Punctuality Restored

Several people have pointed out to me how ubiquitous clocks are. Every computer has a clock (though not all are accurate), as does every car, and almost every cell phone. A lot of the kids today use their phones exclusively for timekeeping, rather than strapping a chronograph onto their wrist. Makes sense, actually...why bother with a watch when you're going to be carrying a device that performs the same function, anyway?

But I suppose habits count for something, too. During the time my watch was disassembled and drying out, I noticed how many times during the day I would glance at my bare wrist where my watch normally resides. Some of those glances were to see what the date was, some were to get the time, and some were apparently for no reason whatsoever. (I'd look at my arm and realize that I already knew what time it was. It's a rather odd feeling to realize that you have a habit of visually confirming what you already know...makes you feel like you have some sort of obsessive need to verify your connection with the flow of the day. Probably a sign of massive insecurity and self-doubt. Hmmm. Rather than spend money on a new watch, I should probably see a shrink.)

Whatever the reason for my frequent watch-check behavior, the wet one failed to perform properly even when dried out and given a new battery. I decided that I just needed to buy a new watch. After all, I rationalized, I need it for coaching...I know the folks on the team love to time 1650s, and somebody needs to keep track of the minutes. Besides, if I don't cover that bare white segment of my wrist, I'll probably get sunburned, and after the recent skin-graft ordeal on my ear, I'm thinking "no way!" A new watch would coincidentally be the exact right size and shape to cover the melanin-challenged area, wouldn't it?

I stopped at Big 5 on the way home, and bought the cheapest waterproof, big-numbered watch they had. It was one of the Timex Ironman series, and they said the list price was $80. It didn't look quite the same as my previous unit, but seemed to have enough buttons to do the job, and it was on sale for $30. I went for it.

As obligated by my reputation as a nerd, the first thing I did was read the intruction sheet. Or should I say, I tried to read the instructions. As regular readers know, I am all about planetary responsibility and saving the environment through waste reduction, but I'm not sure I can endorse the recent practice of printing operating instructions in 2-point font in order to save paper. Oh sure, it's great that we can cram watch instructions in 4 languages onto one 8.5 x 11 sheet, but there is no way on earth I'm going to be able to read any text that small.



But that's what the Internet is for, right? If you can't read the paper copy, you get online, download the PDF version, and zoom in until the characters are big enough for your poor old eyes. Simple enough. Or so I thought.

Timex has about a million different watches, and even after looking through all of the "Ironman" brand options, I didn't see anything that looked like the watch I had purchased. Could it be that I got ripped off and bought a Chinese knock-off or something. Was it a Tianamex or a Ti-Mao or something? Hmm.

I'll spare you the details of my heroic search and in-depth study of the problem. Suffice it to say that after less than a dozen hours, I finally managed to locate the correct watch on the Timex site. Turns out it wasn't under the "Ironman" category at all -- it's an "iControl" watch. It appears to be an ordinary triathlon watch (and even has the Ironman logo on it), but is really designed to be used with an iPod.

That's right, my watch has buttons for previous/next track, volume controls, and a tiny radio transmitter to connect to the receiver you hook to your iPod. That way, you can manipulate your tunes from the convenience of your wrist while you're doing your triathlons. These Americans are fiendishly clever, aren't they?

Unfortunately, I don't own an iPod. Plus, I suspect that the reason the watch was on sale and contained no paperwork pertaining to iPodery, was that its tiny little transmitter doesn't work. In other words, I think I purchased a dud. Even if I had an iPod, I could probably push my watch's "Play" button all day long and my MP3s would remain forever silent. I'm pretty sure that my "iControl" features are "iNactive".

Oh well, at least I know what time it is.

A Hair Past a Freckle

Does anybody really know what time it is? -- I'm sure when Chicago wrote that song, they were being all philosophical about The Meaning of Life and stuff, but some of us can interpret it a bit more literally.

You can probably guess what I'm talking about. The day before yesterday I was all in "I'm King of the World!" mode, and puffed up about my mad mechanical skillz. I had performed an intricate watch battery replacement, using miniature tools and what I had thought was superlative hand-eye coordination. I was even considering how to phrase a résumé paragraph describing this grand accomplishment, and had sent announcement letters to friends and family trumpeting my technological triumph.

But when I looked at my watch at the end of swim practice yesterday, there was nothing in the display except for some water and a few tiny bubbles. Alas, not only was the $3.00 I paid for the repair job completely wasted, but in all likelihood, my watch is toast, too.

