Quick Answers

I wonder how many poor kids have been named "Darth" since 1977? Or worse yet, Anakin.

Leia? Well, I guess that's OK. And Luke is a perfectly cromulent name. But heaven help the kid who has to go to grade school with a name like JarJar.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who submitted their answers to yesterday's quote quiz. The correct answer response that indicated Sturgeon's Revelation is B. Ninety percent of everything is crap.

A. The perversity of the Universe tends toward the maximum.

B. Ninety percent of everything is crap.

C. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

D. Health improves if every meal is accompanied by a salad of thinly sliced cabbage.

Its relevance to my life is that I'm filling out government forms as part of the proposal submittal process. And I'm trying to get my taxes done. Any time you're looking for a way to waste time, increase blood pressure, and remind yourself why we need the Second Amendment, just go fill out some government forms. Anyway, if you'd like more info about Theodore Sturgeon, you'll have to look him up yourself. Sorry, but I'm a little pressed for time right now.

The others, quickly: Selection A is known as "O'Toole's Corrolary to Finagle's Law". Selection C is called "Hanlon's Razor." (We shall save the discussion of how Hanlon's Razor applies to the government until some other day. Sorry.)

And selection D is, of course, "Cole's Law."

(I apologize, but I couldn't find the link I was going to include to illustrate the restorative powers of cabbage, but I did run across this classic tune. And this one. If you have a few minutes to kill with some old-time country nostalgia, go ahead and take a listen.)

Otherwise, good luck with whatever challenges you're facing at the moment. Have a great day!

Sturgeon's Revelation

Yes, it's proposal crunch time again; the sporadic blogger's worst nightmare.

So, for the next 10 days or so, my life consists of nothing but exercise, work, eating, and sleep. (The more observant among you might protest that those activities are pretty much all I ever do, regardless of employment obligations...but you'd be forgetting television and crossword puzzles. So there.)

Anyway, proposal obligations definitely add stress to my life. But they are not the only sources of anxiety for me right now. I also have the following horrendous problems:

• My ankle hurts. Yes, I know that I constantly complain that it always hurts, but this particular pain is an order of magnitude more acute than the chronic ache I blame for my spastic running form. I don't think I've damaged it any more than it has been, but it's definitely angry at me right now.
• My car problems have returned. Seems to be a related symptom to the most recent problem; I'm burning antifreeze for some reason. I need to have it checked.
• My toaster is half broken. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that half my toaster is broken. It's a cheapo four-slice plastic thingy, and I had been using one side for light toasting and the other for dark. Despite imperial protests to the contrary, I can no longer get results by using the dark side.

So, I have doctor visits, car appointments, and appliance shopping trips to schedule...even though I have no spare time and am exhausted from actually having to engage my brain at the office. In the meantime, I'll have to either change the toaster timer setting, or run my bread through the cycle twice. I shall try to remember to keep smiling as I face the ordeals that await me.

In the meantime, let's take a little pop culture awareness test. While each of these statements might have application to my current situation, the question for you is: Which one is known as "Sturgeon's Revelation?" (Extra credit if you can provide the names of the other axioms listed.)

A. The perversity of the Universe tends toward the maximum.

B. Ninety percent of everything is crap.

C. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

D. Health improves if every meal is accompanied by a salad of thinly sliced cabbage.

If you have a favorite toaster model you'd like to recommend, please let me know. In the meantime, remember that we must not allow the machines to rise up and take over. Have a great day!

Déjà vu

The standard cliché for doing something multiple times is "Shampoo, Rinse, Repeat." I wonder how many times normal people actually repeat their hair-washing cycle?

I don't have enough hair to merit a second wash/rinse. In fact, the first time through requires only a few molecules of shampoo. A single bottle of Pert lasts me a couple of years.

The reason I bring it up is this: I had started to type a blog about last night's track practice with my brother, but then realized that I had said the exact same stuff more than once in past posts. We may not do it every week, and some workouts are better than others -- but it IS a routine. As is most of my life.

Every week is pretty much the same. On workdays, I get up early, check email, make lunch, work out, go to the office, endure the cruel lashes of corporate taskmasters until the whistle blows, then go home to eat far too much comfort food in front of the TV before I fall asleep as the clock strikes 7. Once in a while, I have a track practice in the evening, or perhaps stay up a tad later after getting caught up watching an episode of Batman. But it doesn't vary much. On weekends, I do housework and bookkeeping, exercise more, and might throw in a bubble bath nap, or perhaps a movie or something. But it would be accurate and fair to say that I'm living a loop.



I'm not complaining. I have a pretty good life, and most days enjoy myself immensely. But every now and then I get to thinking that I should intentionally veer off course, at least temporarily.

I mean, I never go skydiving with squirrels, or play music in the park with a monkey drummer. I don't spar with ninjas, bungee jump off skyscrapers, nor waterski with elephants.

Well, OK -- I guess you could count the fact that my college waterskiing mentor was the guy we all called "The Fat Man," which is pretty much like hanging with an elephant. The frustrating thing for me was that despite his rotundity, he was a far better skier than I was, and could even ski barefoot. I just fell down a lot.

But at least I was trying. What have I done lately that has stretched my own performance boundaries, or even my intellectual horizons? I should get my unicycle out of the closet, take a trip to Minnesota, or visit some weird art exhibit or something.

No, wait a minute. I'm not giving myself enough credit. I am taking a yoga class. I'm signed up for a marathon. I risked my sanity by traveling to hippie-infested Seattle last year, and I have listened to every single bizarre song on the Tellescope website. Hey -- I'm even planning to finish my taxes in January for the first time ever, since I received all my W2 forms yesterday. I'm living out there on the edge, baby, and don't you forget it.

