So, no sooner do I finish my latest navel-gazing than I look up across the terminal, and see my alter-ego – a 30 something with iPod earbuds and a PSP, hip t-shirt, and the 20 lbs of beer I’ve managed to keep off since this time last year.
I’m sure he’s a wonderful human, with a cooler job that me and for sure with cooler toys.
But there’s something wonderful to be said for slacks, belts (I put mine back on, BTW), buttons, mortgages, and kids waiting at the house.
So, I’m in the waiting area at the Philly airport with too long of a layover. What I thought was 50 minutes is closer to 2 hours. There are worse things in life, I expect.
It’s gradually sinking in that I’m getting too old to play the cool hipster. Plus, the whole closer to 20 years of time in the Navy than signing that first enlistment paper kind of hit today. The increasing amount of silver in my auburn locks. Mortgages. Kids. Over 10 years married to the same woman. A fondness for station wagons. Seeing fewer midnights. Realizing that I don’t have any games installed on my laptop, and that, in the last 6 months, I’ve used my PlayStation more frequently to do Pilates than to play games.
And, I chose a business trip over Fantasy Baseball draft.
But, the straw in the camel’s back is listening to the South by Southwest (SXSW) Showcasing Artists downloads for this year’s festival. (Remind me to post the torrents – if you’re interested, it’s close to 3 gigs of free, legal MP3s)
Why is this such a hard spot, you ask?
‘Cause I like almost every song I’ve heard since I started listening to it. Gen X is all grown up and holding music and technology festivals that are covered by NPR. Not cool NPR, like Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, but stodgy, pledge drive NPR like Morning Edition.
It’s not surprising – the Joshua Tree turns 20 this year (Pshew, next year, but still…), and the Simpsons have been around almost as long. The folks who were freshmen when I graduated high school all turn 30 this year. The last brothers I pledged are having their 10 year reunion this year.
Don’t misunderstand – I’m still pretty jazzed about Life, the Universe, and Everything. But, I think it’s about time to let go of the idea of myself as a youth.
On the plus side, with the exception of 22 year old me fresh out of Pensacola, I think that Billy-2006 could kick the butt of pretty much any version of me in the last 15 years, running at least.
The flight out of Norfolk is later tonight (ie, not late, in and of itself, but late in the evening, and I get into Providence around midnight). So I’m sitting here at the Abbey Brewery Resturant, waiting on service, and halfway wondering if I’m actually going to get anything to eat.
Turns out I do get something to eat from a waitress who is exceptionally inconvenienced by me. Or so it appears. Not that I mind – there’s time enough before the flight, and I’m looking out over the runway, watching the sky turn from pale to pink to rose to grey to Navy. And, it’s quiet in the waiting area. All that’s missing is free wifi, but I’ll get that in Philly.
Oh, yeah – running.
Wow, what a run this afternoon. The working group meeting broke up about 4 this afternoon. Not sure if a whole lot was accomplished – there’s a lot more folks involved with dollars and planning at the working group than with actual work. Which I suppose applies to me, too, thinking about it.
I’d packed for the trip with the best of intentions – all the running stuff and my kakhis, planning on recycling my civvies on both flights. Clean skivvies, so it’s not quite so gnasty as you might think. The initial plan was to wake up at 0500 and hit the road. But, the flight out of National was delayed, and I didn’t get to the Navy lodge until after 2300. Half an hour to wind down and realize the DSL line was down in the room, 15 minutes debating getting dressed again to trundle down to the lobby to see if I could get a new power adapter, and next thing you know it’s after midnight.
0500 arrived. I hit the snooze button, knowing I had a late flight, and expecting that the working group would be done early enough to run before heading to the airport. When I stepped outside to head to the meeting, I was greeted with a chill that I’d associate with the wind off of Naraganssett Bay, not the breeze off of Hampton Roads. And I’d left all the cold weather stuff up north…
Meeting wasn’t as bad as all that; and the gym on the Fleet Forces Command section of Norfolk has the finest locker room I’ve ever been in. Headed north out of the compound, and headed down the two-lane past the Marine Forces Command (MARFORCOM, all decked out in red and gold) buildings, and an elementary school.
