The Power Grid

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, people were smiling, and the scents wafting among the breezes held promises of baked goods and barbecue. Outside of Wall Street, there was no hint of the Apocalypse.

I can't really explain why my workday went by so quickly; there weren't any noteworthy projects to work on. Yet it seemed that I kept busy, and was at the end of the workday before I realized it. Still feeling peppy, I went over to the corporate gym and did a short workout on the elliptical trainer and stationary bike. By the time I finally left the company property, it was completely dark.

I mean completely dark. The moon was in the sky, but it was only illuminated along the merest sliver of its outline, producing no more light than any other nighttime celestial object. I drove home with caution, straining my eyeballs to discern whether any of the local deer were lurking in the roadside shadows, ready to bound into my lane as part of some misguided and suicidal practical joke. (Note for PETA members: Yes, I agree with you that deer are indeed beautiful creatures, and that nature deserves our respect and blah blah blah. But face it, folks, when it comes to traffic judgment and navigational intelligence, these critters are a tad dim.)

Happily, all went well with my homeward journey -- until I reached the traffic signal at the bottom of the C-470 exit ramp. The light was out.

That's odd, I thought, but not really a problem. I was able to turn onto the neighborhood street with no difficulties. But the next traffic light was out, too. And the one after that. Hmmm. I looked around at the neighborhood; the grocery stores were lit up as usual, but the houses and apartment buildings were completely dark. It appeared the power was off throughout a large area of our suburb.

Yep, sure enough, the lights were out at my condo as well. No big deal, I thought; after all, when I wake up in the middle of the night without turning on the lights, I can find my way around just fine. There's peanuts on the kitchen counter, bread and soda in the fridge, and blankets on the bed. Barring an unpredicted arctic front moving in overnight, I should be just fine.

But...whoa! When I got into the parking lot, I found that it wasn't even easy to get into my door. Without moonlight, nor the normally-unnoticed sidewalk lamps, this place is DARK!

Going into Longstreet mode, I used my other senses to feel my way down the entryway to find my door, and somehow fumbled the key into the lock.

Most people think that I have so few possessions because of a lifetime of poor financial decisions, unnecessary generosity in divorce settlements, and the humongous requirements of feeding a ravenous teenage boy. But the truth is that I have intentionally kept my home empty in anticipation of just such an emergency -- I knew the day would come when I'd have to find my way across the room without illumination, and deliberately wanted a clear pathway from the door to the spot where I keep my flashlight. My interior design austerity finally paid off!

My flashlight is one of those windup jobs, so I never have to worry about the batteries running low. If it goes dim, I can just turn the crank a few thousand times, and presto, another 10 minutes of light! But as it happened on this night, the thing was fully charged, and I could do everything I needed to do without having to recharge it. All I needed to do was get something to eat, perform my normal nighttime hygiene-related rituals, and go to bed.

Not knowing whether this outage was one of those "transformer reset" types (where power would be restored in minutes) or a more serious "Godzilla has stomped the power station to rubble" type, I was reluctant to open the fridge for my dinner. Fortunately, I had a banana and some peanuts available, so I was able to obtain my nutrition without letting any additional heat sneak in amongst my perishables. As I prepared myself for an early bedtime, I began to run through what I'd do if I woke up in the morning to find that Rush Limbaugh was right, and the "economic stimulus" bill had indeed caused the collapse of civilization. I suppose I'd have to gather up my steak knives and prepare to do battle with the mohawked mutants who'd surely be roaming the streets by sunup.

Surprisingly, I went right to sleep, and didn't dream of anything remotely apocalyptic. In fact, I'm pretty sure that when I was awoken an hour later by the heater powering up, I was dreaming something about Mr. Rogers singing neighborly songs to a basket of cuddly kittens. Apparently, our good friends at the power company were indeed able to repair the outage, and thus defer the fall of society for at least one additional day. I spent the requisite few minutes recalibrating the clocks, setting a morning alarm, and making sure that nothing else in the condo needed attention. I fell asleep looking forward to the morning, and full of hope for the future.

But I did put matches, candles, and a few dozen cans of Spam on my grocery list. Also a machete. And I think I'll go to the store tomorrow. Just in case.

Anyway, I hope that your evenings remain abundantly illuminated, and that your daylight hours continue to coexist with the hum of electricity coursing through the grid. It's all good. Have a great day!

Deadlines

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." — Parkinson's Law

I doubt that most people plan to run every single project right up to the point where it smashes into its deadline...but around my office, it sure looks that way. Of course, the management team assures us at every step along the way that they're "ahead of schedule" and "have this thing under control". But then at the very end, there's always a frenzied panic as they make a thousand last-minute changes.

It reminds me of my college days whenever I had a paper due. (Please don't tell my son this -- I keep trying to explain the evils of procrastination to him; it would be a shame if he learned that I ever waited until the last minute to do something. Thanks.) Most of my buddies would leave their assignments until the night before and then would stay up late to finish them. My problem was that my "morning person" brain would be useless to me late at night, even if I did chug a 12-pack of Jolt cola before I sat down to study. So what I did was set my alarm for 3am on the morning it was due, and get up early to write the paper right before I had to go to class.

Believe me, you can get pretty good at writing summary statements when you look up and realize that you have just barely enough time to get to the classroom. You just have to go with whatever you've got up to that point.

When you read your paper again a couple of weeks later and realize that it's mostly incoherent, you can't help but ask "What was I thinkin'?"

And here we are decades, er, I mean years later, and I run into the same sorts of challenges in my office. The difference is that I'm no longer the sole source of input to the literary product, and in fact, am the last contributor in the process. So the amount of time I work on finalizing a document doesn't depend on when I set my alarm, but on when the other folks finally let go of it and turn it over to me.

Our system incorporates a milestone known as "pens down". This means that on a particular designated day, all of the proposal authors are to be finished writing and/or changing anything. In fact, they are supposed to be physically removed from the premises at this point, and restricted from touching the documents at all. The theory is that their banishment from the process at that point allows time for Publications (my group) to thoroughly edit the material, format it correctly, and ensure that all the submittal requirements are met in plenty of time to deliver it to the customer before the deadline.

Yeah, right.

Inevitably, though, the "pens down" cutoff point simply launches a new round of revisions, rewrites, and retooling. Usually it's because some manager who was "too busy" before finally takes the time to review the document, and decides to change the word "obtain" to "procure" and "prompt" to "timely". Most of these last-minute changes do nothing whatsoever to improve the product; they're simply serving to placate the ego of someone who wants to feel like he's a contributor. And of course, the unpublicized consequence of this 11th-hour twiddling is that the professional editing and formatting review gets skipped because there's no time left. The result is almost always an uglier product than they had before they tried to "improve" it.

What's my point, you ask? Well, I guess it's just that I get frustrated when I have to work late because somebody else didn't honor their schedule commitments. Yeah, I know, I'm whining, and it's quite obnoxious. So I'll shut up about it.

Anyway, after being up later than usual for the last several days, I'm really looking forward to getting some rest. Perhaps then I can write about more cheerful and entertaining subjects. Until then, try to beat one of your deadlines on something (especially if you're a college kid whose tuition I'm paying), and have a great day!

Voiceovers Class

Ever since my days as a jazz DJ on my college radio station, I've been interested in opportunities to sit in front of a microphone. Since then, I've been fortunate enough to spend some time as a country-western DJ, appear on camera in numerous computer training videos, and even make a few YouTube videos. I am well aware of my crippling limitations as a singer, but have always felt that I could handle the spoken word with reasonable proficiency. I'm no William Shatner or Slim Pickens, but it seems like I oughta be able to read a script without messing it up too badly.

Well, OK, there was that one time in college where we were doing the "practical" exam for newsroom skills, and I was being graded on my performance as an evening news anchor. I had done well on the other segments (director, technical director, sound engineer, cameraman), but when it came time to go on camera and read the report about a devastating earthquake in Peru (or Pakistan or whatever they call that country that's over there next to Spain), well, I just couldn't maintain my composure. Something about being under the bright lights and having my grade depending on doing a serious reading about tragedy just seemed to push me over the edge. I started laughing hysterically and just couldn't stop. And when you're laughing in the middle of reciting statistics on death tolls and property loss, well, that's pretty funny, too. It was as if I was being tickled beyond my tolerance point, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. It just got worse and worse.

