The World's Address

Warning: Product Placement

2011-07-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

So here's the problem with outlet stores... They trick us into thinking we're getting a deal just because they have "outlet" in the name. Throw a small discount on top of that, and a New Hampshire-y absence of sales tax, and I'm nearly powerless against my impulses.

In this case, however, my impulses served me incredibly well.

I do a lot of running, some biking, and, for better or worse, I do most of it with earphones in. My sweat seems to destroy the iPhone compatible ear-buds. Most others fall out, are uncomfortable under a helmet, or sound like crap. I've been meaning to get athletics specific earphones for ages. But most of the major companies putting the word "sport" on the package fails to inspire me.

Enter the unnecessarily expensive and irritatingly marketed Yurbuds. Get past the splashy "Developed by an Ironman and Marathoner", and the creepy faces with motivational phrases written on them, and they promise all the things I care about. Stay in, sound good, hold up to sweaty uses. And hey, the were on sale!!!

My first surprise was that they came with a practical and handy carrying case as well as an extra pair of ear inserts. My next (and much bigger) surprise, is that they actually WERE everything they claimed to be. These things ROCK! They sound better than most full cover-the-ears headphones I've worn. They really do stay in. They're comfortable. They even cover some of the wind noise. The only possible negative I can think of is that the cord is a little long, so unless you have one of those arm-bands that let you wind the extra cord around them, you'll have to tuck the extra inside your shirt or something to keep it from tangling/being loud and annoying.

In short, I found a pair of earphones that are actually worth $50. And if you can get them at any kind of discount, GO FOR IT!!!

The opinions above are purely my own, and are in no way representative of (or paid for by) the Yurbud company, the World Triatlon Corporation, The Bavarian Illuminati, or the Keebler Elves (and should therefore probably be ignored at all costs.)

Rules and Reminiscences

2011-04-08T08:58:00.000-07:00

So in college, I lived in a fraternity. I guess that technically, that makes me a "Frat Boy." But anyone who's ever met me, or visited the MIT chapter of Tau Epsilon Phi knows that the stereotypes... don't always hold.

But my goal today isn't to compare and contrast (okay, mostly contrast) my house and friends with the manly-man beer-guzzling date-raping image some of you may have. I want to talk about throwing food.

We ate dinner together 6 nights a week. Picture the scene... Thirty to forty geeks, mostly guys, mostly 18-22, and tasty meat and veggie options they'd cooked themselves. Obviously food's going to get thrown sometimes. Rather than legislate against it, our forebrothers came up with a way to limit it while keeping it fun.

You see, anyone who wants to can throw food at dinner. Boys will be boys and all that. And, to be fair, anyone who wants to is entitled to retaliate. But if a third food projectile is ever launched, that perpetrator is responsible for any and all resulting cleanup. This both keeps full scale food fights rare (who wants to spend the rest of their night wiping spaghetti off the ceiling?) and makes sure that when they do happen, they are both uninhibited and EPIC (since all but one of the people involved know they won't be responsible for the resulting catastrophe).

Picture the scene: A dinner roll sails through the air. "One!" calls out an observer. The wronged party sends a return volley of what appears to be chicken bones. "TWO!" the whole room cries in unison. The electric thrill, the breathless anticipation as the whole room waits (most either in a defensive crouch or with a handful of potatoes raised.) An endless moment awaiting the fateful third... 99 times out of 100 the moment passes. But that hundredth...

Sometimes a alum will get word that there hasn't been a food fight all year. They'll come back (occasionally bringing their own cleaning supplies solely for the purpose of throwing The Third. More often than not, many of the participants will voluntarily help out with the cleanup (call it a thank-you for the good time?) Occasionally a food fight will coincide with some one's girl- or boy-friend's first visit to the house. But overall it was a pretty effective tradition. One there's no way my wife will ever let me implement at home of course, but... Oh those mad college days...

P.S. Red Jello stains are a dozen times harder to scrub out than any other color. Consider this a public service announcement.

Title Inquiry

2011-04-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

Which is a better book title:

Confessions of a Fast Food Monkey

or

Take THAT Burger Bitches!!!

Other possibilities: "A Day in Burger Paradise", "Would You Like Fries With That", "Food: Fast and Furious"

What do you think?

New Gig

2011-04-05T15:16:00.000-07:00

So... apparently teachers can get in trouble for writing about their jobs on line. So, despite some compelling arguments to the contrary, I've decided that this is the first and last time that I'll write about my new gig.

Much to the chagrin of my company's management (and the fast food community at large) I will be leaving my position at the Burger Paradise. Don't worry, I still have plenty of tales to tell. And I've taken a teaching job at a little private boarding school in Rhode Island.

Of course, this is MY life, so it couldn't possibly be that simple.

I'll be teaching a couple sections of either math or physics (presumably they'll let me know before the semester begins). I'll be teaching one semester of technical theater and one semester of... wait for it... introduction to acting.

But wait, there's more!!! I'll also be the school's theater's technical director/production manager/resident designer, and run the build and crew calls for 2-3 shows a year.

"Wow" you're saying, "that couldn't be any more perfect for you. Unless they also had you coaching the track team or something." Would you believe that we're still talking about that? It depends on whether planning for dance show conflicts with track coaching.

Mind blowing, right? And in addition to not caring that I have no teaching certification also feeding me three meals a day, providing me with housing. And doing my laundry. No, that's not a euphemism for anything, they're DOING MY LAUNDRY! And all they ask in return (apart from teaching classes and running a theater program) is that I do dorm duty a few days a week.

That's right gentle readers, I get to be an R.A./dorm-parent. This job ROCKS!!!

Again, please note that I won't be telling funny stories about my students, fellow teachers, or sports teams. In fact, I may never mention this job again. But I did want to celebrate this exciting turn of events. And, of course, to solicit advice from any of y'all who might be teachers, technical directors, designers, production managers, R.A.s, or firemen. You know... in case there's fire.

Thanks in advance for the advice, support, and taunting. And thanks for understanding that I'll have to come up with things other than my job to be funny about.

What are y'all up to?

Snatching Victory

2011-04-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

It's been said that there's a separate God for children and drunks.

Well, I'm not sure about all that. But I do have to admit that things have frequently gone much better for me than I've had any right to expect. My dad always said I could fall into a pile of poo and come out with rose between my teeth.

Take for example the time a bunch of my friends and I decided to meet up at the Smithsonian. Sure, we agreed on a time, but that was all the location information we shared. And that was plenty for most of us. One friend asked which building. I was struck dumb. You see, there are apparently several different museums that together make up the Smithsonian. You know, places you can go after you get bored of the Air & Space Museum. All was in fact well. We all met on the front steps of Air & Space (except for one guy who wound up at the back steps. Make whatever jokes you like. He deserves them all.)

Flash forward to this morning. A dear friend and I agreed to meet up at the Wachusett Mountain State Reservation and go for a run. What could possibly go wrong? Well, it turns out things with the word "reservation" in their name tend to be a little largish. Throw in the fact that cell service was a little scarce, and you've got a monumental game of Marco Polo without any way of hearing the other person. Throw in some scantily clad coeds, some chainsaws, and a forest fire, and you've got the makings of a lovely disaster movie.

Instead, he and I stumbled across one another quite after just a few minutes, and we proceeded to tromp through the countryside, getting satisfyingly sweaty while discussing art, music, television, and profanity. Quite a lovely time, and I recommend it highly.

I don't think I count as a child or a drunk, but at least I appreciate whatever help I am getting. Many many thanks to all of you who love, support, and enable me. You guys kick ass.

MLB's Championship Belt (updated 4/18/11)

2011-04-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

Tracing the travels of the MLB Championship Belt through the 2011 season (For explaination, see here)

April 18 : San Francisco Giants
April 17 : Colorado Rockies
April 16 : Chicago Cubs
April 9 - April 15 : Colorado Rockies
April 8 : Pittsburgh Pirates
April 5 - April 7 : Colorado Rockies
April 3 - April 4 : Los Angeles Dodgers
April 2 : San Francisco Giants
March 31 - April 1 : Los Angeles Dodgers
November 1, 2010 - March 30, 2011: San Francisco Giants

Championship Belt

2011-04-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

Let's get ready to RUMBLE!!!

What if Major League Baseball's World Championship was treated like a Professional Wrestling championship belt, potentially changing hands with each contest?

I'll admit that I shamelessly stole this idea from my other great love, college hockey. However, the structure of college hockey's post season is such that the belt pretty much has to return to the national championship every year (since just about every team makes its conference tournament, and those tournament champs automatically get a spot in the NCAA tournament in addition to the top 12-16 ranked teams). In Major League Baseball on the other hand, there's a decent chance that a team can win the last few games of their season, including taking over the belt, and still not get one of the 8 playoff spots. How often does this happen? I'm not sure.

But I'm interested in finding out.

Below is a proof of concept, tracing the 2009 World Championship belt through the 2010 season, to the 2010 World Championship. If I have the free time (while planning a wedding, starting a new job, training for assorted marathons etc.) I'll trace the championship belt further back.

But I will also trace the belt through this season. If you're interested at all (and really, how could you NOT be?) I'll be posting updates here every time the belt changes hands. Thanks for reading!

--------------------

Nov 4 2009 -April 8 2010: New York Yankees
April 9 : Tampa Bay Rays
April 10 - April 13 : New York Yankees
April 14 : Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
April 15 - April 21 : New York Yankees
April 22 - April 23 : Oakland Athletics
April 24 : Cleveland Indians
April 25 - April 26 : Oakland Athletics
April 27 - April 29 : Tampa Bay Rays
April 30 - May 1 : Kansas City Royals
May 2 - May 7 : Tampa Bay Rays
May 8 - May 11 : Oakland Athletics
May 12 - May 13 : Texas Rangers
May 14 - May 16 : Toronto Blue Jay
May 17 : Minnesota Twins
May 18 - May 19 : Toronto Blue Jays
May 20 - May 21 : Seattle Mariners
May 22 - May 26 : San Diego Padres
May 27 - May 28 : St. Louis Cardinals
May 29 : Chicago Cubs
May 30 - May 31 : St. Louis Cardinals
June 1 : Cincinnati Reds
June 2 - June 5 : St. Louis Cardinals
June 6 - June 8 : Milwaukee Brewers
June 9 : Chicago Cubs
June 10 - June 11 : Milwaukee Brewers
June 12 - June 24 : Texas Rangers
June 25 : Houston Astros
June 26 - June 28 : Texas Rangers
June 29 : Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
June 30 : Texas Rangers
July 1 : Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
July 2 - July 3 : Kansas City Royals
July 4 : Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
July 5 - July 15 : Chicago White Sox
July 16 - July 18 : Minnesota Twins
July 19 - July 20 : Cleveland Indians
July 21 - July 22 : Minnesota Twins
July 23 : Baltimore Orioles
July 24 - Aug 1 : Minnesota Twins
Aug 2 - Aug 3 : Tampa Bay Rays
Aug 4 - Aug 5 : Minnesota Twins
Aug 6 : Cleveland Indians
Aug 7 - Aug 10 : Minnesota Twins
Aug 11 : Chicago White Sox
Aug 12 - Aug 18 : Minnesota Twins
Aug 19 - Aug 20 : Chicago White Sox
Aug 21 : Kansas City Royals
Aug 21 : Chicago White Sox
Aug 22 : Kansas City Royals
Aug 23 - Aug 24 : Detroit Tigers
Aug 25 -Aug 26 : Kansas City Royals
Aug 27 - Aug 28 : Cleveland Indians
Aug 29 : Kansas City Royals
Aug 30 : Texas Rangers
Aug 31 : Kansas City Royals
Sept 1 - Sept 2 : Texas Rangers
Sept 3 - Sept 9 : Minnesota Twins
Sept 10 : Cleveland Indians
Sept 11 - Sept 16 : Minnesota Twins
Sept 17 : Oakland Athletics
Sept 18 : Minnesota Twins
Sept 19 - Sept 21 : Oakland Athletics
Sept 22 - Sept 26 : Chicago White Sox
Sept 27 : Boston Red Sox
Sept 28 - Sept 30 : Chicago White Sox
Oct 1 : Cleveland Indians
Oct 2 - Oct 3 : Chicago White Sox

Championship Belt does NOT end up in the post season. That's not going to stop me from tracking it this season. Some interesting data from the above experiment:

Every team in the American League held the belt at some point.
The belt spent the most time in the American League Central
The Minnesota Twins successfully defended the belt the most times.
This is a lot more work for MLB than it is for NCAA hockey.

Enjoy the baseball season y'all!

Little Bites

2011-04-01T09:39:00.000-07:00

Where there isn't one great tale to tell, 4 little ones will do, right? If there's one thing that fast food and engineering have in common, it's that they each drive home that the little things matter.

Graffiti: What the HELL happens to males when they stand at the urinal at a fast food bathroom that makes them decide to carve swastikas into any available surface? Or scrawl the N Word? Or (and this is the one I find most perplexing) draw involved pictures of penises, frequently going into or coming out of something, or with something going into or coming out of them. Seriously people... if you spent less of your focus on and social commentary, and more on aim, it might be less miserable cleaning those damn bathrooms.
The Color of Lettuce: Let me set the scene... I'm on the front register. We have a microphone we use to repeat all the front orders into, so that the sandwich maker/fry guy/whoever can get started on the order without having to stare at awkwardly located computer screens. My customer on this particular day asked that I make sure his lettuce was green, as he didn't care for the white stuff. I dutifully repeated his preference along with the rest of his order. The sandwich maker actually stopped what she was doing, turned to me and called out "You're kidding me about the green/white lettuce thing, right?" It was far from the weirdest request of the day, but for some reason, THAT was what completely broke her. Go figure.
New Englandisms?: A customer at the drive ordered a "Lemon Spritzer." I'd never heard of such a thing, so figured that might be Old Person for lemonade. I made her one and when she arrived at the window, helpfully handed it to her. You'd think I'd handed her a steaming turd. "THIS is not a lemon spritzer" she spat, every word dripping acid. "Well, what can I get you miss?" I neutralized with peppy base. "A lemon spritzer" she explained as if to a very slow baby leper "is seltzer water with a slice of lemon." "Of course. Coming right up miss." Seriously? You can't ask for seltzer with lemon? Is this really a common term that I've completely missed? Is it a New England thing? If so, it's a wicked pissah...
A Touch of Class: Around Christmas time, some of the folks in the store did some decoration. Some tinsel, some bunting, you know, good traditional secular Christmasy stuff. There was even a little tree complete with decorations atop the ice machine positioned in just such a way that the drive through customer could see it while at the window. I'm not sure if that was corporate policy, or just my boss being delightful. But there was one detail that was both incredibly heart-warming and entirely my boss. There were little stockings that ran all along one wall of the dining room. It wasn't until I got much closer (to change a light bulb or something) that I realized they each had names on them. There was actually a stocking for each person who worked at the store. For some reason, this actually choked me up. On a certain day near the end of December, we actually did a Secret Santa gift exchange, had some food that DIDN'T come from our restaurant (and if you've ever worked fast food, you'll know what a huge treat that is), and our stockings, put on the little tree, had been filled with candy, gift certificates, and even a little cash. If that kind of generosity is part of some corporate policy, that's a corporation I'm proud to be a part of. But I just think my boss has figured out how to be tough while simultaneously having the biggest heart in the fast food industry.

That's all for now. Until next time, dear readers, remember the immortal words of Miss Piggy: "Never eat more than you can lift."

Plenty of Crazy to Go Around

2011-03-31T22:24:00.000-07:00

I don't want you, dear reader, to think that all the crazy at the Burger Paradise happens to me. Or that it all happens at night. Sometimes the freaks roam free in broad daylight. And sometimes they entrap others, so that I may laugh openly.

Take, for example, an otherwise mellow Thursday afternoon. I was alone in the drive through while others cleaned, restocked, and generally did the look-busy-so-no-one-assigns-me-anything-more-annoying-than-what-I'm-doing-now trick (that all fast food monkeys learn by their second week on the job). There's a ding in my headset, and I get my greet on:

"Hello and welcome to my restaurant! How can I make your day?" Yes, I actually talk like this. Most people think it's a recording.

"Yeah, I'd like two medium diet Cokes please, and make sure you charge me the right amount. It's been wrong the last couple times I've been here."

Now we have a LOT of people driving through asking for just a medium diet coke, so I know off the top of my head that we charge $1.80 for a medium soda, which comes to $1.96 after tax ("Live free or die" my butt!!!) And because the math and I have always gotten along, I know that 2 medium sodas comes to $3.92. Sorry for all the numbers, but it will become important soon.

"Alrighty, that comes to $3.92. Please pull on up to my window."

"Yeah, I'm going to need to speak to a manager."

"No problem miss. Pull on up and we'll take care of you."

Well, technically I AM a manager, but since my boss was in the restaurant (and I had a feeling about this one) I called our General Manager over, made the sodas, and stood back to watch the fun.

My GM is amazing. She's professional, friendly, fun, great with people, and works her butt off. So I couldn't really think of a problem she couldn't solve in under a minute. I was therefore somewhat perplexed when, after handing the sodas out the window, nearly 2 and a half minutes of conversation ensued. I know that because the drive through timer was still running (and, as previously discussed, there is no more important number to our business, so the giant LED display is easily seen from nearly everywhere in the store.) I tried eves-dropping, but as a manager I had to set a good example for the troops, so went about cleaning and restocking things, all the while dying to get the scoop when the woman finally drove away. Finally, after nearly 300 seconds from first contact, Nutty McNutjob did finally move on. But the look on the boss lady's face when she closed the window was one of complete astonishment.

However, before we could hear the tale, a bunch of customers came to the front counter. Their grease and salt cravings had to be satisfied before story time. We all took care of business, then demanded that she dish. And this is the tale that unfolded:

This woman insisted that we weren't charging her what she usually paid. She would not, however, accept the receipt that would detail the math that went into her total. She was offered it repeatedly, and when it was finally thrust into her hand, she discarded it without a glance. She continued her protest that we weren't charging her the right amount. She would not, however, reveal what she used to pay. She was offered some of her money back. She didn't want money, she wanted to pay what she was supposed to pay. Nor would she reveal where else she was going (another location or... another franchise?) She was offered all her money back, but it eventually became clear that she thought we were charging her too LITTLE! She was offered the opportunity to give us more money if she'd like. That didn't satisfy her either. She drove away nearly as bewildered and frustrated as we were, and that was the end of it.

Or so you would have thought.

Nearly an hour later there was the ding followed by silence (rather than the usual static/motor noises) that indicates that someone drove past the speaker without stopping. This happens from time to time if people cut the corner driving around the building, or change their minds at the last minute (Burger Remorse?) The boss happened to look over at the window and saw someone waiting patiently there. Of course it was our reality-challenged diet coke head.

I will forever admire my boss for taking care of it herself instead of sending someone else. That kind of bravery in the face of insanity is the stuff that legends are made on.

Not willing to mess with our drive time a second time, she invited Lady Lala to pull up to the curb, where she would join her for further conversation. Alas, by this point we were busy enough that we couldn't all crowd around the dining room window and watch whatever was about to go down.

At some point the boss lady came storming back in demanding that someone get her a calculator. I thought she was kidding, but being a smart ass I provided it nonetheless. She was gone long enough that I started to worry, and when she returned, it was shaking her head and announcing "I think that lady just wanted to touch me."

Wait, what?

Apparently Miss Madness had driven around for a while stewing about the injustice, and just couldn't leave such a huge loose-end in her increasingly surreal day. So she came back to Set Things Right. She checked the price on the menu board (still $1.80) and decided that, after tax, 2 medium sodas should come to $4.96.

That's right ladies and gentlemen. On the planet that she's from, two time $1.80 plus 8% tax should be 4.96. Eventually a great deal of gesturing and a calculator convinced her otherwise. And with a joyful grin, Princess Crazypants vigorously rubbed my bosses arm, declaring "Oh, you're right honey!" Sometimes the human touch just makes everything better.

Secure in the knowledge that nothing stranger was going happen for the rest of the day, I relaxed into my routine. I even mostly succeeded in keeping myself from wondering what one person needed with two medium sodas (rather than one large one...)

Would you believe I'm actually going to miss this place?

Things I Learned From My Father's Passing

2011-03-31T11:45:00.000-07:00

The passing of a loved one... well, it pretty much sucks. But with a little bit of distance, you can learn from just about anything. And I'm the kind of guy who like to pass things I've learned on to others.

My father died in September of 2010. Of course I "discovered" most of the things you'd expect: My friends kick ass. My family is amazing. Neighbors, co-workers, the community...everyone was amazing. The outpouring of love, support, and kindness was breathtaking, and just what we needed right then.

But those things aren't what I'm here to talk about today.

There were a number of very practical things things I picked up as well. And while I hope these are things you haven't had to learn already (and won't need for a very long time), below are some tidbits that might be helpful when you lose someone you care about.

First thing you do is get a lawyer. Well, of course you make sure everyone is okay first. But in terms of procedural stuff, do NOT call the insurance company, bank, or anyone like that. Take a little time, and shop around for an estate lawyer. Even if there isn't much in the way of assets involved, this is still the right move. Estate lawyers know what questions to ask, what order to do things and what order to notify people to save you significant sums of money and huge amounts of hassle. Ask for appointments with 2 or 3, and decide who you feel most comfortable with. They will become your greatest ally and will help you through all the tiny details in this tough time.
The funeral director's next. It doesn't matter if you're actually having a full funeral, just calling hours, or something private/non-standard. The funeral director is the other person who will help you take care of details in the right order. They know how to put in an obituary, will help you write it, and other little stuff that should happen but you really won't be thinking about.
Clear out your fridge!!! Seriously, as soon as people hear, and for the next several days, food will just keep coming. Make room in the fridge, in the freezer, in the cabinets... Throw out leftovers, consolodate what you can, there will be more than you can imagine. And because there's so much coming in, feel free to throw away things you're unlikely to eat (or can't identify) once the kind if misguided soul has left. Tuna-Jello casserole? Really?
Everyone deals differently. The cryers are going to cry. The black humor folks are going to make their terrible jokes. The drinkers are going to drink, the eaters eat... Make sure the different groups have what they need. And if possible, try to keep the black-humor folks separate from the cryers. That... can get messy.
Disposing of prescription drugs. This isn't that much of a priority, but it's something I didn't know before, so... It turns out that it's actually illegal to either throw away prescription drugs or to flush them. The right way is to grind them up (a mortar and pestle is best, but you can do a lot with a can of anything and a cutting board. Then mix the resulting mess together with coffee grounds. THEN it's legal to throw away.

Of course there's more. But a lot is specific to who died (parent, child, sibling, friend), how (natural causes, accident, self-inflicted etc.), and where (at home, in hospital, in the wilderness...) So I'll keep this rambling short. Deaths generally suck. If you're clever, take care of yourself and those around you, it can suck a little less.

My condolences to those who have lost, my support for those who will lose, and my love to all.

Celebrity Philanthropy

2011-03-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

Many celebrities pick a cause at some point. Whether it's realizing they can do some good with their fame, need to assuage their guilt for having when so many have not, or just having more money than they could ever possibly spend... Pierce Brosnen's for PETA, Brad Pitt's for UNICEF, Harry Chapin founded World Hunger Year, and Angelina Jolie is adopting everyone who will let her.

Well Kevin Smith has found his cause. While it might surprise you, it doesn't have anything to do with Hockey or the Dignity of Overweight Americans. Mr. Smith's cause is Child Prostitution.

Just to be clear, he's against it.

A while back, Kev got to know a pretty amazing human being over Twitter. She had been a child prostitute you see, and though her tale has a happy ending, it blew our man Smith away. Lest you think you're of tougher stuff, I'll summarize:

Ms. Walton, due to some molestation and parental neglect, wound up in a relationship with a 46 year old man while she was 13. This... charmer then lent her out to several of his friends in the BDSM community (most likely in exchange for money) for much of her 13th and 14th years. I won't go into details. If you want to hear her tell her own story, you can go here (and skip 4:30 in). But what I will say is that as horrible as this obviously is, it's probably the best case scenario for such things. She got out of the situation by just deciding to stop it. I'm not saying that decision was easy to make, but there were no threats, no violence keeping her where she was. Many many MANY children aren't so lucky.

Depending on who you ask, there are at least 200,000 children being prostituted in the United States, and as many as 800,000 internationally. By comparison, there are maybe 200 beds in facilities in the US to help these children get out of the life and put their minds, bodies, and souls back together.

This is NOT okay.

Enter the Wayne Foundation (named after both Wayne Gretzky, who has more assists than anyone in the history of professional sports, and the charitable foundation that Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne established). Their mission is to set up a safe house (hopefully named "Wayne Manor") where children can escape their slavery and start to get the help they'll need to become happy, healthy adults.

This will NOT be easy. They just got started this month (March, 2011). The amount of money required to purchase and staff the facility needed, the security, the outreach... it's staggering. But the size of the project isn't discouraging these real-life super heros. They're all legally registered as a legit charitable cause and are accepting donations.

Please give a little something. That buck worth of change that you lose in the couch cushions over the course of a week. The five bucks you'd otherwise blow on some fancy-ass latte you don't need. Maybe (HOPEFULLY!) you were never affected by child prostitution, and don't know anyone who was. But imagine it had happened to you, your sister, your girlfriend, your mother... What sort of resources would you want to be available to them? Well, they don't exist yet. So open up that wallet!!!

Please note that some of the language on The Wayne Foundation's website is... a little salty. Please take that in stride, and don't let it distract from what an incredible cause this is.

This is Kevin Smith's cause, and now it's mine. What's your cause?

Nominees for Badass of the Week

2011-03-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

Inspired by meeting the author of the incredibly appropriately named Badass of The Week website (and subsequent books), I would like to nominate some folks who I believe uphold the best of the badass ideal.

Everybody knows about that dude who ran from some Greek city to another after some battle, declared “Rejoice, we conquer!” then dropped dead. His name was Pheidippides, and because of him, a bunch of skinny people think it's a good idea to run 26.2 miles every once in a while so they can feel superior to everybody else.

But what most people don't know is that it wasn't the 20-some-odd miles that killed him. That dude had run 150 miles in the last two days. It's what battlefield messengers did. That last run to Marathon was just the straw that broke the Greek's back.

This is not the badass I wanted to tell you about.

You know what's more hard-core than running 26.2 miles? Swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles THEN running 26.2 miles. The Ironman Triathlon is 8-17 hours of mental and physical anguish, during which any one of a million bad choices or just pure dumb luck can cause your surroundings, your equipment, or your own body to destroy you.

Take for example these two women. Sian Welch so completely used up that she can barely make her legs move, but still looking over her shoulder to see how far ahead of her competition she is. Wendy Ingram catching up fast, but just as destroyed, every molecule of glucose in her muscles already spent. Barely a hundred feet from the finish, Sian falls for the lat time, body betraying her at last. Wendy, who had been on her heels all race finally passes her, but in doing so, falls herself. They are literally in view of the finish line, 140.6 miles from where they'd begun. Unable to stand, but just as unable to quit, Wendy started crawling. Not one to be outdone, Sian gets crawling too. Race officials could only stand in awe as they watched these two “race” the last few yards on hands and knees, pulling their ruined bodies behind them. Obviously they were racing for some championship, some title, some prize, right? Nope. These iron-ovaried valkyries were battling for fourth place.

And THEY are not the badasses I'm here to tell you about. I told you that tale merely to give you an idea of how tough this race is. And they were young women, trained to a peak of lithe physical perfection that most of us only dream of.

Now picture an old guy doing it. While carrying his crippled son.

Let me tell you about Rickie and Dick Hoyt. Rickie can't speak, basically can't move, but for some reason he fell in love with racing. And Dickie was is a regular middle aged guy who loves his son. The tale of what they had to go through to qualify for the Boston Marathon alone would probably qualify them for BAOTW, but check this out.

When Team Hoyt does the Ironman triathlon, Dick does the swim in a harness, dragging a boat that has Rickie in it behind him. Then, while the other athletes are stripping out of high-tech wet suits and strapping into ultra-light super-areodynamic bikes, Dick carries Rickie out of the boat and carries him to the special seat in front of the handlebars of his own heavy-duty bike. Over a hundred miles later, when professionals carrying only their own scrawny weight are sucking wind, Dick again carries Rickie out of the bike seat and puts him into a gigantic jog-stroller, and heads off for a quick little marathon.

This is the kind of race that some pretty hard-core endurance athletes don't even bother putting on their bucket list, and this guy has carried a whole other human being through it not once, but a half-dozen times. Sure, this tale doesn't end with scrotum-slicing, face-stabbing, or a rain of bullets thicker than Odin's Eyebrows. But it's still unquestionably badass.

By the way, Rickie, the one who can't speak or move? When he's not out enjoying a little adventure with his dad, he's somehow writing software to allow other profoundly crippled/disabled people to communicate and interact with the world. Put THAT in your jade war-club and smoke it.

A Pretty Badass Evening

2011-03-29T20:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight I attended a reading/book signing by a guy who runs a website I like.

While factually correct, the above utterly fails to convey the sheer wonder and sphincter-crinkling awesomeness of the experience. Let me begin again.

I almost didn't make it. The address on the website was wrong. The escalator in the bookstore was out of order. The tiny room with a score of non-descript chairs and a rickety podium was tucked away on the 5th floor between the legal text books and the Spanish-language fiction. It might as well have been in a disused lavatory behind a locked door that said “Beware the Leopard.” But dozen or so hardy souls who successfully made the voyage were about to have their worlds rocked.

Of course you wouldn't know it to look at the guy we'd all come to see. For a cat who unapologetically goes by the handle “AmazingBen”, his slight build and spiky hair wouldn't exactly stand out in a lineup. But it wasn't his build that made him formidable. He does with words what his subjects do with swords and claws and fists (not to mention balls) of steel:

He. Kicks. Ass.

After putting us at ease with conversations that made us feel more like friends than fanboys, and an awkward introduction by a bookstore employee who was clearly well out of her depth, it was on. Jonathan slammed into a reading about Thor, the God of thunder, ass-kicking, head-splitting, mead-drinking and (inexplicably) fishing. It was accompanied by a frenetic slideshow that was at once visually compelling and hilarious. When his tale of destruction, deception, mythology, and mayhem drew to a close, there was stunned silence, then a roar of applause. You'd think that a dozen people could merely smatter, but we roared nonetheless. And this was just one of fourty such tales in his new book of legendary badasses.

You see, Ben Thompson runs a website called “Badass of the Week.” Each week he researches some incredible face-stabbing, scrotum-shredding, mind-blowing awesomeness from history, mythology, or nature, then brings it to life in a way that's about as far from a dry lifeless wikipedia entry as Boston is from Valhalla. And in a turn that's encouraging as hell to his fellow bloggers, aspiring writers, and unrepentant time-wasters, he's gotten two books published out of the website and has just gotten the deal made for a third.

If you haven't yet I suggest, nay, COMMAND you to go to badassoftheweek.com and read any entry. If, like me, you find yourself staying up most of the night trying to read EVERY entry, you might want to go to the nearest bookstore (once you're well rested enough to operate a motor vehicle), and buying Badass: The Book, or Badass: Birth of a Legend.

And if you still have any doubt about Ben's awesomeness, after the reading, the Q&A, and the signing, he invited us all to the pub next door for beers.

Badass.

Rough Night at the Burger Paradise

2011-01-17T22:51:00.000-08:00

Normally I love working the drive-through. You get to talk to people, time flies by, and frankly, it's the least greasy assignment you can get. Your most major side-task is doing dishes. And I'm bizarrely fond of doing dishes. A match made in heaven, right?

Tonight, there was an... unanticipated hitch in this otherwise perfect arrangement.

It gets cold in New England. I mean COLD! Ball-shrinking, electron-slowing, mind-erasingly cold. Tonight it was well below zero (Faharenheit) which made waiting at the open window for grandpa to find exact change... somewhat less pleasant. But it did make me appreciate being up to my biceps in steaming water between orders all the more.

Do you see it? I didn't see it yet. Wait for it.

An order comes in and I hurry to the window without drying off as carefully as usual. I'm leaning out the window helping the folks figure out what they want (it's particularly complex sometimes. I'm not sure how...) At some point I realize my arm is frozen to the window frame.

Yup. Tongue-to-the-flagpole frozen.

At this point I have several choices. I can just start screaming. And don't think I didn't consider it. I could have calmly called over the grill guy and asked him to get some hot water to pour over my arm. I could have asked the folks in the car if they'd seen the move A Christmas Story (A triple-dog-dare?!?!?!?) Or I could fix a grin on my face and rip my arm free right in front of them.

I chose the last option. I kept up some witty banter, leaned back for a little extra leverage, and pulled. I don't think they noticed a thing. I'm pretty sure they didn't notice the skin and hair left on the window frame. I got them their order, shut the window, and had a nice yell.

I can now add skin and hair to the blood, sweat, and tears I've given for my restaurant.

Your job may pay better, but admit it, I often have better stories. :)

Why Are Famous People's Homes Interesting?