I took it apart yesterday and let all the water out. It appeared that I had allowed a small kink in the O-ring to ruin an otherwise perfect repair job. There was brown gooey stuff all over the battery, but the rest of the circuitry appeared to be fine. It just didn't work.

The rest of the day, I noticed how many times I glanced at my wrist...now completely bare. The flesh of my watch-wearing area even looks unhealthy, since its pasty whiteness doesn't match the rest of my nicely bronzed summer skin. And even worse, I have no idea what time it is...and might risk staying at work past quitting time, which is entirely unacceptable.

Some of my wealthy friends actually own more than one watch, and would have a backup for a situation like this. (Some own multiple pairs of shoes, too. I have trouble even envisioning a life of such extreme decadence, but I say more power to 'em, and wish them the best.) But I'll have to take care of the problem over the weekend. In the meantime, don't expect me to be punctual for any appointments or anything, OK? Thanks.

I'll let you what happens. Until then, have a great day!

Fine Motor Skills

My watch stopped working on Friday. The numbers had been fading over the past few weeks, so I knew the end was coming. I had set aside some time on Saturday to get the battery replaced. The question was whether I'd do the Bill Gates solution (ie, buy a whole new watch), the Donald Trump solution (pay the clerk at the SW Plaza Swatch kiosk $11 to replace the battery for me), or the Bob Villa solution (buy a new $3 battery at the grocery store and replace it myself).

The A/C in my car is broken, too, and since I'd really like to get that fixed (and it'll cost a couple months worth of my salary), I opted for the do-it-yourself approach. Seems simple enough -- undo four screws to release the backplate, pop the little gizmo that holds on the strap (you know, the little pin that's like a really tiny toilet-paper springy spindle thing), read the number off the battery, go to the store for a replacement...and then reverse the process. Probably 5 minutes total, including the trip to the grocery store.

Ah, but let us not forget to factor in the fact that my visual acuity fluctuates wildly during the day -- due to the "radial kerototomy" surgery I had back in my 20s...a fascinating story in itself, but one which will have to wait for another day -- and the fact that the watch screws themselves are microscopically small. And the tiny screwdriver that fits the microscopic screws carries with it a pretty high risk of puncture wounds.

If you've followed this blog for a while, you are probably expecting to hear of loss of blood, damage to property, or both (not to mention the threat of energetic cursing that one would expect to accompany such events.) I am pleased to say, though, that none of those things happened. My skin remains intact, all of the watch parts were returned to their original positions (more or less), and the air remained free of blue language throughout the entire operation -- Even though it took almost an hour to accomplish the five-minute job.

I can't remember which one of Newton's Laws it is, but the one about taking longer to assemble than to disassemble was definitely in play. The screws came out easily, and even the strap pin wasn't too difficult to remove. But that's not the whole story.

[Side note: You may be wondering why it was necessary to remove the watchband just to change the battery. I was wondering the same thing. For some reasons, the smart people at Timex had decided to design the watch so that a generous part of the rubber strap protrudes onto the backplate in such a way that the plate cannot be removed without first detaching at least one side of the watchband. I'm sure there were unarguable engineering and/or aesthetic considerations that made this necessary, but I fail to see them. In any case, there were five separate tiny fastener operations to perform to remove the watch's backplate.]

Once the plate was off, though, another minor obstacle appeared. There was a sticker covering the battery, with a cryptic label about shorting the whosit across the whatsit to reset. Huh? Won't removing the battery and putting in a new one reset it? After all, the darn thing is as dead as Vanilla Ice's career right now, so why wouldn't inserting a new power supply cause an automatic reset? And to add to the difficulty, there was another screw holding down the sticker fixture, and it was even tinier than the ones on the backplate.

I can say with pride, though, that I was able to eventually remove the battery, and I even had the foresight to stick all the munchkin screws to a piece of scotch tape, and then shove them in a baggie for good measure. I didn't want to lose them on the way to the store to pick up the new battery. I was quite proud of myself at this point. Unfortunately, I had run out of time, and needed to head to the pool to coach swim practice. I loaded the tiny tools, the watch parts, and the screw baggie into my pocket, and headed for King Soopers.

The battery was in stock, and inexpensive. All that remained was re-assembly. I should be able to do that and still make the start of practice. Shouldn't I?

