Category: Rants

Ahhhh…

So, the new MacBook is here, and it is GOOOOOOD… The screen is SUPER BRIGHT. It’s faster than the iBook, but I think we’re approaching a point at which speed is somewhat moot.

Huge apologies to one and all – when I got NetNewsWire up and running, there were about 1,000 posts in my aggregator, so I punted. I’m accepting nominations for great rides/runs of the last two weeks – drop me a line.

In other news – Well, I really don’t want to get into the Whole Frankie Andreiu mess. Kudos to him for coming clean about his EPO use in the peleton, but it’s small praise to give seeing as how the relevation makes him more marketable as a television personality.

AND, I’ve been a slug. But the weight’s staying constant, so something’s working well.

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Fall Hiatus

Hey, Folks.

Sorry for the following:

  1. Not posting much this week.
  2. Not reading your stuff. There is little that is more enjoyable than reading about daily small triumphs and races. Truly gets me out the door.
  3. Not writing about exactly how amazing it was to see Dianna, Jon, Danny and the crew from the Bronx, Michelle, Beth at New Haven. David made the trip to New Haven from Florida via Mystic, and we shared a great ride both to and from the race. THere are few people who are wonderful to see before 7 AM; David certianly is. The best part, though, was two hours with April-Anne. She and I had similar goals for the race (Finish! preferably in less than 2 hours), and had a great run, complete with her coaxing me into a sprint at the finish. COld beer, hand-rolled truffles, and conversation afterward. Awesome.

I’m probably out of the picture for the next couple of weeks if not a month. Mingus, my iBook G3, died last week on my way to Maryland. The end of the fiscal year is upon us at work, and I’m changing jobs as a Reservist, which comes with its own learning curve. Plus, I’m behind on a training course, and have a technical class at the end of the month.

What all that means, is that my time to write Runmystic is severely curtailed. I’ll still be turning content for CRN, and still running. But this site will be sparse until I can get all my stuff in one sock, and my new MacBook running smoothly.

Enjoy the fall!

Funk

As in both “We want the…” and “I’m in a …”

We Want The
Went and saw George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars in the second-closest sovereign nation to Mystic tonight. The band was good – George is a phenomenal showman, as was StarChild. The horns? Not so great, but it was easy to mentally edge them out in memory of some of the great horn sections of the past.

More interesting than the show (I’d have never thought it possible to eclipse the Starship until tonight – either I’m getting old, or sobriety is changing how I see the world) was the crowd. There were the expecteds – hipsters bobbing up and down (Hipster guys hanging with hipster girls, always), white guys with dreads and goatees (no girls…), folks who were hipsters 30+ years ago when the band was playing “Flashlight” for the first time, and, being a casino, a goodly number of folks with absolutely no interest in the show at all.

My favorites were the folks who (and I’m terribly afraid I fall into this group) were the ones in that ackward age between hipster-dom and mid-40’s who appeared to be considering the show much as one would approach an installation in an art museum. From time to time they (I) would realize they (I) was actually at a show, and bob up and down for a while, or wave their (my) hands or clap, but then turn back to the patented Gen X look of sardonic detachment. What a drag it is getting old.

Good show – I highly recommend it.

I’m in a …

It’s been a week since I’ve run. An actual, honest to God, week. I thought I was going to make it out today at lunch, but the battery in the Subaru croaked last night when the temperature went all the way down to like 50. I jumped it; the car made it to work, and wouldn’t start up again when I had to run an antenna to a photographer. So, lunch was a trip to the auto store and a trip to the pizza buffet.

Work’s been busy, busy; life at home has been busy. Not franticly busy where I really, really need a couple of minutes each day so I force myself out the door, but busy enough that it makes sense at the time to skip running, ’cause I’ll make it up the next day. Only problem is the next day is busy, too…

(Paragraph redacted – see yesterday’s post)

Plus, there’s been a distinct chill in the air up here – it’s been a good summer, but it’s kind of depressing to see it on the downslope. Fall is wonderful, but I’m not looking forward to December.

Blah.

Epilogue
I’m writing this on a beautiful cool night on my deck, citronella candles burning even though it’s way too cold for bugs, and the dog sleeping under my chair. Last week’s PHC is playing over the WiFi (The Hyena Stomp, give it a listen), and I’m going to have two beautiful boys bouncing on me at 7 AM, not a minute before, not a minute after.

