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

Still haven’t been able to fully motivate back into training yet. When it’s hard to tell if the heavy breathing is from being de-trained, the cold temps (and dry air) on ye olde lungs, or some odd combination of the two, it doesn’t leave me very thrilled with the idea of going out for a run. I have been continuing to bike into work, throwing on some long underwear bottoms, heavy wool socks, and old jeans, and that’s been fine to keep my legs/feet warm enough for the ride in, but the top of the hill at 10th street is kicking my ass in the cold. I end up breathing heavy until after I get into the building and decently heated air.

Give me heat and humidity any day of the week. It’s a shame I’ve forgotten so much of my Mandarin or I’d see about applying for jobs in Taiwan again. Even with the pollution I think I’d prefer the weather.

The familia seemed pleased with their Giftmas largesse. And Mom seems quite pleased with her b’day Kindle. I was a bit worried on that, because she didn’t seem to show much interest in mine when I showed it off back in November, but went ahead with it anyway. The email tonight (she got it this afternoon) was most enthusiastic. Looking forward to geeking out with her on it. Wonder how much Dad will end up trying to steal it from her.

I think I’m going to be able to shoehorn a cleaner into my budget now that we’ve gotten the first paycheck stub of the year. I got a modest increase in pay thanks to a performance increase (and no thanks to the powers that be killing off our COLA for this and next year), and between that and the tax adjustments I think I can swing it. My bathroom certainly needs it, as does the kitchen. That’s one of the things I miss most from living at the Woodner – we paid two women to come in every other week and clean. It was worth every penny. I have a couple of names from neighbors, so I think it’s time to start interviewing.

Speaking of the powers that be, the new Congresscritters are in town now and while it was mostly quiet on that front this week, I did get an email just before I left tonight alerting me to an issue and a proposed powwow with our various appropriations staffers over it. Expected, that with the divide among parties, we’d start getting some crazy, but I was enjoying the lull before the storm. It’s not going to be dull for us the next two years, that’s for sure.

1. Columbia Triathlon
2. DC Triathlon
3. Rockett’s Landing
4. Nation’s Triathlon
5. Cupid’s Undies Run
6. Get a PR at the Olympic distance
7. Start a weight training routine
8. Replace the dishwasher
9. Replace the disposer
10. Frame my graduate school diplomas
11. Clean behind the fridge
12. Host a bad movies party
13. Host a game day
14. Take a knife skills class
15. Come up with a display for my race medals
16. Frame my finished cross stitch projects
17. Art for the bathroom
18. Go to the Holocaust museum
19. Donate more books
20. Clean out my desk at work
21. Dispose of the roomba batteries
22. Replace the roomba battery
23. Get a better tool box
24. Integrate a regular yoga practice
25. Go dancing
26. Take a CPR class
27. Get coaching certification
28. End the year with smaller credit card balances
29. Get replacement shades for the lamps
30. Prepare 2012’s tracking sheet
31. Prepare 2012’s Uberlist before 2012 begins
32. VO2 Max test
33. Clean out the file cabinet
34. Set out NTP lessons learned for co-leaders
35. Get a new TV
36. Go out more
37. Rescreen the balcony
38. Get blinds for the living room
39. Remove the black bookshelf from the living room
40. Paint the living room
41. Price countertops
42. Price painting the kitchen cabinets & walls
43. Clean out the dressers
44. Rearrange the closets
45. Donate unused jackets
46. Begin a meditation practice
47. Join WABA
48. Hire a cleaner for the apartment
49. Fix up the planters
50. Cut HFCS out of my diet
51. Get network cables for the various machines
52. Participate in more group workouts with the Club
53. Get a mat(s) for the kitchen
54. Get demineralization cartridges for the humidifiers
55. Inventory and toss the cassette tapes
56. Recycle the old PCs
57. Get a new backup drive
58. Visit New York
59. Visit SF
60. Get a travel laptop
61. Replace two messenger bags
62. Get my teeth whitened
63. Read one of the books on Rhetoric
64. Buy something at the fish market
65. Donate clothes
66. Visit the local library
67. Check out other brunch sites for Sundays
68. Update my resume
69. Pick up items from Les
70. Replace a jacket
71. Fix the kitchen sink aerator
72. Annual physical
73. Two dental visits
74. Knit myself gloves
75. Get new earbuds
76. Buy someone jewelry
77. Go somewhere random
78. Stock the wine rack
79. Bake cookies
80. Bake a new cupcake recipe
81. Try a new vegan recipe
82. Try a new omnivore recipe
83. Learn a new cooking skill
84. Go to bear happy hour
85. Go to dinner with friends
86. Knit a hat for myself
87. Knit a scarf
88. Teach someone to knit
89. Cook with my niece
90. Continue brunching
91. Finish more of the physical books in The Book Pile
92. Get a new plant for the living room
93. Buy flowers
94. Get another piece of ink
95. Get another piercing
96. Fix the fu dog book end
97. Finish a cross stitch pattern
98. Reorganize the living room bookshelves
99. Renew my theater subscription
100. Grow basil
101. Make pesto
102. Replace the gimpy tire on the Mini
103. Go to a Body Electric workshop
104. Buy someone a snuggie
105. Go see a movie in the theater
106. Write a poem
107. Have dinner on the balcony with a friend
108. Play Gloom
109. Buy a new board game/expansion
110. Go to Canada
111. Put hooks for my pride flag on the balcony

