Sunday, December 31, 2006

Come on and we'll sing... like we were free... push the pedal down, watch the around, fly by us


"Takin' on the jellies"

Yesterday morning, that is; while swimming a 5K off Fort Lauderdale Beach. There was some red-flag surf as well (right), due to a strong wind blowing in from off-shore.

Surprisingly, conditions weren't too terrible. Sure, the rough waters were not exactly fun (I definitely kept them in mind throughout the race) and I did get 3-4 jelly fish stings during the race (two on my left forearm, one on my forehead, and one on my right wrist), but I felt good throughout the whole race. I even managed to do some body surfing into the finish, and got the random beat out of my head and replaced with the 3-4 lines I currently know of Mat Kearney's Nothing Left to Lose. I ended up 4th overall, by the way--also not terrible.

Thankfully, my stings weren't as bad as others--no welts on mine, unlike 2 college swimmers present, one who had a welt line straight across his torso, the other who had a "C" pattern across his chest/stomach and a line continuing across his back. It looked painful--then again, we can't all be as talented as Nemo's Dad (Marlin) to earn Crush's praise.

Come on and we'll try... one last time...
I'm off the floor, one more time to find you
And here we go, there's nothing left to choose
And here we go, there's nothing left to lose

Thursday, December 28, 2006

In the day, in the night, say it right, say it all

My brother-in-law sent me a mummy.

Well, actually, he sent the screen pictured at left--but it was entombed like a mummy. Thankfully, at least I was expecting the entombment. It came in this huge box, taller than my front door, conveniently with rope handles (which also somewhat prevented opening the box)--very like a sarcophagus.

Then--once the ropes had been cut, the box opened, and the insides removed--the screen was wrapped in some styrofoam sheeting which needed to be cut off (which wasn't so terrible).

Once that was gone, I just had two straps to remove and some plywood boards. Now the 6 boards proved to be a massive pain, thanks to their being wedged between the feet and screwed together. Granted, they did prevent the feet from breaking (which I'm grateful for), but it also took an hour to get them off: between cutting the plastic ties that held them together and unscrewing the 3-inch (I believe) bolts. (I had to take a calm-down break in the middle of unpacking, so that I wouldn't break it trying to unfold the screen.)

But, now it's unpacked, and in place, and looks great. I just need to get used to it being there :)

Thanks L+D

Oh, and I'm liking Nelly Furtado's new single: Say It Right (which, of course, because I like it, means I won't hear it on the radio... ;)

You either stand or you fall
When your will is broken
When it slips from your hand
When there's no time for joking
There's a hole in the plan

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Don't pass up this chance, this time it's a true romance


Happy Boxing Day!
(no sparring please, other than the playful, verbal kind)

I hope folks had a good Christmas and/or end of Hanukkah. Part of me feels I should have I Got You (I Feel Good) for today, in honor of James Brown's death yesterday, but I'm compelled to go with Martha and the Vandellas instead.

Why? Well, other than doo-wop in the head, and seeing Volver yesterday (which is good; Hitchcockian, even. It doesn't really have anything with Brown vs. the Vandellas, though). So other than those, Florida's not exactly the coldest place around at the moment (it rained yesterday and today--rained! Not a white Christmas, a wet Christmas--can you imagine Bing Crosby singing about 'cars skidding on the road' instead of 'sleigh bells in the snow'? Nowhere near as appealing.).

But hey, it's Florida: it's warm here (ooh shocker). Added to the warmth, yesterday while I was eating at the Floridian (a nearby diner), on comes M+tV's Heatwave (or more properly (Love is Like a) Heat Wave). Now, the song has been on my mind of late, particularly during swim practice when the pool's been rather warm (and one of my coaches didn't love that I was singing it, but hey, the water was warm and at least they recognized the song). But the water's cooled back down and I've managed to not really hear Celine Dion's version of Feliz Navidad this year, so I feel alright... maybe even like sugar and spice.

So good, so good... ;)


Could it be the devil in me
Or is this the way love's supposed to be
Just like a heat wave, burning in my heart
I can't keep from crying
It's tearing me apart

Friday, December 22, 2006

Running to stand still

Wow, crazy week...

  • Hung out with a friend who was in town most of Sunday, and then went to dinner with him (all after running to the mall for some shopping--I didn't arrive before the stores opened this weekend, unlike the weekend before when I was an hour early; apparently 10 a.m. on Sunday is too early even for Christmas shopping),
  • Christmas presents wrapping and sending (wrapping at night on Sunday and Monday, mailings on Monday and Tuesday--all arrived yesterday, woo-hoo!),
  • frantic card writing (still some more to do),
  • a staff Christmas party (Wednesday night),
  • a farewell party for a co-worker leaving to a new job in the new year (good luck with the new j.o.b.! Laura),
  • old swim paddles re-made (finally) at a plastic shop (it's only taken me about 3 years to get them cut; I tested them out last night: they work well, and apparently are shaped like coffins--"death paddles, kill the competition"),
  • a second Christmas present that I was supposed to open early ;) (prominently marked "perishable" on the box: a bonsai sago palm (at right), which is really a cycad and not a palm--it just looks like one; and of which I'm not entirely sure where to place),
  • a full day of work today (on the solstice and with less than half the staff in, and much to my co-worker's Lynn's regret, I was not allowed to depart early),
  • need to research ISPs...
  • and apparently there's a picture of me in today's Sun-Sentinel (the local newspaper), which I should probably track down (it's from the Coral Springs meet that was a few weekend ago).