Still, I'm open to other suggestions. Let me know if you have any ideas for fun (inexpensive) stuff I could do or places I could visit. In the meantime, I'm going to head off to work so I can put in my hours and then come home and crash. Should be a great day -- I hope you have one, too!

Yardage

Some reader-suggested additions to our list of classic voices: Don Knotts, Pat Buttram, Eva Gabor, Slim Pickens, and Christopher Lee. James Doohan and Andy Serkis are also notable for vocal delivery, but primarily because of accents used in a specific role, so I'm not sure they count. But thanks for the suggestions; we may explore the topic in greater depth at a later time.

Today's topic is one of linguistics. My shoulder hurts, which got me to thinking about the language we use as a function of locally-adopted measurement systems. Let me explain:

At Friday's swim practice, I shared a lane with a couple of sprinters. As everyone knows, sprinters are different than normal people -- and their baffling brain functions reside among the grand unsolved mysteries of the Universe. Despite their inscrutability and oddness, though, they're generally genial...and I usually enjoy hanging around with them. They're always telling jokes, and have boundless social energy. Sure, they're mutants, and I certainly wouldn't want to marry one...but they are still human beings. As long as I have any say in the matter, they -- like breaststrokers, God bless 'em -- will always be welcome as members of our swim team.

But swimming a distance set with sprinters in the lane does require some adjustments. And to keep a long story short, let's just say that I failed to adjust properly. I came out of one of my turns expecting clear water, but instead found one of the guys cranking into the wall right on my tail. At the same time, the guys in the adjacent lane were hugging the lane lines right next to me, and I had to make a sudden and violent correction to avoid a collision. I twisted and pulled sidways...and something in my shoulder went "twang"!

You be right to blame it on old age, lack of flexibility/fitness, and too much of the 5 Ps (pepperoni pizza, peanuts, and peppermint patties.) I've become as fragile as porcelain, and should probably be more careful with my delicate physical structure. But what can I say? I enjoy swimming.

Anyway, the shoulder has been hurting for several days now. I have tried gentle stretching, massage, heat/ice, and even a liberal slathering of BenGay (which resulted in a bright red splotch on my skin, but didn't provide any noticable healing.) The massage therapist suggested that I cut back on my swimming yardage, and I'm sure most physicians and physical therapist would recommend rest as part of my treatment as well.

The weird thing is that the injury doesn't seem to bother my swimming. I feel it when I swim, but it doesn't hurt any worse when I'm working hard than it does when I'm standing at rest. When my buddy Tom Sheftel was in Medical School, he said the first thing they practiced in their doctor studies was how to have this exchange:

Patient: "Doc, it hurts when I do this."
Doctor: "Then don't do that."

It probably will heal faster if I take some time off. But will I do that? Probably not; but I'll let you know. The point is, though, that the phrase "cut back on yardage" made me wonder about this: What do injured Europeans cut back on? Is there such a thing as "meterage"?

We have mileage. Do they have kilometerage?

As you may know, I am a big fan of the metric system. Our "foot-pounds" system is extremely silly, and I'd be delighted to convert to meters and kilograms. Don't get me wrong, though -- this does not mean I'm a fan of all thing European. I do enjoy pizza and burritos and french fries and all those exotic types of euro-cuisine...but I absolutely abhor the way those countries have gone into debt with entitlement and social programs, and how they place so many limits on individual freedoms. Our country would never elect people who wanted to do those things to us.

Um...yeah. Well, never mind. The point is that I guess if we were swimming long course, I'd just say "I should cut back on meters," and leave it at that. Right?

Still, some of our friends across the pond do have an elegant way of expressing themselves. Enjoy this short clip, and have a great day!

Vinyasa

I had a pretty good weekend.

On Friday, my boss invited several of us to partake of nachos and potent potables to celebrate several recent contract wins. (No, that is not my boss pictured at the top of this post, though this gentleman also has a Ph.D. That's Dr. Phibes -- more about him in a minute.)

There was hardly any discussion of work and jokes aplenty: Guy walks into the vet's office with a goldfish in a bowl. "Doc, I think my goldfish has epilepsy." Peering into the bowl, the vet says "He looks OK to me." The guy responds, "Well, I haven't taken him out of the bowl yet."

Pah dum bum.

As usual at social events I attend, I was one of the first to leave. Not because I wasn't having a swell time, but because I get really sleepy once the sun goes down. The good news is that I slept well that night. Gooey nachos are better than Sominex.

I thought about running Saturday morning, and probably should have. But the first session of the "Yoga for Enhanced Swimming" class was at 8:00am, and I wasn't sure how much energy I would need to survive it. As it turned out, running beforehand probably wouldn't have made much difference in my ability to perform the yoga poses. My body doesn't bend right, I have no balance, and my brain wants to run screaming from the room at every mention of arcane easter philosophy. "It is like a fingah pointing away to da moon." Yeah, yeah, I know. Your breath informs your movement, and your chakra khan is focused at your third eye, blah blah blah.

It's not that I'm skeptical. I am quite sure I could be a better athlete and a more serene spiritual being if I embraced the yoga approach. But I have a boatload of western conditioning to overcome. I can easily grasp the concepts of F = MA and d = r*t. But it'll be while before I master how the crouching crane transforms to the downward-facing elephant. Sanskrit is greek to me.

