The New Road

I Am Not John Doe

There is a movement in the batshit crazy wing of conservatism called; I am John Doe. This came up because some imams were removed from a plane when several John Does complained. Conservatives now seem to want to rally around the John Does. Mmmm... Ok. Well, we have this thing called the sixth amendment that says that if someone accuses me of breaking the law, then I have a right to confront that person directly.

It's actually made for things a lot like this. The idea being that if I really want to attest that something is true, then I should be comfortable having my name associated with it, and have the guts to stand behind it.

I want to be clear; I am not a John Doe. I would not alert authorities to supposed suspicious activity, wrongly, just because I'm too ignorant of other cultures to understand what was going on. And I certainly wouldn't do so, then slink away behind John Doe so that I didn't have to face the people I just wrongly accused. When I make accusations I stand behind them. And I accept fault if I am wrong.

The whole "I am John Doe" idea is idiotic. It's a rallying cry for gutless cowards.

Party Over Competency

I'm reading Imperial Life In The Emerald City, about the Green Zone in Iraq, and by extension the history of the occupation. It's excellent and a highly recommend it. But it does get repetitive in spots because the administration kept making the same mistakes over and over again.

When we took over one of the things we did was put people in place at the ministries to get them off the ground and working again. Important ministries, like energy, needed a lot of help to get back to operating at pre-war levels. And they had a big impact on life for the ordinary Iraqi.

So who did we put in there? Originally we found a guy with great experience in the field who had run big agencies before. Clearly the right man, with the right skills for the job. He was found by the provisional authority in Iraq. But when the administration found out he was getting hired they stopped it. Why? Because the guy wasn't a party loyalist. He hadn't voted Republican. Instead they put in someone with no experience who had the right party connections.

It's like Russia during the Communist era. It's party loyalty over competence every time.

This happened over and over again. And the litmus test didn't stop with your party loyalty. When they were screening people they questioned who you voted for, your position on abortion, stem cells, etc. etc. Anything but about the job you were actually sent to do.

One guy, placed in charge of the banking ministry, had no experience at all in banking. He had however, played the part of an entrepreneur in a college production. That's good enough? Right? In charge of the ministry of banking, with no experience.

Every important position was fill with incompetent cronies through this process. And that directly effected our ability to stabilize the situation, during the critical phase right after the war when the Iraqis seemed positive about how the country might recover, and when we had an opportunity to turn the situation around.

It also goes beyond Iraq. Think about the story behind the story when it comes to the Attorney General's scandal. Who are the intermediate level folks involved in the scandal? Know-nothing cronies? Who is Kyle Sampson and why is he chief of staff for the Attorney General. He is a nobody who just happened to have the right credentials. And Monica Goodling? She went to a third-rate college for her degree. So how did she manage to get into her power position? Because the college just happened to be a Christian college that specializes in placing people in the administration. Lovely.

Little Ceasar's Blast From The Past

This was my favorite Little Ceasar's commercial:

It's a bummer that the sound is off. But it's still great to see it again after all these years.

Skiing

I went skiing for the first time yesterday at Squaw Valley in Tahoe. The conditions couldn't have been more perfect. There was a foot and a half of new snow on the ground, and it was snowing lightly (and sometimes heavily) through the day. I spent most of the morning doing the bunny four bunny slopes (see map). I did fairly well. I think the binding on my right ski was a little off and I lost that ski several times when I probably shouldn't have and that caused a bunch of falls.

I had forgotten my camera, so I went to the gift shop before lunch to get a disposable. As it turns out the gift shop was out. The guy behind the counter said that I could get one at the base of the mounday, and that an easy way to get down was to take the mountain run trail down. He said it was an easy blue route. Blue routes are the next step up from the bunny slopes (green routes).

I talked with Joe and Dan about it and said that I would go if they would come along. We all agreed and set off down the hill. It was probably a mistake for me to do it. The trail was three and a half miles and a lot steeper than any of the slopes I had been on before. I fell, and fell, and fell and fell. I found new ways to fall. I found loads of fresh powder to fall into. I feel into ice walls to avoid just crashing in the middle of the lane.

