Runners' High

Back To Basics

2011-10-27T17:29:00.000-04:00

I’m going to start writing about my marathon training. I'm running the 26.2 with Donna. It's a sub-bucket list thing. I want to run a marathon before I have to do it as the final leg of an Ironman.

I’m in the middle of week two and it’s been pretty easy so far. I’m following a Hal Higdon plan, and there have been a bunch of three-mile runs with a five or six miler in the middle of the week and a long run on the weekend. I ran the long eight miler last Saturday comfortably. My goal is to follow the plan strictly. I’m trying to check my ego and let the expert know more than me.

There’s a cross-training day that’s in the program that I don’t know how to handle. Both riding my bike and swimming are pains in the ass, and get more uncomfortable the colder it gets – as opposed to running, which is the opposite.

Checking my ego is difficult. I’m seriously considering adding weights to my program. To be honest I’m not considering it all; I’ve decided to add weights to the routine starting next Monday. So everything I’ve written so far is just a bunch of bullshit.

I’m using my morbid obesity, narcissism, and my goal of finishing – not racing – the marathon as rationalizations to add weight training. I’m also deluding myself into thinking that if I do the running on top of the weights then the marathon will be a piece of cake.

I ran six miles this morning in a little over an hour. It was hot than the bitch. That’s what I get for being lazy and letting the sun come up. The best part of the run was that I didn’t shower (because I’m a bum) yesterday and the smell coming off my clothes after I finished could have been considered a hate crime. It was awesome. As I think about it, people seemed to be noticing as I approached to pass them earlier than they normally do. I thought it was because my music was loud, but maybe it was my parfum d’Apocalypse that was announcing my presence with authority. Good times.

Reggae And Close Proximity To A Wormhole

2011-07-17T23:08:00.000-04:00

I’m going to try to write tonight. This is going to ramble – I’m sure – because I’m listening to a reggae station on Pandora. It’s ranging from really early stuff about dancing and women to some hyper militant stuff from today. I’m really enjoying the simple rhythms. They’re hypnotic. They make me feel like I’m on vacation.

I’m counting this post as a response to a letter I received, even though I’m going to ignore what was written – fuck Rick Scott and Matt Weiner – and write about things both the letter sender and I find much more important. Star Trek.

Most of the Star Trek series are available for instant streaming on Netflix, which is fantastic. Most are available: TOS, TNG, Voyager, and Enterprise (aka Star Trek: We’re Grasping At Straws). Something is missing. A captain is missing, a captain with certain pigmentary (it’s a word, I just wrote it) characteristics that I happen to share – especially after skipping the sun block on today’s trip to the beach. Are they serious? How can they exclude DS9? Why not change their name from Netflix to Swastikaflix or JimCrowFlix?

Listening to this fantastic reggae – there hasn’t been a bad song yet – I’m imagining the Emissary (pbuh) sitting in his office while Jadzia ( not Ezri) Dax rolls a fat joint of some next level Gamma Quadrant Chronic, none of that weak-ass synthe-weed the Federation tries to pass off as the real deal. And since Ben Sisko wakes up every morning as Ben Sisko, he sparks that bitch up with a phaser set on We Cool. He schools Jake on how to take two and pass. Jake acts like he doesn’t know, but he doesn’t cough, so everyone knows it’s not his first rodeo. Major Kira has the major giggles. Worf is hypothesizing and philosophizing on the actual factual of the origins of the Cardassian/Romulan/English alliance with Chief O’Brien, and staring at Jadzia’s ass, and wondering who a Klingon has to kill to get some Cheetos up in this bitch. Odo’s turned himself into a steel drum and Nog is playing some Ferengi crap on him with no feel. Both of them are high from the contact. Dr. Bashir shows up late because he was altering some urine samples – Starfleet be hatin’. Quark becomes Worf’s brother when he shows up with Cheetos and Doritos. Worf hands him a fifty thinking it’s a five. Quark doesn’t say anything. A Ferengi gotta be a Ferengi , that’s the 1^st Rule of Aquistion.

There’s your TV show. Where’s my Emmy?

Kitchen Konfidential Has Inspired Me

2010-08-02T10:57:00.000-04:00

Anthony Bourdain
Brasserie Les Halles
Executive Chef
c. 1998

I finished Kitchen Confidential (Bourdain should have gone Mortal Kombat and spelled Confidential with a K) and now I’m bored. I hate the doldrums of summer between the end of the NBA Finals and the beginning of the NFL pre-season. I would start another book but Grammy is reading my next assignment and MJ is reading Tony Bourdain’s follow up. Instead, since there is absolutely nothing on television, I’ve decided to write. I think Kitchen Konfidential (professional courtesy) has inspired me. Tony Bourdain has been a favorite of mine for about two years. He’s caustic, angry, honest, and a good writer. Until earlier this week I had only heard him read little segue blurbs on his television show, but I knew I liked his style. Kitchen Konfidential confirmed what I had already believed. I was a little bit surprised by how much he’s mellowed over the last ten years, yet I still know that I’ve found a kindred spirit. Not that I ever wanted to be a chef. I worked for three weeks at a Captain D’s. Actually, I was employed for three weeks; I worked about a grand total of nine hours, and I hated every second of it. I hated that people would send fast food fish back as if there was any possibility of me doing something other than dropping what ever was sent back on the floor, back in the grease, on the floor again, and back onto the same plate. I hated the fact that EVERYTHING in a commercial kitchen is hot. I hated that I got burned every 30 seconds. I hated that it was actual hard work. I hated that I stank like grease for 18 hours after I left more than anyone has ever hated anything. The smell of ~~North Atlantic White Fish~~ cod (Captain D’s got sued for calling cod NAWF) doesn’t come out with a shower and it doesn’t mix well with Drakkar Noir. Fast food cook did not enhance my stunna status and so my career in the food industry came to an abrupt and immediate halt. Bourdain fell in love with his first kitchen experience. This is where we differ. I don’t know. Maybe I would have fallen in love with the restaurant business if I’d started working in the late ‘70’s when there were top notch drugs and morally suspect waitresses readily available. The drugs were available at Captain D’s but not the females, and the first without the second is nothing but a self-indulgent waste of time. I also didn’t like the guys I worked with. Not liking, or respecting, my coworkers seems to be a recurring theme in my work life. The only group of guys at any of the jobs I’ve had that I’ve liked enough to want to spend time with them outside of work were the guys I sold newspapers door-to-door with in Tallahassee. I think what was great about us is that we were basically the United Colours of Benetton: Rayford Pea Farm Edition. We were a rotating bunch of guys between 18 and 22 from all over the ethnic and cultural spectrum. The only guy older than 22 was Allen; he was 27. He was the manager and a quintessential Floridian. Allen was a Miami Jew Redneck. Everything about the way he looked at talked was Dade County Jewish money. He was perpetually tan. In the winter he used to like to see if he was darker than I was. He was covered in hair, except the top of his head – first person I ever knew on minoxidil. He had to decide where to stop shaving. I even bought, at the time, that he’d had his nose fixed because of a deviated septum. I don’t know if it was because he was a career door-to-door salesman or not, but he talked faster than anyone I’ve ever known. If he had been on the West Wing, Aaron Sorkin would have asked him to slow down. Everything about the way he lived was Everglades country. He fished everyday before dawn. His favorite music was George Strait and Merle Haggard, and I don’t think I ever saw him without a dip of Copenhagen in his lip. He could drink Mountain Dew out of a Big Gulp cup with a straw and not swallow enough tobacco juice to get sick. He had skillz. We were a crew of between 8 and 15 knuckleheads who terrorized Tallahassee apartment complexes selling subscriptions to The Democrat. We never made any money outside of the first few weeks of a new semester, but it was an absolute blast every night. This is what Tony Bourdain found in kitchens. Unfortunately for me, restaurant work is a little bit steadier than selling newspaper subscriptions door-to-door. I’m still looking for the career that makes me want to want to jump out of bed and get to it, to show up early and stay late because I love it and I have to do a better job. I want to work with people that don’t disgust me when I think about them, or make me want a boat so I could dispose of their brutalized corpses without going to prison. I want to work well with others, but “Prison rape is the only thing stopping me from beating you to death just to see if you can have some kind of honest moment of self awareness” doesn’t fall into that category. Until I find that career I’m going to continue writing – I never should have stopped – and I’m going to keep reminding myself that my life couldn’t be any better outside of work, and that’s a trade off that most people would willingly take.

No, I'm Pretty Sure That's A Dolphin (Please God, Let It Be A Dolphin)

2010-07-31T11:50:00.002-04:00

Taken With MJ's iPhone

Shark Week starts tomorrow on the Discovery Channel. We got a jumpstart here in Shangri-La. We went to the beach Wednesday afternoon and we saw something that we had never seen in our combined 100+ years of beach going. There had been a thunderstorm at the beach, which doesn’t happen nearly as often as it does just a few miles inland, and it did something to the tidal pattern – or something. I noticed something was off as soon as LMJ and I cleared the big sea oats covered sand dune and stepped onto the actual beach. There was a group of six or seven people standing just out of the water and staring out into the ocean. What made it weird was that two of the people were teenage surfers. Surfers don’t stand at the edge of the shore and look out into the ocean and they don’t talk to middle aged beach combers, especially teenaged surfers. I knew what was up right away but my brain refused to believe it. The dolphins I saw playing in the surf reinforced my denial. There were schools of little fish flailing around, which I’ve seen before, but I’d never seen a fucken shark (g. fucken s. shark) jump out of a wave and grab a mouthful of them. A minute earlier MJ had commented that the little fishies scattering like somebody had farted indicated that sharks were in there. Silly girl, ‘twas only the dolphins enjoying a playful snack. I already watch too much Discovery Channel, and one of the things I’ve learned is that dolphins “bark” at their prey like a death metal singer to stun them. The little high pitched squeaks that sound like a parakeet who got into Lindsay Lohan’s stash is them saying hello. I decided that the dolphins were “barking” the fish out of the water. I caught the surface breaching shark attack out of the corner of my eye, which allowed my denial to hang on, since I hadn’t seen it directly. It wasn’t a satanic demon beast from the briny depths; it was just a skinny dolphin whose tail had been twisted 90 degrees, and was filled with murderous rage. A few seconds later his buddy did the same thing tap dead center in my field of view. Some of my personal beliefs were destroyed in this instant. First and foremost: dolphins and sharks don’t hang out in the same place at the same time. In the history of stuff that’s wrong, that might be the wrongest. They seemed to be getting along just fine. One of the sharks asked one of the dolphins if he had any crab boil. Second: I thought only small sharks – 3 feet max – came in this far in this part of the Atlantic. The sharks I saw were a minimum of 5 feet, that’s with me factoring in my terror exaggerating the sharks’ perceived size. I had to go through a process of remembering that megalodon is extinct, great whites and tigers max out at about 20 feet, and the sharks I was seeing probably weren’t them. Still, 5 feet of evolutionary killing perfection is enough to give me pause. The worst part was that the water was really calm – Lake Atlantic – and if I had brought my goggles I would have ignored all the clarion warning signs and gone swimming (read: been bait). I would have followed the basic human logic of “It’s Never Happened To Me Before So It’s Not Going To Happen Now”. I’m glad that I saw the whole thing. It was awesome. I don’t know if I’m ever getting in the water again, but it was still awesome.

A Runner Is Born (maybe) or Who The Hell Is Cory Doctorow?

2010-07-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

I’m feeling frisky today and thinking about blogging again. Hopefully, this feeling will go away, but I’ve got something interesting to write about. MJ ran with me today. I enjoyed it a lot more than she did. She doesn’t really do “hot” or “hard” so I’m not sure what we expected from the run, but she’s also got some pitbull in her so quitting wasn’t an option either. We did my regular 5k: down to Memorial Park and back. I don’t know if starting a running career in the middle of July in Florida is the best way to start or the worst; I guess it depends on how one looks at it. The upside is that it will never ever be as hard as this again. The downside is that it’s insanely hot and humid and heat stroke is more a probability than a possibility. The run started with us each calling divorce lawyers because the black and bitter hatred was palpable, but then we started moving and my mood picked up. The run went about as I expected. MJ was hot and wanted to get the whole thing over with so she ~~complained~~ expressed her true suffering that I was going too slowly. She decided to set a pace that would get her home and out of the heat a little quicker – we ran about a ¼ mile at a 7:20 mile pace. Then her lungs said, “Wait, what?!?” I’m only joking about it because I did the exact same thing the first time I tried to run. I think everyone does. It takes a while to allow yourself to fall into a comfortable pace. Exercise is supposed to be hard. Anyway, I was just happy to have a running partner. I don’t think it’s going to be long before she can keep up with me, and not much longer after that before she’s dusting me. She’s a lot smaller than me, and she’s able to follow instructions much better than I do. I hope she’s caught the bug.

I was going to write about our run anyway, and then MJ found a website called “I write like…” where you can post writing samples and have them analyzed to find out who you write like. I write like some guy named Cory Doctorow. It’s funny how quickly my ego got involved. My gut reaction – never having read a word Mr. Doctorow has written – was who the hell is Cory Doctorow? I don’t write in iambic pentameter so I didn’t expect William Shakespeare to come up, but I was hoping for Mark Twain. I write about dark stuff in a funny way. At least give me Carl Hiaasen. I read Doctorow’s Wikipedia entry, and I just felt worse. He’s a tree hugging Canadian communist sci-fi writer, which is kinda who I am but not who I want be. Aside from comparing myself to the most celebrated American humorist ever, I’d like to think I’m a little bit more gangsta than a sci-fi geek from Toronto. Maybe I should go rob a liquor store. Where’s my copy of Blade Runner: The Final Cut?

I Didn't Drown

2010-07-10T11:41:00.006-04:00

I’m alive. I finished. I didn’t finish last. In the ~~infamous~~ words of our 43rd president, “Mission accomplished”. Sweet wounded Jesus that was no joke. My first impression of race day was that the bike makes everything a giant pain in the ass. It’s a pain to load. It’s a pain to unload. Next, is that there’s so much gear I had to bring along: the bike, the helmet, the shoes, the sock (I forgot one), the drinks, the gels, the sun block, the sunglasses, and the change of clothes. I showed up at 6am and because of having to get my chip, get marked in magic marker with my race number and age on various parts of my body, and having to stow my bike and all the crap I had to bring I barely had time to pee and get down on the beach.

Time is 100% perception. When MJ and I scouted the last race a month ago it seemed that they were starting the waves of swimmers rather slowly. This morning, as I was waiting to get in, it seemed that there was no time at all between waves. I can’t remember the last time I was this scared/excited about anything. They told us to go and I jumped into the water. I panicked about 25 meters in. I was so amped up that my heart was beating a mile a minute and I didn’t think I was going to make it. The thought that was in my mind was, “You can’t do this.” Fortunately, I kept swimming during my panic and when I reached the buoy to turn north I realized it wasn’t that far of a swim so I settled down. I also, and I think this was a HUGE key to me not freezing up completely, resisted the urge to find out if I could still touch the bottom. After that the swim was fun. The only awkward moment was deciding when to stop swimming and walk out of the water.

Soft sand is not fun to move through after a swim. I got to the transition area, which was a lot farther away than I think it needed to be, and tried to make the transition to the bike. I took my time putting on my shoes (without socks) and shirt and drinking some water and eating a gel. I reminded myself to keep my heart rate under 150 and set my watch. The bike ride was boring. The course didn’t go through a neighborhood it just went through a section of road that seemed to connect a bunch of neighborhoods. I was really surprised that I was passing people, but I was. The bridge was tough going up but a blast coming down. I got passed by a hot chick at the U-turn point and followed her for most of the rest of the ride. She was Ponte Vedra “put together”. Other than that what I noticed was how much more efficiently her bike was working than mine. She shouldn’t have been going as fast as I was in the gear she was in. I need a new bike, but I don’t have the $850 to spend on the “entry level” road bike I test rode last week. I honestly think I would have dropped 20 minutes off my ride if I had a good road bike instead of the dump truck mountain bike I’m riding. It’s no big deal, just a note. I passed her going down the bridge, only because she was afraid of the speed. I wasn’t. I was tucked over and trying to be as aerodynamic as possible going down the bridge. I got up over 30mph and tried to glide as far as I could. The transition area was only a couple of miles away.

I got off my bike, caught my breath, drank some more water, and headed out on the run. It was a tale of 3 different miles. The first mile was hell. I was trying to keep a steady pace and a steady heart rate. I knew if I could maintain long enough I would get used to it. I got comfortable about a mile in and cruised. I was very happy to be passing people, and that kept me going. The running course was just out a mile and a half and back. The “out” was under a tree canopy on the east side of the road in front of the 8 figure mansions. There was no tree canopy on the ghetto ass west side of the road in front of the not quite as high 8 figure mansions for the “in”. I felt bad for the people that owned houses on the west side of the street. It must be pretty embarrassing when people can see your whole house from the street - all 8 thousand square feet of it. I almost walked the last mile. The only reason I didn’t is because I wanted this sumbitch to be over, and I was still passing people. The finish line was around a corner so I was able to pick up the pace and look like I still wanted to be out there. I finished my first triathlon strong and that’s all I wanted to do.

The best thing about the triathlon was the support. It’s even better than the support at running races and I didn’t think that was possible. That’s before we get to JG, EG, and IG standing in the sun to cheer me on as I try not to die. There’s also no better sight than seeing and hearing CG, LMJ, and MJ cheer me on. MJ personally took 90 seconds off my time making the transition from the water to the bike with her encouragement and mere presence as I trudged through the soft sand. I know it was a Herculean effort to get LMJ up and out of the house in the wee hours to see me finish just before the awards ceremony started and I truly appreciate it. This was a lot of fun and my body isn’t torn up. I’m looking forward to doing another one, and I need to finish an Olympic distance before the end of 2011. No rest for the stupid.

Uh-oh!!!

2010-07-09T14:39:00.000-04:00

I picked up my triathlon packet earlier today and immediately crapped my pants. I don’t think I’m as worried about the race itself as much as the setup. The biggest problem is that they, the organizers, seem to be taking this thing kind of seriously. When I pick up my packet for a running race – even one as big as the Gate River Run, which is a huge national race – I tell them who I am and they ask what size shirt I want. When I picked up my packet today I had to show a picture ID and my USA Triathlon card. They put a hospital style wristband on my wrist that will get me into the transition area. The race starts in about 17 hours. I have to wear this thing overnight. I have to have my bike number on my bike before I’m allowed into the transition area. I want to know who’s trying that hard to cheat for the BFAST Sprint Triathlon. I think the winning prize is $500. The guy that wins this thing tomorrow will have ridden a $3,000 bike, so it’s not for the money. I think if I polled 1,000 random people fewer than 20 of those people would know what this event was – even after I told them exactly what it was – so it’s not for the noteriety. The only people that do this are in it for the love of the game. No one is trying to cheat. But I am nervous about getting my bike, and all the stuff that comes along with it, into the right spot without getting disqualified before the race starts. Where do I put my keys? I can’t carry them with me into the ocean, but I don’t want to get shot if I try to hand them to MJ at the wrong time or at the wrong place. If I can get situated and down to the water then I’ll be happy.

The lady that handed me my packet was also different from the packet handlers that I’ve dealt with at other races. If I go to 1st Place Sports it’s either a skinny teenager who’s a bit clueless or a skinny twentysomething who’s not quite as clueless. The River Run is a mishmash of regular people volunteering. They’re efficient but not necessarily racing the next day. The chick that handed me my packet and put my wristband on was in her early 50’s at the youngest, and had a face, hairstyle, and manner of a schoolmarm. Everything below the neck was Jillian Michaels. She was straight up yoked. I felt a little guilty because I could tell that she’d rather be doing some pushups than explaining stuff to some fatass n00b.

My goal is to finish, and I don’t care if it’s DAL. I plan on surviving the swim, resting during the bike ride, and jogging during the run. I want to keep my heart rate under 150. The race starts at 7am and if I had a time goal it would be to finish before 9am. It’s not that I want to go fast; I don’t want to give the sun a chance to get too high. It’s been really hot this week and I don’t want to get stuck running in 90 degree weather.

If I post tomorrow it means I survived, and we’ll be calling that a win.

A Father's Day Eve At The Beach

2010-06-19T22:32:00.005-04:00

It’s the middle of June. MJ’s out of school. It’s a Saturday. There was no chance that we weren’t going to go to the beach. It wasn’t all fun and games for me. I wanted to swim in the ocean as soon as I could to get a feel for it. My triathlon is coming up. I’m glad that I didn’t blow this off.