I seem to be on the ‘once a month update schedule’ these days. Working on the Uberlist for 2011, a bit over halfway there. Managed to get over half the stuff on 2010’s list done, which I consider to be a successful list year. Way too many books ordered in the past week, and they all seem to have shown up at the same time. Along with a new living room rug (which I’d been eyeing for months and which I’m really glad I ordered the moment they put it on sale – I can’t find the thing on their site any more), which is currently sitting, rolled up, in the front hall because I don’t have the energy to move all the furniture tonight to get it in place. Plenty of time this weekend, and maybe even tomorrow night.

The aforementioned planning has gone slightly more slowly than I expected, but I’m not terribly worried about it. I will be writing this weekend to try & get stuff done and out for review by the other co-leaders next week. For my own training, I’m delaying the formal start of my stuff in order to do some weight loss related stuff first. I’m a lot heavier than I need to be to race well, and that’s gotta change. The 10 lbs (and 3-4 percentage points of body fat) I gained post-IM haven’t helped, either. Yuck. So yes, I’m going to be a resolutioner this year, but if I want to gain speed this year, I need to help improve the ‘infrastructure’ needed for that.

2010 hasn’t been a bad year for me, and 2011 is shaping up to continue in the same vein.

After a month break from writing, and three months off from regular exercise, it’s now time to get back to both. Monday is six months (24 weeks) from my next triathlon, and the beginning of training for the same. I’m trying to set out a manageable plan to work on getting faster (3:12 is the time to beat!), including weights for once. Gonna be an interesting season.

Also been working on the training plan for our new triathletes this year. I have the times and most of the heart rates, it’s just plugging in extra stuff like swim workouts and the like now. Plus setting out the stuff for their weight workouts. No pressure. This year should be the most difficult, once this is laid out it’ll just be a matter of tweaking it here and there.

I hosted friends at my place for Thanksgiving this year. Just a couple of us, but I did the majority of the cooking. I enjoyed that, it was fun getting everything together and timing it all out to be ready approximately at the same time. May do the same for the christmas holiday if there are folks in town.

I’m reading Andrew Holleran’s collection of essays, “Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited: AIDS and its Aftermath”. I’ve met (and dined with) Andrew a couple of times, and I can hear his voice pretty clearly in the writing. I also suspect I’m just barely old enough to have a real idea of what was going on in NYC in the 80s, though I’m not old enough to have been there. Having just finished Larry Kramer’s “Faggots” which, as any good satire should do, hit far too close to home on a number of occasions (as a late 30s, single gay man), it seemed a good transition into the period just after Larry’s work.

It’s not easy reading, however. Even making it through the introduction is likely to cause an emotional response in anyone who has or does know people who live with HIV. Andrew’s descriptions of living as someone without HIV, and not quite knowing what to do, are difficult. I can see where the impulse for Act Up came from. And I admit that I struggle between the idea of conforming, seeking acceptance in more mainstream society (even looking at the possibility of supervising), and going out to challenge those norms in more radical ways. It’s part of trying to see where it is that I belong, I suppose. And heaven knows I’m not quite there. Wherever there is.

The ink is healing nicely, going through the slightly itchy stage as the scab does its thing. Not bad so far, and apparently no allergies to the ink.

Got the mortgage company on the phone yesterday, finally, and figured out what was up with their odd escrow payment record. They record the payment in the month they receive it, not when it was due, so if I pay “early” (before the first), the escrow is credited when they cash the check. Hence August showing two payments, and June showing none. Ugh. So I suppose I need to time my mailing of the checks so they get there consistently at the beginning of each month, rather than just sending them in when I get paid, so the escrow looks “normal”. Again, would be nice if they explained these things better up front.

I got an award at work, from the Head of the Big Gubm’nt Agency himself. Was kinda cool, and unexpected. Got a pretty clock & certificate for it, so I have stuff to show off in ye olde office, too. Always nice to get recognition for your work, especially when it’s coming from the head honcho.

Otherwise things are ticking along fairly well. New couch came in on Saturday, old couch went out about an hour later (thank you, Craigslist!). Very, very much enjoying having a ‘lounging’ couch again. Being able to sit back and read on the couch is so much nicer. I liked the old couch, but it was not loungeable. This is much better.

