The Ferris Files

What does it smell like in a wastewater treatment plant? Not as bad as you might think. A powerful chemical-detergent smell pervades, masking something the nose can’t quite identify.

Once through the door and into the innards of the Oceanside Water Pollution Control plant, our guide Catania showed us the “influent gates” where the first big [...]

I walked into the gym today to see the same-o same-o, Michael doing flyes and Betsy doing deadlifts, and oh my god, that guy on the treadmill is Barack Obama.
I put down my bag and immediately got on the neighboring elliptical trainer. Elliptical trainers are kind of dumb, but with the most inspiring presidential candidate [...]

At least one morning every week I run around Strawberry Point in Mill Valley, but on Monday the view of the San Francisco skyline across the Bay was marred by a spread of McDonald’s trash on the ground next to a garbage can. It was being dined on by an enterprising crow.
Normally I would have [...]

I am barely three minutes into the famous Dipsea footrace and though my lungs are heaving and my quads are burning, my mind is sharp as cutlery, having already drawn up and finalized a list of five reasons to explain why this race will end in miserable failure.
I have trained too little; I have eaten [...]

My girlfriend Anjali makes no secret of her desire to move with me to Seattle one day. This weekend we made a quick visit. While staying at her friend’s place in North Ballard I took an evening run down to Puget Sound, to see what I could glean about this place.
I plodded like a slug. [...]

Sometimes I fantasize about chasing a thief the way they do on TV. Would I really land him with a flying tackle, like I imagine? Would innocent bystanders turn as I shouted “Stop that man!”? Or would I chicken out and do nothing?
On Monday it actually happened, and I got to find out.
My client Melissa [...]