Swimming in the ocean is much different than swimming in a pool. The one thing that I didn’t expect – and didn’t really notice until I was done swimming – was how much easier it is to move through saltwater than fresh water. The things I did expect were much worse than I expected. I brought my water resistant watch because I wanted to time myself. I was all set to head out when MJ made me take it off because sharks like shiny things and she didn’t want me to get eaten. I thought she was being silly but I took it off. That battle wasn’t even close to being worth fighting.

After I was swimming I realized that being phlegmatic about shark attacks while standing on dry land and being phlegmatic about shark attacks while swimming in murky water are two very different things. The water was calm – a Lake Atlantic day – and I was never deeper than five feet, but I still haven’t seen the bottom. I had goggles on but couldn’t see more than 18 inches in front of me. I was also swimming alone, which is a pretty big no-no in the ocean.

This led to two instances of absolute butthole puckering terror. I don’t know how long I was in the water. Remember, MJ made me take my watch off, but I swam from about 6th street to about 10th street. Both instances happened the same way. I was thinking about how easy the swim was going, which somehow led to me thinking about how I couldn’t see and how I wouldn’t know if a shark was there until it bumped into me or bit me. I thought about how it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if the shark bit me on the leg, if it wasn’t that big of a shark. But a big shark could bite me in the side and eat my liver and I’d die right there – I GOTTA GET OUTTA THE WATER! All this went through my mind in an instant. The first time it happened I stopped swimming, stood up, took my goggles off and had to think about whether or not it was worth it. I knew if I got out of the water I’d never get back in so I kept swimming.

Strangely, other than the two instances of abject terror, I never thought about it. I thought about swimming straight and if I was splashing enough for MJ and how far fisherman cast their lines.

I got a fishing line wrapped around my arm. After I was done being annoyed – go find your own ocean a-hole – I felt kind of bad wondering if the guy thought he’d caught something. I swear I almost caught me a 230lb. Blackfish, but I was casting 60lb. test so I really didn’t have much of a chance. I also thought the waves would push me in and the swim back to land would be the easiest part. I was wrong. Undertow sucks.

I felt great getting out of the water, even if I was a little bit out of breath, and started the run back to base camp. I figured why not simulate as much as I can of the event. I’d never run immediately after a swim, and I was surprised by how heavy I felt. It wasn’t that my swimsuit was waterlogged; it was that I was much lighter floating in the water. I got used to the air not holding up as much of my fat ass as the ocean and cruised what I’m assuming was the ¼ mile run.

When I got back the whole crew was playing in the water. LMJ was wearing her brand new crab floaty and trying some kind of joint manipulation to get her mom to let go of her so she could swim by herself. She hasn’t been this comfortable in the ocean since before she could really walk.

After everyone was tuckered out from swimming and playing we were sitting on the beach and saw a whole pod of dolphins slowly making their way south. They were about 50 yards off shore or much closer to shore than I was when I was swimming. I can’t even imagine how much of a little girl I would have sounded like when I started shrieking if I had seen a fin pop out of the water between me and the shore. I’m glad that I was on the beach as they swam by because seeing dolphins (from the shore) in the wild is magical. The beach was pretty crowded and everyone stopped to watch them. It wasn’t just us.

As good as the dolphins were they weren’t as good as LMJ, who saved the best line of the day for when we were getting ready to leave. I was standing in the nonexistent surf when she came running up to me and said, “Daddy, it’s time to go home.” I asked her if that’s what Mommy said, and without batting an eye she said, “No, that’s what I said.”

100 % Beast Mode

2010-05-19T13:25:00.002-04:00

I planned on getting out before it got hot, but it was 78 degrees when I got out of bed at 5:30 a.m. Oh well. After breakfast I headed out to the Baldwin Trail to simulate the last two legs of the triathlon coming up. The plan was 15 miles on the bike and 5k running. I’d never done anything like this before, and I was a little bit worried. It didn’t slow me down though.

The best part about riding a bike is how quickly the miles pass, even on my albatross of a busted up mountain bike. I think it’s made out of uranium, which is a plus at night because it glows in the dark. The best part about today’s ride was the giant wild turkey in the middle of the bike trail trying to get his gobble on with a flock of hens. This thing was frickin’ huge, and he wasn’t the slightest bit frightened of me bearing down on him at 18 mph. However, I was a little bit scared of him. Giant birds are freaky. I gave him a wide birth, plus I didn’t want to harsh his gig. It’s a guy thing.

I cruised through the ride, jammed my bike back into the car, and started on my run. My legs and my heart – who rarely get uppity at the same time – both said “NO!” My heart rate never got above 145 on the bike. It never dipped below 160 on my run. I felt like I was waddling but I was determined to finish the run. I’ve got less than two months before the real deal, and if I can’t do this now, when am I going to do it? It was 85 degrees and there’s no tree cover for the first three miles on the trail. I was only going out a mile and a half so I was stuck under sun for the duration – and the crackling power lines. These aren’t the wires that squirrels run on in the neighborhood. These wires create magnetic fields that warp space/time and make kids who live near them retarded. There are new developments going up less than 200 yards away from them. I thought that was illegal. Anyway, I struggled with the run from beginning to end. Then I checked my watch and saw that I finished in less than a half an hour. I have no idea how I did it, but I dominated the slightly hilly course. Maybe the wires really did slow down time or shrink space. Either way, I win.

No One Said The Blue Lead Paint Chips Were Poisonous. I Thought It Was Just The Red

2010-05-14T11:38:00.000-04:00

For crying the f*ck out f*cking loud. It's 2010. Tobacco is bad. Inhaling smoke is bad. How could it possibly be good to inhale tobacco smoke? This isn't arithmetic; two negatives don't equal a positive.

Cat Stevens King Airlines

2010-05-01T21:36:00.000-04:00

I got an idea on the way home from the beach. I was thinking about Thursday’s episode of 30 Rock where Jack Donaghey was talking about being on a flight to Japan that showed Rising Sun. It was funny for a number of reasons (if you want to see the episode just go to hulu.com). The reason that got me thinking in the car was that an airline would never show Rising Sun as an in flight movie. It’s rated R for violence, language, and nudity. It’s also full of awesome because it stars Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes. Airlines are beyond milquetoast when it comes to their movie choices. My idea is to go the complete opposite way. I’m going to start a bargain basement airline that shows only disturbing in flight movies: Airport, Airport 75, Passenger 57, Castaway, and the pilot episode of Lost. If a plane crashes in the movie, we’re showing it. If someone has a fear of flying, that someone should spend the extra couple of bucks to fly on Southwest or Jet Blue or Pan Am. All of our pilots are going to be of Arab descent. This is your Captain, Habeen Mohammed bin Mohammed. This will do two things. The first is that it will help continue to speed along the healing process between Arab-America and the rest of America. The second is that it will be an opportunity for Arab-Americans to become glorified bus drivers. I’ve flown with Black pilots. The coolest was when American Airlines plane broke (SURPRISE! SURPRISE!) and we got switched to British West Indies on our way to the Caribbean. I was expecting Captain Montgomery Worthington, 9th Earl of Worthington and Duke of Doucestershire. Instead we got some smooth brother from Jamaica flying the plane. I’ve flown with women pilots. I’ve never seen or even heard of an Arab pilot, not even on Air Egypt. Hijackers don’t count as pilots. Anyway, scary movies, Arab pilots, bargain basement prices, and we’ll get you where you’re going on time. Safe but sound isn’t necessarily guaranteed.

We're on a 5, Everybody

2010-04-26T22:22:00.000-04:00

Driver 8 is taking a break to concentrate on some other things for a bit. I'm going to try to write here at least once a week.

More Tales Of Fatigue

2010-04-25T23:08:00.001-04:00

This is Sunday’s post and it’s still Friday. I’m no longer sitting in the seminar. I was really antsy and I made the executive decision to skip the next speaker. I don’t do REIT’s anyway. I’m writing this at my desk at home. My PC was out of juice and there was no way I was going to be able to have it with me and not be able to use it. When I got home the first thing I did was call my celly. It wasn’t in the car and I started to panic and have delusions of grandeur. I thought maybe somebody used some high tech car burglary tool to break in and steal my el cheapo phone. I was happy to hear my phone ringing when I called it, but that quickly turned into anger when I figured out the sound was coming from my laptop case, which I had all along. I didn’t forget my phone. I just forgot where I put it. I put it in a pocket that I never use for anything and I spent five minutes emptying my case looking for the stupid thing. I also found the Netflix video. It too was in a place that I never put videos. I have a specific place for them so I know where they are and I can drop them in any random mailbox I happen to pass during the day. I hate being tired. I stopped at Publix – instead of some fast food joint – to get something quick to eat. I got what I thought was a peanut butter Met-Rx bar. It turned out to be an apple pie Met-Rx bar, which wasn’t a bad thing but I didn’t notice what I was picking up because my brain isn’t working. I did notice that the worthless summbitches charged me sales tax for the thing. They never have before. It’s food. It’s processed but it’s still food. It’s not like I got a sandwich at the deli. I started to say something to the checkout lady but what the hell is she going to do? I’m clear-minded enough to know that throwing the protein bar at the assistant manager wouldn’t have gotten my question answered, so I’ll ask about it the next time I’m in Publix after I’ve had a good night’s sleep. On the bright side I’ve written for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so I can leave my computer at home while we go to Disney. Ha-Ha burglars. I’m scheduling this to post after we’ve gotten back. I win losers.

Southern Conundrums

2010-04-24T10:03:00.001-04:00

I am Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, your senior drill instructor. From now on you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be sir.

I’m still in the seminar and I’m writing this for Saturday’s post. Why not get it out of the way? I’m now surfing mommy blogs because the damn LFA network blocks all the gambling and porn sites. Dooce wrote a post giving her experience(s)/opinion(s) of calling people ma’am and sir. She’s from a conservative Southern Mormon family so that was the only way she was allowed to address elders. I grew up in a house full of hippies in communist Montgomery County so the automatic sir/ma’am was never stressed. I was more than a little bit shocked when we moved to the buckle of the Bible belt and every adult rated the automatic title. What I noticed was that since it was demanded it didn’t mean as much. Respect is earned not given. My first example of this was in my sixth grade class. On one end of the spectrum there was me. I respected Mrs. Greer by not being disruptive in class and allowing her to do her job, but she’d have needed something more vicious than anything I’ve seen on The Tudors if she wanted me to call her ma’am. That’s tied to the rebel gene in my DNA. On the other end of the spectrum were the future convicts and drug addicts who were the exact opposite. They thought nothing of Mrs. Greer or her time, but when they were getting handed their daily referrals “yes ma’am” and “no ma’am” were the order of the day. I’m going to try to play it by ear with LMJ. I know I’ll never make her call me sir. Daddy is just fine. I also know that “WHAT?!?” isn’t going to be an acceptable response when she’s called. She will respect my Athori-tah. I also don’t know what I’m going to do about the Southern familiar Miss or Mister [insert first name of adult]. Sometimes it’s just dumb. What if she needs to refer to ME? We’re doing tongue twisters now?

I'm Tired And Hungry. I Wonder How This Post Is Going To Go

2010-04-23T08:56:00.003-04:00

I didn’t sleep well for a number of reasons last night and I’m paying for it now. I’m sitting in a seminar listening to some dude talk about God knows what. The only reason I’m here is to satisfy a continuing education requirement. I could have gone to a session later in the year but I figured why not get it out of the way. I wish I had waited. The things I’ve forgotten so far this morning include the power cord for my computer, breakfast, and my phone. I left my phone in the car, which normally wouldn’t be a big deal but I brought my phone power cord to charge it and now I can’t. I remembered to drop off LMJ’s preschool application but I think I may have dropped my Netflix video in the drop box along with it. When this is all factored into my having to listen to a bunch of wholesalers drone on about statistical measures I don’t think they really understand for the better part of the morning just so I can get one hour of CE, my frustration level is being pushed to the breaking point and it’s not even 9 o’clock. These dirty summbitches didn’t even spring for decent breakfast. I don’t want crappy bagels from Einstein Bagel Bros. These a-holes want me to invest millions of dollars with them but they can’t spring for an omelet guy and a mimosa machine. Get me drunk in the morning, dammitt. This isn’t going to be a good day. I have that weird fatigue and caffeine buzz right behind my eyes. I’m sitting way in the back so my clicking away on the keyboard isn’t quite as rude as it would be if I was sitting up front. I’m thinking about moving up front. If someone has a problem with me, we can step outside.

A Thursday At The Park With The Baby Girl

2010-04-22T21:45:00.003-04:00

Grammy had to go to Georgia so I got the baby girl today. We went to an off-brand park on the Avondale/Ortega border, Stinson Park. I like to switch it up a little bit. Actually, the way we wound up at the park is kind of funny in a my-daughter-is-going-to-be-a-world-class-control-freak kind of way. I backed out of the driveway and headed towards downtown instead of towards the park. It’s just force of habit. I went a grand total of one block out of the way. I made a three right hand turns and got us to the park. No big deal, right? Wrong! She didn’t like how we got to the park. It was dead to her. I decided not to go to war with her about playing at a park. YOU WILL SWING ON THIS SWING AND YOU WILL LIKE IT! seemed just as irrational as her disqualifying the park as a suitable place to play because I pulled in the wrong driveway, so we moved on. Stinson Park was a lot more crowded than our neighborhood park, which was a good thing. My baby girl is growing up so fast. She was a little timid but she played well with other kids and put my mind at ease about her transition into school. There were a few funny spots. The first was when a little five or six year old girl was climbing a serpentine jungle gym while LMJ gave the play-by-play and the color commentary: “She’s climbing all the way to the top, Daddy. She’s very strong.” When the little girl climbed down LMJ gave her a round of applause. It was a little bit awkward for the little girl. LMJ figured if the little girl could climb this thing then she could too, and headed up. I had to put the brakes on because I couldn’t reach LMJ and if she fell she would bounce off this metal apparatus at least once and all I would be able to do is try to catch her before she fell the full ten feet to the ground. She thought I wasn’t doing anything but hatin’ on a playa. She also climbed a weirdly shaped ladder that I can’t describe (should have taken a picture) and got to the highest platform on a multi-plaything-slide-tunnel thing. She worked very hard to do it and was very proud of herself. The funny part was when a five year old boy was whining about not being able to climb this ladder that my not quite three year old just finished climbing, and his grandmother made him climb it. After he got to the top she thought he was fine and went to chase his more courageous brother who was headed for the river. The little bitch started to cry (I blame the Crocs). There was another little boy on the platform that had been playing with LMJ earlier, sharing an elephant ride, and when the little bitch started crying he tried to hug him. It was the sweetest thing. We had a fantastic day.

Au Natural

2010-04-21T21:31:00.000-04:00

My watch was magically out of juice again. I didn’t find out until I was downstairs and outside. I put my watch on top of the van so it could get a satellite sync and I saw “Low Battery”. I almost freaked, but then I thought about an article that I had read. It was about running without a bunch of techno-felgercarb. I didn’t go techno-naked. I still brought my iPod. I was a anxious not knowing all my current stats: how far I had gone, how fast I was running, how long I had been running, my direction, my heart rate, and the time of day. But all of that faded away after the first mile (I guess). It was strangely liberating to just go with the flow. I listened to my body and had a very comfortable run. The only differences were that I didn’t sprint the last 200 yards and I immediately ran upstairs to see how long I had been gone. I looked at the time on the cable box right before I left and I wanted to see if I had gotten back in less than an hour (I did). I think I’m going to run once a week without my watch, at least. Exact time is irrelevant unless I’m going to set a world record – and I’m not. I think my exercise life would be a lot simpler and a lot less frustrating if I stopped using my watch. I don’t need a heart monitor; I know how I feel, and whether or not I’m pushing myself. I’m going to try backing away from the tech stuff bit by bit and see if I can get rid of all of it, including the iPod. I don’t know if I’m ready to get rid of my shoes but that is a movement that’s becoming more and more popular. Running barefoot, or getting as close as possible, is supposed to help make the stride more efficient. We’ll see how long this natural phase lasts.

The Blades Of Vengance Never Dull

2010-04-20T22:40:00.001-04:00

This hasn’t been a good writing week for me. Nothing is happening. I’m working too much and so I’m not seeing anything. The most exciting thing that’s happened is that I can watch my Netflix through my Wii, and a bunch of Joss Whedon stuff is on. I never got into Firefly when it was on. I don’t think Fox pushed it very hard. It was a really good show and I’m surprised that Sci-Fi didn’t pick it up. I’m going to be done with it in a week or so and I wish that there had been more than the one season. Ron Glass is in Firefly. I don’t know if he worked between this and Barney Miller. I also found Dollhouse, which has been cancelled, but at least there are two seasons of it. I’ve always been an Eliza Dushku fan going back to True Lies – the Guvanator’s last good movie and the last time Jamie Lee Curtis was cast as a hottie. I know it’s not a good week when the limited amount of television I’m now watching is the highlight. Work has been keeping me too busy to exercise. I think that might be why I’m in a funk. I’m not releasing any endorphins. I would mention an event coming up but I read on the interwebs that I shouldn’t publish my comings and goings because burglars use the information to break in and steal stuff. Whatever, if the interwebs say so. If someone broke into our house it would be hard to distinguish between stealing and cleaning. This is all assuming this Ocean’s 11 team was able to get past the moat, the dragon in the moat, the Malaysian Tiger traps, and the gauntlet of hatred. And even if they were able to do all that they would never be able to sleep in the same place twice, lest they fall to my righteous revenge.

My Not Ready To Wake Up

2010-04-19T21:46:00.002-04:00

The baby girl has two distinct, vastly different waking up styles. One is beautiful. The other is kinda funny, and it makes it very hard not to mess with her. The first style is made of sunshine and butterfly kisses. She wakes up in the morning with this style. There are lots of hugs and “I love you’s” and “It’s a beautiful day, Daddy”. These make me happy and start my day off on a positive note almost every day. The second style is made of pure uncut Bolivian grumpy. This style appears after naps when she’s woken up instead of when she wakes up. I always keep it positive when I wake her up. I sing to her and I tell her how much I love her. Her response is always some variation of “STOP!” There’s “Stop! I don’t want to wake up” and there’s “Stop! That’s enough” and occasionally it’s “Go away”. Yesterday, I asked her if I could tell her that I loved her and she told me yes, because I should go back out there and stop talking to her. She dismissed me to the living room. It’s the cutest thing ever, and it’s really hard not to push her buttons. We need her to wake up so she isn’t going to bed at midnight, so I feel completely justified singing showtunes to her. She doesn’t like me singing “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” or “When I Take You Out In My Surry”. I have to be careful though. If I start singing too soon, before she’s given up on falling back asleep, she gets angry and starts kicking her legs. I feel bad that I think her feral rage is cute as a button, and I try to be empathetic. If someone was waking me up like that I’d have murder on my mind too. Oh well, too bad for her that I’m so much bigger than she is.

Protein, Carbs, Ruffage, and Conspiracies

2010-04-18T21:31:00.002-04:00

Today was much better than yesterday and I didn’t even leave the house. I take that back. I did leave the house to make a Starbucks run for dessert. Other than that I puttered around like a shut-in. The day started with an ambitious breakfast effort by MJ and Grammy. I don’t know what got into them but they decided to make eggs Benedict for breakfast. We all showed remarkable restraint, only having two eggs a piece, except for LMJ. She’s on some kind of Ms. Olympia bodybuilder diet. MJ scrambled up the leftover egg whites from the hollandaise sauce – there were like four of them – and added one whole egg and put it all on a plate for the baby girl. She loves eggs but come on. She’s not Gaston. Or maybe she is because she cleaned her plate and asked for more. I can’t eat only egg whites. They’re completely tasteless with a rubbery texture. I guess LMJ is just hardcore. The womenfolk had just started on a walk around the neighborhood when my parents showed up bearing gifts of bagels and cream cheese (and scones). We sat around talking politics for a while, and an idea I’ve been having coalesced into a fully formed thought about our president, his predecessor, and global conspiracies. I don’t take conspiracy theories seriously (say that 5 times fast) but this one I’m pretty sure is true, and it scares the living crap out of me. If I have some time to think it through tomorrow I may write about it. And if something happens to me, I don’t launder money and I would never kill myself. After my parents left and LMJ fell asleep I was able to watch some NBA playoff basketball. I felt a little foolish that my dad may have been at home watching Kevin Durant (the DURANTULA) have one of his worst games of the season after I raved about how unstoppable Durant is. I ironed all my shirts for the week. I had a salad with grilled chicken for dinner. I’m finishing this post. And I’m going to bed ready for tomorrow.