Well, you'd think so. And in fact, the re-insertion of the teeny little screws was actually accomplished in short order. (I'll spare you the details of the precautions I made to ensure that I'd be able to find the screws if I dropped them. Multiple paper towels were involved (which would horrify the Green Police), so I'll just skip that part.) But for some reason, the watchband spring pin just did NOT want to go back into its little hole. I made about 70 million attempts before I gave up and left the locker room.

I was late to practice, and my watch was still in pieces. Sigh. I swam without benefit of a personal chronometer, but somehow managed to get by with using the gigantic pace clocks on the wall. And to my surprise, my very first attempt to re-insert the pin after practice was instantly successful. Cool. So now I once again know what time it is, and can take immense pride in knowing that even with poor eyesight, questionable trifocals, non-delicate fingers, and minimal dexterity...I was still able to perform a challenging mechanical task without injury, even while using tools with sharp edges.

If you were in the room with me now, I would request a congratulatory high five. But as it is, I'll simply thank you for your time, and wish you a great day!

Carpe Diem Syndrome

I've been spending too much time at the computer lately.

I was working a big PowerPoint project on a tight deadline, and that meant that I spent too many consecutive hours either typing or mousing without many breaks. Not only does this turn one's brain to mush and transform an otherwise articulate and charming socialite into a monosyllabic neanderthal...but it also wreaks havoc among the fragile muscles, joints, and tendons of the arms and hands. As a result, my elbows are stiff, my hands feel swollen, and my entire torso seems bent out of shape.

I should probably take a few days off, and rehab my hands with finger-specific exercise, such as playing the guitar or operating the TV remote. I'm sure some power napping and jacuzzi-sitting would also help.

Or perhaps some time on a nice warm beach, letting the surf gently massage my aching joints while the rhythmic sound of the waves erases all thoughts of editorial dronery from my far-too-cluttered mind. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to attend limbo contests or listen to Jimmy Buffet, but perhaps a leisurely walk in the sand at sunset would be nice. Ahhh.

Of course, I won't do that. I've got a proposal coming up at the office, a volunteer project that will be demanding additional time (it's pretty cool -- I'll tell you about that later), and constantly-expanding domestic duties that threaten to dwarf anything ever photographed by Hubble. Sigh. And if that weren't enough, there's the personal challenge of dropping all the weight I gained while I was out of the water following my ear surgery.

And I still haven't given myself a haircut.

Hmmm.

You know, my friends, I truly do enjoy my life, and it's a dandy one by any standards. I've got a son I'm truly proud of, a swim team full of outstanding and inspirational people, some very dear and supportive friends and loved ones; and I continue to be stunned by the sheer magnitude of incredible handsomeness that stares back at me from the mirror every morning (despite the unruly hair). Still, if somebody offered to sit in for me at work for a few weeks so I could go hang out on some island off the coast of Florida and catch some rays...well, I might be open to the idea. Let me know...and have a great day!

Hair

I need a haircut.

Most people probably realize they need a haircut when folks start to laugh at them, or when they're walking down the street and somebody yells "Get a job, ya stupid hippie!". But since people laugh at me all the time (I suspect it's for my uncanny resemblance to Soupy Sales, and I take it as a compliment), and my hippie days are far, far behind me -- I must rely upon other clues to determine my readiness to undergo the shears.

I don't spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, either, for obvious reasons. No, the way I can tell it's time for a haircut is when I can feel the long strands tickling my ears, or when I run my hand across my head in my habitual gesture of deep thought, and realize that it feels like plush shag rather than stubbly astroturf.

With my right ear still being extra-sensitive after my skin cancer surgery, I'm getting constant tickle signals. It's definitely time to whip out the clippers.

But allow me to digress for a moment. With my reputation as a Shameless Capitalist and a Tireless Fighter of Communism in All Its Forms (including the current disturbing tendency toward Socialism in the US Congress -- write your Representatives and tell them to STOP this madness, people!!), you may find it hard to believe that I was once perilously close to becoming a full-fledged, tie-dye-wearin', long-haired hippie freak. Yes, it's true; when I was in 9th Grade or so, many of my friends were joining the ranks of the counterculture, and were almost successful in dragging me into their "Down with the Establishment" world. But while I truly liked the ideas of peace, love, and long improvisational guitar solos (still do, actually), I just couldn't get into the whole long hair and no bathing thing. And since well-groomed people have no credibility within "Stick it to the Man" society, I was unable to ever fully merge into the hippie milieu.

So I concentrated on school and swimming instead, earned a letter jacket, and got a job. My hippie friends shunned me.