2011-01-10T08:38:00.000-08:00

Ernest Hemingway. A sexist, philandering, war-monger. A drunk, a manic-depressive, a cad. But for all this, he's Key West's favorite son. Truman spent time there, Jimmy Buffet made it famous, but “Papa” Hemingway's is the legend that matters. And let's face it... the guy could write!

His home and gardens occupy the single largest privately held plot of land on the island. He bought it, back in 1931, for the princely sum of $8,000. His wife got the house in the divorce, and following her death in the early 70's, their sons took ownership. Neither wanted the place or the responsibility for maintaining it, so they sold it to a Key West local businesswoman. She managed to live in the house for 3 days before the endless knocking at her door drove her back to the gardener's house at the rear of the property.

Tourists.

Hundreds of tourists at all hours of the day and night, hoping for a glimpse at the House that Earnest Built. It's unclear if Hemingway's wife had to deal with this as well, or if she was just better at dealing with it (after all, she'd dealt with HIS drunk ass all those years...) But our Conch businesswoman turned agony into opportunity. Using the instincts that had gotten her ahead in an economy based largely on rum and sun-screen, she turned the house into a museum.

And based on the size of the crowd on an off-peak weekday... average of ten bucks a head... even given upkeep, maintenance, and staff salaries... She made a good choice. Certainly one I benefited from.

Sure, the house is pretty. The grounds are GORGEOUS. And all the tour guides look more than a little like Hemingway himself. But the most striking thing is actually the cats. Papa really loved cats (it's SO hard not to make the obvious joke...) Apparently cats with extra toes (“polydactyls”) are supposed to be good luck. And among his other... “charming” traits, Hemingway was incredibly superstitious. The 45 cats still on the property are supposedly direct desendents of the original residents. More than half of them have 6 or 7 toes. And all of them are allowed on the antique furniture. In fact, the tour guides make up (I mean “remember”) names for each cat. There's even a 24/7 internet “CatCam.”

Speaking of things feline, there was a Picasso figurine of a cat on top of the bedroom dresser. The tour guides explain that it's only a replica. It seems the original was stolen a few years earlier, and it broke during pursuit and recovery. What the guides don't mention is that it wasn't exactly a gift from Picasso. He'd traded it to Hemingway for a case of hand grenades.

Wait... What?

Forget for a moment what Papa was doing with a case of hand grenades... What the Blue Period did Picasso want them for?!?!? Ever wonder why so many of his subject's eyes and noses are on the wrong parts of their body? Hmmm....

While we were in his bedroom, we also got to see what was probably the first king sized bed in America. They didn't sell such things in the 30's, so Ernest bought two twin mattresses and wired them together. But of course no standard headboard would fit. So while touring a Spanish Monastery, he saw a wooden gate he liked. So he bought it, had it shipped home and turned it into a headboard. The hinges are still visible. And I'm willing to bet that gate saw more action in Key West than it ever did at the monastery...

From the wrap-around porch that surrounds the bedroom, you can see the old kitchen. It made sense that the kitchen was in a separate building so the house didn't get overheated. But Hemingway had even grander designs. He had a room built over the kitchen and made it his writing studio. Then he built a wrought-iron walkway from the porch over to the studio, the only way in or out. Privacy was important to our hero. Why, he probably even did some writing up there.

The studio is kept much the same way he left it, right down to the many creepy hunting trophies. The kitchen below has become public bathrooms and a gift shop. But it's what's behind that building that makes for the best stories.

When the Hemingways first moved into the house, there wasn't a swimming pool. This was the first thing Papa looked into correcting. Until the estimate came back. The reason there weren't many swimming pools on the island was how devilishly expensive they were. So... he built a regulation boxing ring instead. He had training facilities, equipment, the whole nine yards. But that's not what those touring the grounds today observe. You see, his wife knew well his love for boxing in general and that ring in particular. So when she got word that while in Spain (supposedly covering the Spanish Civil War, Hitler's dress-rehearsal for World War Two), he was also having an affair, she took matters into her own hands.

Upon his return home, where his boxing ring had been, he saw a huge swimming pool. He asked how much it cost. She replied cooly “Twenty thousand dollars.” Remember that the whole place had cost them only eight grand a few years earlier. Furious, Hemingway reached into his pocket and flung a penny at her. He raged that since she was determined to spend all his money, she might as well have his last cent. He then stormed off to “Sloppy Joe's”, his favorite bar, to drink away his ire (presumably on credit?) His wife kept that penny and had it set into the patio by the pool. She delighted in showing it to guests: Of his four wives, she bragged, she was the only one ever to take his last cent.

Which isn't to say that Hemingway didn't exact a certain measure of revenge. One night the proprietor of Sloppy Joe's was informed his rent was going up a huge amount. Rather than pay, he decided to move the whole bar around the corner. Not just the liquor and stools. Joe was determined not to leave ANYTHING for the landlord, and even took the bathroom fixtures. When Hemingway arrived to get his drink on one night, and saw a row of urinals lined up outside the bar. After being told what was going on, Papa declared that he'd poured enough money down those urinals, that he was entitled to one. After a moment's reflection, Joe decided that was reasonable, and Ernest proceeded to drag the thing over a mile to his home. He left it in the garden and stumbled up to bed.

In the morning, his wife was... displeased to find a urinal in her garden. When she demanded he remove it, he pointed at the swimming pool and declared that he'd move his as soon as she moved hers. So with a resourcefulness born of years with a beast, she surrounded it with decorative tile, placed a beautiful Spanish olive cask above it, and made the whole thing into a fountain. Of course, for all that, it's still the most photographed urinal is the history of the world.

These are just a few of my favorite tales. And if you think I've done them justice, you should really go down and see the thing in person. If you have the time to wait for a particular tour guide, ask for Stuart from Ohio. I've met a lot of fantastic story tellers, and he is absolutely one of the best. But no matter how well the story is told, it's nothing compared to actually seeing the gorgeous home, the lush gardens, smelling the tang of the salt air laced with a hint of rum, and feeling the southern sun on your face...

The Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida. A tourist trap? Perhaps. But a worthy one nonetheless.

I Promise Never EVER To Do It Again

2010-11-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

Lots of people who are training for endurance events will run 50 miles in a week. Sure, their friends think they're a little crazy... But most runners would call that a pretty good training load, and a healthy lifestyle.

I ran 50 miles on Saturday.

I wish I were kidding. I really do. But I'm not.

This past Saturday, I ran the Chicago Lakefront Ultramarathon. Runners have 50 kilometer (31 mile) or 50 mile options. But seriously, "go big or go home", right?

The 50 milers line up at 6:30am, and after swearing aloud and in unison (for the sake of tradition) that there's no place they'd rather be, they start out on the first of 4 out-and-back-loops along Chicago's scenic lakefront. 6.25 miles from the 63rd Street Beach House to McCormick Place. Then back. Then out. Then back. Then out. Then back. Then out. Then back. Sounds mind-numbing, I know. But believe me, after the first half-dozen hours, numb would be a kindness.

There's an eleven hour limit, but they're pretty kind about it. If you haven't finished in 11 hours, they stop giving you an official time, but do let you keep running, and will list you as "finished" in the results. The course record (held by a 27-year-old man from New York City who calls himself "Oz Pearlman") is a vigorous 5 hours, 25 minutes, and 26 seconds. Nobody else has ever come within 45 minutes of his time. Then again, not everyone is in a hurry. For most of us, just finishing is quite the accomplishment.

Of course, most people would be content for the run to be the entirety of their day. I, however, couldn't get the day off work, so... Instead of the 5:30pm timing cutoff, I had to finish by 4:30 so I could shower, change clothes, and call the opening performance of my show. I could have started early (BEFORE 6:30am) but then my time wouldn't be "official", and what's the fun in that?

Fun? Is this starting to sound a little crazy to you?

Fortunately I have a lot of people who love me. My girlfriend Becca and buddy Jeff got up in the middle of the night to help me get my gear together and drive me down to the starting line. There were small bumps along the way... I didn't have the right flavor of electrolyte chews (no cola... had to make due with Cran-Razz), and with the temperature hovering in the high 30's/low 40's, I couldn't decide whether to wear my thermal base layer or not. But when all was said and done, I got to the staring line with my gear, my plan, and my support team. I was as ready as I'd ever be.

I wasn't going to be running with my iPod (forget safety, forget rules, my battery just wouldn't last long enough. :) so my first priority was to find someone who was running about the same speed I was so I'd have someone to talk to. After a quarter mile or so, I found Art and Gail. We were running about the same pace, we had about the same plan, and it was everyone's first 50 miler. They'd both run 50 kilometers before, but this was a very different animal. We told stories, shared jokes, got to know one another... It was a strange but VERY effective way to make friends. I had the fancy watch, so was able to tell them when our pace was creeping up, exactly how far it was to the next aid station, and when the best time for a walk break was. We'd never met before, but they were trusting me to guide their run. Runners are pretty unique breed: You wouldn't consider drinking a different flavor of Gator-Aid than the one you trained with, but a stranger telling you to slow down or to push on until the next water stop can be just fine.

Believe it or not, the first 30 miles were actually a lot of fun. I got to see Becca and Jeff a bunch of times, watch the sun rise over Lake Michigan (the dawn's early light reflected in the building's of Chicago's majestic skyline), run 10 or so miles with my friend JeriLou (who'd run her own race in the suburbs that morning, and was running with me for fun before she went to work that afternoon herself), laughed with Gail and Art and some of Art's friends who'd come out as well... In general, just being part of something amazing, using my body to accomplish something most wouldn't even consider, and sharing it with others doing the same.

Around the six hour mark however, things started unraveling a little. I don't know if I wasn't eating enough, if I wasn't drinking enough, if I was going faster than I should have... or if it was just exercising 6 hours non-stop. But I was running low on energy, things were getting sore, and I couldn't actually remember why I was doing this.

The fun had left the building.

Art and Gail left me around mile 32 when I stopped to take care of the beginnings of a blister. My pace got slower, my walk breaks longer and more frequent... For the first time I was alone and had a profoundly disturbing absence of distractions. I had plenty of time to reflect on the fact that not many people ran this far, and maybe they were on to something.

Remember that the course was 4 laps, so in addition to the start, there were 2 other times that you ran past the finish line before you actually finished. At the 37.5 mile mark, I could have stopped. It still would have been the farthest I'd ever run. It still would have been a hell of an achievement. I could have made the pain stop. Heading out for that fourth lap was the hardest thing I've ever done. And why did I? Crazy? Stupid? Stubborn? Probably a little of each. But in the moment, all I knew was that Becca was waiting for me at the 41 mile mark. So I had to keep moving. I may have cried a little as I headed back out. It may not have been the road less traveled, but...

I had practiced a few cute things I might say. I might even have been considering quitting, walking back with her and calling it a day. But unsurprisingly, Becca seemed to know exactly what I needed, and gave it to me. Before I could get a word out, Becca said: "I love you, I know you can do this, but at the pace you're going, you won't finish until 5, and that might making getting to work tricky." All my speeches went away. Hell, most of my pain went away. I'd lost my focus, and she'd handed it back to me. I grabbed what I needed out of the gear bag she was toting for me, hugged her and (skipping the walk break I'd planned) got back to running.

The pain going away was only temporary. In fact, I discovered that at this point it actually hurt more to walk than to run. Sure, my running pace had slowed by 2-3 minutes per mile, and my form wasn't pretty, but at least I wasn't doing the Ironman Shuffle. I just had to get to the turnaround. Once I was heading back toward the finish line it would all be okay. I passed Gail then later Art who were already on their way back. They had kind words and were inconsiderate enough to look great. I'm sure they hurt too, but they could speak and smile and that wasn't really fair, was it?

Almost at the turnaround, I saw a woman running back toward the finish in tears. I remember wondering why, since she was on her way back. But the fact that she was crying and still running was somehow beautiful. But not nearly as beautiful as the turn-around. Those few strokes of orange paint on the asphalt were almost enough to bring me to tears as well. 6.25 miles to go. How bad could it be?

It hurt to run. It hurt more not to. I had less than an hour and a half before I needed to head to work. 44 miles ago, 6 miles wouldn't have been a long distance. Now I couldn't imagine covering it. But I had promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep, so...

The advantage to the multiple out-and-back nature of the course was that by now I knew each curve, every inch of the trail by heart. I didn't have to get to the finish line. I just had to get to the other side of that building. Then that water station. Then that little hill. Then that playground. These little tricks had worked before. I'd been in pain in other races. But they hadn't broken my spirit. I didn't want this anymore. I wasn't trying to conquer this race any more. I just wanted to escape it. Getting to work was more important than finishing. Lucky for me, they both required me to get to the same place. I briefly (well... repeatedly) considered mugging a cyclist for their bike but I didn't think I had the energy for it. So I had to keep running.

In a cruel twist of fate, the same fancy watch that had gotten me this far was now tormenting me. It kept track of every inch I'd traveled... including crossing the path to go to aid stations, or into bathrooms etc. Over the course of the 50 miles, that added an additional .75 miles beyond what the race required. Therefore, I was still 3/4 of a mile away from the finish line when my watch told me I'd run 50 miles. I'd set out to run 50 miles, and I'd done so. That I had to keep running was... a sick sick joke.

Finally, a friendly face. My buddy Jeff met me to run the last half mile or so. The company made all the difference. It didn't take the pain away, I just minded it less. I believed I was going to finish (which I'm not sure I had for most of the last 15 miles...) Jeff did most of the talking of course. And the pace we kept must have been awfully slow for him. But we did it. He got me there. I came around the corner, saw Becca, saw the finish... Now complete strangers were cheering for me. I managed to, well, not quite sprint, but at least dash across the line.

Ten hours and nineteen seconds. I could have been bitter about those nineteen seconds. I ABSOLUTELY was bitter about that extra .75 miles. And I'm pretty sure I could have come up with better things to do with ten hours. But I was finished. And I wasn't going to have to run again for a very very long time.

Which isn't to say I wasn't in a hurry.

None of the post-race food looked appetizing, and the race clock may have stopped, but the real one hadn't. So I got in Jeff's car, and he took me to work. Becca tried to feed me, but I couldn't make food go in (something about a body in distress pulling all the blood away from the digestive system?) I wound up stretching on the floor of the restaurant instead, then to the theater to shower. I probably couldn't have gotten my clothes off without Becca, but a little limping aside, the rest of the night went swimmingly. The show opened, everyone was pleased, and I got to go home and stop moving. Eventually, I was even able to eat something.

I ran 50 miles in 10 hours. It was a terrible idea. But on the bright side... I never EVER have to do it again.

How did you spend your weekend?

Update: Some photos

All dressed up. And NO idea what I'm about to go through.

Running by the skyline and feelin' groovy

At 35 miles. Do Not Like.

Jeff running me in the last half mile.

Crossing the finish line.

Running: Not Simple.

2010-08-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

It seems like running should be so simple. It's a pair of shoes, a pair of shorts then.. left food, right foot, repeat, right?

There's actually a mind-numbing array of decisions that a runner has to make every day:

Is it just gas, or something more... troubling?
Can you make it across the street before that car, or must you *gasp* stop.
How should you dress, not for the temperature outside, but the 20 degrees warmer you're going to feel 3 miles from now?
Is 8 miles long enough to need water bottles and anti-chaffing creams etc. or do you not bother with that "sissy stuff" until 10 miles?
Is it going to hurt more to finish... or to stop.
How much to eat and when so that you've got the energy to run without... tummy troubles.
And of course the most important decision of all: How much faster do I have to run to finish my run before I have to get ready for work if I hit the snooze button just one more time?

Sorry to subject any non-runner to these ruminations, but this is the stuff that goes through my head when have to do 8 miles without an iPod. The next post will be more interesting, I promise. :)

Need YOUR Input!!!

2010-07-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

So I'm starting an event planning and production company. If you're reading this, you're probably one of the people I'll be coming to for advice, suggestions, or collaboration at some point. But first things first.

I need a name.

A bit more about the company: The idea is to use my joy of working with people, helping, others, organization, boundless determination and eclectic skill along with the brilliant network of friends and collaborators I've made throughout the years to help make people's events even more wonderful (and lower stress) than they could have imagined. From events as large as weddings and reunions to ones as small as dates or practical jokes, from full planning and execution to simply taking over one daunting aspect of an otherwise self-sufficient endeavor, my goal and promise is simply to Get It Done

So... What would you call such a broad and ambitious endeavor?

My current favorite is "Shindigs Unlimited". But below is the full list of names that I've come up with or that have been suggested so far.

Shindigs Unlimited
Browncoat Productions
Big Damn Heros
Leaf On The Wind
Green Monster Productions
TARDIS Productions
Authorized Personnel
We Also Walk Dogs
General Services
Marathons and Sprints
At Your Service
Where There's A Will
IRL Productions
Quod Erat Demonstrandum (or simply Q.E.D)
Okay Go
Cue One Go
Ten out of Twelve Productions
Do the Job
Party to the People
99% Perspiration ("We sweat the small stuff")
Boundless Productions
Excellent Endeavors
Events Unlimited

I'm just spit-balling here. I need your input. Is there anything above that speaks to you? Do you have a brilliant idea? Please share. A big ole batch of cookies who suggests or votes for the name I eventually go with.

Thanks in advance for all your suggestions. Cheers!

Tales from a Late Night Drive Through

2010-07-25T23:20:00.000-07:00

No generalities, trivia, or insider information tonight.

No.

Tonight, dear reader, you get an anecdote. An example at once outstanding and representative. An illustration of what we, the minimum-wage-slaves on the closing shift are sometimes treated to. You see, by the light of day, cleaning duties get in the way of serving the customers. As night falls, the customers can get in the way of the cleaning duties. But every once in a while, there's a customer that... takes your mind off of the long night of scrubbing ahead of you. And this tale is no exception.

There was a full moon. This should have been A Warning. It's well documented that assault and ice-cream sales go up on a full moon. And whether you believe in lycanthropy or not, there's no question that cool grey orb brings... something out in people.

Of course it was 15 minutes before closing. The order sounded normal enough over the headset: A combo meal and a couple of extra sandwiches off the dollar-menu. The car full of youngsters that pulled up to the window seemed normal enough: Late teens or early twenties, with only slightly more than the usual (for New England) amount of Redsox paraphanelia on. After greeting him, and reminding him of his total ($5.85) I asked the driver (in both Sox hat and shirt) if he knew the score of tonight's Redsox game. He didn't.

This should have been A Sign.

Still, I blithely let the driver and his passenger fish around for their money. Seconds lingered, then started to gather into some serious awkwardness. Finally, the driver smiled, and handed me a single.

"I have a dollar." There was no apology. No tone of shame or even inquiry. A mere statement of fact. Nothing followed. Clearly I was going to have to take charge of this interaction. I leaned back in the window and told our sandwich maker to stop making sandwiches. Then, I leaned back out the window.

"Okay, you can have one of the two dollar-menu sandwiches. Which one do you want?" There was no sign of comprehension. It was becoming clear that the driver's expectation was that he would be handed a beverage and a bag full of food, and then he would drive away. Alternatives had not yet occurred to him.

"Do you want the one that's plain, or the one with everything?" I expected one of the guys in the back to chime in, or for the driver to consult them. His passengers, however, were no more helpful than their fearless leader.

"Listen, you can have one sandwich," (even as I pulled the change out of my pocket to pay the tax on it) "you just have to decide whether you want the plain on or the one with everything.

Still slightly perplexed the driver finally replied "The plain one I guess." I shared this information with the sandwich maker, whose fingers danced the burger together. I handed this bagged treat out the window, and bid our hero goodnight.

He (and his automobile full of youth and wasted potential) just sat there.

"Anything else I can get for you?" I inquired cheerily.

"Um... water?" I didn't even ask if he wanted bottles or cups, and dispensed one of our smallish cups full of ice water.

Again, absence of locomotion.

"Something else?"

"Can I have a couple more?"

Two more waters out the window, and finally the boy-genius remembered to use his words. "We'll get our money and be back for the food."

"Okey-doke. We close in 15 minutes, so you'd better hurry. But drive carefully!" The last thing I needed on my conscience was a bunch of dead teenagers wrapped around a tree with my urgings of speed the last thing that passed through their minds before the windshield.

Not, on the face of it, all that unusual an interaction. We went back to cleaning, scrubbing, and shutting down everything we could before the actual close of business, wondering if we'd seen our last customers.

Ha! We hadn't even seen the last of THOSE customers.

Two minutes to closing, the drive-through sensor dinged in our headsets. "Hi! What can we get for you?"

"Um... just two waters?"

"Sure, pull on up." It was far from the strangest request we'd gotten (grilled cheese?!?!?!?) and easy enough to fulfill. I was already hanging the two cups out the window before I recognized the driver.

He looked at the cups with complete non-comprehension.

"Your waters..."

Now he was looking at me as if I was slow. "You already gave us water, remember? We came back for our food."

Ah! They must have made it home (or to an ATM) in time. With only a few requests for clarification, I managed to reconstruct and re-ring in their order. "That comes to 4.74"

Again, the blank stare.

"That comes to four dollars and seventy-four cents..."

And again, as though I was the one who didn't understand: "We don't have any more money."

Here, my instincts for customer service failed me. All I could muster was "Um."

Eventually the driver explained "We thought we lost our money in the parking lot, but we couldn't find it." Then the thick black silence resumed.

A thought occurred. I leaned back in the window and asked our sandwich maker to cease sandwich-making activities once more. Miraculously, they threw nothing.

"I'm afraid that without any money, there's nothing I can do for you."

This thought had clearly not occurred to this merry wanderer of the night.

"Oh. So... Oh." Then, seemingly without regret, remorse, or indeed any acknowledgement that this exchange was in any way unusual, the band of hungry misfits drove off on further adventures.

I wish them well. Retelling (and laughing about) their tale to my co-workers got me through the rest of the shift. And for that I owe them. I hope the made it to their final destination. And I hope they found nourishment. And above all, I hope someone clarifies this currency thing to them eventually.

Drive safely New England. And stay weird. Bored fast-food monkeys everywhere are counting on you.

Fast Food Larceny

2010-07-21T17:14:00.001-07:00

The fast food monkey is generally paid about minimum wage. Even a promotion or two doesn't get you much closer to any kind of living wage. This may be why the majority of fast food employees tend to be rather young, rather old, or rather non-English-speaking.

Everyone deals with the tiny paychecks in their own way. Some do as little work as possible ("I pretend to work, they pretend to pay me.") Some see it as only temporary and make the best of it. For some it's the best they can do. For most it's better than nothing. But then there are a few who... step outside the bounds of the traditional employment relationship.

At one establishment, the folks at the drive-through had memorized what each size soda cost, so when someone ordered just a soda they would pocket the money rather than ringing it in. At another, whole cases of uncooked product were sold out the back door or put in the bottom of trash cans then transferred to someone's car behind the dumpster. I've heard tales of drugs sold at the drive through, and even a manager taking the entire contents of the safe and never returning. Some products are such employee favorites (from bottles of chocolate milk to raw cookie dough) that they disappear before customers even get a crack at them.

In reaction to this kind of... tom-foolery, the fast food industry has developed security systems more elaborate than some of the banks I've been in. My current store for example has 8 digital video cameras that cover every inch of the back area. The feed from these cameras is stored on DVR so it can be reviewed for impropriety. At another store, the back door has an alarm on it that only a manager's key can disarm (so employees can't let anything in or out the back without supervision). Most cash registers have some system where anything getting discounted or made free requires a manager's code, key, or card swipe.

But my favorite security measure of all is the lock box in the walk in refrigerator. You'd think that was where the plutonium was kept, or where we keep large sums of cash (what thief would think to look in the walk-in?) or the prototypes of the new sandwich technology we want to keep away from the competition. But no. This lock box, right between the white milk and the apple juice, is where the chocolate milk is kept. When we run in the drive-through cooler, and someone orders a kids meal with chocolate milk, a manager has to go into the walk-in, take out their keys, unlock the padlock, open up the strongbox, take out a half dozen small blueish bottles (retailing at just over a dollar each), re-lock the box, deliver this precious cargo to the un-trustworthy ruffians handling thousands of dollars in cash (and millions of dollars in potential food-safety litigation), then return to the slightly less crucial task of getting folks back to work with full bellies and slightly emptier wallets.

One can't help but wonder if businesses were to take the money that they spend on security and lose to "undeclared waste" and put that into paying their employees a little better... Would they attract a more trustworthy sort? Would a decent wage make it less likely for average person to be tempted? Or is man just inherently evil, and we must be ever vigilant at all levels of society no matter what the cost?

I'm not sure. All I know is that I'm working with a pretty wonderful team (from the Regional Ubercommander all the way down to The New Kid.) And whether we can be trusted around the chocolate milk or not, we make some darn good food, and take pretty good care of each other. That's what matters to me.

Go team!

A heck of a show

2010-07-19T19:34:00.000-07:00

A brief respite from the fast food saga...

Set the wayback machine for 15 years ago. Movies like The Mask and Swingers had briefly brought the big-band/swing sound back into popular music. Bands like the Royal Crown Revue, the Cherry Poppin Daddies, and the Squirrel Nut Zippers made us want to jump, jive and wail, incited a zoot suit riot, and dance the zip gun bop...

In that time joy and splendor, perhaps the most joyful and splendid bunch of cats was Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Their sound, an inspired blend of Cab Calloway's Cotton Club years and New Orleans swing brought us such hits as "Go Daddy-o" and "You and Me and the Bottle Make 3 Tonight". But how does that sound hold up to the test of time? And can the product of such a brief trend stay together much less stay energized all these years later?

Turns out the answers to those questions are a resounding: YES!

My best girl and I went to see BBVD at a little hall in south-central New Hampshire tonight. The place was adorable! There were maybe 75 chairs arranged in front of a stage that was barely 15'x 6'. 6 lights and 2 tiny speaker stacks were arrayed around more than a dozen microphones and a heck of a drum set. The 9 guys who filed onto the stage to cheers and applause that shook the open rafters would have filled the stage even without all the horns. With their gear it was... cozy. Well tailored double-breasted pin-striped wool suits and snap-brim hats looked just right on men who seemed to move to music even before a note had been played.

And from that first note it was 1 hour and 45 minutes of charm, contagious energy, nostalgia, and good clean fun. The lead singer told the history of some of the music, introduced the members of the band, and subtly conducted the other 8 musicians all while singing and playing the guitar. The bass player's smile was so adorable he could have been a cartoon. And the horns... The sound was tight, full, with soulful lows and breath-taking highs. Drum solos that left you wanting more, piano riffs that gave you chills, and Scotty's voice and cherubic grin all built worked beautifully together, complementing rather than competing.

If you get a chance to see these guys, don't miss it. Pick up a copy of their new album, or the one that made them famous. Swing a little. Enjoy the music of men who wear ties to work. It's a nice change of pace.

One Shift in the Life of a Fast Food Monkey

2010-07-02T19:13:00.000-07:00

What follows is recallections from a particular shift worked recently. The only thing extraordinary about it was how bafflingly usual it was.

11:55am - Was given permission to clock in early, and took over the front register. Because you get paid by the hundredth of an hour, a manager has to approve you clocking in a fraction of a second early. This is a sign of how slammed we were. Incidentally, it seems that this chain has invented the metric minute and isn't telling anyone about it. Hmmm...

12:07pm - Pulled off the front register and sent to the drive through window. The girl who had been assigned there was somehow getting confused and slowing things down. Slow drive through times at the lunch hour are beyond unacceptable, so rather than coaching the employee through it, they yanked her for a more reliable quantity. Me. MWUHUHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

12:37pm - Small lull in the lunch rush. Took the opportunity to put on a silly wig (part of a silly outfit kept in the office, presumably for promotional purposes.)

1:10pm - Lunch rush officially over. None of the customers commented on the wig. Only two showed any signs of noticing it. Removed wig due to brightly colored hair getting in my mouth.

1:36pm - Put on break. Under the guise of it being a law or something, management generally puts folks on half hour unpaid breaks through the course of the day to keep wages being paid divided by sales as low as possible. The break is usually the only chance to get off your feet or eat something, but between breaks and getting sent home early when labor is too high, it still blows that in a 30 hour week, you're lucky to get paid for 25 of those hours... Anyway, we can't break in the restaurant, since the owner believes it looks bad. Fortunately we've been provided with a "Break Area" (2 chairs at a cramped counter in the back which is somehow both tiny and in everyone's way) It happens to be right across from the prep sink. So "relaxation time" is often accompanied by the slamming of the lettuce slicer. This infernal device is more complex than the space shuttle, and when it's not noisily in operation, there's some argument about how it hasn't been properly assembled, or is somehow damaged. Seriously? Just kill me.

2:45 - Back on the clock, and there's a strange old man asking everyone where pinball machines can be found in town. Since strange old men are our core customer base, everyone is very polite. I make the mistake of expressing interest in pinball in general, and my search for a specific machine (the Star Wars machine from Data East), and wind up taking the full brunt of the weirdness. Trapped in surreal conversation: lose 3 turns.

3:02pm - After succeeding in getting directions from the the 11 year old punks (who store their bikes in our entryway for some reason) Weird Pinball Guy finally leaves.

3:20pm - Post-rush lull is MUCH quieter than usual. All regular tasks (restocking, cleaning etc.) completed, I am "rewarded" by being shown how to clean the fryers. This is a... perplexing proceedure. After being told how you're supposed to do it, I am show how we actually do it (Protective gear? It's only boiling oil. Sheesh!) After pumping the oil off to the filter, you clean the remaining debris off the fryer by ladling some of the hot oil over it. Then you clean the oil off the fryer by rubbing it with degreaser. Then you clean the degreaser off by pouring more of the hot oil over it. Does that sound right to you?

3:54pm - Weird Pinball Guy is back. He has chosen to reward me for my kindness by getting photocopying the latest issue of the Pinball Weirdos Newsletter for me, since there was an article that may help me find the machine I'm looking for. He then leaves without too much additional conversation, making the gesture sweet, rather than pushing the creep-o-meter toward "Skin Crawling."

4:08pm - Things are so dead even the Uber Manager gets bored. Starts playing a game where someone pins a famous person's name to your back and you have to ask yes or no questions of the other employees to find out who it is. This is of course between work-related tasks, and (though no one remarked on the wig earlier) everyone at the drive through tells me I have something pinned to my back. Thanks for the tip guys.

4:34pm - Learned something interesting: People who know who Justin Beiber is don't know who Demetri Mendelev was (and vice versa). I decide I want to learn to make sandwiches. Now, I've been studying (actually not kidding) and there are these beautiful full color diagrams of what goes on each sandwich and in what order. How hard can it be, right? HA! Sure, each sandwich is, on its own, incredibly simple to make. But I want you to imagine the following the next time your sandwich doesn't come out the way you ordered it: There's this evil computer screen that lists all the orders for both the drive through and the front counter. You have to keep looking up from what you're doing to read what the customer does and doesn't want on their sandwich. You've got the drive through person yelling for what they need, the front register person yelling for what they need, you have to tell the grill guy what sized meat and how many you need, you have to grab the right wrapper for each sandwich, the fry guy is behind you doing god-knows-what, you have to clear orders you've finished off the screen so they're not confusing, but hope you haven't cleared an order you haven't done yet, decide when to tell an customer to pull up because their food won't be ready (and you don't want to wreck the drive-through times), make the next order, but remember to get back to the pulled-up order when you can, make enough of the front register sandwiches so that the customers don't leave, but keep the drive through moving... See how leaving the mayo of a sandwich once in a while is understandable. This is HARD. And STRESSFUL. I do it for 20 minutes during a comparative lull and beg to be put back on something I'm good at.

5:05pm - One of the employees is reportedly outside of the restaurant crying. She had been called and told not to come in because she wasn't needed. She didn't get this message. The crying is apparently unrelated to that fact. Somehow my phone is lent to her. Crying tapers off and she departs.

5:48pm - During a lull in the dinner rush, I notice one of the crew was looking at me strangely. I met his gaze and after a moment he said (so deadpan it was almost monotone): "You've been quiet.... Please don't kill us" I guess I needed more caffine.

6:20pm - Buzzing happily again. Good thing the soda's free! *twitch* *twitch* It's a tricky balancing act.. Need enough caffeine to stay energized and make it through the day. But still need to stay (mostly) coherent and (perhaps more importantly) be able to get to sleep at a reasonable hour so you can start again the next day. But those are future concerns. For now, I'm back on front register and serve serve serving away.

7:05pm - Apparently some contractors had come in to install or repair something and had left marks on the walls and ceiling. They were ordered to come clean up after themselves. Simple enough... but there was some miscommunication as to WHEN they were to accomplish this. The boss though they were coming the next morning before we opened. The contractors apparently wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible. Net result: Guy on a ladder is leaning over the fry warmer with a rag and a spray bottle. Disgruntled Customer Hilarity is bound to ensue.

