Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

Furthering my absorbtion into the collective, I now am operating on an iPhone. The service hasn’t completely ported over; texts are making it, but incoming calls are still headed over to the old phone. I’m a bit sad at losing Metro tunnel service, but I’m looking forward to the slightly lower bill. Amazingly I get full bars in my apartment, something that never happened with the former carrier. And the keyboard, while occasionally odd, is working okay.

The season for ruining coasters.

You see, it’s a tad humid and warm at the moment here in DC, it being summer in the South, and I like to drink cold drinks when it’s this warm out. The colder the better. Cools your core, comforts you, and all around makes you feel better. Most frequently it’s simply water from the refrigerator, but in any case it’s cold, which means in this humidity that the glass attracts condensation like the Old Country Buffet attracts retired people.

I’ve just about ruined one older one I was using without thinking much about it (the one that holds my usual sipper bottle). Poor sucker’s starting to mold I’ve kept it so wet. So I’ve hauled out the big guns and scattered them around the apartment – the sandstone and metal coasters. Not much gets through those. Hopefully they’ll hold out until the humidity breaks, sometime in December.

The problem with waking up at 4am or so this morning and not being able to immediately get back to sleep is that by the time I was ready to sleep again, it was just about my normal wake-up time, which means my body now wants to get back up again and not sleep more. Yuck. I think I’m staying home today to sleep in.

On my run this morning (in near-perfect weather – 70s and low humidity), I did two new things. First, I ran all the way to Roosevelt Island and went over onto the island itself. Second, I took my shirt off for the second half of the run.

On the first, I’ve been past Roosevelt Island more times than I can count, but had never gone over to the island to see the statue of ole Teddy. So while I was running north on the Mount Vernon Trail the island was about at my time turn-around, so across the footbridge I went and up to see the memorial grove. It was a nice setting, I enjoyed the brief bit of it I saw (I didn’t stop running). It’s a shame it’s not more accessible – it looked to be a good spot to visit.

On the second, let me start by saying that I NEVER take off my shirt when I run. And I do mean never. I’ve never been particular fond of the bit of belly fat that I carry, and combined with my pasty-white doesn’t-really-tan skin, I’ve not been in a big rush to take off my shirt. I’ve wanted to in the past, but never had. Every time I’d think about it the usual little excuses (“want to lose X lbs,” “not tan enough,” “too much fat showing,” etc.) would pop up in my head. This morning was no different, those same excuses popped up, but I finally told them all to go fuck off and pulled the shirt up and off and tucked it into my water belt.

Then of course all I could think about was how, if I did get any sun, I was going to have a tan line from my heart rate monitor strap.

Was perfectly fine, a bit cooler than normal, and nothing felt like it was going to fall out of place or that I was going to die of embarassment or the like. . The only thing that struck me as different was that scratching an itch on my stomach felt so much more obvious without a shirt in the way. And that there were more itches because of the breeze and lack of shirt.

So, a hurdle overcome. Not sure that I’ll do that much more running that way, and I still do want to lose more belly fat before I’m 100% comfortable with it, but that was a good first step.

Yet another reason I’m going to hell: I like to watch DC parking enforcement come down and ticket the tourists cars illegally parked past the rush hour start time on Independence Avenue. If it’s a really slow day they’ll even tow them, leaving some family of blond-headed kids and their fanny-pack wearing parents scratching their heads and frantically calling to find out where there car is, just like the ones sitting on the concrete barrier directly across the street from my office window right this moment.

Had an incredible meal last night at Vegetate with BC. He said if that were what veggie cuisine were like all the time he’d not really miss meat. Not a bad compliment. We did the restaurant week thing there, and added the wine pairings, which worked well (especially the ruby port with the chocolate-with-hot-peppers torte & ginger sorbet – yum!). Fantastic meal. This is only my second time there, but we’ll definitely go back. I just wish they were a bit more Metro accessible (they are, they’re just a good several blocks walk from the Metro).

Much snuggling and talking followed.

Contrast that meal with the one we had at Viridian on Tuedsday. For a restaurant known (among the veggies I know) as being very veggie/vegan friendly, it was disappointing that none of the prix fixe entrees was vegan. I did end up doing three courses, and the courses were okay, but the restaurant lost out – ordering the vegan entree and the two other pieces separately came out to less than the prix fixe price. Odd. And the video of the house demolition (which played over and over again over the bar) was distracting without being entertaining. I’m sure I’ll go back, but not any time soon.

Phone replacement ordered for my Treo. That’s all I’m saying for now, since it won’t arrive until next week. Suffice to say I’m looking forward to the switch, and thank you, thank you, thank you to a friend, who shall remain nameless, for a nice discount on it.

