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

In 12 hours, hopefully I’ll be done with my swim and be out on the bike course.

Popped up to Columbia this afternoon for packet pick-up, bike check and back racking in transition. I have a hospital bracelet plastic wrist band on, so I can get into transition in the morning, I’ve laid out my gear and gone over transition in my head. Tried on the wet suit again (it still fits, thankfully), got out the bags to haul stuff out there. The car is full of gas, so I should be all ready to go.

The goal is to finish in less than 4 hours. Doesn’t look like I posted a race report for the Mooseman two years ago, the last Olympic race I did, but I seem to recall I was just under 4 hours there. Or maybe it was 5 hours, I don’t remember, past that I was sloooooow. In any case, I feel better prepared this time around, especially for the swim. And having biked and run the course two weeks ago, it’s not an unknown quantity this time, which should help a ton.

In any case, it’s about time to crash here. I’ll try to remember to post a race report soon.

Wanted to jot down some quick “day after” thoughts on the in re Marriage Cases decision that was handed down yesterday in California.

Procedurally, the case is now remanded back to the Court of Appeals for action consistent with the Court’s opinion. Clearly, part of that action is the invalidation of the parts of the marriage law, both for in-state and for recognition of out-of-state marriages, which limit “marriage” to opposite-sex couples. Same-sex couples will be able to marry once the Court of Appeals takes action. What is less clear is the status of those who have entered into domestic partnerships under California law. The Court did not explicitly address the domestic partnership statutes in the final part of their decision. It’s now unclear how the Court of Appeals and/or the legislature will address the issue.

From my limited view of California law (culled pretty much entirely from the decision), part of the elligibility for a domestic partnership was inelligibility for marriage. If the courts were to read the new availability of marriage as invalidating current domestic partnerships without making the partners go through the usual 6 month process for dissolution of the partnership, that might not be a bad thing. What I don’t see them doing is automatically converting partnerships to marriages, at least not by the court alone. The legislature could make such a thing a possibility, and I would hope they would do so for partnerships where one of the partners has died (since other rights and responsibilities for partnerships were added retroactively even for partnerships where one member was deceased, according to the decision), but I would not impose the full structure of marriage on those who entered into a partnership without their express consent.

The other thorny issue is those partnerships where the main reason was for support of the elderly, and not for “marriage light.” Not even going to touch that one, but it would be good if they kept that part of the partnership law in place.

In any case, those folks who are in valid domestic partnerships under California law now find themselves in a legal limbo, not knowing where they’re going to come out. Will the courts declare them de facto married? Will their partnerships get dissolved without being married? Will they have to go through the six month process to dissolve the partnership in order to get married? The Court didn’t address this, which was a weakness of the decision, in my opinion.

The other interesting note in the decision was the Court’s explanation of how the Governor was correct to veto the two attempts by the legislature to pass full gay marriage statutes. In essence, because Prop 22 was passed by initiative and because it did not allow for the legislature to change the law without putting the change to a vote, as is required by the California constitution. The statutes would not have been upheld by the courts, and as such the Governor was simply exercising his constitutional duty to veto legislation which he (properly) did not feel was constitutional. See footnotes 16-17 and the surrounding text. Knowing that puts his veto in a much better light, especially viewed together with his opposition to the current attempt to amend the state constitution to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples.

I won’t get into the classification of “sexual orientation” as a suspect class under California law except to say, “Wow, that was unexpected, yet quite, quite cool.” Smarter folks than I would better address all of the ramifications of that.

For all my California friends in light of today’s court news, another oldie but goodie from The Onion.

The slip opinion (.pdf file there) of the California Supreme Court in in re Marriage Cases is a doozy – 172 pages.

But let me tell you, reading the summary in the first 11-12 pages is a joy.

I feel irrationally nervy about today’s announcement from the California Supreme Court in their consolidated same-sex marriage cases.

Quote of the day, from a column by Mark Moford, talking about static media versus interactive media (specifically TV versus Web 2.0):

See, I still want immersion. I want to feel the full expression of the artist, the filmmaker, the writer, the journalist, the individual. I don’t want to walk into an art gallery and have the ability to change a painting’s colors on a silly whim. I don’t want to read a book and be able to change a character’s name or even pick a particular cover design to match my couch. I don’t want to click the remote and choose which characters die or select an alternate ending. If I want to interact with my DVD, I’ll just buy porn, you know?

Prescription goggles seem to be a hit or miss proposition. Most of them at my approximate prescription are fine, but the one which listed itself merely as “strong” and a pretty broad range of prescriptions seems pretty damned useless. With the others I can see, even on land, almost as well as with my glasses. These, well, might as well be regular goggles for all the good they do. Which is, of course, why I ordered multiple pairs to try them out, both for vision and for fit. Two more to try tomorrow (excluding the bad ones). I really liked the first ones, so these have a lot to live up to.