7:08pm - I'm distracted momentarily by trying to get the sandwich guy to stop making drive through sandwiches just long enough to take care of a front counter sandwich for a customer who had been waiting over 5 minutes. I was therefore briefly confused when I heard another customer bark "And make sure he's not spraying my fries!" Huh? I look over and figure out he's referring to the contractor over the fry warmer. The contractor mumbles something about it just being water and keeps working. I assure the customer I'll get him fries fresh out of the fryer so there won't be any concern, and go back to trying to get that damn sandwich made. Unfortunately I'm too late. The customer who had been waiting quietly enough suddenly exploded. He demanded to know if anyone knew who that guy on the ladder was. How did we know he wasn't spraying anthrax on the food? He wanted to talk to a manager. He wanted a refund. This was tricky since the manager was the one making the sandwiches and had been to slammed in drive-through to get to his sandwich to begin with... It was trickier still, since unless they still had their receipt (and who keeps those?) you can't refund a credit card without knowing exactly what the person ordered. And when they'd rather rant than cooperate... You get the picture. I did all I could. I got the other customer fresh fries and let people getting paid more than me deal with the crazy people.

8:48pm - Post rush cleaning duties in full swing. Our grill guy is assigned to clean the grease off the hoods over the grills. After the "anthrax scare" he is advised not to do the one the customers can see until the dining room closes. Good advice. However, this means the only other one he can clean is the one we're currently cooking on. Determined to do what he's told, our noble hero proceeds to stand on the grill (to his credit, avoiding the meat) to clean above it. When I see this, I attract his attention (no easy feat given the language barrier) and ask if he thinks what he's doing is a good idea. The conversation is... ineffective. I'm pretty sure he think's he's doing what he was told (and we're back to the Fast Food Nurenburg Defense.) I spend a few moments taking in the scene: Grown man in an apron standing amid sizzling patties and spatulas, engulfed nearly to the waist by a fume hood, scrubbing away for minimum wage. I was reminded of the old saw: "Sometimes we laugh to keep from crying."

8:55pm - I'm sent home, still laughing. Smelling of grease, foot-sore and weary, I clock out, remove my visor and name tag and leave. Good men and women would be there for hours yet, but I had recharging to do before I returned to serve another day.

I couldn't make any of this stuff up. And again, this was a pretty standard day. It really is almost always this interesting. So until later... See you at the drive through!

Bait and Switch

2010-07-01T21:29:00.000-07:00

One of the nearly inevitable consequences of working at a fast food restaurant is eating fast food. If you don't care for America's primary "contribution" to world cuisine, your breaks are short enough you won't always have another option. And if you do feel the draw of this particular opiate of the masses, being immersed in the sight and smell of all that crispy, juicy, saucy goodness can reduce you to a salivating wreck (if you weren't one already). Either way, one of the VERY few perks of wearing a stupid hat and being treated like the barely sentient dregs of humanity is free or deeply discounted food!

Now this isn't all bad. From being behind the counter, you get to know not only the menu, but all the methods of preparation and the ingredients available. This allows you to get exactly what you want, exactly the way you want it. This means you can usually get something a little healthier and almost always more to you liking than anything on the menu. Some places will let you ring your meal up yourself, and a few will even let you make it yourself (though most discourage these practices to cut down on temptation to get a little extra for a little less.)

Still, for all that, and even with the introduction of fancy salads and healthy alternatives, it's still fast food. So how does one eat a great deal of fast food and still feel good about themselves (or at least still fit in their dashing uniform pants)? Like most things, everyone has their own way. Some make rules, like they can only have a shake or fries once a week. Some settle on a particular (usually rather small) meal and get it every single time. The true visionaries just smoke cigarettes rather than eating, thus solving both the overeating and pesky longevity problems simultaneously.

My way of eating junk food and living? I run. A LOT. Sure, I swim and bike and lift some weights too, but mostly I run. And that's actually what I'd like to talk about. If you want to read more fast food tales, I'll get back to that soon enough. But for the moment, indulge me and let me tell you about something pretty cool happening in the running community.

One of the greatest pleasures available to a runner (apart from a massage or a yummy protein shake) is having others to run with. This isn't always easy for some of us with wacky schedules, geographic isolation, or self-consciousness (about either ability or body image.) One fellow runner came up with a wonderful way around all these difficulties. A guy named Steve Walker (though he prefers to be called Steve Runner) records a podcast every week, mostly about running-related topics, WHILE he is doing his long run for the week. Not only is it usually fascinating, often hilarious, but listening to the podcast during your workout, hearing breathing and footfalls, it really does feel like you're going running with someone.

Another incredible experience is running in a race. Whether it's a 5k or a half-marathon, the festival atmosphere, the camaraderie, the organization, the experience is amazing. But race fees can be expensive (from 20$ for a 5k on up to nearly a grand for an Ironman.) It can be hard to find one near you, or that fits in your schedule. And most of them start so darn early in the morning... Well Steve Runner figured out a way around that one too.

A few years ago, he came up with the World Wide Festival of Races, and the idea just took off. What is it? Well, one particular weekend (this year it's October 9th and 10th) a bunch of people all over the world agree to go for a run. Wherever they happen to be, in some organized race or on their own, it's thousands of people going for a run. It's a chance to be a part of something. You don't have to sign up, but if you do, it gives them a better idea of how many people are participating. Plus they'll send you a race bib to wear, and a virtual "goodie-bag" (the sorts of advertisements and coupons you get at "real" races). There are other cool features, like tools to track your training but this is my favorite part: Steve does a special podcast (usually full of jokes, inspirational stories, and wishes for luck and good runs called in by listeners) that you can listen to during your run. I find it downright inspirational. It really is like we're all running together.

Whether you're already a runner, or are just starting to think about getting off of what Steve refers to as the Couch Of Doom, I recommend giving it a try. It doesn't cost anything, and who knows... you might even like it. :) Below are some handy links and tools if you're interested:

This is Steve's podcast, Phedippidations
Here's the web site for the Worldwide Festival of Races
Runnersworld offers this handy race-finder to find an organized event near you if you'd like (just enter your location, the kind of race you're looking for, and scroll forward to October).
This is a pretty good "Couch to 5k" training plan for people just getting started at running.

That's all for now. I hope to run with you in October. Now, back to your regularly scheduled fast food hilarity...

More Musings from Fast Food's Front Lines

2010-06-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

Jim Infantino asks the musical question "If you could have time and no money, or money but no time, which one would you choose?" Audry Niffenegger writes that every artist she knows is starving for either time or money. The film Cashback observes (among other things) how grocery clerks get themselves through overnight shifts.

I thought I understood all these things... until I started working fast food.

Even a measly 5 hour shift is an eternity in subjective time. If it's one of the "dead times" (3-5pm, 8-close) eternity becomes an understatement. Everyone has to do SOMETHING to keep from going mad (or madder...) And everyone does.

The managers count drawers, order supplies, work out the schedule, train someone, or do... whatever it is they do in the office. Shift leaders clean things, or assign others to, maintain order, and generally keep everyone from goofing off. But it's the regular minimum-wage slaves that are fun to observe as they try to make the time pass.

There's one girl who eats pickles. I mean eats them like it's her job. Don't get me wrong, I love pickles but... wow. That HAS to be effecting food costs.

Another guy draws these mini crop-circle-like images. Everywhere. On his arms, on the counters, on the bags supplies come in, on the bins the food is stored in... EVERYWHERE. It's mostly in dry-erase marker, so at some point a manager goes around and erases most of it. But one can't help be drawn to the beauty, and wonder what, if anything these arcane symbols mean to him.

Others gossip, or talk trash about co-workers, which managers drive them crazy and which ones might be okay, the palace intrigue of who's getting promoted and what they might have done to "earn" that. Normal workplace stuff.

Then there's the "good kids". They do the craziest thing of all: They WORK! You see, there's always work to be done no matter how dead the restaurant may seem. There's restocking, cleaning surfaces, preping things for the next day, breaking down boxes, cleaning and restocking the dining room, traying buns, sweeping, mopping, emptying trash... You can move non-stop through your entire shift if you're not careful. And if you do, your manager will notice. And assign you more work. Isn't it funny how that works out?

A couple of other things that have been on my mind: Call them... moral questions.

When someone large (and I mean morbidly obese. Like you're not sure how they got IN to that car, much less how they're planning to get OUT!) orders an enormous shake, a heart-attack-sized fry, and several sandwiches with extra... sandwiches on them, and you sell it to them... are you an accessory to murder? Are you complicit in some incredibly slow suicide? If brought before a court, would you be forced to hide behind the fast-food equivalent of the Nuremberg Defense?

When someone is under the influence of alcohol, they are not legally able to give consent for sexual acts, enter into legal contracts, or purchase firearms. However, when a carload of giggly kids orders nearly a hundred dollars of salt and fat and cholesterol, then pulls up to the drive-through and the Winds of the Orient pour forth from their car... I mean the Scooby Gang is SO baked that the guy working the register gets a contact high... Are they in any condition to know what they're doing to themselves? Is it negligence to complete the transaction?

Okay, you got me. Thinking about this crap is what gets me though my long-ass shifts. Well, that and wondering what I'm going to write about next. I hope you've enjoyed, and that I've helped you through a slow portion of your day.

Stay tuned for next time, when I talk about fast-food dress codes, and the managers that love them.

Things You Might Not Have Known About Fast Food

2010-06-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

Here's another update from the land of high pressure and low wages. Enjoy!

We all know about fast food. You go and give stupid people money, and they give you food that's bad for you. What else is there to know? Well, it's actually quite a complicated machine back behind that counter/window.

Now I'm not here to scare you, nor try to talk you into quitting your job and putting on a visor and a name tag. I just think there are a few interesting bits that might come in handy the next time you decide you need some fast food in your life.

The single most important thing in a fast food restaurant, the single metric by which their performance is measured, is the drive through time. The drive through will ALWAYS be the highest priority of every single person working at the restaurant. I've actually been told to stop taking orders at the front register until drive through got caught up. If at all possible, always go through the drive.
Now, drive through time is measured from the second you drive up to the speaker, until you drive away from the last window. Since the average of this time over different portions of the day (especially noon to one and five to eight in the evening) actually determines bonuses, promotions, and demotions, etc. there are a few things that would be really considerate: Whenever possible, try to decide what you want at the menu board, THEN pull up to the speaker. Try to have money ready when you get to the window. And when you've gotten all your food DRIVE AWAY!!! Sitting and adjusting things, texting, looking for that pen you lost is actually somewhat cruel and evil. If you think/speak/move fast, the fast food monkeys will like you more, and your portions may even be larger. I'm actually not kidding.
A corollary to the above: If you're REALLY angry at a fast food place, because of bad food, lousy service, or some perceived socio-political slight and want to get even, don't bother calling the customer service hotline. Don't complain to the manager. Go to the drive through. At lunch or dinner time. Take 5 minutes to decide what you want. Change your mind half way through and start over. Add things. Have things taken off. Demand shake mix on your burger. Ask for extra lids. Make sure they separate it out into 4 separate orders. Drive halfway to the window, then stop for a while. Change clothes. Do some stretching. Then pull up to the window. Ask how many dimes are in a dollar. Ask if they accept pesos. Ask if you can do dishes later as partial payment for one of your orders. Then pay in pennies. Make sure they count them back to you. After you've gotten your food, check each item carefully. Drop a couple on the ground and ask for them to be re-made. Then balance your check book. Remove your shirt and offer to trade with the person at the window. Try to order additional items. Give your fries back because they've gone cold. If you can stretch this to 10 minutes, you'll have ruined their times irretrievably. If you can stretch it to 30, you're a bloody legend.
Most fast food places today close their dining rooms at a certain time (10ish) but keep their drive through open a few hours later. Unless you are desperate, I mean FAMISHED without any other source of sustenance, avoid ordering from a fast food place once their dining room has closed. Ignoring for a moment that the night shift tend to be misfits with... "anger issues" and questionable ideas of "fun", they will do absolutely anything to avoid having to dirty something they've already cleaned. The resulting short cuts can be... somewhat distressing. And the product doesn't turn over quite as quickly as during peak hours if you take my meaning. Since I'm not going for horror, I'll not go into further detail. Just... take my word on this one.
When food safety guidelines are being followed, there's an awful lot of hand washing, gloving, and re-gloving. Just about anything you do, from touching your nose to touching cash results in having to clean your hands anew. And since no one wants dishpan hands up to the elbows, your average fast food monkey will do an awful lot to avoid those dozens of things. Most of these are pretty obvious, but there are a few that cracked me up. My favorite is that when someone has done something particularly clever, awesome, or hilarious, they are given an "elbow-five" by their co-workers. It's just what it sounds like. Each person puts up their elbow and they bump them together in celebration. Perfectly logical, but cracks me up every time.
Because of the way the computerized registers are set up, you are most likely to get what you ordered if you provide information in the following order: What type of meal you want, any additions or deletions, what size fries/soda, what type of beverage. If you do it in a different order, the fast food monkey has to wait until they get the information they're waiting for, then try to key the rest in from memory. This is where hilarity tends to ensue: "Now was that no pickles or add pickles? Ah well... I'll just give them a pickle. And maybe some broccoli..."
Most fast food places require the monkey at the front (dining room) register to begin by asking whether you'll be dining in or taking it to go. Please share this with them then DON'T CHANGE YOUR MIND! Also, most of them will have to repeat your order into a microphone even as they're keying it into the register. Please do not make fun of them. They feel quite dumb enough thank you very much.
If you think it's funny to pour ketchup over the condiment stand or dump your milkshake into the napkin holder... It's really really REALLY not. The poor monkey who has to clean it up already hates their life. And they may well be making your food the next time. Or worse, someone you care about may be eating what they make next. Then next time something like that strikes you as funny, do it in YOUR dining room first. Then evaluate. See... just like on Myth Busters, the scientific method really DOES make our lives better!

That's all for now. Stay tuned next time, when our hero finds himself pondering where between getting a masters degree at an Ivy League university and cleaning toilets in a fast food joint his life went... somewhat awry.

Happy Fathers' Day!!!

2010-06-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

So for Mothers' Day, moms get flowers, breakfast in bed, dinners, gifts... What do we ever do for Fathers' Day? A card? A tie? Did you ever tell your dad how much he meant to you?

This year for Fathers' Day, I decided that a good (and remarkably cost effective) present would be a letter sharing some of my favorite memories with my dad, telling him some of the things he's taught me, and some of the ways he's impacted my life. I modified it slightly for inclusion below. In it, I hope you find at least entertainment, possibly some explanation for how I got to be the way I am, and perhaps even inspiration to tell dads (or others) in your life what they've meant to you.

Oh, and to all who have or are fathers, HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!!

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Father’s Day. It may be a silly Hallmark holiday, seemingly set up as a second thought after Mother’s Day, but it means a lot more to me than that.

Fatherhood. It only takes a couple parts a couple seconds (and the right timing) to become a father. But to become a dad… That’s a lot of years, a lot of time, a lot of frustration, a lot of guidance, and a lot of love. I appreciate that distinction just as I appreciate everything my dad's ever done (and is still doing) for me.

I wish I could get him a sexy sports car, but he beat me to it. I wish I could give him grandchildren or something that would mean nearly as much to him. But what I can do is share my memories, share some of the times he's had an impact on my life, the funny (and sometimes not so funny) stories I’ve always cherished, and always will.

Some of the earliest stuff I probably only remember second hand, or have created memories from stories I’ve heard. It doesn’t matter if they’re true or not. They’re still the beginnings of The Legend of My Dad. Some were little things, brief conversations, simple events, but they really stuck with me. Some can’t be believed as anything but hyperbole. I don’t care. I was there. I know my dad. Let the non-believers get their own dads, dammit.

He delivered me. How many kids can say that their father’s face was the first they saw? Of course, he also filled out my birth certificate. Under race, he put “Human”, and under birth defects wrote “Kind of ugly. Looks like father.” Proof in writing of his early philosophies on parenting? Or just a sense of humor that not even the Navy could curb?

For I was born on a Coast Guard base surrounded by his naval officer buddies. They all thought it was funny to give me beer. He and a cop friend used to throw me back and forth across the living room. No harm intended, no harm done. Just good paternal fun in the days before Child Protective Services.

Speaking of Child Protective Services... There were other things that those uptight pricks might have seen a little differently. One time I got a black eye, and when anyone asked what happened, I replied just as he’d taught me: “My mommy did it!” Nor was that the only thing he taught me in those early years. I was apparently fascinated by the old Linda Hamilton “Wonder Woman” TV show. When asked why I liked Wonder Woman, I gushed, “She’s got big boobs!” And one Christmas time mom asked if we should make cookies for Santa. “No” I protested solemnly. “Santa likes beer and pizza.” Thus began the longstanding tradition of an oilcan of Fosters and a large anchovy and onion left out for Santa each Christmas Eve. He got a call from my pre-school teacher who was horrified. It seems that I’d been telling the children that the stork didn’t bring them, that the daddy put his penis in the mommy’s vagina and the sperm fertilized the egg… Dad listened for a few moments, told her “He got it right didn’t he?” and hung up on her. Oh, and he didn’t much care for changing diapers. Sometimes mom came home to find me sitting in the tub or toilet with the diaper still on for her to take care of. Again, no harm, just the charm of hands-off parenting.

He wasn’t completely hands-off. I remember walking through the Track and Racket Club holding his hand. He explained to me that it wouldn’t always be okay for me to hold his hand, that after a certain age, fathers and sons didn’t do that anymore. This was the first time it had ever occurred to me that the relationships we have with the people in our lives change over time. Nor was this the only lesson he taught me about growing up. Once, while talking about what I wanted for Christmas or Hanukah one year, I realized I’d never gotten him anything. I asked why that was okay, and what I should get for him. He explained to me that the things he’d given me weren’t gifts, they were loans. He gave me things to pay back those who’d given to him, and if I wanted to pay him back, I should have children and give them things. Of course it wasn’t too many years later that he'd start telling me all he wanted for Christmas/Hanukah/birthdays/Fathers Days was grandchildren… But until then, he just wanted someone to go canoeing with. I don’t know why it took a holiday to get us out on a lake or river with him... We may have been unenthusiastic at the time, but I really cherish those memories now.

Speaking of memorable, who could forget his waffle… “creations.” It was rare to have him home and awake at breakfast time on a weekend, but when he was, he’d celebrate by making… let’s call it breakfast. I’m PRETTY sure there was usually a waffle underneath the ice cream and whipped cream and strawberries and chocolate and bananas… I’m sure he was trying to spoil us, but sometimes the mountains of “breakfast” could be pretty intimidating. He didn’t always push the sweets of course. One year I decided I didn’t want to go trick-or-treating. He told me he thought that was just fine, since it was essentially begging anyway. All of the sudden I couldn’t see it as anything else. And I was overwhelmed with gratitude, relief, and love that he had never said anything earlier. That he'd let me enjoy it while I enjoyed it no matter what he thought. He always has been a generous dad.

Sometimes he was generous with his wisdom, like the time I was struggling with a paper on the computer in his den. He came in, drink in hand, to ask me how it was going. I muttered something rife with the academic frustration of the over-achieving middle-schooler. He told me (and I’ll remember your exact words to my dying day): “Son, you’ve got three problems. A, you give a shit, two, you’re trying too hard, and D, you’re sober.” I took that in for a moment. “A, two, D?” Without missing a beat, he grinned and replied “I’ve been drinking!”

Sometimes he was generous with his time. A major assignment for our middle school science class was to type up our notes. Now for a two-finger hunt-and-peck-er, this is quite an undertaking. And when some accident erased the whole thing the night before, I was inconsolable. Despite the fact that he probably hadn’t slept in 60 or so hours, he sat down and started typing. I clearly remember my awe as I saw his fingers fly over that keyboard. Superman couldn’t have swooped in and more effectively saved me just then. And for the first of many, many times I reflected that Superman had nothing on my dad. I did learn a lesson or two that day. Ever since I’ve backed everything up in 4 different places at 5-minute intervals. And the very first time I could sign up for an elective in high school, I took typing. And it was the most valuable class I’d taken to date or since.

Sometimes he was generous with his knowledge. For some reason, he and I went to see Ferris Bueller’s Day Off together, just the two of us. First of all, how righteous a father-son outing is that? But the real wonder came on the way home when we got to talking about quantum physics of all things. He not only understood the ideas well enough, but could explain them well enough to make an eleven year old understand them as well. Admittedly I probably wasn’t all that average an eleven year old, but since some of that was due to his genes, I’m still giving him full credit for this one. Nor was that the first or last time he’d help me understand things, mostly for the best. There was the time in kindergarten or first grade that he got called into a parent-teacher conference because I’d listed “Jefferson Davis” as the first American President… But I also impressed the heck out of science and math teachers in the years that followed. I remember the day in eleventh grade that I came to him with a calculus problem and he’d forgotten how to do that particular thing (trigonometric substitutions for integration perhaps?) It was as mind-blowing as the first time I beat him at chess without him letting me. It made me realize that he was human after all. And that made me love him even more.

Sometimes he was generous with his medical expertise. And I don’t just mean offering my female friends gynecological advice when they asked, or giving my girlfriends free birth control pills, but how cool is that?!? Of all the home exams and minor surgeries, the one that stands out the most was the one-inch-long thorn that had been driven into my thigh during a paper-delivery-related accident. I was bawling like a babe, but he calmly and professionally set about extracting it. Every kid knows, as an article of faith, that their dad is the best at what they do, and I’d never had any doubts. But this was the first time I’d had proof. I don’t even remember if I thanked him at the time. But there was yet another way I was completely in awe of him.

But independent of awe, he was always an incredibly cool dad. One of my earliest cool dad father-son-bonding memories was of him taking me to a rod and gun club to shoot skeet or trap or something. I must have been pretty young, and what I remember most wasn’t the glow of being trusted with firearms, or the thrill of blowing some clay out of the air. No, what I remember was him buying a tube of cashews at the clubhouse, and sharing them with me as we walked back to the range. There was something about sharing this (then exotic) treat with my dad as we walked in the sunlight with the smell of gunpowder and spring all around us, carrying guns and talking about guy things… Words don’t really do it justice.

Another incredibly cool-dad-moment was when he taught me about parental economics. I was headed to the mall with some friends when he asked me if I needed a few bucks. I said thank you, but I was fine. He stopped me and explained that when a parent asked if you needed a few bucks, they were really offering and that I would do well to accept it. I nodded and took the ten offered. He headed upstairs, and on my way out, mom asked if I needed any money. When I said, “I could use a few bucks” and accepted a ten from her as well, I met his eyes from the top of the stairs. I swear I’ve never seen him look prouder of me.

There were many, many more. When he got the hot tub, he made a very strict rule: If you have sex in the hot tub, you have to clean the filter. Once when driving my little brother home from school, he met us at the door in a bathrobe, gave me a 20, told us to go to the movies, and call before we came home. I nodded conspiratorially and took Josh back to the car. He was completely perplexed and said something about having to do homework, but I let him pick the movie, and everything was fine. I even learned a lesson or two about romance.

He occasionally tried too hard as well… Like the time he sent me off to soccer camp with 2 dozen condoms in my luggage. Sure, the camp was co-ed, but I was maybe 12? But his coolest moment was a time he wasn’t trying at all. We were out to dinner after he’d lost a LOT of weight on a pretty extreme diet. It was warm in the restaurant and they’d seated him near to the fireplace. Sometime before our food arrived he went sheet white and passed out. A woman from the next table over was a nurse and helped him to the ground and loosened his collar and opened his belt. As he started to come around she asked how he felt. Without pause he said you felt like someone was trying to get into his pants. I know he was probably mortified, and that we haven’t been back to that restaurant since. But I dream of someday saying something that cool, and he set the standard while essentially unconscious.

Then there was the time he got struck by lighting while walking the dogs. He came to halfway down the street with all his fillings gone. Yup. He's always been a tough act to follow. I once tried to read the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire because he’d said it was an amazing book. I just couldn’t do it. When I admitted my defeat to him, he laughed and said of course, you have to be stranded on a desert island to get through it. Him? He'd been stationed on Adak Alaska when you read it. I eventually started reading books he had… He used to leave what seemed like a book a day on the floor outside my room: Science fiction novels he’d finished and though I might like. After politely shelving nearly a hundred of them, I finally read one. And of course I fell in love with the genre and we’ve shared books (in both directions) ever since.

Even though I left the house when I went off to college, the impact he had on my life didn’t lessen. His (occasionally inebriated) phone calls to the fraternity house invariably made my day, whether because of the crazy adventures he and mom were having, or merely the perplexed looks on my brothers’ faces when I repeated the stories to them. It helped that he called asking for “Tampon” (rather than Tappan, my house nickname.)

This one’s important enough that I’m not going even going to try to make it funny or cute. He paid for my college education. I don’t know if I ever thanked him enough (or if I CAN ever thank him enough). But every time my friends had to go down to the financial aid office to fill out more forms, watch videos, receive counseling, sign things, ponder consolidation, I got even more grateful, appreciated the magnitude of what he did for me that much more. Thank you dad.

But even though the magnitude of that particular gift is so huge, it’s still just one of the thousands of things he's supported me in. He's believed in me through every career change (even though he always thought I should blow things up for the movies...) He came to Chicago to support me in the marathon, to Kentucky to support me in the Ironman, he's come to plays, taken me to concerts, helped me when I’ve come up short, driven me when I needed a ride, he's been there for me. He's been my dad. He is my dad, and I love him.

Happy Fathers’ Day dad!!!

New Adventures

2010-06-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

So... I'm not a teacher or a cop or a Air Force reservist. But it's only a matter of time before I'm running something. I'm throwing myself into a local fast food joint, not just for the money (*snicker*) but because it's FUN!!!

For now you'll have to make due with tales of Fast Food Madness rather than tales of my greatness. Possibly some stories about triathlon training, but I promise you that the fast food stuff will be MUCH funnier.

Today's anecdote: It was my first day at... Lets keep the establishment nameless to protect the awesome. They decided to train me on the grill rather than drive-through so I wouldn't get "overwhelmed." I was LITERALLY flipping burgers. :) After showing me the procedure 4 or 5 times, my trainer went off to change the water my wipe-down rag was sitting in. When she came back she declared, as though gleefully imparting some great mystery of the universe "You know, this isn't just water..."

"I know," I replied, "it's sanitizer, 200 parts per million, at room temperature."

She was struck dumb, with a blank expression of disbelief. "How did you know that?"

I pointed at the manager and simply said "He gave me a pamphlet.

The dumb-struck expression was still firmly in place. "Yeah but... you read it?!?!?"

The restaurant staff collectively took a moment... then went back to work.

I think I'm going to love this job.

A Little Change

2010-05-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

So by now I should be in basic training on my way to being an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Army. Unfortunately, they saw it differently.

I sprained my ankle a little in February. I did all the things I was supposed to: Notified my recruiter, went to doctors, got X-rays, MRI's, got physical therapy, custom orthotics... Maybe that was too much. Maybe combined with the knee surgury back in '99, I'm too great a risk for re-injury. I'm not sure. Heck, my recruiter's not sure. All I know is that word came down from the Army's surgeon general that I should not leave for basic, that my recruiter should do the paperwork to give me a DEP (delayed entry program) discharge and send me on my way.

Um... okay. I really wish they'd told me before the day I was supposed to leave.

Insert your favorite cliche about things happening for a reason or doors opening and closing or whatnot. I may just have gotten the better of this deal.

If you're wondering what's next, you're not alone. I've been hearing that question a lot. Don't worry. I've got plans. Feel free to imagine mad scientist laughter here if you'd like.

I've moved in with my girlfriend. Please note that that's not crashing on the couch. That's welcomed into the home of the woman I love, making it our home. Heck, our dogs get along, what can go wrong?

I'm looking for teaching jobs (high-school or middle-school math or science), and pursuing a teaching certification. For backup plans, there's the state police and teaching technical theater at the undergrad level. And of course in the short term, I'm not above fast food or working a reception desk.

I haven't quite given up on the military yet either. It was the Army's surgeon general who turned me down. The other branches of service have their own surgeon generals who might be a little more open minded about how useful I might be to my country. So I'm applying for the Air Force Reserves. If they don't love me, there's always the Navy Reserve... That gets me most of the benefits, but keeps me (mostly) in control of where I live (and who I live with ;)

Are things a bit uncertain at the moment? Sure. But I've never had more support. I've got plenty of options, plenty of motivation... I'm not about the details, but I know good things are coming. I'll be making lives better an taking on crazy athletic feats.

So stay tuned. And if you happen to be in the Boston/Southern New Hampshire area, drop me a line. Maybe we can get together.

The Breakfast Club... Musical?

2010-03-04T20:58:00.000-08:00

Adaptations are always tricky. Do you stay slavishly true to the original or completely reinterpret and risk alienating the purists, or worse removing the charm that drew your audience to the show to begin with. Everyone comes in with pre-conceived notion and expectations, every one's making comparisons, listening for their favorite line... There are so many pitfalls and so many ways to go wrong.

I won't say The Breakfast Club Musical avoided all those pitfalls, just that it was so damn charming that you can't help but climb on board and enjoy the ride.

The original music by Music Director Jessica Hunt aren't piano adaptations of the movie soundtrack, they're catchy tunes in the best spirit of the golden age of Broadway musicals. The original lyrics by Director Jason Geis aren't singing the movie lines, they actually extend and add to the story, make it richer and even more compelling than the film. The minor characters from the beginning of the story (parents, siblings etc.) are used delightfully and ingeniously as chorus for big production numbers throughout the piece. Very minimal sets and props (by set designer Micha Philbrook and technical director Amy Couey) highlight rather than detract from the performance in the best tradition of "poor theater".

The cast originally came together as an improv comedy team. As such, they're not all the strongest singers or character actors. But even where the voices aren't Broadway-ready, they are still used exceptionally well. And where the character choices aren't always strong, their musical numbers tend to shine. Matthew Gottlieb's "Bender" for example chose to play some of his moments much bigger than Judd Nelson had, which missed as often as it hit. But when his music started, it was always beautiful (his "The World's an Imperfect Place" aria in particular was breathtaking.) Tristan Tanner's "Allison" might not have had the range for a couple of her high notes, but her voice was beautiful and her character was both spot-on and charmingly her own. Drew Current as "Andrew" and Dan Aho as "Principal Vernon" may not have been the strongest singers in the cast, but their characters were just so damn clear, true, believable and strong that you still loved every note. Martha Hearn's "Claire" and Brett Mannes' "Brian" didn't stand out vocally or in terms of character choices, but both told their stories well. The only real sour notes were the character of the janitor, (who though interestingly made female, Sally Anderson's "Carla" instead of "Carl", fell short in both singing and acting enough to detract from her scenes, and the Cassie Speerscheider's choreography of the chorus numbers (which was overdone and campy almost to the point of parody).

The structure of the piece, the pacing of the songs and dialogue scenes, and the material included versus cut were all outstanding. The original touches, like a stomp-style percussion break were as wonderful as the nods and in-jokes to fans of the film, like the post-pot dance break choreography. The intimacy of the theater made up for the fact that the lighting left a little to be desired (like nearly complete darkness in the acting area right in front of the stage right column). The costumes didn't really contribute or detract, but an opportunity was missed in not using the pre-show and intermission music to set any time period or tone. No opportunities were missed with the staging however, which served the storytelling and made for some outstanding stage pictures.

Now the above may be a little bit nit-picky. I was, until recently, a theater professional and have worked with some of the best in the industry. I have been a life-long devotee of the film and, in part because of having acted in a (non-musical) stage adaptation of the movie myself, can still recite every line. I'm... invested. What it really comes down to is that this was a great idea executed well. It was a great evening of theater and 12$ extremely well spent. Grab some friends and get down to 3110 N. Sheffield some Thursday night in March or April.

Photo By Nancy Fast

A Movie Review? Really?

2010-03-02T22:04:00.000-08:00

Another experiment here on The World's Address: Yup. A movie review. But not any old movie review. Thanks to my awesome roommate, I had a pretty unique experience, and I wanted to share it with you.

So there's this movie called "Hot Tub Time Machine." If you've been to the movies lately, you might have seen some bizarre advertisements in the lobby and dismissed them as a joke (just like I thought the posters for a Karate Kid remake or the A-Team movie were a joke...) It's not a joke. It's actually a movie coming out some time in April. However, they've done a screening or two at various places around the country. I went to one. It was projected from DVD rather than 35mm. There weren't any previews or credits. Some of the green-screen stuff still looked a touch rough. But to be perfectly honest, I barely noticed any of that. The movie was that... singular.

Three old buddies fallen on hard times and one of their hapless relatives go back to the now broken-down site of their past glories, wind up in a hot-tub which takes them back in time to the '80s. How can that not suck? But it's John Cusak's triumphant return to comedy... RUN!!! Only cliche, dated humor, and tired slapstick can possibly follow. But listen very carefully:

It. Freaking. Rocked.

The characters were compelling, believable, and sympathetic. The humor was witty and landed every single time. The plot was a delightful blend of original and respectfully referential. The performances were all spot on, and the sound track served the piece brilliantly. The pacing and energy were such that you didn't even question the obviously ridiculous parts (forget the physics of time travel, how can anyone smoke that much pot, drink that much tequila, take that many 'shrooms, and still be straight enough for coherent conversation a mere hour later?) I laughed out loud. I applauded. And there was a whole theater clapping, hooting, hollering, laughing (and were those a few sniffles?) along with me.