The bad thing was that we were simulating a "LIVE" broadcast, so the teacher just shook his head and said "We're still on the air, people", as I was doubling over in complete hysteria and nearing panic. Luckily, one of my classmates walked over and snatched the script out of my hand and began reading from the point where I'd lost it. As he read, I just collapsed behind the newsdesk (off camera, thankfully) and giggled until we went to commercial.

You want to know the best part? I actually passed the class!

But I digress. We were talking about my desire to find creative outlets in which I could use my vocal cords to remunerative advantage.

When I had the jazz show on KJHK (K-Jayhawk, get it?), I maintained a mellow, Clint-Eastwood-in-Play-Misty-For-Me understated kind of voice while I was on the air. But hanging around the studio during the other shows gave me a chance to practice my Top-40 speed-freak voice (CallUsRightNowOnTheRequestLineCuzWePlayTheHits Nonstop24HoursADayOhYeah!), my Ted Baxter newsman voice, and my Tommy Chong Dave's-not-here-man, let's-play-some-Grateful-Dead voice. And a couple of years later when I was at KICT ("Kicked", get it? As in "let's put on cowboy boots and bolo ties and pretend that we're on the Ponderosa", etc), I got to practice my laconic "aw shucks, fellers" kind of countryfied voice. "Y'all gimme a jingle if'n you got a request for some Buck Owens er sumpthin, ya heah?"

Oh yeah, I've got range, man. Ben Affleck-type range. So when I saw an add for a "Get into the VoiceOver Business" class, I signed up right away.

My buddy Russ took the class as well, and we both enjoyed it. Much of the time was spent discussing the business aspects of the craft, including how much money you could make if you develop a distinctive sound and get paid big bucks just for pretending to be a duck saying the magic word "Affleck". But toward the end of the class, we all got a chance to read lines from a commercial script while the teacher wrote down comments about our performances. He said that Russ was "a natural", but that I could benefit from some training (which he just happened to be able to provide, for only about $4000).

Well, I'm not going to pay for the dude's training program, even though I'm sure it's just swell. Instead, I'm going to get out my own microphone and practice my reading until I get dialed in to just the right combination of Darth Vader and Bobcat Goldthwait distinctiveness. I promise that I'll share some of those practice recordings with you in futures posts, so stay tuned. And have a great day!

Whoo Hoo!

I made it! We did the "Run the Republic" stairclimb event on Sunday. It was a lot of fun...mainly because I did much better than I expected to. Results are posted online.

Everyone on our team did well, and I really enjoyed their enthusiasm and encouragement. It was a real kick to sit around before our start time and watch people eat Gu-packs, lace and relace their shoes, and go to the bathroom a dozen times. And once the women's bathroom got too crowded, there were even a few ladies who brazenly sauntered into the men's room to use the facilities without having to wait. (Probably Europeans.)

Then there's the cheerful banter among friends, the steely-eyed concentration people put into queuing up their specially-designed-for-racing iPod playlist, and the always-popular pastime of checking around to see if anybody's wearing a t-shirt from a race that you've also done. It's fun!

They had the music and the race announcer's voice cranked up pretty loud around the starting queue, so once your start time had been called, you really couldn't carry on much more conversation. And in a surprisingly short time after entering the cattle pens, you find yourself staring at the start clock, waiting for the gatekeeper to clap you on the back to GO!

I don't think I've ever started a race before where I couldn't see at least part of the racecourse. The starting line is outside the stairwell, and since I'd never been in that particular stairwell before, I had no idea what it looked like. So when I got the tap on the shoulder, I turned the corner and plunged into the unknown.

My first thought was "Gee, this is kindof a crappy little stairwell." The stairs were narrow, and the handrails were made from ugly green square tubes instead of the stainless steel round type I'd been expecting. My second thought was "There's not much of a passing lane in here. There could be some traffic jams a-comin'." But it only took a floor or two for me to begin to appreciate the narrowness of the steps -- because I found that I could use both arms to grab rails and take some of the weight off my legs.

Having never gone more than about 6 flights up at one time during my training, I wasn't sure how the cumulative effect of unending ascent would affect my legs. To tell you the truth, I was half-expecting my quads to be burning with the pain of a thousand bonfires before I even got halfway up the 56 floors...so I tried really hard to keep a steady, but not too rapid pace.

The actual race is a bit of a blur, I'm sorry to say. I was concentrating on grabbing the rail and taking the next step; grabbing the rail and taking the next step, so I wasn't really tuned in to the environment. I was vaguely aware of the rumbling from the huge vent fans spaced every 10th floor or so, and I dimly appreciated the cheerleaders and pom-pom girls that were yelling encouragement on various landings. A couple of the folks I passed were kind enough to pull over and let me go by without having to squeeze to the outside, and I used what little air I had to gasp a quiet "thanks" as I went past. When I had to pass someone who didn't pull over, I used both arms on the outside rail and tried to switch to a 2-steps-at-a-time stride until I was safely in front of them.

When I could hear a faster climber coming up behind me, I did the same thing; I grabbed the outer rail and moved aside to let them have the inside lane. A couple of them seemed to be in a flat-out run, and went by me like I was standing still. But I don't think any of them were gasping any harder than I was. I suspect that the cheerleaders were tempted to call the paramedics, just because of the noises I was making -- but I actually felt pretty good.

I didn't want to sprint too soon, because I didn't want to run out of gas. But I figured that with about 3 floors to go, it would be safe to put the hammer down and try to run up the remaining stairs all-out, taking them two at a time. So when I reached floor 52, I mentally prepared myself to start the final sprint on the next level.

But when I reached floor 53, well...there was the finish line timing mat! What?? Puzzled, I stumbled across it and finished the race without a final sprint at all. My confused look must not have been unique, because one of the volunteers immediately said "You started 3 floors in the basement", which explained how a 56-floor event could end on the 53rd floor. Oh well...I decided to treat that as excellent news -- for two reasons. One, I was finished, and didn't have to go any higher. And two, it means that I should be able to go faster next year; I just have to start sprinting at the 50th floor!

As it was, though, I was deliriously happy with my finish time. Based on what others had told me about the race, I was anticipating something in the 12-minute range, and ended up finishing nearly 2 minutes faster than that. My quads weren't hurting, my knees had held up without complaint, and I could now have all the water I wanted to drink!

Of course, I did start coughing like a 1952 Studebaker, but so did everyone else. My friend Kim said that it's because of all the concrete dust kicked up in the stairwell, but whatever the cause, the 53rd floor sounded like a bubonic plague ward. No worries, though, even while their lungs spasmed, these folks had gigantic smiles on their faces. And as I said, our entire team did well. We posed for a team photo, then took the elevator down to cruise the vendor booths for a bit. Then we headed back to the pool for swim practice.

It was an excellent day, and even though it was a short race, we could all be proud of what we had done.

So maybe you should consider signing up next year, eh? I'll let you know when it's time to do that. In the meantime, try taking the stairs instead of the elevator -- and have a great day!

Thursday

This Sunday is the "Run the Republic" stair climb race. Several folks from our swim team are doing it, and have talked me into participating as well. It's a pretty simple concept; you just go straight up 56 flights of stairs as fast as you can.

As it gets closer, I realize that I'm getting a bit nervous about it. It sounds like it could be painful.

So the question for Thursday morning's workout at the gym was this: "Should I take it easy to 'taper' for the race?" After all, it's 56 floors of quad-busting, lung-burning effort, and may require every bit of endurance and stamina I have.

On the other hand, it's only supposed to take about 12 minutes. Do I really need to rest up in order to do a 12-minute event?

I decided not. I went ahead with my normal Thursday workout -- lifting weights, spending some time on the elliptical machine, cranking the arm-bike, and riding the recumbent exercycle. It was a good day at the gym.

I'll let you know how it goes on Sunday. In the meantime, things have picked up at the office, and I now have several items I'm responsible for on this proposal. There could be some busy days ahead, which often result in opportunities for interesting blogging. I hope I'll have some fun stories to share with you. Stay tuned!

The Kindness of Strangers...and the Cruelty of Friends

Let us begin by discussing the cruelty part, shall we?

OK, I guess I've got to be honest, it wasn't intentional cruelty. In fact, as a wise philosopher once said, "Some people claim that there's a woman to blame...but I know, well, it could be my fault." (Or something like that.)

