Workout Plan

This spring, I wasn't really motivated to compete in triathlons. I didn't have time, I didn't have much of the competitive spirit thing, and I just simply wasn't motivated. I was slowly building up my running distance without really noticing while helping Jill train for the Ironman. In that process, I decided that 1/2 Ironman isn't quite as insane as I originally thought.

So, I'm looking at doing something at the 1/2 Ironman distance around November. I'm still working out the competition plan to lead up to that, but I'm finally getting excited about the season.

I competed in the Chattanooga River Rats 4.5 mile river swim last weekend. I took 1/2 hour off my time from last year. The current was much, much faster and my hip flexors didn't cramp in the first 10 minutes of the race. Instead, my goggles filled with water in the first 200 yards. Water in the goggles is much easier to fix than cramping hip flexors.

Anyway, I'm going to try to keep this blog thing more up-to-date, specifically the list of workouts on the left. We'll see how it goes.

First Day

The first day of off-season found me very hungry and tired.
Tomorrow will be better.

Some of you will argue that yesterday was the first day of off season, but considering I was awake for a total of 8 hours yesterday, it doesn't count.

Easy week

I've been taking it easy this week--trying to let my body catch up on some rest, but it seems that the next few weeks should be good building weeks leading up to the last race of the season. I'm pretty excited.

I took a short trip (yesterday and today) to give a talk on the stuff I've presented at the last few conferences I've attended to a small group of people that have a lot of experience in the area. In the meantime, I got to visit with Kennet and his beautiful family. I even braved (and enjoyed) Mexican food for the evening (Mexican food--not something I've ever been really attached to, and I've had lots of mediocre to bad experiences).

Back to the grind tomorrow.

Realization

I didn't watch Beverly Hills 90210 the first time around, yet I was swamped with the overwhelming marketing of the show and tabloid exposure of the actors. I appropriately swooned at pictures of the cast. The guys were super-cool and the girls were beautiful--not just beautiful, but unattainably beautiful.

Fast-forward to the second round of 90210, which I refuse to watch on premise. Again, the cast, well, they're all beautiful. Also unattainably so, but in a different way. Jezebel posted these pictures and I was shocked at how "beauty" has changed in a relatively short time. Does the new cast look healthy? Ack!

And what happened to jeans and t-shirts??

List

I had a whole list of things that I wanted to get done today.
I managed very, very few.
I think I underestimated the amount of time and effort involved in "rest and prep for race".

Early morning tomorrow.

Fame

A few outstanding Olympians are still in the news nearly a month after the games ended. This means that some less popular sports are getting a bit more time in the spotlight, which is a good thing. The thing that irks me is that it seems that the only way our society knows to show appreciation to people is by putting them on TV. This would be fantastic if it was simply interviews and endorsements, but scripted television gets hokey and seems to be an option for at least one athlete (I put SNL and The Simpsons in a slightly different category). It would also be nice to see endorsements from these athletes at some point between Olympic games.

Why can't we let these people go about their training and outstanding athletic endeavors and keep them in the news and spotlight with better coverage of these sports in non-Olympic years rather than let them slip into obscurity only to be rediscovered four years later? I'd much rather watch fencing, track and field, swimming, water polo, or even equestrian events than baseball anytime.

Over my ringing earbuds

I was in an elevator the other day with my Bob Edwards show talking in my ears. I was using my earbuds. A guy got on the elevator and I could hear the music from his earbuds over the stuff I was listening to. I couldn't believe it.

A few floors later, another guy hopped on the elevator. He smelled of the back of the smoking room at the airport, where the glass has yellowed.

Fortunately, these guys weren't going to where I was going.

To complete the trilogy of extremes, the room I sat in for the next hour was frigid. Three out of five senses abused. Sigh.

Beer and Quiet

Why is it so difficult for people in semi-crowded places, such as a mall or an airport, to walk in a straight, predictable line?

I made my first trip (for shopping) to the big outlet mall nearby, Opry Mills. It's giant and obnoxious and right next door to the Grand Ole Opry. So, on your way to see the show, you go shopping and eat at the mall!! What could be more fun and American?

There wasn't an Opry show today but this was tax-free weekend in Tennessee so everyone and their many, many children were out in force, walking random lines through the mall and getting in my way.

I survived the experience, found a few things I needed and as a reward, I decided to have some ice cream. I stood in line at the ice cream place for about a minute before I gave up and went home where my reward was beer. And quiet. I think I chose wisely.

Update...I'm not really missing

Motivation is pretty low right now. I have several things to post, but no real motivation to do so right at this moment. A short list:

• Update on the Lenten Flashback series. I'll have to double-up, I think. Big question: Teenage years next, or continue with the cuteness?
• A playset found on Amazon that's making the rounds in the meta that I think I'm still obligated to post.
• A bartender with too much time on his hands. And a background in government contracting. What could go wrong? Or right?
• Feminine hygiene at its finest.
• Crazy triathlon workouts!
• Seems that there was something else....I'll have to reference my notes later.