There's bromance, geek humor, 80's references, the best kind of running jokes, love, life lessons, action, sillyness, adventure, wonder, and best of all, that rarest treat: a John Cusak movie where his sister Joan is nowhere to be seen!!! When this film makes it's proper theatrical release, do yourself a favor. Grab a buddy, lover, or family member, pay whatever those rat-bastards at the theaters are demanding these days, and enjoy the ride.

This is the good stuff people. Check it out.

Preventing the Next Generation of Super-Athletes

2010-03-02T22:02:00.000-08:00

According to this article from MSNBC.com, the Olympic organizers in Vancouver provided 100,000 condoms for the use of the athletes, coaches, trainers etc. in the Olympic Village. They point out that that's about 14 condoms for each of the 7000 people allowed to be there. They picked that seemingly ridiculous number because in 2000 (a summer olympics with MANY more participants), the Sydney organizers provided 70,000 and had to order 20,000 more.

What the article didn't mention was that (according to a friend of mine working the Vancouver olympics) they STILL ran out and had to order about 30,000 more.

Lets assume these condoms are being used for... their intended purpose (and not for unnecessarily tough water balloons, obscure souvineers, or lets-stuff-our-luggage-so-we'll-have-a-year's-supply). That's... well, that's a whole lot of sex. I'll spare you the math on implied volume of various fluids, number of calories burned, etc. I'll even spare you the conjectures on why so much sex is being had (though the logic is quite compelling... all that physical perfection, all that thrill of agony, victory of defeat, and free time between your event being done and the closing ceremonies... Or is curling just inherently a turn on?) What I want to talk about is the tragedy of preventing all that fascinating genetic recombination.

Don't get me wrong... A lot of these women plan to stay competitive for several more years and might not want to spare the time from their training schedules to have a child. Some of the men might not want to spare time from their training schedules to help raise a child. Then there might be "committed relationships" back home. But if these are the best in their respective sports from their respective nations, what a unique opportunity to breed those genetically pre-disposed to be even better. Wouldn't the cultural, racial, and national mingling help bring us closer, blur distinctions, and foster a global family? Wouldn't those kids be PRETTY!?!?

I'm reminded of an old joke: What do you do with 365 used condoms? Make a tire and call it a good year. Well, it seems like in the Olympic Village, that would merely be a good week. NOW we know why those Jamacians wanted to learn to bobsled...

Gareth's Day

2010-02-28T19:01:00.000-08:00

Here's a little experiment. A little fiction to break up my constant prattling on about how I happen to see the world around me. It still feels a little preliminary, like it's the kernel of something that could be much longer. But I'm still reasonably pleased with it. What do you think?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was the 21st of Nevermore: Gareth's Day.

On Eden, each of the 214 days of the solar year are named for one of the "Saints"; the heroes that kept the colony going in those early days, the days when it didn't look like mankind was going to make it off the Earth after all.

Eden: The serene garden that was to be the cradle of humanity's second birth. Hah. They should have called it Clusterfuck.

There were a lot of brilliant men and women that studied Eden for years before selecting it as the destination of the Terran Federation's first (and unless it was a really resounding success, only) Colony Ship. They determined or estimated its location, its climate and weather, its native flora and fauna, its distribution of natural resources, even a rough mapping of the major landmasses.

Well, they got the location right. But what the hell. None of them actually got on the ship, did they?

It was a hell of a lot colder than the researchers predicted. The gravity was a good deal higher. And there were an awful lot of mountains where the fertile plains were supposed to be. Hardly any of the fish-like critters were edible after all. Oh, and the land-walkers turned out to be frighteningly intelligent. And MEAN.

But it takes a certain kind of person to volunteer (hell, COMPETE) to leave behind every person, every restaurant, every waterfall, every facet of the civilization they knew and loved to climb into an oversized tin can. Especially when that can would blast through space for half a lifetime and IF THEY WERE LUCKY land on a distant world that would likely be trying to kill them.

A very special person indeed. Looked at that way, they were all heroes: Every single person that made it through the selection and training process and got on the ship. And then there were the ones who designed the ship and the tools and the training. The ones who fought the bean counters and beauracrats and naysayers and made it happen. And lets not forget the group at MIT that figured out that mother earth was doomed and came up with the whole mad plan to begin with. They were all heroes in the finest human tradition.

But this is not their story.

A lot of the Saints were those who died fighting off wave after wave of land-walker attacks until somebody figured out how to keep them out of the compounds. And not just the military types. Many were scientists, farmers, or just children who picked up rifles, laser cutters, even sharpened poles when things got really bad. They killed and were killed to buy the rest a little more time.

Others were techs who froze to death cranking the generators by hand when everything else had failed, keeping the heat on and the incubators going. Or doctors who died testing vaccines on themselves in order to get treatments ready before the whole colony fell. Or engineers who walked into the hot reactor and fixed enough of the repair systems by hand that the pile didn't have to be dumped (rendering the already off-line power plant useless forever) while the radiation literally burned the skin off of them. All acts of selfless heroism that show what man can do when pushed to the wall. All proof of what men and women can accomplish when they damn the consequences and throw their souls at something.

But this isn't their story either.

When things finally stabilized, when the air and the water and the locals and the ground itself wasn't killing people anymore, when enough of the equipment was working that it looked like the colony had a fighting chance, when there was enough organization to come up with some kind of plan, there weren't a whole lot of the colonists left. Less than a quarter of those who landed on Eden lived to see a second winter. And those who did weren't in great shape. Oh, the farms and hydroponics kept them fed, and there were enough fertile women that another generation was already coming into the world.

But there wasn't much in the way of… joy going around.

On the first day of that second spring, all of the Gardeners (as the new residents of Eden had taken to calling themselves) gathered in front of the Ship. They broke out the last of the luxury stores and celebrated being alive. They drank to the dead and finally let themselves grieve. Then they cleaned up the remains (and with them, the memories) of their old lives, and settled into the new routine.

It’s funny the things that can get routine after a dozen years or so. There was so little to go around, and so much that needed doing. Out of simple necessity, work was paid for in chits redeemable for food. Supply and demand meant it often took as much as 16 hours of work to earn the 1800 to 2500 calories a person need in a day. In theory you could sign up for work you were good at, but critical tasks could conscript if undersubscribed so… Even procreation was assigned in order to get the population up. The colony couldn’t risk an ovulating woman on the attentions of a man with a low sperm count. Again, in theory there was supposed to be a good impartial rotation, but some names seemed to get assigned more often than others. So as not to reduce parents’ ability to work, all child-care, feeding, and education was taken care of centrally. In short, the concept of “family” was as extinct as the pets that they had shipped with. There wasn’t much administration to speak of, and no law enforcement. Come to think of it, there really weren’t any laws. If you worked, then you ate. If you did anything that jeopardized the colony, you got put outside the walls.

Eden. After the fall.

Becca didn’t mind being on food chit detail. It was one of the less strenuous jobs given to the pregnant women. She’d heard miscarriage was a huge problem in the early days when even the baby-heavy tried to pull their weight. But it wasn’t because it was easy that she enjoyed it. It was because it was one of the few duties where you got to talk to a lot of different people. She appreciated gossip as much as anyone, but it wasn’t quite that either. She’d been born on the ship, so had no recollection of this other place, the one the ship came from. Not many of the older Gardners talked about it much, but a few did. And their stories helped break up the work-sleep-work routine a little.

And her favorite was Gareth. She was pretty sure he’d been some kind of artist Before. He liked to tell stories, and every once in a while he’d get a far off look in his eye, his mouth turned up at the corners and his eyes would… twinkle. She liked that. Sometimes he’d tease others, tell stories that weren’t true but that made you feel good anyway. He even reproduced differently than the others. He’d only been assigned to her once, but the way he held her, the way he moved… It didn’t seem like he was just doing it for the extra food chits. He did things she hadn’t even imagined. And it took hours…

So she noticed when he wasn’t picking up many food chits. In fact, most of the time she saw him he seemed to be just… walking. Not with a work detail, not in any kind of hurry, just walking. She heard rumors that he’d even been wandering around the remains of the ship a few times, though no one could imagine why (since anything even remotely useful to the colony had been stripped years ago). She missed his stories. Even when he did pick up food chits, he didn’t talk much. He seemed… elsewhere.

About then there was some kind of emergency in the waste processing plant so she had to take over monitoring those displays while the techs got dirty. She only saw Gareth once that week and barely recognized him. From the grey grit that covered him it sure looked like he was working. But the way his bones stuck out, the cheeks hollow under those once dancing eyes… It didn’t look like he’d been eating much. She remembered hoping that disease wasn’t coming back, what was it called? Then she had to get back to work.

She was glad to get back on food chit detail so she could ask him how he was. But she didn’t see him at all her first day back. That was pretty odd. She hardly knew anyone who’d managed to save enough chits to take a whole day off. Not that she could imagine what someone would do if the did… By the second day she hadn’t seen him, she got nervous and started asking around. No one knew much more than she did. He hadn’t been on any work detail they’d been on, and they mostly saw him walking. Someone noticed he’d been going in a peculiar direction, toward where the wall met the mountain. But they hadn’t thought much about it. So she went back through the records, and he hadn’t picked up a food chit in… days. Something wasn’t right… She got the next person picking up a chit to spell her for a few minutes, and walked off in the direction Gareth had been seen last.

It had been a while since Becca had walked anywhere but work and home. And her belly was really staring to slow her down. By the time she got out of sight of the village she was thinking more about her bladder than Gareth. So she nearly tripped over him. He looked… well, if she’d ever had a doll, she’d have thought he looked like that. Discarded. Not so much fallen as… spent. She took a moment puzzling over the strange implements near his hands before she looked up at the mountain above him.

And then she started to cry.

Still sobbing, she somehow managed to make it back to the village. Now, a pregnant woman was by far the most valuable commodity on the planet, so everyone who noticed came running. Each tried to get out of her what was wrong. But she wouldn’t (couldn’t?) speak. She just turned and headed back toward the mountain. Those who could leave their jobs for a bit followed her. Someone tried to find a wheelchair or cart for Becca, but it didn’t look like she would slow long enough to get in it, so they gave up.

When they reached the clearing where the wall met the mountain, they stopped. They stopped as one, as if they’d hit the wall itself. Some might have seen Gareth, but most were looking up. Some wept, some gasped, no one spoke.

There, in the face of the mountain two figures were carved. A man and a woman, lovers tangled in one another. Though rough, still, they nonetheless radiated… something. Strength? Life? Eyes finally drawn downward, the figures stood atop a single word in clean block letters: HOPE.

As though the mountain had fallen on them, every man and woman there realized what they’d been missing. By now they all wept. Some with regret, some with relief, some with an overwhelming sense they didn’t have words for. Two wordlessly headed back to town for shovels to bury Gareth (the first burial on Eden since the reclamation vats got up and running.) A few more sat in a circle on the grass and, without preamble, started to plan a new structure for Gardener society: Saints days, currency, education…

As word spread, more came, some went, and they took turns keeping minutes. Though the circle grew and shrank, the spot closest to where Gareth had lain always stayed open. Even when a formal Council got elected, and a permanent council chamber built on the spot, the chair beneath the window stayed empty. No one ever mentioned it, whether it was out of respect, in memory, or just to leave a clear view to The Lovers.

But the Council wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was the moment. The moment when everyone stopped fighting for their lives and started living them. It was the 21st of Nevermore. But thereafter it would always be Gareth’s Day. The day when you gave your heart to someone. To everyone. To yourself.

... You'll Always Have Your Chow...

2010-02-28T17:32:00.000-08:00

So I joined the Army.

Yes, the U.S. Army. Yes, the one with the guns. No, I’m not kidding. I’ve explained this to enough people at this point that I might as well write it down.

I’ve always been interested in the military. Whether it was the Tale of the Man who was Too Lazy to Fail in Robert Heinlein’s “Time Enough for Love” or any of those boy-joins-army-becomes-a-hero books we read in middle school, something captured my imagination. Even those films intended as cautionary tales (Full Metal Jacket, Platoon etc.) just made me want to join up more. When I was little, my dad promised me a Corvette if I went to one of the military academies. In high school I joined sports and clubs to improve my chances to get into the Air Force Academy. I even worked for a congressman to help secure a nomination. Sure, I got into MIT and decided that would be more fun.

In college I was considering the Marine Officer Program, the Naval Nuclear Program, or the Sea Bees (the Navy’s version of the Corps of Engineers). Sure, grad school was my first choice, but if I didn’t get in or get a REALLY good job… I did get a good job, and did that for a couple of years instead.

When I discovered I hated that job, it was either the Army or grad school. I spent a number of afternoons with various recruiters, and one actually convinced me to go to grad school and do R.O.T.C. (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) as the best of both worlds. I fully intended to finish my PhD and then serve. Doctorate or not, I’d still start out as a platoon leader like everyone else but… A knee injury ended my ROTC career, and in a lucky break a simultaneous theater opportunity ended my doctoral career.

If theater weren’t one of the only careers that didn’t work with the one-weekend-a-month-two-weeks-a-year schedule of the reserves, I would have gone in anyway. Instead, it was back to grad school again. But I’ve never really given up the hope… Whenever I saw someone in a uniform I was filled with admiration for them and regret that I’d never get to know what it was like to serve. Almost all the men in my family were in one service or other. (Sure, most of them were drafted during the charming wars that dominated the middle portion of the 20th century, but still…)

So fast-forward to my latest career crisis. I still love theater and working init. When I’m working. But there’s only so much time I can spend on unemployment before I go crazy(er). Throw in not even getting called for interviews at any of the fast food places, office supply stores, video rental places, etc. The interviews I got, I didn’t get the jobs. Again, there’s only so much a guy can take.

The Army, on the other hand, pursued me. They offer job security, my choice of some 205 jobs (including military police, firefighter, and unmanned aircraft operator), pay better than most theater gigs I’ve had (even if you ignore the room-and-board aspect) and will even pay back my student loans.

The question I get second most frequently (after “Are you kidding/crazy/stupid?”) is why would you go in enlisted rather than as an officer? I do have a college degree and am therefore eligible to go in directly as a commissioned officer. But… The idea of being told what to do for a while is appealing. Or put another way, the idea of leading others when I’m still figuring things out is unappealing. Conventional wisdom has it that some of the best officers are those who were enlisted first (unless you ask the West Point alums of course…) Once I finish my first 3 years, I can either walk away, switch jobs, try for warrant officer, or go to Officer Candidate School (to become a commissioned officer.) Options. If I go to OCS to start with, my only option is to get promoted a few times. Besides, the full student loan repayment is only available to enlisted personnel.

As for which of the 205 jobs I wanted… Something in military intelligence sounded interesting. I have a friend who does Signals Intel Analysis, and she recommended it highly. I’m too accident prone for any of the traditionally “sexy” military jobs (Infantry, artillery, engineers, etc.) It’s important that it be something I still enjoy 2 years from now (so useful stuff like carpenter, electrician, plumber etc.) were probably out. Still, WHICH job in military intelligence… After huge quantities of research, I decided I really wasn’t going to know whether I was going to enjoy the job until I started doing it, so took the closest to a “generalist” position there was (Intelligence Analyst.)

I leave on May 26th to go to Basic Training at Fort Jackson (near Columbia South Carolina) for roughly 10 weeks. Then it’s off to Fort Huachuca (near Tucson Arizona) for Intelligence training. Then (sometime around the beginning of December of ’10) I find out where I go next.

There are Intelligence Analysts assigned to just about ever unit in the army. So if I wanted to badly enough, I could probably get myself put out on the pointy end. But it’s FAR more likely I’ll wind up in a basement somewhere processing data to get turned into briefings and other such thrill-a-minute madcap fun.

I’m only committed until roughly Christmas 2013. I may not be able to blog much while I’m in training. And security issues may prevent me from blogging much once I’m actually out doing it.

There are downsides of course. I’ll miss my puppy, my friends, Chicago… I’ll also miss entering the big marathons and triathlons. It will be impossible for this season at least. Thereafter… A lot depends on where I’m stationed and whether the job lets me get away for a weekend. I’ll still swim whenever I can, and hope to have my good bike with me. Obviously there will be plenty of running and pushups…

So that’s my plan. It’s good to have a plan. I will of course take your questions, but I’m pretty excited, and have actually thought this through.

Cheers!

Ironman Adventure (Part VIII)

2010-02-28T11:40:00.001-08:00

Postscript

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All's Well that Ends

Looking back over what I’ve written, I’m first struck by all the things I left out. There was a seminar the day before on swim strategies, stretches, and the advantage of skin suits. There was a second trip to the expo to buy a skin suit and stickers to choose between as a pattern for my tattoo. There was getting lost while driving the bike course with my parents, the final diner the night before (Italian, much to my dad’s chagrin… We couldn’t find my traditional Vietnamese.) There was meeting my old college friend’s parents at the hotel, the trauma of picking out things to eat for breakfast the morning of, and the still greater trauma of waking up at 4am…

But rather than talk about all that, I think I’ll move forward and talk about the events following the race.

Immediately following the race, all I wanted was a shower. You’d think real food would be high up on the list, since I’d just burnt 14,000 calories (approximately equal to what the average American consumes in a week.) But my tummy was still angry with me and I was not only caked in dried sweat, but (EWW!) still had some of the Ohio River on me. My parents walked back to the hotel with me, and then went to retrieve my bike while I got cleaned up.

On the walk back, it was easy to tell who had just finished the race. Not everyone still had their wristbands on. Not everyone was wearing their medals (a remarkable percentage of the finishers actually refused them.) But EVERYONE had “the walk.” I can’t quite describe it, but you’ll know it when you see it. There’s a wobble to it that says “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Crossing the street, passing each other on the sidewalk, the walking wounded… our eyes would meet and we’d give each other the “good race” nod. We’d all paid our dues and were in the club now. It felt pretty good.

Cleaned up, in loose fitting normally colored clothes and COMFORTABLE SHOES, my bike and gear bags returned to me, I let my parents take me back out for dinner. There were a number of restaurants right at the finish line and even though I didn’t want to think about food, I did want to see the last couple hours of finishes.

We eventually found a table at a nice Scottish-style pub (with charming waitresses in EXTREMELY charming plaid skirts.) In spite of my tummy, beer sounded pretty good. Sure, all the books say to get protein into you as soon as possible, but an anesthetic didn’t sound so bad at the moment. They were out of most of their beers (apparently this was more business than they usually got on a Sunday. Go figure…) They were incredibly apologetic, clearly not understanding how incredibly happy I was to just be sitting (or how happy my parents were that I was finally just sitting.) Plus, they had curry fries!!! It’s exactly what it sounds like: thick cut French fries with a curry gravy poured all over them. Extremely British, but yummy as hell nonetheless.

Going to the bathroom was an interesting experience. Not for any of the reasons you fear I might mean. Just that near muscle failure can make simple things like getting your pants down and back up again quite a challenge. But my bathroom experience had nothing on my fathers.

My dad’s had some knee troubles. Okay, that’s like saying the Grateful Dead had a few fans. From karate injuries to ski accidents, if it could mess up your joints or ligaments, it’s happened to the poor guy. So when he came back from the bathroom shaking his head, we wanted to know what was up. On his way in, someone congratulated him on a good race. How do you explain you didn’t do the triathlon, you’re just broken? So as a gentleman raised in the south, he merely said thank you and went about his business.

Back at the table, we asked dad what he was grinning about. “Apparently” he replied, “I walk like an Ironman!”

I got down some food (I could now officially make my body do whatever I wanted it to. Its feedback was welcome, but I’d shown it who was boss.) And though my parents had already watched a few hours of finishes, I’d barely experienced my own. Furthermore, the folks who finished in the last hour or so were a special kind of tough, so I wanted to go out and watch the last finishes.

Even though I’d just done it myself, watching these folks was incredible. Most of them came in barely winded (having walked much of the last several miles.) Their smiles, their tears, the cheers of friends, of family, of perfect strangers… It made it even more real, more incredible, and more significant. That’s what I looked like. This is what my parents felt. This was… magnificent.

Next to us was a woman who waiting for her brother to finish. Based on the last computer update, he should have been finishing any minute now. And yet we didn’t see him. His name didn’t come up on the electronic next-few-finishers board. It kept getting closer and closer to midnight. My own story having drawn to a close, we were living and dying with hers. Though this particular tale ended in victory (he made it with 12 minutes to spare) it did highlight the number of tales that ended in defeat. The toughest job any volunteer could possibly have is the person at the 25 mile mark who around 11:53 had to stop people and tell them that their day was done, that they wouldn’t be crossing the finish line. I couldn’t imagine what that must have done to people who had traveled nearly 140 miles and fallen just short. Or what their sobs, their blank faces, their abject agony must have done to the blue-shirted angels delivering the news.

Still, it was with an air of celebration that the last finisher was welcomed, the day officially brought to a close, and we left downtown Louisville for our beds. And NEVER was a set of sheets so inviting. It may come as no surprise to you, dear reader that I was out as my head hit the pillow. And I slept the sleep of the dead, of the victorious, of those rare times when absolutely everything’s been crossed off the to-do list.

You’d think I’d have slept in, tried to repay some of the energy debt I’d built up. But you’d be wrong. I was up nice and early. The body wanted calories, the brain wanted to see if the expo was open, and the parents wanted to get to the bourbon distilleries. (Why on earth would you get to Louisville Kentucky and NOT go and tour a bourbon distillery?)

Calories happened. Do we ever get over the joy of our parents buying us food?) Over breakfast it was decided that my parents had enough fun that they wanted to do this again, and they wanted to volunteer next time. But they wanted it to be closer to them. Alas the nearest Ironman to their home was Lake Placid, which had been sold out for ages. All that was left was a few “Community Slots”(available if you doubled the significant entry fee, with the other half going to charity). Dad asked for the web address and signed me up on the spot.

My father’s pride-induced generosity didn’t end there. Noting that I’d had “wheel envy” all weekend, he offered to get me a new set of wheels at the expo. You should note that super-light super aerodynamic wheels can cost as much as a whole bike. I was trying really hard not to be the throw-money-at-it kind of triathlete, even when it was someone else’s money. But oh BOY those wheels are sexy. So I let him talk me into it.

The expo, however, did not happen. The merchants collectively decided that three thousand proud and elated athletes, more than a third of them newly minted Ironmen (and women) looking to do some celebratory spending weren’t worth waiting around for. The folks renting out the fancy wheels were still there (they had to receive the wheels people were returning), but the guy authorized to make deals on used wheels wasn’t around. They gave me a business card. The lines to buy photographs from the race were unmanageable as well. Ah well. We had better places to be anyway.

Bourbon Tour! Buffalo Trace gives a decent tour. And our tour guide was OUTSTANDING. I had most of the data from my previous trip to the Makers’ Mark distillery. But watching my father, like a grown up kid in a grown-up candy store, made the merely interesting wonderful. Plus, I’m still enough of an engineer that I find any manufacturing process fascinating. And I will never ever grow weary of the smell in the barrel aging houses. Open brick buildings full of oak barrels and the smell of good whiskey… heavenly.

We had dinner with an old babysitter of mine who had since moved to Louisville. Catching up was fun, eating what I wanted instead of what I should/planned to was wonderful. Drinking alcohol again was HEAVENLY! Now I’m no alcoholic, but going without something you rather enjoy for 2 months is no fun at all. And a big chocolaty slushy creamy bourbony Mudslide was just what the doctor ordered! But possibly the most interesting part of dinner was discussion of the tattoo.

As I may have mentioned, there’s a particular tattoo that only those who have successfully completed an Ironman are “allowed” to get. Despite my terror of needles in general and the idea of millions of needle-sticks leaving me permanently disfigured in specific, I had been planning on getting this tattoo once I’d earned it. Of course, the original plan was to do it as soon as I finished the race so the endorphins kept me from feeling quite so much of the pain. However, in the light of day, with the ordeal behind me, a drink in my hand, and comfort returning, it no longer seemed quite as necessary. My father (always a good influence) would hear none of it, and threatened to carry my broken body to the tattoo parlor himself. My old babysitter knew of a good place, and wanted to come watch. The thing had acquired both momentum and a surreal silliness. What the hell. I had purchased a sticker to use as a pattern, so I might as well.

Picture the scene: I’m lying face down on the chair while a large man covered with (reassuringly excellent) tattoos works on my calf, squeezing my mothers hand and mewling like a wuss. My father and babysitter are standing against the wall snickering. The girl in the chair next to me is getting a peach-colored rose tattooed where her pubic hair would otherwise have been. Heavy metal music blared so loudly that you could feel it in your muscles (I now understand why the blast heavy metal at tattoo joints… it sounds like you feel. It engages and distracts the parts of your brain that would otherwise be miserable. And it covers the worst of the whimpering.) Halfway through the process, I realized I hadn’t asked my tattoo artist’s name. Imagine letting someone do something like that to you and not even being on a first name basis…

Minutes or hours later, when it was finished and I was given all the dire warnings and care instructions, I though we were out of there. But my mother, after determining that I hadn’t actually broken her hand, decided she’d get a tattoo as well (a firefly that looks like a birthmark). So while waiting for her, my old babysitter asked me what was to become a very common question: “So which was worse, the tattoo, or the Ironman?” And I gave the answer that seemingly only makes sense to me: The tattoo was worse. I was familiar with all the pain the Ironman would impose. I was in complete control of it and could stop, slow, or adjust something at any time. And there was nothing (but “food” and water) going inside me. The tattoo was new, foreign, and out of my control. But once I got the plastic off and the bleeding etc stopped, it looked COOL! I’m glad I didn’t go any smaller. :)

I stayed an extra afternoon after my parents left, and I did a little wandering (including getting my picture taken with Louisville’s favorite son, Harlan Sanders), but spent most of it eating. My body had no idea when I’d try something stupid like that again, so it wanted as much food as I could give it. I found a local chain/fast-food barbecue place called “FireFresh” and got to work. After returning to the counter after the 2nd full meal I’d eaten, they started giving me free food just to see how much I’d eat. Lets just say I… impressed them.

But just as entertaining as the gluttony was the fact that I got an email announcing that the World Triathlon Corporation (the folks who own and run the Ironman-brand races) were starting a new event… in my home town of Syracuse, NY. It was only a half, but getting to stay at my parents place, run and bike on streets I knew pretty well… I signed up more or less instantly. I also forwarded the information to my parents so they could volunteer for that one too. My mother thanked me for the info, but told me she wouldn’t be volunteering. She’d be entering the race. The 60-year-old women who’d finished the Ironman were just that inspirational. Well, I guess I know where I got my “if you can dream it you can do it” attitude. But that will be the topic of another post. For now, I’m long overdue to draw this saga to a close.

What did I learn? I really can do anything. It really is mostly mental. Organized athletics are FUN! Family is important. Planning always pays off. Crazy people, when they’re YOUR kind of crazy, can be pretty wonderful. And yes, I want to do this again. There’s just one complication… I went and joined the Army. And their schedule is significantly less flexible than the theater community. So no triathlons for me this coming season. But I sure as hell will continue to have adventures. But that too will be a subject for future blog posts.

Thanks for coming on this adventure with me. Below are some more photos and even a video (For a larger version, click here for Mac, and here for PC.) Many thanks to all who helped get me here, made it possible, and made it fun. I love you all!

Ironman Adventure (Part VII)

2010-01-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

Runnin' Down A Dream
-or-
It's Not the End of the World, But You Can See It From Here

The first thing I noticed as I started the run was that I had TOO MUCH CRAP! Having food and other sundries tucked in every pocket, armhole, and leg hole is fine on the bike, but running is a much bumpier motion. Plus they’d have food at the aid stations (every mile or so). So within the first few hundred yards, I gave the things I wouldn’t need to spectators. One nice old man got a bag of dark chocolate Hershey’s Kisses. A couple of strapping young men got Cherry Pretzel Pro Bars. And one slightly perplexed little girl got a whole tube of Zym Tabs. I hope she read the package before popping them in her mouth (since they’re supposed to be added to water, and would be like a whole package of gator-aid flavored pop rocks if taken orally). I was officially a Stranger With Candy.

One thing I didn’t get rid of was my tubes of Advil and Sport Legs. Sure, the rattling was destined to drive me (and anyone running near me) absolutely insane, but they were essential to my Plan. And you don’t deviate from The Plan if you can help it.

In addition to over-the-counter not-dying aids, The Plan consisted of running 26 ten-minute miles. It was a nice, flat course so I decided slow and consistent was the way to go. This meant I’d have to work at keeping my pace down at first, but I’d be working to keep it up later on. Save-and-spend was the name of the game. Beyond that it’s “Left foot, right foot, repeat as necessary”.

The only “hill” was at the 1/2-mile mark, when you ran half way across the bridge to Indiana. It was barely a hill even by Chicago standards, and we’d only just begun so were still comparatively fresh. As such the combination of the view, the endorphins, and knowledge that it was all flat after this made it a pretty glorious way to start off. The first aid station was on the bridge, and there I rediscovered an old friend: The ice water soaked sponge. It may seem like a silly thing, but it’s a soggy lump of gold. Running it over your forehead and the back of your neck keeps your core temperature down, wakes you up, and is generally better than an energy drink.

I was feeling good. I mean really good! Sure, I was going slower than I usually do, but it actually felt like I was starting a run, not rolling into my 9th hour of non-stop exercise. And there were finally plenty of people to talk to! One girl in a tiara was celebrating her 30th birthday. Of course everyone wanted to know if doing a triathlon for her birthday seemed as good an idea now as it did when she signed up. I was starting to recognize people: the incredibly tall guy I’d lent my bike pump to that morning, the 72 year old guy with the great voice, the Mexican guy who held the record for the most Ironmans completed. I had all the air in the world, so was encouraging people, making jokes, generally enjoying myself.

Part of the enjoyment was the spectators. There were understandably more people around the run course than the bike course (since it was actually in town, and a good deal more compact.) There were several impromptu “bands” (mostly rhythm sections) playing at various points, people holding up signs, cheering, and, of course, plenty of cow bell!

But even more wonderful than the spectators were the volunteers. They would look you in the eye, call you by name, and wish you luck, all in the time it too to hand you a cup of water. When you thanked them for helping out, they would thank you for coming to their city. These people were out in the sun for hours handing out food and drink and cleaning up cups and banana peels and they were still incredibly friendly, fun, and helpful. If you ever get a chance, volunteer to work at a race. It’s a simple way to make a huge difference in the lives of thousands.

Speaking of food and drink, the selection they were offering was pretty incredible. In addition to the water, Gatorade, and bananas offered at most races, there was pepsi, pretzels, grapes, power bars, and even chicken broth. And these were available to you every mile or so. I mostly stuck to water and the Shot Blocks I’d brought with me, but the salt of the pretzels was a nice counterpoint to all the sweet things I’d been eating all day. But the big discovery was that grapes are absolutely the perfect race food. They’re small, self-contained, don’t get your hands sticky, and you can eat the whole thing so there’s no peel or wrapper to deal with. They’ve got sugar, water, and even a little bit of electrolytes. And unlike all the processed manufactured foods, they just taste… natural.

Now if only my stomach were as happy as my mouth… All day long I’d been shoving food down much faster than my system was used to. I was burning it even faster, but my stomach still wasn’t prepared for this kind of turnover. By 5 miles into the run, anything I put into my mouth (even water) made me feel incredibly nauseous. But like the man said, “when you feel good, eat. When you feel lousy, eat.” I couldn’t afford to get dehydrated or run out of calories, so I just kept taking it in and hoping I’d keep it down. Believe me, it was close a few times…

The course was basically an out-and-back done twice, so you passed most of the same points 4 times. This generally helps me a great deal. I like being familiar with a course, knowing that this turn means that tree’s coming up, which means it’s just a little way to that bridge. It keeps me sane. Here, unfortunately, it meant the cruel mile markers again. Passing the 17 mile mark when you’re 4 miles in just makes the finish seem that much farther away. But that’s not nearly as cruel as passing the finish line when you’re only 1/2 way through the race. It was nice to get a good look at it, hear the cheers, feel the energy of the crowd. Turning away, on the other hand, heading back out sure felt like running up hill. But the two times you hit the turnaround and got to head back toward the finish felt a little like you were going down hill, so I guess it comes out even.

Along the way, we ran through downtown Loiusville, past the University of Louisville, Churchill Downs (where the Kentucky Derby is run) and some really cute neighborhoods. The scenery almost distracted me from all the math. If I started walking now, what time would I finish? If I started crawling right now, would I be able to finish before midnight? If I kept up this pace, what time will I finish? Hey, wait a minute… do that math again… carry the one… Well that’s unexpected!

If I wasn’t coming down with a case of exercise-induced acalculia, I was going to finish an hour sooner than the best-case time I’d given my parents. I had to update them or they might not be there when I finished (which, as you can probably imagine would be… disappointing.) But how do you get a message to someone when you don’t have a cell phone, don’t know anyone, and frankly really shouldn’t stop what you’re doing? I simply channeled Blanche Dubois and relied on the kindness of strangers.

