Potemkin Village

Potemkin is the name of the famous and almost fabled Russian village whose facade gave a false representation of its wealth and prosperity to impress the empress whom was passing through. Conversationally it is used to describe any idea/proposal/thing that does not have nearly the substance to support its presentation.  Movie sets are the best and most innocuous example I can think of.
I've known about this story since before I was 8 but the name was either never mentioned or never stuck.  I think I'm going to weave this into my conversational arsenal despite it probably needing an explanation. 

Running again

Started a running program (again) last week.  I've been tryingon and off for two months now but my co-workers kept bringing me diseases from all over SoCal.  Last week's schedule got interrupted by a mid week cold that left me shaky unitl the weekend.  So I've decided to restart Week1 again which consists of 60:90 second intervals of running:walking.  The program goes six weeks with ramping intensity to build endurance.  At the end I should do 5k in 30 min. Since a number of viruses like to play with my immune system if I get sick(again)  I'll just walk out the week and repeat it when I get better.

Fall of the Cakes, Rise of the Scones

Tonight I made scones. The times I've made it before the scones always came up kinda melty looking. I thought I over kneaded this batch (7+ folds) but it came out excellent. They rose tall with good form.  However, I can't be exactly sure which factors resulted in this.

• "Over kneading" may have strengthened the gluten enough to hold its shape
• Using a smaller pan and over-packing could have helped rising
• The oven was set 25 degrees lower, which I then ramped up while baking
• It took ~7 extra minutes to get brown on top

I guess I'll have to just play with it until I figure it out.
On the sadder side I made a buttermilk Chocolate cake from scratch last night. This was my 3rd or 4th time making this cake.  Every time I've made it it falls.  When I take it out of the oven it looks nice and tall but always cools to sadness.  Sites I have read suggested it may be no baking it long enough, opening the door or over mixing.  It's always so sad when it happens.  Does anyone have any advice?