At Least It's Over

2010-04-17T22:41:00.000-04:00

Today was completely and utterly unremarkable. We had a very full day of getting nothing accomplished. Anything we tried failed miserably and opened up a bunch of new problems. The highlight of the day was a late breakfast at Panera and LMJ’s first drive thru car wash, which scared her a little bit. After 10am the day went downhill. The fail started when I took the van to get the oil changed for twenty bucks and was informed by the clerk that I needed to get my 30k mile maintenance done for $400. Sorry dude, I planned on spending 1/20th of that and don’t appreciate you trying to increase my bill exponentially. Fortunately for everyone involved, he mentioned it to me instead of trying to sell it to me. I got home, complained about the car, and had a crappy lunch. I took a subpar nap, which isn’t really a bad thing; it just wasn’t a great nap. After my nap we played LMJ’s new game, High-Ho Cherry-O. It’s a counting game with a bunch of hard plastic cherries that just isn’t very engaging. I tried to fix my bicycle tire. I’ve been looking forward to getting my bike fixed so I could ride the Baldwin trail sometime next week. It’s a 14 mile bike trail with no cars around. I may have to wait a little longer because the new inner tube I put on my wheel popped before I could even get it back onto my bike. I don’t know if I over inflated it or if it was defective because the pressure gauge on the new air pump MJ bought doesn’t work. I don’t think I over inflated the tire. I could still squeeze it with my hand and it’s supposed to be inflated to 100 p.s.i. Finally, it’s 10:40 and I’m still waiting for Farm Bureau Insurance to call me back so we can start the process of getting Grammy’s car fixed. Oh well, on the bright side, tomorrow can’t be any worse than today was unless I get diagnosed with cancer, and I’m not going to the doctor.

My Brain Is Pudding

2010-04-16T22:07:00.002-04:00

This has been a seriously messed up day. We woke the baby girl up early to help get her on a more reasonable schedule. It ended in unmitigated fail. She patently refused to take a nap, and how do you make someone sleep who doesn’t want to sleep – barring techniques that are illegal to local police. She finally tapped out at 3:45pm – 45 minutes after her supposed wake up time. I let her sleep for about a half an hour before I woke her up. I wasn’t going to be reading stories to a little girl at 11:30 tonight.

While I was dealing with a very tired, very stubborn two year old, Grammy called and offered to go get pizza for dinner. There’s a picture of her next to the word Godsend in the dictionary. Unfortunately, on her way to Moon River some chick ran a stop sign and there was a fender bender. No one was hurt but now there’s a brand new pain in the ass that we have to deal with: a jacked up bumper, two auto insurance companies, and a car dealer.

LMJ is trying to kick her sleep habit. We woke her up early, she got a short late nap, and none of it mattered to her. She was still wide awake at 9:15, like she’s going to miss something. I’m writing a stupid blog post and nursing a beer. I’m Keith Richards. MJ is either sleeping or reading a stupid book. She’s Janis Joplin. Go to sleep little girl; there’s nothing to see here!**

**I’m not sure exactly who’s reading this, but comments pertaining to the alleged actions and attitudes of a boy between the years 1973-1981, irony, payback being a pedigreed pureblood female dog, or the cathartic humor that is a large part of being a grandparent are unnecessary and unwelcome - .ed

Veto Leads To First Openly Gay President

2010-04-15T17:32:00.005-04:00

Governor Crist vetoed Senate Bill 6 today and there aren’t anywhere near enough votes to override it. I’m not feeling a wash of relief roll over me, however. Maybe it’s because of cynicism or my belief that Jeb Bush will reintroduce it a year from now after Crist is gone and Thrasher is governor. I have no faith in the fine, fine people of Florida. I also don’t have any faith in Charlie Crist. I don’t buy that he was swayed in the least by the plight of the special needs teacher that teaches one of his friend’s kids. He was painted into a political corner and vetoing the bill was his only option. He’s a lame duck governor and he’s going to get crushed in his senatorial primary by Marco Rubio. Crist was polite and cordial to Barack Obama and must therefore be shunned by the Florida Republican party. Vetoing this bill gives him a shot at winning the general election as an independent – see Joe Leiberman. Public school teachers will vote for him. They owe him. Non-wingnut Republicans will vote for him. Rubio is running on a standard “Conservative Values” Florida Republican platform, but he’s relatively inexperienced as a politician, and this is for the United States Senate not the Florida 111th congressional district. His Cuban heritage won’t help him as much as it normally would in south Florida because the Democrat running is Maurice Ferre – borinqueño and six term mayor of Miami. There could be a split and Crist might be able to run through the hole. This is before we get to business done while the possum crawls. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if deals have been made to limit support to Ferre by the Democrats if they don’t think he can win, figuring a moderate like Crist who owed them would be better than a young right-wing psycho trying to make his bones and might be in the Senate for the next forty years. The goal for Crist, I think, is to keep Rubio from winning a majority in the general election and causing a run-off with Ferre falling by the wayside. Crist would win all the Democrats' votes and the moderate Republicans' votes. If it gets to a run-off he could even come out of the closet and still win.

Stomach Knots

2010-04-14T13:28:00.001-04:00

This has been an interesting day so far. My mind is heavy with thoughts. They’re coming from everywhere but they’re all ending up in the exact same place: where should we send the baby girl to pre-school. The pre-school issue is just a loose thread of my sanity that I can’t help pulling and it’s unraveling everything. Actually, I’m not really worried about the pre-school. I’m going to be happy with whichever one we choose. There’s no bad decision to be made. My anxiety starts two years down the road when we have to choose an elementary school. My experience as a mentor at West Riverside, our tour of RPDS, and Senate Bill 6 have brought into sharp focus for me that I cannot send LMJ to a Duval County public school. But I also desperately don’t want to send her to RPDS. RPDS is everything we want in an elementary school with one massive exception: its borderline unconscionable monochromatic nature. I’d be surprised if 90% of the student body isn’t related three generations removed and most of the teachers are alumni (cue the banjos). I don’t want LMJ being the one funny looking kid throughout elementary school. One of three in a class is fine but she can’t be alone. It’s 2010 for crying out loud. My anxiety was magnified by reading the comments about Ron Littlepage’s take on Senate Bill 6. That’s a thousand percent my fault, and worse, it sent me stat searching for teacher salaries just to prove a point (I didn’t comment on the Times-Union page). On average Georgia pays $1,000 more than Florida to start and jumps 42% over ten years as opposed to Florida’s 30% jump over that period. I also looked at a stat called “salary comfort index” which compares the average salary to the average cost of living. Georgia is 3rd in the nation. Florida is 26th. This is before the What Have You Done For Me Lately To Make My Pimp’s Brother Neil Rich(er) bill erodes job security and morale. Atlanta is full of families that look like mine. Leaving Jacksonville hasn’t entered the transom of my mind in fifteen years, but now I’m actively considering it for LMJ’s future. Although there are a myriad – a plethora, if you will – of other factors, I can’t come up with a concrete downside for her. Leaving town is an absolute last ditch effort like jumping off the Titanic, and while the hull hasn’t been breached we’re scraping the iceberg.

Profanity

2010-04-13T22:35:00.002-04:00

I wore myself out swimming this morning. It had been far too long since I had been in the pool. I cut my workout short because I didn’t want to overdue it, and there’s nothing interesting about my swim to write about. I looked at a black line on the bottom of the pool, I rinsed, I repeated.

Instead I’m going to write about stuff that I read in the New York Times today. An interesting note about Justice John Paul Stevens’s retirement is that he is/was the only Protestant justice on the bench. Everyone else is a Catholic or a Jew. I have no idea what that means – if anything – but I find it an interesting bit of trivia.

I read five opinions of academics on why educated people use bad words. I thought they were all pretty close to the mark. The opinions ranged from sometimes people need a little extra umph in expressing an emotion to profanity as a rebellious social bonding mechanism. The same word is used by two different vice presidents in both examples. Dick Cheney used the F-word to let a congressman know how angry he was, while Joe Biden used the F-word to share a victory moment with the president. Profanity is used more in places that have thrown off the yoke of imperial colonialism. Americans and Australians curse more than the English do. Mexicans and Cubans curse more than Spaniards. I love bad words. There’s a poetry to profanity. That’s why people have a much harder time cursing in a foreign language. That’s why everyone reverts back to their mother tongue when they need to let someone know what’s what. The Govenator has been here for forty years and speaks great, if heavily accented, English, but he has maybe three phrases he uses in his movies. I would be surprised if he didn’t slip back into some German when he talks to Maria about the California legislature. I’ve been trying to learn how to curse in Spanish for years. I’ve got a book specifically for it, but I have no idea how it flows.

Actually, the book is about how the same words mean different things in different parts of Latin America and how not to get embarrassed trying to get a taxi to the airport. They need to come out with a dirty Rosetta Stone. I’d buy them.

Non-Spring Break Is Not As Much Fun As Spring Break

2010-04-12T21:31:00.002-04:00

It’s hard getting back into the routine. I like waking up at 7 a lot more than I like waking up at 5. I had a bunch of work to do so I couldn’t get to the gym today. I hate that. It starts my week off all wrong. I need to look at my calendar before I go to bed instead of first thing when I wake up. On the plus side, getting into the office early helped me be efficient all day long, but that doesn’t make up for missing my exercise time (or my nap time). Tonight was the first time in three weeks that LMJ got a chance to go to My Gym. We arrived early, which is a minor miracle. Trekking out to Mandarin at rush hour usually has us showing up right as the class is starting. I was a little worried when we walked in because I saw new coaches. New coaches suck. These two weren’t as bad as some other first timers we’ve had, but they didn’t have the gymnasium control that we like. Our favorite, Coach Jordan, was there but we think she’s some kind of assistant manager or something because she tends to delegate and spends a lot of time in the office. Despite my trepidations, LMJ had a great night. She tried a whole bunch of new stuff – everything that we asked her to try. She had her best separation time so far, which I didn’t think was possible without Coach Jordan in the active mix. One of the new coaches was a little bit pushy – as opposed to encouraging – and I thought LMJ was going to melt down on her. It didn’t happen. She sat there like a big girl and played with some alphabet jigsaw puzzles and avoided getting hit in the head with a jigsaw cutout hammer. After the class and after the shock of how much lighter it is at 7pm now than it was three weeks ago, we stopped at Whole Foods to load up on fancy yogurt for the week. I’ve looked at my schedule, and unless something changes overnight, I’m all packed for swimming and running tomorrow morning.

Great Spring Weekend

2010-04-11T20:21:00.002-04:00

Today was not busy but it was a hell of a lot of fun. We had bagels from Panera for breakfast and then headed out to the beach. The weather was just like it was yesterday afternoon so some members of the party were bundled up. A group of boys had dug a hole yesterday and didn’t fill it in (bad form). MJ decided to play hermit crab and move in. She and Grammy thought it would be a good way to get out of the wind. LMJ had a blast getting in and out of the hole repeatedly. I refused to get in because of my nostalgia from the Great War. I’m not getting in a trench. A po-po rolled up and asked us if we’d dug the hole. I said, “F**K YOU, MOTHEF**KER. I AIN’T GOTTA ANSWER A MOTHERF**KING THING!!!” and handed him my attorney’s card. MJ unzipped her sweatshirt a little bit, licked her lips, and asked “Is there a problem, officer?” He asked us to fill in the hole before we left because sea turtles are laying their eggs and it was more than deep enough for one to get trapped. This hole was dug by about eight boys between the ages of fourteen and sixteen with no females around. In other words there was a lot of energy available for the digging e.g. it was very deep and very wide. We started pushing sand back into the hole without a proper shovel. Grammy went to the van to get a proper shovel; I was using a bucket to pull sand into the hole, while MJ and LMJ enjoyed some Doritos. Damn, I want my union card. We did a fair job of making the beach sea turtle friendly, played for a bit longer, and then went home. We stayed at the beach a little bit too long because everyone was starving (despite the Doritos for some of us) so we decided on fried chicken for dinner and peel ‘n eat shrimp for lunch. I feel bad because all weekend long MJ wanted some peel ‘n eat shrimp but for some reason it never happened. We wound up having beanie weenies for lunch, but we did score with a proper brown and white Southern dinner with some fried chicken as the staple. I started this weekend as grumpy as grumpy can be, but no matter how much I try to hang on to it, my bad mood is no match for the beach. It’s been a great weekend and a great end to MJ’s spring break. Half an hour in the pool and an hour running tomorrow

Run. Bike. Windy Beach

2010-04-10T19:58:00.003-04:00

I’m pretty tired after a long day. It started with a run through Riverside – I’m back. I went early – for me, anyway – to take advantage of the cool weather. Running in 60 degree weather is a lot easier than 70 degree weather. I ran the same course this morning that I ran yesterday afternoon and pulled six minutes off my time. Basically, I took a minute a mile off my pace. I came home expecting to shower and immediately head to the beach but those plans got nixed. Instead of going in the morning we decided to go in the afternoon, after LMJ’s nap. To pass the time I ate hamburgers and watched a little bit of golf. Golf sucks. MJ said she wanted to go on a bike ride before spring break was over so I headed to the (new) bike shop to get an inner tube. It’s a miracle I didn’t walk out with a new bike. I started talking to the owner about my triathlon ambitions, and he gave me some really good pointers. It wasn’t anything I didn’t already know but it was stuff that I’ve pushed into the denial part of my brain. Stuff like road bikes are smaller, lighter, and faster than off-road bikes. He also took the time to insist that I show him my bike before he sold me an inner tube to make sure he was selling me what I needed. He wanted me to test ride some road bikes to see the difference, which was clearly a sales pitch but it wasn’t really. I like him a lot more than I like the other bike guy that I’ve been giving money to for the past three years. I can’t believe that I kept going to that jackass who always acted like I was inconveniencing him with my business. I kept going because he’s local and I try to support local businesses as much as I can. So is the new guy but I had to choose Riverside over Avondale – not anymore. We wound up skipping the bike ride so we could make it to the beach before the sun went down. It was a freezing 70 degrees so Grammy and MJ got bundled up and almost bought the baby girl some snow shoes. Seriously, they covered LMJ up in TWO sweatshirts and spent a fair amount of time on the beach making sure her ears were covered. We didn’t want her losing an ear to Jack Frost. It’s funny because I’m on the extreme opposite of the temperature spectrum and loved the windy beach weather. It was the first time I’d been comfortable all day. I really shouldn’t make too much fun of Grammy and MJ. Last winter I didn’t notice the baby girl was cold at the park until her hands turned pink.

Bucky Katt Has A Guitar. Your Argument Is Invalid.

2010-04-09T16:10:00.001-04:00

My computer is in Orlando getting fixed. I'm tired. I'm grumpy. I don't feel like writing. I may make up for this week ass post sometime later this year (or not).

Just Because I'm Paranoid Doesn't Mean They're Not After Me

2010-04-08T13:41:00.002-04:00

I’m writing this only to stop my screensaver from kicking in while a brand new virus scan runs – it also gets my post for the day out of the way. I’m thinking about blaming Steve Jobs and Apple for my computer woes. There’s some twisted mutant virus on my computer that my tech guy has been working on for more than four hours. The thing shutdown my virus software and Tom had to install some new program. I’m trying to resist asking him about this new program and if it’s better than the old program why it wasn’t installed in the first place. It’s not his fault. He’s even more at the mercy of large corporate bureaucracy than I am. I also ran the numbers for what I’m paying for this machine, and basically my own personal tech guy, and I don’t really have any room to complain. LFA gouges me on a bunch of stuff but not the actual computer. The advanced nature of the virus that’s infecting my computer is what’s leading me to blindly accusing Steve Jobs. I think Apple is flooding the interweb with these viruses to push people towards their products. I didn’t go to some freaky deaky website to get this virus. I only go to heavily trafficked sites that depend on that traffic for their income. If they don’t keep their site in order then people will stop coming to them. I know I’m cutting ties to one of my favorite sites because it’s the only one that I can think of that acted funny. It’s the premier MMA bulletin board. It’s a huge site with ties to ESPN, but it’s the only site that I frequent that even might be a little bit vulnerable to virus and spyware piggybacks, unless it’s the New York Times, ESPN, Fox Sports, Facebook, or Blogger. Those are the only sites, and sites within those networks, that I visit for non-business stuff. The virus isn’t even going after my passwords and personal information. It’s only dropping porno icons on my desktop. That’s why this has to be a conspiracy that involves some pretty sophisticated programming, and the only people who would gain from this would be Apple.

Broken Computer Day 2

2010-04-07T21:11:00.000-04:00

I still have tech issues

long run
pool with friends
good day

April 6 2010

2010-04-06T16:41:00.001-04:00

Another day, another computer problem. I don’t know what it is about this machine. I’m making this post short. It’s only serving as a marker.

• I have another computer problem
• We got a new tire on the van
• I missed my chance to workout
• Today has been a really busy day of nothing.

First Good Sweat Of 2010

2010-04-05T11:19:00.002-04:00

It got hot quick today. When I was leaving to go to the gym this morning MJ was headed back upstairs to get a jacket. That doesn’t really mean anything because she could be in Death Valley in August and if there was a breeze she’d want a jacket, but there was a chill in the air as I got in the car. That chill was gone after I drove two miles to the Y and got out of the car. When I finished my pushups and pull-ups it was hot. Just because the temperature was speeding towards 85 and I’m still getting over a cold and the air is four parts pollen, one part air doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do a couple of bridge loops. I had planned on running for 90 minutes and doing the elliptical for an hour. I would have gotten in the pool but geriatric aquaerobics dominates all but one lane between 8am and noon on Mondays. I decided on doing the bridge loops instead of going on a long run because I didn’t have any sun tan lotion. I figured that 45 minutes of bridges at least equals 90 minutes through Riverside. The 45 minutes turned into an hour because running up and down the Main Street and Acosta bridges is hard. Much, much harder than a long flat run. Thanks to the heat and the inclines I made the executive decision to skip the elliptical altogether. I wound up only running about five and a half miles but I’m about done for the day. I fueled up and hydrated the way I’m supposed to and I didn’t crash. However, Gu is disgusting. It tasted like orange marmalade (minus the bits of fruit) but finished like Triaminic. I ate it about two hours ago and I can still taste it. I have a strawberry banana one that I’m now afraid of. On the plus side my backpack dominates. I had room for three pairs of shoes, a change of clothes and all my gadgets. Now that I’m done, I’m glad summer is back.

I Might Be An Alcoholic

2010-04-04T18:27:00.002-04:00

Another Easter Sunday, another celebration of our Lord and Savior climbing out of Hell with family and friends and wine. (Side note: Word is telling me that whole thing is a fragment and I guess it is since it doesn’t have a verb, but it’s a complete thought. Maybe if I changed climbing to Savior’s climb Word would like it better.) Last year we had eggs Benedict and asparagus with my parents. This year we had steak and asparagus with my parents, and I had a bottle of Merlot. The reason I know what we had last year is because I looked at last year’s post. I’m doing that more and more. I’m using myself as a reference. Last year I wrote about building an animatronic zombie Jesus and Passover Land. I never got around to it. Grammy bought a bottle of Merlot to serve with Easter dinner. She also got some world class steaks. My mom playa hated on my dad and made him share his steak with her, something about red meat, cholesterol, and heart attacks. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was busy scarfing down my three pound steak as fast as I could before someone tried to take it away from me. I also was the only one to have any wine. It was a classic textbook situation. I had a two glasses with my steak and asparagus. The wine was surprisingly good. Everyone else had water or iced tea. Once we were done eating MJ and LMJ went to take a nap and Grammy, my parents and I sat around and talked about all kinds of things. We talked about politics and genealogy, and I had a third glass of wine and after that it would have been silly not to finish the bottle, so I did. Then I took a nap. I’m calling that a good Easter.

This To Shall Pass (Not Too Quickly I Hope)

2010-04-03T19:11:00.000-04:00

We let the baby girl sleep in today because she hasn’t been sleeping well and we were worried that it was starting to take a toll on her. She woke up at 9:30, just in time for a blueberry bagel. The late rise pushed the day back. We were planning to go the beach but instead of early morning, like we normally do, we got there in the early afternoon. Strangely enough, the beach was packed. When did the beach become popular on the first day of spring break? We drove around for an hour looking for a parking spot and we finally found one by ME’s condo. It’s in Jax Beach and we normally go to Atlantic Beach but it worked out for the best today. We were still looking for an open spot in the sand when we found (were found by) KI. What are the chances? This is where my day really started to pick up. KI’s husband SI offered me a beer. We sat there drinking on the beach, it was cool. The day got kind of funny in a schadenfreude way when a group of young guys started tossing a football in front of us. One of them had “This to shall pass” tattooed on his chest in big cursive letters. He was missing the second O on his “too” and there’s no room to add it. It was a tattoo. It’s permanent. We don’t know if anyone has ever told him. MJ blames the tattoo artist. I say buyer beware. It was a tattoo artist not an English professor. KI and SI left to dye Easter eggs with family but were quickly replaced by ME, her kids, and most importantly, her husband CE. My day picked up again when CE offered me another beer. We visited for another hour and a half before we reluctantly started home. This was a more than solid start to beach season. What began as a chore to find a parking space turned out to be one of the best beach days ever. Just like it always does, the beach reminded us of why we live here. I’ve always liked the sentiment of the proverb dude had on his chest, but I hope beach days will be an exception.