As I passed a group of spectators lounging in lawn chairs, I shouted out “Does anyone have a cell phone?” This adorable little girl of maybe 16 jumped up and started running alongside me asking who I needed her to call. Have I mentioned that I LOVE the people of Louisville? It took me several tries to give her my mother’s cell number (mine kept coming out of my mouth.) I explained the situation to her, and just when it seemed like she was going to make the Right Thing happen, she asked me for my name. I was briefly baffled. Mom didn’t have more than one son running the triathlon today, the message should be pretty clear without that info. Plus… what the hell was my name? Oh, right, it’s right under the number on the front of my shirt…

I didn’t think about the fact that getting a call from a strange Kentucky number was likely to make mom assume it was an emergency room calling. I didn’t know that the computer program tracking the athletes had decided to stop updating my times around the middle of the run, so for all she knew I was already dead. No, I had other things on my mind. Like my quads rebelling again.

Yup, the electric shocks were back. I was still moving along at my planned pace, but the fact that it felt like someone was tasering my inner thighs each stride was likely to slow me down a little. I increased my water intake, took the last of my Advil and Sportlegs, and stuck to the game plan: Right foot, left foot. Repeat as necessary.

Picking up my final “special needs” bag was a nice boost as well. It was somewhere past halfway, had some more coconut water, some dark chocolate Hershey’s Kisses, and a little note that said “If you can read this KEEP RUNNING!” Coincidentally, this was also the point where I calculated I could crawl the remainder of the course and still finish on time. Screw my quads. I’ve got this.

A similar message came up when I passed the “Nike Inspiration Station.” There had been a computer at the expo where you could enter a message for a particular runner. When the chip they wore was detected, their message would be put up on a giant screen as they ran bye. Well, I have no idea if I’d written this or if someone else did, but when my message came up, it said “Congratulations! You’re not dead yet!!!” You have to love the Ironman sense of humor…

As the finish line drew closer, I realized something I had neglected in all the math: the sun was still up. And it would probably still be up when I finished! Sure, that had a lot to do with it being August, but still… It looked like I was going to finish before they started handing out glow sticks. It was a goal I didn’t even know about until the banquet a couple days earlier, a goal I didn’t even consider then. There’s something funny about over-achieving when you weren’t even sure that achieving would be possible.

What wasn’t funny was the urgent agony signals my left little toe was sending me. My quads had finally gone numb (that’s a good thing, right?) so they were no longer masking whatever was happening to my toe. It felt for all the world like it had gotten under the toe next to it somehow and was being ground into hamburger. I was only 5 kilometers from the finish now, so there was no way even personal mutilation was going to slow me down. But it was somewhat… disheartening.

Toe or no toe, that 25 mile marker sure looked pretty. And I still had energy left. Maybe not a lot, but I wasn’t walking, I wasn’t crawling, I could still think, I could still see… There didn’t seem any good reason to leave that energy unused, so as I passed the final mile marker, I sped up.

You couldn’t quite mistake it for a sprint (though it sure felt like it at the time.) I barely dipped under a 9 minute mile. But since it was the 140th mile of the day, it was still an impressive effort. I know I should have been taking in every detail of that last mile, but all I could think about was the finish line. I was trying to outrun the pain in my toe, trying to get to my parents, the celebration part of the day, the shower!

The crowds got thicker, louder… There was the spot where I’d turned left before, but now got to go straight. I could hear the announcer, the music, see the lights… And there it was: The finish arch. The chute. The clock. The Finish.

Here words fail me. I want to tell you ever detail, the way the carpet felt under my sneakers, the sound of people pounding on the boards lining the chute, the way the arch seemed to pull you toward it… But I don’t remember any of that. I saw that there was a guy who had entered the chute in front of me, but was taking his time slapping hands and waving to the crowd. I had enough left that if I truly sprinted, I could cross the line in front of him. I’d forgotten that we’d all started at different times, so he may well have beaten me anyway, or I could already have as much as 15 minutes on him, but right then all I knew is that I had one more goal: Beating this guy.

I succeeded. Pretty much in general. I crossed the line ahead of that guy, with a smile on my face, in under 17 hours, and I didn’t even have to go to the medical tent. I’m pretty sure the announcer said “Adam Ganderson, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!!” but I have no clear recollection of that. I do know a guy put a medal over my head (which confused me. I didn’t think we got medals. I thought it was just a t-shirt…) and another guy came over to start asking me questions. I really had no use for him, I just wanted to find my parents. But he kept talking to me and it eventually became clear his job was to determine how I was doing and deal with me accordingly. It took much longer than I would have thought to convince him I was moving fine, thinking clearly, and just wanted to find my parents. Oh, and where the hell was my t-shirt?

Over the course of 18 months of training, there are a lot of long work-outs and low points. Among the things that got me though were several “finish line fantasies”: Things I imagined doing when I reached the finish line. I’d stop right across the finish line and not let them move me until I saw someone finish after me. Yelling something like “I’m tougher than Phedipides!!!” Asking the first person I saw “What’s next? Do we swim again?” But while all those images helped, actually getting to do one was… beyond priceless.

My parents were there, at the edge of the chute just past the finish line (taking photos more or less continuously). I broke free of my handler and walked over to them. “Mom, dad… I didn’t walk.” Maybe they knew what I was talking about. Maybe they understood the significance of that. Maybe they were just glad to see their baby still smiling and were about to burst with pride. But they seemed nearly as pleased as I was.

I still had to go through quite a gauntlet. Return my timing chip, get my t-shirt and hat (“Ironman Louisville 2009 Finisher”; Far and away the most expensive shirt I’ll ever own), have the silvery “space blanket” wrapped around me, several more vows that I did not need any medical assistance. At last I was out on the streets of Louisville with my parents. I did it. It took me a few seconds over thirteen hours, but I’d done just what I’d set out to do.

I was an Ironman.

Ironman Adventure (Part VI)

2009-11-04T22:02:00.000-08:00

From Another Perspective
-or-
A Parental Interlude

My parents were having a somewhat different experience. Sure, they were glad to be there for their little boy. Sure, my mom was still worried something would happen to me. Sure, my dad was impressed with the general level of organization and craziness. But they were having a GREAT time! The folks running this thing did a fantastic job creating a festival environment. From busing you around to the best cheering spots to providing noise makers to playing music and running commentary, they did their best to take as good care of the spectators as they did the athletes. Plus there’s just something contagious about that much excitement. They got to cheer for me on my way in and out of the water, and a couple times on the bike. They had updates of my progress on their cell phones (though not the GPS data they would have liked.) And of course my mother can make friends with anyone.

It wasn’t all good mind you. One spot they wanted to cheer from was being obscured by a particularly nasty and uncooperative spectator. And at one point the athlete tracker stopped updating my information. It claimed I’d never gotten past halfway on the bike. Though they’d SEEN me past halfway. So it was hopefully a temporary glitch. But I could be dead and they wouldn’t know it. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I was WAY off of the estimated times I’d given them, so they didn’t see me finishing the bike or starting the run either. And the real heart attack came when mom got a phone call from a Kentucky number and was CONVINCED it was someone at the local emergency room calling to tell her that her baby was suffering from heat exhaustion or severe being-hit-by-a-car or something. That turned out not to be the case, but they decided just to head to the finish line and get a good spot to watch there for a while.

And they got a PERFECT spot. They were right alongside the finish chute just past the finish line. From where they were, they could see the big video board of people coming down the chute, then turn and watch them actually cross the finish line. And though they did this for several hours, it never got boring.

Some people crossed the line looking like they’d barely worked up a sweat. Some were clearly only being held together with spandex and determination. One guy did cartwheels across the line, another stopped, did twenty push-ups, stood back up, then collapsed across the line. More than a few had no idea who or where they were, and one guy just kept running. Volunteers had to run after him and tackle him to get him to stop. But the truly amazing part was that everybody, every single person, from the show-offs to the train-wrecks pressed the button on their watches as they crossed the line (even if the did so on their way to the ground.) Yup. This is a special breed alright…

But even more impressive to my parents than the nut-jobs finishing were the volunteers staffing the finish area. There was one guy whose only job was to put medals over peoples heads. Then, past him, there were dozens of men and women standing in a line. Each time someone finished, a volunteer would come over and take charge of them. They would evaluate how well the athlete was functioning, how well they were moving, and decide whether to escort them to their family and friends, to the medical tent, or into a wheelchair. They got you water, the finishers hat and t-shirt, congratulated you, all the while keeping an eye on you for any signs of shock, trauma, exhaustion, or any of the dozens of other things all that exercise can do to you. As medical professionals themselves, my parents really appreciated this, and each decided they wanted to volunteer for my next race (whatever that would be.)

It helped that the finish was along a permanently closed off section of 4th Street that was packed with bars and restaurants, where outdoor concerts and festivals were frequently held. So any time the human drama grew tiresome, there was beer and victuals a few steps away. They were having a pretty good time. Now there was just hoping their son would come across in one piece…

Ironman Adventure (Part V)

2009-11-04T21:47:00.000-08:00

Bike 112 Miles
-or-
Why is it Always INTO The Wind?

The bike offers plenty of time to think. I spent the first few miles being grateful that they weren’t enforcing the drafting rules back here in the middle of the pack. There were so many of us bunched together that keeping 7 meters apart would have been patently impossible anyway. It was all I could do to keep from passing on the right when someone slowed ahead of me. But I was moving right along, feeling good. I kept eating (nearly 2 hours in the water meant 2 hours of not eating I had to make up for.) I kept peddling. Sure, 112 miles is a long way, but how bad could it be?

Then we hit the hills.

I had trained in Chicago. Now I’m not saying Chicago’s flat on a molecular level, but the step up to the sidewalk is the biggest change in elevation in most areas. I knew there were “gently rolling hills” and a few “challenging climbs” but… Wow. These weren’t short steep climbs; they were long stretches up or down. And given the out-and-back or loop nature of most of the course, any down was likely to be an up later on. And before long, I decided I liked the up-hills better than the downhills.

On the advice of the fine folks at my bike shop, I’d bought a set of gears for my back wheel that was better suited for a hilly course (bigger low gears mostly.) So I found myself cruising past people on the up-hills simply because I had more mechanical advantage. Uphill was also an excuse to sit up and get out of the efficient but uncomfortable “aero” position. I wasn’t going fast enough for it to make much difference, so why not stretch a little? So not only were the up-hills good for the ego, they were good for the body too.

Downhill was a different story. 30 miles an hour may be creeping along for a car, but on a bike it’s a thrill ride. The scary kind. At 35 miles an hour some trick of the wind or the road surface made for a disconcerting wobble. And at 40 mph… helmet or not, that’s not a fall you get up from with verve and aplomb. So from time to time I found myself doing the ultimate Ironman no-no: using my brakes. I might pay for throwing away energy like that later on, but right then, not knowing the road surface very well, other bikes on all sides of me, scabs from recent falls barely healed, I chose the better part of valor.

Essentially those passing on the uphill were the ones with the best gears. Those passing on the downhill were the ones with the most guts. Only on the flat did the legs matter.

And what legs! Our ages were written on the backs of our left calves, which provided at least one reason to look. Ostensibly it was to know what age group someone was in (and therefore whether you were competing with them for a Kona slot or just standings among your peers.) But it also offered some entertainment (one girl had written “and single” below her 29) humility (getting passed by 50 and 60 year olds helps keep one… focused) and even helped you hold onto a little dignity (the pros had “P” on the back of their calves, lest you mistake them for normal mortals.) In fact, because the course was mostly a big loop you did twice, I got to see some of the pros pass me. One woman in particular hit a hill about the same time I did and (by working harder than I probably should have) I got to stay with her for a little while. Her bike shorts were bikini-cut and showed an incredible amount of muscled hip and thigh. She had ridges of muscle places I’d never seen them before. It was humbling to see that much power up close. When she pulled away, I silently wished her luck, and got back to my own race.

Of course, I was passing people too. There’s a thrill to passing someone in better shape, with bigger calves, with a more expensive bike. But sometimes I’d pass someone who was… big. Not large framed, not heavily muscled, actually fat. On the one hand, I wanted to cheer for them. Not only did they have the guts to enter the race to begin with, but they’d gotten this far with no sign of giving up, giving in, or giving way. On the other hand… I couldn’t help but wonder how they’d gotten ahead of me to begin with. Still, I generally had the air for an “On your left” or a “Stay strong! Looking good!”

The loop nature of the course made for some inadvertent cruelty. The loop was about 40 miles long, so they had both sets of mile markers. When you’re 50 miles in, seeing a sign that says “90 miles” is just inhumane. I know there’s no other way to do it, but…

It also helped remind me of the cutoff times. I had gotten out of the water well ahead of the 9:45am cutoff. The next cutoff was the halfway point of the bike. If you hadn’t passed it by 2:15pm they stopped you and took you off the course. You had to be done with the bike by 6:00pm, past the halfway point of the run by 9:00pm and done with the run by midnight. I thought of these as the bullets I had to dodge. That may seem like a depressing way to look at it, but there’s just no way to wrap your head around 140.6 miles. Making it into 5 separate races (each with its own terrifying immutable deadline) helped.

Mostly, those deadlines gave me something to think about. The worst part of biking for 112 miles is the boredom. You can’t talk to anyone (because of the drafting rules) you don’t have earphones on for the music/podcasts you trained with, so you’ve got to do something to keep from going crazy (crazier.) Some people talk to themselves (amusing when you pass or are passed by them.) I mostly did math. If I continue at this speed, what time will I get to the next checkpoint? How fast would I have to go to get there at this time? If I get to the next checkpoint at this time, how fast would I have to go to get to the one after that at this time? If I get to the next checkpoint at this time, how slow can I go and still make the next cutoff?

The rest of what kept me occupied was eating. I knew I had to eat a lot more than my body thought it wanted, so any time I discovered my mouth wasn’t full, I’d dig into my suit and peel or unwrap something. It takes a lot more concentration than you’d think to hold onto the bar or banana you’re working on and still steer, shift gears, deal with bumps etc. And putting flavor/energy/electrolyte tablets into the bottle between my handlebars and refilling it from one of the bottles under my seat was… Well, if you saw someone doing anything that involved while driving a car, you’d read them the riot act. Still, it wasn’t boring. :)

The funny thing is that no individual moment was all that hard. Just keep peddling. Just keep eating. Do some math. Don’t fall down. Don’t run into anyone else. Try to stay down in the aerodynamic position (no matter how much your back hurts.) Is it time to take more Advil yet? Do some more math. Look! Horses!

Because boredom was as much the enemy as your own body’s betrayal, almost any distraction was a welcome one. The greatest treat was random people parked on the side of the road with their car stereos blasting. They were usually holding signs rooting for someone in particular, but those few moments of rock-and-roll were incredibly energizing, and did as much (or more) than cheering or even cowbells! There were some other entertaining distractions of course. There was a small group of girls in outrageous wigs and sparkly dresses dancing to bad disco on the side of the course. One of the dresses was so tiny that not only could you see her undies, you could tell that those undies were much too tight for her. Yes, I was going past at more than 25 miles per hour, but the “camel-toe” effect is pretty distinctive.

My other favorite distraction was the “town” of LaGrange. To be fair, it was little more than an exit off the highway that we’d pass twice, but they were bussing people from downtown Louisville, and had set up a rather festive cheer zone. And my parents were there. Cheering is always delightful and helpful, but there were 2 people there who were cheering just for ME! It was a slight downhill stretch, so I got into my most sleek, photogenic position, and scanned the crowd. I actually made eye contact with them both times. Of course I was doing this mostly for myself, my own sense of accomplishment. But for those two moments, I was a little boy glowing with “Look Mom, look Dad, I’m doing this!!!”

The second time through LaGrange, they were handing us our “Special Needs Bags” These are bags we had prepared ourselves, and filled full of anything we might need 60 miles into our bike ride. The pros either skipped them or took what they needed and tossed the rest without even slowing. I pulled over, used the portapoty and went through my bag carefully. Most of it was just-in-case duplicates of stuff I already had (extra tubes, inflators, patch kits etc.) I shoved most of the food into my suit, drank my coconut water, and got back on the road. It was a nice break, and because it was past the halfway mark, it meant I’d dodged another bullet (ahead of the cutoff by more than 90 minutes). Now all the big mile markers were for me, and though I was still going up and down all the same hills as last loop, it FELT a little easier.

A quick word on the aid stations: these were areas where dozens of volunteers were handing off water bottles, bananas, power bars, and catching trash. The rule was if you were caught littering or throwing trash anywhere but the designated areas, you’d be disqualified. So the volunteers tried to make this fun: They put bullseyes around garbage cans and hockey nets for us to toss empty bottles at. They were doing the “last chance to throw things away” dance at the end of the aid area. And they actually RAN at top speed in an effort to more closely match velocity with us when handing things off. Sure, some of the bananas were mashed by the time they were in your control, but I didn’t see a single bar, bottle, or banana fall.

Not everyone along the course was so supportive… Someone had painted an Ironman logo (the “M-dot”) on the road with a circle around it and a line through it. And they’d thrown hundreds of tacks along the road as well. What harm were we doing? Sure, traffic got a little strange for a few hours, but come on! I didn’t hit any of them, but did pass people who’d gotten stuck with flats twice. Technically, assisting another rider would disqualify both of you. But cyclists are just programmed to ask “are you okay?” or “do you have everything you need” when you pass someone broken down. Around the 100-mile mark, I passed someone obviously dealing with a flat and asked if she had everything she needed. Turns out her spare tube was torn or the wrong size or something. I still had 2 extras so gave her one of mine. Screw the rules; it’s the right thing to do.

Speaking of “screw the rules” I REALLY had to go to the bathroom. They’d been very clear that any public urination would get you thrown off the course. They’d promised portapotties every mile on the run course, but there just weren’t that many on the bike. I know the “right thing” is just to let it flow and damn the consequences, but I’d come this far without having to, and I had decided to be stubborn. I was so close to the transition area, but I knew from experience that when I have to go, I make mistakes. And this would be a bad time to make mistakes. So after a mile or two of earnestly looking for portapottys, I gave up and started looking for discrete shrubbery. I waited for a cop to pass me, found a thicket that looked like it needed watering, and dismounted. Success. Back in the saddle with just a few more miles to go.

Here I was, nearly done with the hard(est) part. Most of the way was literally down hill from here. Sure, my feet were killing me despite the cushioned insoles I put in my bike shoes. And my back was pretty sore from being hunched over for 6 or 7 hours. But I was going to finish the bike WAY ahead of the cutoff time, and there were even some other cyclists to make conversation with. Just when it seemed like it was start to get fun, it suddenly got incredibly scary. An electric shock was running down the inside of my right thigh. Stretching it out didn’t help. And it didn’t seem momentary either. This could be a race-ender. But I couldn’t think about that. I just had to keep trying things. I tried biking with one leg for a while (something I’d actually practiced as part of my training. You never know.) That helped a bit. Then I put both feet on the pedals, but only pushed with the good leg. Better still. Finally I used it just a little, then a little more. I could still feel something, but the leg worked. Okay, it was just a moment in time. I can do this.

It was time to sit up, stretch in the saddle, pedal backwards, and generally get my back and legs ready to switch to running. I started going through the transition in my head, reviewing what order I’d do things, and generally getting excited to be done with all the yucky stuff and out on the run. That was my strength, my bread-and-butter, my happy place. No equipment, no fighting for breath, getting kicked in the head (hopefully). We were getting to the good stuff. My “cool down.” All these happy thoughts got me through the cramp-induced panic and into the transition area.

Here, one of the coolest things EVER happened. I’ve never felt more like a rock-star than when I threw one leg over my bike, rolled to the “dismount line”, clipped out of the other pedal, and just handed my bike to a volunteer. They took my bike back to the rack for me so I could hobble off to the transition area. It may not sound like much if you’ve never done a triathlon, but that’s like valet service combined with a lap dance to us. And the hobbling was because there are huge bindings on the bottom of the bike shoes. Makes it easy to pedal, but awfully tough to run. Still, there were a few hundred yards separating me from my beloved running shoes, and I had places to be. So hobble briskly I did.

Again, I yelled out my number, and some angel of a volunteer found my transition bag and ran it over to me. Back to the boys’ tent to change shoes, stuff more food in my suit, and get back out there. I had just purchased some fancy elastic laces so I could just pull my running shoes on. This seemed BRILLIANT, especially after my last tri, when I forgot to untie my shoes, so had to untie double knots in transition. I switched my sunglasses for my regular ones, since the sun would surely be down before I finished. I pondered briefly whether to bother with the hat. I really only put it in there to help remind me to… Oh. Right. So I took off my helmet, and put on the hat, glad that me-yesterday was a hell of a lot smarter than me-today. I drank my coconut water, hit the portapotty one more time (just to be safe) and breezed out of the tent with a nice rolling gait. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more like an athlete.

Ironman Adventure (Part IV)

2009-10-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

Words of Advice
-or-
Grasping for Genius

Our room was up on the 24th floor, which meant I spent a great deal of time on the elevator. When the “normal” people weren’t teasing us for not taking the stairs (“I thought you were big bad athletes!”) we talked amongst ourselves. And the conversations always started the same way: After seeing the bike, the funny clothes, or the wrist-band, I would ask “Is this your first?” If it was, I’d ask if they’d done a half, how their training had been, what their goal was. If not, I’d ask how many they’d done and what advice they had.

The advice was mostly common sense, but I devoured it as though it was the difference between life and death. The most common response was “Just enjoy yourself.” After hearing that a dozen times, I finally got the nerve to ask what that meant. Turns out that is triathlete speak for don’t push too hard and try to take in the details. Reasonable, if somewhat mind-boggling. Other brilliant suggestions included taking it slow (save as much as you can early on, so you have it to spend toward the end), and treat the first one as a learning experience (don’t try to have a brilliant race, just take notes on what to do for the next one). On particularly wonderful suggestion was not to bother bringing an extra tire (everyone carried extra tubes, but a sliced tire could end your race.) You could line the sliced section of your tire with a folded dollar bill and it would ride just like new. It was hilarious to me that the least expensive piece of gear I’d be carrying would be actual cash…

But the most critical advice, the bit that actually did save my race came from my friend’s little brother. He asked about my “nutrition plan” (what I was planning to eat during the race and how often.) I intended eat a Pro Bar or banana every hour or so. He thought for a moment and replied that that would work as long as I didn’t plan to run. Wait, what? Since you can’t eat anything during the swim, you start the bike in a pretty serious calorie debt. Between the heat and the exertion, your body probably won’t let you eat much on the run. So you have to spend the bike not only getting even, but getting as far ahead on calories as you possibly can. A meal worth of calories every half hour was a much better idea. The rule, he said is that if you feel good, eat. If you feel crappy… eat.

Now I was wracking my brain to figure out where I could PUT all that food. I would get to pick up my “special needs bag” at the half way point on the bike, so I only had to keep 3-4 hours of food on my person at a time. However, I only had 2 small pouches in the back of my suit, and had stubbornly resisted strapping pouches/bags/boxes to my sexy aerodynamic bike. So I did what any frightened athlete would do: I called my coach.

Jeff, whose common sense and tough love had gotten me this far, once again saved the day. “You’re wearing a one-piece tri suit right? Just stuff things into the armholes, up the legs, into the chest where it zips… I can carry a whole grocery store with me if I want to.” GENIUS!!! I planned it all out: 2 pro bars and a tube of pills in each pocket (Advil for pain and “Sport Legs” to help prevent lactic acid build up), a banana and some shot blocks in each armhole, and a tube of Zym Tabs up each leg.

The last piece of advice I got, however, was the one that occupied my mind the most. “Nothing ever goes quite as expected. Always have a backup plan.” I thought this stunning valkyrie meant sign up for a second race (which I’d already done.) No, she meant for any given step of this race. What if you start cramping, if your stomach rebels, if you break a chain ring… I make backup plans for a living, and I have a very vivid imagination. My coach’s words floated back to me “Success isn’t keeping anything from going wrong, it’s recovering well when something does.” Well, at least now I had plenty to think about.

Ironman Adventure (Part III)

2009-10-17T09:09:00.001-07:00

Swim 2.4 Miles

-or-

Getting Kicked in the Head for Fun and Profit

The jump into the water had been less traumatic than I thought. I got off to the side, took a moment to check in with the cosmos, and started swimming. I was focused on swimming as slowly as possible: a mellow economy of motion that was more glide than hurry. It didn’t work. After 200 yards I was exausted, gasping, and hopeless. But on the bright side, this always happens to me, so I knew something would get me out of it. This time it was looking up and seeing someone stroking slower, kicking slower, and still moving faster than me. Okay, think technique, sing your swimming song (“Learning to swim in Lake Michigan” to the tune of “Lannigan’s Ball” by Enter the Haggis) and get this done.

That worked. I found a groove and just kept moving. There were occasional distractions of course. The swim start was “self seeded” meaning the slower swimmers were encouraged to put themselves further back for a later start. This ideally meant that there would be less bunching up, less getting kicked in the head or reaching out for water and getting thigh instead. But the course still closed at midnight, no matter what time you started, and I wanted all the time I could get. I started in the first third, whether I belonged there or not. I therefore got bumped into and swum over a bit more often than I would have otherwise. An interesting aside: All the men were wearing pink swim caps, and all the women were wearing white ones. But everyone shaved their legs and were wearing one piece bathing suits. So every time I got a hand full of smooth muscled thigh or calf, I involuntarily looked up to check their swim cap color. I don’t know why. I was in no position to enjoy or apologize… Though I did discover the only circumstance under which a straight boy does not enjoy being nestled between two mostly naked exquisitely muscled women: When they trying to swim somewhere in a hurry!

About a half mile in, the water got pretty shallow on one side of the river. No, I mean REALLY shallow. My hands hit bottom. I knelt, then stood. The water came just above my ankles. There were a few people around me doing the same. We exchanged looks, glanced at the race officials on kayaks nearby, then started jogging. A half-dozen feet to our left our peers were swimming along, while we strode past them. I wish I had a photo: Triathletes so hard-core they run on water. I did all I could not to think about WHAT I was running on, or what might be trying to burrow into my very favorite feet, implanting parasitic embryos... Eventually, a log failed to trip most of us, and we were back to swimming. We followed the yellow bouys in search of the red “turn around” bouy.

The first 3/4 of a mile were against the current, in a small inlet between an island and the shore. Then we turned around the island and swam downstream to the transition area. So the turn was not only a welcome checkpoint, a sign of solid progress in an event without mile markers or clear views, but it meant the swim was about to get easier.

Just as I rounded the bouy, the sun broke over the horizon. If I’d started any later, or moved any slower, I would have been swimming into the sun (not pleasant in the least.) But as it was, I got one breathtaking moment of beauty, then dug in for the easy part of the swim, absolutely sure I had this. Endurance sports are a study in fear and arrogance. You had to scared enough of the thing to work your ass off, but confident enough to get through the tough parts. With one fancy corkscrew turn I’d gone from fear to arrogance. The rest was just work.

At the swim seminar the day before, they’d taught us about drafting off of other swimmers, which was legal and encouraged in the swim (despite being illegal on the bike.) Plus, looking up to determine your position causes your form to suffer briefly. So I followed the legs in front of me for a while, enjoying both their draft and the current pushing me along. This may not have been the best move. When I finally did look up, I was halfway across the river, nowhere near the bouys. Apparently the legs I was following had s**t for brains. When you’re swimming 2.4 miles, the last thing you want to do is swim 2.5.

I headed back for the yellow bouys and dug in, searching for the red bouy that meant I could get out of the water. Along the way my swim cap kept falling off, and I had to cram it back on while still swimming (try it sometime). I had to dodge bridge abutments that seemed to sneak up on me. I had to balance using my legs enough to keep the muscles loose against using them too much and wearing them out before they were called upon to do the real work… And all along keeping 4 kicks to the stroke, 3 strokes to the breath, 10 breaths between looks for that damn red bouy.

There it was, with the (inexplicable) floating Ford logo on one side and the stairs out of the water on the other. Volunteers reached out and helped me up the steps, and I started the endless barefoot run from the swim finish to the transition area proper. At this point, you had two choices. You could start tearing off your swim cap, goggles, and unzip your skin suit to get ready for transition, or you could focus on moving in straight lines and not falling down. I wisely chose the later.

A stream of us (there were actually people behind me!!!) ran up a path (my parents cheering for me meant every bit as much to me as the fact that I was still alive), across a bridge, down a chute, then along numbered rows of bags. Volunteers helped us find our bags, then reminded us which tent to go into (based on our sex presumably). Inside the tent it was find a seat, swimsuit off, goggles and swim cap off, sunglasses on, socks and bike shoes, food into pockets, drink a little, eat a lot, and make a run for your bike. Though the fancy compression socks help in a lot of ways, they’re as hard to put on as a damn wet suit. I had, of course, forgotten that swimming in my tri suit meant pinning my bib on in transition (HAVE to get a race belt!!!) And running in bike shoes is… undesirable. But on the bright side, volunteers not only took your bag from you when you were done, but helped you put on sunscreen all while being generally encouraging at you. A guy could get used to this kind of treatment.

Binky (my bike, trusty steed, and, by now, close friend) was right where I left her. I clipped on my helmet, and ran for the bike start. Biking in the transition area was strictly prohibited. Woe to he who touches shoe to pedal before the “Mount Line”. With crowds cheering on either side, I reached the line, swung a leg over, and was in the saddle for the longest portion of my journey (both in hours and miles.) Gears clicked, wind flowed over my teardrop shaped space helmet, and the road flew by. Speed felt GOOD!

Ironman Adventure (Part II)

2009-10-15T06:40:00.000-07:00

The continuing saga of my very first Ironman Triathlon.

The Beginning
-or-
What the $%^# Was I Thinking?

I suppose you could say my adventure actually began much earlier : When a girl dumped me and I decided to spend the time, money, and energy I would have spent on her training for long distance triathlon instead. Or when I went on line, miraculously found an Ironman that hadn’t sold out yet, then put it on my credit card before I chickened out. Perhaps it was when I took money out of my retirement account to buy a bike that cost more than some cars I’ve owned. Or when I signed up for swim lessons, personal training, a gym membership. When I booked the flight to Kentucky, reserved the hotel room, got the time off work, put my bike in the mail... But whenever it began, the middle just kept getting more interesting.

Arriving at the hotel was incredible. There were almost three thousand who had signed up for this thing, and most of them were staying at the Galt House. The lobby was full of expensive bicycles and incredible calves. Even without the identifying marks that would come later, it was easy to tell who was there for the race. They seemed to radiate… efficiency. For the first time I felt like I actually belonged in this crowd. I was a candidate in a very selective fraternity only days from initiation. And, (to follow the metaphor a little too far) the hazing was all self imposed.

That first night I retrieved my bike from the UPS Store, where they’d held it for ransom (literally refusing to give it to me until I’d paid a 50$ “stowage” charge) and reassembled it. Picture a hotel room strewn with bike parts, tools, and loud music. It only took two calls to my bike shop back home, two hours, and two grease stains (on somebody else’s carpet for a change!) and Binky was back in one piece. Then an easy eight-mile run (just to get the airline-induced kinks out of my legs), a quick dinner (fillet mignon “sliders” with crumbled gorgonzola and balsamic soaked onions!) stretching (always stretching) drinking water (“You’re not free and clear until you’re peeing clear!”) and blissful sleep.

The next day my parents arrived. I now officially had spectators and a support team. Since they’d driven overnight from upstate New York, I let them sleep through packet pick up. They didn’t miss much. While we stood in line to be ID’d (like the SAT’s, they don’t want you racing for someone else) weighed, (more to sell fancy scales than anything else) and our USTA memberships confirmed (they sold a convenient 1 day memberships if needed). Then they secured blue hospital wristbands onto us. These were our all access passes (and further assurance no one could race in our place.) Finally we got The Goodie Bag. Alas, it’s not as exciting as it sounds. It’s mostly advertisements and coupons, though there are some useful things: our “bib” (the super tough piece of paper with our name and number on it) our “chip” (the electronic doohicky that straps to your ankle to keep track of when you’ve crossed certain points like the start and the finish lines), and the color coded bags to put all your gear in.

By this time it had been more than 4 hours since I’d eaten. All the training has done such strange things to my metabolism that I get a little wobbly if I don’t get a meal every 4 hours or so. And now at last I had that which every athlete dreams of: Parents to spoil them rotten race weekend!

As we wandered town looking for first food then the groceries I’d need over the next couple days, I was constantly on the lookout for the telltale wristbands. What were they eating? What were they buying? How were they preparing? I don’t know that I got any useful information, but I couldn’t stop looking.