I even found a way to blow of both skis during a few crashes. This was a step up since as you get better and faster the crashes get less frequent, but more intense.

Did I enjoy it? Kinda. It was very tiring because I was completely engaged in the activity, so that required a lot of attention. And because of all of the falls, which sapped a lot of my energy in the recovery. What I can say is that I kept a fairly positive attitude throughout the day and that seemed to help a lot.

I will definitely hit the slopes again some time. But I'm in no big hurry to get back.

Tony Snow and Rush Limbaugh

Of course I am saddened to hear that Tony Snow's cancer has returned and all of my hopes are that he knocks the hell out of hit. He is a fighter and I'm sure he will give it everything he's got.

It also disgusts me that this is in any way politicized. But when I deal with things Rush Limbaugh says, well... it's clearly laying down with the dogs. But I just wonder if Rush would say the same thing about Tony Snow that he did about the Edwards? Would he recommend that Tony just slink away having suffered the shame of cancer?

Again, it's disgusting to even have to talk about this. But then every single thing about Rush Limbaugh is disgusting.

Bullrun Sighting

There are so many shows on TV nowadays it's tough to know when you have bumped into somebody who is big on the small screen. Such was the case on Sunday when Lori, Megan and I were having breakfast in Niles and two guys came in wearing matching 'Bullrun' t-shirts. I knew something was up because I could see the supercar they parked on the street. And Lori knew they was something up because both guys were hot as she put it.

Turns out they were the #10 team from this season of Bullrun.

Shortly after they arrived a fan-boy came in and drooled all over them the entire time. All I did was get a picture of Megan in front of their car which I will post later. The car was pretty beat though. Must have been a tough race.

I set up the DVR to grab a few episodes. It looks like a cool show.

Rush Limbaugh Attacks Cancer Patients

Rush Limbaugh says that all cancer patients need to "turn to God" when they are given the news, and I suppose just drop out of life. He can go screw himself. He's never had cancer. He's just a drug addicted loser. The cancer patients and survivors I know are strong people who have lived through the news, fought the cancer and continued fighting for what they believe in. They just didn't curl up and die.

Screw you, Rush. The kind of guts people like my mother had when it came to her struggles you wouldn't know anything about. Rush, you are just a chickenhawk bloviating heartless moronic bully who has no place passing judgment on anyone.

What these right wingers say and do. Sometimes it's just overwhelmingly disgusting. I honestly don't think he knows what he is saying. He is so mindlessly careless in his speech. So viciously hateful and divisive that he will say anything, hurt anyone, wallow in any muck, to try and make some political point.

He doesn't care about anyone but himself, and since he has never had cancer he doesn't mind saying things about cancer paints and denigrating them in the process. But without thinking about it he has denigrated everyone.

He is disgusting. His words are disgusting. He is just... awful. Awful. If you listen to Rush you are an idiot.

I can only hope that cancer patients, survivors and their families come down on this scumbag like a ton of bricks.

50 mile ride

In preparation for the triathlon in late April I'm trying to get in some endurance time. The last time I did 50K it was quite a stretch. Yesterday I went for 50 miles which is about 14 additional miles. It was tough. And I was stiff and sore for a good 5 hours afterwards, plus being completely exhausted. It took me about 2:50, which is a good hour longer than any other continuous exercise that I have ever done. Normally I do an hour, or an hour and a half here and there. This was so long I had to eat stuff as I went to keep my energy levels up.

I don't know why I thought long distance biking would be easy. It's certainly not. I think it's the deceptive nature of the fact that you are using this piece of hardware, this bicycle, and that it should somehow do a lot of the work for you. I can assure you, it doesn't.

I remember hearing about this two woman band who was touring across the country. But instead of a bus they were using bikes and clocking in 100 miles a day going from gig to gig. I remember thinking it was neat at the time. Now I'm blown away. At least at this point I can see doing a century ride, but it would be tough. Perhaps by the end of the summer I'll have trained up to that point and give it a go.