Also, "Hi" to Logan who made his commenting debut recently. Glad to see you around!!

A little late for a vent.

It's a little after midnight and I really ought to be heading to bed, but thought that I deserved that giant bowl of ice cream after reading 8 technical summaries today. I only have two more to go and I think I'm going to knock those out before I actually sleep tonight. Otherwise, they will knock me out as I go to sleep tonight. Either way, there's sleep in the not-too-distant future. Yea!

In other news, I ordered some shoes a couple weeks ago, which were promptly delivered (I think I posted and I would linkie here, but it's a boring post and I'm too lazy right now). Unfortunately, they didn't fit. So, I'm exchanging them. It's a painless process, I send them the shoes via a printed UPS label that I stick onto the original packaging and they send me new shoes. Next day air (from the phone call, not the receipt of the original shoes). I was supposed to receive them today. Unfortunately, FedEx (don't know why the shipping company changed) decided that my shoes were much too valuable to leave on my doorstep even though there was no signature required. They tried to deliver at 2:30 this afternoon. Who's home at 2:30??? Do they just pay drivers to attempt to deliver stuff while people aren't home and hope we'll pick it up at the distribution center so they don't have to try any more? It's absurd. Leave the package on the doorstep. People who don't live here can't figure out how to get into the building. People who live here sometimes have problems finding finding their way after a long night out. My package (sent overnight with no signature required) will be just fine sitting on my doorstep for 3 hours until I get home from the office.

That is, if I can figure out how to get into the building.

End rant.

Exam Week

This was the first round of midterms for the semester. My professors seem to have conspired and put their exams on consecutive days, therefore making me a little crazy. Well, maybe not crazy, but definitely reclusive. So now it's Friday night and I have no responsibilities and a lot of tension to release. There's a bottle of wine open, steak and potatoes for dinner, and bad TV on the internet. What else does the internet have? Shopping--specifically, zappos.com. I bought shoes. Cute, brown Clarks with free delivery.

But wait. There's better news: they've already been shipped. Some person is standing around in a warehouse on Friday night making sure my shoes are in the mail right now. I suppose they're also making sure that I'll order from them in the future, but I'm really more interested in the fact that they were shipped within an hour of my ordering them. I'm doing a little happy dance. I'm just not sure if it's because of the week being over or the shoes. I'll blame the shoes.

WFA WTF?

All the news today seemed to be centered around the congressional baseball/steroid hearings and I got really frustrated at the fact that our lawmakers are spending time investigating something that really doesn't affect the general public and that there was so much media coverage of said hearings. I kept getting a mental image of the big, bad committee asking hard questions during the session, then scurrying around for autographs during breaks.

So, I decided to find out a little about the committee that's running the hearings, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to see how baseball fits with the plan. The charter, from the webpage:

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is the main
investigative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. It has
jurisdiction to investigate any federal program and any matter with federal
policy implications.

Okay. This does not help with how baseball fits with the committee, unless baseball is suddenly a federal program. We'll move on to jurisdiction (again FTFW):

The legislative jurisdiction of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform includes the following areas, as set forth in House Rule X, clause 1:
• Federal civil service, including intergovernmental personnel; and the
status of officers and employees of the United States, including their
compensation, classification, and retirement;
• Municipal affairs of the District of Columbia in general (other than
appropriations);
• Federal paperwork reduction;
• Government management and accounting measures generally;
• Holidays and celebrations;
• Overall economy, efficiency, and management of government operations and
activities, including federal procurement;
• National archives;
• Population and demography generally, including the Census;
• Postal service generally, including transportation of the mails;
• Public information and records;
• Relationship of the federal government to the states and municipalities
generally; and
• Reorganizations in the executive branch of the government.

Okay, so I'll stretch things a bit and go with public information and records. It's a stretch, but I'm going to assume that's where they're coming from. However, if we're going to make this argument, I'll say that they need to be talking to individuals from all arenas wherein steroid abuse is an issue. These are probably primarily sports, but definitely not limited to baseball. The talks should be talking about the effects of steroids on the human body (for the use of public information) not the future hall-of-fame eligibility of the individual in question. Let that question go to the MLB governing body.

In the meantime, the 41 members of the committee have (so far) spent two sessions (this go-'round) in this investigation. Even conservative calculations would show astronomical billable hours. From there, we'll go back to the committee's homepage, on the right, under "Key Issues", and point out the "Waste, Fraud, and Abuse" (WFA) link. Yes, friends, this is the group that investigates WFA issues.

It's the very definition of irony.

