t bob like a chicken when it walked. But I never imagined a tyrannosaurus sounding like Foghorn Leghorn. Later, the cow was knocking about the Rehoboth Avenue firehouse in casual mode and kept her head on for the national anthem. “Life is a carnival.” – The Band, 1989.

Make it work - “I used to be engaged to a girl from Czechoslovakia, but it didn't work out because my parents wouldn’t accept checks." The joke used to work but then Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic, which became Czechia. Earlier in the week, Susan and I watched Japan beat Czechia in a Little League World Series game, but we both heard Chechnya, a breakaway Russian province. We were all in Chechen history, rolling down the wrong road without an academic GPS, and the announcer said the players were 4,400 miles from home. We both agreed it seemed farther away but we rearranged global geography to make it work. Chechnya is 1,900 miles from Czechia if you're driving from Grozny to Prague, which is unlikely to happen anytime soon.  

Sneak and peak - I was snapping finish-line photos with an emphasis on focus, not reading shirts, when Monique Bamforth snuck up on me and asked if I noticed all the runners wearing Peak shirts. I said, "I saw them but didn’t notice, but now that you mention it, there are a lot of them [and] many worn by people I recognize." I volunteered, "Possibly a physical therapy place like Premier and Pivot." She said, “I don’t think so. It seems more like a fitness center." Like a golden retriever sunning itself on the sidewalk, I later chased that ball down the road. Dan Horn, a fitness beast in a Peak shirt whom I know, gave me the 411 in the 911 area code. Twenty-seven members ran the race, with seven taking home hardware. “My wife, Erica, was born and raised in Milton. Deep roots. Her great-grandfather was H.O. Brittingham. We built a house on some hand-me-down land and I ended up driving over 30 minutes just to get to the gym. Meanwhile, my son, Cameron, was a local personal trainer and instructor working at other gyms. We decided to give it a shot and open a gym, but funding was a challenge. We got some help from WSFS and their SBA program, and boom, here we are. We chose Harbeson because of the growth in the area. Harbeson and Milton are the next big thing, it looks like. Erica and I still work our day job, so Cameron is managing the day-to-day along with training. We have some awesome instructors for our classes, and the people that work the desk keep it clean and hospitable for the members. Cameron’s sister Kayla handles all of our social media. It all works! We love doing community events like 5Ks (Milton St. Patty’s Day, Ronald McDonald House at Big Oyster, and obviously the RBVFC Fire Fightin’ 5K), and we hold events at the gym like Bench for Boobs in October, Lifts for Gifts in December, and so on. We have a ton of awesome members that continue to show up and make it fun!”  By the way, this is not an advertisement. I'm just passing on information I didn’t know. It's what I do when not getting lost in global geography or tyrannosaurus rex head rotation. 

Snippets - Teachers who are also coaches are back in school ducking meetings and working on scouting reports, so sports practices shift to the late afternoon, which is the worst time of the day to start anything, from building a team to fixing a car. If you are a young Phillies fan, “That’s your fault, there’s so much you have to go through; look at me, I am old but I’m happy.” – Cat Stevens. A good idea for an athlete is to commit to their own team before posting a committed banner to a college program on Instagram. A firefighter wearing full gear in a 5K race is like a doctor in Wawa wearing a stethoscope. Go on now, git!