As for the triathlon prep, my foot is finally healing up from a bad blister, so I should be back on track with the running soon. I also got some orthotics to help out and I'm slowly breaking those in. I definitely feel a lot more balanced on my feet, and my knees are now aligned properly with my thighs and calves. I've prety much resigned myself to the fact that the triathlon is going to hurt, especially the run, but I think I will make it over the finish line, hopefully running but maybe walking.

iConcertCal

Here is a cool extension for iTunes that looks through your songs, sees who you are listening to, then shows you when they are coming in concert to your local area. It's really sweet.

Three Degrees From Martha Stewart

If you read this blog, then you know me. I know Charles Simonyi because I interviewed him. And he is romantically involved with Martha Stewart. So... Congratulations! You are three degrees from Auntie Martha.

Bush's 2006 Trapping

Given that Bush brought Fielding (a Nixon cronie who served during Watergate) into the White House right after the 2006 elections, it appears like Bush was waiting for this Congressional showdown over subpeonas. First I note how quickly the response came from the White House and how coherent it was, as if everyone (with the interesting exception of Gonzales) seems to be reading off a script. Second, the fact that Fielding put Bush's offer in writing almost immediately. And that document was deep and in-depth, as if it had been waiting around for some time.

Third, and most interestingly to me, how this particular response seems actually mismatched to the circumnstance. On the one hand you have the usual Presedential protective line; the President wasn't directly involved in these decisions. And on the other they are saying; Presedential communications are protected. But if the President wasn't directly involved, then how are his communications at risk? Does Presidential priviledge cover the entire administration? Surely not. In fact the lines of Presidential priveledge are very narrowly drawn around the man himself. So it could be that Bush's surprise trap on this subpeona stuff may end up backfiring on him.

Gonzales actually looks to me like just a worthless pawn at this point in a seperation of powers struggle. He doesn't even seem to be on message. Going around talking about how he wants to protect the kids and what not. What's up with that? Regardless of what happens between Congress and the White House, it's pretty clear that Gonzales is going to be turfed real soon now.

Fascinating World Wide Demographic Data

I found a really cool visualization utility that allows you to compare data from all of the countries in the world. Data include; birth rate, economic growth, mortality, etc. You can track a single country and see how it trends over time, or watch all of the countries move together.

Some interesting take homes for me. First, it's always interesting to note how we are still well behind other first world countries in terms of life span. You would think with our first class medicine, supposedly the envy of the world, we would be number one. But we are consistently around the #23 spot in terms of mortality. The number has been tracking upwards, but so have all of the other countries. Though it's interesting to note that during the Clinton years we gained about five years of, while during the Bush presidency it's only increased a little. Guess it really is better for you to vote Democrat.

Another interesting note was the sharp decline in contraceptive use after about 1998 in the U.S. It was slowly trending upward, then it shot down like a rocket. Could be the abstinence education crap, or the rise of the moral majority?

These are just a few of the things I noted as I played with this tool. It's really just very fun and very slick.

On things political, it's interesting to me, as the flood of scandals pour out of the White House, how many conservatives are distancing themselves from Bush. All the conservative pundits (and there are hordes because it's free money) always point back to Reagan. Ronnie was the last President they actually liked. Which is sad because everyone else loved Clinton. Bill's administration keeps looking better and better as the years roll by.

Megan Sees The Face of God

If Megan knew about the concept of God, and she was asked to give it a name, I can guarantee you that she would choose Belle. She named her bear Belle. She names any character we come up with, who is a girl, Belle. She names her body parts Belle when she isn't using the anatomical name.

So you can imagine that when I took her to see our local high school production of Beauty And The Beast she was completely enraptured. To the exclusion of everything else on stage she was laser focused on Belle. She even watched the costume changes and let me know that Belle now wears pink in addition to yellow and blue. A very important development indeed.

After the show we went outside to meet all of the performers. Megan went straight for Belle and got up the nerve to even shake hands with her. Ally, the girl who played Belle, asked Megan what her bears name was. Megan replied, "You!" To which I had to explain that the bears name was Belle. The biggest reaction came when the actress asked Megan her name, then told Megan that her own name was "Ally". The notion that Belle would not be Belle, but instead be someone pretending to be Belle, who had a different name, was mind blowing to Megan. She talked about it all the way home. It was very cute and an interesting insight into the workings of a young mind.