But I'll get better. I'll swim faster and be healthier. I am trying to incorporate some of the yoga ideas into my daily life this week -- we'll see if I do any better in next week's class.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with Dr. Phibes. Though since he is an experienced ballroom dancer, it would not surprise me to find that he's better at yoga than I am. But the point is that "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" was on TV this weekend, and I decided I'd rather watch it again than follow the football games. An FBI profiler would probably be able to tell you many things about my personality based on that simple fact, but the truth is that I'm just a huge fan of Vincent Price.

[Side note: As far as I know, only two things are ever referred to as "abominable": Snowmen and Phibes. It would be interesting to take a survey to see which answer most Americans prefer.]

The last time I had watched the movie, I paid more attention to the cleverness of Phibes's schemes than I did to the subleties of the acting. But this time, I found myself fascinated by the patterns and pacing of the good doctor's speech. For someone who has to speak without lips, he is surprisingly articulate. Check it out:



Price has one of the great voices of all time. It got me thinking about who else belongs on that list. James Earl Jones obviously takes the top spot. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is up there. But who else do you think of when you think of outstanding voices? Don LaFontaine, Mel Blanc, Harry Shearer, and Seth Macfarlane come to mind, of course, but I also want to hear what you think about people who aren't necessarily in the "voice" business...but are people who speak with a unique flavor that adds to their personality. I'm thinking of folks like Curley Howard, Patrick Warburton, Cheech Marin, and Maurice Evans. But what about Jason Statham, Steven Wright, Victoria Jackson, or Wallace Shawn?

Let me know what you think. In return, I'll keep you posted on whether I'm ever able to stop concentwating on the finger so I can experience all dat heavenly glory. Have a great day!

A Disturbance in the Force

Most mornings, I wake up refreshed and with no memories of the dreams I had. I'm pretty sure that I usually dream of ways to prove complex mathematical theorums, solutions to world hunger, and NFL defensive schemes that would prevent 70-yard touchdown bombs in the last 30 seconds of a game. It would be nice to be able to access the brilliance of my subconscious brain so that I could share these insights with the world. But alas, I generally awaken without recollection of my nocturnal ephiphanies, and for some reason am completely unable to generate moments of genius when I'm awake. It's baffling and frustrating.

But occasionally, I do recall glimpses of dreams. This morning, for example, I woke up thinking about a sitcom TV show where a martial artist crimefighter took a day job as a high school teacher. It was called "Welcome Back, Cato."

It would be a laugh riot watching Bruce Lee face-kick every Sweathog that gave him any attitude. I liked the idea so much, I spent a few minutes thinking up ideas for other interesting TV shows.

How about a show about a whiny sportswriter's college days when he had to economize by cooking the cheapest food he could find. It would be called "Everybody Loves Ramen."

Another cooking-based program might feature a genial family man who specializes in Russian cuisine: "Father Knows Borsht".

How about Tim Allen as an ancient Italian stonemason who stages tool-based lectures on building construction in the Colosseum: "Rome Improvement"? Or a family show about schoolboys Wally (football star) and his younger brother (who wants to be a singer): "Leave it to Bieber"?

Rednecks who drive fast cars and are always the first on the scene to help clean up toxic waste spills: "The Dukes of Hazmat." Or an autistic karateman who beats up anyone who doesn't like Judge Wapner: "Walker, Texas Rainman." Or Don Johnson and Cheech Marin as a pair of wisecracking surgeons in Korea: "M.A.S.H Bridges." Or a story about a football player who suffers a horrible injury, but takes advantage of high-tech surgery to become functional once more: "The Six Million Dollar Manning."

Of course, like dreams, not all TV shows are pleasant and joyous. Some could be a little sad, like the story of a beautiful Civil War plantation owner who falls into a frustrating love affair with a strong, but slow-moving alien: "Gorn with the Wind."

But the one that really frightens me to think about would be a show featuring hideous, malformed beings from Hell who creep everyone out by doing arcane ritualistic dances and other incomprehensible perversions while muttering in high-pitched satanic voices. It would be called "Teletubbies."

OK, I'll probably have nightmares tonight after those disturbing thoughts. Until then, though, I'll try to focus on nice things and friendly people. Have a great day!

Corollary to Parkinson's Law

The one way to make sure that work doesn't expand to fill the time available for its completion is to make the work so unpleasant that nobody wants to do it anymore.

Or perhaps another way to say it would be "Give people more interesting stuff to do in their regular jobs so they don't work on proposals right up to the deadline."

We had two proposals and two quarterly reports to submit yesterday. Neither process was too painful, though the documents came to me later than I would've liked. If I get things early enough, I can do a thorough edit and run a detailed formatting scrub to make sure the document communicates our advantages in an accurate, readable, and appealing way. When I get them late, all I can do is try to make sure we comply with required page and font size limits, and that the correct markings are where they need to be. I usually can also check for graphics positioning, page numbering, and that sort of thing...but probably can't verify the grammar or the message.

But as Parkinson noted, if you give them time, they'll keep changing stuff. I probably would, too, except that I eventually just get sick of reading the same document over and over. That's the solution, I think -- burn them out on the process, and then perhaps they'll let go of their documents earlier.

It's a good theory.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention Parkinson's less popular axiom; the law of triviality. It states that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved, which means that big stuff (like, oh I don't know, balancing the budget?) gets ignored while debate goes on and on over nitpicking away at various other rights and freedoms. Hmm. That ol' Parkinson dude was a keen observer, wasn't he?