Big Week

Things have been a little hectic since my last post:

• Jeremy and I competed in the Div. I NAC
• I had a particularly bad neighbor on a flight
• I finished and defended my thesis(!!!)
• An odometer birthday was celebrated
• My apartment nearly caught fire
• I'm still working on a take-home exam

Before I get to (really) rest:

• I have to finish this take-home exam and one more (for the same class)
• Christmas shopping
• Two finals
• Drive to Indiana

Good things from today:

• The wetsuit I ordered was delivered
• Yummy Indian food at the research group pitch-in (first ever, I think)
• Thesis was submitted
• The apartment did not actually catch fire**
• The potential fire was not from my cooking
• Progress was made on the above-mentioned exam

**I expect there will be a post about the non-fire tomorrow after resolution with the maintenance people. In the meantime, all is okay. I was lucky I was home.

Up for air

This is a post for a week that seems to be trying to swallow me. I'm finishing up a take-home exam that's looking complete-able at the moment, then I get to start on two homeworks that are both due tomorrow (one, I just found out about yesterday--wishful thinking let me put off reality for a bit). The good news is that the rest of the week is less hectic than today and tomorrow.

That being said, I've been trying to find a sound clip from Babe (the talking pig movie). The scene changes had these adorable little mice announcing the "chapters". One is "The Way Things Are." As I am compiling lists of things that need to get done, I keep hearing those voices constantly reminding me that this is the way things are. Then I giggle a little and move on.

Okay. Back to work....

The Golden Ticket

I don't think much about baseball. Most who know me know that my take on the sport is that it's the best three minutes of action jam-packed into three hours of time found in the world of sport. The only exceptions are going to watch a game at a professional ball park and playing the game yourself. In those two cases, it's fine. Otherwise, absently reading headlines will suffice for me to keep up with the goings on. However, as some of these stories progress, they transcend the world of baseball and the headlines catch the eyes of even the most skeptical headline skimmer.

In the past week, two milestones have been reached. Alex Rodriguez hit his 500th home run and Barry Bonds broke the all-time home run record, hitting his 756th career home run. Good for them. Now comes the news. There are two guys out there who happened to be in the right place at the right time who caught the balls hit by these players on these particular at-bats. Walter Kowalczyk and Matt Murphy perhaps had dreams of catching the milestone hits, but probably knew that the odds were against them. Nevertheless, they caught the balls. Good for them. The thing that fascinates me is the discussion around these prizes and the burden that comes with having such a possession.

If a "normal" home run is caught, the catcher proudly takes it home and re-lives the day with their grandchildren (who will some day yawn and ask what "baseball" is). The individuals on these historic nights have bigger decisions to make. From the first, the procedure is different.

Mr. Kowalczyk:

"used his roughly 250-pound frame to protect his prize from a scrum of crazed fans Saturday.

He was retrieved by stadium security guards who took him to a suite to watch the rest of the game and then drove him home."

Mr. Murphy:

"emerged from a scrum of bloodied and bruised fans in the bleachers with the historic ball, which some memorabilia experts predict could fetch up to one million dollars.

The 22-year-old was hustled out of the outfield section, flanked by a squad of San Francisco policemen."

Ummm. OK.

To me, this sounds like the scenes in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" where the kids would find the golden tickets and would be accosted by the surrounding people, then have secrets whispered in their ears by "Mr. Slugworth". I'm sure now that these men have made it to the relative safety of their homes, they're being offered the world by people they never imagined would care about such things. I'm sure they have more friends than they ever knew.

While it's noble that the fans on these nights were able to give the TV audience a little more action during the telecast, it's a little frightening that grown people were "scrumming" for the ball. Granted, these men can directly profit from their labors by selling the ball to collectors. They could donate the ball to the Hall of Fame. They could give the ball back to the player. Or, best yet (and most unlikely), they could keep the ball, go out and play catch with their kids and grandkids for years to come, tell the story, show the video of their grand catch, and bask in the glory with family and friends. After all, before that particular ball was hit by that particular player at that particular time in history, it was just another ball.

Library

So, I walk into the library and say to the librarian, "Tell me how this place with books works."

She was very helpful, but it had been a really long time since I had a need to actually use a library with hard copies of stuff and I pointed this out to her and she double-checked to make sure that I had checked online for the stuff that I was needing. I realized that it had been a really long time since I've used a library, especially for periodicals. Fortunately, it turned out that what I was looking for had been archived and I couldn't have, even with full working knowledge of how the library worked, walked to the journals and gotten the stuff I needed. I had to fill out a request for stuff to be retrieved from some dungeon and delivered to the library (also underground), which should happen tomorrow.

It was just a very strange realization, with the library and all...

Clumsy First Attempt

Having considered the world of blogging for quite some time, the strong desire to procrastinate on homework has driven me to take action on this particular non-homework activity. So, here is the clumsy first attempt at posting to the page.