Fitness Dilemna

I woke up this morning really out of sorts. Not in the conventional sick way, more in just a strong sense of unease. It's the same kind of feeling I get when I'm in the slide of a big weight loss, like every day my body wakes up different and part of my time is just spent in adjusting to the new frame. But since I'm done with weight loss, what am I changing into? And the answer is somewhat answered by my changeover from vegetarianism.

When I was a vegetarian I was limited in just how much I could work out. I could go about an hour before I needed to stop. And that really limits the type of activities I could get into. 5K ok, 10K not really. 25K bike ok, 50K not so much. Etc. But now, I could run a marathon. I could run a 100 mile ultra. I could do a 100 mile bike ride. So the question is now, what to do? Should I run the New York Marathon as a last hoorah for my Mom. One last time to drag half her genes across the finish line?

I think I'm on the border line between being fit and being an athlete. And that's what I feel when I have that unease. I have that feeling like I'm at a crossroads and it's time for a decision on which way to go.

These are the kinds of things that occur to me when I'm running the last leg of triathlon... what the fuck am I doing here? It's not about the fitness. Hell, if I just wanted to be fit I could put an hour in on the elliptical per day.

Being fit is like being a passenger on the airplane. In some ways you can just sit in the back of your eyes and let the time slide by as a pounds roll off. Being an athlete is like getting into the pilot's seat and taking the controls. On the upside, it's far more engaging, on the downside, it's a much more active commitment to the cause.

The sad thing is that I don't have any easy answers. I wasn't raised with the killer sports upbringing that keeps me in the company softball leagues, or being the life long runner type. So I have no natural incentive to keep going with it. Not that I'll stop because I like the results. But I'll tell you, when I hit the wall and still have another mile and a half to run, it can be pretty tough getting through.

Pete Stark a Nontheist

My very own representative, Pete Stark (who Lori, Megan and I go to see at town meetings) has now gone on the record as being a nontheist! You rock Pete! Of course, you may be asking yourself, what's the big whoop, since lots of people are nontheists, or atheists, if you prefer. Well, not so much in Congress actually. There has never been one (or so they say) until now.

This is a great step forward. Thank you Pete!

Battlestar

Battlestar Galactica has really been faltering in the last half of this season. Last nights episode was a super snoozer.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

Maelstrom, where Starbuck dies, was incredible and is the lone standout in the season. That being said, I honestly hope she doesn't come back, either as a Cylon or not. I loved her character, but I don't want some soap-style bullshit thing where she ends up coming back somehow. She is dead, she is dead, let's just leave it at that.

On the up side, I'm really looking forward to The Riches tonight. I love Minnie Driver. I don't have much of a clue about Eddie Izzard, but he looks funny in it.

Update: Apparently I spoiled Maelstrom for a reader. My apologies for that. I figured I was safe since it's been a couple of weeks past the air date.

Good workout day

It was a good day for my workouts, I started out the morning with my weight routine. Then I went to Silliman and swam half a mile, then ran 10K on the tread. I probably could have done more, but I wanted to save some energy for a bike ride.

The running is starting to feel somewhat less than awful. With running the 6.2 miles for the 10K the 7.42 miles of the Bay To Breakers seems like far less of a stretch. Hopefully in a month if I keep running at this type of rate, I should feel really good about my running.

Running Playlist

Here is what I have in my playlist for my running. Ideally these songs should have a strong beat, be angry in both style and in the verse, and emphasize overcoming obstacles.

I'll probably end up spliting running and biking into two seperate playlists. Saving the most intense stuff for the running. To me, running is much tougher than biking, on the bike you can drift and still be moving. With running, if you don't get that foot of the ground then you are at a full stop right there, right then, so every mile is the same effort, nothing is free.

Any comments or suggestions you have are welcome. I'd love to know what other people listen to when they are running, biking, whatever.

Spore

This game called Spore, which I had never heard of until today, is the most amazing thing I have ever seen on a computer. The game is completely adaptive and shares it's world with others also playing Spore. Wow. I'm sorry, I can't really describe it all that well, you just have to see it for yourself.