And now that winter has started (the winter solstice being the first "official" day of winter), I've got a party tomorrow and then some lounging around to do... and, hopefully, my CPR class will make on the 26th, but I'm not holding my breath that it will (i.e. the Broward Red Cross will delay my taking it yet again).

Anyways, I should go track down a paper... hasta


And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was, lying still
She said, I, I gotta do something,
About where we're going
Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night

Thursday, December 14, 2006

"The time has come," the Walrus said, to talk of many things...

Well, in addition to cooking dinner last night (left), yesterday I started to flesh out some swimming goals for the summer, which are going to require some changes in training structure. What changes, I'm not sure yet--things are still being ironed out. But I will probably be self-segregating myself to next to the rest of the Masters, so I can get some higher volume in (trying to get back to 16:30 is necessitating the increase in distance).

I believe things will start changing in January, so I've got a few weeks to hash things out. In the mean time, ironically, I didn't swim tonight because the water temp. was 84.9° (not quite boiling, but definitely hot).

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Floating in the summer sky, 99 red balloons go by

For whatever reason, the opening of Nena's 99 Red Balloons popped into my head over the weekend, right after I finished potting my tree (at right). It was somewhat strange, in that I'd not heard the song, nor its German counterpart in a while. To suddenly have "you and I in a little toy shop..." going through my head randomly throughout the day seemed quirky. (My German's not good enough to have "Hast du etwas Zeit fur mich" going though my brain.)

And then tonight, while I was eating dinner, the song serendipitously came on--as I was wondering why the English version was being played, when the original German version was the one that was successful in the U.S. So I went to wiki, which led me to find out that the English lyric content differs from the German--there's no toy shop at all! It also helped explained what I knew of the lyrics--I had never pieced together what balloons had to do with a war starting.

Anyways, just thought it was interesting... but now I must go and water my fledgling tree. hasta


You and I in a little toy shop You have some time for me
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got Then I sing a song for you
Set them free at the break of dawn Of 99 balloons
Till one by one they all were gone On their way to the horizon

Saturday, December 09, 2006

And the less I seek my source for some definitive...

  • Why must people choose to sit at the messy table in a restaurant and then make someone come clean it?
  • Why didn't my Netflix arrive today (About a Boy) like it was supposed to?
  • Why is the imdb poster on the About a Boy record in French? (maybe it's just me?)
  • Why'd it take 9 hours for the picture sent from my phone to arrive at my email? (And why did it arrive there right after I questioned where it was...)
  • Why did people confuse the fact that when I said the City of FtL was giving out "free trees", they took that to mean Christmas trees? (I would've said "free Christmas trees")
  • And why don't I know anyone named "Maintenance" so I can say hi to them...

In any case, today was mostly uneventful. I swam this morning, then went and picked up my 2 (non-Christmas) trees: a Silver Buttonwood (left in pic) and a Spanish Stopper (right; both natives--as were all 10 varieties that were options today--and free as part of a plan by the City to replant trees taken down by recent hurricanes). Afterwards, I read The Giver for most of the day. Now, I'm having dinner and trying to find out how KC did at her meet...

There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine...

Friday, December 08, 2006

No style rookie, you better watch, don't mess with me

I'm not sure where the week went... between my swim team's holiday party last night, finishing Gilead, navigating through a slew of Australian email addresses, watching Happy, Texas (with Steve Zahn, Jeremy Northam, Ally Walker and William H. Macy), among other things, I'm not sure where.

I do know I've been delinquent about mailing my step-dad's birthday present, as well as preparing my Christmas cards to send--hopefully I'll take care of both this weekend. That, and pick up one of the free trees the city is handing out (urban forestry project). And I won't even get into how much stuff I've not put away this week...

We always hang in a buffalo stance
We do the dive every time we dance
I'll give you love baby not romance
I'll make a move nothing left to chance
So don't you get fresh with me

Monday, December 04, 2006

Hey (hey) you (you), get off of my cloud

Busy weekend: swim meet in Coral Springs, friend in Boca from Cayman, and the Rolling Stones stuck in my head...

The meet Saturday & Sunday went alright. It was short course meters and my freestyle felt kinda funky the entire meet, but I did mostly better than last year. 2:02 in the 2 free, 4:24 in the 4 free, 8:50 in the 800 (out in 4:19), 2:11 in 2 back, 2:13 in 2 fly, and 4:46 in the 4 im... not terrible, really.

After the meet on Saturday, I drove up to Boca Raton to meet up with a friend from the Cayman Islands (he's actually South African) in town for a meet this past weekend. After finding the pool where they were swimming vacant, I drove around the area for about 15 minutes before calling another friend to find out where their hotel was. Post call, I called the hotel and was able to find it, and hang out for the rest of the evening.

And through most of this I was singing Get Off My Cloud, which I'd heard on Friday--except for Sunday night when I watched Lucky Number Slevin...


I said, hey! (hey) you! (you) get off of my cloud
Hey! (hey) you! (you) get off of my cloud
Hey! (hey) you! (you) get off of my cloud
Don't hang around cause two's a crowd on my cloud, baby

Friday, December 01, 2006

Trying to remember where it all began...

A good song to hear in the morning, particularly while driving...
(I just wish traffic today moved as fast as it does in the video.)
Oh! and today is World AIDS Day...

For the call of thunder threatens everyone