Took the tri bike in to the shop yesterday, so no riding for a bit. It’s had this persistent creaking noise for the past month and it’s driving me nuts, so I just said, “figure it out and fix it,” and left the bike with them for a week. So, long run this weekend, then some rest, perhaps Sunday a dip in the cult co-op pool and some sun to even out the lovely biker’s tan I have (“you’ve got a built-in wife-beater,” says BC). Looking forward to seeing a bunch of folks (and showing off BC) on Saturday afternoon at a get-together in the inner ‘burbs.

Relatively quiet this week at work. It’s a blessing when Congress goes out of session (a mixed blessing – it’s been hot and humid here like most of the country, but a blessing nonetheless), especially in my practice area. Playing catch up on a couple of things, and managed to dig up a nice source of funds which had been forgotten. That was worth at least my annual pay, so I feel like anything else I do this year is gravy, to paraphrase my first CFO in the government (after I did something similar).

Oh, it’s not the iPod that’s died, it’s the iHome speaker/clock/radio thing – the dock has somehow slipped and won’t connect correctly. I know this because the Apple dock that synchs the iPod with the computer works perfectly with no slippage. Good to know the old 3G is ticking along like clockwork.

Still debating Chesapeakeman, too. I think the low-key setting seems more my style. Won’t be as much crowd energy, but I think I actually prefer that, given my treatment of most exercise as a solo thing. We’ll see, but I’m thinking I may be having a talk with my boss about it this upcoming September.

While writing in to a local listserv to respond to a question about people blocking the sidewalk, I gave some advice about the section of DC code that lets the police break up the impromptu gathering, and ended it with this sentence, which I didn’t catch until after it was published:

So if a group is blocking the sidewalk or road, either physically or by their behavior, the police may disburse them under this section.

I guess you can take the fiscal lawyer away from the money, but you can’t get the money away from the fiscal lawyer…

Been neglecting my two-a-day workouts for far too long, so in addition to the long run this morning I swam this evening, putting in a shorter overall session, but including a 1k yard set in there. That’s roughly half of what I have to swim for the race, and it didn’t kill me, so I’m feeling better than I was this weekend about my upcoming big race, then Diamondman HIM (half ironman).

Also, heaven help me, I was looking today for information on the Chespeakeman race, a local (Maryland’s eastern shore) ultra triathlon, aka an ironman distance race, but without the sponsorship of the official Ironman organization (which carefully controls the logo and naming rights). It appears to be much more low-key, and much easier to get into, than one of the branded races, so I may seriously consider that as my first IM race. The timing isn’t the best for me, given it’s at the end of September (one of the crunch times for me at work), but I think it may be doable. Not this year, but maybe next. I’ve been saying I wanted to tone down the amount of races I do next year and concentrate on only a couple, with the goal of an IM the following year, but it might work to do Chespeakeman next year at the end of the season, with an earlier HIM race. Decisions, decisions.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever want to do more than one, but I do want to finish an iron distance race at least once.

I don’t think it’s a portent for the day, but when I got into my office this morning and went to change out of bicycling clothes and into work drag, I managed to step right on top of a purple jelly bean. Good thing I keep extra napkins in the office.

Got in a long ride this weekend, but no long run, so went out and did 7ish miles this morning before work. Was well behaved and kept my heart rate down in a semi-decent zone, rather than my usual overdoing it. I suspect I’m going to have a couple things I want to focus on after mid-september’s races, including some fat loss, weight work, and practice staying down in heart rate zones one and two. Might go for broke and get myself one of the new garmin heart rate monitor/gps units, too. BC just got one, and I was pleasantly surprised at how multi-sport friendly it was, unlike my nice, but kludgey, polar unit – it’s good for single sport training, and will give you great info for each sport, but you can’t do multi-sport workouts or races and keep the data in one file, which is a major weakness in my opinion. Perhaps a birthday present for myself this year. Probably better for me in the long run than, say, a Wii, too.

Not that a Wii wouldn’t be fun, as seen Saturday night when we were out at a friend’s house and played Wii bowling. Good job, Nintendo, even if it is still easier to get crack in DC than it is to find a Wii on the shelves in the area. Cheaper, too.

I feel like I should feel better on a day when I mailed off a check to pay off a student loan (how tempting it was to write on the check: “From hell’s heart I stab at thee. For hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”), but I’m just sort of blah. Did manage to get more sleep last night, but still mildly restless. No run this morning, but planning on doing one in the heat this evening instead. Allergies haven’t helped any, either (snot much? thanks).

Work, after being all “ZOMGWTFBBQ!” for the past couple of days was relatively quiet today, with fewer instances of forehead slapping than I’ve had most of this week. I am very, very glad it’s the weekend, though. I don’t think I can handle any more (work) stupidity right now.