Yes I Want Some Cheese With My Whine

2010-04-02T12:36:00.003-04:00

Today is supposed to be Good Friday. It isn’t. I don’t think Jesus would have named it that. I think he would have named it F**ked Up Friday, and that’s what today has been for me. I still can’t breathe and I had a crappy bike ride that culminated with a flat tire. It was truly providence that I didn’t lose my shit and smash my bicycle. I don’t know if flat tires are something that avid bike riders just deal with or if I’m something special. It seems that every third time I ride my bike I get a flat tire. I hate that. I didn’t even get to ride ten miles. It was just a giant waste of time and energy. If I was riding off road I don’t think the equipment failure would bother me as much or at least I would understand it. I’m riding on public roads and sidewalks in nice neighborhoods. I don’t know why but I get the real feeling that the dude at the bike shop sold me some defective tires. I’ve always gotten a weird vibe from him. I think it’s best for everyone involved if I change bike shops.

As for our Lord and Savior, he had a much worse FUF back then than I did today. He was flogged, stabbed and crucified. That’s a really bad way to go. You just hang there until your shoulder muscles fail and then you suffocate. You also have to carry your own cross up the hill.
I remember a couple of jackasses in the early UFC that carried crosses to the octagon to show their devotion to Christ. They both got crushed. The second got his gonads pounded into fine paste in the most brutal display of violence I’ve ever witnessed. He’s been the punchline for almost twenty years. He’s MMA’s version of the Wide World of Sports “Agony of Defeat” guy. A couple of years ago a breakthrough in DNA testing proved he was a sadistic rapist and now he’s spending the twenty-five years in prison.

I don’t know what any of this has to do with anything other than me being in a bad mood on a twisted holiday. Merry Christmas.

Can You See Yourself In My Classroom Next Year, Johnny?

2010-04-01T21:07:00.002-04:00

MJ and KI worked themselves almost to death trying to be the best teachers they could be today. The first thing I heard from MJ this morning was “I’m so tired I want to vomit”. Good morning to you too, Sweetie Pie. When MJ got home she was on the verge of tears telling me about her day and the state of education. She and KI had spent the day planning the fourth quarter, which in my mind was dumb. When the great Senate Bill 6 becomes Florida Law Bend Over, the fourth quarter isn’t going to be for teaching the current kids anything new. They’ve already taken the FCAT. They have no further effect on their teachers’ incomes. For all intents and purposes they’re dead. The fourth quarter should be used strictly for scouting next year’s students and buttering up the principal or whatever administrator is in charge of next year’s scheduling. Teachers should stop doing the best they can with the students who walk through their doors, whoever they may be, and start recruiting like this was big time college sports. Sure, it may cost a teacher a couple hundred dollars in bribes to the front office staff. That money’s going to come back in blue chip test taking students, and blue chip test taking students mean ca$h. Now that I think about it, a smart teacher is going to make sure she’s the principal’s secretary’s favorite. I imagine it would just be a matter of time before there were a bunch of rules concerning recruiting students, and just like college sports; those rules would be circumvented or outright ignored, especially since money’s on the line. The fact that it’s going to be a relatively small amount of money – thousands of dollars to individual teachers as opposed to millions of dollars to corporations – will make the cheating much easier to rationalize. I’m so glad John Thrasher is on the job. /sarcasm

The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same

2010-03-31T21:13:00.001-04:00

I got stuck in the office all day today so nothing happened that was worth writing about. Since I was at work I wasn’t at the gym or running. I still can’t breathe, and since I have to write about something, I looked back at what I had written during this week last year. A lot has changed during the past year and a lot has remained the same. On March 31st last year I was whining about being stuck in my office. That’s not the least bit familiar. However, the exercise posts for that week, while similar in that I wrote about not getting to the gym, were about the pain of lifting weights: deadlifts and squats and whatnot. I had completely forgotten about that crap. I wonder if it will ever make it back into my routine or if it’s going to fade away with the rest of my youth. I honestly don’t miss them. Running is so much simpler and less painful. I also wrote a post this week last year about politicians ruining education with stupid top down policies written by evil people with ulterior motives. This year it’s Jeb Bush and John Thrasher. Last year it was Bill Gates and Barack Obama. It reminds me of a Joe Pesci line from My Cousin Vinny: Well, it’s either me or it’s them, but one way or another you’re getting f**ked. I honestly wish I knew what it was like to have faith in an elected official or at least not hold them – all of them – in bitter contempt. I don’t know which would be worse, but I know at least one of the following is the truth: they’re either all criminally incompetent and are trying their best or they’re all just criminals and are not trying at all.
Wow, that became a really negative post. On a high note, there’s an extended trailer for The Expendables online

Not Where I Was But Not Square One

2010-03-30T19:06:00.000-04:00

Discretion and business were the better part of valor this morning. My body told me to hold off a little bit so I did. I still can’t breathe. I went into the office early and got some paperwork done instead. Today was a beautiful and I felt antsy all day. I really wanted to get some exercise. MJ got home early and we all went to Starbucks. She went to get some grading done. LMJ and I went to walk around Memorial Park. Grammy went for some free coffee. LMJ and I walked up to the statue and I read the plaque for the first time ever. I’ve lived here for almost 30 years. I’ve lived within two miles of the statue for more than 25 of those 30 years. The park is dedicated to the memory of the veterans of World War I. You learn something every day. The time outside pushed me over the edge, and when we got home I went for a short run. Welcome back heat. Welcome back sunburn. Welcome back dehydration. I ran exceedingly slow and it was still a bit of a struggle. I ran 90 seconds slower per mile than I’ve been running. I’m proud of myself for keeping my ego in check and not trying to speed up. It was a good thing too. I sprinted the last hundred yards as I finished and then spent the next five minutes hacking like a mustard gas victim with tuberculosis. I feel like I want to stick a pipe cleaner down my throat and into my lungs to clean all the garbage out. I don’t know if it was a good idea to get out there today or not, but I’m glad I did – regretting things we don’t do more than things we do. The cold and inactivity have taken their toll on my body though. I only ran 3 miles but I can already tell that I’m going to be sore tomorrow. Oh well, nothing to do but burn through it.

Swim. Bike. Run

2010-03-29T16:18:00.004-04:00

I think I’m done with the cold to allergies transition. My energy is back but my snot production is still at wartime levels. I’m going to try to exercise tomorrow. My backpack arrived and it’s awesome. I went way overboard, but I couldn’t resist the price. People have climbed Mt. Everest with smaller backpacks. It’s definitely bigger than anything I’ve seen someone riding a bike wear. I don’t care. I’ve got a lot of stuff to carry. I’m going to start riding my bike to the gym: triathlon training, gas savings, I already bought the locks, cool backpack. I’m going to need to carry my running stuff that doesn’t overlap with riding my bike, all my swim stuff, my drinks, my energy gels, and possibly my shower stuff, depending on how pretty I want to be and if I want to take a shower at the Y when I’m just going to have to jump right back on my bike for the ride home. Tomorrow is going to be the first time that I’ve done all three phases in the same day. I should probably ease back into things but I’m not going to. I’m excited. I guess it’s going to wind up being 5 miles on the bike, 500 hundred yards in the pool, and 5 miles running. I’m not really adding that much to the routine. 5 miles on my bike is nothing. I may extend the trip home, depending on how I feel. I want to run outside tomorrow so I can see the true stats on my watch, but I don’t think I will. The pollen count is just too high. I think NOAA has it at infinity. The air is absolutely disgusting. I hope it rains tonight and sticks most of it to the ground. If it rains and I can get out early enough, before it dries, the plants won’t have a chance to fill the air up again.

Getting Carried Away

2010-03-28T17:15:00.000-04:00

I’m sick as a dog

My allergies have replaced

My cold. I can’t breathe.

However, this picture illustrates a new exercise program guaranteed to get results quickly. For the low, low price of a case of Heineken a week, I will let you chase my daughter around. Resistance training? We got that. She weighs about 30lbs. and she’s getting bigger every day. Cardio? We got that. She’ll run all day long if you’re up for it and even if you’re not.

Hold on, I’m getting a message from Corporate. NO WAY! THERE IS NO WAY WE CAN DO THIS! If you act now – operators are standing by – you can start this program for just a 12-pack of Heineken. Folks, I’m going out of business here to get you fit. I’ve done my part. The rest is up to you.

Obligatory Filler

2010-03-27T20:59:00.002-04:00

I just hit the wall so there’s a really good chance that this post isn’t going to make any sense. I hate being sick. I was feeling better and then BAM! I felt a wave of fatigue wash over me. The baby girl isn’t ready for bed. The kitchen isn’t clean. There’s basketball to watch, and I’m totally spent. I don’t care if any of that stuff gets done. LMJ can stay up and watch television all night as far as I’m concerned. We’ve got enough saved on the DVR to keep her entertained until tomorrow morning. As long as I’m in bed by 9pm (it’s 8:45 right now) I don’t care.

With the exception of the runny nose and coughing, I had a really good day. I got a load of laundry done. I read the baby girl some stories. I watched the first four episodes of The Sopranos, and I finished it all off with a steak dinner. The steak wasn’t as good as it was last week but it was still a steak so it was pretty good.

I haven’t exercised since last Monday and I’m starting to freak out. Did I mention how much I hate being sick? It’s not so much that I’m missing the actual exercise, which I am. It’s that this bacteria or virus or whatever is taking me backwards. I’m not just missing a week of gains. I’m having what amounts to a three week setback. I’m feeling better than I was two days ago, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s almost April and the end of July will be here before I know it. I tried to rationalize the lost week with the excuse that my tricked out backpack isn’t here yet so I couldn’t get started on my new regimen with bike riding mixed in. It’s all crap. I blew up during the River Run and I’m determined not to have that happen in my triathlon. There’s no place to rest in the ocean so I better be ready.

Florida Senate Bill 6, I'm In Jim

2010-03-26T20:00:00.002-04:00

A letter to the editor in the Times-Union got me on board with Senate Bill 6. Actually, it was the way the writer ended the letter.

If this bill is such a good idea, then have elected officials link their pay to the economic well-being of their constituents.

If foreclosures rise, unemployment increases or incomes drop, let that be reflected in the pay of elected officials.

If they can't fix the problems, then they should be held accountable beyond simply losing an election - after all teachers can be fired, too.

As Thrasher said, it's "about having the best and brightest."

LINDSEY C. BROCK III

Jacksonville

I’m willing to sacrifice public education and teachers – sorry everyone – in the short term because this new random accountability will fix government.

We’ll break government responsibilities – federal, state, and municipal – into three big categories: Economics, Education, and Security. Elected officials will have their salaries and eligibility to run for re-election tied to each category. Mr. Brock has already provided the framework for the economic section. I would only add a GDP standard: 5% growth a year and a bonus is available, 2 years out of 4 with less than that and the official isn’t eligible to run for re-election.

Senator Thrasher has outlined the education portion, but with the amendment that a third of his salary and career is now dependent on how public school students do on the FCAT, so no matter how many kids get vouchered into private schools, whoever is left will be the determining factor.

The third piece is security and Florida might not be the best place for a politician. There needs to be a 5% drop in violent crime every year. Convictions and prison sentences are not factors. The only factor is man’s inhumanity towards man, and it needs to be trending towards zero.

I'm willing to bet that this would push public education to the top of the priority list since it's the only thing that has historically fixed all of these problems.

This isn’t to punish the politicians; it’s to reward the true statesmen.

You Can Call Me Grace

2010-03-25T13:37:00.002-04:00

I fell down – hard. I tried to step over a stroller, which was lying on the ground, and didn’t. The world slowed down. I tried to free my foot to catch myself but I couldn’t. I think I tried to grab a chair on the way down because one was knocked over when I got up. I remember hitting the ground but don’t remember falling. I didn’t hit my head but I did bang up my whole right side. I don’t know how I landed on my knee and my hip but they both hurt. I know I braced myself on the way down with my right hand because that hurts too. All kinds of thoughts rushed through my mind when I came to my senses. Again, I didn’t hit my head but I don’t know how else to describe the different modes of my brain other than to say I came to my senses when I started “thinking” again. I know I didn’t hit my head because it doesn’t hurt and there’s no crater in the floor. I thought about how lucky I was not to have injured myself. I thought about how it never hurt this much to fall down when I was a kid, and it was a lot easier to get back up. I thought about how I need to lose some weight so there just isn’t as much mass colliding with the ground the next time I fall. I thought about how weird adrenaline is. I thought about getting a med-alert bracelet, and how difficult it would be for Grammy to have to lift my broken carcass off the floor, especially with LMJ giving both of us directions. If I had the med-alert bracelet the ambulance would come automatically and the paramedics could hoist my bloated behind off the ground. Mostly, I thought about how lucky I was that I didn’t spill any of my pizza. Bones heal, sauce on the floor is gone forever.

You Will Respect My Authora-TIE

2010-03-24T21:06:00.001-04:00

We started going to My Gym last June so LMJ could start learning how to socialize with other kids. Spending the large majority of her time with only Grammy and me wouldn’t serve her well when she finally went to school. She started out not acknowledging that other kids existed. They were poltergeists that flitted around the ether annoyingly but didn’t affect her playing. Sometime in the fall she moved on to considering the other kids like they were chimps, and that they would be much better suited in cages. She was also reluctant to do anything new with the coaches. There was a period of stagnation and I didn’t enjoy going as much. Part of it had to do with kids not progressing in straight predictable lines. Part of it had to do with some of the coaches we were familiar and comfortable with moving on to bigger and better things and being replaced with some off-brand scrubs. And part of it had to do with the Thursday day night class being a little rowdier than we needed - *cough, cough* bad parents *cough, cough*. Switching to the Monday class solved the last two problems. LMJ solved the last problem by coming out of her shell a little bit. She now says hello to other kids, and last week she not only bounced on the trampoline with another little one, she joined another little one who was already bouncing. Unfortunately (perhaps), she may have come out of her shell a little too much. To be blunt, she’s bossy. The other day there were kids who were significantly older than she is playing at the park, and she spent more than a little bit of time and effort yelling at them that there’s no yelling in the park. They paid her no mind, most likely because they couldn’t understand her. She was yelling in German. She went from shrinking violet to Der Führer in about a week.

People Getting Bent Out of Shape

2010-03-23T20:34:00.001-04:00

I don’t know if I have a cold or if my allergies are acting up. I have a sore throat but I’m not stuffed up and I’m not achy. I spent the day in my office so I didn’t get a chance to exercise so I have to write about other stuff. What’s taking up space in my brain right now is that people are willing to de-friend (un-friend) friends on Facebook because of healthcare bill related status updates. On the one hand, if you’re looking to cut ties with someone this is as good a reason as any. On the other hand, I don’t understand how someone’s opinion of someone else can be significantly affected by differing opinions on something the federal government does. If someone comments either way on Facebook I think they’re talking out of their backside. No one knows if the bill is good or not, but the cadology underscores a bigger problem in America. I figure that roughly 10% of the voting populace chooses who to vote for based on the candidates’ merits for the seats they’re running for. What I mean is that for 45% of voting Americans there is almost nothing that Barack Obama can do to lose their votes or a Republican can do to win them and the inverse is true for another 45%. I’m at the point of “Tool Up Or Shut Up”. If you’re not willing to kill your neighbor and his family or sacrifice yourself and your family then it’s just not that important to you. At least that’s how I live my life. Healthcare reform? Eh. Estate Tax repeal? Eh. Gay Marriage? I wish I was a divorce attorney. All this comes from a jaded cynicism like the world has never seen. George W. Bush was the worst POTUS since Grant, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Obama pushes him for that top (bottom) spot. I still get to run and spend time with my daughter so it doesn’t really matter to me what the government does. When my time with LMJ in infringed upon then it will be time to lock ‘n load.

Introspection

2010-03-22T16:43:00.003-04:00

Here’s a question: is reading a magazine in a store with zero intention of buying it stealing? I picked up a running magazine in Publix because it had three articles that I found interesting. One was on running barefoot, which was just a novelty to me. I can’t realistically run barefoot where I run. The ghetto ain’t a meadow (Nipsey!!) The second one was about pre-run stretching, also a novelty to me because I don’t do it. I don’t have time to warm up, stretch, and then run. I ease into my runs, my first mile routinely being my slowest, so that’s my warm up. The third article made me wish I had a photographic memory and made me wonder whether a magazine is the paper and ink or the information. I thought about buying it, but they were asking $4.99 for a 75 page mag that was 40% ads. Is you crazy?!? I’m not paying that, so I tried to memorize a twelve page article with charts, and I’m a little bit pissed that I’ve forgotten a lot of it. Since I was in Publix there wasn’t the weird and awkward pressure like there is in a convenience store, but I was still rationalizing about how much money I spend in the grocery store so I was justified in not buying the magazine, and how I was being environmentally responsible by not buying it. I wished I had a scanner or an unlimited data plan because I would have been emailing myself the whole magazine – minus the ads. The article I wanted was about specifically training for a 5k. Some of it was stuff that I’d heard before – time based training instead of distance based – but I’d never thought about training specifically for a 5k road race. It had a great training schedule, which I’ve forgotten, and so I’ll have to go back to Publix tomorrow with a note pad. I guess it’s not a moral question for me as much as it is a philosophical one. I learn something new about myself everyday.

T-I-R-E-D

2010-03-21T20:14:00.002-04:00

I’m exceedingly tired, and it’s not for anything approaching the concept of a good idea. I got out of bed to write my post last night and didn’t go back to bed until almost 1 am. Getting out of bed to write my post wasn’t the dumb idea. Getting sucked into Reign Of Fire was. The movie is dumb. It’s about dragons destroying civilization. It sucked when I first saw it on HBO however long ago that was and it sucked last night. I don’t know why I didn’t just go back to bed. I don’t know why I was breaking down Matthew McConaughey’s dragon killing strategies or the ridiculous amount of food a planet full of dragons that flit around like ten ton hummingbirds spraying “natural napalm” everywhere would need. I don’t know why I was offended when McConaughey beat Christian Bale in a fight. When the movie finally ended I asked myself what the hell I was doing. I slept in until almost 8 this morning but I didn’t sleep well so it didn’t really matter. I spent the morning doing laundry and getting the house straightened for my parents who were nice enough to bring some bagels and scones. I tried to take an early nap but LMJ also slept in this morning and wasn’t in the mood for a nap, and if she isn’t going to sleep then no one in the house is going to sleep. I wished that I had some absinthe to settle her down. After an extremely shortened nap, we made the Herculean effort to drive all the way to 5 Points to see EJG and JSG sing in a free Gilbert & Sullivan Chorale. LMJ always amazes me with how well behaved she is, although she may have been a bit rude during the Pirates Of Penzance portion. She asked her mother if she was sure they were real pirates. I guess it was a legitimate question; LMJ knows pirates – and funny. We all had fun, and I’m always blown away by real live people that can actually sing. (Un)Fortunately, tomorrow is Monday and I can get some rest at work.

A Bright Sunshiny Day

2010-03-20T22:44:00.000-04:00

Busy busy day today. We started with a bad night of sleep and getting up before the sun. The plan was to go to Panera for breakfast, which we haven’t done in a while. I’ve been making bagel runs for the past month or so, but today we dined in. It was great, as always. I had the sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich on an asiago bagel. After breakfast I was tricked into going to Target. I’m looking for a new backpack, and MJ thought I could save some money. I couldn’t. The Land’s End backpack is superior in every way to the Target backpacks, including price. Instead I bought another bike lock. I treat bike locks like they were paper napkins, but I’m determined to keep this one for a very long time. The lock and backpack are so I can start riding my bike around. It’s a part of my training that I’ve completely ignored. After the fortnight in Target, we went home and I started cleaning up the yard. I spent half an hour setting up some stupid leaf blower/sucker that was much more trouble than it was worth. I think the rake was invented two days after farming and 10 thousand years later it’s still the best tool to clear leaves. Grammy and I filled up about ten lawn bags. Then I had to run to the gas station because not only was the lawnmower out of gas, the gas can was empty. It was a massive headache, but I’ve finished the yard work for the year so I’m happy. Grammy went to Publix and brought home some New York strips. I cooked them on the grill and they were friggin’ awesome. A little bit of kosher salt, it’s just that simple. We ate like a pride of lions, gorging ourselves on meat, and drove out to Mochi for dessert. By the time we got home it was way past the baby girl’s bedtime, and all I could do is wonder where the hell the day went. It was a good day, and I’m really glad spring is here.

