Swimming? In March???

I went swimming this past weekend. Yeah, you heard me right, this past weekend I went swimming. No, it wasn't in an indoor warm pool. Yes, it was in an outdoor pool at a friend of mine's apartment complex. Yes, we were drunk. Yes, it was March 24th when we entered the chilly waters of this pool. Yes, it was fun. I, being a sort of warm blooded type of person decided that I needed to be first into the pool, at which point in time I lied to everyone else and said that the water wasn't that bad. Shrieking and yelling ensued after the rest of the tribe jumped in. It was freakin' cold in there, but alas, I had never been swimming before in March, at least not outside that is. Well, unless you count the time I went whitewater rafting in Maine in early March (big water release) and there was still much snow on the banks of the river, along with big chunks of ice floating down the river beside us. Luckily, at that time, we got to wear dry suits provided to us through the rafting company, but it was still cold as balls out there. Especially since, remember, I said it was a big water release from the dam, and well, when there is big water, you get plenty wet. Still the best ride I've ever had down the West Branch of the Penobscot though. So, in a drunken state (well, I was more buzzed really nicely as opposed to drunk) I jumped into the swimming pool this weekend. This bodes well for the rest of the summer though, as the pool wasn't that bad, and they have a large grill sitting poolside. I can see summer nights grilling and swimming over there, well, if I get invited that is. I would hope that I would, as I can always bring the beer. I'll have to make sure to NOT swim immediately after eating, as I might get a cramp and not be able to make it out of the 5 foot deep pool alive. Now, if only they had a hot tub over there as well, now that would be something. I know, not asking for too much am I?

This weekend also represented the first really consistently warm weekend coming into the Spring. Well, actually, it was hot on Saturday and Sunday. Also in accordance with the first really warm weekend, the pink arm warmers made an appearance after the ride on Saturday afternoon. For those of you who are not in "the know", the pink arm warmers refer to the bare arms after they have been exposed to the sun for a long period of time, for the first time in the year, resulting in a semi sun burn that is the same size and length of a regular pair of arm warmers that one would wear when it is cold outside whilst riding the bike. This was just a long explanation of saying that I got a little bit of a sunburn this weekend. It actually wasn't too bad, and today, it has abated already. Yes, I did wear sunscreen on Sunday when I went out riding (I actually forgot on Saturday), and came back much better off after the Sunday ride. This also means that the infamous biker tan line is coming back into effect, full effect, as it never really went away, and actually doesn't go away. It's been a good year and a half now since I stopped riding on a very consistent basis, and the dark line, it's still there on the legs and the arms. The tan line that suffers the most is the sock line near the ankle, that one tends to blend in over time. This one is coming back in dark and distinct as well. Maybe I'll have to get some tan line pictures and get them on here in the near future. Got to work on it some more before posting though. I'm not like certain people who I know, who won't be named, who fake their cycling tan lines in order to get more cred from the cycling peeps. Yeah, it's true, I do know people who go to a tanning salon, or have in the past, who wear their cycling gear into the tanning booth in order to gain the appropriate cycling tan lines. You know who you are out there, so don't deny it.

This past weekend riding though, for the first time in a relatively long time, I felt OK on the bike. The legs were still pretty tired by the time I got home yesterday afternoon, but they're coming around really. I am thinking about another 3-4 weeks of consistent riding, and I'll start to really come around and find some fitness again. This riding, plus starting to do interval work in another month or so, should set me up for a good fitness base for the middle of this summer, when I can start racing my bike again. I'm torn at this time though whether to cat down to a 3 again, or stay racing as a category 2. I think if I had been able to upgrade to a category 1, I would stay there, because the chances of me making it back to that level (if I actually HAD made it to that level) would be slim and none, and I'd like to keep that category, but being a cat 2, is not that big of a deal. I could always drop a category, and IF I'm riding OK towards the end of the season, I should gain enough points to cat back up, or maybe the local official will let me, as I had been there once before. The straight poop though is that cat 3 racing is plenty fast, most of the time, it's just that the race lengths are much shorter. I personally don't have enough time to train properly or intensely to be a higher level racer, and my genetics don't help me on that end either. If I had the time to train, it might be a different story, or if I had a good genetic base from which to work, it might be different as well, but alas, I don't have either of those, so most likely back to cat 3 racing I'll go. And I'll probably get dropped there as well, so no big deal. I do remember though that the best times I had racing bikes was when I was a cat 3 racer, even when I was getting dropped. That might have had more to do with the guys I was racing with, rather than the racing itself, but I do remember those days fondly. And there were a number of races where I did quite well. We'll see…

This time of year in North Carolina, best time of the year ever. The days are longer, the temperatures are more than tolerable, everything is blooming out there, and it's got that good smell of Spring in the air. It's good stuff really. And since we don't get hardly any snow at all down here, there is no "mud" season, as those of you in the Northeast corner of the country know. Mud season is essentially just that, mud. All of the snow melts, and then the ground melts, and what do you have? Mud, and lots of it. It doesn't go away until like, June or so most of the time as far as I can recall. I remember one especially bad year when I was mountain biking a lot. I think I went through 2 sets of wheels, and about 10 sets of brake pads from the time span going from March to July. That's a lot of gear that this mud chewed through. Not to mention everything just being dirty all of the time. And of course you get mud all through wherever it is you're living, no matter how careful you are. It just invades and creeps its way into, well, everything. NO mud season in North Carolina, at least not in Durham.