More Moobies

300 comes out today. I'll probably wait a little bit on it so that I can see it in IMAX over in Dublin without having to pack myself into sold out crowds. The reviews are still fairly glowing, but not 100%. I'm kinda sad though, this sorta movie makes me miss Mel. Mel and I have seen a lot of bad action flicks together, it would have been nice to see a good one together for a change.

Speaking of bad action films, I was surfing around the channel-sphere last night and found an Anna Nicole Smith movie. I was morbidly curious, so I tuned in for 'Skyscraper'. What I found was pretty close to the worst movie I had ever seen. The acting was abysmal, and not just Anna, but the whole cast was uniformly poor. None of them could hold a scene together. The writing was just plain tragic. And the production level was just short of a porno.

This probably sounds harsh, but seriously, why should Anna Nicole Smith be getting wall to wall coverage in the news? She was never anybody. She was a B level starlet train wreck who imploded, not unexpectedly, from too much booze and drugs. In the real world we are involved in a quagmire war, Bush wants to get us into another quagmire war, gas prices are skyrocketing, the middle class is being decimated, and on and on. Aren't there better things for reporters to spend their time doing then collecting semen samples from Anna's countless suitors to assess paternity?

Updated: Apparently I missed the gratuitous shower scene with Anna which would have made the movie. Oh, well.

Updated again: Mel will be in town next week so I will be seeing 300 with him! Woo hoo!

Union City's Sports Center

Our little city just built it's own fitness center. I remember when we first moved here it was the one thing I was really hankering for because the other gyms were so far from the house. Now that we have it I have mixed feelings. First, there is no pool, which rules out membership right off the bat.

Second, there is a big design flaw with it. I should start by saying that the place is huge. A big hall for basketball, another for yoga/pilates/aerobics/spinning, a huge weight room with aerobics equipment, and more that they haven't even opened up yet. This place could easily have hundreds of people in it all working out at one time, particular around breakfast, lunch, or in the evenings. So what's the problem? They have three showers for men, and three for women. Three! It's crazy. Silliman has nine for each, and thats just in the aquatic side, there are more in the aerobics area.

Anyway, other than that the facility is very nice. They definitely trend more towards aerobics than weights. Which makes sense since the roid-heads will go to Gold's just down the road anyway.

For me, I'll probably take spinning there once a week unless Silliman offers it, which they might. But with the pool, and the fitness stuff at Silliman there is really no reason to go to this new gym all the time. More is the pity though, I would have loved a fitness center that really fit our needs to be close by.

Some good news though, I was able to run a solid 10K in 54 minutes. That's a good start. I have about five weeks to really get my running down so that I can get through the running portion of the triathlon. The swimming is fairly easy. The biking isn't much of a problem. But the running always has been. So I'm looking to run about 30-40K per week between now and then to really get in shape for the run.

Cool Battlestar

Turns out that Battlestar Galactica is cool for two reasons. First that I can pay a mere $2 on iTunes and get the episode that I fell asleep in the middle of last week, in all it's HD glory. Woo hoo! Thank you Sci-Fi and Apple!

Secondly, the Battlestar Galactica production crew has put together a site where you can download movie snippets, audio segments, and more to make your own fan inspired Battlestar cinema. How cool is that? They are actually encouraging their fan base to make spinoffs by giving them the media they need. Right on!

Sick Geeg

Megan has been fighting sleep for about a month now, complaining about being scared, while in reality just wanting to stay up and play. So last night, when she started to cry at 1AM I certainly assumed it was more of the same. Turns out she has a whicked bad ear infection, which she is getting some drops and antibiotics for so, with some luck, she should be feeling better soon.

Zodiac

Tonight I took 2 hours and 40 minutes out of my evening to see Zodiac. It was as good as the reviews say. The acting is superb. The production quality is outstanding. And the script was very engaging. Robert Downey Jr. could easily go for best supporting actor, and Jake Gyllenhaal should have a good shot at best actor.

The only downside I saw in the film was that I don't think it's a big screen movie. It would be just as good as a rental on the small screen.

Exercising My Brain

As much as you would think that my job stretches my brain on a daily basis, it really doesn't. Most of what I do is the same type of thing over and over again. It's only when I write articles that I flex my other brain muscles.

