If there's a reason, it's lost on me Maybe we'll be friends, I guess we'll see

I made it over to St. Pete and back alright; and the meet, itself--which I went over for--was alright as well. I wouldn't say that it went great, or necessarily even good, but just alright.

The drive over went smoothly, other than a construction snag on 75 just north of Port Charlotte, that had the freeway down to one lane, and causing a nice 40 minute back-up... at 10 o'clock at night. Ah the fun of watching your 1/4 tank of gas dwindle down as you idle forward for 2 miles, with trees flanking both sides of the road and not an exit in sight. Luckily, I did get through alright, got some gas, and continued north to the Sunshine Skyway and beyond.

At the meet, I swam 8 events (4 per day), and basically felt weak the whole time--and "weak" meaning I couldn't really put any force behind my stroke, which was just frustrating. My times were for the most part slower than stuff from last month, save a few random exceptions which were the same... hopefully this doesn't bode badly for Nationals in May. But in any case, times from this weekend:

Saturday:
-200 back: 2:05.53 (28.27/1:00.21/1:32.95)
-200 free: 1:53.99 (26.7/55.35/1:24.40)
-200 fly: 2:07.13 (28.40/1:00.28/1:32.68)
-400 IM: 4:27.47 (59.90/2:08.62/3:25.11)

Sunday:
-100 back: 57.72 (28.50/29.22)
-100 fly: 55.72 (26.35/29.37)
-100 free: 51.58 (25.31/26.27)
-500 free: 4:56.09 (57.67/1:58.18/2:58.27/3:58.26)

(oh-ah: splits)

It has me perplexed...


And all our friends are gone, are gone
And all the time moves on and on
And all I know is it's wrong, it's wrong
And all I know is it's wrong, it's wrong

Close your eyes, Close your eyes, Breath the air, out there

Ah... another fun, and somehow crazy week, this week dominated by kickball (outside of work, that tis). First, there was a practice on Tuesday night, then a start-of-season party last night. And the first game is next week... should be fun, just the whole no-dinner-until 9 p.m. is going to suck.

Leading to the other challenge for the week: trying to make sure I go to bed before 11 p.m. (which makes getting up at 5:30 much more bearable). Sunday night was 12:30, Monday was 1 a.m., Tuesday was 11:30... and last night 10:30 (success)... tonight????

And tomorrow night I head over to St. Pete (on Florida's Gulf Coast) for a meet there this weekend... fun, fun, fun.

Don't analyse, don't analyse
Don't go that way, don't live that way
That would paralyse your evolution

Kiss them for me, I may be delayed...

Delayed in posting... and to think, this week was St. Patrick's Day (Monday), the Equinox (Thursday) and now Easter weekend. (There was also a missed birthday celebration in there.)

And for most of this week, I've not been terribly energetic (more likely the reason for not posting). But for some reason, I'm now in a fit of productivity; I'm even managing to make it through my laundry (shocking, I know).

Who knows, maybe it's because Spring is here? Or maybe it's just because Honda has a nice deal on a Civic Hybrid lease to perplex me? Maybe it really was to make it a good Friday? Perhaps its because someone at the NCAA Division I Women's Swimming meet (which finished up tonight) decide to call UCLA, "California, Los Angeles" (as if the school ever goes by just that...). Or maybe it was just because I didn't remember today's song by Siouxsie and the Banshees until Thursday night...

In any case, the laundry buzzes, so I must go. Night.

Kiss them for me
If I am delayed...

Hey, hey, I'm a million miles away, funny how it seems like yesterday

I'm recovering from seeing Wicked last night; which I quite enjoyed, however, it kept me out a wee bit late.

And it feels like I'm 17 again
Feels like I'm 17 again
Looking from the outside in some things never change
Hey hey I'm a million miles away
Funny how it seems like yesterday

Late last night, I heard the screen door slam; And a big yellow taxi took away my old man

On the way home from today, I was reminded of a lyric injustice done by the Counting Crows when they re-recorded Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi. In the Counting Crows version from 2002, the line of the song from which the title originates loses its rhyme completely.

Instead of Ms. Mitchell's creative rhyming of slam and man:

Listen late last night I heard the screen door slam,
And a big yellow taxi took away my old man

The Crows give you:

Listen late last night I heard the screen door slam,
And a big yellow taxi took my girl away

How does "away" rhyme with "slam"? It doesn't, I tell ya!

Ahhh, sometimes I just wish he'd had the cajones to leave the lyric alone... of course then a guy would be singing about a guy leaving (and that just wouldn't work--oh, no: major catastrophe). I guess it's one of those things you notice because it's gone...