About 15 minutes in, I cut across a disused baseball field, and ran past an obstacle course tucked in next to an access road, golf course, and highway. Turned left on the access road, and started running parallel to the highway. Painted on the access road were faded words: 1917 – Belleau Wood, 1942 – Corregidor and Bataan, 1944 – Iwo Jima (years are probably wrong, sorry). Overhead, a E-2 Hawkeye banked steeply, flared, and lined up on final.
The afternoon was beautiful, the run was perfect – 24 minutes out, 24 minutes back with some great fartlek running up random mounds on the side of the road and jumping off the top. Don’t have Gmaps Pedometer, so I’m not so sure how far the run was.
Oh, and it turns out that Candi (her real name), the waitress in the airport restaurant, was pleasant and gracious, and the crab cakes were indescribably good.
Off to Philly.
Technorati Tags: norfolk, rbf, running
UPDATE: The route was just over 5.5 miles.
If you haven’t caught it yet, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has a blog. Today’s bit was on Losing Weight:
First, buy a scale and use it daily. As soon as you find yourself 3 pounds over your target weight, begin the Scott Adams Dietâ„¢.
…
Week 3
——–
Stop eating bread and white rice and potatoes. Eat all the vegetables you want. Pasta is good too because it doesn’t spike your sugar like other carbs.
Week 4
——–
Adjust your schedule to allow exercise every day at a set time. When that time comes, no matter how tired you feel, put on your sneakers and workout clothes. Then exercise as much or as little as you feel you can handle. The idea is to make it a routine. There is no other objective at this point. Once it’s a routine, you’ll automatically start getting better at it. That part takes care of itself.
There’s more – it’ll make you laugh.
Spring is seriously considering springing up here, despite the best efforts of the Canadians to export their surplus of cold air down here. Today was beautiful – clear, 30’s, and only slightly breezy, and I’m out of my head with stress. Not bad stress, but the good kind of productive stress. The company’s annual meeting was good, I’ve made a breakthrough with a project at work, and I finally get to travel a little again (Just an overnighter down to Norfolk, but hey – I love the smell of jet fuel). Plus, on the way down, I’ll get to see if Jeff’s really speakin’ truth about the flight into National (though not from first class – it’s the taxpayer’s dime as I’m wearing my sailor’s cap, and we fly distinctly coach. Which is a step up, smell-wise, from some ways I’ve traveled on your nickle.)
Saturday was three miles early prior to the annual meeting – (3.3 miles in 29:10 to be specific). I completely love the 3 mile route from our Waterford office – great hills (about 500 vertical feet in two big hills – first about 60-70 feet, second big hill about 150-160′ total, pastoral views everywhere despite being right next to IH-95, and only steps from the shower at either end.
Sunday, I did intervals on the treadmill. 32 minutes, about 3 miles. 90 seconds jogging, 30 seconds sprint. Dunno what good they did.
Yesterday, I blew off since work was tough, and I needed to get home for the Boy’s birthday. Boy was feeling snarky – hopefully his party with friends will be better this weekend. We’ll see.
Today – Got to work way early, got ready for a 9 AM meeting, did the meeting, followed up on some minor tasks, and 11 AM rolled around. I said “pshew”, grabbed the shoes, and went out to recharge the batteries (I’ve come to the conclusion I’m solar powered, which is a revelation after more than 15 years believing I was beer fueled. Both were distinct possibilities after burning out while going to sea in submarines.)
On the way out to the end of the causeway on the Navy Base, I tried to keep the HR down below 150 – not quite down in the “fat buring” where I’ve been for the last couple of weeks, but gentle. Managed to fight off the “small dog” syndrome just after going through the gate when I spotted some folks up ahead by zigging when I normally zag.
Man, what a day. The bay was crystal, the wind just brisk enough, the geese were pooping in the water, not the path, and life is good. Made it out to the turn at about 24 minutes, or at just over 9 minute miles.