This realization came into stark relief last night as I was reading books to Megan. One of the pages had a picture of a school room and the alphabet. The task was to find one thing in the room for each letter. And, before you ask, yes, there was a Xylophone. Megan was really no help at all since she is just learning. So it was up to me to come up with the words. Damn, it's really tough, actually. Try it. Have a look around where you are now and try to come up with a word for something that you can see in the room that starts with the letter 'A', then 'B', and so on.

Maybe you can do it easily, but it's tough for me. I end up having to look at each thing, find the name for it, then the first letter and check for a match. It's tedious. My memory of words is just not set up that way, it's not indexed by starting letter. I have a large vocabulary, thanks to my writing, but it's all indexed by definition. Then cross referenced with synonyms so that I can avoid using the same word twice in the same sentence. A big no no. ;-)

Still. it worries me when I can't get my brain to work the way I want it. First because over the past couple of years I felt my intellect dulling, though physical exercise has helped sharpen it up some. I'm at the very least, more alert. But I can't help feeling that my brain is stiffening up somehow over time. Or even, dare I say it, getting atrophied because I'm not exercising it in as many different ways as I should.

Perhaps it doesn't help that a good friend of mine is like Eeyore about all things mental and seems to find some joy in telling me that, after 30, it's pretty much a slow glide into the mental equivalent of seized up chocolate.

Last night Lori was adamant that I subscribe to the This American Life podcast. She was right, as usual. So I did. She wanted me to hear act four of this show, where the husband in a three person family suffers from a rare disease where his brain literally shrinks. The story is heartbreaking. Particularly when we get to hear clips of the husband and of his young son. While the husband sound pitiful, hearing the son talking about the impending loss of his father is downright heart wrenching.

If I have fear in my life it's that Megan will grow up without me. That's the big reason that I got back into exercise this time around. Two years ago, at the rate I was going, I was looking at a painful forties, a wheelchair fifties, bedridden sixties and an early grave. Thankfully I was able to realize that it wasn't just my own life I was destroying, but a critical part of Lori's and Megan's as well. I love them so much and if I could do only one thing right in this world it would be to do right by them. In some ways I think fatherhood is a lot like democracy, it's not perfect, but the most important that you can do, is just show up, be there, be involved.

Hey, look, I repeated the word 'right' in that sentence in the last paragraph. I need to work on more Sudokus, and start re-indexing my mental dictionary.

Road Bike

I bought a new bike this weekend. It's a Trek road bike that I have had some aero bars installed on to give it a kind of triathlony feel, while still being a usable bike around town. This is my first road bike since when I was sixteen. All of my bikes since then have either been mountain bikes or hybrid bikes. The difference is frankly, kind of stunning, and I'm glad that I gave myself six weeks to train on it. Especially since my first training session, on Sunday, was for 31 miles and I came away pretty beat up.

After the ride I had some pain in my rear end, and I wasn't able to keep up the pace for the entire distance, which is something I was able to do on the hybrid. Eric gave me some tips about hand placement and training techniques. And I looked online last night to see what the thinking was about seat design, positioning, angle, and so on. Turns out the whole seat thing, is black magic. Some say you should have it angled slightly down, while others slightly up, and both cases seem to make sense. And everyone says, "Just do what feels comfortable to you." But what feels comfortable at mile one, maybe killer by mile 50. Ugh.

Anyway, thoughts or comments appreciated on this. If anyone has any book recommendations on riding or training techniques let me know.

Triathletes All 'Round

A couple of weeks I met one new office mate in San Francisco. Turns out he is a serious triathlete. He and his wife do eight a year, and he trains with two workouts five days a week to do it. A pretty serious contender.

Then I met a guy this afternoon at my Fremont office who is also a triathlete, but very down to earth. We got to talking about swimming and I mentioned that I was doing the early morning thing to get in swim miles, and he had a great attitude about balancing life and family. He realizes he has no chances of winning one of these things (as do I). So it's more about community, having fun and staying fit for him. He has friends he trains with that are serious contenders though, which I think keeps him grounded.

This is really cool. I'm glad that there are people around that I can talk to about triathlons, and training, and how to put it all in perspective.

