• Days since my release from 26 years in prison: 117
• Miles run today: 0
• Miles run this week: 20
• Miles run during the calendar month: 20
• Marathon distances completed: 12
• Weight: 167

Journal of activities:

During the 26 years that I served in prison, I didn’t have much need to understand sophisticated accounting software. That isn’t the case any more. I’m now building a business that generates revenues and incurs expenses. It’s important that I master systems to keep track of all my finances. I woke early this morning with hopes of making real progress in organizing a bookkeeping system. Things didn’t work out as I had planned.

Earlier in the year, my wife purchased software known as Quick Books from Intuit, but I never set aside the time to learn the software. I had more pressing matters that required my immediate attention. Today I hoped to learn, but things started going badly from the moment I began, at 3:30 this morning. First of all, when I powered up my iMac, the computer’s internal fan started blowing full force. I spent more than an hour fiddling with different ways to fix it. When I couldn’t figure out, I just started working in spite of the loud noise.

Despite several hours of trying, I couldn’t figure out how to use the Intuit program. The program is likely well designed, but I lack sufficient experience to understand how to set it up. Feeling frustrated, I started to organize revenues and expenditures through an Excel spreadsheet. I didn’t finish that work until the early afternoon. By then it was too late for me to run. I still had considerable amounts of work to complete. I spent the rest of the day working with papers from the students enrolled in my course at SFSU. I wrote a summary of the class that my wife taught last Thursday and updated grades.