Turtle With A Weight Problem

2010-03-19T21:01:00.000-04:00

Slow and steady wins the race. I’ve been mentioning my weight loss periodically because it’s the only way I can stay positive about it. I have to remind myself of where I started so that I can see the forest for the trees. I think I’m like everyone trying to lose weight. I expect it to fall off in a steady predictable manner, and most importantly, quickly. Every week I challenge myself to lose ten pounds, which is ridiculous. That’s what people weighing 450 pounds lose on The Biggest Loser. I’m not one of them. I’m not morbidly obese and I’m not on a fat farm. Real life doesn’t work like that. I’ve also mentioned that if I was on that show I’d be an awful contestant. They’d have to change the name of the show to Jillian Michaels Biggest Sexual Harasser. Anyway, the incremental, snail’s pace my body fat has been taking has been nothing but frustrating. I run ten miles, I eat like a rabbit, and I lose a half pound. Fortunately, there are mornings like this morning. I stepped on the scale and broke through an arbitrary benchmark. It’s not even a round number. It’s a number that stuck in my head because it’s what I weighed when I got married. I’m in a lot better shape and I look a lot better than I did then, but it’s a weird number and it made me feel good about myself. It also means that I’ve lost thirteen pounds since the beginning of the year. Back in January I expected to lose a pound a day and to have been done with the weight loss a month ago. Like I said, I’m not on a fat farm and I’m not in a NFL training camp. Those expectations are absolutely ridiculous and I know that they’re ridiculous when I first expect them, but it’s like my Spanish professor used to say when someone asked him about a word, phrase or idiom: it’s not logical, it’s psychological. It sounded cooler when he said it Spanish.

Rough Exercise Week

2010-03-18T16:19:00.002-04:00

I hadn’t exercised since my late recovery run on Sunday. I just couldn’t get my schedule situated. I forced in a short run this morning and I’m glad I did. I could already tell the difference. I’m not as fit as I was last week. The difference wasn’t huge and it was compounded by the heat – 60 degrees is not 40 degrees – but I struggled more than I thought I would. I’m going to try to fit in a long run this weekend, heat or no heat. I don’t want to slack off in my training just because I don’t have any races coming up in the near future. I’m thinking about entering some, maybe one a month, just so I have a carrot. I’m glad my new tracking software displays my weekly and monthly mileage a lot more prominently than my old software does. I’m still 90 seconds a mile faster than I was at this time last year and I haven’t put on any post race fat. I’m still losing weight despite not having a chance to exercise much this week. Looking at it from this glass half full perspective, I’ve managed this “slide” week pretty well. I’m still not acclimated to DST, but next week can’t be anywhere near as difficult as this week has been. Plus, my schedule isn’t as full next week. I don’t have a board meeting and I don’t have any pre-sunrise client meetings. There shouldn’t be anything standing in my way of getting to the gym next Monday morning. I think I might get my bike set up this weekend and start riding to the Y. They’ve got a bike rack. That way I can ease into cycling time, which I’m not really looking forward to. I’m afraid of the traffic, but people ride bikes all over the place so I might as well do the Nike thing. It’ll save gas if nothing else, and I’ll be able to look down my nose at all you size 15 carbon footprinters.

Celtic Pride

2010-03-17T17:51:00.000-04:00

It’s St. Paddy’s day, and I’m lazy
The green beer has made everything hazy
But I refuse to slow down
Till passed out on the ground
Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah daisy.

A DST Bump In The Road

2010-03-16T19:06:00.001-04:00

I’m blaming today on daylight savings time. I’m not acclimated yet. I was all set to run long this morning. I was out the door. Then I turned on my watch and it told me the battery needed to be charged. These are the little details that are caused by an abrupt schedule switch. I swear it has everything to do with DST. I got plenty of sleep the past two nights but I’m just not sharp. I’m really bummed because I was looking forward to running ten miles, but I’m not running them if I can’t keep track of them. I probably should have, after all the exercise is the thing and not the numbers, but I wasn’t willing to. That threw my entire day off schedule. It was like falling dominoes. I’ve been dragging ever since. I could have gone to the gym but my motivation had been sapped and it wasn’t until I was taking a shower and getting ready to go into the office that they gym even entered my mind. Technically, I got to work early because I skipped my run, but my biorhythm was off so I wasn’t as productive as I should have been. Yesterday, MJ offhandedly mentioned that Tuesdays after DST kicks in is when she has the hardest time. I didn’t really think anything of it as we sat in a DST caused traffic jam on our way to My Gym. I was out in front of the malaise wave or I thought I was. Now my workout schedule is messed up for the week and I’m going to have to get a run in on Saturday. I don’t want to run on Saturday. I want to go to the beach on Saturday and stare at the sea. Oh well, there’s nothing to do but make the best of it. I can run tomorrow if the weather holds up. If it doesn’t I can go swimming, if I can remember my swim trunks.

Non Sequiturs For Christ

2010-03-15T21:04:00.003-04:00

When Jesus stepped inside the cage of life to take on the cross, human legs did not kicked his out from under him. It was not human hands that broke his arm during the arm bar of adversity. It was not a human fist that knocked him to the mat for our sins. It was not a human that kept him inside the triangle choke of suffering. It was not the fighter’s sent by Satan to tap him out that beat him.

God gave him strength while on his back being pounded in the face by the elbows of sin. Those same hands that formed the universe.

This made the early part of my day. After getting to work before the sun came up, I was dragging more than a little bit. I found myself staring out the window with my brain not working, and decided to take a break. One of the blogs I read put together his list of top 10 UFC sponsors that make him embarrassed to be an MMA fan. He has a problem with the low brow advertising towards what he feels is a high brow audience. I don’t know how high brow the MMA audience is, me included, since the basic premise of the sport is that there aren’t very many rules and the rules that do exist are only there so it won’t be illegal to show it on television. F**kin liberals. Anyway, the above quote is taken verbatim from number three on the list, a company named Jesus Didn’t Tap. I guess Jesus didn’t grammar check either. This is a real company. It’s not an internet hoax or skit. They sell a lot of crap too. I see ~~retards~~ people at the gym wearing their t-shirts. “The arm bar of adversity” made me chuckle. “The triangle choke of suffering” had me squealing like a dolphin as I tried not to disturb my coworkers and have them wondering what I was doing. I’m sure a few of them would have been offended because I’m sure a few of them wear Jesus Didn’t Tap stuff. Who the hell saw this “paragraph” and thought it was a good idea? Grammar issues aside, what does it mean? I’m not a theologian or a biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure Jesus was executed. I don’t think he lost a fight. God gave him strength while on his back being pounded in the face by the elbows of sin. Those same hands that formed the universe. What is a non sequitur, Alex?

It Got Late Early

2010-03-14T21:49:00.002-04:00

It’s 9:30 at night and I’m just sitting down to write. The time change coupled with a busy weekend is killing me. I’m beyond tired. It’s not the mimosa and 14 beers I had this morning with my ma’s birthday brunch. I slept those off. I didn’t really have 14 but beer in the morning is a wonderful thing. If Jacksonville had decent public transportation I’d walk around with a permanent three beer buzz. The River Run and birthday brunch were a blast, and I would do them every weekend if I could, but it’s Sunday night and I’m worn out. What’s worse is that I have a 7am meeting tomorrow. At least I’m going to make a little bit of money. I did really take a nap this afternoon, but it was a catch up nap because I didn’t take one yesterday after I finished the race. I woke up from the nap still tired and shocked that it was so late – daylight savings time. I moped around for a bit until MJ suggested we get out of the house for some exercise. We thought about going to the track but chose the duck pond instead. We had a lot of old bread. LMJ was the only one who got any exercise feeding the ducks, even the ducks were too lazy to swim over and get the bread. It was cool and windy and my mood wasn’t improving. Once again ~~Pablo~~ MJ had the idea of taking LMJ for a walk in the stroller while I went for a short run. I did my little three mile along the river thing and the run really improved my mood. I needed to do get the lactic acid from yesterday moving anyway and the endorphin rush was a bonus. I put a load of laundry in the dryer. My clothes for tomorrow are already ironed. I’m focused and ready to start training for next year’s River Run. It’s going to be a good week.

It Gets Hot Today?!?

2010-03-13T12:46:00.001-05:00

Well, I have mixed feelings about today’s River Run. On a positive note I finished six minutes faster than I did last year and had a fun, comfortable race. Everything else was further evidence of a cosmic conspiracy against me. It hasn’t been warm in three months, until today. The sun came out at about mile three and forced me to slow down after mile six. I passed the mile six marker at 58 minutes and some change, and I had to back off the gas. I could tell that I was getting overheated. It took me almost forty minutes to finish the last 3.3 miles, killing my race. That’s better than killing me, but I didn’t feel that way at the time. One of the reasons I got overheated was that I was wearing an ear covering headband to keep my ear buds in. I’m growing to hate my Shuffle. Not only was it a contributing factor to me blowing up, it stopped working right after mile six. I don’t know what causes it – probably sweat – but sometimes when I’m exercising it will spontaneously pause a song to tell me the title and artist, repeatedly. This is beyond frustrating, especially if an Iron Maiden song is playing because then it gives me the unwanted, already known information in Portuguese. I kid you not. I know Maiden is huge in Brazil, but so what. They’re English. As I was ripping off my headband ~~and looking for a storm drain~~ and congratulating myself for choosing shorts with pockets, I saw a guy on the side of the road messing with the mandatory ghetto ass timing chip every runner was forced to wear. I looked down at my shoes and saw that I had lost my chip, so I don’t have an official time for this year. I screamed a curse word. I shouldn’t complain too much. Everything went perfectly two weeks ago. Expecting this race to go perfectly was being greedy. I have a new personal best, and I had a lot of fun participating in something that’s special about Jacksonville – in a good way.

The Not So Calm Before The Storm

2010-03-12T22:19:00.001-05:00

Run comfortably, run safely, have fun. That’s what I’m telling myself as we approach race time. I went to the fairgrounds to pick up my packet this afternoon and started getting all amped up and nervous, like I had a shot at winning this thing. I had to calm myself down. I had to remind myself that I can run this distance comfortably and that I can cruise and still beat my time from last year, but there is no chance of me finishing in the money so I shouldn’t sweat it. I looked up last year’s results and more than 300 people finished in less than an hour. I can finish in less than 90 minutes but it would take an effort. I don’t know if I want to do that. I pushed myself last year and absolutely hated the last three miles. I’m getting too old for that shit. 95 minutes is reasonable. It’s almost ten minutes faster than last year and it’s allowing the process to work. I’m out there to have fun and improve, so that’s the goal. The expo was exciting, which was part of the problem. There were tons of people, all excited to be there. There were vendors giving away a bunch of SWAG. The shirts this year are awesome. They’re not just cotton t-shirts like they’ve been in the past. They’re actual running shirts. They’re neon green, water wicking, multi-layered, Lycra and polyester t-shirts. I don’t know if Adidas gave them a break on the price or if they wanted everyone running to wear theirs during the race because it will look fantastic on television. I’m wearing mine. MJ is worried that if everyone does wear the same shirt she won’t be able to spot me running in time to get any good photos. I’m not worried because I always find them, and I don’t care so much about the pictures. I’m all ready. My bib is safety pinned to my shirt. My chip is on my shoe. All that’s left is a good night’s sleep and a good breakfast, and hopefully a 30 degree drop in the temperature.

Steve Jobs Never Killed Anyone With An iPhone

2010-03-11T21:49:00.000-05:00

After a nightmarish two weeks I’m back up and running on my Lenovo T61, the notebook of champions. They replaced the motherboard after reimaging the hard drive. For all intents and purposes I got a brand new computer. I’ve almost got it set up the way it was before the crash, but I didn’t have to go through two years of trial and error get it that way. There are still some tweeks that I need to get right, like I can’t remember what my screen resolution used to be. It came back to me at the highest setting possible, but I needed a magnifying glass to see what’s written. I’ve been playing with it but I can’t get it quite right. I’m happy MJ had a computer I could use and I thank her for letting me use it, but I am thrilled to be off that thing. My cursor doesn’t jump around willy nilly. Web pages load in a timely fashion. Programs open up without any drama. It’s been a very good two days from a tech standpoint. I also got a brand new phone. It’s a Samsung something or other. It’s friggin’ awesome. It’s made out of Kevlar and Justice. It’s durable, which is the main reason I got it. My last phone, a Razor, replaced a phone that I dropped that had replaced a phone that I dropped. I had my Razor maybe two days before I dropped it on my cement driveway. The screen hadn’t worked properly in ages. My new phone is designed specifically for ~~klutzes~~ people who are hard on their phones. It’s got the camera, the camcorder, the push to talk, the GPS, and a whole bunch of other 3G stuff, but it can also stop a bullet at close range. The word around the campfire is that R. Lee Ermey used this model of phone to kill fifty Taliban last week. He (allegedly) dropped it in a sock, walked into a cave in Afghanistan, and let some terrorists know what’s up. HOORAH!!!

Is Hooters Open Yet?

2010-03-10T11:15:00.004-05:00

Isn’t this the way it always is? In the excitement of getting my computer back I skipped my morning trip to the gym and got to work before 8am – with nothing to do. I didn’t come totally unprepared. I knew my tech guy was driving up from Orlando so I brought a book. Unfortunately for me, I only had about 70 pages to go, and about 65 of those 70 pages were the climax so they went quickly. Now it’s 9:20 and I have absolutely nothing to do. I’m writing this with a pen on a legal pad. I’m about a hundred words in and my hand is already starting to cramp up. I’d go downstairs and buy a newspaper but I’d get angry if there wasn’t something interesting I wanted to read, and I don’t want to waste 75 cents or whatever a newspaper costs these days. The interweb has obliterated print media. I could walk across the street and get a Starbucks, but I don’t want a coffee right now. I’m still caffeinated up by my home brewed, and with the spring weather it’s not cold enough for a hot coffee and not hot enough for an iced coffee. I’m not hungry. I’m just bored out of my mind. I’d talk to other people in my office but they all suck. Where the hell is Tom? Writing longhand takes up so much space. I don’t know if I’m even going to get 250 words on a page. Not to mention this looks like it was written by the Unabomber if he had Parkinson’s. My desk is clean. That’s how much there isn’t to do here. I can get cable television in my office. I can lease a plasma from Lincoln. If the cable guy was here today he’d get to go home early. I’d order the “Hook Me Up” plan. I wouldn’t let him leave until there weren’t any channels I didn’t get. I’d be watching Elisabeth Hasselbeck scream at Whoopi Goldberg in Farsi on the Iranian broadcast of The View. This is so bad that I want to do my job, which brings us back to square one: I can’t do my job without a computer.

I Think I'm Done

2010-03-09T18:41:00.002-05:00

I got nothing. Nothing interesting happened to me today. The high point, or at least the most noteworthy point, of my day was having a conversation in the sauna with a bunch of guys about exercise and nutrition. I guess that’s a good thing considering that MJ is having some kind of relapse and I’m still feeling good. She doesn’t think she’s contagious anymore, unless she has strep throat. That would suck. Grammy also feels like she’s relapsing. I hope everyone is just a little bit tired and after a good night’s rest will feel better in the morning. I don’t need to get sick right now. Even LMJ’s nose is running, which I don’t feel is a big deal because she’s a toddler and toddlers make snot. It’s what they’re here for. I suppose another high point of my day is that my tech guy is bringing me my, hopefully working, computer tomorrow. I don’t know what I will do with a computer that doesn’t have a cursor with a will of its own. I’m curious to find out if they were able to figure out what was wrong or if they just ripped the guts out and started from scratch. Unfortunately, the one document that I forgot to back up was my four page list of user ID’s and passwords. I’m going to have a lot of fun spending the next two days trying to piece all of those together. Does the fact that the best part of my day was hanging out sweating with a bunch of naked guys mean I’m getting old? I’m wondering if I should just tap out now and change my name to Murray. I can start trying to send back soup at sandwich shops because it’s not hot. I already write about my aches and pains every day. I occasionally complain about things not being as good as they were 20 years ago. Yeah, I quit. I’m just going to be an old man from now on.

Persephone Has Left Hades

2010-03-08T17:22:00.003-05:00

It’s March 8th and it’s the first day of spring – and my Ma’s birthday. I love the change of seasons. I can always tell when the seasons actually change, as opposed to unseasonably cold or warm weather, because there are new smells in the air. I walked out of the YMCA after my workout and could tell it was spring. No one is going to miss the winter we just had. It was way too cold for way too long. I wouldn’t mind if the weather was like this every day, clear and in the 40’s for a good morning run and in the 60’s by noon. If the weather is like this next Saturday, that’ll be great. I think it was overcast and a little warm for last year’s River Run. I ran three miles this morning just to keep the blood flowing, but I struggled more than I thought I would. That’s what happens when assume things. I don’t know why I didn’t run particularly well, which is a problem. It might have been because I’m fighting off the family cold, because I didn’t warm up properly, because the temperature spiked a little bit, or I assumed it was going to be easy. Running is never easy. I thought about pushing myself and doing an extra couple of miles since I have all week to recover, but I’m trying to let discretion be the better part of valor. I’m proud of myself for just dealing with my “bad” performance. It’s only bad because my brain tells me so. I got my work in. I didn’t hurt myself. It’s time to move on to tomorrow. I made a whole bunch of mistakes during the week preceding last year’s race, and I don’t want to repeat them. I’m not changing up my training or my diet. I’m sticking to the schedule, which has worked great, and I’m expecting good results Saturday.

A Very Strong Finish To The Weekend

2010-03-07T20:12:00.002-05:00

Today was a good lazy Sunday. I spent today fighting the good fight against infection. I tried to keep my hands clean. If I needed to wipe my eyes I tried to do it with the inside of my shirt. I spent a fair amount of time outside. I didn’t run because today is a rest day. I had a lot of fun playing with LMJ, even though she’s walking around covered in a glaze of snot. My health be damned if it’s going to interfere with family fun time. We learned how to play Ring Around the Rosey. It was a big hit with the baby girl, with the spinning around and falling down and all. Mommy and LMJ got started early on a nap while I ate lunch and watched the first half an hour of The Spy Who Loved Me. It’s got to be one of the cheesiest movies ever filmed. It’s also one of my favorites. I won’t seek it out but if it finds me I’m going to watch. It was the first James Bond I ever saw. I remember it came on the NBC Sunday Night Movie in 1979 or 1980 and I got to stay up and watch it for some reason. That’s why it has a special place in my heart. Barbara Bach is also an extremely underrated Bond Girl. After I finished my lunch I joined my two girls for a Sunday afternoon nap. Sunday afternoon naps should be prescribed by doctors, talk about a wonder drug. No one wakes up from a Sunday afternoon nap and thinks, “Man I wish I hadn’t done that”. Someone might regret sleeping through the beginning of a football game or their wedding, but nobody doesn’t like the nap. We had pot roast for dinner, and finished the day with a family constitutional through the neighborhood and along the river. I’ve got no complaints.

I Need To Get Some Surgical Masks

2010-03-06T15:54:00.002-05:00

MJ, Grammy, and LMJ all have colds. They’re stuffed up. They don’t have any energy, basically the first part of a Nyquil commercial. I’m determined not to get sick, at least not until next Saturday afternoon. I was worried during the first part of my run this morning. I hadn’t planned on running at all but I couldn’t tell if my runny nose was just the run of the mill mucous that I produce or the beginnings of a cold. I always get hyper-aware of how I feel if someone around me has a cold. My plan to stave off infection is to sweat it out. I felt like I was struggling during the first two miles. It went away after that but I thought it might be the fatigue. I ran down to the Y and back again. It’s the same run I’ve been doing this week but starting at home instead of the gym. I thought I ran the exact same route, but somewhere I picked up an extra 2/10ths of a mile. I ran fast too. I made really great time even though I ran through the Riverside Arts Market and people wouldn’t get out of my way. I’m getting more and more excited about the River Run every day. I’ve trained harder for this race than I have any other race I’ve run. I’ve shaved two minutes off my mile pace. I’m running ten miles regularly, and more importantly, comfortably. I’ve figured out how to handle bridges. I’m actually looking forward to the Hart Bridge. I’m in the best shape I’ve been in since before LMJ was born. I ran great last Saturday. I ran better today. If I can stay healthy I’m almost certain to beat my goal. If I can’t stay healthy I’m going to freak out. I would have to wait a whole year to try again. That would suck.

