Monochromatic Outlook

Had a swim les­son tonight. I’ve known I’m a slow swim­mer for quite some time, but tonight I got a glimse into why. My coach gave me a kick­board and had me swim hold­ing my arms out in front. When I kicked my legs, I did­n’t move for­ward at all. I just kept on kick­ing and kick­ing and then I actu­al­ly start­ed mov­ing back­wards! Appar­ent­ly I’m not doing it right.

This tells me a lot about why I’m not a fast … Read the rest

I hate to have to drop a $20 bill to get to work, all the more so when the only per­son to blame is myself for over­sleep­ing. Oh well, at least I’m sleep­ing again. But when I final­ly flag down a taxi, I expect the cab­bie to actu­al­ly know how to get from the Cas­tro to Fish­er­man’s Wharf.

Hon­est­ly, I have no idea whether tak­ing Franklin would be faster than some oth­er option. I just know that a car will … Read the rest

Here’s my to-do list for 2005:

• Escape from Alca­traz Triathon (in three hours, yeah right!)
• Full Marathon (I’m think­ing maybe Chica­go. Goal: 3:15. Again, yeah right! But if I stick with it, no rea­son I can’t)
• Leave the North Amer­i­can con­ti­nent for the first time in my life
• Lose 20 lbs (prefer­ably before Burn­ing Man)
• Bench press my body weight in sets of eight (the last item will make this one a lit­tle eas­i­er, although work­ing toward this will under­mine

I start­ed 2004 at about 195 pounds. I fin­ished weigh­ing 175.

I began run­ning in 2004. I logged 367 miles in the course of the year. In 2004 I ran my first 5K, my first 10K, and my first half-marathon.

In 2004 I trained for and com­plet­ed my first triathlon, the olympic-dis­tance Trea­sure Island Tri.

In 2004 I went on two dates.

In 2004 I saw 7 bands play live music shows. Devo I saw for the … Read the rest

On Mon­day I opened my mail to find a let­ter from the com­pa­ny that I signed up with for the motor­cy­cle Rid­er Course. Appar­ent­ly they’re going out of busi­ness and will not be offer­ing the class­es that they have already sched­uled. The let­ter said that they will not be offer­ing refunds, but that what­ev­er com­pa­ny gets the con­tract to run the course will pro­vide the course for all the stu­dents that have already reg­is­tered. But at this time there’s no … Read the rest

http://www.rexxla.org/Newsletter/oorexx-pr.html

IBM released Object Rexx under the Com­mon Pub­lic License.

Thank God for Dr. Dob­b’s Jour­nal to keep me up to date on my first pro­gram­ming love. We’ve gone our sep­a­rate ways, but I still hold Rexx close to my heart and wish it only the best.… Read the rest

Is it pos­si­ble that they’ll final­ly get one right?

http://batmanbegins.warnerbros.com/trailer.html… Read the rest

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4073305.stm

This is what all politi­cians do all the time, right? I’m not sure that this is what he meant to say, though:

“it’s about build­ing cohe­sive soci­ety where you take the con­se­quences of our actions.” (empha­sis mine)… Read the rest

OK note to self: don’t attempt to run long dis­tances with­out BodyGlide. There’s a blood­stain on my new Run To The Far Side shirt. Yes, blood. And no, I did­n’t notice that I was bleed­ing. I think it’s fair to say that “chaf­ing” “blood” and “nip­ple” are three words no one wants to hear in the same sentence.

The shirt is soak­ing now, I’m using cold water and I may have got­ten to it in time.

In the after­math of tonight’s … Read the rest

ham­mer­head will be proud of me today, I think. After all the fight­ing I’ve done with him over the heartrate I should tar­get when I run, today I went out and actu­al­ly did Long Slow Distance.

I strapped on the heartrate mon­i­tor and went out for a run and stuck reli­gious­ly to a heartrate of 155. When I’d see it creep­ing up toward 160, I’d slow it down and ease up. This kept me right about at 10… Read the rest