Grasshopper

An Eventful 22 Hours

OK, so if I didn't get a chance to tell you, here's some of the stuff that happened in the past 22 hours:

I was supposed to go biking with Logan (and maybe Javi) at 8:15am. I went to bed around 2. My home phone rang about 3:45 and a troubled friend needed to stop by. Ended up sleeping on the couch. I ended up dropping the Growler jug (1/2 gallon, heavy glass bottle with lid) on my floor, spilling about a quart of water and breaking the glass. I was vacuuming at 4 something am. Got the floor fan blowing on the carpet and it was pretty dry when I got up. I couldn't fall back asleep until after 5. Got up at 7:30 to get ready to cycle. My cell rang as I was about to leave the house with Logan telling me his chain popped and he can't ride. I went back to bed until 11.

Got up, ate again, hopped on my bike before noon. Went to Havana looking for hills that I rode there about a year ago. Couldn't find them. Rode Havana to Shady Rest Rd to some road that spit me out on US-90, almost got hit by a Chevy Silverado, to Quincy, to Faceville (GA) to Attapulgus (GA) toward Quincy, hit a cutoff to Havana, and back to Tally. Came home and ran 4 miles at a good clip (about 7:37 pace). Showered, ate, ordered Decent Pizza to go, picked it up, running into The Sarah Mac (and chatted it up for a minute or 2) at Decent while I was waiting for my order to get ready, watched Dexter at Alex et. al.'s house, back home, changed pedals on my road bike, finished the pizza (took some effort), then packed up a little.

More on the Silverado: I'm going W down US-90 when a truck at a stop sign on a side road starts pulling out. Normally they stop and let me pass. This one wasn't stopping and I had to jam my brakes and slide to the left a little. I thought the driver was laughing at what she just did. Minutes before that, I was passed very close by an asshole in a white car and I decided that I was unhappy with motorists. I looked at the truck's license plate # and called *FHP. I gave them the make/model/color/license plate of the truck before I see the truck whipping a U-turn to come back my way. I think the driver's upset that I'm on the phone and coming back to do bad things to me. There were guardrails where I was, so I took myself and bike behind the guardrail. My cell dropped the call. I quickly redialed. Turns out that the driver wanted to apologize. I told the FHP not to worry.

Grooveshark

Dan showed me this insane website called Grooveshark. You can play songs on demand. Hurry up and use it before it gets shut down!

All This Training's Wearing Me Down

I woke up this morning ready to go to the experimental econ reading group. I decided it was more important to sleep another 3 hours. I think I made the right choice. On top of my increased caloric needs, I have increased need for sleep. I guess sleep repairs stuff. I need to be rested if I'm going to drain my body every day. Today I swam a mile, biked about 15 (mountain bike), and ran about 15. That 15 mile run was slow and it was so humid that I drank 52 fl.oz. from my Camelbak over 15 miles. That's the most I've ever drank in 15 miles.

Training's also getting in the way of being a really productive student. Or maybe that's this race organizer thing. Seems like word is starting to leak out a little about the race. The flyer is up in the Leach center and some pretty cool people are telling their friends. I really hope it ends up being worth all the effort I've poured into it. Once this race is hosted I will have been done with the Ironman for about 3 weeks and I'm going to take exercising down plenty of notches. And get fat for the winter.

Insatiable Appetite

I just can't seem to eat enough these days. I've been putting away who knows how many (5,000?) calories per day. For dinner, I had a pound of fish and half of a good sized pizza topped with chicken, pepperoni, red & green bell peppers, and plenty of cheese. Chased that down with a couple sodas. Follow that up with a couple bowls of ice cream.

The weird/sometimes annoying thing is that I can't eat a whole whole lot at once. I need to have a little break. I can fill up and then be hungry 30 minutes later. That's why I ate my dinner in 4 sittings tonight.

Any suggestions on what I can do? I hear that sushi rice expands in your stomach...

Pick #156

Taj Mahal - "Bright Lights Big City"

Twitter: I'm behind the times...

I just got a Twitter account last week. I bet you can guess what my user name is. I didn't know that you don't have to get text messages when people you're following Tweet. Anyway, we'll see if I end up using it for much. It's kinda like when Facebook updates everyone's status message on their home page...I think.