An interesting thing I discovered about Whole Foods: They may have the best selection of the strange and obscure food-stuffs I need for my pre- and during-race routines (young coconuts, steel cut oats, coconut water…) But it’s damn near impossible to find the more basic artificial and thoroughly processed necessities there. Thank god for parents and their cars…

The “expo” is always one of my favorite parts of big races. It’s a chance to pick up that thing you forgot. Or to learn of something you didn’t know you needed. Or get clothes with references to the event all over them. There’s humor and free samples and cool displays… It’s basically a way to separate people from their money. And since triathlon is a pricey hobby to begin with, they were working hard to squeeze out those last few bucks. There was a place renting out fancy wheels. Another rented out GPS devices so your friends could watch every step on their “smart phones” and laptops. Of course you could get anything imaginable with the Ironman logo on it. There was even a full service bike shop right there in the middle of the hotel ballroom. I was trying to avoid jinxing myself by getting anything with an Ironman logo on it until I’d earned it. As such, I just got a toy you breath into to strengthen your diaphragm, and an extra pair of compression socks. The only t-shirt I wanted wasn’t for sale: The one that said “Finisher.”

The next order of business was biking the run course. I thought this was brilliant for several reasons. First and foremost it let me check that I’d put my bike back together correctly. Second, it was a little workout to stay fresh without wearing myself out for The Big Day. Finally, I like to be as familiar with the course as you can. Where will there be shade? Where are the hills? Are there any spots where the road is uneven, narrows, or turns sharply? Is there a Starbucks I can sneak into if I need a pick-me-up? Because I had shipped my bike almost 2 weeks earlier, this was my first time on Binky in a while, and it felt good to be back in the saddle. The course looked good, I felt good… This might just happen!

But first, more food! They held a banquet for us in the local convention center. The food was standard buffet fare (heavy on the pasta of course) but the event was mandatory since the “Athlete Briefing” followed. I was mostly excited to meet up with a friend’s little brother (who was also doing the race.) We found each other remarkably easily, chatted a bit and ate as only triathletes can (“We eat more in one sitting than most people do all day.”)

At some point we were interrupted by the event’s master of ceremonies and race-day announcer : the “Voice of the Ironman.” You see, one of the cheesier traditions (that all the first timers secretly look forward to) is that as you cross the finish line the announcer says your name and declares “You are an Ironman!” So this guy kept referring to himself as the one who was going to say “You are an…” But he never finished because a) the first timers wanted to earn it, b) the superstitious didn’t want him to jinx anything, and c) he was going to have to say it nearly 3000 times the next day.

This guy was good. After a cheesy motivational video (who among us had gotten this far and still needed motivation?) and the obligatory recitation of sponsors he got to the fun stuff. We’d all filled out a questionnaire when registering, so he read some of the more interesting personal accomplishments people had listed. These honest-to-god included “I am still married” and “I am pretty.” He shared that we came from 16 different countries (including one guy from Mexico who had done Ironmans everywhere they’d ever been and was in the Guiness Book of World Records for it) and thanks to the one guy from South Dakota, represented every state in the US. He had the 800 of us who were first-timers stand up. It was nice to see we all had the same look in our eyes: determined as hell but good-lord-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into? Then he asked the oldest and youngest competitors to come up on stage. The 77 year-old man and 68 year old woman hadn’t come to the banquet, so the two 72 year-old men came up instead. These guys looked (and moved) like they were in their 50’s. One of them had done 60 Ironmans in his life, and was doing 2 more THIS SEASON. I was torn between relief (if they could do it, I could do it) and intimidation (I’m going to get my ass kicked by guys twice my age!!!). There was a 21 year old woman who had won her age group in all the shorter races so was ready for a bigger challenge. And finally there was the cocky bastard who wouldn’t turn 18 till the next day (just barely making the minimum age requirement for race day.) He slouched smugly in front of these over-the-hill athletes and radiated his certainty that he’d smoke us all. Turns out his parents were not only there, but doing the race with him as well. Our host asked the older guys to give the younger kids some advice, then all shook hands and left the stage.

Next we were asked to stand if we’d lost weight over the last year’s training. Of course almost everyone stood up. Then to stay standing if we’d lost more than 20 pounds. More than 30? More than 40? By the time he’d gotten up to 70, there were 3 people still standing. He invited them up to the stage so he could ask them more questions. One gentleman had lost 86 pounds. He said the hardest part was having to buy new clothes every few months. A young lady lost 120. She used to do sports but at some point everything got away from her. She wanted it back. She got it. Given all she’d already accomplished, her success race day was more or less a given. But the last guy lost 201. That’s not just a whole person, that’s a whole BIG person. He said he had to lose 80 just to be able to get on a bicycle. I… I can’t even fathom what it takes to go from barely walking to swimming, biking, and running all damn day. Even our host, paid to talk, was left speechless.

At last the Voice of the Ironman gave up the podium to the race officials who went over the rules with us. We’d already gotten it all via email and again as hardcopy at registration. But they had to make sure. And not only did they manage to make it entertaining, I even learned a thing or two. The rules around “drafting” were long and involved. Because triathlon is supposed to be an individual sport, they want to make sure you don’t get any benefit from biking behind someone else. So while talking about how far ahead you have to let someone get before you can attempt to re-pass them, the guy in charge of the bike course had some advise mostly for the guys. He said “at some point you’re going to look over and see that you’re getting passed by a girl. Just let it happen. Your friends won’t be watching. And some of these women are FIERCE!” The guy in charge of the run course asked how many of us were just trying to “avoid the glow stick”, and a bunch people applauded. Apparently at sundown, all runners still on the course are given glow sticks for safety. Many people’s goal was to finish before the glow sticks got handed out. I was still hoping just to finish by midnight (the Deadline). But I still admired my more ambitions brethren (and sisteren. :)

My parents had wisely skipped the banquet and wanted to take me out to dinner afterwards. Eat again so soon? I couldn’t possibly! Oh wait, yes I could. Conventional wisdom is that 2 nights before the race is the most important nights sleep, as no one sleeps well (or long) the night before. This second dinner had me out later than I would have liked on this most critical night, but I knew better than to pass up any opportunity to spend time with my parents (or to let them feed me.) Downtown was WILD! A band called “Sister Hazel” was performing right in the middle of 4th Street Live (the section of downtown permanently closed to traffic packed with bars and restaurants). There weren’t many blue wristbands out this late, but there were a few. Then sleep. Man I love sleep.

The final day before the race was a bit of a blur. A practice swim in the river, and a last minute “swim tips seminar” (mostly focused on convincing people to buy “skin suits” from the expo). Double-check all my equipment bags (I handed my dad my checklists, and as he read off each item I held it up and put it in the bag), turn in the gear bags and put my bicycle in its numbered slot on the bike racks (each athlete had their own volunteer guide them through the transition area and gear check process). Drive most of the bike course with my parents (oh my god… I knew there were hills but this was INSANE!), eat huge quantities of pasta, then to bed while the sun still shone. It was still important to stick to The Plan, but at this point events took on a sense of inevitability. Preparations were past. This thing was happening , whether I was ready or not. Nothing left to it but to do it.

Ironman Adventure (Part I)

2009-10-13T06:12:00.000-07:00

This has turned out to be longer than I'd intended, so I'm going to publish it in parts. I hope you enjoy!

140.6 Miles Between Showers
-or-
I Drank From the Ohio River and Lived to Tell the Tale

I awoke one Sunday morning in August planning to have an adventure. Oh, I know the best adventures aren’t planned; They jump out at you when you’re looking the other way. And the best things in life probably are free. But every once in a long long while, something you’ve planned for over a year and invested a medium sized fortune in can be pretty cool too.

I stood on the dock in a fancy swimsuit, bright pink swim cap, tinted goggles, and dollar store flip-flops. The swimsuit was of the sort banned in international swim competitions for offering unfair advantage, but which triathlon still allows. The swim cap said IRONMAN on it, a label I hoped to earn by the end of the day. The goggles were prescription, an extravagance of necessity. The flip-flops were strictly against the rules and had been snuck past security since I wanted to protect my feet up to the very last second. And the very last second was approaching at breakneck speed.

There were thousands on the dock with me, similarly attired. “Age Groupers” competing for a spot at the world championships in Kona Hawaii, or for fun, for pride, for reasons forgotten or impossible to articulate. Dozens more were already in the water. These were the “Pros”, professional triathletes who were actually paid to be there, and competing for money as well as Kona spots of their own. Some of us made conversation, some moved around a bit trying to stay warm. The smart ones sat down, cleverly saving any energy they could. But we all looked at each other in the watery pre-dawn light. What had their training been like? What’s their strongest event? Have they done this before? What kind of day are they going to have? There was more skin, more muscle, more energy coursing just below the surface than you’ve ever imagined in one place. With quiet calm or nervous excitement, we all waited.

There were a number of things I was waiting for. Things I’d envisioned with increasing frequency and clarity over the last months, days, and minutes. A bugle decidedly hadn’t been on the list. Still, the sound that replaced the announcer’s voice, the music, and the pulses pounding in our ears was a bugle call piercing the morn. Its message couldn’t have been clearer: CHARGE!!! This should have prepared me for what came next, or at least put me on notice to expect the unexpected. But of course the fact that we weren’t supposed to start for at least 10 more minutes led me back into my reflections, observations, and anxious haze. The gunshot therefore caused me to jump so severely that I pinched a muscle in my neck.

This bodes not well.

While I tried to work the unearned agony out of my neck and shoulder, I did get to watch the professional athletes begin their race. It looked just like a film of people swimming, only in fast-forward. Water nearly undisturbed, arms sweeping forward like elegant machinery, they flowed up stream.
“Come on! You can go faster than that you slackers!” This got more chuckles than it deserved. Now the sitters stood, the stretchers shook, the chatters fell silent, and the worriers cranked it up a notch. We may not have started ourselves, but this was getting very VERY real.

Finally something I did expect, had envisioned came to pass. A woman was introduced and sang the (American) National Anthem. By unspoken concensus, swim caps weren’t considered hats, and they remained on. No one sang along (conserving breath?) and, unable to see either the singer or a flag, everyone faced more or less where they pleased. It was clear there weren’t many Cornell alums around when, during the penultimate stanza, I was the only one whose fist shot into the air and yelled “RED!” From the looks I got, I should probably consider trying to knock that off. But that was not on my list of immediate concerns.

This gunshot I was prepared for. I tossed my contraband flip-flops to my mother who seemed more nervous than me. The line crept forward, split into two as volunteers guided us to our entry points. At 3 second intervals, pairs of athletes got a tap on the back and launched themselves into the water. Some slipped in, some leapt mightily, some announced their presence with great cannonballs, but none dove head-first. The water, whose color and clarity called to mind chocolate milk, could have hidden anything. While we were all clearly insane, no one was interested in a concussion ending their day before it had begun.

I watched those ahead of me, picked my spot, and advanced. At last it came. A tap, a step, the bathwater embrace of the Ohio River. It had begun.

Chicago Marathon: Disaster Edition

2009-10-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

Have you ever done anything stupid? No, not that girl you dated or that guy you slept with, I mean REALLY stupid. Like going-to-grad-school or getting-involved-in-a-land-war-in-Asia stupid.

One time in college, I went into an exam more or less without studying. It was a pretty hard-core electronics class, so it wasn't something you could just bluff your way through. I figured if I was going down, I might as well go down in flames. I spent the night before the exam (otherwise prime cram-time) preparing my wardrobe and accessories. The day of the exam (held in a gymnasium with one table per student) I walked in in a tuxido. I proceeded to lay out a table cloth and silver service including a decanter of grape juice and a crystal dish of home-made snack mix. I was a little shocked the proctors didn't make me put out the candles in the candelabra, but maybe they were just giving me points for style. I think I still wound up with a B in the class, but that's not the point. It was still pretty dumb.

Well I think I've finally topped it. I just ran a marathon I hadn't trained for.

I hadn't PLANNED not to train for it of course. It was originally supposed to be a nice long workout between the two Ironman triathlons I was doing this season. But then life got complicated and I had to cancel the second one. This completely took the wind out of my sails. Throw in money troubles and job difficulties and I just wasn't running at all. I'd have canceled the whole thing except a dear friend REALLY wanted me to run it with her. Since I didn't have any goal of my own, helping her to hers seemed worthwhile. But she runs a bit slower than I do, so that wasn't any more incentive to train.

At about the 2 week mark, when I realized I'd run a total of 20 miles in the last month, I started to wonder how much I could get away with. I stopped running at all. I stopped stretching. I ate like crap, didn't get enough water or sleep, and generally wasn't taking very good care of myself. These weren't all deliberate choices mind you, They just started happening, and I didn't do anything about them.

A couple days before the marathon, it did get more deliberate. I started breaking rules. I didn't go to bed early 2 nights before (or the night before for that matter.) I ate something different the night before (and not very carbohydrate-y at that). I had a different breakfast than usual the morning of, and didn't have much of it. I didn't even stretch.

Now when you actually plan to do things wrong, other unplanned things start going wrong as well. It's as if chance is trying to get in on the action. The otherwise impeccably reliable Chicago Transit Authority completely screwed me (late trains, trains that didn't open their doors, trains that skipped my stop entirely... excitement.) By the time time I got down to the starting area, they'd already closed my assigned starting corral, as well as ALL the paths to get to where I was going to meet my friend. Not that that mattered, since she was in the corral already. The one I couldn't get to. I got creative and managed to get my gear bag checked anyway and found a spot to jump the fence to get into one of the corrals.

Not to be deterred by my persistence, chance reared its ugly head again. While jumping the fence, it caught on my shorts and tore them a bit. Doesn't sound like a very big deal, does it? It wouldn't be except that I was used to running in triathlon shorts. Since they're also swim trunks, you don't wear undies underneath (since wet undies CHAFE!) Yup, I was running commando, and sincerest apologies to anyone I ran in front of.

The race started before I could find my friend. Based on where I was and where we had planned to meet, I figured she was somewhere ahead of me. So I did my last deliberately wrong thing for the day: I started out at a pace I knew I couldn't keep up in an attempt to catch up with her.

Once the race was underway, I discovered another dire misjudgement: My caffine intake was based on my traithlon experience. The thing is, passing fluids while swimming and (to a lesser extent) while riding a bike don't need to slow you down much. However, the level of bladder irritant I had taken on board was DISASTEROUS for a running-only race. I had to stop 5 times (two of which involved waiting in line for a port-a-john).

Now for all that, I still never found my friend (who was the only reason I was running the infernal thing to begin with.) And almost worse, I still had a pretty great run (just a few minutes off my personal best). So I didn't even come away with a cautionary tale on why you should follow all the rules, take good care of yourself, and train conscientiously. Overall, the day was a complete failure.

On the bright side... Nope, no bright side. I'm gonna go take a shower.

YIKES!

2009-06-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

73 days to Ironman.

I'm getting a little more serious about my training since the Big Race is approaching at breakneck speed. I started working with a personal trainer at my gym to help me figure out what I'm supposed to do with my upper body and this thing you people call "weight training."

Today was just a quick check in to show me the exercises I should be doing for the rest of the week. I thought it went pretty well, and I didn't feel to bad/shaky/sore afterward.

Until I tried to take my shirt off. I actually can't make my arms do it. Guess I'll skip the shower today and hope that it gets better before bedtime.

This is going to be hard...

In other news, I swam in Lake Michigan for the first time yesterday. I was supposed to swim with the Chicago Tri Club, but those wimps didn't show up because of a little rain. When you're in the water, what difference does it make? I did learn a few things though.

In a large enough lake, there can actually be waves and tides and stuff. And it's actually possible to get seasick while swimming. The water is surprisingly clear. And in a wetsuit at least, 60 degree (Faharenheit) water is actually quite comfortable. I only got a quarter of a mile in before the lifeguards went off duty (I don't think I'm a strong enough swimmer yet to at-your-own-risk it...) But I've got a full mile and 2.5 miles worth of intervals scheduled for later in the week.

So yeah, I'm still crazy.

How about you? How's the springtime treating you? Drop me a line if you get a chance. I'd love to catch up with you.

Long Distance Relationships

2009-06-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

For various reasons, I've been thinking about long distance relationships lately. I've had more than my share of such relationships. The fact that I'm not currently in any of those relationships might reasonably call the quality of my advice into question. The fact that I have no desire to be in any such relationship in the foreseeable future might further indict my otherwise impressive credentials. What the hell. Celibate priests give marriage advice all the time.

Long distance relationships… well, let’s not sugar coat it: They suck. But there are times when they beat the hell out of the alternative. How to tell whether yours is one of the ones worth making work is beyond the scope of the article. My purpose is to pass along tips and tricks that have helped me make long distance relationships work in the past. Or at least made them suck a little less.

Much of what follows will be obvious, common sense, or things you already know/are doing. I’m not explaining things because I think they’ll be new to you. I’m just trying to be thorough and methodical on the off chance that something strikes you as worth a try or sparks another related idea. At the very least, I hope to give you a chuckle that might take your mind of how damn far away your honey is just now. But enough disclaimers. On with the good stuff!

First and foremost, take advantage of technology. In this digital age, there is a truly bewildering array of programs, widgets, services, and tools available to the misplaced lovers. What follows is an incomplete survey of some I either found useful or at the very least sounded useful when I heard about them.

Skype: This is a “Voice Over IP” service that is basically an internet based telephone line. It has a free chat component and a telephone component that was originally free but now may carry some small cost. It can work with the built in mic and speakers in your computer, but works a little better if you plug in a reasonably inexpensive USB headset. Sure, you look like Suzy the Time-Life operator, but the sound quality is MUCH better on both ends. :)
GoogleChat: It’s much like AOL’s Instant Messenger but has a number of advantages. While you need a gmail account to make it work, it’s built right into your mail window so it allows an unprecedented level (and ease) of multitasking. You can chat with your honey while doing productive(ish) email things. It also has a (free) video chat component. And lets face it… seeing that smile beats the hell out of a colon end-parenthesis.
iChat: built right into your Mac (look in the Applications folder) is something called iChat. It might take just a little setting up, but it’s worth it. As long as you’re signed into AOL Instant messenger or some other chat service, it allows you to use your own chat interface (including video!) and talk to people who are using any of dozens of chat programs without having to sign on to each one separately. It’s Mac simple, and again, lets you see that smile. The more… adult applications of this technology will be discussed later on.
Latitude: This one’s a little more science fiction, but hey. Remember that there’s a fine line between incredibly sweet and creepy stalker. All that said, Google has come up with a program that, when loaded onto any mobile device, will broadcast your location to others who a) have the application too, and b) you’ve given permission to get your data. What this means is that over the course of the day, you can pick up your phone and see that your honey is at work, at home, at the coffee shop, at the dry cleaners… It basically allows you to feel a little closer to them by being able to share a little of their day. It also allows you to surprise them with questions about how the movie was, or just what exactly were they doing at Rachel’s house for so long… ;)
iMovie: Another toy already on your Mac (again, check the Applications folder.) Open it up, click on new project, slide the little button from the picture of the scissors to the picture of the video camera, and you can record video clips with your built in camera. With a little more fiddling around you can edit them, arrange them, and burn them onto a CD or DVD. You can use this to make a video letter (after all, face and voice are nearly as personal as handwriting), to read your honey a bedtime story and show them the pictures as well, to just share part of your every day experience (have your camera on while you’re checking email, learning lines, doing yoga, making dinner, whatever), or more… adult applications.

Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The technology keeps growing and changing, and keeping up with it can be a full time job. Remember, keeping up isn’t your goal, keeping in touch is.

Another iceberg for tipping is that of consumer deals. Sure, times are tough for everybody, but companies are still trying to get those few people who still have money to spend it on/with their services. Even those of us who are destitute can benefit from these deals if we’re crafty enough. Below are just a couple, but if you adopt the proper mercenary, fearless, and sneaky attitude, you will be able to find dozens more.

Airline Credit Cards: If your credit rating is even remotely okay (and you fib a little about what you earn per year and what you’re paying for rent) you can still get a credit card from anyone out there. Almost all the airlines have a credit card that gets you a free airfare just for signing up and making one or two purchases. Furthermore, you get frequent flier miles for every dollar you spend, and double or triple points for each dollar you spend buying plane tickets with that airline. Here’s what you do: Get the credit card and start charging EVERYTHING to it. Your groceries, your travel expenses etc. of course, but you can also set it up so your utility bills, your student loans, sometimes even your rent get charged to your credit card. Pay the bill off immediately (just as if you’d written a check for the stuff, but send it to your credit card company instead.) This way, you’re not paying any more, but you’re getting frequent flier miles for EVERYTHING. You’ll have more free tickets before you know it. The only down side to this plan is that each time you apply for a credit card, it lowers your credit rating just a little bit. Therefore you can’t do this with a dozen credit cards, but one or two should be fine.
Priceline: This is a service where you tell it what you want to pay for a flight or a hotel room or a rental car, and it tries to find you that service for that price. The down side is that if it finds the price, you have to pay before you find out what company it’s with (you might end up in a Motel 6 instead of a Best Western, or on Jet Blue instead of Delta) but can we really afford to care anymore? What this allows is for you to enter ridiculously low prices (“I have $45 for a plane ticket this weekend”). It probably won’t find anything for you most of the time, but every once in a while it will. It’s worth the 5 minutes once a week to check and see. Sometimes you’ll get lucky (then you can Get Lucky!!! ;)

I’ve made a couple of references to “adult stuff.” One of the toughest things about long distance relationships is the absence of physical contact. While that contact is its own magic, it also facilitates one of our other favorite things and most basic desires: SEX! Like most other things, there are some long distance substitutes available. While mere shadows of what two (or more) people can share in person, there are times that something is MUCH better than nothing. Below are a few ideas that will hopefully get your brains (the most sensitive sex organ) working:

Interactive Erotica: Basically using your phone or favorite text- or video-chat application to tell the other person what you’d like to do to them, what you’d like done to you, what you’d do if they were with you etc. Depending on your mood and talents, this can be anything from “talking dirty” to effectively crafting erotic fiction together. Note that many chat programs have a journaling feature to save the text of your chat for… future use. ;)
Mutual Masturbation: Say it just doesn’t come naturally to you to talk dirty, or come up with stories and situations in the moment. There’s still a lot of fun to be had with taking care of yourself while your honey listens/watches/does the same. Just having them on the other end of the phone/camera/chat window can be pretty intimate and enjoyable. And as you get more comfortable doing so, you can each describe what you’re doing, what you’re feeling, what you’re imagining. Before you know it, you’ll be into the interactive erotica described above.
Naughty Stories: your honey won’t always be available for chat/call/etc. when you are. In these situations, you should consider writing them a story. It can either be describing a fantasy to them, what you’re doing or have done to yourself, what you wish you were doing with them, or your own interpretation of a particularly hot story you read/movie you saw/etc. Also included in this category is naughty voicemail (text them not to answer their phone when it rings, then leave a particularly vocal orgasm on their voicemail), video (perhaps tell your story while acting out part of it on yourself?), photos (either mouth-dryingly explicit or just barely Safe For Work to tease, torment, and excite them. Cell phone cameras are ideal for this application), or a scratch-and-sniff letter (write out your naughty story on actual paper. Then, instead of cologne or perfume, get yourself off and rub your fingers on the letter. “Security” envelopes from your local office supply store cost just a little more, but preserve scent better. And whether your honey can actually smell it or not, just knowing you did should drive them a little crazy. Remember, naughty bits to fingers to paper. Do NOT apply paper directly to your bits. You can’t IMAGINE what paper cuts down there feel like. So unless you know you’re into that kind of thing…)

But back to the PG world for a bit. There are a number of “family-friendly” things you can do for/with your honey that can shrink the distance a bit. Below are a number of sweet, thoughtful, effective, and inexpensive ideas you might try. I’d be curious to hear which of these do and don’t work for you, and what others you and yours have come up with:

Reading a Book: Pick one of your favorite books (that either they have never read or that they love every bit as much as you do) and read it to them. This can be part of a regular phone call, or a video letter (as described above.) If you’ve got the inclination and the acting chops, you can do voices for each of the characters, possibly even reading the chapter out loud to yourself before reading it to them. Not only is their something wonderfully intimate and special about reading to and being read to by someone you love, but sometimes you want to interact with someone but have run out of things to say, have talked so frequently that they’re up on everything you’re doing or feeling and something else is a treat. Don’t be afraid of long stuff like The Infinite Jest or the Lord of the Rings (though simpler stuff like The Hobbit, The Westing Game, or The Phantom Tollbooth work well too.) Take turns, so that after one person finishes a book, the next person reads one. Final note: Some of us are programmed by years of bedtime stories to fall asleep when being read to. Make sure to begin each reading by finding out what last thing they remember is. Just in case. :)
Actual Mail: Despite all the technology (or perhaps because of it), there’s still plenty of wonder in actual mail. All we ever seem to get in the mail is bills and junk. A hand written envelope alone can make someone’s day. Handwriting communicates in a way the typed word never can. And the fact that you took the time to actually find paper, a pen, applied a stamp, found a mailbox...Sometimes means as much as the content of the letter. Just do it.
Insignificant Gifts: While you’re sending letters, a little package every now and then means an awful lot too. It doesn’t have to be anything major. A pretty rock from a park, something that came out of a gumball machine, something you got free at a trade show, or found on the sidewalk. Just the fact that you were thinking of them and took the time to put it all together will make whatever’s in the box wonderful.
Baked Goods: Again, since you’re sending a package anyway… Baked goods are the difference between a package and a Care Package. Whether you got them at summer camp or in college or were just jealous of the bitches that did, there’s something magical about the Care Package. And however long it’s been, it’s by definition Too Long since your honey last got a Care Package. It’s worth investing in decent freezer bags (the name brand instead of the store brand), and consider putting a bag inside of another bag (I once inadvertently sent someone a bag of ants. Not cool.) It doesn’t have to have turned out well or be their favorite. A box full of baked goods is ALWAYS the Best Thing Ever.
Watch a Move Together: Here’s one I just learned about recently. Make a date, and put in the same movie (Netflix or rental is easier than in a theater, but whatever works). You can be on the phone with each other during, have a text or video chat window open, or just text on your phones from time to time. Or if you don’t have the same chunk of time free, just agree to each see the movie so you can talk about it later (like a book club, but lower time investment. :) Again, something to share, something else to talk about when you’re talking frequently, and who doesn’t love a good movie?
Scavenger Hunts: As alluded to above, everyone appreciates time more than stuff. And if you can’t spend time WITH someone, you can at least spend time ON someone. I’m a huge fan of the scavenger hunt. Sure, these are easier in person, when you can hide things places and enjoy watching your honey run around your apartment or theirs, a park, a library, or the local coffee shop. But a sufficiently creative (and possibly evil) mind can figure out a way to do similar things from a distance as well. Set up random hotmail, yahoo, and gmail email accounts. Make puzzles or trivia questions where they have to figure out the user name and password. Send emails to those accounts with clues to other puzzles. Make them find their way to certain web pages and use a certain number of words into a certain number of lines down a clue to another puzzle. Take some time to kick the ass of your favorite on line puzzle game (like the ones at popcap.com) and keep track of the things that it says after each level. Use those to make a clue (so they have to get as good as you at the game in order to find the hint.) Call a friend and set up some set of code words. Have part of the scavenger hunt be to make your honey call what (to them) seems to be a random phone number and have a bizarre conversation you’ve set up with your friend to get the next hint. Watch a movie and note a word or action a certain amount of time into the movie so the person has to watch the movie to get the hint. Words or numbers in songs, Wikipedia entries, the street view in Google Maps, books, newspapers, magazines, trivial pursuit cards (they all have a card number at the bottom ;) a certain day’s crossword puzzle or sudoku from a certain newspaper… the things you can use are almost unlimited. If all this sounds way too complicated, you might find a friend whose mind works this way and who has a little too much time on their hands and ask them to do the detail work. You can then personalize it and set your honey on the path. Remember, the genius of all this is you can spend weeks or months on it, and not let your target know anything about it until you set them on the first clue. You then have hours, days, or weeks of entertainment watching/hearing about how far they’ve gotten, what was hard, what was fun, and how crazy it’s driving them. Don’t forget to put little incentives/treats along the way (from nude photos to little gift certificates or other such silliness. Got to keep them motivated after all.
Time Delays: In a related vein, you will sometimes get to visit your love. But just as surely, you’ll have to leave. What better way to make the most of your time together than to leave little reminders that they’ll be finding for weeks or months to come. You can leave items or clues to one of the above scavenger hunts around their apartment. You can leave dozens of sweet little post-it notes throughout their kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, closets etc. You can leave a pair of your undies in their underwear drawer. You can leave a cute/naughty file or photo hidden in their computer or phone somewhere. You can hide little gifts and tell them the location sometime they seem down and could use a little cheer. You can hide photos of yourself around, or stick pages of letters into books or DVD cases. Don’t neglect the backs of framed pictures, the freezer, and the back of the toilet tank as hiding spots. And you’d be shocked how seldom people look up at ceilings. I’m just saying.
Local Deliveries: A little research can go a long way. You can use Google Maps to look up your honey’s address and search nearby for various kinds of businesses (like the local florist, pizza place etc.) Find out from conversation and from visits what your partner’s favorite delivery places are. Then sometime they’re having a crappy day, or you know they’re unusually crunched for time or money, call up and have lunch or dinner delivered to them. Trust me, you’ll make their whole day. EVERYONE loves getting flowers delivered (even boys.) There are Edible Arrangements for something a little different. And in most decent sized cities, there are grocery stores, liquor stores, even sex-toy shops that deliver. Sure, this all costs money, but it’s one hell of a way to reach out and touch someone.
Change Jar/Penalty Jar/Separate Account: Speaking of money, plane tickets cost money. Postage costs money. Surprise bottles of scotch cost money. And that money’s got to come from somewhere. Cyber-fraud and bank-robbery-made-easy may be topics of future articles, but for now you’ll have to make due with these… lower impact tips. Have a change jar. On those few occasions where you still use cash over the course of a day, put whatever change is left in your pockets/purse/whatever into the jar. When the jar is full, roll the coins (or go to one of the CoinStar machines in finer grocery stores) and put the money toward doing something for your honey (including getting you to them.) Have some habit or behavior you’re trying to break (from swearing to smoking etc.)? Every time you stray/indulge/slip, put a buck in the jar. There’s something beautiful about using the fruits of sin/error to spoil/visit your love. Finally, set up a separate (preferably savings) account. Vow to put 1 or 2 percent of any paycheck you get into that account. If you can stick to it (and not touch it for anything else) you’ll have plane fare quicker than you think.

Enough of the fun stuff. Now on to stickier matters. There are a number of reasons that long distance relationships are hard. If you understand them thoroughly and have a strategy or two for dealing with them, you’ll have a much better chance of getting through it.