A New Era Of Impudence

2010-03-05T20:47:00.001-05:00

MJ’s post has inspired me to make fun of my daughter. She’s going through a defiant phase and it’s inspired some funny phrases that MJ wrote about. There was a full on Morrissey episode earlier this week that I would have written about, but it came too late in the day as I had already posted. I don’t remember exactly what the situation was but it was late in the afternoon, the curtains were drawn, she was still in her pajamas, she was crying about something, and saying she liked being sad and didn’t want to stop crying. Since there are no more after school specials – or all after school specials, depending on how one feels about Oprah and Dr. Phil – I guess this story is going to have to be told on Lifetime. I have no idea who’s going to play LMJ in “My Two Year Old is Depressed”, but if they won’t let me play me then I think Idris Elba would do a good job. MJ will be played by Alison Brie, and since we’re in a fantasy world, I’ll have a computer that works. It was very hard for me not to laugh at the little girl in the pink fairy pajamas and pink booty slippers wandering into the kitchen crying about how being sad made her happy, and wanting drown her sorrows in rice crispies and milk. We also had a funny moment in the van today. We had just gotten home from Publix, and I was trying to get her out of the van. She wanted to play in the van. She had been begging for some chicken nuggets for about three hours, including the ¾ mile trip home, so I told her she wasn’t going to have any chicken nuggets unless she got out of the van. She flashed a look that was her mother and said, “Yes, my am”. She said it very matter of fact like she could conjure some up right there in the glove compartment. The only thing that made it funny ~~and didn’t lead to baby’s first beating~~ is that she got out of the van without another word.

Another Day

2010-03-04T17:17:00.002-05:00

I have to start paying attention to what I eat for breakfast. I thought I was being super healthy this morning when I chose to have a bowl of shredded wheat. I couldn’t have my normal egg sandwich because ~~MJ hogged the last English muffin~~ we were out of bread, so a big bowl of Colon Blow seemed like a good substitute. It’s chock full of fiber and vitamins. I hydrated and headed to the gym. I did 550 yards in the pool and ran 5.5 miles, the same routine as yesterday plus an extra 50 yards in the pool. I’m determined to be a dolphin before July. I took it easy on the run. I ran hard yesterday and didn’t want to risk hurting myself nine days before the River Run. I only wanted to burn some calories. I did a lot better than I expected, running only four minutes slower than yesterday. I’m happy with my consistency. I got back to the Y, sat down and my eyes went wonky. If I let myself get dehydrated or over-fatigued my vision gets weird for about twenty minutes and then clears up like nothing ever happened. Within an hour, the mother of headache’s granddad attacks my skull. They’re not migraines. They only happen in very specific situations, and water and Tylenol clear them up. If I take some drugs before the headache gets going I can almost avoid the whole thing, only leaving a headache echo. I thought that I had just pushed myself too hard, but then I remembered that I didn’t fuel up like I normally do. Frosted Mini-Wheats just don’t get it done like an egg sandwich. The situation was compounded by my running out of Gatorade, so I was another hundred calories short. Once again, my chronic CBS (Cheap Bastard Syndrome) caused me some pain. I could have stopped and bought a sports drink at Publix or out of the machine at the Y, but that’s my $1.49 or $3.50. I get to rest tomorrow, so the chances of me hurting myself are somewhat reduced. TGIF.

Till It Bleeds

2010-03-03T15:51:00.002-05:00

I think I crossed into new and unexplored levels of disgusting this morning. After a lackluster performance in the pool I ran 5.5 miles – decent time considering it was post swimming. Normally we just call that Wednesday, but instead of running on the dreadmill I ran outside. As much as I’m ready for spring, I love the cool weather for running and want to take advantage of as much of it as I can. I wore a tank top, which was a mistake for a couple of reasons. The first is that it was cold and the wind was blowing along the river. The second is the inspiration for this post. I got road rash in an interesting place. Don’t worry, it’s PG. The shirt I was wearing is almost four years old. It’s strictly a workout shirt. I imagine I wear (wore) this shirt once every ten days. That adds up over four years. It’s held up great, especially considering that it’s an Old Navy shirt that cost $9.99. The problem is that it may have held up too well. After four years of sweat drenching, washing, and drying, the arm pit area has acquired the texture of steel wool. I won’t get into the nicotine stain yellow discoloration that I ignore. After about 4 ½ miles I started to feel a burning on my side just below my armpit and the inside of my arm. I thought it was my iPod armband and I kept adjusting it during the last mile of my run. It wasn’t until I got back to the Y and took my shirt off that I figured out what was scraping off my skin. I couldn’t believe how gross that was. My horror was only intensified when I saw that I was bleeding. I think I have to retire the shirt and head back to Old Navy. As much of a cheap bastard as I am, I have to accept that getting four years out of a $10 shirt is a bargain.

Maybe The Germans Should Run Everything

2010-03-02T13:04:00.005-05:00

There’s a piece in this morning’s New York Times about how Alexander Hamilton and James Madison made some deals to establish the federal government’s fiscal position as it pertains to the states’ debts, and how something similar needs to happen in the European Union but it’s not. Just like it was 200 years ago in the US, certain members of the EU don’t feel other members of EU are pulling their own weight and those certain members shouldn’t be saddled with additional financial responsibility of backstopping those other members’ bad decisions. Specifically, the Prussians (Germany, Holland, Finland, and Switzerland) don’t want to help the Catholics (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) secure their debt.
The EU was a dumb idea from the outset. 21st century Europe is not 18th century America. A 3,000 year history of hatred isn’t a small factor. Yet putting aside those differences is the basis for the whole thing. These aren’t differences between naturalist English farmers/lawyers from Massachusetts and naturalist English farmers/lawyers from Virginia. Not everyone is even on the same alphabet, let alone the same page.
I’m sure that the Germans have a 3, 5, 10, 50, 100, and 1,000 year plan to ~~dominate~~ ~~control~~ ~~purify~~ help Europe achieve political, fiscal, and cultural unity.

END OF GLOBAL POLITICS

This is the solution Garmin sent me to fix their software

Dear Garmin Customer,
Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

We'll export all of your existing data, remove the data files themselves, and then re-import the data:
1. Please open Training Center, go to the 'File' menu and select 'Backup ""...'
2. This will allow you to save your backup to a convenient location. For this, I suggest saving it to your computer's desktop.
3. Close Training Center.
4. Go to your Start menu, and click on 'Computer.'
5. Double-click on 'Local Disk(C:).'
6. If you see an 'ProgramData' folder, double-click on it. Otherwise, follow these steps to view any hidden files:
a. Click on the 'Organize' menu in the upper-left area of the window, and select 'Folder and Search Options.'
b. Next, click on the 'View' tab.
c. Find the 'Hidden files and folders' section, click on 'Show hidden files and folders,' and then click on 'OK.'
You should now see a 'ProgramData' folder in the window. Double-click this folder to view the contents.
7. Now you should see a 'GARMIN' folder. Double-click this folder.
8. Inside, there will be a 'Training Center' folder. Right-click the folder and then choose 'Cut.'
9. Right-click anywhere on your computer's desktop (the background picture), and choose 'Paste.'
10. Once the data is moved to your desktop, try starting Training Center. It should open without an error. Set up a new account, and then we can import the original data.
11. Go to the 'File' menu, and select 'Restore...'
12. In the window that appears, select the backup file you saved in step 2. This will import all of your original data.
13. Once this is done, try importing any new history from your GPS.

Great! Only a 13 step process to fix a bug in their software that's not much more than a glorified spreadsheet. I'm going with the 3rd party program that avid runners use and is free. Thanks though.

Technical Difficulties

2010-03-01T16:10:00.002-05:00

I’m not having a good year when it comes to my technology. I’ve written about my computer’s demise and having to use MJ’s abacus. I’ve written about my iPod dying. It’s just a dead battery but replacing the battery is as expensive as replacing the whole device. I got a Shuffle for Christmas, but that’s just a straight up scam by Apple. Microsoft takes unending ridicule for putting out subpar products and deservedly so, but the Shuffle is every bit as crappy as anything Microsoft puts out. I’ve had a series of problems with my Shuffle since day one. The earphones are poorly designed. The controls have never worked. After my bitching about it on here, EJG and JSG generously gave me an adapter that was good for about fifty miles, but unfortunately has fallen apart. I’m not Usain Bolt. I’m not fighting MMA. I run ten minute miles in sunny weather on flat ground. Why do I have to spend $100 on earphones just to be active? My newest gremlin is in my watch software. Garmin asked me to update the tracking program – which everyone in the running community says is worthless – only to have it stop working. I plug in my watch, my data – part of it anyway – transfers, I close the program, and I get an error message that tells me I need to email Garmin a bunch of technical tl/dr. All my data from the date of the update forward is erased for some reason when the program closes. If I can’t track my stuff then there’s no reason to do any of it. I emailed the crap they asked for last Thursday. I haven’t gotten a response from Garmin, not even an automated “we got your email” email, and my email tells me it went through. Nice customer service. It’s not like Garmin is some dude working out of his garage. They’re the personal GPS industry leader. If you have a GPS in your car, factory or after market, Garmin probably made it. Why don’t they know how their watch works? Can the apocalypse hurry up and get here so I won’t have to deal with any of this anymore, please?

The Cult Of Personality

2010-02-28T17:36:00.003-05:00

What is it about some people? There are those that command attention when they walk into a room. They have a certain je ne sais quoi. I don’t mean the doofus who shows up at the party naked. I mean the person that just has “it”. Most presidents have it. Obama, W, Clinton, and Reagan definitely had it. Sarah Palin has it. It trumps her lack of synaptic efficiency. It’s why Julia Roberts makes about three times as much money as Meryl Streep for a movie. Unfortunately, for me anyway, Tim Tebow is one of these guys. I’m watching the NFL combine – aka the underwear Olympics – and Tebow is dominating the attention. He’s not doing anything to draw attention to himself. He’s running as fast as he can. He’s jumping as high as he can, just like every other NFL hopeful in Indianapolis. But for some reason the announcers can’t stop talking about him and the cameras can’t stop finding him. He’s the corn fed handsomness. Right now there’s a commercial about Myron Rolle. I should care about him more than Tim Tebow. He’s a Negro; I’m a Black militant racist. He’s a Seminole. He’s a Rhodes Scholar. I don’t care. I timed my bathroom break so I wouldn’t miss Tebow running his 40 yard dash. I should be watching the USA playing Canada in the gold medal hockey game. Instead I’m watching Tebow stretch. The camera is on him stretching instead of whatever non-Tebow player is actually running the 40 yard dash. I can see the dude running in the background. I’ve done nothing but ~~hate on~~ objectively evaluate Tebow for the last four years. I discount his college accomplishments because he went to a football factory. I discount his leadership skills for the same reason. If the Jaguars draft him in the first round I’m going to be pissed. If they let him fall past the third round and he goes to another team I’m going to be pissed. He’s another Heisman and national championship winning quarterback from a Florida school. They’re dime a dozen, but for some reason, if he’s on TV then it’s must see.

One Down, One To Go

2010-02-27T21:29:00.001-05:00

I had my best race ever today. I took more than 75 seconds off my time from three years ago and more than 4 ½ minutes off last year’s time. The Ortega River Run is by far my favorite race. Everything was in place this morning. I’m in good shape, it was cold and overcast, and my earphones fit comfortably inside my headband. I was jacked up about this race for a week. I had my clothes and shoes ready on Thursday afternoon. My champion chip was on my laces. My bib was safety pinned to my shirt. I was ready to go. I was even excited about the 35 degree weather, until I got out into it. Cold weather is great for running. It’s horrible for standing around waiting. I got to St. Marks Episcopal Church about 45 minutes before the start of the race, and I planned on sitting in the car with the heat blasting until about 5 minutes before the gun was scheduled to go off. I was only able to force myself to get out and head to the start line because I had to pee. I didn’t bring gloves so I was standing in the port-o-potty line with my hands in my pockets, pouting like a little girl. I didn’t care about how the race went, I just wanted it to be over. Thankfully, after I relieved myself, I still had about ten minutes to go, so I warmed up just so I could warm up. It worked out perfectly. By the time the race started I was refocused. Then I ran into a problem I hadn’t anticipated – slow people in front of me. I normally don’t encounter this. I was starting to get frustrated because there wasn’t a lot of room to pass them at the beginning of the race, and I was being forced to run faster than I wanted to in order to clear them. I added almost 200 yards of zigzagging during the first mile. After that the pack thinned out and I was able to cruise. I even managed the bridge well. The mile 3 marker is at the top of the bridge, and when I looked at my time as I crossed it I knew I was going to do it. I was able to relax and enjoy one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the city. The locals come out and cheer on their front lawns. That is so positive and it’s appreciated. But my favorite part – other than finishing and not having to run anymore – is the dance that MJ, Grammy, and LMJ do so that they can cheer me on at three different spots along the course, especially today when it was cold and rainy. I’m really looking forward to two weeks from now.

Some Winter Olympics Tweaks

2010-02-26T22:13:00.003-05:00

I have some suggestions for the Winter Olympics. First is for the US to stop inventing sports just so we can win more medals. I think all the X-Games need to go, along with short track speed skating. The Olympics should include figure skating and “how Scandinavians get to the store”. I also don’t like team sports with huge professional leagues in the Olympics, winter or summer. I think the skiing events should be held in the forest, and wildlife should be a natural hazard. I think biathlon should get rid of target shooting and the skiers should have to bring home some kind of game. There will be a grading curve based on the carcass weight and the overall time, so there would be a balance. If Toki finishes ten seconds before Skwissgar but Toki drags a rabbit across the finish line while Skwissgar drags a polar bear, then Skwissgar wins. How dangerous the animal is will also be taken into account. A 60 pound wolverine counts more than 60 pound fawn. In regular cross country the wildlife would be a factor as well. If a pack of wolves is hunting a pack of skiers, well, you don’t have to be the fastest, just don’t be the slowest. Outright sabotage will be illegal. Stabbing an opponent in the leg to slow him down or save your own life will carry a penalty, possibly disqualification. I would also add an ice lake in ski jumping, kind of like a short water hazard in golf. It won’t be difficult to clear, but it will there to give the competitors something to think about. As for media coverage, the winners get hyped, not the photogenic athletes we think might have an outside shot at a medal. Finally, if a country is going to compete in one event, it has to compete in every event. If the Jamaicans want to send a bobsled team, they also have to send a cross country ski team. NBC is, reportedly, going to lose a $250 million on these games. I can’t imagine that showing a Rastafarian in the tundra with a rifle trying to shoot a walrus would hurt ratings.

Rambling Nonsense

2010-02-25T21:20:00.001-05:00

I did a double session of swimming this morning. I didn’t want to run so my legs would get some rest for Saturday. I don’t know if it was a good idea or not. I swam a half mile and it was pretty hard. Considering that when I started last spring I could only swim about fifty yards, I think I’m doing very well. It’s important for me to remember where I started because I planned on swimming 1000 yards and couldn’t do it. I got to 900 yards and had to quit. There was just no way I could finish the last two laps. If I was running I would have been able to walk the rest of the distance, but the pool drops to twelve feet and I can’t breathe under water. I completely overestimated my swimming endurance, but it’s good to know now that I’m not ready for an Olympic distance triathlon. I’m more than ready for my little sprint coming up in July. I have to start working on my bike riding now, which is my least favorite part of the triathlon. It’s boring and dangerous. I’ll get into that after the Gate.

I learned something today: killer whales are dangerous. I had always assumed the name was ironic, like calling a bald guy curly or a short guy stretch. It seems that a killer whale at Sea World killed another trainer. Wait. What? Another? How did it kill another trainer? Why wasn’t this thing put down or let go or at least left alone after it ate its first trainer? This thing isn’t a rambunctious puppy. It’s a 20 thousand pound killing machine. There is literally nothing in the ocean that these things don’t kill. They sometimes hunt sharks. There’s a type killer whale that kills seals for the lulz, seriously. I’m willing to believe that Sea World was able to ~~trick~~ find a second trainer, but what kind of dumbass works with an apex predator that has already killed her two predecessors?

I'm Running Well But MJ Has Some Kind Of Disease

2010-02-24T21:02:00.000-05:00

I did a pre-race today even though I set out to only stretch my legs. I looked at my watch when I heard the mile beep, liked what I saw, and decided to push it. I ran a lot faster than I thought I was able to. I kept waiting to get winded. I ran mile two at a fast pace just to do it. I ran mile three even faster. I thought I would run into trouble on the way back because it’s up hill, but I didn’t. Mile four was faster than mile three, and after that there was no way I was slowing down for the last mile. I’m getting excited about the Ortega River Run. I think I can put up a good number. My goal was to beat last year’s time, but I think I’ve got a shot at a personal best. I set my record the first time I ran the race. I was in much better shape than I am now, but I was messing around. I just wanted to finish my first race. If I can deal with the bridge in mile three I can beat my time. That is if Typhoid MJ doesn’t infect me. I still think she’s suffering a bad case of hay fever, but she swears she has malaria. I feel great right now, but if she’s right, and I can’t run well, I’m going to be very put out. However, it would be better to get sick now than two weeks from now. As much as I love the Ortega – it’s by far my favorite race – the Gate is the reason for the season. The best scenario is that everybody’s healthy and happy for the next month, I run well in both races, and then it will be spring and time to start going to the beach.

I Recommend The Tudors

2010-02-23T21:38:00.001-05:00

I think I may have a different sensibility than a lot of other people. I was going to write a review of The Tudors on Netflix about how the writing, acting, and directing are made up of equal parts awesome and win. Then I read some other reviews and had to take a step back to reflect. I’m really surprised by the number of people who were shocked by the show. The show is grotesque – it’s about Henry VIII and his court – but it’s not gratuitous. What do people think was going on in 16th century Europe? The show is aimed at a very specific niche audience – history geeks – so there aren’t a lot of pulled punches. Everyone watching knows things don’t end well for Anne Boleyn. The only really big artistic license that’s taken is that everyone has good skin and good teeth. What people in the other reviews have a problem with, both on Netflix and IMDB, are the execution and torture scenes. It’s not Saw or Hostel, but the violence is sold by the actors. I think they’re funny because they’re so absurd. It’s ridiculous to me that there were guys on the king’s staff whose only job was to torture confessions out of people, and it seems like it was a regular, blue collar, 9 to 5 kind of thing. I also found it ridiculous that there wasn’t any kind of progression in the torture, no starting with a rap on the knuckles. It was straight to grievous bodily harm. One scene that most people have a problem with, and illustrates the cut to the chase mentality, was when the King needed “evidence” that Queen Anne had been unfaithful to him. They show up at a gay court musician’s house, wrap a rope tied to a stick with a knot around his head with the knot over his eyeball, and ask him if he’s having an affair with the Queen. When he responds “What?” the torture dude twists the stick, tightening the rope. There’s a squishing sound and the interrogator is sprayed with a little bit of blood. There was no “Say ‘What’ one more gottdam time!” just straight to maiming. This wasn’t the first guy to get brutalized. It was in the penultimate episode of season 2. We all knew where this was going, and it wasn’t graphic – other than the screams of agony. I guess not everyone has the ability to remember that it’s a television show, no actors were harmed during its filming, all these characters have been dead for 500 years, the Renaissance wasn’t all art and philosophy, and Anne Boleyn was a manipulative bitch and had it coming.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

2010-02-22T21:45:00.001-05:00

I woke up this morning and I felt a little bit off. I didn’t really feel bad, just a little bit off. I went through my normal routine getting ready, but I was slow. Everything that’s normally automatic was taking a high level of mental focus. I thought it was just a case of the Mondays. Then I went to the gym. I was late and the pool had already been changed over to geriatric aquaerobics, so I skipped the swimming and headed upstairs to do my strength and cardio training. I struggled with my pushups. I forgot my gloves so my pull-ups were difficult. Strangely though, my abdominal work was easy – easier than I expected, that is. After those struggles, I hopped on the dreadmill and got nowhere. My body would not do what it was supposed to do. I slowed down, almost to a walk, but I was about to evacuate and that would have been extremely embarrassing. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I got a good night’s sleep. I ate a good breakfast. I was hydrated. Then it hit me. I got loose on some Natty Light on Sunday. My parents skipped lunch out together to come over earlier so they could spend more time with LMJ while she was awake. I got pizza and a 12 pack of Natural Light in cans. I thought it would be funny. I knew it would be cheap. Natty Light is garbage. I have no idea what they put in it. One of the great things about German beers is the purity laws – the other purity laws. There are a combination of five ingredients that are allowed to go into a German made beer. If there is an ingredient six then you must call it something other than beer. I wouldn’t be surprised if Natty Light has a bunch of road salt and broken glass in the secret recipe. There’s a reason it’s so cheap. I will not be making that mistake again.