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
They pave paradise, put up a parking lot

Do you have an opinion? A mind of your own?

I survived through the rest of the week, relatively unscathed. I even managing to wade my way through the new book I'm reading God: A Biography (it got easier when I got past the justification of why the author was writing it).

And some random notes from this week:

• as of Thursday night, I'm no longer the president of my condo association (so I'm not responsible for scheduling the meetings any more--yeah!);
• also on Thursday, on my way home from work I got stuck behind a person not driving their "ultimate driving machine" (i.e. BMW): they decided to wait in an intersection for an entire stoplight cycle, mostly being over-cautious, to the point where they ended up being the only car that could turn during that cycle. Making me more upset was the fact that I was the car right behind them, and got to sit through another full cycle at the light because of the beamer... but then I just chalked it up to them being a bad South Florida driver, and they fit right in....
• on Friday, I got an early birthday (and late graduation) present: the ring pictured above (and man, was that picture not an easy thing to get--the pesky reflection off the ring messed with the auto-focus);
• What is the purpose of news teasers, particularly on the radio? In the morning, on my way to work, I keep hearing a "preview" tease of the news they're going to be sharing in 30 minutes. The problems with this: 1) I'm not in my car long enough to hear the radio in 30 minutes, 2) I generally don't care enough about what the news is choosing to report to bother to hang on for the actual subsequent reading, and 3) I end up reading the stuff elsewhere before I hear it on the radio. TV news teasers are similar; it's just kind of silly in my mind. (And teasers increasing prevalence is just getting more and more annoying: quit wasting time telling us what you're going to tell us, and tell us, already!);
  
• I'm seriously contemplating boycotting voting in a second Presidential primary if the powers-that-be decide to have another here in Florida. I say take the results for the first one. I don't think the national party should've not counted the first one to begin with, just because the state party decided that its voters deserved to have a say in who the candidates were--I think it's a wee bit unfair that you have less candidate options just because of where you live or when the primary is held. Bah! I say.;
• To close, a more positive note: I saw Vantage Point today, and quite enjoyed it. Was a wee bit intense, but was good. And don't bother trying to go to Yahoo to find out about the movie, for their screwing up their good movie information site to provide "better" service.... Vantage Point appears to be one of the first to use their extended service, which takes away/hides the one thing I really used the site for: the brief description of the movie, with its stars.

And I will stop there before it gets both too late (today's Daylight Savings "Spring Forward" not helping here), and I get too bogged down in ranting... hasta

I thought you were special
I thought you should know
But I've run out of patience
I couldn't care less

I've got a life, though it refuses to shine (got a life)

I survived through my Masters meet this weekend with relative ease compared to the Monday that I had. Yesterday just did not got super well. It started off with me dreaming up about waking up late, which lead me to get up 15 minutes early and then proceed to leave my house 15 minutes late. That got me to work a wee bit late. And then there was work, itself, which was just hectic/crazy... even for a Monday. Work was followed by a mentally challenging swim practice, and interspersed throughout the day was my headset not really working and trying to highjack my cell phone (it called the same person twice while I was talking to them... so I had 3 calls connected to them at the same time--which I didn't even realize my phone could do).

Anyways, as for the meet, it went alright. Results are here (be sure to check out the "super duper cool" Vanessa's results as well--her description).... As for times, they were:

Friday
-400 IM: 4:31.99
-200 free (800 Free Relay split): 1:54.60

Saturday
-100 free: 51.46 (out in 25.45, so disappointedly, no negative split)
-50 back (relay): 26.08
-50 free (relay): 23.86
-500 free: 4:59.51 (Casey went 4:49 at Big 12s--good goal time...)

Sunday
-200 IM: 2:02.18 (wow did the end hurt--have I mentioned I don't like the 2IM all that much?)
-50 free (relay): 22.94 (not sure where that came from, other than I had a race--and yes, I touched him out by .01 )
-200 free: 1:51.86 (56.04/55.82--yes)
-50 back (relay): 26.52
-1650 free: 17:02.76 (about where expected... and much more even than last year--which is a good thing. Casey= 16:26...)

So, I was a wee bit slower than a few weeks ago in Clearwater... I guess that's ok. And thankfully, today was much easier than yesterday.

Oh, and did I mention that I didn't make it to swim in the morning and Danielle did yesterday? (But she made up for it by missing this morning ;)

I've got a life
It ain't over, it ain't over (got a life)
I've got a way
It's the only thing that's mine (got a way)