Growing Apart: We are always changing and growing. When you’re in the same place as someone, sharing their environment and circumstances, it’s a little easier to grow and change with them, along the same trajectory. When far away, it’s that much more likely that you’ll grow apart, along different paths. This is one of the bigger pitfalls of the long distance relationship: waking up one morning and discovering that the person you’re with is no longer the person you fell for, or that you’re no longer the person who loves them. You can run out of things in common, run out of things to talk about, or just discovering there’s more than just the physical distance between you. Okay, so what can you do about it? Well, being aware of the possibility is a good first step. Keeping in frequent and thorough contact helps too. Incorporating several of the above “alternate sharing” methods into usual communication will help. But perhaps the best thing you can do is to acknowledge and support the ways your honey is changing and growing. Keep falling in love with who they are NOW rather than trying to hold onto who you remember them being will be a lot healthier and a lot more fun, not to mention more effective in the long run.
Asymmetry: This is a problem in any relationship. It can just be a much bigger problem in long distance relationships. Almost by definition, someone needs someone else more than the other does. Someone is more… into the relationship than the other. That doesn’t make one person better or worse than the other, it’s just the way things are. But if this gap continues to widen, the relationship’s doom won’t be far behind. So what do you do about it? The best thing you can do is occasional/regular (even if yucky) brutally honest conversations about where each person is with the relationship. By talking about what you’re feeling, what you hope for and fear, what you are and aren’t getting, you’ll at least be able to identify trends before they get ugly. This is a tough one, and not worrying too much about it might be healthiest. Keep an eye out, but otherwise just remember: When all the evils of the world flowed out of Pandora’s Box, what was left inside was hope.
Jealousy: When you see someone all the time, their friends are your friends. You’re with them at the bar or club or party so you’re sharing their good times, and laughing about that funny thing that happened with so-and-so right along with them. You’re part of their stories, and at the ends of (at least some of) the days, they come home to you. When you’re in different places however, things can be a little more… complex. There’s that person that they talk about just a little bit too often for your tastes. They might be having a great time while you’re kind of miserable. Your brain can twist stories in such a way that, even though you know you’re being foolish, things can start to fester. In short, jealousy rears its ugly head. I’m as prone to this as anyone, so in addition to my own advice, I’ll pass on some wonderful tips from Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt from their book The Ethical Slut. Though it’s a book about polyamory, the vast majority of the advice holds just as true for more “traditional” arrangements. Their advice falls into two categories:
- Unlearning Jealousy: Give yourself permission to learn in new ways: You can use jealousy to discover new things about yourself and your relationship. Allow yourself to be ignorant, to not know what you don’t know: The unknown doesn’t have to be scary or dangerous. Allow yourself to make mistakes along the way: You’re going to anyway, so beating yourself up for that along with everything else is just counter productive. Establish strong foundation of self-confidence/internal security: The more you like and trust yourself, the easier it gets to like and trust others. Learn to validate yourself: This makes it easier to get through tough times as well as to accept validation from others. Try to deal with jealousy as you would any other emotion (like sleepy, horny, or sad.) Allow yourself to feel jealousy: Just being jealous isn’t a sin or transgression. However, you should also try to commit to not acting on your jealousy. That doesn’t help anyone. Don’t hide your jealousy from self or partner: When it’s out in the open it can be examined and dealt with. Hidden it can only do harm. Remember that nobody can make you feel jealous: It arises from inside of you, and you’re the only person who can make it hurt less or go away. It’s YOUR jealousy and should be treated as such. Listen to your partner when they’re jealous: Don’t try to justify your behavior, just listen, support, and love them. And of course, ask them to do the same.
- Weathering The Storm: Try studying your jealousy: Feel what you feel and examine that (rather than just being miserable. Be good/kind/generous to yourself: You are not stupid, you are not crazy, you are not psycho. You are normal and healthy and beautiful and important and don’t you forget it. Remember that your weaknesses don’t detract from strengths: You are a person, not a checkbook. Try making an arrangement with yourself to spend a short period stay with your feelings, letting them fill and flow through you for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, an hour, and then distract yourself with cookies or a movie. Do some self exploration, like putting thoughts or stream-of-consciousness in a journal, drawing, working out, dancing, cleaning, cooking… However you express yourself and explore what’s going on in your head/heart. Think about the physical manifestations of what you’re feeling: Is it in your gut, your chest, your shoulders? Is it heat, tightness, nausea? Pick a friend and talk it out with them: Whether they have advice or can commiserate/empathize/sympathize, sometimes just saying it out loud helps. Schedule “poor baby” time: Spend time pampering yourself whether it’s a hot bath, a favorite snack, or a good movie. Just allow your self to feel rotten and do the things that make you feel better. Beats the hell out of trying to ignore it. Try to give up blame (even in venting): If you can talk about what’s going on objectively, talk about WHAT you’re feeling instead of why you think you’re feeling it, which often helps. Go for the Ick: Spend some time focusing on the specific images, events, circumstances that bother you the most. Identifying those things might take power away, and certainly makes conversation easier. Remember the good stuff: Make a list of everything you love about your relationship, what is working, why it’s worth it. Talk to partner about it: it’s been mentioned before, but bears repeating. Sharing it makes it soooo much easier to deal with. I’ve heard of some couples who have an agreement about “Jelly Moments”, times they can just gush to the other about all their fears, weaknesses, all the yuck that’s going on with them right then. Their partner agrees to hear them, support them (but not try to fix it. “I love you” is almost always going to be more effective than “Okay, this is what I’ll change.”)

Like everything else, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other joys and pitfalls, so many other strategies and resources. But this is what I have to offer at this time. And that’s really all we can do for anyone, isn’t it? Here’s hoping that my best has done a little good, perhaps even helped your best be a little better. Good luck, and just keep loving them.

And Now for Something Completely Different.

2009-06-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

A little while back, I was in Kalifornia, home of the Governator and terrifying emission standards. Among the more brilliant things I got to observe, drink, and participate in, was a fun little thing called Maker Faire.

Now we’ll ignore for a moment the unnecessary extra “e” (which I'm told has something to do with a pun in French), and talk for a moment about this incredible congregation of geniuses and whack-jobs. (How to tell them apart is beyond the scope of this missive.)

There’s a quarterly periodical called “Make Magazine” for the serious Do-It-Yourselfer. Now these aren’t your grandparent’s DIY projects. Sure there’s needlecraft, gardening, woodworking, but there are also fun with fire, electronics, robotics, and (I’m not afraid to say it) an unhealthy obsession with bicycles.

A couple of times a year they pick a hotbed of geekery/whack-jobbery and have a convention. And as the Bay Area fit the bill, I got to see it with my own two eyes. And, my unconventional conventionists, I would now like to share my experiences with you.

The DIY crowd likes bicycles. I mean, they REALLY like bicycles. There was a concert stage powered exclusively by bicycles pedaled by helpful passersby. There were several amusement park-style rides powered by the riders pedaling, carriages pedaled, pedal powered pinball machines (with flippers buttons conveniently relocated to handlebars) and all sorts of monstrosities and projects that might have started as bicycles once. But the truest sign that they took cycling seriously was the bicycle valet by the entrance, and the truly impressive collection of bikes that had been used as transportation to the event.

The displays were every bit as organized as the bikes. There was a building of fabric, sewing, and other crafts. There was a woman making soap in the shape of sushi or sumo wrestlers. A brilliant array of sleep masks. An angry corseted woman giving out stickers saying “Thank you for not being perky.” A man who made blank journals out of old library book covers. Half the building was displaying wares, the other half were piles of old clothes and fabrics and people to help you try new ideas. For all the spectacle, they never strayed from the “do it yourself” nature of the thing.

There was a building with blacked out windows. Any time you get this many freethinkers in one place there’s likely to be some… free thinking going on. But this was much more harmless than that. It was all installations of art made with light. Some were genius, some were gorgeous, and some were both. And of course all of the exhibitors wanted to talk to you about how they did it, how you could try something similar, and what your ideas were. I saw the first of many signs saying “[obscure field] expert sought for collaboration.”

There was a pavilion for gardening methods, organic foods, and applying stone-age technology to every day problems. Fortunately it was a covered pavilion, because it was next to the rocketry area. People brought their own rockets, built them from materials bought on site, or… improvised. And what goes up must come down. :)

What collection of geeks would be complete without a bunch of robots? There was a building full of them. Tributes to famous robots, wandering robots, robots fighting each other... There were cupcakes you could ride in, and these incredibly creepy spheres that roamed seemingly of their own free will.

One building was devoted to kids, and projects to involve and interest them. After all, how do you get big geeks if you don’t start out with little geeks? Half the building was projects for them to try, touch, and generally get excited about. The other half was old (presumably non functional printers, iPods, lap tops, DVD players etc for the kids to break, take apart, and make art with the bits. It was always my favorite game…

The joy of electronics got its own building. There were kits you could buy to make a gizmo that turns off all the TVs in the area, or to make a USB charger out of an Altoids box. There were books on how to hack your iPhone, or kits to make 10$ game consoles.

But the really hard-core geekery of all kinds got its own place. There were adventures in digital music, 3-D photography, manufacturing… There was a robotic giraffe, a toy display any image you scanned in onto your bicycle spokes… There was a group from MIT selling kits to make your own underwater robot. But the coolest booth was the heroes from Instructables, IN PERSON! If you’re not familiar with Instructables, stop reading this drivel and get over to their site immediately!

The centerpiece of the whole affair was a larger-than-life size reproduction of the old Mousetrap game apparatus. It has to be seen to be believed (and sadly, photography doesn’t quite cut it.) It was every bit as big a draw as all the art whose main medium was fire (and nearly as spectacular).

There was one building at the fairgrounds not devoted to the Maker Faire. The building was full of TV screens showing horse races. And people were drinking cocktails and betting on the races. I guess whether you’re a freak or not depends on what side of the window you’re standing on. Speaking of freaks, this brings us to the most fascinating and perplexing group of freaks at the Faire.

Steampunk: What if steam power rather than electricity had been the driving force of technology? Extrapolate. The appeal to the do-it-yourselfer is obvious. Adapting every day devices to steam power (or at least to look like their imagined alternate futuristic aesthetic.) While that aesthetic is somewhat odd (and leans toward brass buttons, goggles, and corsets) the device adaptations was pretty cool. There were steam powered motorcycles, carriages, and (I couldn’t make this stuff up) vibrators. All the steampunkers seemed to have developed their own characters and storylines. And in isolation might have seemed the most extreme of the geeks. But put them all in one place and it was pretty clear that it wasn’t what kind of geek you were, but how hard you worked at it that mattered.

This of course led me to wonder what kind of geek I was. I mean, I was surrounded by the kind of geek I once wanted to be. And then there was the fact that I didn’t work as hard at ANYTHING as these folks worked on their various obsessions. Of course, if they weren’t a few standard deviations from most means, they wouldn’t be here, but still… Is there as much satisfaction to be had in being an earnest generalist as a thorough specialist?

Have you ever thought much about what kind of geek you are? About what kind of geek you want to be? How about what you’d do with your free time if you didn’t watch any TV or play any video games? It strikes me that hobbies can be measured on 3 axes: Time required, money required, and energy required. There isn’t much fun near the origin. All the cool stuff is way out on at least 2 axes. Where does your favorite hobby lie? What’s your dream hobby if you had unlimited resources in all 3?

Well, back to swimming, biking, and running for me. Until the next adventure…

Lest You Think I'm Completely Nuts...

2009-06-09T15:41:00.001-07:00

There are things MUCH crazier than the Iron Man I'm planning to do:

There's the UltraMan: A 3 day, 320 mile race. Day 1 is a 6.2 mile swim, and a 90 mile bike ride. Day 2 is a 171.4 mile bike ride. Day 3 is a 52.4 mile run. Each day's activity has to be completed in less than 12 hours. Oh, and (except for the swim) it's all up and down the mountains of The Big Island of Hawaii.

Then there's the Western States 100: One Hundred miles up and down the most dramatic portions of the Rocky Mountains. They put a wristband on you with your weight at the beginning of the race. From time to time over the course, they weigh you and if you've dropped more than 10 percent of your body weight, they make you stop.

Who could forget The Badwater Ultramarathon: A 147 mile race from the lowest point in the Continental US (Death Valley) to the highest point in the continental US (Mt. Whitney) through the hottest parts of the US (temperatures exceeding 120 degrees Faharenheit.) Of course, federal regulations require the race to officially end before the summit (a mere 135 miles) but who's going to go that far, come that close and not finish the job? What's 12 miles (and assorted felonies) between friends?

Not to give Running all the glory, there's the Furnace Creek 508: A 508 mile bike race that includes 36,000 feet of climb and must be completed in under 48 hours.

Back to the water for a minute, there's the FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix: A bracing 54.6 mile swim. Keep in mind that that's a long distance if your BIKING! The record holder did it in just over 10 hours. I wonder if his hands got all wrinkly...

How could I not mention the Marathon des Sables: Simply 148 miles through the Sahara.

While we're talking "destination races", there's the Antarctic 100k: Yup, 62.1 miles run through ANTARTCA!!! Your meager $15,000 race fee includes the flight from Chile. Isn't that considerate?

And finally, there's the granddaddy of them all... The Iditarod. Sure, the sled dogs do most of the work, but it's still 1,150 miles. Um... wow.

Let me know if I've left out your favorite. And thank you for indulging me. I needed this to help keep what I'm doing in perspective.

Cheers!

One Triathlon Does NOT Make Me an Expert!

2009-06-09T14:46:00.000-07:00

It may be the blind leading the blind (or the Blind Leading the Naked as my favorite punks would say...) But since I've been asked to give the following advice a couple of times now, I might as well record it for posterity. Mayhaps I can revisit it as I get better at this crazy sport. Or at least amuse myself with what I thought was important back in the day.

A bunch of people have asked me if I had any advice to give to people staring (or considering starting) triathlon training. First, there are some questions to consider:

what distance are you aspiring to (sprint, international/olympic, half-iron, iron)? This matters because much advice is distance specific.
What is presently your strong sport and your weak one?
Have you ever done any formal/organized races before?
Any pre-existing conditions/major injuries in your past?
What kind of budget are we talking about here? Are things like a gym membership possible? Pool membership? Personal Trainer?
Is there a really decent bike shop nearby? I mean someplace that has not one triathlon bike, but several brands of triathlon bikes. One that has a fit bike and at least 1 person certified to do bike fittings.

Now for some training Suggestions:

First and foremost, develop a training plan. Of course you can deviate from it, but looking at a piece of paper on the wall by your bedroom light-switch or next to the mirror in your bathroom for what you should be doing today makes it MUCH more likely that it will happen. Here's an example. It's overly complicated, and takes a while to figure out, but worth it.
Read. Alot. There are a bunch of books in the sports/fitness section of any given bookstore. I can recommend IronMan specific ones, but something more general might be helpful to start with. There are also some great articles here (Particularly this one.)
Aspire to two-a-day workouts. It will take you a while to get there, but it will make you scheduling and training a lot more productive/profitable/possible.
Having company is often more valuable than training at your ideal pace/heartrate/duration. Find a friend to train with (or more likely 3 or more friends, as it's easier to find a friend for each sport than someone willing to do all 3. Hint: the clothes are tiny, so most folks physically capable will probably figure out a way to train with you if you ask them nicely.)
It's MUCH better to undertrain than over train. If your body/job/relationship requires a day off, TAKE A DAY OFF! That said, don't take too much time off for illness. It's better to shorten workouts than cancel them most times. Rule of thumb: if there's a fever, skip the workout. If not, try to do at least something. :)
Get some kind of toy/combination of toys that tells you how far you've gone, how fast you're going, what your heart rate is, and how fast you're pedaling. This will make your life SOOOO much easier (and every workout more effective.
When biking the most important thing is keeping your RPM's (number of times you pedal per minute between 90 and 100. It barely matters how fast you're going. If you're above 100 rpm, downshift. If you fall below 90, upshift. Beyond that just focus on keeping your shoulders down, your tailbone back, your knees in, and think about kicking someone in the shin on each stroke.
Buy or Netflix the Total Immersion Freestyle, Backstroke, Open Water, and Breathing in H20 videos. If you don't have netflix, smile pretty at someone who does. If everyone near you is too dumb to bend to your will after your winningest smile, buy them on line.
When running, try to focus on your foot falls being quiet. That's the best sign that you're being efficient.
If you have the means, get a coach. Either for the event you're weakest in, or for triathlon training in general. Check the yellow pages, go into your local multi-sport store, or even check the interwebs. My coach does phone and email consulting, and he's kind of a rock star. Check him out.
If you have some kind of digital audio device (iPod or whatever) download a bunch of podcasts. There are some wonderful triathlon specific ones (my favorite of course is Get Your Geek On). But anything that keeps you happy and/or distracted for 1-7 hours is wonderful. You can't always have company after all...

GEAR!!! (Stuff to get. * indicates that you won't need it until closer to raceday.)

Compression socks: Wear them on all your long runs and long bikes. You will look completely dorky, but they really cut down on fatigue and speed recovery.
GPS Watch: (like the Garmin ForeRunner 305) speed bike cadence sensor, and quick release kit.
A decent triatlon bike. A decent place will charge you for a bike fitting (that will take 1-3 hours) but they'll subtract that from the price of the bike when you buy. If you're deciding between bikes, go for the one that fits you best, then the one that has the nicest frame. Fancy components can run up the price quickly, but in the long run you don't want to be trading up bikes every few years. Buy the frame you can have forever and if you discover more money or get REALLY serious about the sport you can put more money into super light this-and-that or fancy wheels. I'm rocking a Felt B2 named "Binky" and I love her so.
Aero helmet. Man they look dumb, but they do make a big difference.
A Fuel Belt: Again, they look dumb, and take a while to get used to, but any run over 90 mintues or so it REALLY helps to have water with you.
BodyGlide. Insides of knees, nipples, insides of upper arms, where the sportsbra meets the chest, anywhere chaffing could happen, Bodyglide keeps the misery away. :)
Wetsuit: You can rent them, but yuck. People pee in those! You can probably get a decent entry level suit for between 150 and 180. Plus, when you own your own, you can cut the legs off to the upper calf. Doesn't lose you anything and makes it SOOOO much easier to get on and off. :) If you're a strong swimmer, get one without arms. Otherwise, the full arms increase bouyancy and may make up for slightly sloppy body position just the least little bit.
SuitJuice. Even with the above mentioned suit mutilation, it's still hard to get these damn things on and off. This suit safe lube sprayed on forearms and lower legs makes all the difference in the world.
Tri Shorts. You do NOT want to have to change clothes any more than absolutely necessary during the race. Something you can have on under your wet suit, leave on for the bike and still run in is GENIUS! There needs to be enough padding that you aren't miserable on the bike, but little enough that you can still run comfortably.
*Tri Top: Basically their biggest advantage is that they have pouches on the back that you can stuff food and small tools into. May not seem like much, but there aren't many other places to keep things, and the bike is 50% of your time during the race, so...
A yoga mat: Allows you to stretch comfortable on hardwood and wet grass, and can double as your transition mat during the race.
*Triathlon Bag: ( http://www.triathlonbags.com/products_original.asp ) I can't even describe how much easier this makes your life. Lets you be completely organized, minimizes stress and chaos, hell, it does everything but pedal for you. :)
At least a few non-cotton t-shirts. Cotton is the enemy!!! You want something called "tech material" though the Under Armor (non-compression) products are good too.
A resistance trainer: This lets you turn your bike into a stationary/exercise bike. And in combination with your GPS watch or bike computer, makes your ride as good as any LifeCycle out there. You may also want to get a trainer tire, which is a pain in the but to put on and take off of your bike, but since the resistance traininer will peel the rubber right off your regular tires, it's worth it.
Bikeing shoes: You need "clipless pedals" on your bike, and the shoes that make them work. This allows you to get power on the upstroke as well as the downstroke of each pedal rotation. There are a few different styles of pedals, and the guy at your bike shop can talk to you about the pros and cons of each. As for the shoes, there are triathlon specific bike shoes that make your transitions a little quicker (which is worthwhile for shorter distances like sprints and international/olympics). Then there are more rigid road shoes. These take longer to get on and off, but they offer a little more support and transfer power a little better and are probably the way to go for longer (half-iron or iron) distances. Brace yourself: Bike shoes are NOT CHEAP!
Running shoes that someone who does it for a living actually fit to you: They may cost a few dollars more than what you get at the mall, but a well fit pair of shoes can make you feel years younger. Fleet Feet is a pretty good national chain.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. It's an expensive hobby and can become about credit card bills and checklists pretty quickly if you let it.

Actual race strategy, laying out your transition area, pack list for race weekend, recovery... all these are lengthy diatribes as well. So this should be plenty to get you started. Let me know if you have more specific questions. Hey, if I can do it, ANYONE can do it.

Rockman Half-Iron Triathlon

2009-06-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

So on June 7th, 2009, I did the Rockman Half-Iron Triathlon in and around Rock Cut State Park in Rockford Il. I’d like to share my memories of the day with you. However, unlike my previous race reports, I’ll not give you a recollection per mile. 70.3 recollections would be a little long (if not downright dull…) So I’ll offer you a few lists instead.

General:

The swim was 1.2 miles long, the bike was 56 miles long, the run was 13.1 miles long. This is half the “Iron Man” distance, so it’s generally called a “Half-Iron.” A lovely chemist I know pointed out that the atomic number of iron 26. As Aluminum’s atomic number is 13, half an Iron Man would be an “Aluminum Man” That’s a bit sexier than “Rockman”
The amount of gear required to make the weekend happen was… staggering. I shan’t list it all, but in addition to my bike, there were 3 other suitcases/duffel-bags etc. Good thing a wonderful human being lent me their car, as transporting all that 100 miles on my bike wouldn’t have been much fun.
The day began at 3:30am. Breakfast at 4, leave for the park at 4:30, start setting up my transition area at 5, test the bike at 6, suit on at 6:30, practice swim at 6:45, start at 7. In the morning. I’m STILL up at 7 more often than I’m just up. Argh!

Recollections from the Swim:

The start wasn’t a run into the water like I’d thought. Everyone started already in the water. This was a bit more civilized and MUCH easier to take.
After a few minutes, it started to rain. With one’s head under the water, the sound of millions of raindrops on the surface of the lake is… indescribable.
I had no idea how hard it would be to swim in a straight line. With no lane lines, no lines on the bottom of a pool I wandered all over that damn lake. Eventually I started looking up every few strokes. My form went to hell, but I stopped wandering quite so much.
There were creepy weeds. They were reaching up to grab me. Taking liberties with my arms, legs, face… Fortunately they were barely a distraction. More of a “Huh. This is happening now.” Don’t get me wrong… I still prefer chlorine and filters, but… I can do this.
Since I was well to the back of the pack and wandering off course etc. I wasn’t near other swimmers all that often. But I did occasionally get grabbed, swum over, and even wound up with hand-fulls of other people’s wet-suited bits. This too was easier to take in stride (well, “in stroke” really…) than I’d expected.

Recollections from the First Transition:

So I’m supposed to take off this wetsuit, catch up on an hours worth of burnt calories, get dressed for a bike ride, and make sure I’ve got everything I’ll need for the next 56 miles. Oh yeah, and the clock’s still running. The pros do it in 40 seconds. I took almost 6 minutes. But hey, I didn’t forget anything…

Recollections from the Bike

I hauled ASS! Seriously, I was blowing past people like I knew what I was doing. The only person who passed me ended up coming in third overall, so I don’t feel too bad about that. :)
There were only a couple of aid stations along the course. I wondered how they were going to handle getting things to people on bikes. Turns out the volunteers run along side you as fast as they can and hand you whole water bottles. 56 miles is short enough that on a cool overcast day you can get by with the 2 to 4 bottles you already have clipped onto your bike. But the handoffs are still appreciated.
I guess I assumed that a race would be on some perfectly smooth and magically traffic-free streets somewhere. Turns out they’re just everyday roads, with potholes, gravel, dead animals, poo, and those annoying bumps every few feet that make it less fun to go down hill. But there were police at each major intersection. And when they cyclists coming, they stopped traffic. For me. Police stopped traffic for me. Damn I love a parade…
I actually hit 40 miles per hour a couple of times. Not for long, but still. I would have been breaking the speed limit on a lot of streets.
I heard it rained during the bike but I have no clear recollection of that. What I do remember is nearly dying when I hit a petrified pile of poo. And then again when I nearly hit a freshly killed possum. This is a strange hobby.

Recollections from the Second Transition:

This should have been the easy one. Get off the bike, change shoes, head out. But somehow it still took me 5 minutes. And I managed to forget things. Like applying the goo that keeps my knees from chaffing. And I forgot to untie my running shoes before the race started, so I had to undo the triple-knots during transition. I would have forgotten the sunscreen except that my support crew yelled to remind me. Stupid hat, check. Magical watch, check. Hard part’s over. Now for a nice, easy jog. Almost a warm-down after everything I’d already done. What could go wrong?

Recollections from the Run:

Wait a minute… Hills? Um… we didn’t have those in Chicago. Come to think of it, I haven’t run on hills in… Well, it’s been years. Funny thing about hills is that they’re almost as hard to go down as up. The sure take it out of you too.
One guy passed me (“dropped me like a dirty shirt” in the parlance of the sport) right at the beginning but that was it. Mostly I was passing people. And these were some pretty buff-looking tough-ass athletes. Sometimes they were walking a little, sometimes I was just plain moving faster. Sure I hurt but… running is what I do.
There wasn’t the support you have in a marathon. There were only a few aid stations (and no one was handing out beer.) And there were hardly any spectators at all. But those volunteers and few spectators were just incredible. They were out there starting as early as 6am, through rain and heat and humidity, cheering their guts out for 5-7 hours. Even the other runners were wonderful. No one had much breath to spare, but you’d still get a “looking good” or a “half-mile to the turn-around” from many of them. When you pulled up alongside someone they’d make conversation, wish you luck. You really can make friends in just a few seconds. It helps.
I did make a rather large mistake. I decided to occupy my mind by calculating what the weekend cost me. Race fees, swim lessons, equipment, gas, hotel, food, gym/pool membership… It was staggering. I really should have kept doing things like deriving the quadratic formula, or solving the Towers of Hanoi problem (like I did during the bike. I’m a geek.) I felt like after all that, I should at least have a “… something something something… Priceless.” But I couldn’t come up with it.
Did I mention I like passing people? I read somewhere that the run was the most important event because every person you pass is someone you’re finishing ahead of. I don’t know about all that (technically I was only competing against myself. And big bad mister clock), but damn it felt good.

Recollections of the Finish

I wanted to sprint the whole last mile. But there was a NASTY hill at the 12.5 mile mark, and a guy I REALLY wanted to pass. So I took it hard. Legs started sending urgent failure signals. So I didn’t get to sprint until the last 100 yards or so. But that felt pretty good too.
They had these great mini-flatbread "sammies" from Quiznos at the finish line. A half-dozen of those and a few bottles of water were just what the doctor ordered. That and the cheers of my photographer/support crew made it all worthwhile.
Wait… now I have to clean up after myself? After a marathon you can just limp away, but I had duffle bags of crap to pack up. Then protein. Huge steaming piles of protein in my future. Mmmm…

Low Points of the Day:

#3 Forty miles into the bike: my knees started to hurt. This was NOT a good sign. I still had another hour on the bike, and the whole run ahead of me. The run was no longer looking like the breeze I thought it would be.
#2 Two miles into the run: My lower back was killing me. One of my feet was numb. I felt used up and was hating life. Sure, there were only 11 miles to go, but… This was gonna be hard.
#1 Two hundred yards into the swim: Panic attack. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t imagine going on… When I was low on air, coach told me to roll onto my back and backstroke for a while. This made my throat close up worse. I was treading water, but that was burning energy at an alarming rate. The question wasn’t whether I was going to quit, but where (I was about equidistant from the shore and a raft. Then I thought about telling my support crew that we were heading home before 8am. I couldn’t face that. So I remembered what my running partner did when she needed air: breaststroke. You don’t move much, and it’s hardly what you’d call efficient. But I was moving, and my breath was coming back. A few dozen yards of that, and I could go on. But for a few minutes there it was over almost as soon as it began.

High Points of the Day:

#3 Heading out of the first transition. I may have been moving slow, but I did everything I was supposed to do. Felt like a pro.
#2 Finishing the race. Like any endurance event, the goal is mostly to finish. Finishing feeling pretty good was just gravy.
#1 Finishing the swim. Under my own power. And actually ahead of other people. I wasn’t last!!!

Things I ate DURING the race (this doesn’t include breakfast, “pre-race nutrition”, finish line treats, or the post-race gorging):

2 cherry-pretzel “Pro Bar” meal bars
2 packages of “Shot Block” energy gummies
4 coconuts worth of coconut water
4 boxes of O.N.E. coconut water
1 5-hour energy shot
1 strawberry yogurt
2 bananas

Animals I saw (alive) during the bike:

Dogs (not on leashes. They just knew to stay in their yard and not chase the bicyclists.)
Cows (wow is cow poo pungent!!!)
Pigs (and I thought the cows had an aroma…)
Goats (who the hell farms goats? Don’t they just eat stuff they’re not supposed to? Oh yeah… yummy yummy yummy cheese…)
Birds (they weren’t exactly flying at my head, but they sure do give you a funny look when you’re keeping up with them.)

Animals I saw (dead) during the bike:

Possum (has anyone ever seen one alive?)
Bird (since they never lie down in life, it’s all the more troubling to see them lying down in death.)
Cat (I almost stopped to check its tag to make sure its owner knew. But my cell phone was back at the car…)
Chipmunk (you know they’re still cute even when some of their guts have gotten out?)

Things I learned:

It doesn’t matter what’s in your water bottle. When you’re smelling poo, you’re tasting poo.
I knew that the faster guys pulled their junk out and peed off the side of their bikes (that’s why you ALWAYS pass on the left. They pee to the right.) But apparently the faster women just pee. They don’t even stop pedaling. This is a weird hobby.
Some of the fancier socks out there are actually left and right specific. And it’s possible for a grown-ass man (who makes checklists for a living) to pack two left socks. Just one of the many times my kick-ass support crew saved me (I had an emergency back-up bag in the car. I also plan for emergencies for a living. :)
You can get a sunburn even on an overcast day. Even with a freaky science-fiction looking helmet covering most of your neck.

Things that are Awesome:

The Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch. It told me how far I’d gone, when to slow down, when to speed up, when to change gears… Wizard!
The water out of the middle of a young coconut. It’s got the same combination of sugars and electrolytes as Gatorade, but it’s all natural and actually tastes good. If you’re too lazy to peel them and cut them open yourself, there are a few brands that put it into drink boxes for you. One brand is WAY better than all the others, and is just about as good as doing it yourself: O.N.E. Check them out.
The folks who organized the race. They got hundreds of people traveling scores of miles without getting lost, hurting themselves, or running out of anything. That’s… a hell of a thing.
Cheap wetsuits: There were folks selling decent wetsuits at less than half price. And they not only let you try them on before you bought them, but you could go out and swim in them too. THAT'S customer service. :)
The Triathlon Bag: There’s a company that makes this incredible zip-up mesh bag that has pouches perfectly shaped for everything you need for a triathlon (except the bike of course.) You just unzip it and start setting up/tearing down your transition area. Genius!
The Rockford Radison: 4am breakfast, 3pm checkout, and SleepNumber beds. Everything a triathlete needs.

Things that Suck:

The Idiot from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources that demanded 3$ before he’d let me onto the beach the day before the race: Stupid schmuck thought he was on Baywatch…
Garmin Forerunner 305: On the run, from miles 4 through 11, my magic GPS watch didn't match up with the mile markings (off by as much as 1.7 miles at times.) I doubted first my Garmin, then the mile markers. Then I gave up on knowing where I was at all. And not being able to gauge progress accurately is… not my favorite thing. I have been assured by the race director that the markings were dead on, so it must have been the tunnel we went through just before mile 4. Grrr.
Ice in water cups when you’re trying to drink on the run. Just gets in the way.
Hills. Chicago’s flat, why can’t everywhere else be dammit!

Thanks to:

Julia: For being the best photographer/support crew ever
Jeff from Smartfitness: for teaching me how to swim
Kevin, Adam, and everyone else at Get a Grip Cycles for keeping my bike working.
JerriLou: for all the wonderful advice and for biking with me
Jen: for running with me and getting me on the road to begin with
Laura: for believing in me even when I didn’t
Pete: for teaching me to love bikes and riding with me
Chip: for organizing one hell of a race
Mom and Dad: for loving me even when I do crazy stuff
Josh: for putting up with me and helping out with my gym membership
The nice folks at Running Away Multisport: for selling me all that good stuff. Most of which I actually needed. :)
Steve (from Steverunner.com): For all the podcasts that kept me going during my long runs.
Iron Will and the Kahuna (from Get Your Geek On): For all the podcasts and advice that kept me going during my bikes. And of course the Tri Life Lessons
All the Volunteers: For water, smiles, support, and making it all happen
Everyone else who supported me, believed in me, put up with me, loved me, and generally dealt with my crazy ass. You are all champions to me.

Final Results (201 people registered, 189 finished)

Swim: 48 min, 54 sec (178th fastest)
T1: 5 min, 53 sec
Bike: 3 hours, 0 min, 23 sec (138th fastest)
T2: 5 min, 14 sec
Run: 2 hrs, 3 min, 56 sec (100th fastest)
Total: 6 hrs, 4 min, 21 sec (144th fastest)

Photos of all the ridiculousness above can be found here.

Oh yeah, and I finally figured it out.

Money: Lots.
Time: Lots and Lots.
Pain: Oh yeah.
Passing people with better bodies and more expensive bicycles than mine… Priceless.

Customer Service

2009-05-26T16:56:00.000-07:00

So my super sexy Garmin GPS watch died. It tells me how fast I'm running, how fast I'm biking, how far, what my heart rate is, how fast I'm pedaling... all sorts of useful things that the aspiring triathlete grows somewhat reliant on. Especially with their first triathlon less than 2 weeks away.

This. Is. Bad.

I go to the Garmin Store (you have to love living in a big city...) and ask for help. They tell me what I already know: It's dead. They have to ship it off to Ohio. If I'm willing to pay extra for shipping, they should have it back to me in time. I just have to pony up 80$ or prove that I've had it for less than a year. Each of those options is... difficult. While I'm pondering, we hit a snag: service is backlogged WEEKS because of Memorial Day (?!?) and even if I pay the super-hyper-premium shipping, I won't have it until well after my race.

Boo.

Now, I'm not above begging. I start offering to leave them my credit card and Rolex if they'll just let me borrow one for the day of the race, or buy one and return it after the race or something. To my absolute shock, they said sure. They took my watch, sent it off to be repaired, and handed me a new one. They said I could return it when I came to pick up my repaired watch (and that if it wasn't returned in month, they'd charge me for it, but otherwise I should enjoy it and have a great race.)

Wait, what?

It's a shame that fantastic customer service has become so rare that it leaves us slightly speechless. That said, everyone out there should go buy a Garmin product. They're one of the few GPS products on the market that are Mac-friendly, they make good gear, and oh yeah, they take damn good care of their customers.

Cheers to Robert and Catherine at the Michigan Ave. Garmin Store. You guys rock.

Progress

2009-05-12T00:53:00.000-07:00

110 days to Ironman

So a few months back, my swim coach's highest compliment was that sometimes the lifeguard looked away.

