This week’s rundown:

• Monday, Aug. 11, 2.25 miles
• Tuesday, Aug. 12, 6.75 miles

Total: 9 miles. More this week. I promise.

As I think about all of these branches, the complexity of such a project almost overwhelms me. I followed a couple branches in a brief interview with my mother, and came up with more than two dozen people. That covers just first cousins, my mom and her brothers and sisters, and my maternal grandparents. One thing quickly became clear: This project can be started, but never finished.

That got me thinking about scope. Where do I want to take this? The most important limb to follow for me, right now, runs through my maternal grandparents to their parents. Tracking down important names, faces and dates through that generation should keep me busy for a while.

I ordered Genealogy Online for Dummies from the local library with the hopes that it can offer tips to focus my efforts. I find myself asking questions like, do I need to keep track of relatives’ religious affiliations? How do I handle second marriages? What about children from earlier marriages? Hopefully, reading up can help me learn to track and file all of these kernels.

If either of my readers has taken on genealogy project, do drop me a line. Tell me about your efforts — what mistakes you’ve make, what successes you’ve had. I’d love to hear about them.

• Friday, Aug. 8, 9 miles

Better luck next week.

• Monday, July 28, 6.75 miles
• Thursday, July 31, 9 miles
• Friday, Aug. 1, 6.75 miles
• Saturday, Aug. 2, 4.5 miles

Grand total: 27 miles. Rock. On.

Which brings me to the next goal — running a 13-mile trial run for the half marathon I’m training for. I expect to do that sometime this month.

• Wednesday, July 23, 4.5 miles
• Thursday, July 24, 9 miles

Total: 13.5 miles. The 9-miler went well. It took just shy of 90 minutes, but I think the ol’ bod’s getting used to the stress of longer runs.

Surely, the outburst must have come from a sarcastic place. When it’s 80 degrees, I run with my shirt off — baring my pale, skinny, sweaty glory to the world. I doubt I’m impressing anyone. But, if it was earnest … um, thanks.

Ninety. Five. Miles.

Whoa! That one deserves an exclamation point. That’s about the distance from my home in Huntington Woods to my hometown of Saginaw.

• Tuesday, July 15, 5 miles
• Thursday, July 17, 11 miles

Total: 16 miles.

The 11-miler just kind of happened. I hadn’t planned it; I just started out that morning, and kept feeling more into it the farther I ran. To get to 11, I began with one of my standard laps around the neighborhood (a hair over 2 miles). After that, I cruised east into downtown Royal Oak, headed north on Main to Crooks, turned west on 12 Mile, and then headed south along Coolidge back to my ‘hood (a 6.75-mile course). Once in the ‘hood again, I did a little victory lap (an addition just-over 2 miles). Bingo.

Afterward, my calves burned. I stretched a bit, but the tenderness lasted into Friday. That’s it. Just Friday. I blasted past my previous best of 9 miles, and it didn’t tear me up. I’m so close to that half marathon, I can amost see the finish line.

Though I desperately need an organizational scheme, I find that my life doesn’t quite rise to the level of David Allen’s “Getting Things Done.” I’ve read the book, and like some of the ideas — particularly the concepts of simplicity and capture. I need a simple system to capture thoughts when I have them. Otherwise, they float away. If you’ve seen “Memento”, you get the idea. I’m not quite tattooing to-dos on my body (yet), but I do have a terrible short-term memory.

Which brings me to Zenbe Lists. The App does one thing well: lists. Create them. Share them. Email them. Embed them. As a bonus, the App syncs quickly over the 2.5G network. Mrs. Blocletters can update the grocery list or the Tar-jay list from her work computer (and eventually, her own iPhone). When I get to the store, I just need a couple seconds to sync to make sure I get the latest. As I check things off, another sync updates the Web site so she can see what I bought.

The interface defines intuitive and easy to use. On the iPhone, three taps get me to entering a new item in any list. On the Web site, it’s even easier.

Since I bought my iPhone last fall, I’ve used Notes for these functions. But, as others have written and I’ve mumbled to myself, Notes doesn’t sync anywhere. Sharing? Forget it.

So, Zenbe Lists fills a niche. It’s more feature-rich than Notes and still intuitive and easy-to-use. Now, as always, the only thing standing between me and organization is me.

I’m not a wine snob by any means. Nor am I particularly educated about wine. But, I know what I like. And I like Charles Shaw varieties from Trader Joe’s as much as many more expensive wines I’ve had. Plus, at $3 a bottle, I’m not going broke to support any kind of wine habit. I’ll drink to that.