The way back, I said “to heck with buring fat – let’s run”. So I did. Back to the building in just under 20 minutes! Felt good, felt strong, felt like what i needed to do.
So, listening to my body seems to be working. I’m starting to get concerned that I’m going to end up fatter this year than I was last year – 28 March was when I hit 169. I’d worry, but not so much. The weight loss will come (especially if I stop eating crap, which is a sacrifice I’m not yet ready to make).
I do need to start thinking about making the sacrifice – I checked out my early-December goals, and am nowhere close to making any of them physically. But mentally, I’m making great strides.
Someone remind me to go visit Cycling Revealed the next time I claim I’m bored.
(managed to clean out a couple of old folders this morning while I was sitting in a meeting)
A while back, I hit on why it’s not an awful thing that science and engineering jobs, etc, are getting moved offshore.
Surfing back through a couple of old links I’d saved, I found this Reason interview with Neal Stephenson, who has way to much of my mindshare for a living mortal. (and if the idea of a “Reason” interview doesn’t get you chuckling, please go read Snow Crash). In any case, part of it focuses on how abandoning the model of science and engineering driving the economy isn’t unprecedented –
If the emblematic figures of earlier eras were the pioneer with his Kentucky rifle, or the Gilded Age plutocrat, then for the era from, say, 1940 to 2000 it was the engineer, the geek, the scientist. It’s no coincidence that this era is also when science fiction has flourished, and in which the whole idea of the Future became current. After all, if you’re living in a technocratic society, it seems perfectly reasonable to try to predict the future by extrapolating trends in science and engineering.
It is quite obvious to me that the U.S. is turning away from all of this. It has been the case for quite a while that the cultural left distrusted geeks and their works; the depiction of technical sorts in popular culture has been overwhelmingly negative for at least a generation now. More recently, the cultural right has apparently decided that it doesn’t care for some of what scientists have to say. So the technical class is caught in a pincer between these two wings of the so-called culture war. Of course the broad mass of people don’t belong to one wing or the other. But science is all about diligence, hard sustained work over long stretches of time, sweating the details, and abstract thinking, none of which is really being fostered by mainstream culture.
The common theme is that control shifts over to the next group once a challenge is conquered. The pioneers figured out how to move from the post-iron age to the industrial age on a large scale, without the inefficiencies of kings and royalties. The plutocrats figured out how to manage manpower and capital on large scales. The technical class – well, crap, what didn’t they figure out?
Not that there’s not still technical work to be done; however, the biggest transformations that need to take place in the next 50 years are in mindset – how do we urge adoption of efficient energy technologies? How do we manage increasing urbanization and still fulfil basic human needs to create and build? How do we communicate; find people who share our ideas, ideals, wishes and dreams? And how do we negotiate with other groups without resorting to blowing them up?
Technorati Tags: big ideas, Stephenson
Hey – I use a great bit of software on my mac called TextWrangler, by Bare Bones Software. Don’t cost nothing, does what I need – lets me edit text; manages multiple files at the same time.
Suggestions?
Managed to drag myself to the pool this evening after scrubbing the bathrooms ’cause my mom’s showing up tomorrow. I even picked up my room. Funny how, even with kids of your own, your mom can make you feel twelve when you don’t see her so often.
The pool was wet. The pool was cold. C, my erstwhile swimming partner, decided to stay at home and eat chocolate. Something about wanting to get off early this weekend. Tall guy stood me up, too – this is like a week without seeing him at the pool.
The first 500 yards were good. Second were pretty good, too, but there was the feeling at the back of my mind that something wasn’t quite right. Probably wanted to get home to clean something. Started the third 500, and at the end felt really winded. Fourth 500 – pushed off the wall to get going, and just decided to bag it right there.
So, I didn’t make my workout goals, but I also didn’t push myself into extremis. I’d be upset, but I’ve gotten off of the couch three days in a row. There’s something to be said for that. Though I wish I’d snuck in a run on Tuesday.
Sorry – nothing earth-shattering tonight. Maybe Friday.