I did go through my own small version of "Big Hair" during the eighties, but that was more about fashionable blow-dried puffiness than about sheer length. But once I gave up putting any effort into being trendy or looking good, life has become much simpler. Instead of going to the salon and paying someone to sculpt my scalp, I can just run the clippers over my head a few times, fire up the vacuum cleaner for about 30 seconds, and be done with it. No cost other than 5 minutes of my time, and I'm back in action. Life is good.

But I'm not going to get to it this morning, so you'll just have to put up with my unruly tresses for at least one more day. But I'll get it done by the weekend, so I won't subject the general public to my unkempt-ness for too much longer. In the meantime, keep fighting the Commies, and have a great day!

A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney

Over the past couple of months, I have started countless blogs...only to run out of writing time before my next appointment obligation forced me to abandon whatever half-baked idea I was typing about. Frankly, I do not understand why I can't seem to finish these entries, as I am not a particularly busy person -- and I very much do enjoy spewing forth verbiage on any number of topics, important or inane. And I'm sure that the two or three folks who occasionally log onto this site would appreciate more frequent entries, if for no other reason than to give them assurance that no matter how many stupid things they do in a given day, there is definitely someone who has done more.

That said, I shall once again apologize for my lack of loquaciousness, and once again reassure you of my sincere desire to clog the Blogosphere with directionless ranting and ill-conceived essays. I may actually go back and finish some of the earlier pieces I started but never completed. (Those topics include lake swimming, vacation trips, and a long overdue tribute to the great Eli Wallach, among others. I'll let you know if I find the time to do that.) I also have much more to say about my nephew Jared, and the impact his life made on his community -- as well as the impact his funeral made upon those of us fortunate enough to attend. But that topic deserves greater depth than I have time for right now, so we'll get to that later.

For now, my friends, all you get is a bullet list about what's on my mind this particular morning. Here goes:

• How does my recycling bin get so full, so fast? I hardly ever eat at home, I'm not popular enough to get much mail, and I don't buy a lot of new stuff that results in discarded packaging. So why is it that I have to take so much of this crap outside on a regular basis? And I hesitate to say this from fear of retribution by the PC Police, but I suspect that everything in the recycle bins ends up in the same landfill as the rest of the garbage. I mean, seriously, do you think it's worth it to them to pay someone to sort out all the different kinds of materials?
• OK, maybe they have machines that can do all that. I watch "How It's Made", and have to admit that there are some pretty clever people designing robots to do all sorts of complicated stuff. Maybe the crap I throw in the bin really does come back as new Barbies or Huggies or Snapple or something. Who knows?
• And speaking of which, are you supposed to recycle those tiny safety pins they give you for your bib number at running races? I actually signed up and ran a 10K this weekend, as a fundraiser for pancreatic cancer, and it was a fun race. But now I have these little pins sitting here on the kitchen counter, and cannot conceive of any possible use I might have for them in the future, except at another race, where they will undoubtedly put more of them in my packet and send me back into the same spiral of unending mental dilemma regarding their disposal. I mean, they're metal, so they should be recycled, right? But they're tiny and have sharp points when opened. Should they be treated like used X-Acto blades and disposed of in some sort of "Hazardous Waste" container. I just don't know.
• I'm certain they'll show it on a million replays, so make sure to watch a sportscast at some point during the day today: Roger Federer hit an impossible between the legs kill shot in his semifinal tennis match. It wasn't quite as unlikely as the Broncos fluke touchdown yesterday, but still pretty unbelievable.
• Do people who eat a less healthy diet have to spend less time in the bathroom? I mean, I try to eat fruits and veggies, drink a lot of water, take vitamins and all that -- and this lifestyle seems to keep the "processing" mechanisms moving, if you know what I mean. I hear stories about people who eat nothing but meat and have it all stay stuck to their intestinal walls or whatever; and I think, "Man, that would be sweet! Those dudes probably never have to poop!"
• OK, I'm only about a third of the way through with what I thought I had to say. I was going to rant about how much laundry I have to do (even though I live alone and don't change clothes very often), how long it takes to peel a stinkin' orange, and how quickly I seem to run out of peanut butter and Peppermint Patties...but I've used up my time. I need to get to swim practice.

The rest of the list will just have to wait.

Thank you for dropping by. If you know of any good books on "Time Management" or "Prioritizing Your Life So You Don't Have To Interrupt Blogging To Go To Work" or anything like that...don't tell me about it. I apparently don't have time to read, either.