Amazon And My Strange Cullinary Habits

Thanks to my ordering two Dexter books for Lori as Christmas gifts, Amazon now has some strange conflicting sense of who I am and what I like to do:

Apparently I like to kill people, then eat them all while playing psychotic video games.

Geez, thank you Amazon, that really... hits the spot.

I Hate My Phone

In trying to upgrade my HD receiver to and HD DVR reciever my horribly wonky cell phone cut out 17 times. Sometimes while I was entering my phone number, other times much later into the conversation. Around the 13th time I finally got the order in, but I got cut off after the lady said she had to do 'just a little more'. So the last four times were just trying to figure out if the order went through.

My brain is boiling with ideas of things I would like to do to my cell phone, most include the use of heavy duty power tools or small explosives.

Do yourself a favor, stay away from the PDA smart phones. They are horrible. Everyone I know who has one, complains about them.

The BBC is back

The BBC is back on YouTube! Woo hoo! Now my links to Top Gear videos will finally work!

Instant Classic

Here is an instant classic for you.

It's a British TV show about martial arts. It starts off kinda interesting. But it's a kicker at the end, literally. The Mantis fighting style master draws his testicles up into his belly to protect them from attack, while the host kicks him in the groin. The host then feels in the groin area to see what's there, saying that there is nothing. Make me wonder if the guys can retract the scepter as well as the jewels. Now, that's a trick!

Either way, certainly a handy skill to have a in a pinch, or a... man, the double entendres just write themselves.

Collapsed

I've put in a pretty hard five days of continuous exercise. Even Saturday, which is normally my day off, I put in about four hours of yardwork digging a new trench for a replacement mains line to the back yard. Ditch digging, particularly in the clay that we have is rough. And I was replacing leaky water lines, so the ground was soaked, making it even heavier to move.

I was smarter about it than I have been in the past. I drank more water than I usually do, and took a few breaks during the day. I also did some stretches and took some advil so that I wouldn't lock up when I was resting.

On Sunday I did a 50K on my new road bike, which I have to say is a lot tougher than my hybrid bike. I was able to go a lot faster and my time at the half was beautiful. But my energy level just plummeted after that and I limped to the finish. I'll take Erics advice and get a bigger water bottle (maybe two), hydrate more often, adjust my positioning, and probably bring along some energy bars to keep up my strength.

Anyway, long story short, right in the middle of Battlestar Galactica I just lay down on the floor and went to sleep. It was probably the wine, but I'm sure it's an ample measure of just sheer exhaustion. I'm looking to take some time off tomorrow. Instead of doing my hour yoga I'll probably just do 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening just to keep loose.

Miami Vice

We took a chance on Miami Vice on Pay Per View last night. It was awful. The acting was stiff. The plot was a train wreck. There wasn't a speck of joy in the movie it all. Even the glitzy highly produced stuff seemed to be just completely flat.

For an action movie it was incredibly hard to follow. Many of the lines were mumbled. And when they weren't mumbling they were talking in this terse code that I hard a hard time following in the beginning, but in the end just couldn't care less about. Yeah, by the end, I just wanted it to stop.

It's said that this is the Miami Vice that MIchael Mann always wanted to make. Wow, I'm glad he didn't get a chance in the series. All of the fun and hokie stuff in the series was gone in this film. Replaced with this callous dry woodeness that was too hard to take.

Ugh, don't buy, don't rent, don't see. Walk away if someone has it on the TV. It's that bad.

Intervals

The first time I lost a lot of weight I really didn't have a athletic goal in mind. Basically I was working out just to lose the weight and that was that. This time around I have goals, like doing this triathlon in April. So now what was just working out to burn calories has become training. And let me tell you, the difference is astonishing. Training means always trying to get better, faster, stronger, etc. And that means intervals.

Let me tell you, I hate intervals. Going flat out, then stepping back, then going flat out again. Nothing makes you feel your age like a tough set of intervals. The results are nice. But the training itself feels like shit.

Another thing that makes you feel your age is when your baby sitter talks about her swim team meets and how she is twice as fast as you are in the water when she is just idling. When she is racing she is "like way faster". Ugh. Makes me want to pull a Yoda and say, "Swim as fast when this old you are you will not."

On a funny note, here is a hysterical ad campaign from Polaroid for their sunglass line.

