You know what I love about Doctor Who? Smack in the middle of a very serious and intense story about the brutality of war and the horror of genocide, you get a scene in which Harry Sullivan is very nearly eaten by a giant carnivorous cave clam. Fortunately the Doctor was able to rescue him with a belaying pin. In other news, I once again went over four miles today on the treadmill - that's two days running, and feeling good.

Anyway, let's talk about the non-clam-related aspects of today's viewing.

I sometimes marvel at how adept the human brain is at forming connections where none exist, converting coincidence to prescience. Case in point: Today I ended my treadmill session with a cumulative distance walked since the start of this project of 666 miles; this, on the same day I started watching the story that details the birth of the most evil entities in the history of the universe, the Daleks. Seriously. I think that David S. Pumpkins would agree that this is downright spooky.

On a less foreboding note, today I walked further than ever before in a single 55-minute session -- I passed the four mile mark for the first time ever. I also weighed in at my lowest weight since I started this project. What I'm saying is, I'm not gonna let a bunch of Space Nazis get me down, because life is awesome.

Even so, let's talk about those Space Nazis.

It was another good day on the treadmill, I notched up the speed a bit again and went further and faster than I ever have before. I came just six-one-hundredths of a mile short of hitting four miles today. I am going to try to notch it up again tomorrow, since I made the full distance today. These past two months have been a frustrating plateau, but I have had so many other things going on that I let myself slack a bit on the treadmill thing. Not that I didn't do it, I've been on it every single day, but I had stopped really pushing myself harder. I have about a one-month window right now to push myself as hard as I can before I run smack into my next big real-world challenge (I start rehearsal on my first professional musical theatre production, which will consume me for two full months). As for Doctor Who, today was a fun little story and notable for a few different things.

I increased my speed on the treadmill today, and walked further than I ever have before in a session. So that was a victory. I also weighed in at well over 260 lbs, not so much a victory. I have definitely reached a point where I need resistance training in addition to aerobics, I just don't know how to fit it into my schedule. That being said, I feel great and even my 42's are feeling a little loose on me and require a belt. That's another tick in the victory column. Oh, and I watched the rest of The Ark in Space today and it was awesome.

My friend Michael Montoure, who is very possibly the biggest Doctor Who fan I know, recently said to me that "...Holmes/Hinchcliffe Who is the best Who." He's not wrong, and with this morning's workout I finally hit that incredible alchemy. Although the first story of the season (and Tom Baker's first story as the Doctor) had Robert Holmes as the new script editor taking over from Terrence Dicks, it was still produced by Barry Letts. He had produced the vast majority of the Third Doctor era, and he very much defined the look and feel of Pertwee's Doctor. With The Ark in Space production duties were taken over by Philip Hinchcliffe, and the thematic change is palpable.

Let's talk about that.

It was a rough day today. My wife and I stayed out way too late on a weeknight, but all in service to help prepare for and promote a show I am doing in a few weeks. The upshot, though, was that neither of us got enough sleep last night, and I definitely felt it on the treadmill this morning. On top of that, we are still wafting for an initial evaluation of the damage done to our house by Hurricane Irma. We almost certainly need a new roof, and that's not going to be cheap. But still, things could be worse. We weren't injured, we didn't suffer any catastrophic property damage, and we didn't have to face down a giant robot bent on the destruction of all humanity.

Speaking of which, let's talk about that.

Have you ever been apart from someone for so long that you have forgotten that you even miss them? And then, all of a sudden, there they are again and the years melt away like you have never even been apart? After nearly seven months of continuous daily viewing of Doctor Who, I finally got to meet Tom Baker again for the first time and it was magical.

Let's talk about that.

No joke, last night was straight-up terrifying. Hurricane Irma took a late turn to the east, and the eye of the storm wound up passing right over us. Even with the storm losing strength from traveling across the land to get here, it packed a real wallop. Hurricanes are freaking loud, and it is crazy to hear your own house creaking in the wind as debris flies by an bangs into things. That being said, we were very fortunate. We lost power for a grand total of sixteen hours. We lost a bunch of shingles from our roof, but maintained structural integrity. A portion of our fence came down, but I was able to repair it during the day today. We had some water intrusion through our front door (not from flooding, but from driving rain), but we have that all mopped up. There are trees down all over the area, there are homes and businesses destroyed, but we got away with nothing more than a scary night and some cosmetic damage. It could have been so much worse and I am grateful that it wasn't.

It seems somehow poetic that I started off the Third Doctor with the fireworks of the Fourth of July, and now I have finished him with a cataclysmic storm. The primary theme of the story's climax was all about facing your fears, and boy howdy did we do that. So let's talk about that.

As I write this, Hurricane Irma has made landfall in the Florida Keys about two hours ago. We are about seven hours away from the leading edge of the storm starting to reach us, and will be experiencing significant sustained winds for most of the night. I may or may not have power tomorrow. So, you know, I've got that going on. On the upside, I watched more of Planet of the Spiders this morning while on the treadmill and it was terrific.

Let's talk about that.

It is not lost on me that somehow coincidentally I am racing to the cataclysmic end of the Third Doctor era perfectly in tandem with Hurricane Irma bearing down on me. I watched the first third today, I'll watch the middle third tomorrow, and then the storm hits tomorrow evening. Will I witness the Third Doctor's regeneration on Monday as scheduled? Or will my world be destroyed just as the entire Universe is about to be destroyed onscreen? Time will tell. (Don't worry, I am as safe as I can be. I will probably lose power, the only question is for how long.)