Dissertation Road Blocks

OK, so I've got an idea for my dissertation. I want to quantify the reduction in your probability of having a crime at your address if you have a security system. However, I need some data that's a little bit sensitive. In fact, it's legally "confidential data." I am in the approval process with the Human Subjects board at FSU right now. I've called around to places asking what I'd need to do to get data (I can't actually get anything before HS approves me). I keep getting told that there's nothing I can do and they can't give out the info I need. I just need to keep going higher up the chain, I guess.

I don't know what I can do to help myself out...I'm thinking: 1. letter from my advisor asking for the data on FSU letterhead. 2. encrypt data? I don't know a whole lot about that. 3. Password protected hard drive...I know they do it with USB flash drives...why not big hard drives? 4. Offer to get fingerprinted, tap my phones, & monitor my internet usage to prove that I'm not sharing this data with anyone. 5. Promise never to reveal any individually identifiable information.

Let me know if you have suggestions for things I could do to convince people to let me use their data. Basically, I just want the address and when it first had a security system installed. I see why that's confidential, but confidential doesn't mean unobtainable. At least I know that these data exist.

Finding Money

I like finding money. Even coins on the ground. Even pennies. I especially like it when I'm on my bike at a stop light and see some change and pick it up. I'm still trying to fill up that stupid piggy bank. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with the money once it's full.

Pick #155

Blue October - "Calling You"

Overgrown Yard

This house is on Carmen's street. They never mow their yard. She says that the city levies some sort of monthly fine for not mowing your yard and that the owners happily pay that fine instead of mowing. Kinda cool.

Overachieving

Why do people hate on overachievers? You know, the slackers who look down on someone who's doing lots of stuff. Or a really good job at something. There's nothing bad about doing a lot of activities. In fact, I think it forces one to manage one's time better and be all around more productive. Why not hate on slackers for being a drain on society?

LÄRABAR

Let me tell you about a tasty, tasty bar. The LÄRABAR is amazing. I've liked every one of their flavors that I've tried...even flavors that don't normally do much for me, like apple pie. They're a little expensive, so I only get them as a treat. They don't have anything bad for you in them. All natural and all that other crap. I highly recommend you pick one up next time you get the chance.

Beach Blast Triathlon Recap

It looks like I did better than I thought. Actually won my age group. Results at http://members.cox.net/kei1race/blast2093.txt. Let me also mention that I didn't sleep at all on Friday night and I don't know why. Furthermore I guess I didn't eat enough because I was pretty hungry when the race started.

Race recap:
Swim: started way behind schedule. Not good for my hunger. It was getting cold outside the water. The Gulf was pretty warm, though. We swam clockwise and Doug told me later that counter-clockwise would have been much faster due to a rip current. I had some people up in my personal space and gave one person a knee in the side. I stayed pretty well on course.

T1: Everything was soaked...my helmet was half full of water. I didn't wear my sunglasses. Forgot to grab granola bar to eat on bike.

Bike: Ended up taking my gel before the turn around instead of near the finish, like I had planned. At times there were wind gusts that made my bike a little hard to handle with the Blackwell 100mm front wheel. There was an insane head wind going down the bridge over the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway on FL-386 on the way out. I had to downshift on the downhill! I didn't get a very strong climb up that bridge either. The roads were all wet and I was trying not to run anything over. I guess I failed at that...found out at the end of the race that I got a flat tire...on the Blackwell...freaking tubular tires...I don't like 'em. It happened near the end of the bike course. I heard the brakes start to rub the rim and wasn't sure why. Now I know. I rode it in to T2 on a low pressure tire.

T2: yummy wet socks for the run. No visor needed. Still left the sunglasses. and a 10 second mess up: left my race number belt on the ground. Had to turn around halfway through transition to go back and get it! What a rookie mistake!

Run: had to eat granola bar on the run...not as easy as on bike. Ran around 7:11 pace for the first few. Guess I got a little faster after the food kicked in. Nobody passed me, but I didn't feel fast. I ran about 10 seconds faster than last year.

