Sweet revenge!

From Failblog.org

My funniest training story

Today I was sitting around thinking of the training I have to do for IM Lake Placid, and that got me to thinking about swimming and of how sometimes swimming in Open water, especially around NYC, you can end up with interesting situations.

I think 2006 in the Park to park race in NYC. I was doing this race just to get some open water time and experience in the Hudson river as I was training for the NYC Triathlon. As such it was training session for me. Now I have to say I have done the NYC triathlon. 2 times and have done the park to park also 2 times and I always enter the water of the Hudson with a bit of suspicion. Maybe it has to do with all those Law and Order and crime shows where you see a body floating in the rivers around NY. Or many it has to do with the large number of times I have seen condoms and other lovely artifacts floating in it. Anyhow, that mentality probably set the stage for what happened.

I was swimming along after the gun went off and I would say maybe 5 minutes into the swim I am cruising along nicely feeling comfortable, when suddenly I feel something long wrap itself around my shoulder and start to wind around my Neck, I though " damned seaweed" at first I was going to continue and ignore it. But it felt slimy on me so I slowed and went to pull it off. As I pulled I felt it tighten around my neck! Immediately In my mind I thought, "Wait there is no seaweed in the Hudson river! What the F is this?!" The more I pulled it just tightened. It was not long before I was rolling around in the river struggling with this thing, thinking I was possible at war with some mutant strain of something or other ( no doubt a creation of the garbage processing plant upriver!). It seemed like forever, but It was really not even a second. After I got it off I realized It was a long, clear, sheet of plastic wrap that must have been tossed into the river by some picnicker up along the park in upper Manhattan. I realized that Kayackers were coming in for me, they saw me struggling and assumed I was in need of help.

I waved them off and continued on a bit embarrassed. About a minute after I had to slow down and stop mid river because I could not help but start laughing at myself just imagine what I must have looked like rolling around in the river as if I was fighting some anaconda in a Tarzan Movie.

I suppose thats why I like triathlon, due to the huge number of time you are out there training and doing things in situations that are NOT an everyday occurrence, you get to have allot of these weird experiences that makes for well adventure.

The Gopher got scared of his shadow

Well no Spring like return to training for me. I saw the Doc today and he said based on Xrays, the bone looks like it healing, but it still has not fused. He said its not surprising because it was a pretty extensive break( as can be seen here) , not a fracture type of thing.

Its not a real blow to my Overall IM LP training since its still far off, but I would have liked to do some training for a marathon or some foot races. Just to have fun.

Oh well. I'll have to continue harassing people on their Blogs and on other triathlon related Blogs I guess. Maybe I'll write a book about everything I know about triathlon.......OK maybe a pamphlet is more like it ;)

Train of thought

Sorry folks but here it comes......the wandering train of thought post.

OK So this morning I decided to go to IAMTRI.com, the official Ironman community. I realize some people may choose not to join this site because it is part of the ironman "establishment". However, because I have no morals ( at least from a triathlon perspective) and could care less if they trample on the little people, I went anyways.

Immediately whenever I go there I am struck by two things: 1) there are an amazing number of HACS on this site (HAC - Hot Athletic Chicks) 2) there are a Huge number of God fearing folks there too ( ie they post allot of "God Bless you" and even quote the bible. I mean seriously in the middle of a post about Anaerobic threshold for example you may very well see a reference to Luke verse II or something) .

Now the above is not meant to say there is anything wrong with the above. Its just that these are unusual concentrations to see. Not the HAC part because everyone knows that Triathlete women are the best looking hands down. But the Gospel folks, is a bit different. This led me to make an association. that naturally in my caffeine sloshed state I followed to a miserable end. So now Jump with me! ---> It seems to me that Gospel folks almost universally seem to go towards association with organizations often seen as being the "establishment". in this case the Ironman Brand. But also in my experience they are almost overwhelmingly Windows O/S Users.

There is a group of people known as "MAC users" who happen to be almost fanatical ANTI-WINDOWS users. Seeing Windows and anything to do with Bill Gates as having to do with the Anti-Christ. Making Bill Gates ( and Jerry Seinfeld by association thanks to those crappy commercials) THE ANTI-CHRIST.

So here we have two camps in some bizarre way contradicting each other, and yet having the same goal. The gospel folks who live and breath doing battle with Evil, and in living the good life, are IN FACT using the tools, that according to MAC users, of the Anti-christ.

Interesting Huh?

So what doe this mean? is the end of the world coming?

Are battle lines being drawn-up as we speak! with insidious maneuverings on both sides? Are the God fearing folks basically using the devils tools against him? literally Throwing it in his face! Sticking out their tongues at him? or is theother way around, is the forked tongued cretin sneaking his way in, to undermine Gods people?

OR*** Are the Mac Users just plain confused ( very likely BTW)

Just something to think about.

Or better yet ...not.

ITS ALIVE!!!

The past week we started to have our upstairs bathroom redone. The plumbers were here last week and took out theTub. Now taking out a tub is messy business. The sheetrock walls had to be taken off down to the studs. So since they are coming back next week, I have the task of "cleaning up" like remove the nails and screws from thewalls etc.

Now when they took the tub out we found that the plywood underneath was rotted, so we took out the rotted portions and will replace with new plywood.

So we have a section of subfloor exposed, and the subflooring goes over to the room next door. As I pulled out some of the sheet rock that was left over and screws etc alot of it fell into the subflooring. After I was finished and cleaning up I started to pull the stuff out from teh sub floor. AS I was reaching in I noticed in the sub floor a few feet past the wall under the next roon a pair of large shiny eyes. .....I froze. ....They were huge. Much bigger than any mouse or rat I have ever seen... and glowing.

Slowly they were creeping towards me. ..HOLY SHIT!!

I pulled my arm out and .....The the little bastard Marmalade pops out meowing at me.

I was sitting there cathing my breath as he scrambled out of the hole and out the door. He must have slipped in without me noticing while I was on the ladder pulling nails out from the top of the walls. I just cracked up after that.