Below is a list of hikes scheduled by my hiking club for August. I copied and pasted from the email into MS-Word 2010, to sort the list so that the Friday hikes came out grouped together, ascending by date.

Well, that's not what happened, and I can't figure out why.

First, here's the original list pasted from the email:

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Friday, August 1 Ixtlahuacan Loop

Tuesday, August 5 Salvaje Race Trail

Friday, August 8 Four Ridges (Traditional Route) Agave Ridge to Ceremonial Grounds)

Tuesday, August 12 Chupinaya Race Trail

Friday, August 15 Rubin's Milpa, Dancing Rock and Cuevas Indios (Exploration)

Tuesday , August 19 La Floresta > La Canada (Early Start)

Friday, August 22 Cierro Viejo Interpretive Trail

Tuesday , August 26 Goat Farm >Oak Forest > Ixtlahaucan

Friday, August 29 Chiquilistlan (Early Start)
===============================================================

Here's the list pasted from MS-Word before I sorted it. I made four slight formatting changes, getting rid of two typographical errors--the "space" before the comma on two of the "Tuesdays", which would have certainly caused sorting error, and changing two double-spaces to single spaces after the word "August".

===============================================================

Friday, August 1 Ixtlahuacan Loop

Tuesday, August 5 Salvaje Race Trail

Friday, August 8 Four Ridges (Traditional Route) Agave Ridge to Ceremonial Grounds)

Tuesday, August 12 Chupinaya Race Trail

Friday, August 15 Rubin's Milpa, Dancing Rock and Cuevas Indios (Exploration)

Tuesday, August 19 La Floresta > La Canada (Early Start)

Friday, August 22 Cierro Viejo Interpretive Trail

Tuesday, August 26 Goat Farm >Oak Forest > Ixtlahaucan

Friday, August 29 Chiquilistlan (Early Start)

