Istanbul was Constantinople, now it's Istanbul not Constantinople...

...Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it's Turkish delight, on a moon-lit night.

Kinda a crazy week, with not much really going on.

Monday... was Monday. Nothing really good nor (thankfully) bad happened.

Tuesday... I inadvertantly set my clock an hour ahead instead of my alarm, and consequently got to work an hour late (but not 2 hours, like I originally thought I as going to be).

Wednesday... I met with a loan officer to finalize paperwork to find out how much of a loan I might be able to get, and also got yelled at by a swimmer I was coaching.

Thursday... I spent 90 minutes individually approving 300+ emails I was sending out (where, oh where is that mass email approval switch in Outlook?!?).

Friday (today)... I actually got up early! (yeah) And it was all downhill from there... but I did find out I get Monday and Tuesday of next week off :)

Otherwise, not too much excitement, other than tomorrow I'm gonna look at properties with one of my real estate agents... Oh!, I did find a quote from my current book to share:
"It is an outrage that the phrase 'human resources' was not strangled at birth. I hate it for its ugliness and its sloppiness. A moment's thought tells you that resources are exploited, used up, squeezed for every last drop of value, and then replaced."

--page xviii of Between You and I by James Cochrane

Which reminds me that I want to check out The Devil Wears Prada this weekend...

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul

Or am I standing still, with the scenery flying by...

How was everyone’s weekend? Mine was good, occupied, but good. For most of the weekend I helped out at what may be the biggest age-group meet in the world (there were 1200+ swimmers in the thing); at least when it wasn’t partially rained out (that was only on Sunday mid-day, though, due to a nice tropical wave that blew in from the Bahamas). So I was at the meet every night from Thursday-Sunday, and in the morning on Saturday and Sunday. In between, I squeezed in my first open house.

I’m looking for a place to buy--given the real estate market here, that means I can afford about a square foot of property here for the cost of an estate in South Texas... actually, the cost comparison is closer to: in San Antonio you’d get a 3-4 bedroom/2-3 bath nice house, with a good yard for what a studio condo goes for here. And I’m still not seeing the mass appeal to being here... there’s not even any good Mexican food.

But it’s all good--I guess. At least I’ve got Hoodwinked to watch (which I’m gonna get back to now).


Or am I standing still, beneath the darkenin’ sky
Or am I standing still, with the scenery of fly
Or am I standing still, out of the corner of my eye
Was that you, passing me by?

Night and day, you are the one...

Today is the summer solstice (i.e. the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere). Which basically means that the sun came up when I was still tired and it went down late...

Yeah, I'm having some fairly major sleep issues at the moment; mostly that I don't feel like I'm getting enough sleep, even after 7-9 hours in bed. Not sure what's going on, but it's only been this week, so far, so I'm not terribly worried... yet.

Otherwise, life is fine. No Masters practice this weekend, as there's a huge age-group swim meet at the pool. Some of the kids from El Salvador are even entered in it.

That's it for now. Summer's officially started with the solstice... so I'll just post a short note for now.


Night and day, you are the one
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It's no matter, darling, where you are
I think of you, night and day

This is not about love...

In case you've not heard, NBC, wonderful U.S. broadcaster that it is, is trying to get the IOC to change the 2008 Olympics to better fit the U.S. NBC has asked the IOC to move marquee events, such as the basketball, track & field, and swimming finals, so that they occur in the morning in Beijing, and can then be broadcast live in the U.S.

Now, while night prelims and morning finals isn't unheard of in swimming, it is rather rare; currently confined only to events in South America, that I'm aware of. The thing that pisses me off, is the reasoning for it. NBC is doing this just so that the American viewing audience will get "live" events, in hopes that more viewers will tune-in (meanwhile there's been no indication that NBC might actually make the programming more palitable so that viewers can and will stay watching--I mean I'm a fairly die-hard Olympics fan, and NBC's coverage drove me away from making it through the Olympics in Sydney and Athens; not the fact that I knew what was gonna happen).

Anyways, the international swimming federation, FINA, has said it will support whatever decision the IOC makes--which is rather a smart move on their part, and not entirely unexpected. Meanwhile, some Australians are rather pissed off that a U.S. broadcaster should be anywhere close to getting their way. And who can really blame them; I mean swimming is one of the top sports in Australia, every day, unlike the U.S. where the sport is only really on most people radars for 1 week every 4 years. An equivalent would be the Australians asking the Super Bowl to be played in the morning, so that it could be on a better time for them Down Under.

As a U.S. swimming fan, I think it was wrong for NBC to make the request: fix your problems, main; the product itself is fine, it's your package that sucks.

Anyways, to counterbalance that heaviness, head over to Highlights for kids (which just to 60 years old), and do hidden pictures. :)


And it doesn't seem fair
That your wicked words should work in holding me down
No, it doesn't seem right...
To take information, given at close range
For the gag, and the bind
And the ammunition round

The road is long and memory slides, to the whole of my undoing...

I had a very Zen moment today...

I was sitting outside a local movie theater and had just finished reading A Year in the Merde while waiting to go in to see The Lake House (Sandra Bullock junkie that I am), when I realized I had kind sped through the book, just to finish it. Which connected to the whole "life is a journey, not a destination" thinking...