Me? I'm just a swimmer who happens to occasionally resort to proposal preparation in order to pay the car repair bills and whatnot. I can guarantee you that I did not forcefully inform my high school guidance counselor that I wanted to prepare proposals when I grew up. I never once looked for a class in proposal prep within the college course catalog, and was never influenced by an inspiring TV show about a proposal management guru. Starship captain, helicopter pilot, caped crimefighter...sure. I may have even thought about being "in business" like Ward Cleaver, or even being a drug-selling thug like Arthur Fonzarelli. But I never once thought of proposals as a career path.

Come to think of it, though, Mike Brady's obvious success and lovely home/family never once tempted me to become an architect. And I certainly didn't want to be an advertising executive like Durwood Stevens. (Have you ever noticed how much alcohol they drink on "Bewitched"? The ad game appears to be a very stressful profession, even if your in-laws aren't psychotic and paranormal.)

My question for you is this: How many of you knew exactly what you wanted to do for a career when you were in high school?

I was always jealous of my college roommate Mickey -- because he knew from the start that he wanted to be an oil man, just like J. D. Clampett. He succeeded, too; he owns a very successful business and loves his work. Of course, he's not as literate, well-dressed, or well-spoken as Jed, and he lives in the godforsaken wasteland known as Oklahoma instead of Beverly Hills, but still...a job well done.

Several of my other college pals had similar focus: Allan wanted to get paid to spew BS, and has crafted an admirable career in advertising. Tom wanted to have access to all sorts of drugs, and became a respected physician. Roger Neugent wanted to continue to baffle the public and defy categorization, and has done so continuously since setting fire to the dormitory lobby carpet our freshman year. Unlike these fellows, though, I seem to have followed a bit of a Ouija Board career path. Oh well, I can't say it's been boring.

Perhaps there are amusing tales within my work history that are worthy of documenting. In the meantime, feel free to let me know when you gave up your childhood dreams of being an astronaut/ballplayer/double-naught spy and selected your current profession. Thanks, and have a great day!

Sibling Success

As I suspected, my car's latest coolant spewage was the result of a poorly-secured hose, and nothing serious. The fellow at the repair shop fixed it, thoroughly tested it, and refilled my two empty anti-freeze jugs before sending me on my way. I'm hoping the car will run happily for many more miles (and years) before the next major setback.

But I think I will start thinking about my next vehicle. My needs are simple: 4WD, power that matches my aggressive lead-foot driving style, and room to carry my bike (and helmet, tire pump, gym bag, etc.) I careth not for fancy hood ornaments, rich corinthian leather, nor fancy computer screens embedded in the dashboard. And I hate to admit it (for fear of being tarred and feathered by eco-Nazis), but I'm not all that concerned about MGP. Fuel economy is great, but not if it means I hate driving the thing.

Which reminds me -- I heard an ad on the radio for a new, improved Dodge Dart. Good lord. I had the misfortune of driving a Dart a few times when I was younger, and still shudder at the memory. What a complete and utter piece of junk! I can't believe they didn't retire the model name and burn all records that the car had ever existed. Even though I realize that everyone responsible for that design has long since retired, and that the company is probably now in the hands of responsible and decent people...I still can't overcome my instinctive reaction of intense nausea at the mention of that car. I will not be looking at the Dart as my next vehicle.

I have the same problem with Ford and GM. I actually liked my Pinto a lot, even though it crumbled to dust after 75,000 miles. But after a horrible customer experience with a Bronco II, I lost my respect for the company. With Chevy, I liked my Camaro (and probably should've kept it), but couldn't even believe what a pile of crap the Monza was. Then Tanner's mom and I made what is definitely the worst car-buying decision of our lives; we purchased a Cadillac.

The weekly breakdowns, leakages, and malfunctions were bad enough. But even when it was running, I hated that car. The steering was sloppy, the driver's seat was uncomfortable, and the heating system's "intelligent control" made it completely impossible to ever be comfortable. If you set it to 70°, it would turn on the A/C full blast when the temperature reached 71...and blow cold air on you until it went down to 69. At that point, the heater would come on like a jet engine and roast you until the sensor detected 71 again. And then, well, you can guess. I much prefer being able to choose the amount of heating, cooling, and fan level myself.

Since then, Val has stuck with Honda, and has been happy with several of them. I've tried Toyota and Subaru, and have been delighted with both. Does this mean I'm committed to Japanese brands? No, not necessarily. But that probably is where the search will begin. While I really do like and respect Mike Rowe, Tim Allen, and Sam Elliott, well -- their endorsements alone aren't enough to bring me back to Detroit. But I'm trying to keep an open mind, so we'll see. I'll talk to friends and coworkers and see what recommendations they have.

In the meantime, it's kinda cool to have a very clean engine compartment.



Anyway, I didn't really mean to rant about cars. For today's topic, I just wanted to throw out a thought that we can explore in more detail later. I heard something the other day about some royal ugly dude in, like, England or somewhere, who was going to have a baby at some point -- which meant that the new kid would eventually be King. It made me think about the poor brother who doesn't get to be king (or beget future kings or anything.) On one hand, he's lucky in that he doesn't have to deal with as many paparazzi, but on the other, well...he doesn't get to be king.

I've mentioned before that I am occasionally jealous that my brother received most of the athletic talent in our family. And he's probably jealous that I got the good looks and brains. But though we have very different lives, neither of our obituaries will begin with the words "He was the brother of a famous celebrity..." And for some reason, this line of thought led me to what I think is a pretty good book idea. Somebody should write a book called "Obscure Siblings of the Stars." It would include interviews and psychological profiles of some of the Billy Carters and Steven Baldwins of the world.