No political stuff today, as there is just too much of that going on right now to even really comment about. Except for the attorney general, and the way he messed up, bad. Hey, look, Alberto, if you're going to fire some US Attorneys, don't lie about why you fired them in the first place. If you hadn't lied, there wouldn't be this shitstorm brewing all over the place, and it wouldn't even be a story, and there would be no investigations. But, apparently, Gonzales forgot that the democrats control Congress now, and are able to actually complete their oversight duties of the executive branch of the US government unlike the old majority (the republicans). If Gonzales had just come out and said that they fired these 8 prosecutors because they weren't pursuing what the current administration thought was important, there would have been some outcry, but as the law actually states, these people serve at the pleasure of the President. But instead, they said it was for performance issues, when none of them were actually performing badly. And then Gonzales said he wasn't aware of these decisions that were being made of who to fire and when. But, there is a pesky little detail of different meetings that Gonzales had with his staff concerning these firings. And then there was the White House saying that they weren't involved really with any of this (even though DOJ falls under the White House), but turns out, they were involved, deeply involved. Why did they need to lie about this? Like the Scooter Libby perjury case, it's not what actually happened that is the problem, it's what they did to cover it up, and in this case, lie about it. I'd be extremely surprised if Gonzales lasts the rest of this week and does not resign. It's funny for a man (Bush) who said that he was going to bring honor and trust back to the White House, and the executive branch in general, they are doing just the opposite of that, and have been since they entered office in January of 2001. Lots of lying, lots of secrecy never before seen, walking over the Constitution, suspending habeus corpus, and things like that. Yep, doin' a heck of a job there Bushie. Heck of a job. It has gotten to the point now, that whenever someone from the Bush administration speaks, I believe whatever it is that they are saying, to be a lie. They can't help themselves.

Work? WTF???

It has been almost 3 weeks since it was the last time that I set foot into work, and I'm better off for it. I took off from work on the 15th of December through some fancy footwork with my vacation schedule, and by sorting of fibbing to my boss a little bit. I didn't actually have 10 days left of vacation, but the days that I did have left, added into the days that I had from working those 90 hour weeks from July through October finally caught up with me. Leave work on 15-December-2006, and return on 2-January-2007. That's a good break right there, and frankly, one that I needed. The burnout factor on me was approaching scorched Earth policy (ala Sherman in the Civil War). The downside to being out for so long? Going back after being gone for that long. For example, I get to work today, log into the work e-mail, and what doth my eyes behold? 375 new and unread e-mails. Yeah, I said it, 375. I spent most of the morning getting over sticker shock, and then triaging the e-mail inbox. Here is the order that I went in. First, delete all work e-mail that didn't appear too important. You know, company wide notices, safety training schedule, network down notices, power is out notices, daily customer scorecards, and things like that. After I got through that stuff, I was left with about 365 e-mails. Next on the list, read all personal e-mail. Meaning, stuff from friends and family, and reply to that stuff appropriately. Yes, I know, it's work and I should be working on that, but go back a few sentences and read again that I have been out since the 15th of December, and I'm not really in a great mood to be working. I've got to ease back into this mess.

Now with personal e-mail out of the way, I can start going through the work e-mails and prioritizing things there. Let's see. Toyota Japan, nothing but issues there, we'll save that for tomorrow. In-house sweatshirt distribution... Why didn't I delete that one in the first round? To the trash bin with you my friend. Let's see what else here? Hmm, some e-mails I can write one word answers to (maybe up to 3 word answers as well), yes, let's hit those ones up first. The answers I wrote to these e-mails were as follows:

1. Yes.
2. No.
3. Yes (again).
4. Maybe.
5. Crap.
6. You're joking?
7. Trash those.
8. Scrap it.
9. I hate SDS (SDS is a sister company of ours that is constantly screwing us).
10. HAHAHAHA!

Use your imagination, and think about me going through about 50 e-mails with answers like you see above in 1-10. Like I said before, got to triage everything, and work as fast as possible here. Lunchtime was approaching.

I did get to walk around the production floor a bunch this morning, re-connecting with some of the people that I work with, you know, the more "blue collar" folks who I really do enjoy being around. Most of the folks that work up front with me, well, I could take or leave them (leave most of them), but for the most part, the folks on my lines out there on the production floor I admire a lot, and enjoy a lot.

I do wish that I could take another few weeks off from work, but alas, now, I'm looking down the barrel of almost 11 months with little or no vacation time, but this will be OK, because then I get to get married in December in St. Croix, and take a couple of weeks off there, go back to work for a week, and have another week off at the end of December 2007. I just have to keep moving towards that day with that in mind. Focus on the wedding, focus on the wedding.

I did find out something interesting about my wedding today though. It turns out that the wedding coordinator, named Misty Hyman (no porn star jokes please) is indeed an Olympic Gold Medalist. Yes, it's true. She won the 200m butterfly swimming event at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, which is pretty impressive I must say. And, a friend of mine that moved down to St. Croix lives right next door to her, and is trying to work out some deals for myself and the fiancee for when we do roll on down there for the wedding and all. It's good to have an "in" on the inside so to speak. So yeah, Misty, she went into her event as the complete underdog, she wasn't supposed to win at all. An Australian was supposed to be the end all be all in that event, but alas, the good old US of A took down Australia in that meet, and at that time. Check out this story about her win. Yeah, that's our wedding coordinator/planner, it's pretty sweet.

Anyway, it'll be back to work tomorrow to fit the remaining horde of e-mail remaining in my inbox. I can hardly wait, maybe I'll go back there this evening? Nah, on second thought, probably not.