The saga begins at the gym at 5:30 in the morning. I sometimes like to warm up with a brief walk on the treadmill before lifting weights, and it happened that my friend Katie was running on the next treadmill over. For the purposes of this tale, you need to understand that Katie is one of those people who is gifted with flawless running mechanics; she runs marathons for fun, and never ever gets injured. Her form is a textbook example of the type of poetic fluidity and seemingly effortless grace that makes running look fun, and makes a shambling, syncopated oaf like myself wish that he was a ponytailed young woman.

No wait, that didn't come out right. What I meant to say is that I wish I could run like that. Yeah, that's what I meant.

Anyway, we got to talking and I mentioned that I was thinking about doing a bit of running later in the day. Katie, being an enthusiastic evangelist for the sport, said, "Why don't you just run three miles on the treadmill here this morning." I said I'd think about it, completed my warmup, and went off to do my weights.

As it turned out, I didn't get back to the treadmill until it was almost time to leave for work. But I figured I'd have time to run one mile, so I jumped up on the treadmill and began to jog. I was feeling a little sluggish after the weights and exerbiking I had done, so I set the machine to a pretty slow pace.

I had gone about a quarter mile when Katie hopped back up on the treadmill next to mine. She turned to me and said something to the effect of "Ha ha, slow runner! Your pitiful efforts nauseate me and are beneath my contempt. I laugh at your weakness, and pity your foolishness. I shall now demonstrate my superiority by finishing a mile before you do, despite your quarter-mile head start. Ha ha!"

Well, that's the way I remember it, anyway. She (and several impartial witnesses) seem to remember that I was the one who issued the challenge to see who could finish the mile first, and that absolutely no insults were uttered. She swears that she was just being supportive, and had no motives other than to encourage me to run fast.

She started running effortlessly, with that maddeningly smooth stride. I could hear the treadmill's controls beeping as she inched the speed upwards. I countered by turning my pace up a notch or two. Hers beeped again. And so it went.

When I reached .6 miles, she was only a few hundreths behind me, so I decided to go ahead and reach for my top speed -- and I cranked it up. I was feeling pretty good, and flying along at a tempo that was well beyond my normal distance running pace.

And that's when the hamstring went "ding!" My right leg began to tighten up, and was threatening a full-blown rebellion. I knew that I had irritated it badly, but I also knew that I could probably force myself to keep going if the stakes were high enough.

But they weren't. There was nothing on the line here other than my male pride and manly sense of self-esteem. There was no need to be a macho martyr here -- even Marty McFly knew when to back down rather than risk a dangerous confrontation. I stopped the treadmill, conceded the race, and limped away to nurse my sore leg. As I hobbled off, I could hear Katie laughing and calling out "Look at the girly-man! Are you going to go home to cry in your pink fluffy pillow, girly-man?"

Or something like that. (She -- and the aforementioned witnesses -- swear that it was something more along the lines of "Terry, are you OK? I'd be happy to get you some ibuprofen or an ice pack...are you sure you're OK?")

Anyway, the point is that my hamstring was not feeling all that zippy when I met my brother at the track for our sprint workout later that day. I had talked Tanner into joining us for some sprinting, and even though it was quite windy, it appeared to be warm enough that we'd be OK running without winter gear.

Pat's idea was that we'd do a continuous relay for 11 minutes, with each of us running 300 meters per leg. The object was to see how much total distance we could cover in that time. So here again, we have an example of abject cruelty disguised as a brotherly attempt to encourage a healthy activity. But he knew I was hurting, and sure enough, the end result was additional pain in my sore hamstring. And to add insult to injury, the temperature dropped and the wind picked up to about 50mph during the time we were on the track. When our 11 minutes were finally up, we were all pretty chilly. We were planning to do more after that, but decided to call it a day at that point.

Pat went home. Tanner and I went to Taco Bell for dinner. I was wearing my running gear of course (no pants pockets), so I just shoved my wallet into the pocket of my fleece jacket and went on into the store. I guess that I got so involved in my conversation with Tanner (a spirited debate over whether foreign sweat shops were a good thing or a bad thing) that I didn't notice when my jacket had drooped enough to let the wallet spill out onto the floor. So after getting my fill of spicy-cheesy-beany goodness, I simply drove home and hung it up for the night without ever giving another thought to where my wallet might be.

I noticed its absence when I woke up the next day, though, and called Taco Bell as soon as I got to work. They didn't have it. So, I spent the next few hours calling credit card companies, etc., and trying to remember what other wallet items needed to be cancelled. Do I need to worry about bad guys using my library card? My insurance cards? And as fate would have it, there had been quite a bit more money in my wallet than I usually carry -- how would I deal with the sudden loss of $22.50?

But then, at about noon, my phone rang. It was the night manager from Taco Bell; he had secured that wallet for safekeeping, so the morning crew at the store had no idea it was there. He had found it when they closed the store, and had decided not to call me then because it was so late at night. But as soon as he woke up to get ready for work, he let me know that I could pick it up at the store later in the afternoon. Whew!

I took off work early and zipped over there to pick it up. Both the manager and his assistant came out to chat with me and to tell me the entire story of how they found the wallet and tracked me down. It warmed my heart to meet these great gentlemen, and to see that human kindness and civic sensibility are alive and well in our community. I really had not expected to see my wallet again, but I truly believe that these guys never thought of anything other than returning it to me. I offered them some reward money, but they refused to take it, and offered me a couple of warm smiles instead. I left there feeling really, really good.

In fact, I wasn't even mad at Katie or Pat any more.

Anyway, this incident occured at the Taco Bell at S. Wadworth and Cross Dr., just north of Southwest Plaza. I don't usually endorse individual fast food restaurants in this column, but I'm making an exception here -- Please patronize this fine establishment, and give my warm regards to the evening crew that saved me an awful lot of worry and effort. Thanks, and have a great day!

Deceptive Fruit

Several years ago, the sport of Masters Swimming went through a "clever T-shirt" phase, where competitors wore slogans and illustrations proclaiming their pride in still being involved in the sport even though they were "past their prime". Most of the graphics contained wheelchairs, wrinkly guys wearing Mr. Magoo glasses and walking with canes, piles of bedpans, and other cliché trappings of life in the geriatric care unit. The slogans were either in the "There may be snow on the rooftop, but there's still fire in the furnace" genre, or more along the lines of "I cain't swim until I've had my rheumatiz medicine."

We no longer define ourselves this way. Nowadays, there are a lot of older swimmers who just flat go FAST, and have no need for humorous T-shirts to explain their inadequacy. But a few decades ago, it was not at all uncommon.

One shirt I saw at several swim meets proclaimed the following: "Experience, deceit, and treachery can defeat youth and skill." I don't know whether the guys who wore those shirts actually utilized such underhanded methods to achieve victories, but I doubt it. The only actual instances of swim meet deceit and/or treachery I have personally witnessed were back in my days with the Wichita Swim Club.

The most famous of those was when Glenn Nyberg positioned himself at the end of the pool during one of Mike Ulffers' races and raised his arm in the official "he's disqualified!" gesture as if he were one of the designated stroke judges. The referee saw the motion and duly recorded Mike's primary competitor as being deeked. I'm not sure whether there was any kind of protest, but the DQ stood, and Mike won the race. Glenn, who was already pretty well-known for his irreverent shenanigans, immediately saw his bad-boy reputation elevated to legendary status.

A less publicized (and less successful) example of aquatic dishonesty was, I'm sad to say, perpetrated by my own brother. It was in the 400 Freestyle heats at the Regional Championships, which happened to be at our own pool in Wichita that year. Pat was seeded as the slowest swimmer in his heat, and through the first 200 meters of the race, appeared to be performing as expected. I was sitting in the stands to watch him swim, but was also talking with my pals and not paying close attention to the pool. Suddenly someone shouted "look at Pat!", and our attention was drawn back to the race. My brother had gone from lagging in last place to suddenly be in contention to win the heat! Everyone started yelling and cheering for him, encouraging this spectacular comeback. I don't remember if he ended up winning the heat or not, but regardless -- we had just witnessed an unprecedented burst of speed that resulted in an amazing finish! His final time was at least a dozen seconds faster than anyone had thought he could go.

When Pat got out of the pool, we all gathered around to share our appreciation and sense of wonder over his surprising performance. As we heaped praise upon him, he had an unexpected look of confusion on his face. He raised an eyebrow and said "What are you talking about? Weren't you watching?"

"Sure, man, we saw you finish! You came from SO far back! Nice job!"