Seriously, think about the most famous people you know -- do you have any idea which ones have siblings? Oh sure, everyone knows about Isaac Hayes (pictured above) and his brother Woody. And yes, Elton John's brother Jimmy has apparently done quite well in the fast sandwich delivery business. But what do we know about Willis Schwarzenegger? Bart Favre? Mike Spitz?

While you ponder these weighty issues, I'm going to spend the day submitting proposals for chemistry research I do not understand in the slightest. It'll be fun. Stay warm, and have a great day!

Single Digits

According to the TV news, everyone in Denver was supposed to be depressed, angry, and scheduling appointments with local Kevorkians. But everyone I spoke to yesterday seemed to be doing quite well, thank you. The gym was crowded, we had a good turnout at swim practice, and a couple of people even wanted to swim 100 x 100s, just for fun. The sun was shining, and the world seemed to be doing just fine.

Well, mostly. I did encounter one small personal disappointment; my car overheated on the way to the gym. The temperatures were the lowest they've been so far this winter, so it seems odd to think that anything would be too hot. Since the first snowfall a few weeks ago, my joints have been creaky, my fingers are sluggish on the keyboard, and my thought processes have been positively glacial -- which I attribute to ice crystals forming within my blood vessels. But gasoline powered automobiles apparently have no such correlation between environmental chill and internal heat management. The temperature gage needle was almost in the red before I noticed the problem.

Of course, my Boy Scout training ensures that I have a jug of antifreeze in the car at all times, so it was simple to add enough coolant to get me through the rest of my weekend driving. But after swim practice this morning, the car goes back to the shop. I'm hoping it's just a hose that wasn't fully tightened after all the expensive chazwazzery that took place in the engine compartment last week. We'll see.

As for my training, well, it's been a tad unpredictable lately. Again, I'd love to blame the weather, but the fact is that I'm just being a wimp. But my target marathon date draws ever nearer, so at some point I'm just going to have to put on 18 layers of longjohns and get my buns out there in the pre-dawn chill. If the sidewalks look passable by tomorrow evening, I'll plan to jog before swim practice on Wednesday. I may be dressed up like a Botany Bay crewman on Ceti Alpha 5, but I intend to force myself to do it.

It will be interesting to see if the "Yoga for Swimming" class helps loosen me up. As longtime readers know, my previous experiments with yoga had less to do with Nirvana than with Chaos Theory. There was nothing serene or dignified about my Gort-like stiffness, my constant muffled whimpering, or my tendency to topple over in every breeze generated by a passing gnat. But this time, I am determined to achieve such sublime suppleness that people will think I'm the second coming of Ghandi or something.

Will it help me swim faster? I guess I'll find out. In the meantime, I'll just keep adding layers of clothing and trying to face the winter cold with a positive attitude. Have a great day!

Meetings

I spent the entire day yesterday in meetings. The most important one was a conference call that would help us build an important relationship with some people with influence, and most of the others were about preparing for that call. But there was also a meeting about a different potential opportunity, and one by a laser vendor that featured lots of cool pictures of very tiny holes punched through exotic materials.

In general, though, I'm not a big fan of meetings. I generally prefer to be left alone for the majority of the day. I'm an introvert, after all. An introvert of epic proportions.

Don't get me wrong -- I absolutely cherish the time I get to spend with my close friends, and I greatly enjoy socializing with my coworkers, swim team members, and friends from the gym. But I do need quiet time to recharge, especially when I have a lot of work to do. And I can tell you many stories from past jobs where I've spent uncounted agonizing hours in meetings with morons, pulling my hair out as various pinheads blathered on and on, with no apparent point other than to hear themselves talk. Gack.

I'm glad it's not like that these days. One of the best things about working at ITN is that I get to learn new things almost every single day. There are some flat-out genius science guys who work here, and it's a real privilege to sit in on discussions where astounding advances in state-of-the-art technology are discussed. I also learn new things about business, and about what's happening in the world of energy. It's pretty cool.

But still, it's tough to be captive in the conference room all day, especially when there are no cookies or sodas presented as a reward for sticking around. Most of the other folks have their fancy-pants smart phones, and are sending and receiving text messages and emails throughout the day; but as the last of the luddites, I have to wait for a scheduled meeting break before I can even check my email.

Sigh. Perhaps it is time for me to get a smart phone. Then, if a meeting did become boring, I could play Space Invaders (or whatever the latest smartphone game happens to be) while pretending to be important enough to receive urgent text messages. The part that scares me is that if I had a smart phone, there might be temptations to use it -- and I don't want to talk on the phone any more than I currently do. It's that introvert thing again.

Anyway, I could feel the effects of yesterday's eternal meeting attendance when I jumped in the pool this morning. I was slow and stiff...which is what happens when you spend an entire day sitting in the same spot. I need more motion and more stretching. This becomes especially important as the first of my "Yoga for Swimmers" classes draws near. I'm not sure I can even bend over to tie my shoes at this point, much less do a lotus-position handstand or anything. But today should be much better in that regard; I have no meetings to attend at all. And I'm planning to stay active throughout the weekend.

I hope you can do that, as well. Enjoy the weekend and have a great day!

(By the way -- Go Broncos!)

Cautious Optimism

Despite a meeting that ran WAY past quittin' time last night, I was able to make it to the car repair shop before they closed. And my good luck continued as my credit card apparently had enough magic juice in it to satisfy the swiper machine so that I was allowed to retrieve the keys and drive the now-funcitonal vehicle home. I shall be paying for these repairs for the next year or so, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to get enough additional miles from the car to justify the expenditure. I just don't want to buy a new car quite yet.