Pick #154

Lil Wayne - "Let the Beat Build" from Tha Carter III

Christian the Lion

Amazing story about a lion.

Good News for Race

The Florida Highway Patrol has agreed to man the roads for Tri the Rez. The event is a go. There's more info on the race at http://sites.google.com/site/tritherez/ and you can register at active.com. This is a great race for first timers.

Dino Joke

Why don't dinosaurs talk?

Because they're all dead!

Solo Century

Today I did my first solo 100 mile bike ride. I got up at 6:15 to go volunteer at the youth triathlon. Rode my mountain bike there...about a 12 mile round trip. Came home, ate, napped, then rode my road bike to Blountstown in 2:20 and returned in 2:29. It felt good and gives me confidence for my ironman. I got back home and ran 4 miles in 32:20...not such a bad time considering earlier in the day.

An Amazing Trip

It's no secret that I just dipped out of town for 12 days to go see Mani in Nashville and Carmen in Bloomington, IN. I had been meaning to go see the both of them but it hadn't yet happened. I had nothing short of an incredible time.

In Nashville, I got to meet Mani's roommates and a couple of his friends, see his school, and ride my bike. It's kind of crappy that Nashville's on central time but Bloomington and Tallahassee are on eastern time. I just kept my watch on eastern time the entire trip and tried to mentally adjust while in Nashville. We didn't get to the Grand Ole Opry like I wanted, but there really wasn't time. I did see the Parthenon and some cool local places.

I was really excited to see Carmen. She called me from Rensselear and said that she was going to Indianapolis to have lunch with Camille and that I should wait a little while to leave. I just couldn't help myself and I had to leave immediately. It takes me 5 hours to get to Bloomington and it should take her 3 + lunch time. Anyway, she had been in Prague all summer and hadn't been able to contact her sublet guy to let her in/give her the keys. When I was almost to Bloomington she called and said that I might have to drive to Indy for the night. Luckily her sublet guy got a hold of her and met us with the keys. I was in Bloomington for a little over an hour before Carmen showed up so I took a mini tour. It's pretty easy to get around in that town. When she showed up, we still had to wait an hour to get the keys. We brought our stuff up to her door in that time.

She treats me so well. She took care of all my expenses while I was up there (except when the grocery store's credit card machine was broken). That first night we went to the Upland Brewery which also has a restaurant attached and I got a burger made with buffalo meat. I've been meaning to do that forever. It was really good. The Upland Brewing Co. makes really good beers. I went back there a few times during my stay.

There was a lot going on that first day and we kind of forgot that we were dating now and should be in some sort of different role...so it was the same Austin & Carmen as it had always been. We were able to pay a good amount of attention to each other before school started for her on the 31st. I got to meet some of her friends and it was nice to hang out with them. I got to go to Indy and see Camille and also Camille came to Bloomington. I got to see her dad a couple times and her mom for a day. Met her Uncle John and saw him on more than one occasion. I got to train almost as much as I should have. We went hiking in a national park and rode our bikes all around Bloomington. We had a couple meals with Kieran as well. She took me to some of her favorite restaurants and other places. I found a cool running store downtown. We went to a farmers market and a couple community gardens. My time was spent on lots and lots of activities. Camp fires and playgrounds and exploring. Phwew. Action packed trip.

As can be expected, I didn't get much work done during this trip. Maybe an hour and a half's worth @ Mani's and the same @ Carmen's. In fact, I wasn't on top of all my activities going on. Because of that, I didn't remind the tri club treasurer to go to the budget presentation so the club isn't getting any money from FSU this semester as a result (I did tell him about it before I left). That would have been done right if I was in town. I also have to play a lot of catch up right now, but it's totally worth it. I wouldn't have traded this trip for nearly anything. I found out that Carmen and I work really well together. It was a weird concept getting to know someone I've known for a while but in a different capacity. I learned a lot about her that I didn't know and I bet the same is true for her. One thing that I do know is that we've always cared about each other. I guess we're just manifesting that care in a different direction than ever before. She makes me happy. Sucks that we're so far away. Oh well, it's worth it to have someone you're really compatible with.

That's why I haven't posted to the blog in a long time.

Pick #153

R. Kelly - I'm a Flirt