"Um...you weren't really watching, then. I flipped in the middle of the pool, guys. I only swam about 350 meters. I cheated." Oops. "I was really hurting, and didn't want to swim the whole thing. I knew I'd be disqualified."

Only...he wasn't. Apparently, none of the judges or timers had been paying that much attention either. They posted his official time as if he'd actually swum as fast as we originally thought he had. He might even have been in line to receive an award.

Unlike Glenn, though, Pat immediately hurried over to the officials' table and confessed. There may have been consequences beyond disqualification too, but I don't remember what those might have been. But victory was not among the results achieved.

So what does this all have to do with fruit, you ask?

Just this: among the mostly-honorable members of the citrus food community, there lurks a deceitful villain whose lies and falsehoods need to be exposed -- the vile and evil pummelo!

Up until a week ago, I had never heard of this particular variety of fruit. But King Soopers had a big cardboard box full of them sitting out in the middle of the floor near the banana display, bearing a large poster that said "Pummelos — $.50/pound"! Fifty cents a pound for any kind of citrus fruit seems like a serious bargain; most oranges, grapefruits, etc, go for 3 to 4 times that much. I saw these greenish yellow orbs sitting there in the box and thought, "I have no idea what these things are, but you gotta have some adventure in your life, don't you?" I picked one up and tossed it in my grocery cart.

You can probably follow my reasoning: "The thing is as big as a large grapefruit. In fact, it looks kinda like a grapefruit. It's cheaper than a grapefruit, though, which probably means that they are desperate to get rid of them, which means it probably tastes like a car battery. Still, it's gotta be healthy (since it's fruit), and my taste buds aren't all that discriminating: I can probably choke it down. And who knows? Maybe it'll taste like gummi bears and I'll be the hero of the neighborhood for discovering this heretofore-unknown taste treat!"

The good news is that it wasn't all that nasty to eat. In fact, it tasted pretty much like a regular grapefruit. But the bad news is that fifty cents a pound isn't much of a bargain when the majority of each pound is contained in the weight of the rind. I couldn't believe it when I cut into the thing; though the entire fruit was nearly the size of a soccer ball, the edible portion wasn't much bigger than a plum. It took me 5 minutes of cutting, tearing, and peeling to release the imprisoned food, and no more than 30 seconds to eat it all.

I suppose that this rind surplus actually makes the pummelo a fabulous diet food. You expend 100 calories jackhammering it open, and only consume 50 when you eat it. And if you don't want to eat it, I suppose you could lose even more weight by tossing it around like a medicine ball. So please don't get me wrong here -- I'm not on any kind of anti-pummelo crusade or anything. I just want you to warn you that when it comes to fruit, it's the same as it is with people: You can't judge what's inside merely by measuring the outside diameter.

Words to live by, my friends. Have a great day!

Good Sunday

Sunday started out much like Saturday did -- with me looking at the weather report and deciding that I wasn't in the mood for a frostbitten run. Instead, I spent the early hours doing some miscellaneous chores, and thinking about swim practice.

The Foothills Swim Team kids were having a meet at the Ridge, but were supposed to be finishing up about the time we were scheduled to start. I figured that it wouldn't be a problem to have the Masters Team come in to start our warmup while the younger folks were cooling down and wandering off to the locker rooms. But what I didn't know was that the post-competition activities included a Mega-Buffet, set up right there on the pool deck.

Oh sure, I had eaten a hearty bowl of oatmeal before heading to the pool, so I knew that I was fueled well enough to make it through our practice. But merely knowing that is not an adequate shield against the mental and emotional distress caused by walking by a boatload of delicious food when you can't have any!

At one time in my life, I ate donuts at a pace worthy of Homer Simpson. But over the years, I've learned to resist them like a good 12-stepper. So if this would've been merely a donut display, I'd have been fine. But it wasn't.

They had trays and trays full of cinnamon rolls, eggs, sausage, muffins, hash browns, and even brownies! Cinnamon rolls AND brownies? C'mon! Do you seriously expect me to resist those? And if the long tables piled with these delights weren't enough of a temptation, all the kids had platefuls of the goodies, and were lounging on every single square inch of pool deck. It was not possible to be anywhere at all in the facility without being inches away from a heaping platter of warm & aromatic drippy-sweet goodness. Within a few seconds of entering the building, I was a trembling, drooling slave to demon hunger.

And to add insult to injury, no one offered to share any of this bounty with me. In fact, when I asked the guy who was dishing out the rolls if there'd be any extras, he said "Hey, do your workout first, and then we'll talk!"

Grrrr.

So, it was only through an inspirational triumph of discipline that I and my teammates were able to focus our concentration on swimming -- and proceed to perform our scheduled workout. And of course, while we were warming up, the party-cleanup gnomes snuck in and spirited away all of the leftovers. Suddenly, the parents and kids had vanished (along with all signs of sustenance), and we were left alone with our sugarplum dreams, kickboards, and pullbuoys.

What were we to do, other than just go ahead and have a murderous workout? Huh?

That's what we did. We mixed it up well, doing a lot of stroke swimming, kicking, and then tackling a long set of short-interval freestyle. I was swimming reasonably well, and working hard enough that I was pretty well spent by the end of it. I think everyone else was, too. And guess what everyone was talking about when they got out of the pool? That's right -- food!

Tanner had already eaten when I called, so I just went home and ate the rest of my leftover pizza. It wasn't as good as cinnamon rolls or brownies (or any breakfast item, for that matter), but it hit the spot. At that point, though, it seemed that everything sorta caught up with me, and I fell asleep on the sofa.

After I woke up, I spent the rest of the day doing bookkeeping, laundry, and other random chores. I'm sorry I can't come up with anything more interesting to talk about, but the boring fact is that I watched some TV, finished the book I was reading, and went to bed early. Pretty dull. Tomorrow, I get to compose an email to send to the swim team about OUR upcoming swim meet and potluck event. I'll bet you can guess what sorts of food I'm going to request that they bring. Mmmmm.

Here's an idea -- How 'bout we invite all the Foothills kids to come to the pool and watch us eat while they do their workout. It's only fair, right?

On second thought...nah. I couldn't be that cruel.

Taz Video

Saturday was Valentine's Day. It was also the first day we've had in a while where the wind wasn't blowing very hard. I decided to take advantage of this meteorological respite and shoot the remaining chroma-key scenes I needed for my Taz instruction video. (If you have no idea what the previous sentence means, just watch the video embedded at the bottom of this post. Thanks.)

I normally do my long run on Saturday mornings, but due to several factors (mostly the outdoor temperature and my own slothfulness), I decided to swim instead. It was an excellent workout, and I left the pool feeling really perky. I grabbed a quick bite to eat and then called Tanner to see if he could help me with the video. He said he could.

If time permits, I always like to have him play me a couple of songs on the piano before we head out for whatever it is we're going to do. It's always a joy to hear the new material he's working on, whether it's his own composition or some great jazz standard from the past. We probably should've shot the video first, since the wind would indeed come up a bit later...but I wanted to take advantage of my free concert first. (By the way, we'll be posting a couple of his new songs within the next few weeks. Stay tuned.)

Before long, though, we headed over to the local park. We used clothespins to hang our backdrop on a baseball backstop, probably counfounding the folks who were using the park for frisbee flinging. "Hey, look, Ethel! What're them fellers doin' with that big bedsheet they's a tryin' to hang on that there fence? Maybe it's that artist feller Crisco tryin' out another one o' them crazy tent things he calls art cuz he cain't draw nuthin'." Or perhaps our citizens are now so well conditioned to ignore anomalous behavior that no one would give us a second glance. In any case, we were able to complete our videography without being disturbed...except for the one gust of wind that sent a half dozen of our clothespins flying like shrapnel.

It was colder than it looks on the video, so we decided that we were satisfied with the second take. Given better resources (ie, a studio, some reflectors, a few grips and gophers, better mikes, some actual onscreen talent, etc.) we could've achieved better results, but even artistes such as ourselves (cough) are willing to make compromises under extenuating circumstances. Please note, though, that if you'd like to see higher quality output from these projects, we are willing to talk about accepting large sums of investor cash. Just let me know.

Here's today's contribution to the global storehouse of swimming technique instruction:

The rest of our day was spent consuming burritos at Chipotle and discussing world politics and economics. I think we concluded the conversation by agreeing that market forces could probably do a better job of fixing the economy than Congress can. But I guess we'll never know for sure.