The big test will be when I attempt to drive to Seattle to deliver the musical gear that Tanner wants me to bring him. Driving several thousand miles through hostile northwest territory should be a good test of how well these repairs are going to hold up. Wish me luck.

My additional optimism centers around my running. Though I was a total slacker throughout the holiday break and still haven't re-established the running routine I had prior to the last snowstorm, I have had a couple of decent runs this week. In fact, this morning I actually ran three miles with no significant pain at all. This is an astonishing accomplishment, and makes me almost look forward to my next opportunity to put on the shoes. (Almost.)

I'm also optimistic that my day job will mellow out somewhat after this next round of proposals is submitted. Right now, things are absolutely crazy at the office, and people are expecting me to crank out extraordinary amounts of work for the next two weeks. Obviously, their expectations are unrealistic (given my lifetime of unremitting otioseness)...but I'll do the best I can. In the meantime, please forgive me if you find me staring vacantly into space or babbling like a congressman.

Have a great day!

Pedestrian

I bet wealthy people don't struggle with decision making the same way the rest of us do.

For the last few months, I've been having to add antifreeze to my radiator regularly. Then the car started running rough, and exhibiting other symptoms that repairs were needed. I did some searching, and concluded that I was probably going to have to replace the head gasket, which is a pretty expensive repair. So with around 200K miles on my Subaru, I needed think carefully about whether I wanted to spend the money to repair the vehicle...or just go ahead and get a new car.

If I were some rich guy like Jimmy or Warren Buffet, I wouldn't hesitate -- just get a new Lexus or Maseratti or something. People like Ben Affleck and Tony Shaloub probably get new cars every week, and buy them based on which color matches the shoes they're planning to wear that night. But for me, such a decision requires much calculation, soul searching, and what-if scenario construction. In the end, I concluded that I'll go ahead and pay a couple grand to keep this vehicle running, and will defer the car-buying process for another (hopefully) two or three years. It's a gamble, but since I'm driving fewer miles now that my office is so close to home, it seemed like a reasonable bet.

Besides, I like my station wagon, and I hate car shopping. I took the wheezing old rustbucket into the repair facility, and told them to fix whatever was broken. I hope my credit cards can handle it.

This means that I'm on foot until the repairs are complete. I've been bumming rides for the last few days, and walking to work and back. I like walking. I have a few friends who would much rather run than walk, and I can understand that to some degree -- you get where you're going a lot faster -- but I know that I pay more attention to scenery when I'm not huffing and puffing.

I love walking in the pre-dawn darkness. But not so much after the sun sets in the evenings. I figured out why last night; it's my vision. After a long day of staring at a computer screen and working on proposals and presentations, my ability to focus tends to be diminished. Plus, the evening rush hour traffic seems more dangerous than the morning drive for some reason. And last night, I learned a lesson that we should all probably incorporate:

Beware of hybrids!

Since time began, humans have used both their eyes and ears to avoid danger in the wild. But stiff-necked city dwellers like myself have evolved to rely on hearing as the primary detection source for dangers when crossing driveways that intersect a sidewalk. After a day at the desk, it's hard to turn my head around to look behind me to see if anyone is planning to turn across my walking path, but motor vehicles are noisy enough that you can hear them coming up behind you. No turnaround was required.

Until now.

The stupid hybids don't make any noise. There I was, just happily plodding along the sidwalk, completely confident that the nearest traffic was hundreds of meters away (at least)...when I pretty much stepped right into the path of an oncoming Prius. It was if he had appeared by magic; I leapt back out of the driveway with a primal adrenaline surge, and managed to avoid becoming an asphalt stain. After taking a moment for deep breathing, I realized why I had been unaware of his approach. It was the silence.

From now on, I will look behind me before stepping into a roadway of any kind. I refuse to let the silent assassins find me as easy prey.

Of course, the whole thing is probably moot -- since I should get my car back this afternoon. Then I'll be the driver, not the pedestrian. Oh, I'll still enjoy walking, but will try to confine my foot-borne excursions to designated hiking trails, etc. Thanks to Global Warming, the rest of the world is just too dangerous.



Have a great day!

Raspberry Disaster

Hmmm. "Raspberry Disaster" sounds like a pretty good name for a band.

But unfortunately, the subject catastrophe has nothing to do with music. It's a reference to my latest domestic setback.

I had all these grand plans for the Christmas break: I was going to purge all unneeded possessions from my spare bedroom. (This included faded Foghat cassette tapes, college textbooks that became obsolete with the advent of color television, an inexplicably large collection of dried-out magic markers, bicycle ball bearings I had kept in case I ever bought another Huffy, etc.) And then I was going to give my entire home a thorough housecleaning.

The first setback came when instead of spending time on the purge project, Tanner and I went over to his former bandmate's house to collect some of the musical instruments he had left behind when he moved to Seattle. So instead of throwing out a pile of stuff, I ended up with additional space-hogging items such as amplifiers, keyboards, mic stands and the like. Suddenly the break was over and it was time to go back to work. And clutter has not been reduced.

Anyway, the accumulation of more stuff was unfortunate, but doesn't merit panic nor require action beyond some Tetris-style storage allocation creativity. The latest problem, though, comes from a different source entirely. I know as well as anyone that change in a person's weight can be calculated with a fairly simple formula: Delta W = calories consumed minus calories burned. To lose weight, all you have to do is eat less and exercise more. Of course, there are additional energy and nutritional considerations; some foods are simply better for your health and performance than are others. Everybody knows these things, yet like many people, I have not always made the right dietary choices for optimal BMI and racing speed.