Yoga Today

I had been looking around for a Pilates DVD, when I thought about the iTunes Store and what's going on there with video on demand. They don't have any fitness stuff at the moment. But there were some cool podcasts. One in particular stands out Yoga Today. Which delivers a whole fresh new one hour course, via video podcast, every day. And these aren't crappy videos, this is well produced DVD quality stuff. For free!

They seem to have shows that work well at every level. Definitely worth checking it out.

It's a wonder I don't get more tickets

I work about a block and a half from the central Fremont police station. At any given time there have to be fifty cruisers sitting in the parking lot. It's literally, just across the park from me. And we share an intersection that I have to get through every day to get to and from the office to go almost anywhere. An intersection, mind you, that is timed in such a way that if I don't want to hit two long red lights in a row, I have to gun through the yellow.

This morning I was in the right hand lane when between me and my office parking lot was a motorcycle cop giving someone a ticket, in the right hand lane. So I get to the far side of the lane to give them as much clearance as a I can, and I slow way down. But the policeman motions like there is something hanging or falling off my car. So I stop, turn on the hazards and walk towards him. Curiously, the car after me has also pulled over.

Turns out the guy behind me was right on my butt. Which I didn't notice because I was more worried about hitting the cop. So the cop gave the guy behind me the ticket. Whew...

Anyway, now that I come to think of it, it's a minor miracle I haven't gotten more tickets. Just because of my proximity to the police station.

Whole New Cuisine World

Moving away from vegetarianism has opened up a whole vistas of cuisine for me. Not just for what Lori and I can cook at home, but also where I can go for lunch. I just went over to the Ferry Building and found a new French Rotisserie restaurant where you get 1/4 of a bird and two sides for $6! And the herb crust on the bird, oh my god, to die for. To me, that's a good healthy lunch, lean protenien, with your choice of various levels of carbs on the side.

Teletubie Porn

Oh man, this is an instant classic. It's short and safe for work. You will be laughing your ass off.

Moobies

While I was in Seattle I got a chance to see Amazing Grace. That was good. It was a little slow at points. Which I think stems from the fact that you know what's going to happen at the end. But there were some scenes that felt very applicable to what we are facing now.

In coming movie news, strangely Wild Hogs is getting bad reviews. Wow. Who could have expected a bad Tim Allen film. Given that all of the three movies he was in last year, all of which were nominated for Razzies, another bad film seems so unexpected.

The good news is that 300 is coming and it's getting fantastic reviews. I've been waiting for that one for a while.

Speaking of 300, Men's Health magazine had a little article on what it took for Gerard Butler to come up to his insanely uber-buffness for the role. It took him four months of insane workouts. He actually worked himself into a type of post traumatic stress disorder. Ouch.

Don't Fly Alaska

I just spent a couple of days up in Redmond at Microsoft. I flew Alaska both ways and I now regret having made that choice. On the way up the flight was only delayed about 30 minutes. I later learned that 30 minutes late is a banner day for Alaska.

The way back, however, was a completely different story. My original flight was set to leave at 6:30. I bumped it up to the 2:30 flight so that Megan could pick me up at the airport. They charged me $50 to change the ticket. Thanks.

It was snowing in Redmond, so I drove early to the airport, only to find that conditions at the airport were picture perfect. I asked if I could get on an earlier flight and was told that there were none. Turns out there were two earlier flights and the lady behind the counter just flat out lied. Why, I don't know.

So I spent a couple of hours waiting, until we were told it was an hour later, then two hours, then plane had mechanical problems and so we were rebooked onto later flights. My new flight was supposed to leave at 5:30. We were on the plane by 6, but there was no pilot. Once the pilot was on we were told that this new plane also had problems. It finally go squared away and we left around 6:40.

So, as it turns out, my $50 ticket change was completely for not. Though Megan ended up meeting me at the airport anyway since it wasn't horribly late.

The only part that made the experience better was the people that I met at the terminal and the fun conversations (and a little drinking) that we had. That was actually great. It's the first time in a while that I have been genuinely engaged in the moment in a completely social setting. Too many years of eyes on the LCD and fingers on the keyboard have left me socially inept.