It does make me wonder, though, how much clearer our government's vision would be if they discussed each bill over a yummy burrito rather than sitting there in those fancy chairs that you wouldn't want to spill salsa on. Maybe then the pork would be in the cuisine rather than in the legislation.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Eat more beans, and swim more Taz. And have a great day!

Friday the 13th

As an environmentally conscious citizen, the first thing I did when I moved into my current home was to replace the old analog thermostat with one of those groovy new programmable jobs. I have it set to only heat the place during the one hour I'm out of bed before I leave in the morning, and the couple of hours I'm home in the evening before I crawl back under the covers. The rest of the time, it's set to "Eskimo Pie"...so if I wake up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I have to really hurry to finish up before the icicles start to form.

For some reason, I just couldn't get warm on Friday morning. Oh, the heater kicked on right when it was supposed to, and I should've been comfy during my breakfast and workout-prep rituals...but I wasn't. I even wore a ski cap on my head while I peeled my orange, and I turned on the space heater in the bathroom. These things helped a little, but I was still feeling chilled and creaky when I left for the pool.

I'm not superstitious at all, but it was hard not to notice that the aquatics staff was having lane-rope troubles when I arrived at the pool. On one of the ropes, the wire had gotten wedged into the side of the spool pulley, so the rachet couldn't be tightened...and therefore the lane line could not be installed. With the proper tools (ie, Vise Grips®) it could be fixed in seconds, but with wet amateurs flailing away at it with makeshift screwdrivers and bare fingers, there was bound to be blood. The lifeguard was the first to give it a try, and she ended up getting a flesh wound for her trouble. Being a professional, though, she was able to keep most of her hemoglobin out of the pool, and got herself bandaged up and back on the guard stand before any of the swimmers got wet.

I took my turn at it, too, trying to avoid puncturing myself or slicing off any limbs. (The worst part was that I didn't have my glasses on, and couldn't really see what I was doing.) Eventually, with a little help from a couple of other folks, I was finally able to work it loose, re-thread it, and get the lane rope installed. By that time, though, warmup was over and it time to start the workout. And I was still cold.

Please don't tell anyone on the swim team what I am about to share with you, OK? These folks hold me in such high regard and treat me with such reverent respect that you'd think I walk on the water rather than swim through it. I would hate to damage their dearly-held illusions by revealing that I am, after all, merely human. But the truth is that sometimes I alter the planned workout to selfishly accomodate the way I am feeling, and this was one of those days.

I had planned to have the group do another broken 1000 for time, but I knew that without being warmed up, I would totally suck at something like that. Therefore, I changed the plan, and we did a broken 500 instead. The good news is that I finally was able to get loosened up during this set. The bad news is, of course, that we didn't do a 1000. Everybody enjoys timed 1000s. Right?

Oh well. Maybe we'll do it next Wednesday. And if I remember to think about it, maybe for the Friday the 13th coming up in March, I'll try to think up some sort of "superstition-based" workout idea. I'll have to do some research, though -- all I can think of at this particular moment are black cats, walking under ladders, and opening umbrellas indoors; I'm not sure how any of those translates into a swim practice set.

Anyway, I hope you were able to suppress your triskaidekaphobia and avoid any sort of transfusion-necessitating labor, and that you got through the day with a spring in your step and a smile on your face. As for the other imminent event where folks have hopes of getting lucky (aka "Valentines Day"), well, I'll just wish you the best possible fortune on that one, too. Have a great day!

Weird Night

I usually sleep pretty well. Oh, I'm not one of those folks who completely conk out and would sleep through a Flock of Seagulls concert -- No, I'm what they call a "subconscious environmental awareness processor" sleeper. What that means is that I allocate a small segment of my giant brain for monitoring night noises to provide a "night watchman" function so the rest of my system can rest comfortably.

For example, if someone was using my microwave to prepare a delicious cinnamon Pop Tart, the brain cells monitoring my nose would signal me to wake up and enjoy a tasty meal. Similarly, if a lumberjack walked into my bedroom with a running chainsaw, the scent of two-stroke engine oil would alert me to the fact that something fun to watch was about to happen. If the neighbors were arguing about which of the Monroe brothers was Alf and which was Ralph, well, I'd promptly wake up to provide them with the correct answer. You get the idea.

Most nights, the only things that trigger this reflex is when my idiot neighbor yells at his idiot dog at 1am, or when my discomfort monitor alerts me to the fact that I probably shouldn't have drunk so much liquid right before bedtime. I'm able to successfully ignore the other non-critical stimuli (refrigerator compressor cycling, cars driving by, smoke detectors going off, albino ferrets fighting badgers outside the window, etc.) But last night, there was a nagging sound that persisted long enough that my alertness module finally decided to bring me to full consciousness.

At first, I couldn't figure out why I had awoken. There were no enticing aromas, no voices talking about Star Trek trivia, and no tarantulas wandering across my forehead. What was it?

It turned out there were two separate anomalies. The first (and loudest) was that my toilet was gurgling and moaning like Jabba the Hutt after eating a state-fair chili dog. And I could swear that I heard the very faint sound of a neighbor's phone ringing. The first problem was easy enough to solve, just lift the tank lid and push down on the float until the water was high enough to keep the valve fully closed. But the other problem was a little tougher.

The sound was just barely audible...in fact, I wasn't sure if it really was a neighbor's phone ringing, or just some artifact of alien mind-probe rays that are constantly assaulting those of us who don't wear tinfoil hats to bed. I could almost convince myself that it was either imaginary, or just a ringing in my ears that remained as a result of all those Blue Öyster Cult concerts I attended in my youth. But it occured at the exact regular intervals that a telephone ring would. And nobody was answering.

And you know what that does to your brain in the middle of the night, right? You start thinking, "What kind of moron would make a call and let it ring over and over again without hanging up?" It had been going on for at least 5 minutes at this point, and maybe a lot longer. But then you think "What if it's somebody who knows the person is home and is trying to wake them up due to some sort of emergency? Maybe something serious is going down, and I should really get up and investigate?"

But then you think, "No, it's probably just some stupid auto-dialing fax machine or something, and I really need to get back to sleep." This goes on for another four or five minutes, and then your brain starts thinking about some old Don Knotts movie and you wonder why he and Doris Day were never in the same film, and that there really should be more movies about astronaut kitty cats on venus, and...well, then you're already pretty much asleep again.

I'm not sure how long I was awake. All I know is that I'm not quite as well rested as I normally would be, so if appear to be incoherent today, please forgive me. I'll try really hard to catch up on my sleep tonight. Maybe I'll wear some earplugs. Let's all have a great night!

Ice Cream

I started the morning with a fairly intense run around the neighborhood. It was a bit chilly, but a short-sleeved shirt was adequate to keep me from freezing. Unfortunately, the weather deteriorated throughout the remainder of the day.

On most normal work days, I stay inside the same building for my entire shift. It's usually a welcome treat to attend a meeting in another building, because I can go outside and enjoy a nice walk across our beautiful campus. I was definitely looking forward to attending our VP's "all-hands" meeting, because it would mean I could walk over to a building on the other side of the ravine. (At this time of year, you can safely ignore the "Beware of Rattlesnakes" signs -- those slithery guys are all hunkered down for the winter. In the summer, well, you need to stay a tad more alert.)

When my buddy Russ and I left the building, we noted that the air was a bit more brisk than we had thought. But we'd have to go back in the building and walk back up the stairs to get jackets, and we hadn't built backtracking time into our schedule. We decided that we could make the half-mile walk without additional insulation, so we put on our macho, Manly-Man-Who-Laughs-at-Nature faces, and took off across the parking lot.

By the time we reached the SSB entrance, our ears were bright red, our hands were frozen into gnarled claws, and our speech was slurred and indistinct. Fortunately, the building was fairly warm, and when we sat down in the Presentation Room, we proceeded to warm up without further problems.

The VP talked about how well our department was doing, mentioned several capital improvement projects that are in work, and expressed general optimism about the business climate within our unit for the next year. He didn't say anything at all about layoffs or cutbacks, so the meeting ended without any additional disgruntlement or pessimism. And once it was over, they broke out the ice cream!

I can't decide whether it's cool that our group meetings feature free ice cream with bounteous fixin's...or if it's sad that they feel they have to bribe us with frostilicious treats to get us to attend. I guess it doesn't matter -- the important thing is that they had multiple varieties of chocolate topping, and no restrictions on how many times you could go back through the line! I consumed my daily lunch and dinner calories without breaking a sweat, and enjoyed every cold, delicious bite.