Don't get ahead of me here. I'm not talking about implementing monk-like discipline, or going all Dan Gable on you or anything. I'll still enjoy the occasional taco, pizza, or Ziggy Piggy. But since my attempts to eat more salads over the past six months have been less than successful, I decided to buy myself a blender and try the "green smoothie" thing.

The idea is that you can grind up healthy stuff -- fruits, veggies, and salad greens -- and drink down those groovy nutritional components without the hassle of plates, forks, and salad dressing. The biggest advantages for a guy like me are that you can freeze all the ingredients, make big batches that last for days, and have a simple cleanup process.

The good news is that the idea seems to be working (mostly). I'm consuming more greens now, and am having fun with the sortof macho thrill that comes from using a power appliance to instantly crush and pulverize stuff that Mother Nature spent months creating. The part I haven't quite mastered is the idea of actually replacing an entire meal with a smoothie. I do drink my healthy stuff, but still have to chase it with something chocolate. Or with some chips and salsa. Hey...it's a work in progress.

Anyway, the point is that the lid wasn't securely fastened on the tub of raspberries I pulled out of the freezer on Saturday. I'm blaming a poltergeist for making me drop the thing (since "utter lack of dexterity and coordination" couldn't possibly be the cause), and for the subsequent explosive scattering of berries all across the carpet. I tried my best to pick up the big chunks and vacuum up the rest as quickly as I could, but as the photo above reveals, I wasn't entirely successful. Some carpet shampoo should take care of it, but until I can get that done, I'll have to look at the reminder that healthy eating comes with risks. And now, you have also been warned.

While I'm on the topic of food, though, I wanted to ask a question. I was toasting up a sesame seed bagel the other day, and suddenly realized that I have no idea what the rest of the sesame plant looks like. I do know that it was once used as some sort of cave-opening mechanism, but otherwise, I couldn't guess what people use the stuff for other than to garnish various types of rolls. Can anybody help me out here?

And while you're at it, what does the "bagel" button on my toaster do? I know I'm supposed to push it in when I'm cooking something thicker than toast, but what does it do? It doesn't appear to move the heating elements or anything, and if it changes the toasting time, it's a pretty subtle difference. Could it be that it's just a non-functional button added to the package so they could charge more for that particular toaster model? Probably.

Anyway, I promised that I'd give you a link to Tanner's band's new album. Their sound is definitely unusual; perhaps your kids or grandkids will like it. Click on www.tellescopemusic.com/Music.html to check it out.

Next up is the 1-Hour Postal swim. It's pretty simple; you just swim as far as you can in an hour, then mail your results (hence the "postal" part) to the event coordinator, who will then let you know how your 60-minute distance compares to the other participants across the country. I'm not sure how many of my teammates are planning to do it -- and in fact, I'm not yet sure if I'll do it myself. But it would certainly be fun. I'll let you know.

Until then, be careful with your berries, and have a great day!

A Swimming Weekend

I had a full weekend of swimming fun! The photo above is from Saturday's swim meet at Heritage High School. I was on the blocks for the 200 freestyle, next to my buddy Eduardo -- who I can compete with in the longer events, but totally waxes me in anything under 500.

That was kindof a fun race, though. My friend Rich Abrahams was was also in the race, and though he holds world records in the 50 and 100 distances, he and I have had some pretty good grudge matches in the 200. I was in lane 1 and Rich was in lane 5. We chatted before the race, and he said he was bummed that he wasn't next to me so we could push each other the last 50. I was actually relieved, because I wasn't planning to work it that hard, and didn't want to be tempted to go out too fast to try to stay close to him.

I did look over at about 75 yards and saw that he was several body-lengths ahead of me. "Fine," I thought, "he's completely out of reach, so I can just cruise it without any thoughts of having to strain myself." I stopped paying any attention to anyone else in the heat and just tried to keep my stroke long and relaxed. I wanted to swim the race fairly evenly, so I picked up the level of effort on the third 50 and then tried to sprint the best I could on the last lap.

I ended up negative splitting it, and somehow managed to pass by Rich without even knowing it. The time was about what I did at the State meet last year, and it felt WAY better, so I'm taking that as a good sign.



Everyone on our team swam well, and because there weren't a lot of swimmers in attendance, the meet moved quickly. In fact, there was only one heat of 100 freestyle between my 100 free race and my 200 butterfly. I was still huffing and puffing from the sprint when I dragged myself onto the blocks for the fly. It's a good thing it's legal to hang onto the walls on each turn.

Here are some more photos from the meet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent the rest of Saturday just puttering around and watching TV -- resting up for the 100 x 100s workout on Sunday morning.

We had a great turnout and an excellent effort. I don't have a final count of how many people finished all 100 of the hundreds, but a pretty good-sized group of animals cranked right through them. I know that it was the first time for several of the swimmers, and they deserve hearty congratulations for their notable achievement.

I was lucky enough to be in a lane with four other swimmers (Mike, Jeff, Jim, and Linda)...so I got to draft for the majority of the swimming. We kept up a decent pace throughout, and didn't take too many long breaks. It went by quickly, and was fun throughout. Thanks for sharing the lane, folks!

Several of us also went to lunch afterwards, and I thoroughly enjoyed that company, as well. It's good to have such inspirational and entertaining friends.

 



So, that was my weekend. In the next few posts, I'll be discussing Tanner's new album, my hideously expensive car repair, and the efforts I'm taking to get my running training back on track. It's also a busy time at the office, so you can probably expect to hear some whining about how hard I have to work, as well. Stay tuned for all of that, but in the meantime, have a great day!

