The house smelled differently, no longer filled with the warm scents of ginger and baking bread, cookies in the oven, a pie cooling on the oven, perha...ps popcorn in the microwave. No, it was more like stale coffee, aftershave and a hint of perfume now. Sitting down at the kitchen table she thought about cooking and leafed through her recipes. The phone didn’t ring. She looked at the wall, barely recognizing the phone for all the wires and electronics hooked up to it. She tried to remember what. With the events of sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups, he looked at it as a go either way. He knew he could do over 500 sit-ups but so could a lot of others if they tried. He decided to try the sit-ups. If he got lucky, great ... if not, no loss.The events of the obstacle courses made for a tough decision. The events were a 2 mile, and a 3.5 mile regular course, a 5 mile orienteering course, in the mountains, and a 4.5 mile steeplechase. Bret felt he could reasonably compete in either regular. ." Ah, the madman!" said the Admiral, rotating his finger above his head, "too long adrift at sea. I've seen this many times." Yes, Monseur. I have been on the radio to the French Resident there. The man is in the care of the Jesuit mission. He claims to be one Hiram Willens, a crewman on the yacht 'Senator' that was believed to have foundered off San Diego last month." But that's not possible, Monseur Prewer! He could not have drifted so far..." I agree, Admiral. He also has some wild story. ” That quickly sealed the deal and we set a date for the next week as we stood out in front of the bar before saying our goodbyes. We couldn’t seem to find a weekend that we were both available soon enough for our liking so we picked a Wednesday night to go out on our first date. As we live at exact opposite ends of the city, she suggested that meet at a restaurant somewhere halfway and I suggested The Plaza which is a nice shopping district near downtown even though I offered to come pick her.