Computers

2010-02-21T22:44:00.001-05:00

I was going to write about how much I enjoyed the weather today, but then I started to deal with MJ’s machine, and now I’m trying to look at Macs. They’re not that expensive but if I got one, which I don’t really need, MJ would want to get one, and then it would get expensive real fast. It wouldn’t solve anything either. My work PC isn’t mine. I lease it from Lincoln and I don’t have a choice about using it. There’s nothing wrong the machine itself. The problem is the stupid configuration. I like the computer. It’s the best PC I’ve ever had. It’s beyond tricked out. It has a 2.4 GHz processor and 4 GB of RAM. I can do everything at once. Having to use MJ’s is all kinds of frustrating. The processor is slower, she has half the RAM, and she’s running the ridiculous resource hog, Vista. I don’t really want a Mac. I’m not an artist, so the only advantage it has for me is that I won’t have to deal with viruses. I don’t know if that’s worth $1500 or $3000 since we’d have to get two – or three if Grammy decides she wants one. The worst case scenario is that I’m without a computer for a week, and I’m getting used to not being “plugged in” all the time. MJ and Grammy even joked about me having to be more engaged because my computer was broken and there was nothing else for me to do. Just like my Facebook break a while back, I’m finding that I’m not missing it. It might be because I’ve only been without it over the weekend and all my favorite gossip sites take the weekends off. I’m going to miss what Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Simpson are doing tomorrow, and I’ll see how I deal with it. If I’m bragging about my brand new Mac Book in tomorrow’s post you’ll know I didn’t handle it very well.

Make Sure LJ Is Fed

2010-02-20T22:00:00.000-05:00

Today was too long. We did the day trip to Disney, and there isn’t enough time in the day to do it the way we like to do it. The trip down is fine. That’s part of it every time we go, but the looming trip back kind of put a damper on everything for me. I started to get time conscious at about noon, thinking about the hour that it takes to get out of whichever park we happen to be in before we can even start the three hours on the road home – two and a half if I’m driving. That’s not the Disney attitude that I want to have. We’ll probably try it again, if for no other reason, this was our first try and everything should be tried at least twice. We made some rookie mistakes: we went on a Saturday, we got out of the house a little bit later than we should have, but the most glaring error we made was switching parks. Switching parks is great if we’re staying the night and time isn’t a big factor, but it took more than an hour from the time we decided to leave the Magic Kingdom and the time we slid through the turnstiles at Epcot. The monorail is not a ride. Epcot was a poor choice as well. There really isn’t anything interesting for an under six year old in the park. Chicken nuggets don’t count. Ice cream sandwiches don’t count. At about 2:30 or 3:00 I was hungry and cranky and started pitching a bit of a fit. I did not want to get home at 11:00, and I knew there was still a trip to IKEA. IKEA is another place that it’s impossible to walk in and walk out in less than an hour. However, as low as this trip ranks on the trips to Disney list, it was still a trip to Disney and was infinitely more fun than anything that Jacksonville has to offer. We’ll tweek the logistics and may try again in two weeks.

A Night On The Town

2010-02-19T23:17:00.001-05:00

MJ and I saw Esperanza Spalding tonight. As of Wednesday, I had no idea who she was, but I was feeling guilty about sitting on the Riverside Fine Arts board of directors and not going to any shows, so I bought some tickets. It’s really easy to find excuses not to go, to procrastinate and think that we’ll make it to the next one. The artists that we bring in are well known to their groups of fans, but they’re not huge acts, so I haven’t heard of most of them – like Esperanza Spalding. I’m glad that this was the show we picked. She’s the first performer since I don’t know when that I thought, “Wow! She’s cool.” She plays the bass, which isn’t my favorite instrument. It’s too low and the notes don’t “ring”. Bass players also have weird phrasing. She didn’t change my mind about any of that, but she’s insanely talented, and an absolute artist. She’s also really cute, and that always factors in. I know that she was aware that we were there because she interacted with us a bunch. She even gave us parts in her last piece, splitting the audience into “musicians” and “non-musicians”. But if we weren’t there, I think her night would have been spent doing pretty much the same thing, playing her songs with her band. I was worried that MJ was going to feel that I was dragging her to some silly marketing thing, but she was more blown away by the young Ms. Spalding than I was. I call her the young Ms. Spalding because she’s 25. When I think of jazz musicians, I tend to think of older performers. I’m not surprised by music very much anymore, but she was absolutely fantastic. She was so good that I wish I had gone to earlier shows because now I’m afraid that I missed something. She reopened my mind to the idea that new experiences can be worthwhile. That’s the biggest compliment I can give to an artist.

BSOD

2010-02-18T21:29:00.000-05:00

I’m writing this on MJ’s machine because mine if FUBAR. I’ve seen the blue screen of death. I hate the ridiculous Byzantine security protocols – that obviously don’t work – that are set up on my computer. I have three distinct passwords that I have to enter just to get to my desktop. There’s no vital information on my computer or proprietary software. I can only partially log on to the company network remotely, and today my virus software failed miserably. In order to clean the virus I need to stop it from running, and in order to stop it from running I need to start the system is Safe Mode. Unfortunately, Safe Mode makes my second password undetectable, so I can’t get in to fix anything. When I tried to start normally, the blue screen showed up and shut everything down. These passwords frustrate me because they’re trying to fight the swine flu with a bullet proof vest. Fortunately, I was smart enough to get all the crap that I care about off the computer before I started trying to fix things. I would have a sense of humor about this if I had been surfing porn or placing bets, but I was on the Times-Union website. I was on friggin’ Jacksonville.com the first time I got the threat detection message. I couldn’t take care of it. I would have ignored it but it kept popping up every 30 seconds. My hatred of everything Microsoft is expanding at a geometric rate. My machine runs XP and it sucks. MJ’s machine runs Vista, nuff said. I have no idea what the hell is going on with this version of Word. Why is the toolbar so busy? Why does it keep switching me to a different window? Why does the cursor randomly move my typing spot? Now I understand why MJ rarely uses this program. I bet I’m stuck using this for a week.

Topics Are Sometimes Hard To Find

2010-02-17T22:19:00.000-05:00

Some guy took a swing at Mitt Romney on a plane a couple of days ago because Romney asked him to return his seat to the upright and locked position for takeoff. First, I didn’t realize Mitt Romney is as old as he is. He’s 62. I thought he was in his late 40’s/early 50’s. Second, he didn’t retaliate, perhaps because he’s 62. I don’t know if this makes me like him more or less. On the one hand he showed remarkable restraint. On the other hand I don’t know if that’s the type of restraint I want in a president. He was flying coach for some reason. He’s 6’2”, which means he didn’t have a bunch of room for his knees, and even less if the jackass in front of him had his seat back. He made a reasonable request and was met with violence. With the naturally heightened stress level of air travel, if someone took a poke at me for asking him to follow the rules and show a modicum of courtesy, we’d be on the front page of the newspaper the next day. I would utterly lose it. There would be a picture of me covered in the gore of this guy’s exploded eyeballs and my thumbs two knuckles deep in the sockets. MJ would be covered in an airline blanket – if they still have those – trying to pretend she didn’t know me. If there was an air marshal on the flight he’d be wondering why his taser wasn’t working on me. When asked about it, John McCain would say he’d do the exact same thing. Colin Powell would disagree saying it would have been more efficient to jam the guy’s nose into his brain. George W. Bush would say that’s why he doesn’t fly commercial air or visit Arab countries like Canada. Dick Cheney would have been the guy who wouldn’t move his seat.

Gettin' All Positive And Stuff

2010-02-16T18:46:00.003-05:00

I had a very good exercise day today. It was good because I did not want to do it in any way shape or form. I was as close to prepared as I can get before I went to bed last night. I had all my gear in my gym bag and the only thing I had to do was grab it and go. Then I woke up this morning and came to the realization that exercise is bulls**t. I wasn’t sore or tired. I was just unmotivated. I had to start psyching myself up at 6am just to get out the door at 7:30. I headed to work – skipping the gym – and got some stuff done. Then my brain got into a battle with itself. I didn’t want to work, but I wouldn’t let myself leave unless I was going to exercise. This lasted for about three hours. I sat in my office brooding, getting angrier with each useless e-mail I got. Finally, I broke down and decided exercising would be better than fuming for no reason. I needed to break in my new shoes anyway. With the new shoe christening as the main reason for me being active, the gym and the dreadmill weren’t going to happen. And even though it was cold, and even though I was grumpy, I planned on running ten along the river. I would allow myself to cut the run in half if my shoes were bothering me. The Nikes were not a problem. I ran just short of ten because it was the end of lunchtime or the beginning of happy hour and the Landing was crowded, and I didn't feel like running through a bunch of people. I’m excited about a ten mile run becoming part of my routine. I’m even more excited about my time at 9.3 miles. I was struggling to finish because I hit it pretty hard yesterday, but I was well below last year’s River Run time. I ran 9.86 miles and I feel pretty good. For the first time in about three years I’m ahead of my fitness goals.

Happy Presidents Day

2010-02-15T20:20:00.004-05:00

Today was made of pure unadulterated win. I woke up at 5am, forgetting that today was a holiday, and while I would have enjoyed the extra sleep, I was able to get out of the house by 7:30. I had a great swim and a great run, and I was done by 10am. Today was one of the rare holidays that MJ has off and stuff was open, so I took her to lunch at Chew. It’s our favorite lunch spot in the city, but due to the temporal effects of having a baby, we hadn’t been in more than two years. The last time we went we were carting LMJ around in her car seat. MJ had some kind of spinach and bacon salad. I had the Reuben and French fries. It may have had to due with the fact that I hadn’t eaten after working out, but the sandwich was the best thing I’d ever put in mouth. If MJ hadn’t been there I would have ordered another one. Before lunch we stopped at 1st Place Sports and I bought my new shoes. They’re blue and they’re awesome. I’m going to start writing down the mileage I put on my shoes. I never know how worn out my running shoes get until I buy some new ones and get shocked by how much support I’m missing. I don’t think that can be good for my feet or knees. Finally, I read a story that made me laugh about Floyd Landis. Who is Floyd Landis? He’s not Lance Armstrong. He won the Tour du France a couple of years ago, failed a drug test, and was stripped of the title. His defense was that the tests were mishandled and the testing system could be hacked, so years later, a French court has issued an arrest warrant for him. They’re accusing him of hacking the testing system. I thought this was funny because doesn’t the accusation prove his point? I also thought it was funny because they’ve harbored Roman Polanski – child rapist – for thirty years but now are moving to try to have Floyd Landis – cheating bike rider – extradited, I assume in the name of justice. There’s your example of irony, English teachers.

Hard Headed Cheap Bastard

2010-02-14T20:32:00.001-05:00

Today was made of 100% pure unadulterated fail. All I want to do is buy some new running shoes, but it’s been like searching for the Holy Grail. I like a very specific shoe. It’s the only shoe that I’ve ever worn that doesn’t decimate my feet, knees, and shins when I run farther than a hundred yards. If I had any sense or didn’t suffer from chronic cheap bastard syndrome, I’d be rocking the new Air Pegasus right now. I should have bounced over the river to the San Marco 1st Place Sports and paid what they asked me to pay, but instead I went price shopping, which led to a trip to the Nike Factory Store at the St. Augustine outlet mall. I was willing to wear last year’s model to save fifteen bucks. I called to make sure they had the shoe but didn’t make sure they had my size. So after a difficult trip that had a detour to put air in the tires and another detour to get snacks for the baby girl, I find the Nike Air Pegasus in a size 7. That was the biggest size they had. I don’t personally know a full grown man with feet that small, which may explain why there were so many on the shelf. I thought about buying another model, but I would have no idea what they would be like, and I’m not giving them money for not having exactly what I want. It’s not a high end model. It’s basically Nike’s Honda Civic in running shoes. That was a whole Sunday and 70 miles of wasted time and gas just to save the cost of a large pizza, and I came away with nothing. Now I have to go to 1st Place Sports anyway and pay full price. The sad part is that when I need shoes again in three or four months I’m going to exact same thing.

I'm Into The Winter Olympics

2010-02-13T21:31:00.001-05:00

NBC’s utter incompetence was brought to the forefront with their mishandling of the late night situation, but they’re also the butt of a bunch of jokes about the Winter Olympics and they’ve just started. Since ESPN is owned by ABC and Fox Sports is obviously owned by Fox, it’s no holds barred when it comes to making fun of how much money NBC is losing showing the Winter Olympics. Is NBC trying to do a bad job? The reason I ask is because I watched Lindsey Vonn utterly destroy the downhill course, winning by a more than second and a half, on some off brand channel in the pit of my cable package in 480i. They skiers finish the race going faster than 70mph. A second and a half is a large margin. When a commercial came on I flipped over to the mother ship only to hear Bob Costas pontificating about something other than Lindsey Vonn ruining the rest of the world’s s*it. I don’t know if it’s clear that I’m on board the Lindsey Vonn bandwagon, but I’m driving that summbitch. I understand that NBC feels the need to have Costas do something since they’re paying him some ridiculous amount of money to show up once every two years, but Lindsey Vonn is the best in the world at a real sport. Feel free to mix in a highlight or two in HD. Short track speed skating isn’t a real sport. Apollo Ono is going to get clowned by the Korean dude who would have won four years ago but fell down. I don’t need to hear about Ono winning Dancing With The Stars until he’s standing on the top step of the medal podium. This isn’t only about more screen time for Lindsey Vonn; it’s about showing the actual sports and not Costas, Tom Brokaw, and Al Michaels.

Naturally

2010-02-12T20:45:00.002-05:00

I’m seriously considering getting a case of Natty Light, and even though the bottles are the same price as the cans I’m thinking about going with the cans. I’ll invite the neighbors over to get piss drunk and commit some misdemeanors – most likely felonies if I get the bottles. They’re going to need to bring their own case(s) because one won't be enough. I wonder which choice is more environmentally friendly. I grew up on Natural Light. It wasn’t the first beer I drank, but it was the beer of choice for those of us under twenty-one when we were all under twenty-one, especially if females were present. It’s a great beer. It won’t get you bloated like Busch. It doesn’t pose the same danger of alcohol poisoning as Old English 800, and it won’t break the bank like Bud Light. It’s $11 a case now, almost double what I paid for it twenty years ago. How awesome is a $6 case of beer? Natty Light is a beer designed for binge drinking – college students and hobos with an aversion to wine – despite the ridiculous disclaimer Anheuser-Busch has on its website about it being brewed to be enjoyed responsibly by adults. According to some research I’m making up right now, Natty Light is responsible for 3 out of every 5 pick-up truck pregnancies in the United States since A-B first started selling it in 1977. I think it may have been specifically designed to grease the skids to bad decisions. Another finding from the previously referenced research is that 15 out of every 10 arrests (you read that correctly) in a trailer park involve Natty Light. I remember selling the Tallahassee Democrat door-to-door in some of those mobile home communities. They were some of the nicest people in the world, especially if it was warm outside. If it wasn’t a Friday (payday) there was the same chance of me selling a subscription as there was of me finding some clean urine, but they always had some Natty Light and they always shared. One night I rolled up on these two good ‘ol boys who didn’t want the newspaper but one of them offered me some Natty Light. The second one asked if I was going to get drunk. When I said no, they rescinded the offer. So I sat with them pounding Natty Lights and talking Seminole football for the next three hours. The best part is that they convinced four of their neighbors to get the paper. Yeah, I gotta get a case of Natural Light.

Sucked Down A Wiki Whirlpool

2010-02-11T21:52:00.000-05:00

I saw this in Whole Foods tonight and thought it was funny. Why were we shopping in Whole Foods? Because we’re damn dirty hippies, that’s why. I thought it was a clever joke like Cherry Garcia or something like that. It never occurred to me that a marionberry was a real thing. Fortunately, I have the interwebs so I looked it up and found out that it’s a type of blackberry. After learning that a marionberry was an actual fruit, I asked myself what the hell was wrong with Marion Berry’s mom. Again, thanks to the net, I learned that nothing was wrong with Mrs. BARRY. Even if the spelling wasn’t different, the crack smoking mayor was born twelve years before the government genetically engineered the marionberry. He was also hired as a consultant for an investment bank after leaving the office of Mayor of Washington D.C. for the second time. I would have loved to be at that meeting. How the hell could he consult for an investment bank? I mean other than helping find new ways to launder drug money. This sounds like the entire third season of The Wire. I’m really disappointed that all of the fun I saw in the yogurt carton disappeared when I found out the fruit was real and stopped misspelling Marion Barry’s name. The whole ride home I wondered if it was an energy yogurt with guarana or some other stimulant mimicking the effects of cocaine or if it was just one of many militant blackberry yogurts. Was there a stokleyberry or a hueyberry? Is there going to be a barackberry, which could be a barryberry, even though he’s not exactly militant? Hopefully, it will take off and hit the mainstream because I know I’m not the only one who will notice the name without knowing the berry.

Jacked To The Max

2010-02-10T21:40:00.000-05:00

We were watching Biggest Loser tonight during dinner while we gorged ourselves on chicken and dumplings. Grammy and MJ watch the show for the positivity of people changing their lives. I don’t watch it, but when I do it’s to see Jillian Michaels melt down. She’s never actually crossed the meltdown threshold on the show, but the potential is there. She’s like Mt. St. Helens: it’s going to blow, everyone knows it, we just don’t know when. Jillian is amped up all the time. I don’t know how far her cheerleading career went but it didn’t go as far as she wanted it to go. I think she takes the contestants’ weight loss more seriously than they do, which I guess is her job, but the ~~gay guy~~ other trainer on the show doesn’t seem like he’s about to snap. I don’t want to give the wrong impression. I like her on the show, and she seems genuine, but she may want to back away from the bitter orange and ephedra jell-o shots a little bit. There is was a woman on the show this year who was “playing the game” more than she was trying to lose as much weight as she possibly could and Jillian was not having that. According to MJ, Jillian called the chick a liar to her face. That’s what sparked my interest, mild as it may be, in this season of the show – well, that and Alison Sweeney’s post-baby boobs. If this show was on cable it would be must see TV for me because, dollars to donuts, Jillian’s got a mouth like a sailor. The chick she had a problem got kicked off the show for losing the least weight during the week. She actually gained a pound and started crying because she didn’t know how that could have happened. Jillian couldn’t even look at her. Her disgust was visceral. Don’t come on her show not motivated and playing games.

Fossils

2010-02-09T18:29:00.002-05:00

I almost couldn’t believe what was happening. After a great workout this morning, I stopped at Publix to get some refuelage. I got a Met-Rx Big 100 bar and a Diet Dr. Pepper – two items. Two is less than ten, which I only point out because not everyone understands how the express lane works. I got behind this old guy with what I thought were exactly ten items. I counted. I thought the old lady in front of him was done and leaving. I didn’t realize her stuff hadn’t been bagged yet, that she had shopped for the month, and that they were together. The checkout lady was more than a little annoyed, and I was on my way. Then the annoying transcended into the surreal. I kid you not. After the checkout lady rang up all their stuff she gave the dude the total. $78.49… in the express line. He looked at her like she asked him if he voted for Obama. Then he pulled out his wallet, reached into the billfold, and pulled out a check. All I could think was NO WAY! It was blank. He asked for a pen. The checkout lady took a moment to calm herself and pointed to the pen attached to the counter. This couple was in their mid-seventies at the oldest. I’ve written about this before, there’s no such thing as old people anymore, not like this anyway. These people were in their thirties during the 1960’s. They were young when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. They grew up on technology. There are all kinds of drugs nowadays to keep people focused. There’s a guy named Bob that works out at the Y who’s 87 years old, still runs the River Run every year, and flirts with the female trainers. I thought to myself, these people are trying to be stereotypically old, like they read about it in a book. That’s the only explanation. The checkout lady bagged up their groceries and sent them on their way and then apologized to me. I told her it was no problem and then asked if she minded if I paid by check. She laughed and the long line of people behind me did too. I bet that’s the last time I’ll see anything like that.

Wasted Days.