===========================================================
Now, here's what the list looks like after sorting it. Sort by "Paragraphs" (there is a hard paragraph at the end of each line), type "Text", Ascending. Results are not as I anticipated.
===========================================================
Friday, August 29 Chiquilistlan (Early Start)
Friday, August 8 Four Ridges (Traditional Route) Agave Ridge to Ceremonial Grounds)
Friday, August 1 Ixtlahuacan Loop
Friday, August 15 Rubin's Milpa, Dancing Rock and Cuevas Indios (Exploration)
Friday, August 22 Cierro Viejo Interpretive Trail
Tuesday, August 19 La Floresta > La Canada (Early Start)
Tuesday, August 26 Goat Farm >Oak Forest > Ixtlahaucan
Tuesday, August 12 Chupinaya Race Trail
Tuesday, August 5 Salvaje Race Trail
==============================================================
Single spaced now, because all the empty paragraphs that gave the double spacing sorted to the top of the file. That was as expected. And all the Fridays sorted ahead of the Tuesdays, also as expected. But why didn't it sort the numbers following "August" in ascending order? Aha!, he said. Let's put leading zeroes ahead of the three single-digit numbers, that'll fix it.
==============================================================
Friday, August 08 Four Ridges (Traditional Route) Agave Ridge to Ceremonial Grounds)
Friday, August 29 Chiquilistlan (Early Start)
Friday, August 01 Ixtlahuacan Loop
Friday, August 15 Rubin's Milpa, Dancing Rock and Cuevas Indios (Exploration)
Friday, August 22 Cierro Viejo Interpretive Trail
Tuesday, August 19 La Floresta > La Canada (Early Start)
Tuesday, August 26 Goat Farm >Oak Forest > Ixtlahaucan
Tuesday, August 12 Chupinaya Race Trail
Tuesday, August 05 Salvaje Race Trail
===============================================================
Guess again. A couple of the Friday paragraphs changed position, but still not in ascending order by weekday, then by date. Aha!, he said. Let's try sorting it with a sort type of "Date" and see what happens. At least that will put it back into the order as seen in the original email.
==============================================================
Friday, August 08 Four Ridges (Traditional Route) Agave Ridge to Ceremonial Grounds)
Friday, August 29 Chiquilistlan (Early Start)
Tuesday, August 26 Goat Farm >Oak Forest > Ixtlahaucan
Tuesday, August 05 Salvaje Race Trail
Friday, August 01 Ixtlahuacan Loop
Tuesday, August 12 Chupinaya Race Trail
Friday, August 15 Rubin's Milpa, Dancing Rock and Cuevas Indios (Exploration)
Tuesday, August 19 La Floresta > La Canada (Early Start)
Friday, August 22 Cierro Viejo Interpretive Trail
==============================================================
Oh, yeah, that worked out real swell. Just one last thing to try. Let's sort it by "Fields" as the sort type. I'm guessing that the fields are comma-delimited, is that right? So I have two fields to play with: The "Friday/Tuesday" field, and the "August xx" field. That should give me exactly what I want. Shoulda tried it that way in the first place. First by field 1, then by field 2.
==============================================================
Friday, August 01 Ixtlahuacan Loop
Friday, August 15 Rubin's Milpa, Dancing Rock and Cuevas Indios (Exploration)
Friday, August 22 Cierro Viejo Interpretive Trail
Friday, August 08 Four Ridges (Traditional Route) Agave Ridge to Ceremonial Grounds)
Friday, August 29 Chiquilistlan (Early Start)
Tuesday, August 12 Chupinaya Race Trail
Tuesday, August 19 La Floresta > La Canada (Early Start)
Tuesday, August 05 Salvaje Race Trail
Tuesday, August 26 Goat Farm >Oak Forest > Ixtlahaucan
==============================================================
Well, not exactly what I was looking for. So, let's try reversing the field order -- sort by field 2, then field 1, That oughta do it!
=============================================================
Friday, August 08 Four Ridges (Traditional Route) Agave Ridge to Ceremonial Grounds)
Friday, August 29 Chiquilistlan (Early Start)
Tuesday, August 05 Salvaje Race Trail
Tuesday, August 26 Goat Farm >Oak Forest > Ixtlahaucan
Friday, August 01 Ixtlahuacan Loop
Tuesday, August 12 Chupinaya Race Trail
Friday, August 15 Rubin's Milpa, Dancing Rock and Cuevas Indios (Exploration)
Tuesday, August 19 La Floresta > La Canada (Early Start)
Friday, August 22 Cierro Viejo Interpretive Trail
===============================================================
Remember the big battle over whether the "Shuffle" feature in the empeg was truly random? Well, it looks like MS-Word can make a pretty good approximation of randomness with their Sort module. I've hit the limit of the options I can think of. I don't really care about the list, I can order it manually in a tiny fraction of the time I have spent trying to figure out what Microsoft is up to with their sort utility. But I want to know. Is it broken, or am I just not smart enough to figure out how to work it?

FWIW, these hikes we do are not sniff-the-flowers, look-at-the-birds nature hikes. We do them for the physical challenge, and they are indeed challenging. The attached photo is from a hike we did pretty much straight up the mountain from San Juan Cosala to the Sky Ridge Trail. Only two of us made it, because before the third person could cross "The Traverse" (it will always be referred to in bold italics, and nobody who tried it will ever willingly try it again) - anyway, before #3 could try it, one of the two dogs on the trip got a third of the way across, looked at the muddy footing on the 10 inch wide trail, the mud wall on the right, and the absolutely sheer 30 meter drop-off on the left, and sat down on the trail and would not move. The trail was too narrow to try and get past her, and we spent the better part of half an hour cajoling her with pleas, entreaties, threats, and dog biscuits, to no avail. Clearly she was the ONLY one of us with any intelligence. She was perfectly happy to retreat back to the beginning of "The Traverse", but no way would she cross it.

The picture is from a different part of the trail before "The Traverse" (that's me in the foreground), and was by no means the most difficult part of the hike. That hike lasted just under six hours, probably 1200 meters of elevation gain. Sometimes I think I'd have as much fun if I stayed home and beat on my toes with a hammer. But I gotta tell ya, even though I'll be 70 years old in a few months, I am in the best condition of my life what with the mountain biking, the kayaking, the gym workouts, and the hiking. I'm ten pounds lighter than I was in high school...

Life is good!

Now if I could just figure out how to sort a text file in MS-Word!

tanstaafl.