Spent some time adding people to the Wii and the two games there (see my LJ for the codes). BC and I spent most of yesterday together, over at his place. Bought some Birkenstocks so I have shoes to wear inside the house, as well as outside for pre-race/post-race wear. Damned podiatrist and his sensible orders not to go barefoot. Not pleased with it, but wearing them inside does seem to be helping. Which is even more annoying, that he was right, and that walking around barefoot inside was somehow a bad thing. Blasted flat feet. Did the mom’s day brunch thing with BC’s family. Came home mid-afternoon in the rain (ugh), played some, made some dinner & lunches for the next couple of days. Just chatting and being a bum here tonight before I crash.

Have to take the Mini in at some point. It’s got this neat trick where if I accelerate too quickly, the run-flat tires’ pressure sensor thinks the tires have just gone down by more than 10% pressure, so the warning light cuts on, which then cuts out the ABS brakes and several other lights come on, the car dings at me, and it’s altogether incredible annoying. I know it’s not that the tires are actually going flat, because Dad gave me a plug-in pump that I’ve checked them all with. So it’s a bad sensor. Grrr. It did manage not to do the trick until I got onto the bridge over the Potomac on the way home this evening, thankfully.

Of course, I mention this to Dad and his reaction was to tell me about the other trick it has of cutting off the AC if you accelerate too quickly with the AC on. That, thankfully, resets when you stop the car and turn off the engine, but not until then. Gotta love it when your car’s computer has to reboot itself.

Anyway, off to bed so I can run & swim tomorrow. Taper week, with the race next Sunday, but it’s still got to be done.

The first set of prescription goggles came in yesterday (two more came in today), so I got to try them out in the pool this evening. It was a little distracting, actually, being able to see while in the water – just noticing the details I could see now was interesting, but distracting. I actually ended up doing a bunch of drills toward the end to reorient my body into the proper water feel with the new ability to see. This will definitely help with sighting in open water, and I did enjoy being able to see, but it’ll take some getting used to. I think this is the first time I’ve been able to see when I was doing in the water since I got glasses back in 6th grade.

Went ahead and joined the new gym this evening, rented a locker so I don’t have to drag my shower shoes back and forth any more. Not a bad deal, even with the locker rental it’s still cheaper than the old one.

Depending on tomorrow’s weather, I’m headed out to bike with my newbies tomorrow morning early. Then it’s off to BC’s place and a bbq thing with his family on Sunday. And sandal shopping so I can stave off repeats of the plantar fasciitis (’cause that stuff is not fun, and I did not appreciate the repeat twinges in my right heel last week).

I was a frustrated shopper earlier this evening. Everything around here closes too damned early. I need a small spring for my bike, but got home to late to zip to the bike store as they close at 7 (thankfully I can pop one off my mountain bike until I can pick one up), and I need to get some sandals for wearing in the house (podiatrist’s orders – he wants me wearing something to support my non-existent arches), but the store I want to go to closes before I leave work during the week. WTF? How do you stay in business when no one who actually works can come to your store during the week? Ugh.

My last shopping blitz (online), however is quickly bearing fruit – lots of notices from amazon that various things are on their way from various merchant partners as of today. I decided to try out different pairs of prescription swim goggles, so I ordered several to see which fit better, which I can see out of better, etc. I’m hoping that actually being able to see while in the water should help with the experience of the open water swim. And just swimming in general. I hate when I can’t see well, which has always made swimming somewhat annoying. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Work is … work. The Project From Heck is currently in abeyance, so I’m catching up on a few other things, but I’m hearing rumblings that the PFH may be back by the end of the week. Let’s hope not, I’d kind of like to catch up on the other things that keep zinging in.

The brick went very well. I finished the bike course a bit faster than expected, and the run a lot faster than expected, which bodes well for the race.

When they said it was hilly up in Columbia, they weren’t kidding. The bike ascent was 1,954 ft all told, and the run was 1,348 ft. Not exactly the Alps, but not insubstantial, either. If this is what IMZ is going to be like, I seriously need to get out and do more hills.

The worst part of the bike was being in a spread out line of triathletes all slowly gearing up one of the hills when this group of three young roadies came flying past us like the hill was nothing. Ugh.

Almost didn’t make the group picture – one of the club women who was running with me and I came up just before they were about to snap it, so we ran down the hill and inserted ourselves just in time.

Oh, and my shoulders now look like a match for the arms last week (burnt!). It had been overcast, and so I didn’t put on sunscreen when I started, then just after we started the run the clouds finally rolled out and we got sun. Figures. For the race I’ll just put it on before I leave home, that’ll be easier and no excuses.