This is the first day of a new month. I’m still under 170 weight-wise, and have a month before the PRT. I can break 9 minutes on the mile and a half, and get under height-weight. I can work up to 30 mile weeks. And my wife loves me.

Life is good.

But sometimes, life is better given a chance to vent.

Thanks for reading.

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee!

(S)tudies show that cardiovascular risk also decreases with coffee consumption. … Norwegian researchers found that women who drank one to three cups a day reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease by 24 percent compared with those drinking no coffee at all.

…(R)esearchers found that a typical serving of coffee contains more antioxidants than typical servings of grape juice, blueberries, raspberries and oranges.

“We were surprised to learn that coffee quantitatively is the major contributor of antioxidants in the diet both in Norway and in the U.S.A.,” said Rune Blomhoff, the senior author of both studies and a professor of nutrition at the University of Oslo.

Coffee as a Health Drink? Studies Find Some Benefits – New York Times

And the Norwegians should know – absolutely great coffee over there.

Other benefits (some from the article, some made up for comic relief):

  • Twitching burns additional calories equivalent to a donut a day!
  • Waking up to a cup of black coffee after a night out on the town reduces the risk of chirossis of the liver!
  • Slices, Dices, Circumcises, even makes Julianne Fries, whatever the hell those are!
  • Reduces the risk of death from all causes by over 15% (That one is honestly not made up)
  • Chicks dig guys who write and drink coffee
  • Changes your tie pattern on a near daily basis

From an American Classic, and the best movie you haven’t seen this year:

Smells so lovely when you pour it

You’ll want to drink a quart of coffee

It’s delicious all alone

It’s also good with donuts, black coffee

Yeah, OK, I’m done.

Blogged with Flock

F***

F***

“The Phonak Cycling Team was notified yesterday by (world cycling body) the UCI of an unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone ratio in the test made on Floyd Landis after stage 17 of the Tour de France,” Phonak said in a team statement.

Freakin frogs, trying to destroy cycling. If Floyd’s a doper, then he should be strung up by his nether bits, no question.

But there’s a part of me that wonders if the elevated testosterone might have just been a natural physiological reaction – fight or flight, whatever.

(Insert French Joke Here – I’m too livid to make one up)

What is it? Is there too much money tied up in sport? Have we invested too much in the big stage?

Actually, that’s probably part of the problem. We expect others to provide excitement, instead of doing it ourselves. The solution is to get off our butts and enjoy the summer. Enough moping for me.
Are you part of the solution? Who are you racing? Who is being thrilled vicariously through what you’re doing?

Race Planning

Woah –

So, it suddenly hit me: New Haven is five weeks away, and Josh Billings is seven weeks away. And I’ve been kind of half-***ing training for most of the summer. Not that it hasn’t been productive – my motivation is way, way up, past where it’s been, well, pretty much ever.

But, I’ve been just kind of coasting along. Time to buckledown and kick some of my own rump.

GTBMS

Stupid Scale

Up to 170 this morning.

Likely due to

  • Not running consistently
  • Not continuing my food log
  • Just generally prioritizing the rest of my life

The positive is that I caught the slide after +3 pounds, as opposed to my usual +5 or +10. But, it’s a slide nontheless.

On the other upside, I’ve already run 2 days this week (Week defined, in my case as Mon-Sun) and have an excellent chance of breaking 20 miles for the week. As far as priorities go, t-ball ends this weekend, so that’s a night and part of a Saturday that I get back. Plus, my folks are flying in, which means that I should be able to sneak off and jump on the bike while the kids are getting baths.

Summer Rocks.

Further Reason Scott Adams is my hero…

Dilbert-man can write about sports:

… I don’t know what kind of training he did, but oh-my-god. … There was ferocity to his strokes. He wasn’t just hitting the ball, he was punishing it. His court speed was breathtaking. His shot selection was brilliant. His backhand, previously a weakness, had become a rocket.

You only needed to listen to the court sounds to know that Blake was heading deep into the tournament. When a tennis racket strikes a ball perfectly, it creates a sound wave that spectators can feel in their entire bodies. If you play tennis yourself, you can practically close your eyes and know who is winning. …

Read the rest of the bit. It’s great, absolutely perfect sportswriting.

Post-Script to “Nightly Dose of Self-Doubt”

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.

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Nightly dose of self-doubt

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.

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