But the operative word is "cold". Once we were full of ice cream, it was time to head back across campus to our office in RDL. Upon stepping outside, we noticed that the clouds had rolled in and the wind had picked up. It's possible that the temperature had dropped, as well. The weather had gone from merely "unpleasant" to flat-out "nasty" in the time we'd been there, and we had just consumed massive amounts of core-temp-reducing confection. Our chances of returning to the office without frostbite were looking pretty slim. Still, it would be downright unmanly to ask for a ride back over there...so we set out to bravely trudge through the wintery blast.

My memory of the hike itself is a bit fuzzy. I suppose it's possible that we were attacked by Yetti, stalked by timber wolves, and tempted to succumb to Alferd-Packerism...but I cannot remember any of those specific events. All I know for sure is that I somehow ended up back at my desk with a new appreciation for the benefits of wearing a jacket when hiking in the middle of February.

But I'm already looking forward to the next "all-hands" meeting. That sure was good ice cream.

Idiot Savant

Every couple of months, I get in touch with my old college roommate. It's always fun to hear from him, and we're sure to spend some quality moments reminiscing about all the good times we had in college. (Of course, we tend to ignore the times we suffered while studying for tests, fell asleep in ruthlessly boring classes, and received humiliating rejections from any women we might have mistakenly thought we were cool enough to talk to. Sigh.)

Most of our favorite memories come from hanging out with our swimming buddies of course...since as everyone knows, swimmers are the highest quality people that exist. But beyond memories of exciting competitions and irreverent shenanigans, I'm afraid that most of our "good times" involved sitting in the dorm room watching TV.

We grew up in Wichita, which only had three TV stations. (Well, four if you count PBS, which I don't. Not only was the PBS signal horrendously weak in most of the city, but back then they only showed operas, orchestras, and gardening shows...hardly the stuff that would entice viewers from my particular demographic.) But when we moved to Lawrence, we could pick up the UHF stations out of Topeka and Kansas City, and suddenly were exposed to all sorts of enticing programming. B-grade monster movies, overdubbed proto-Power-Rangers stuff (like Johnny Sokko and His Giant Robot -- could somebody please explain why a Japanese robot has the head of a sphinx?, and Ultraman!), reruns of Star Trek, the Beverly Hillbillies, and Green Acres. It was nirvana; other than the occasional sporting event or degree-critical classroom test, there was no reason to ever leave the warm glow of the cathode ray tube.

The amazing thing is that Mickey still remembers practically every episode of each of these programs, and more. He can quote lines from "Bewitched", "Kung Fu", "Hawaii 5-O", "Bullwinkle", and anything that Ron Howard ever appeared in. And if there was an industry that employed Jethro Bodine impersonators, he'd have a career for life.

Strangely, though, he doesn't seem to remember anything at all that was taught in the classes he occasionally attended. Or maybe that's not so surprising -- after all, there were rumors that (like certain politicians), some of the assignments he turned in may not have contained 100% original material. Hmm.

No matter. He graduated, and now owns a successful oil business in Tulsa. And he still corrects me if I use a TV show quote inaccurately. He may not be able to remember to tie his shoes or put on deoderant in the mornings, but he'll nail every one of Jed Clampett's folksy-wisdom lines without fail. While Nature may have been needlessly cruel in depriving him of good looks, social skills, and academic talent... he definitely has been granted the gift of 60s sitcom mimicry. I tip my hat to him for that, and look forward to our next nostalgic chat.

"Book 'em, Danno", and have a great day!

Just a Gigolo

Tanner's mom kicked him out of the house Saturday night. No, it's not because he's an obnoxious teenager with questionable hygiene who doesn't contribute to household upkeep. In defiance of popular conceptions of jazz musicians, Tanner actually bathes regularly, takes out the trash every now and then, and is only obnoxious when he gets defensive after being questioned regarding his slavish devotion to the utterly ridiculous fad of wearing his pants down around his knees.

No, his mom kicked him out because she was hosting a chick party, and didn't want any hints of testosterone around to foul the atmosphere. Ergo, the plan was for him to spend the night at my place.

When I arrived to pick him up, his mom was preparing the house for the festivities. The theme for the party was "Johnny Depp", so she had rented every Johnny Depp movie on DVD, and had procured a couple of gigantic posters of the guy. Tanner and I were recruited to help hang the posters on the wall, so that the ladies would be able to totally immerse themselves in the Johnny Depp experience while they similarly immersed themselves in wine and feminine chitchat.

As for me, well, I thoroughly enjoyed "Pirates of the Carribean"...but have been completely mystified as to why anyone would watch any of Depp's other movies. He seems to choose films that fall into the "sensitive and deep" category (aka "utterly unwatchable crap"), and ends up portraying characters that you just want to punch in the nose.

And yet, for some reason, the chicks seem to dig him. I do not understand this at all. I mean, look at this photo -- oh sure, it contains a few elements that have traditionally represented manliness: the tattoos, facial hair, the smoke, the dirty undershirt worn haphazardly (suggesting the possibility of B.O.) -- but the overall impact of the composition appears to be intended to induce the viewer to watch "Will and Grace".

I mean, come on, try it yourself -- I defy you to assume that exact same pose and not feel the urge to buy new drapes and redecorate the living room. (Be sure to lift your pinkie finger like he's doing, and also half-close your eyes in that "ooh, I'm just so artistic!" kind of way.) And if you're still not feeling like putting on a tutu and speaking French, then see if you can find a room with curvy windows and pussywillow plants to complete the ambience.

I mean seriously, do you think guys like Chuck Norris and Harrison Ford have freakin' pussywillows next to their pianos? I don't think so.

Anyway, I hope the ladies enjoyed the party. But if you ever intend to invite me to a movie-star-themed party, let's go with Peter Weller or William H. Macy, OK?

After we finished hanging the posters, we headed over to the tennis courts to take advantage of the nice weather. Tanner, being a typical scatterbrained teenager, didn't know where his tennis racket was, so he grabbed his racquetball racket and played with that. It took him a while to get used to it -- I had him down 4 games to none before he really started hitting the ball well. By the end of the match, though, we were both playing pretty ferociously, and it came down to a tiebreaker.

Yeah, I let him win. At least that's my story...and I'm sticking to it.

We spent the rest of the day back at my place. I whomped up a batch of waffles, eggs, and sausage to keep the boy from starving after his display of athletic prowess on the tennis court. And in exchange for my culinary generousity, he provided the entertainment for the afternoon and into the evening. At first, he just got out the keyboard and played me a few of the tunes he's been working on, but later we went on the Internet and found some new songs for him to try. I really enjoyed that -- I'd find a jazz song on YouTube and would play it for him. He'd figure out the chord structure and then would play it back for me, usually with a few embellishments of his own. It's so much fun to receive these private concerts, and such a bargain...but it does make me wonder why we don't find a place for him to play where they'd actually pay him for it.

If you know of any piano bar, restaurant, or nightclub that might be in the market for a good keyboard player, please let us know. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a link to the song he was learning at the end of the day when I had to hang it up to get my beauty rest. The next time I get a chance to take the video camera over to capture him playing this song, I'll post his version on this site. Until then, please enjoy this rendition, and have a great day!

Unexpected Editing

As you probably have noticed, most of the time I lean toward the Libertarian end of the philosophical spectrum. I appreciate freedom, and believe that in most cases regulation is counterproductive. But I am not an anarchist by any means, and today's swim practice provided a good example of why not.

If there weren't laws against it, I suspect I would've been lynched by an angry mob of disgruntled swimmers.

Let me provide some background: A little over a week ago, Mike Wilmot commented that he thought swimming a timed 1000 was a good idea. I agreed, so I asked the team to do one at practice. I enjoyed it so much that I thought we should continue with that theme for a while. So for the last several practices, we've timed a "broken" 1000 -- the first one broken into 2 x 500, then we did one split into 4 x 250, then 5 x 200. Each time, I urged the group to try to complete the overall swim time at a slightly faster pace than the previous one. With the extra rest between segments, most were able to do it.