Tonight, after a quarter mile warm-up and some drills, I swam a mile and a half. Without stopping. Sure, it was in a 20 yard lap pool (that's 120 lengths if you're keeping track.) It took me an hour. And it was DULL! (Scenery on the bottom of the pool doesn't change much. Hey, is that tile bluer than the others? Maybe not.) But I did it. And for the first time, I can actually imagine doing nearly twice that, then hopping on a bike. My coach is pretty damn wonderful.

Oh, and something else I'm proud of? I'm not one of these people.

Enemy

2009-03-30T22:22:00.000-07:00

152 Days to Ironman

I've figured something out. The water's not the enemy. The road's not the enemy, the race isn't the enemy, the Man's not the enemy...

The clock is the enemy.

In Earnest It Begins

2009-03-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

166 Days to Ironman

So I did my first official by-the-book psycho Ironman workout today. It was a whole bunch of interval stuff on the Turbo Trainer (my triathlon bike up on a resistance thingie and wired up with all kinds of computer gear. This many minutes at this speed, then this many minutes at that speed, repeat and vary.) Then jump off the bike, change shoes, and go for a run. It was... strangely enjoyable. Plus I burned 2100 calories in an hour and a half. Steak dinner here I come! This is a fun sport. :)

By the way, this week I have 15 hours of training scheduled. That's going to build to about 30 hours a week as this madness progresses. So if you don't hear much from me in the next 6 months, it's really really really not any kind of intentional slight.

As always, I appreciate any words of encouragement, support, or the contact info for a good loony bin. Just remember, crazy or not, I'm going to have GREAT calves!

My puppy is a star!

2009-03-02T21:14:00.000-08:00

Among my favorite websites is "I Has a Hotdog" (from the evil geniuses who brought you the LolCats, FailBlog, and others.)

If you aren't familiar with the site, it's pretty straightforward. Take an adorable picture, but an equally adorable (and usually "lolspeak") caption on it, and share it with the world. Well, my puppy's adorable, so...

http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/view.aspx?ciid=3567329

http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/view.aspx?ciid=3567292

A little more Fail

2009-02-13T07:51:00.001-08:00

So (as I may have already mentioned) I'm a huge fan of the Fail Blog. Knowing everything on there is real and actually happened is different from biking down the street and actually seeing something yourself. Oh, there's Fail all around us. But every once in a while you see something that would actually read in a photograph.

The world is a very silly place. And thanks to camera phones, it's getting a great deal easier to document the silly.

How about you? Seen anything silly lately?

On Romance

2009-01-10T23:48:00.000-08:00

Someone recently pointed out to me that they got suspicious when people called themselves "Romantics". They explained that romance frequently coming along with stereotypes and pre- or mis-conceptions. And I guess they have a point.

But having thought about it a bit more, I think my biggest problem with "romantic" as a descriptor is that it's a bit of a cop-out. It's like "nice". It's easy to say and it gives people an idea, but it's not specific enough. It doesn't really describe the way you think or feel about the world, but the way you want people to think that you think and feel about the world. So I decided I want to be more specific.

I think pick-up lines are funny. I can't imagine that they ever work, and it would never occour to me to ever use one on anyone. But there is one I rather like. "Would you like to watch the sun rise?" I get the image of sitting on a grassy hill in the middle of a field on a warm clear night, talking for hours until the sun rose. And I love that image.

I like giving someone flowers because of the smile it brings to their lips and the way the colors reflect in their eyes. But I would much rather send someone on a scavenger hunt. Not only do they have fun along the way and wind up with a great story to tell about their crazy friend Adam, but it means spending time on someone instead of just money. And if spent properly, that can be a lot more meaningful.

I used to go to a really wonderful summer camp for kids who were too smart for their own good. One summer I decided that punchlines to jokes had a value of their own independent of the jokes themselves, and went around asking everyone for their favorite punchline (and not letting them tell me the joke.) I think the best one was "Well, if you assume a spherical cow..." But another summer I went looking for a definition of the word "love" that covered "I love my partner", "I love my parents", "I love my friends", "I love my dog", and "I love chocolate." Before long I found that this was a bigger challenge than I thought, but I got some great answers and had some incredible conversations. The answer I finally settled on is that love is when you put someone/something else before your own welfare. Love is when something is more important to you than you are.

That's what I mean when i say I'm a romantic.

How about you?

The Trick Is Not to Mind It.

2008-12-11T14:23:00.000-08:00

Truth and beauty from Jane Wagner (via Lilly Tomlin):

I want to share something vital
I just read in this self-help book
I took from the trash can
in the ladies' room at the
House of Pancakes
Will, by G. Gordon Liddy,
Master of the Watergate caper.

My new guru.
Who, when holding his hand
over a lit candle, said,
"The trick is not to mind it."

And I don't mind it
when I first came into this world
Elvis was already fat.

And I didn't mind it
when I heard that Ozzy Osbourne
bit the head
off a bat.

I don't mind
I was born
at the time of the crime
known as Watergate.

And must've missed out
on most things
that made America great
But I don't mind it.

And I don't mind
no matter how much contempt
I have for society
it's nothing compared
to the contempt
society has for me.

I don't mind
that the phrase "truth in advertising"
was probably just some lie
thought up by some guy
in advertising.

I don't mind that
there's no more avant-garde
(but my mom took it pretty hard).

I used to be proud
I stuck out from the crowd
now everyone's marching
to a different drummer
what a bummer!
But I don't mind it.

I don't mind that I took my goldfish
and I put it in water
from the faucet
and it died;
our drinking water
caused it.

I tried my mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation skills.
My dad said, "You are the
daughter of a scientist;
it should've been
mouth-to-gills."
But I don't mind it.

I don't mind
each morning I get up
I feel like I want to vomit.

I don't mind that
the teenage suicide rate
is soaring
like Halley's comet.

The boy in school
that I loved the most
died last year of an overdose.
But I don't mind it.

I have set as my goal
to get so strong
I could peel onions
all day long
and never shed one tear-

I want my skin to thicken
so if I am panic-stricken
when post-nuke day gets here
I won't even feel the fear
as I watch me and the world disappear.

The trick is not to mind it-
if you're looking for peace
this is where you'll find it.

Gordon Liddy showed me the way:
I have been on
heavy metaphor maintenance
all day.

For life
is like that candle flame
and we
are like Gordon Liddy's hand
hovering
over it.

And it hurts
like hell,

but the trick

is not

to mind it.

I mind it.

I mind it.

I mind it.

Gender

2008-11-25T00:35:00.000-08:00

According to the Gender Analyzer, there is a 55% chance that this blog is written by a woman.

If that turns out to be the case, I'd like to meet her. I think we'd get along. ;)

That is all.

Consipiracy Theory

2008-11-23T18:37:00.000-08:00

So a few days before the election, I meant to publish a list of predictions. I got busy and never finished it. Publishing one's predictions following the event is... pointless at best. However, there is one I'd like to mention since it has evolved into a neat bit of paranoia I'd like to share with you.

Prior to the election I predicted that whoever won, gas prices were going to skyrocket. If Obama won, it would be in retaliation for their boy getting stomped, and if McCain won, it would be to return to bringing in profits hand over fist (since they temporarilly lowered prices to make the Republicans look better/less worse.)

This has not been the case. Out in Chicago's western suburbs, I've seen gas as low as $1.719/gallon. This goes to prove that I have poo for brains. That notwithstanding, I've developed a compelling theory as to why gas prices have dropped so much.

There are two reasons: First, now that we have a leader who is genuinely interested in promoting alternative/renewable energy sources, it's critical to keep the average American fat, lazy, and oil dependent. The $4+/gallon outrage might actually have been enough to get us to change something, and unless our leadership is helping maintain the status quo, that's just dangerous to the oil producing nations. So price drop ho!

The other reason: We also have a leader who's serious about getting troops out of Iraq on a definite time table. It's in the vested interests of the oil producing nations to get us the heck out, and therefore lowering prices may help foster good will that will help ensure/encourage our withdrawl.

I should add, for the sake of full disclosure, that while this theoretical cause-effect relationship I've developed is awfully compelling to me, I haven't done anything that one could call "research." For all I know there was some huge new oil discovery in Alabama or Bush decided to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or there's some link between the sub-prime lending crisis and oil prices or something. In short, I may well still have poo for brains. But I still like sharing these theories with y'all. If for no other reason than to stimulate your own thoughts and ideas on the topic. Or, to be honest, to start conversations with friends and family I miss terribly.

So there.

Democracy, Dr. Seuss, and Damnation

2008-11-05T20:22:00.000-08:00

As of '07, the reported population of the US was estimated to be 301,139,947. (This doesn't count any undocumented immigrants etc.)

Roughly 75,000,000 are inelegible to vote because they are under 18

Another 5,300,000 inelegable because they're incarcerated or have a felony conviction etc.

Round off and say there were about 220,000,000 Americans eligable to vote in this past election.

Of those, only 169,000,000 were registered to vote.

Of those, just under 120,000,000 voted.

On the surface these numbers might not incite rage in you, so let's break them down a little further.

27% of America decided against (or were prevented from) participating in the democratic process.

29% of the people who did take the trouble to sign up didn't actually bother on the day.

Obama won with 63,936,544 votes to McCain's 56,434,101. So Obama won the poular vote (don't even get me STARTED on the elctoral college...) by 7,502,433 votes. When 100,000,000 people who could have voted didn't!

Let me restate that. When it came down to it, the votes of 2.5% of Americans determined who would lead our country, when only 40% of Americans voted at all, and 45% of the people who could have voted, didn't.

I don't care who you wanted to win. If there was a victory in this election it was that voter registration much higher than 4 years ago (up from 145,000,000.) And if there was a tragedy in this election, it's that even now little better than half of the Americans we've decided should be allowed to are participating in the democratic process.

You remember democracy right? That ideal that we've revolted for, fought for, died for, and now can't be bothered to get off the couch for?

Whatever your politics, you were probably angry about either the '04 or '08 presidential elections. Wouldn't it be more productive to be angry about the process than about what the talking heads look like this year?

In Horton Hears a Who, a whole tiny world was going to be destroyed because a single little person was shirking their duty, wasn't making themselves heard. We've got one hundred MILLION shirking. Until every last Who is heard from, we're going to boil in Beezelnut oil (to take the metaphore just a bit to far). What are we going to do about it?

Should we make voting mandatory? Add a 500$ tax every year that will only be forgiven if you can prove you voted? Take away the drivers liscense from anyone who can't prove they voted? Stop having sex with people who can't prove they voted?

Or is the problem that there are too many people voting? Perhaps one should have to pass a short quiz on current events and major issues before they can enter the voting booth? Restrict voting to those who have served a term of military or civil service?(they may not be any better equipped to make good choices, but at least they've demonstrated that they're willing to do something for the land that they're asking things from...)

Something is very broken. A wise man once said "don't tell me what I'm doing wrong, tell me what you're going to do right." Okay. There's an awful lot wrong with the country I love, and I want to do something about it. So I'm going to run for something. I'm not sure if it's going to be city council or school board or what, but I won't be satisfied until I can go in front of a group actually empowered to make decisions as one of their own and vent my spleen. I may never get elected and goodness knows I won't hold office long, but there isn't a damn thing that's going to stop me from trying.

And someday my opponents are going to find these blogs. Good. I'm proud of every damn thing I've said here.

Now stop reading this drivel and try to figure out what YOU're going to do to make a difference.

That's a change alright...

2008-11-04T21:17:00.000-08:00

I'll always remember exactly where I was when Barrak Obama was elected President.

I was biking home from work (30 miles straight along North Avenue from St. Charles to the northwestern part of Chicago.) It's a pretty major road that goes through some rather beat-down neighborhoods. It was in one of these neighborhoods I noticed a bunch of horns honking.

I didn't think much of it at first. I get honked at a lot. I can never tell if they're yelling "get off the road!" or "nice bike!" (Something about the acoustics of car windows or the doppler effect I guess.) But this wasn't sustained irritated honking. This was a repeated pulsing. Almost... celebratory. I looked at my watch. 10:30pm CST. Yup, that'd be about right for the election to get called.

The horns got more frequent, and were joined by young people hanging out of car windows holding posters and banners and yelling. I've really only ever seen this behavior in the context of some major sporting event. I honestly couldn't figure out what they were celebrating. Sure, if you thought the other guy would have been worse, you dodged a bullet of sorts, but you've still got to pay your taxes. The rich will still get richer and you still have to go to your crappy job tomorrow.

Now pedestrians were getting into the act. There were people crowding sidewalks cheering, screaming, drinking. And almost inevitably, where large groups gather, there will be police. They were closing off sections of the street so people on foot could celebrate without meeting, most unfortunately, those celebrating in their cars. I really only know this one route home, so I dodged around the barricades and kept biking.

More people. More drinking. More yelling. And not all of it sounded... friendly. Then finally I noticed what didn't feel right. All the faces on the street were black. All the faces in riot gear were white. Then I understood the celebration. This wasn't the lesser of two evils getting elected. For a whole group of Americans, they were looking at the person who would lead them and finally saw someone who looked like them. Perhaps with bigger ears, but... For the first time I realized how significant this particular marketing competition was to an awful lot of people.

But that's not all that struck me. It was an empty beer can first. Then a half full one. When the glass bottle bounced off my bike helmet I grew... concerned.

There was a guy running down the street waving an Obama banner over his head yelling "F**k the police! F**k all you motherf**kers!" Little children holding American flags bigger than they were were saying "OBAMA!" over and over again in little sing-song tunes they were making up. Young men and women stalked through the street as thought they had a purpose, they just hadn't figured out what it was yet.

More of the shouts seemed to be directed at the white guy on the expensive bike now. Ahead the crowd started to look a little thicker than I could bike through and I began to reassess my travel plans. Right then a police officer stepped in front of me and got right in my face.

"You" he said "are going to find another way home." Then, with a look over his shoulder he added "Right the hell now."

Fair enough. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. The joy of living in a city that had been kind enough to burn down a little over a hundred years ago is that it's all rectilinear and grid-tastic. The street a half mile north worked almost as well and was MUCH less crowded.

I want to believe in change. I want to be excited about this new beginning. But for the next little while at least, I'm going to have a hard time thinking about the new leader of the free world without smelling stale beer on me, feeling the can-shaped bruise on my back, or hearing the ringing in my ears that was a bike helmet away from a concussion.

God bless America.

First Snow

2008-10-27T14:49:00.000-07:00

That's right. Halloween is still a week away, and the first flakes of the season have landed on my face. I love Chicago.

Ah snow... It always fills me with a perplexing mixture of joy and horror: The joys of snowmen and sledding and snowballs and drinking cocoa looking out the window at a sparkling snowscape. The horrors of biking through slush and ice and salt, a million layers, frozen fingers and toes and noses, idiots driving even worse than usual, holidays...

Unnecessary factoids:
-There's a little dust/dirt/pollution at the center of each snowflake. So looked at one way, it's all yellow snow.

-It's so cold high up in the atmosphere that all precipitation starts out as snow. If it's warm down near the surface of the earth, it will melt and become rain. It just needs to get cold enough that the snow can make it all the way down without melting (hail is snow that has melted into rain, then refrozen.)

-Skiing is a very strange hobby: I'm down! Take me back up so I can go down again!

Biology of Frustration

2008-10-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

308 Days to Ironman.

Lets have a little talk about the autonomic nervous system. See, there are certain things your body has decided are far too important to leave under your brain's control. Things like your heart pumping blood, your lungs drawing air, and your pancreas doing... whatever the hell it is pancreases do.

Sure, if you work at it, you can decide when and how much to breathe. There are even those who can slow or speed their heartbeat just by thinking about it really hard. I've heard tales of those who can actually stop a sneeze, but I'm not buying it. But when it comes right down to it, your body usually knows best (except for guys out on dates. Their bodies are NEVER to be trusted.)

Then people decided to swim. Sure, our ancestors crawl out of the oceans millions of years ago. Sure, it's somewhat disrespectful to all their hard work to go back. But some evil bastard decided that swimming should be the first event in a triathlon, so what are you gonna do?

There you are, surrounded by a fluid whose sole purpose seems to be keeping air away from you. Then you do exercise, which makes you need more of what you can't have! (Okay, so it is a little like dating...) Now your body knows when it should breathe and how much. Except you're face down in this smothering slop. You can only breathe at certain points in your stroke, and then only briefly. And if you don't do it exactly right, you sink like a rock. Who thought this was a good idea?

I'm making progress. And I love my hobbies. I just love some of them more than others. That's not wrong is it? :)

Meet My New Friends

2008-10-24T22:09:00.000-07:00

To quote Kanje West: "Bigger, Faster, Stronger!" Me Likey! But it's most important feature? The keyboard works!!! As such, you'll be hearing an awful lot more from me. For better or worse. :)

It's like a bike, only... fancy! Some call her a Felt B2. I call her "Binky". We've got lots of miles to go together, but I think this is the start of a beautiful relationship.

Wow.

2008-10-17T16:36:00.001-07:00

316 Days to Ironman

So I had my first swim lesson today. Oh, I "know" how to swim. I think I remember being on the swim team in middle school, but that was 20 years ago. And if you don't count hot tubs or treading water at the beach, I haven't actually swum since then. And in an endurance event like the Ironman, it's not about just being able to move. Form is important. And stuff.

I don't think I've ever been this terrible at something important to me in my entire life. (At least I don't think so... the first girl who took me to bed might have just been saving my feelings...)

This is going to be hard.

I mean, a sport where you actually have to figure out how you're getting oxygen? Not how to get enough oxygen, but how to get it at all. I don't care that our bodies are some huge percentage water. The stuff is still trying to kill you.

Anyway, my coach is wonderful. And the senior citizens that are also using the pool while I'm there help keep me motivated. I mean, most of my body parts work, so I should eventually be able to do at least as well as these... barely preserved Americans.

Well, it's all part of the process. Adversity makes success all the sweeter. I'm still shopping for my new bike, and am getting back to running tonight. So it's 4 days a week in the pool till... well, till it's not trying to kill me any more.

Wish me luck!

Chicago Marathon 2008

2008-10-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

Pre-race: 45 thousand people registered. They estimated 39 thousand people would actually show up. That's the population of some of the towns I've lived in. And every single one of them thought that getting up at the crack of dawn and going for a little run was a great idea. Thank god for public transportation! It was pretty wonderful looking around a train car that would normally be mostly empty at that time of day and knowing we all had a common destination (if not a common goal.)

But if the train car was crowded, Grant park was... awfully impressive. Normally having people around who share your particular nasty habits is comforting. But all those tents, the crowds, the maps, the signs, the cops... Somehow it made it all seem even crazier.

Thank god for seeded starting corrals! One of the features of a race as big as Chicago is that if you send in times from another recent race, you can qualify to start in a separate group based on your time. But the benefits go beyond just starting in front of people slower than you (preventing much of the hand-to-hand combat early in the race.) There is a separate area to check your bag, even dedicated port-a-potties (and if you don't appreciate the significance of that, remember that all 40 thousand of these idiots have been drinking water all morning their fight-or-flight reflex is telling all of them to pee in the same 15 minutes...) But best of all is how much SPACE is allotted to each starting corral. Unlike the open corral (which can get so crowded you can lift up both feet and not fall down), there was enough room that we could all sit on the ground and stretch, or just sit and spare our feet for a few minutes. It may not sound like much, but right then, it was the height of luxury.

Start: There's something surreal about seeing people ahead of you running, but walking yourself. I'm not sure if it was crowd control or energy conservation, but we all walked, excitement building even if speed didn't. Right up until that imaginary, theoretical, nearly magical boundary: The starting line. Finally we were doing what we came here to do. Run!

Mile 1: It was crowded enough that everyone was running slower than they probably wanted to. Guys are already stopping behind the pillars of an overpass to pee. Well, I'm never one to turn down an opportunity. And I do take a moment to reflect that this is the closest I'll be to the "elites" who will win this thing. I'm only 2 miles behind some Kenyan who will finish the 26 miles in the time it takes most of us to watch a movie. Okay... less thinking, more running.

Mile 2: I don't care if you drive a car or ride a bike; The thrill of going through a red light is universal. I still couldn't help speeding up a little when I saw a green light turn yellow, but at least I had the sense to feel stupid for it. There was a guy in full kilt blowing a mean bagpipe. He was in his 70's, and that wiry thin that made him look like he'd been carved from steel. They may have used those things to frighten the enemy in the past, but this glorious morning, it was just what the doctor ordered.

Mile 3: You know those open-grating style bridges? Motorcyclists loathe them, cyclists fear them. And though I hadn't thought about it before, they are probably hard on a runners ankles. Our ever-vigilant race organizers were kind enough to put carpeting over them. Guess what color it was... No fooling, we actually got the red carpet treatment. A boy could get used to this. :)

Mile 4: And the winner for the best cheering section on the course is... The Moody Church. Those few dozen people were louder, more enthusiastic and good for more motivation than the overpasses crowded with hundreds. I know it was Sunday and they'd probably have been there anyway, but man could those folks cheer (must be the hallelujah muscles...) And speaking of cheering, there was a 40ish year old woman who was in what appeared to be her old high school or college cheerleading uniform. Still looked just fine on her. Good for her. I also ran past my gym. Predictably, they were trying to shake the spectators down for memberships. It reminded me that I hadn't been to the gym in a while...

Mile 5: It was just for a few hundred feet, but for a while there we were on the route I took for most of my long runs. My path, just a few miles from my apartment. It finally sunk in. This is my city, my race in my town. It looks different with the crowds, with no traffic, with all the water stops and aid stations and video cameras. But it's my home. We also pass a guy in a polyester Elvis costume, complete with rhinestone sunglasses. He's not moving very fast, but you've got to admire his dedication. Or something.

Mile 6: The only other marathon I'd run had water stops every 2 miles, and they lasted most of a city block. Here (probably in reaction to last years... rather sultry race) there were water stops EVERY mile, and they lasted nearly 2 blocks. If it wasn't for the fact that it was already warm and getting warmer, I might have skipped some. Call it a premonition, but I figured I might need all I could get...

Mile 7: Turnaround. This is as far north as we're going. Pity. I like the north side. Still, they went to all the trouble of setting up the course, I might as well follow it.

Mile 8: After my incredibly positive experience with the Clif Bar Pace team in Philadelphia, I signed up with the Nike Pace team. These are grown men and women who get paid to run marathons at a certain pace to help others meet their goals. Downright selfless. I can't decide whether or not that makes them crazier than the rest of us. I got rather ambitions and went with the 3 hour and 45 minute pace group. That's 8:35 per mile for 26 miles. I should have known better, particularly with the heat, but hey... if man didn't dream, we'd still be living in caves. The idea of taking 10 minutes of my PR (Personal Record) felt like a goal worthy of all the work I'd put in over the last 4 months.

However, unlike in Philly, I didn't exactly feel like I was in good hands. There were 4 people leading this particular pace team. I'll call them Larry, Curly, Moe, and Brian. (Okay, the only name I'm only sure about Brian. The others are just conjecture.) I kind of liked Moe, because he looked just like Ray Walston from the movie Popeye, but other than that... None of them were wearing the fancy GPS watches that tell you how fast you're going. They were working from regular stopwatches and the temporary tattoos that tell you what time you should reach each mile marker. Hell, they kept asking ME what our pace was. And my watch said we were going WAY too fast. Still, they kept saying we were right on target. Technology is fallible, and these guys are the pros. What do we have without faith right? That said, I was starting to get the idea that this might be hard.

Mile 9: Ah Clark Street... where drunken Cubs fans come to celebrate. Where the North Side drinks and dines. Bars, restaurants, theaters, and bookstores I've patronized. And there are a bunch of guys doing what appears to be a disco version of a rifle drill routine to The Village People. God I love this town... I pass Elvis again. And since he never passed me, I'm pretty sure he cut the course somewhere. The nerve of some people!

Mile 10: For some reason, passing my bike shop was quite a thrill. The guys in there may be able to ride me into the ground, but get them off their bikes and I could probably take most of them. In addition to water, they've started handing out sponges soaked in ice water. Most people were squeezing them over their heads or the backs of their necks. I remembered one triathlon podcast that said sometimes the best thing to do is wipe your face with it. Keep your face clean and cool and you'll feel a lot better. I didn't think about what that might do to my "sweat-proof" sunscreen. Not yet...

Mile 11: My form starts to break down. There are habits of motion: the smooth transition from heel to toe, lifting the knees, pumping the lower arms, head back, chest up. As fatigue sets in you focus more on just keeping the limbs moving, and efficiency falls by the wayside. This is... not a good sign. I might be running too fast, it might be the heat. But I know if I lose sight of my pace team, I’m lost. Left, right, left, right. Failure is not an option.

Mile 12: Most of the signs people were holding up said things like "Go Joe GO!" or "Team Amy!" Not many were noteworthy for their wit, humor, or originality. But there is an occasional gem. Someone held up a sign saying: "You actually paid for this." There were dozens of variations on "Keep it up, there's beer at the finish!" My favorite of all was "No more 6am training runs!!!" I turned to they guy next to me, pointed and said "well, not for the next couple weeks at least. He smiled and replied "Yeah... this does turn into a nasty habit, doesn't it?" We both had a much needed laugh, and got back to the business at hand. Plus, bagpipe guy was back! Yay bagpipe guy!

Mile 13: At the halfway mark, I officially clocked my fastest half-marathon ever. This is either a very very good sign, or a very very bad one. I'd know soon enough one way or the other. Having returned to downtown, we were now headed west, out of the part of the city I knew and into the urban wilderness of the White City. Oh yeah, did I mention that it was hot? They tell you you're supposed to dress for 20 degrees warmer than it actually is when you're
running long distances. It was now pushing 80 F, and there's just no way to dress for 100...

Mile 14: For the first time, it actually fell quiet for a few minutes. No bands, no one cheering, just a cute little tree-lined neighborhood. It was almost a treat really. Time for a little introspection. I hurt and this marathon stuff was dumb. Right. So much for introspection.

Mile 15: Ankle pain is normal. Shoulders too. But the quads cramping is new. And not a pleasant surprise. I'll admit wearing the fancy new fatigue- reducing compression socks for the first time on race day was a huge mistake. But I've been drinking plenty, eating my electrolyte gummies... This shouldn't be happening. Slow down or push through it? Screw it. Left foot, right foot. I can do this. Fear is the mind-killer.

Mile 16: The bag-pipe guy is back ("Scotland The Brave" had never sounded so good...) There was an honest-to-god pep band and (nothing gets my heart pumping like a dozen snare drums, not even) an entire high school cheerleading squad. Ten more miles. Too easy drill sergeant!

Mile 17: Headed south. Something I'd never noticed before... There isn't ANY shade on the south side of Chicago. Heat doesn't kick your butt nearly as thoroughly as the sun can. I don't remember this part of the course as well as I do the rest. All I know is that we turn around and head back north at 35th street. I start watching the street signs. I can do this. Only 9 miles left. I don't even bring water when I go out for a nine-miler. It's no big deal.

Mile 18: It was getting harder to keep the pace team in sight. I'd taken to putting on bursts of speed from time to time to catch up. I even had to pull out the big guns: yelling "Pain is weakness leaving the body!" That's always good for a lift. But it comes at a cost. It'd hoped not to have to use my secret weapons so soon.

Mile 19: Wow! I thought MY neighborhood was heavily Hispanic! It may not have been an economically upbeat part of town, but everyone I saw seemed happy. Children offered me orange slices, popsicles, candy, and juice. Carts sold the spectators fruit and ices. Sure, the only English speakers were running bye, but this crowd knew how to show us their support.

Mile 20: Lost my pace group. This time the flesh was willing, but the spirit was weak. I'd gone too fast for too long, and it was too damn hot. Dreams and times stopped mattering. Finishing suddenly seemed a very valid goal. 20 miles is commonly referred to as "The Wall," the distance after which (if you haven't appropriately prepared, gotten enough calories and electrolytes along the way) your body starts consuming itself just to keep going. Where runners have a tendency to "bonk." And I was bonking in a big way.

Mile 21: Wait a minute, the street numbers are going back DOWN?!?!? Who designed this particular circle of hell we were running through? At least Chinatown was a welcome treat. The sights, the smells, drums and odd sounding instruments, a couple of those dancing dragons they bring out for festivals... Now getting Dim Sum with friends... that's a great way to spend a Sunday morning. I wonder if I can get a group together for next week?

Mile 22: This was the farthest I'd run since my last marathon. Since then I'd had a knee injury, 2 ankle sprains (one that had me on crutches for nearly a month, and 2 severe illnesses (one so bad that I actually missed a day of rehearsal.) People had started to shout things like "you're almost there!" 4 miles is at most an "easy" run, one that you do the day after a long run as a sort of "active recovery." Right now, it was an unimaginable distance. The only saving grace? Water stations were at the half mile marks, so I could focus on just getting to the next mile marker, then the next water station, then the next mile marker... Shortening the world to 5-minute chunks. Hey, I could do ANYTHING for 5 minutes. Just don't stop. I can still brag as long as I don't stop.

Mile 23: FINALLY!!! 35th street at last. The Big Turn. There was a guy reading peoples bib numbers into a cell phone. Presumably he was talking to someone with a lap top because as we approached The Turn, we could see ourselves on a giant video screen, and an announcer was reciting names and home towns. It was a cheap trick, but hearing "ADAM GANDERSON! CHICAGO ILLINOIS!" actually did more for me than turning onto Michigan Ave did. The home stretch. Sure, I'd slowed nearly to a walk. But I wasn't walking. Almost there.

Mile 24: People who hadn't bonked were streaming past me now. I didn't mind much, since I was passing the walking wounded, those who looked like they'd died and no one told them. At least most of them were still moving. There were others bent over, retching, holding onto the world like they might fall off. And this had all seemed like such a good idea a few hours ago... This time when a group was handing out cups of beer, I took one. Beer has carbs, and
alcohol is a pain killer... After all, there's no way I could feel worse, right?

Mile 25: The difference between what I was doing and walking was mostly academic at this point. Intellectually I knew that somewhere up ahead we'd leave Michigan Ave and head into Grant Park where we'd finish. In addition to the (sweet sweet) 25 mile marker, .22 miles later there was a "1 Mile Left" sign. I remember back to Philly when I passed the 25-mile mark and decided I still had plenty left. I'd poured on speed and strode out to the finish. I also saw a woman stop to walk right at the 26-mile marker and thought that was the saddest thing I'd ever seen in my life. Now I felt an awful lot more like her than the bright-eyed young nut I used to be.

Mile 26: I had nobody to joke with and no breath to joke even if I did. I think I had it in my head that the proximity to the finish would carry me along on a wave of "horse-returning-to-the-barn" energy. But I'd been discovering a lot of perfectly obvious things today, including the fact that there is no such thing as an easy mile.

The Dreaded Point Two: We finally turned into the park. Of course THIS was where some idiot decided to put the only hill on the course... There had been a number of times I heard a couple voices call out "Adam!" It's not that uncommon a name, and in a field of nearly 40,000, there had to be a few of us. But this time it sounded... right somehow. I looked hard into the crowd on my left and then decided (wisely I think) to stay focused on the ground ahead of me. But of all the shouts and cheers all morning long, these two were for me, for me and no one else. And that made all the difference in the world. I came here to run. I wasn't going to shamble across the line. This thing wasn't going to beat me. I was going to RUN. And then (ecstasy of ecstasies) I was going to stop.

Finish: You know, they don't let you stop? You have to keep moving forward, ever forward. First they cut the chip off of you, then they put the medal on you, give you cold wet cloths, bananas, apples, bagels, granola bars... Some idiot even hands you one of those shiny Mylar blankets to keep you warm (?!?) But all the time you have to keep moving. Then some angel in human form (from the Goose Island Brewery) hands you a beer. And then I got to stop. Just stand still and drink beer. I got to look around and see the people laid out on the ground, ice on joints, bandages over injuries, eyes empty and skin scarlet... Yup. Could have been worse. Off to grab my gear and change cloths so I could tackle the one remaining hurdle: finding my family in this sea of humanity so we could go get that burger I've been looking forward to for weeks now. P.S. Sunburn? "Waterproof" SPF 30 just isn't designed for sweating, brow mopping marathon applications. Grr...

Final Thoughts: My last marathon had been fun and showed me that I could do this. This one had been hard, and taught me to fear and respect the distance. my recorded finish time was 3:49:55 and I placed 4544 out of 31,401 finishers. I couldn't have done it without a whole lot of people: My running buddies Jen and Ruthie and Larissa and Marcy for keeping it from being so lonely this time. My roommate Lisa, and my dog Vasthi for understanding the hours I had to keep. Janet, Lisa, Cori, Jason, Brenda, Steph, Devon, Vicki, Fitz, Nick, Patrick, Danny, Thom, Cora, Cindy and the rest of the folks at the Northlight for their support, well wishes, and letting me take the afternoon off, my Aunt Robin and Uncle Martin for coming out to spoil me. And most of all my mom and dad for... everything really. Thanks, and I love you all.

Next stop: Ironman Louisville, Aug 30. Because what's a little crazy when you can go for a whole LOT of crazy...