...It's the way of the future...the way of the future...Erm. Right now, everything in my life seems to be a forward-looking plan. I'm breaking my body down to build it back up stronger, and I'm planning to do a ton of fitness workouts in the next several weeks.

The fun thing about exercise is how lousy it can really feel. If you're working hard enough to get actual improvement out of your body, you're going to spend a lot of time with tingly muscles. You're going to need a lot of sleep. It's just the nature of pushing your body. The payoff comes later, when you get to your peak events and are suddenly much stronger than you have ever been before.

In local-politics news, the disintegration of COPE in Vancouver is proceeding apace. I sort of understand the dynamics at work, since they're largely the same as the ones that saw the last mayor, the NPA's Mr. Owen, out the door. The difference is that this time the centrist candidate with ideas at odds with the party core is a COPE member, and if anything, is probably an even more high-profile and popular mayor. As the NPA can attest, this won't end well, and I think that unlike Owen, who quietly stood aside when he was ousted as NPA mayoral candidate, Larry Campbell is likely to stay and run under whatever banner will have him (NPA? Sure, I guess).

I think the electoral prospects for the much-derided "COPE lite" (I prefer the monikers "New COPE" or "Diet COPE", in opposition to the old-school "COPE Classic") are very good, since the electoral preference in Vancouver has tilted towards modest, managerial moderates for quite some time. When a former coroner can be described as the most interesting recent mayor, you know your leadership is trending towards boring.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. I like quiet competence in a politician, especially a municipal politician, since as a staunch subsidiaritist, I believe that's where all the important work is done.