Not sure if it'll really change anything, but, hey, I thought it--might be a step in some direction (maybe even the right direction).

The road is long, and memory slides
To the whole of my undoing
I put aside, I put away
I push it back to get through each day

It's too darn hot, it's too darn hot...

...brother, you fight my baby tonight,
Cause it's too darn hot.

Actually, it's not really terribly hot here; just way too humid... er, sticky... sultry, even (as Momma says in Throw Momma from the Train, much to Billy Crystal's vexation). "Too damn sultry, in here..." But the Kiss Me Kate lyrics still seem applicable.

Week's going fairly ok, and the U.S. just scored a goal against Italy at the World Cup in Germany--the U.S. needs to beat Italy, if they stand any chance of advancing after their dismal loss to the Czech Republic early this week. Speaking of the World Cup, there's an interesting op-ed article here, which has this quote I like:
"Billions will watch on TV. The citizens of all 32 countries with teams in the tournament will be transfixed when their teams are playing. Well, maybe not the Australians, who would prefer soccer if it involved swimming. And the Americans, who would prefer soccer if it involved scoring."
Too fitting...

Anyways, the week's gone alright. Still catching up on stuff at work, I managed to make 2--count 'em 2--morning swim practices this week, and got birthday presents way/wicked early from my sister (one of which is a portable camcorder which recommends itself to video blogging... which I guess I'll be investigating now).

As for today, I swam a Masters meet earlier (2 fr-2:11, 4 fr-4:33, 2 bk-2:25); not great, but not terrible either (way funky splitting tho... massive negative split in the 4). And after eating, I should either help one of my friends paint or do some more unpacking...


As nice as it is to have my rug down on the floor (visible and there to sit on while watching the 4400), the rest of the place is a mess still (unlike the pic at left).

And, as I should get to calling Justin about painting, I will wrap up here that while lunching at Taco Bell earlier this week, the message on my mild sauce packet said: "My sauce is an honor student at Taco Middle School." Just put a little smile on my face, mid-week.


Oh, and here's a cool article on function over form for fitness...

My flag boy and your flag boy, sitting by the fire...

It's Flag Day.

Did you know that on today...
-the U.S. Army was established by the Continental Congress (1775)
-the Stars and Stripes was adopted as the U.S. flag (1777)
-Bourbon was first produced (1789)
-Benedict Arnold died (1801)
-Superman first appeared (1938)
-Anne Frank starts her diary (1942)
-President Eisenhower insert's "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance (1954)
-The Gong Show debuted on t.v. (1976)


(which reminds me: Did you know that the U.S. national motto used to be "E pluribus unum" until 1956; in '56 in became "In God We Trust"--I think we need to go back to the "out of many, one"...)


Talkin' 'bout
Hey now (hey now)
Hey now (hey now)
Iko iko an nay (whoah-oh)
Jockomo feena ah na nay
Jockomo feena nay

As now can't reveal the mysteries of tomorrow

06-06-06

Well, I’ve been back from Jamaica for just about 2 days, and am slowly getting back into the flow of things. Even got my first electricity bill today--woo hoo! (no sarcasm here, nope, none at all...) And almost fell victim to an irksome problem here: getting change without getting all your change.

Tonight is not the first time I’ve run into this quirk of South Florida. And I don’t know how to deal with it when it happens; although I may have found a good option tonight. At issue tonight was a whole whopping $0.34. Not an incredibly huge amount, I know; but since I stockpile my change as a way of savings, I’m kinda protective of it. I’ve also feel bad when the change benefit is on my side (when they give me change back). It just throws me off… makes me want to screw around with their tip; which then places me in a really bad position.

Take tonight. I was planning on giving a $2 (right around 16%) tip. When I didn’t get the change back, my only real recourse (other than no tip at all--which I wasn't up to being that much of a jerk) was to leave just a $1 (less than 10%--and I didn’t feel that mean either).

So, after waiting for around 10 minutes for my waitress to return, and pondering whether I should just leave the $1 with a note, I got my waitress to give me the change of my change instead...

I guess it’s just another reason charge things... and My Life on the D-List is on (must go).


As now can't reveal the mystery of tomorrow
But in passing will grow older every day
Just as all is born is new
Do know what I say is true

I remember when we used to sit...

In Jamaica at the mo... New Kingston, to be exact. Not exactly the tourist mecca of Jamaica that Negril or Montego Bay are, among others, but not terribly shabby. I envision it could be one, eventually, mostly because of things like the Bob Marley museum and Port Royal.

Port Royal, as in haven of pirates in days of yore, and locale in Pirates of the Caribbean. Never mind the fact that half of the city sank during an earthquake just outside the inlet to Kingston Harbor, making it a potential awesome place to scuba dive (I believe building just sunk underwater).

Sure, there's a whole bunch of significant gang warfare going on in "old" Kingston; but one day, things will get better--they're working on it.


My feet is my only carriage,
So Ive got to push on through.
But while Im gone, I mean:
Everythings gonna be all right
Everythings gonna be all right