To celebrate it (and add some color to the black beast), I got it a pair of cushions:

They’re perfect, both for the space, and for me. Nice and geeky/gamery, and quite fun.

Good thing my annual physical was before I got my latest “annual escrow account disclosure statement” from my mortgage servicing company, because it’s put my blood pressure through the roof (again). They’re showing two missed escrow payments, and one double payment, with the result that the spreadsheet I put together to track their nonsense now includes the fields “check number” and “when payment cleared the bank” so I’ll have that info in front of me when I call them tomorrow. Can’t wait for the explanation as to why they’re showing missed escrow payments when they had the funds in question 1-6 days before the payments were even due. They’ll probably tell me they couldn’t pay it because they didn’t know what to do with money that shows up on time. Ugh.

Otherwise the annual physical, 6 month dental checkup, periodic podiatrist visit, and dermatologist’s skin check yesterday showed me to be healthy as the proverbial horse. Cramming them all into one day is a lot of walking, but nicer on my leave balance. So, another year of fooling mother nature into thinking clean living will keep me going. To celebrate after the clean bills of health, I got a tattoo:

Actually, that was simply the last of five appointments I had yesterday, made over a month and a half ago, upon returning to DC after the Ironman. Convenient timing, with the planned day off. So far it’s healing well, a little sore today, but not itchy. I’m told day three can be fun, but so far I’m okay with this beast. Taking the picture was the hardest – it’s awkward to snap a photo of your own ankle/lower leg.

So, after finishing the season last month I made the conscious decision to indulge in a lot of stuff I’d been putting off, either purposefully (drinking – yay for good bourbon) or out of a lack of time/energy (knitting, gaming, socializing). It’s been fun going back to some of these things, especially catching up on long- delayed knitting projects (I finished sock #1 of this pair, and I’m in the midst of the arch increases on #2), and getting back to seeing some of the folks I let slip along the way. I’ve by no means gone back to my previous social life, and it’s unlikely I ever will entirely, but I have caught up with a person or two in the last month.

It’s funny, they warn you that IM training will mean putting your social life on hold for a year, and you hear that, but it doesn’t quite take hold until you’ve done this. It really did retard any hope of a social life, though. Which is why I want to focus on shorter races next year, and more specifically to train for faster race times. It seems like the better course than trying to go for long again next year, rather to build up a better base for future years, and get back to what it feels like to train for the olympic distance along with my newbies next year.

But in the meantime, I’m enjoying the bourbon.

Still working on my race report from Ironman Louisville. I did finish, in 16 hours, 20 minutes, 3 seconds. I can honestly say that was the most physically demanding thing I have ever done to date. And one of these days I’ll get the race report done and posted.

The boy broke things off two weeks ago, in the middle of dealing with the post-race blues. Not that there’s ever an easy time for such things.

Been listening to a ton of country music since I went out to Louisville, and enjoying it quite a bit. There’s a fairly good country music station on the radio, those few times I drive. Otherwise now it’s what I have on iTunes. Or find through Shazam. Which isn’t so bad. Even been walking to work so I can listen to some music (as opposed to bicycling in).

I swear, by the time this season is over, I’m practically going to have a new bike. The tri bike is in the shop to have the bottom bracket replaced overnight. Hopefully this will solve the ‘creaking’ problem it’s been having. Replaced the tires last night after blowing out the front one on Saturday’s ride. They were five years old, and I’d had new tires, just hadn’t replaced them yet. Did discover I need to shift the back one around a little bit so it’s lined up with the stem – makes it easier to see where there might be an issue, evidently.

Dropped off the commuting bike as well. I’d had it in for a yearly checkup & got the bars retaped. In doing that, they didn’t put everything back evenly, so the steering ergonomics were all off. Thankfully this annoyed the manager almost as much as it did me, so it’s getting fixed. In the meantime, I’ll walk to work again. Fun.

Feeling this week like I just want the IM over and done with already. I feel like I’m ready to move on from the mega-long workouts back to more normal stuff, and focus on some different goals. This is one of the definite downsides to the planning aspect of triathlon – while you’re in the middle of one phase/season you have to start planning the next one. It’s almost as bad as Federal budgeting, always trying to anticipate what you’ll need a year and a half before you need it. Trying to just focus on what needs to get done now, but thoughts of fall training intrude.

I’m also feeling this odd urge to knit a sweater. I don’t know why, I don’t particular enjoy wearing sweaters, but I feel like I should knit one. I suspect it’s all the talk of knitting from my new attorney at work, she’s been on a tear lately. Of course, I have several other projects I could do/finish before I should even think about buying more yarn, so I suspect I’ll just let the sweater urge die again until I’m finished with some of the other things I can do with already invested resources.