So on "Fun Friday", I thought it would be good to finish out the week with another 1000, broken at the 100s. But after the complaints and moaning I got when I announced the 1000 (broken into 5 x 200s) on Wednesday, I wanted to approach it tactfully. Tim noted that if I'd have just said "Five 200s" instead of calling it a broken 1000, nobody would complain...so I tried that idea. "OK, let's do ten 100s!" I said, hoping for enthusiastic support (or at least non-belligerent acceptance).

I didn't get it. There was a grand public outcry of disgust, anger, and infantile whining as the team tried to convince me to replace my chosen set with something more to their liking; perhaps a set of easy 25s sidestroke with 10 minutes of celebrity-gossip-based chat in between each one.

But I stuck to my plan, and announced that we'd start when the pace clock hand reached the 30-second mark. The protests and epithets continued right up until the set began -- I couldn't make out all the exact words they were spitting out, but I did hear my name mentioned along with phrases like "worse than Hitler", "string him up", and even something about a bonfire-based exorcism.

Just once, I'd like to hear my name associated with the words "Coach of the Year" or even "a swell fellow". That would be SO much more pleasant than the "vile cretin" and "mad dog psychopath" appellations I usually receive. Oh well.

The good news is that everybody did the set, and they worked hard. It was a successful practice overall, and I think that most people left the pool feeling that they'd accomplished something.

And since it was an "off" Friday for me, I also had the rest of the day to put to good use. I wanted to get in another type of exercise at some point, and after I ate my "2nd breakfast", I decided that I might as well go ahead and get my long run in before I sat down at the computer to do my bookkeeping. The weather was decent, so why not?

I won't bore you with the details of the run; it contained nothing more than the usual drama associated with my attempts to remain upright. I somehow managed to get through a 13-mile jog without causing any damage to myself or the environment, and arrived back home in that glorious state of tired-and-hungry athletic euphoria that follows a satisfyingly productive workout.

By the time I finished my shower and lunch, though, I was starting to consider the idea of engaging in what we writers call a "regenerative imagination enhancement quest" -- what most people would call a "nap". But just as I was about to head toward the "ideatorium" (ie, "bed"), the phone rang. My presence was urgently requested at the office.

In an ideal world, it would be illegal for an employer to ever deprive a hard-working citizen of the opportunity to take an afternoon snooze...but in the world in which my paychecks are written, it's not uncommon at all. Sigh. I grabbed my car keys and headed for the office.

I spent the next several hours editing a trio of proposal volume introductions, and applied my usual brilliance to the art of inserting commas, wrangling verbs and objects into agreement, and forcing reluctant tenses into consistency. I actually rather enjoyed it, but ended up sitting at my desk long enough for my legs to stiffen up. And of course, none of my home-based chores got done at all. I guess I'll have to allocate some of my other weekend time to getting that stuff done.

I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, if you see me with my eyes closed, you can rest assured that I'm productively engaged in some of the quiet (yet critically important) parts of the writing procedure. Please do not disturb this process, OK? Thanks a bunch, my friends, and have a great day!

A Few Steps

Tanner still needs to learn the importance of timely communication. We had talked about running Red Rocks steps together after work yesterday, but he had scheduled band practice for 4:00, expecting to be finished running before then -- apparently, to him, "after work" means noonish. (Wait, I thought he operates on a schedule in which noon means "time to think about getting out of bed". I'm so confused.) I learned all this when I called him at 2:30. Doing the math, I realized that I'd have to leave work right then if we wanted to accomplish any kind of a workout before band practice.

"Why didn't you call me, Dude?"

"Uh, I thought you were going to call me."

"Oh yeah, like I have ESP to know that I need to call a couple of hours earlier because you scheduled a band practice that overlaps with the time we had already discussed for our workout?"

"Uh...splunge?"

OK, whatever. Fortunately, I have some vacation I could use, so I left the office immediately and headed over to pick him up. If you know teenagers at all, you can probably guess what happened next. That's right -- he came running out of the house and told me he needed another 2 minutes to get ready. And 15 minutes later, he finally was.

Well, almost. He had to bring his keyboard and stand, which was fine -- I put the back seat down and he loaded them in. Then he said he needed to find a belt. (Mid-buttock pants position is essential for slacker-gen fashion acceptability, but leaves much to be desired when your plan is to run up stairs without tripping over your own drawers, you know. Even those who are fanatically committed to the public display of their boxer shorts will eventually concede that belt loops do indeed serve a purpose, at least in limited situations.) I had already changed into my running shorts (with both elastic waistband and a drawstring, doncha know), so the belt I had worn with my work slacks was available for loan. He finally got in the car and we headed toward Red Rocks.

It was a gorgeous afternoon, and we weren't the only ones taking advantage of it. In addition to a few other step runners and a couple of saucer-eyed tourists, there was some sort of workout class doing leg lifts and crunches up on the stage, accompanied by a boom box playing "Whole Lotta Love". Seriously, is there anything better than a good workout under clear blue skies at the world's most incredible amphitheater, with Led Zep echoing among the rocks?

We only had time for 4 sets of stairs before we had to leave to get the kid to band practice, but that was fine with me. My legs were a little toasted from yesterday's track workout anyway, so I didn't have an overabundance of reserve climbing power. Still, my average speed was a bit faster than it had been the last time I was out there, so I was pleased with the workout.

It'll be interesting to see how sore the boy is; he isn't used to this sort of thing, but he worked really hard. I was moving along pretty well, but he was even faster...and appeared to be a little shaky going back down the ramp on the way to the car. I'm pretty sure he'll be feeling it.

I feel great, today though. And it's such a gorgeous day that I'm tempted to take a bit more vacation and go outside for some sort of afternoon exercise again. We'll see how it goes at work -- if there are no pressing tasks to do, perhaps I shall.

I'll leave you with something to think about, based on my conversation with the boy as we drove over to band practice. Are "scat" singers better at vocal control and pitch accuracy than regular crooners? Is Mel Tormé really a master of the vocal arts...or just a guy who has trouble remembering lyrics? We'll file that topic away for a future discussion. But you can give it some thought if you like, and have a great day!

Muddy Track

Gee, I'd love to write a detailed description of all the interesting stuff that happened at work yesterday...but nothing interesting happened. It was a beautiful day, so the moments I stared out the window were moderately enjoyable...but not necessarily blog-worthy. I had skipped my morning workout and had gotten to the office very early, so I was able to leave quite early as well. It was track night.

My legs were still a bit sore from Saturday's psychotic long run. And the track was muddy in spots, sandy in others. (Sometime over the Christmas break, I think they dumped a bunch of new dirt on the track; Pat described it last night as being like running on the beach.) Is it just me, or would you agree that it's a little odd to leave big ol' sasquatch footprints on a high-school running track?

Pat had twanged himself a bit attempting a backflip during his gymnastics class earlier in the day, so we were both cautious during our warmup. The plan was to do a ladder: 100m, 200m, 300m, and 400m...then repeating those distances back down. The goal was to go faster on the second set than we did on the first.

I still don't understand how Pat gets SO far in front of me in such a short time. Well, OK, that's not 100% accurate: I do understand that he "has better starts". But it's not like swimming, where your streamline upon entering the water has such a large impact on your start speed -- it appears to be more just a matter of taking your first two footsteps really really fast. And that doesn't seem to be part of my system functionality. It takes me some time to wind up to speed.

I am pleased to say, though, that at our top-end speed I seemed to be able to keep up with him. He'd get way ahead on the start, and would gain a bit more on me going around the curves. But I held my own on the straightaways, and finished within a handful of seconds behind him on each of the runs. I was quite happy with my own performance. And even more glad that I survived the sprints without blowing out my hamstring or mangling a knee. I think I'm actually starting to acclimate to these sprint practices. Cool.

So, here's my philosophical discussion question for the day: Would you rather be a sprinter, or a distance person?

I suspect that most sprinters would prefer to be sprinters, and most distance folks prefer their own nature as well. For me, I really hate getting passed at the end of a race, and think it would be really unpleasant to run out of gas and watch people go by. It doesn't bother me, though, to get left in the dust right out of the gate; I just think either "Well, more power to 'em" or "I'll reel 'em in after I get in my groove" and promptly stop thinking about them. Until later.

I bet that sprinters think "Ah, it's good to have speed! I pity th' fool who has slow-twitch muscles."

It's no wonder everybody hates them.

Hey, I jest, I jest. Nobody hates sprinters. I think people just feel sorry for them since they are unable to feel the endorphinal joy that a good long-distance set manifests. They'll never know the bliss of feeling stronger and stronger as the event progresses -- nor the euphoria that comes from passing the broken and spent bodies of those poor souls who took it out too fast.