Resolutions Revisited

I suspect that the people who read this blog are among the world's smartest and inquisitive folks...so I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't all remember what I had to go look up.

My resolutions for 2012 were pretty much the same as what I mentioned yesterday—Become healthier and more fit, write more, strive to master those elusive social skills, and be more productive. It's kinda like the goals we all write in our company performance review documents: "Sleep less at the desk, stop watching funny cat videos on YouTube when you're supposed to be editing, and try to actually submit a proposal with more than an hour to go before the deadline for once." That section of the document stays the same from year to year, because we never actually do any of that stuff.

But when you use phrases such as "become more..." and "improve in the area of...", you can still use the same phrase the following year, even if you did attain that objective during the last rating period. And the truth is that in 2012 I probably did improve my social skills, and might have even become more productive. For me, it was a pretty good year. I had fun, remained employed, and was never incarcerated. Did I become a better athlete? Well, yeah, maybe...at least in running. My swimming probably isn't any worse, and my triple-axel/double lutz combination can be executed with the same skill level I had last year. I didn't win the Lotto, but I didn't lose money in the Facebook IPO, either.

I'm still thinking, though. I feel like I should have other, more specific, "outside the box" goals. I should, oh I dunno, take a trip to some exotic location (Canada?), attend a drag race at Bandimere, or get a tattoo of Hervé Villechaize. I am planning another trip to Seattle, and intend to participate in more yoga classes, but those aren't exactly "bucket list" accomplishments. The truth is that I'm an incredibly dull person, and my hopes and dreams tend to center more around eating tacos and paying off credit cards than on elephant rides in the Congo or boxing matches with Danny Bonaduce. Sigh.

So I'll continue to think about it, and to ponder the suggestions I get from my friends. I will likely share additional goals with you in the coming days. For now, though, I'm just focused on the swim meet this Saturday, and the 100 x 100s on Sunday. I intend to take it easy on Thursday and Friday so that I'll be slightly tapered for the weekend events. After that, the training for the state meet (and the May marathon) begins in earnest. Fun times ahead, my friends.

In the meantime, I hope the first week of 2013 has been good for you, too. Let's make this a fantastic year all around, OK? Charge on ahead...and have a great day!

2013

Happy New Year!!

I hope everyone had delightful holidays, and were able to enjoy friends, family, and food without overindulging in any of them. I have to say that my entire break was blissful, despite my complete and utter failure to accomplish anything on my to-do list. I had developed grand plans for extended exercise, draconian housecleaning, and unbridled poetic creativity throughout the last weeks of 2012...but alas, none of these came to pass. As those who know me well could probably predict, I ended up with a plethora of uncompleted projects strewn about my life and my living room. I started out really well, but there simply aren't enough days between Christmas and New Years to get everything finished. (Especially if you throw in unscheduled naps, spontaneous lunches with the kids, and a few movies that you didn't intend to watch but somehow got sucked into. Sigh.)

Tanner arrived on Christmas Eve, and did an excellent job of pretending that he wasn't completely mortified to be spending time with his parents. He played music for us (I'll post a video in a few days), showed us some of his latest accomplishments in his new chosen career field (computer programming), and was a continual delight to have around.

After Christmas, Tanner's mom threw a party to celebrate Tanner and Caitlyn being in Denver. I made cinnamon rolls, which went really well with the chili and bacon-wrapped sausages that were featured as the main course. Tanner entertained the crowd with Christmas Carols, and he and Caitlyn led an old-fashioned sing-along that sounded pretty darn good (considering the amount of wine that had been consumed.)

As for the remainder of my holiday break, well, I would love to bore you with the inconsequential details, but I'm trying to follow some blogging wisdom that's been shared with me: Keep it short. Ergo, I'm going to summarize a few things, throw in another photo or two, and call it a day.

First, here's a picture of me with Tanner and Caitlyn. They are actually a delightfully charismatic couple, but the photo was taken at about noon, which means they weren't yet fully awake.



The photo was taken with one of the Christmas presents I received, a groovy Nikon DSLR camera. My other presents included a blender (for making healthy smoothies as part of my "stop being such a lazy fat guy" program), a TV antenna (so I can stop paying for cable), and some luxurious sunscreen skin lotion (to keep me young and radiant forever). And though they weren't strictly considered Christmas presents, I also received a couple of guitar amplifiers, a mic and mic stand, and an extra 5-octave keyboard. (OK, those already belonged to either myself or Tanner, but had been in the custody of various band members for the last couple of years. We decided to keep them at my condo so that when Tanner is ready for them, we can get them back into his musically gifted hands.)

As for New Year's Resolutions, well...I'm still thinking about that. One thing is that I'm planning to separate my "Day in the life" musings from my obnoxious geek trivia -- so be expecting an entirely new blog site where you can go to test your 1970's TV and movie knowledge. This site, then, should feature more comments about athletics and training, as well as all the political philosophy and general life wisdom you've come to expect from your street-saavy host. Other resolutionary stuff includes the goal of a comeback marathon, participating in some interesting swim competitions, and a few vague dreams of doing something that will put me in situations where I'm somewhat more likely to meet a slightly nerdy hot athlete chick to hang out with (suggestions are welcome.) I will also scan through the archives and see whether I made any resolutions for 2012, and will report on their status if they do indeed exist.

For now, though, I shall leave you with some other random photos from the holiday break. Enjoy, and have a great start to the New Year!