2010-02-08T21:37:00.000-05:00

Today was not a good day. Today was one of those hurry up and wait days. I rushed to work and got a whole bunch of stuff ready only to find out a company I’m doing business with dropped the ball. I guess it’s the economy and nothing is efficient. I had to call a client and cancel a meeting. There are simple ways to get done what everyone wants to get done, but some people are cheap, some people are incompetent, and I just keep a big bottle of rum in my desk drawer (old school). I skipped my pool time this morning because of this crap. Don’t people know I’d rather be in the pool or at the gym than in my office waiting? Days like this make me regret not getting cable in my office. If I’m going to waste a day I want to waste a day. I’m sure there was some type of Law & Order or CSI marathon being shown on TNT or Spike or both. I don’t know whose idea it was to get cable in the office, but I’m pretty sure it’s not working out the way they intended. We have a huge conference room overlooking the Landing and the River with a big screen TV hanging on the wall. It’s used for video conference calls and garbage like that, but when it’s not being used to show insurance salesman talking about better ways to sell insurance it’s supposed to be on CNBC. Nobody likes CNBC, so depending on who's using the room; it winds up on HGTV or the Food Channel. We get blasted an email about once a quarter telling us not to do it, professionalism blah blah (ctrl-A, delete), but since no one really has any authority over anyone else in the office it’s ignored. I really hate wasting time in my office. The day picked up, however, when I got home and saw the baby girl. She was in a great mood, and whenever she’s in a great mood my mood improves.

EJG and JSG: what running club do you guys belong to?

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

2010-02-07T22:08:00.002-05:00

Thanks LMJ! Oh well, now you get to go to community college – if you’re lucky. MJ asked LMJ who she was rooting for in the Superbowl, and LMJ said the Colts. Isn’t that cute? I thought so and I bet her college money on the Colts. Then I doubled down when they went up by ten points in the first half with money I don’t have. The Colts went on to blow the ten point lead and wound up losing by fourteen. Live and learn. Unfortunately, if we’re going to live, we’re going to have to learn how to live on the road like gypsies. I’m probably not going to be blogging anymore since I’m going to be on the lam. However, I will check the comments section for advice. How do I (we) get new identities? Should we start with new social security numbers, or should we start with new driver’s licenses first? I blame Peyton Manning – and my daughter – for this predicament. I guess I should take some of the responsibility for using a two year old as a gambling tout, but Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel made it seem like two year olds were as good as the professionals. I forgot that Manning’s natural state is that of a choking dog. He choked at Tennessee. He choked in his first three trips to the playoffs. Even after he led the Colts to the Superbowl three years ago, the only reason the Colts won is because Rex Grossman was so horribly incompetent. The Colts didn’t win that game as much as the Bears lost it. Then he went on to choke at home in the playoffs the following two years. I got caught up in the hype of his infallibility and ignored the “Team of Destiny” vibe the Saints were giving off (read: the NFL scripted it this way). Congratulations New Orleans. I imagine they’re will be some property destroyed on Bourbon Street tonight – not to mention some brain cells. One last question: what’s a good name for a beautiful little ~~mulatto~~ biracial girl who obviously doesn’t know squat about football?

Good Exercise And Sports Day

2010-02-06T20:20:00.002-05:00

I ran ten and change this morning and felt great doing it. I can’t remember the last time I was this stoked about my running shape. I’m five weeks out from the Gate River Run and I’m way ahead of where I was last year on race day. This was the farthest I’ve run in more than three years, and the weirdest and most encouraging thing was that I ran the second five miles faster than I ran the first five miles. I held back on the first five but still. I also ran over a pretty steep bridge – twice – that has given me trouble in the past, it didn’t bother me in the least today. I kept waiting to start breathing hard but it didn’t happen, on the way out or the way back. My goal is to beat last year’s time by five minutes. I think I could do that next week. I struggled all of this week trying to run ten, but that was because I was trying to do it on the dreadmill at the Y. Man do I hate that thing. I have to get a half marathon on the schedule this year. When I got home I had more than enough left for another three miles.

I’m cutting the running post short because it’s boring and the alpine sports I watched on television were a lot more exciting. It started out with MJ watching some figure skating and saying how much she was looking forward to the winter Olympics. I made fun or her because the winter Olympics suck. An hour later I was watching the ski jump and really getting into it. It’s stupid how much of a sports fan I am, especially when national pride is on the line. There weren’t any Americans in the competition but that didn’t stop me from choosing sides. The first guy up was a multiple time world champion from Norway. I hated him instantly and hoped he fell. Why? Because MJ is half Swedish, LMJ is one quarter Swedish, therefore Norway sucks. I assumed there would be Swedes in the competition. There were zero. That was the only thing fueling my hatred of the Norwegians. Apparently, the Swiss, Austrians, and Norwegians are into the ski jumping and downhill racing. The Swedes are into cross country and biathlon. It wasn’t a total loss though. There’s a subjective judging portion of ski jumping. It’s not just who jumps the farthest. So I was able to get worked up about the crappy judging.

Swingaholics Anonymous

2010-02-05T20:41:00.002-05:00

I’ve got a top notch stupidity sweat going, and probably a few slipped discs. The new Wii Fit game has a driving range on it that I had forgotten about. That was a good thing. MJ took out the Wii Sports Resort game that’s a lot of fun and put in the stupid Fit game for some reason. She was playing the obstacle course and made me play. When it was over I saw the driving range on the menu and decided to give it a try. I thought it was going to be like the Sports Resort golf just a little more technical. I forgot that it’s a lot more technical and much closer to real golf i.e. I slice like an O.J./Bobby Flay love child. I quit playing golf almost five years ago because it’s expensive and MJ will frustrate and enrage me for free. When I found the driving range this evening I went through the classic addict-falling-off-the-wagon steps. I was just going to hit a bucket of balls with my iron. The Wii Fit is all about balance. It will be fun. The target was 150 yards away. I tried to swing as easy as I could; let the club do the work. My first shot was straight and true and came up at 128 yards. I need to clarify that I’m not addicted to golf. I’m addicted to swinging hard. The game shouldn’t have disrespected me like that. A successful golf swing is about torque and not power. I know this but it means less than nothing to me, so I suck and I hurt myself by swinging as hard as I can. Golf is a taproot to my rage. Before I knew it I had abandoned the iron and was slicing drive after drive in rapid succession, hence the sweating. I was throwing myself off the balance board and the game was telling me I was swinging too hard. If the game didn’t want me to swing hard it shouldn’t have a 300 yard marker on the TV. It was just like I was at the real driving range. I don’t know if I’ve written about this before but my golf rock bottom moment came at the UNF driving range. I bought two buckets of balls and worked my way from my pitching wedge to my driver. I would move up clubs when I hit three good shots in a row. Wedge thru 3 wood took less than half a bucket. I still haven’t hit three good drives in a row. I was in the last spot on the range so when I looked up all I saw was trees. It was the middle of the day in July in Florida. I was the only one out there, so I didn’t keep my emotions in check. My rage was at berserker when I got to my very last ball. I tried to calm myself down and let the club do the work. I just wanted to hit one straight. I would have settled for hooking one. I just didn’t want to slice it into the woods with the rest of its bucket and a half of brothers. I can hit the ball straight as long as I don’t swing hard, but somewhere in my downswing I have to put just a little extra on it, and that’s what I did. The ball sliced into the woods. I completely lost control. I threw my driver as far as I could, knocked over my golf bag, and started kicking it like I was Joe Pesci and it told me to go get my shine box. I turned around and there was a little old White lady standing twenty yards away watching a 240lb. Negro go Chernobyl on a golf bag. She was 87 years old if she was a day. I didn’t care. I retrieved my driver, which I had thrown far enough for me to notice the walk to get it and the walk back. I picked up my bag and left. I was almost home before it occurred to me that I may have overreacted and golf may not be for me. I had a mild relapse tonight. Fortunately, no one was hurt. My name is LJ and it’s been forty minutes swung hard.

Bittersweet Reading

2010-02-04T22:31:00.004-05:00

I don’t know if any one else ever feels like this, but I’m caught up in a really good book and I don’t want it to end. Actually, it’s not just a book it’s a series, and the series didn’t get really good until halfway through the third book of five. The first two and a half books were a fun little bit of brain candy, a better way to spend time than watching television. Then I guess the writer, Rick Riordan (sounds like a TV detective), decided he needed to start tying things up, and stopped with the obvious character developments and plot and got deep into the storytelling. 99 times out of 100 I would have quit fifty pages in. I would have chalked it up as a blatant Harry Potter rip-off, but the story was in my literary wheelhouse. It’s about demi-gods and Greek mythology in the 21st century. I think Riordan’s main goal was to expose kids to Greek mythology that they most likely didn’t know, as well as things they were familiar with but may not have known were Greek mythology. Does that sentence make sense? It’s late and I’m not fixing it, so I guess it really doesn’t matter. Anyway, I think education was his primary goal before the first book became a best seller and then he was stuck writing a series, might as well do a good job. Now that I’m almost at the end – just started the 5th book – I’m sad that it’s almost over. I’m also curious to find out if he has the courage to kill off his hero. Greek heroes don’t live happily ever after, and Riordan has made that point more than once in the story. I hope he doesn’t. I hope Percy and Annabeth get to ride off into the sunset. They’ve grown up with absentee parents. Just because the Greek gods are immortal doesn’t mean they’re good moms and dads. They’ve spent their tweens fighting monsters and trying to save the world. They deserve a break and some downtime. I’m a sucker for a happy ending, love triumphant and a bit with a dog.

Tim Tebow Wasn't Aborted

2010-02-03T21:58:00.002-05:00

I have nothing to write about so I’m going to write about Tim Tebow and his abortion ad. He’s doing a spot during the Super Bowl for a group called Focus On The Family. I haven’t seen the ad but what I’ve read is that it has something to do with him being a difficult pregnancy for his mom but she decided to keep him and he went on to cry like a little bitch on national television because he lost a football game. I suppose the implication is that if a woman chooses to keep her baby it might turn out to be a big college football star. That’s dumb. Not a single one of the 7 billion people alive today was aborted. A baby has the same chance of being Osama bin Laden as it does of being Tim Tebow, but that’s not the biggest issue I have with the premise of the ad. My problem is that these people think a 22 year old male virgin is the one to get their message across to women who may find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy during a show with an overwhelmingly male audience. How the hell does that work? Whose mind is this commercial going to change? Will there be a knocked up woman who was planning to head down to the clinic Monday morning, but because of a male zealot who’s good at football that she saw on the TV she changes her mind? “I was going to have an abortion, but because Tim Tebow doesn’t think I should, I’m not going through with it. He won more games than any quarterback in Florida Gators history.” I don’t have a problem with Tim Tebow or his beliefs. It’s America and he seems to take the a lot more of the good parts of evangelical Christianity seriously than the bad parts, but Focus On The Family doesn’t seem interested in changing minds as much as gathering followers, and I would hope that Tebow wouldn’t want to be part of that.

Rahm And Sarah

2010-02-02T22:31:00.002-05:00

I’m drawing the line at retarded. I’ve eliminated – for the most part – racist and homophobic slurs from my daily lexicon due to political correctness. The United States is still fighting two wars. The economy is still in the toilet. So I’m not seeing any real upside to eliminating some of my favorite words and phrases. Retarded and all its iterations stay, including slapping “tard” on the end of any word I see fit. Sarah Palin is whining about Rahm Emanuel using the R-word to describe liberals against the president’s health care bill. Palin has a son with Down’s syndrome (which obviously means God is punishing her for something, WHORE). Ironically, his name is Trig, a higher mathematics his extra chromosome will never allow him to understand. She’s comparing the use of the R-word to the use of the N-word. I don’t think it’s a valid comparison. One of those slurs leveled at a member of the affected group will get you knocked the f*ck out. The other won’t. Personally, I think everything needs to be in play. The retards that seem to get elected in the square states would experience a catharsis if they could openly call the president “That Uppity Nigger”, and it would hopefully pull into sharp contrast exactly where this country is for the retards that seem to get elected from the funny shaped states – though they’re not getting elected as often as they were. We hate each other. We always have and we always will (see Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America). However, we’re never going to make any progress until we can put aside fake hurt feelings and at least try to have an honest discussion – or all out race war. I’m cool either way. Emanuel has contacted the Special Olympics, but hasn’t apologized to the liberals he insulted (good for him). Palin wants Emanuel fired. Barack Obama can wrap up my vote right here and right now. I’ll ignore the economy. I’ll ignore the wars. I’ll ignore healthcare. All the Magic Negro has to do is respond to Sarah Palin’s request with a question: Bitch, are you fu*kin’ retarded?

Perspective

2010-02-01T16:00:00.002-05:00

I had big plans today. I was going to ramp up my running and do ten miles this morning. I was going to do my resistance training and then run a very easy ten miles in a minimum of two hours. The Gate River Run is five or six weeks away and I want to see where I am. Some gastrointestinal distress killed that almost immediately. I struggled through everything: my pushups, my pull-ups, and my sit-ups. I got about three and a half miles into my run before I was forced to stop. I started to get really frustrated but then remembered that a month ago I would have been done with my workout and completely spent. Today, my muscles and cardiovascular system were ready to go, but my stomach wasn’t. I did all I could and I can’t reasonably expect myself to do more. All I can do is watch what I eat and try again tomorrow.

I’m cutting the exercise post short because I saw something a little bit disturbing on television. LMJ and I were watching a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode where Donald has to help some (other) ducks fly south for the winter. I understand – you should too – that I’m going to get a little bit existential about a children’s cartoon but it’s weighing on my mind. Cutting to the chase, Donald helps these non-speaking, apparently non-sentient, ducks by leading them south in an airplane. Is Donald a duck god? Or did he and the rest of the Mickey Mouse Club characters make a pact with the devil for self-awareness and speech in exchange for the loss of their natural animal advantages? The ducks heading south were much smaller than Donald, Mickey, and Professor von Drake (I don’t know where Daisy was), and they were naked. This would make Donald a four and a half or five foot tall talking duck that can’t fly, but is seen as some type of guiding force by a bunch of directionally challenged ducks, to whom he feels a certain obligation. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, and maybe I should stop eating mushrooms I find in the backyard. That would probably fix both of today’s issues.

Poor Baby Girl

2010-01-31T21:42:00.000-05:00

The poor sweet sick baby girl didn’t sleep well last night. She had a fever and couldn’t get comfortable. We tried to keep things as low key as possible today to help her rest, which meant spending a lot of time in bed watching television. After a couple of hours of Sesame Street and Handy Manny I started to get antsy so we got up. We played in the play room like everything was fine. She cooked in her kitchen and played with her little people. I continued learning a bunch of Disney songs on the guitar. I swore I would never learn to play anything like the Disney songs, but having a daughter changes a man’s outlook. After about an hour MJ and I switched places. She watched the baby girl while I took a shower. I wasn’t even wet before ~~MJ broke the baby~~ I heard LMJ crying. She hit the cold/flu wall. She was out of energy. She slept for about forty-five minutes before her stuffy nose woke her up. Having a cold sucks and she’s got a bad one. She just couldn’t rest. The only positive about the day was that she was drinking a lot of fluids without complaint. We went back to playing and reading and watching television after her aborted nap, and trying to figure out what we wanted to do with the rest of the day. MJ still had a bunch of grading to do, but we wanted to enjoy the weekend as much as possible even though we had a sick toddler. Once again LMJ was bouncing around playing like nothing was wrong when she saw me watching basketball and asked if she could sit in my lap. We’ve watched basketball together since she showed up UPS on our doorstep almost three years ago. I was happy because it’s one of my favorite things to do. I expected her to sit still for about thirty seconds and then get back to whatever business she still had. It was a bittersweet moment when I heard her snoring. She was so tired, but it took me back to when she was a baby and used to fall asleep on me regularly and made me happy.

You Will Please Make Me Michelangelo’s David

2010-01-30T20:12:00.003-05:00

…with Play-Doh. On second thought, just make me his collected works. LMJ doesn’t understand the limits of my sculpting talents. Actually, there are no limits because there is no talent. We were playing with her Play-Doh kit, and I didn’t notice it until she requested something I had no hope of doing, but she kept bumping up the degree of difficulty of her requests. It started out with a purple bowling ball. I did that with no problem. I even buffed out the cracks. It wasn’t PBA regulation, but I’m sure Fred Flintstone would have been proud to roll it. Before I was done with the bowling ball, the request changed. She wanted purple bowling pins and a yellow bowling ball. I don’t know how to make bowling pins. I’ve never been good with visual arts because I can’t see how the blank medium becomes the finished product. I can’t see proportions. I didn’t know that eyes went in the middle of a face and towards the top until an art teacher expressed it in those basic terms. I drew a lot of non forehead havin’ mike foxtrots growing up, and could never figure out what was wrong with them or why I couldn’t fix it. The bowling pins were going to be a challenge for me. I was proud that I figured them out and I made ten of them. I had my technique down and was firing them off an assembly line. They were better than proportional; they were uniform. After the pins were done, the yellow bowling ball was cake. The only hard part was LMJ trying to figure out how to position her hand so she could roll the ball underhanded like she sees on the Wii because she was too close. We were having fun bowling a couple of Play-Doh frames, when I guess she got bored and asked me to make her a jungle with a coconut tree and a monkey. There’s not a chance in all of hell that I can make a jungle with a coconut tree and a monkey. Luckily I was saved by Mommy ringing the dinner bell.

Crocodylus Niloticus

2010-01-29T22:06:00.002-05:00

I took LMJ to the zoo today because it’s exercise, it’s educational, it’s free (prepaid anyway), and most of all it’s fun. Today was more about the fun and exercise than the educational. I let LMJ run wherever she wanted to, which was mostly up and down a boardwalk that runs through the Africa exhibit. I don’t think she’s ever as happy as she is when she’s running. It made it easier for me because we weren’t stopping to see animals she didn’t care about. However, we did have an interesting moment at the Nile crocodile exhibit. It wasn’t Peter Pan interesting; it was just a reality check for me. I thought the exhibit was closed. All I saw was film covered water and an empty little grass covered island. I assumed that the cold temperatures had forced it inside. Then my baby girl says, “Look there’s the crocodile, Daddy.” We’re not going to get into the fact that she didn’t call it an alligator right now. I didn’t see it until I shifted my focus, and there it was, a twelve foot long, thousand pound, satanic demon lizard staring at me less than ten feet away. I always have one of these moments when I go to the zoo. A moment where I know I wouldn’t last ten minutes in the jungle. Usually, it’s with the jaguars. I’ll be looking at one and the other will creep up seemingly out of nowhere. I would have been doubly dead after LMJ shocked the hell out of me by correctly identifying the reptile. There’s an alligator exhibit on the other side of the park that we always go to, and she knows they’re alligators. I don’t remember ever going to the crocodile exhibit with her. How the hell did she know the thing was a crocodile and not an alligator? Yes, I know they’re different sizes and their teeth are different, but they’re the same damn thing, AND SHE'S TWO! I think crocodile is the Greek word for run it’s a giant lizard and alligator is the Algonquin word for run it’s a giant lizard. LMJ also does this with the leopards and jaguars as well as the siamangs and colobus monkeys. I chalk it up to her knowing where they are in the zoo as opposed to any hyper-taxonomy skills. But I’m going to start testing her. Freak.

A Look Back At January

2010-01-28T21:11:00.002-05:00

Today was uneventful so I’m writing about my workout. Tomorrow is a scheduled off day for exercise so I doubled up this morning. I did and hour on the treadmill and an hour on the elliptical after my pushups and whatnot. I cruised through all of it. Today was a really good day at the gym, and after I was done stretching I reflected on the improvements I’ve made this month. I’ve lost eight pounds. I’m running a mile an hour faster. I did twelve more pull-ups today than I did on January 4th. I did forty-five more pushups. And I did twenty-five more sit-ups. All of which is great, but what I’m most impressed with is how much I’ve improved my flexibility. I don’t know how to best describe the improvements. I’m still much closer to “stiff as a board” than I am to a contortionist, but I’m a long way from where I was. My head is getting closer to my knee when I stretch my hammys. My knees are getting closer to the floor when I stretch my hips. The only goals I didn’t hit were my swimming goals, but January was way too frackin’ cold for that – way too frackin’ cold. So I’m using a Florida Boy Mulligan on my swimming, and if I’m going to be honest, if February is freezing like January was, I’m not getting in the pool and I will use another Mulligan. I’m very happy with my progress. I just have to remember where I started and not make February 1st a hard floor for my exercise goals. I can’t beat myself up and get discouraged if I don’t improve in February as much as I did in January. A constant rate of improvement is impossible. I just have to remain constant in my effort – especially with my eating – and learn to be happy with that, which is a lot more difficult for me than it should be.