Of course, in the case of my track workouts with Pat, well, I'm not going to be passing anyone. Being brothers, we probably have very similar genetic makeup. He's no more a natural sprinter than I am -- he's just faster in general. Plus, he's learned how to run those first two steps really fast, and I haven't.

Hmmm. Well, I'm not going to think too deeply about that, lest I be forced to acknowledge that there may be extra work I could do to correct my deficiencies. Instead, I'll just continue telling everyone that I had a good track workout last night. After all, the mud will wash off, and my legs will eventually recover. And anyway, tonight I'm planning to go run Red Rocks steps with Tanner. And if he beats me (as he almost certainly will), I can blame it on the @#$! sprinter's genes he got from his mother.

Oh well, I'll deal with it, and will let you know how it goes. Until then, have a great day!

Telephone Etiquette

What is it that makes it so obvious that you're talking to a young person when you encounter one on the phone? I'm not talking about really little kids -- I mean someone who answers the phone for a business, yet sounds like Moon Zappa after suffering from a stroke? Seriously, if you own a business, you really ought to call in once in a while to see whether you can understand a word that's being said.

I made a call yesterday to get some information about a local business I was considering patronizing. The call was taken by a young woman, and even though I knew the name of the business, I don't think I heard it at all within the string of high-speed gibberish with which she answered the phone. I had no idea what she had said. I gave her a brief synopsis of what I wanted and she put me on hold. About 5 minutes later she came back on with what sounded like an identical greeting to the original unintelligible mishmash. I got the impression that she thought I was a new caller, despite having been on hold for so long.

This time I slowly explained my query in more detail, and she eventually did attempt to actually provide some useful information. Her delivery was peppered with more instances of "um", "ya know" and "like" than I would expect from someone representing a large company such as this, but at least I could understand her words now. But she apparently had a limited set of customer responses to read from, because her answers didn't exactly match my questions, and would repeat themselves each time I tried a different approach to get through to her. It didn't take long before I simply accepted the fact that I'd get nowhere with her, so I said goodbye and hung up, determined to try again at a different time...when someone else (someone older) might answer the phone.

Please don't interpret my complaints here as a generic condemnation of all the youth of America. I'm sure that one or two people under 30 are completely capable of articulate phone speech. And I have no personal problem at all with those who aren't -- I'm just asking businesses to not assign those particular individuals to handle phone calls. I'm not unreasonable, am I?

What do you mean "No, you're just old and curmudgeony"? Hey, c'mon. That wasn't a very nice thing to say. Why, in my day, a whippersnapper who made a comment like that would receive a nice long session out in the woodshed. People had manners back then, and by gum...

Wait, I'm doing it again, aren't I? Sigh.

I think I'll just go take a nap. You have my permission to ignore any senility-fueled ranting you encounter for the rest of the week. Thank you for your continued patronage, and have a great day!

Prevent Defense

I ended up watching the last five minutes of the Super Bowl, and I'm glad I did; it was pretty exciting! The only problem is that the Cards couldn't hold on. That was a bummer.

If I were a football coach, I'd want to investigate why so many points are scored in the last couple of minutes of games...and then use whatever techniques teams implement then throughout the entire game. Or is it that the "prevent" defense is just a bad idea? I don't know.

I suspect it's just that desperation is an effective offensive strategy. I'd be willing to bet that more points are scored when a team is desperate than when they're in "normal" mode.

Well...since I'm not a football coach (and not really that much of a fan), I guess I don't care enough to investigate. Anyway, it's baseball season now. I suppose I should start wondering about whether walking a dangerous hitter pays off more often than it bites you.

Anyway, congratulations to Pittsburgh and its fans. I hope you all enjoyed your evening's activities, whether or not you watched the game. It'll be interesting to see if any of the new commercials have staying power. Perhaps we'll revisit that question in a few months. In the meantime, enjoy Spring Training, and have a great day!

Waiting for Godot, er I mean, Clint

Yesterday's run pretty much covered the full spectrum. I had slow miles, medium miles, and fast miles. I was warm, comfortable, and freezing cold. I felt great, and I felt horrible. The good news is that the horrible part happened at the first, and by the end, I was running really well. The cold part happened mostly around the 5-mile mark; the wind was so strong and icy that I had to turn around and walk backwards for a while.

Overall, though, I'd have to rate the run as "good". I covered 13 miles at a decent average pace, didn't get injured or frostbit, and didn't encounter any dangerous wildlife. I went straight to the office afterwards, and showered in the RDL restroom. I was expecting to spend the rest of the day working on proposals.

But sometimes, you get a break. The folks in Huntsville we were supporting ended up not giving us anything to do, so we got the afternoon off. Taking advantage of this excellent opportunity, I headed over to meet with Tanner to try to finish shooting the green-screen portion of the video we've been working on.

Unfortunately my "green screen" is just a big hunk of cloth, and needs to be hung on something in order to be used. Our plan for the day was to drape it over the fence in the backyard, but the wind was blowing a bit too hard. Big hunks of cloth tend to fly around pretty actively, even in a slight breeze. We still shot some footage, but it was "proof of concept" stuff, with a flapping and undulating background -- not anything usable. Oh well.

Our next agenda item was to go to Sports Authority so he could spend his $25 gift card. We took our time cruising the store, stopping to toss footballs, punch punching bags, do pullups, lift dumbbells, and all the other temptations that probably drive the employees nuts. After nearly an hour, he had only picked out a Frisbee, and needed to find another $12 worth of merchandise...but then he realized that he had forgotten to bring the gift card with him. The mission was promptly aborted and rescheduled, and we headed over to Taco Bell for some soothing comfort food to help ease the disappointment of a non-productive shopping trip.

Band practice was scheduled for 5:00, so after dinner, I drove the kid over to Clint's house. Clint and Phil weren't back from skiing yet, but Tanner was sure they'd be there shortly...so we decided to wait.

As I've stated numerous times here, talking with Tanner is one of the real true delights that I experience in my life. He still has some of youthful naiveté's very very wrong ideas about how the world works (especially in economics and world politics), but he's an incredibly sharp thinker and constantly challenges me to stay on my conversational toes. We talked about languages, reviewing some of the Japanese and Spanish vocabulary we've been learning. We talked about teachers, and some of the things that distinguish the good ones from the bad. We even talked about situational ethics (specifically whether you should volunteer to help someone when they're performing tasks in which you possess no skill nor aptitude).

And after sitting there for the better part of an hour, we finally talked about how dumb it was not to take advantage of cell phone technology to find out when Clint and Phil were actually going to get home!

This led to two things: One was that we learned the missing boys were sitting in a massive traffic jam on I-70, and had long since concluded that band practice would be cancelled. (Andrew, the bass player, had already called them to learn this, which is why he was not sitting there in the street looking as pathetically moronic as we were.) The other thing is a conversation (as yet unfinished) speculating about how to extrapolate the recent boom in communication advancements out to its logical conclusion. In other words, what will our remote communications look like 10 or 20 years from now?

Obviously, the quality and reliability of remote communications will get better; at some point we won't have that annoying cell-phone delay thingy that causes you to stutter and repeat yourself to keep from talking over your conversation partner. And instant internet access from anywhere will probably become ubiquitous. But the real questions surround how the interface will be designed: Will it be like Star Trek, where you can find out anything you need to know, just by prefixing your vocal query with the word "Computer"? Or will talking out loud to computers annoy people to the extent where we'll have to implant neural interpreters that respond to subvocalizations, or perhaps to pure thought itself?

As we've seen throughout history, just because a technology exists, there is no guarantee it'll catch on. (Betamax, anyone?) "Video telephone" technology existed when I was in the 6th grade...and to this day nobody really wants to bother with it. And with all the laws being passed to ban driving while on the phone, I wonder what other social conventions and restrictions will impact the way the technology evolves? Is Blackberry the prototype of a combined tricorder/communicator? Or did Dick Tracy have the right idea back in the 60s? I personally think the implanted chip-in-the-brain idea is the most likely, and that we'll all eventually become cyborgs of some sort -- intimately connected to the global database of all collected human knowledge. And we all know what happens after that.

It's a few years away, though. For now, we can still enjoy the little conversational opportunities that arise from not knowing exactly where the other guys are. I intend to savor those moments, my friends, and I hope you do, too. Have a great day!