A noun's a special kind of word, It's any name you ever heard

Person: my mom
Place: the northwest side of San Antonio (on the outskirts)
Thing: an elementary school
(i.e. My mom had an elementary school named after her today. :)

A noun's a special kind of word
It's any name you ever heard
I find it quite interesting
A noun's a person, place, or thing

...keep talking happy talk; Talk about things you like to do

Today, I'm recovering from swimming the Swim Miami 5K yesterday. My final time was about 1 hour 14 minutes, which I think is about the pace I held last year when I swam the 10K at the same event. However, given that I've been making 1 practice per week for the past month and half-- other than the 4 I made this past week--it's fairly good.

So today I'm just recovering. I did think about swimming, but going from 1 practice a week, to swimming 6+ days in a row, didn't sound like such a great plan. So, instead, there's 5 days, with a break today. Hopefully, I'll make it to the pool this week as well... at least until I head to western Virginia at the end of the week for work.


You've got to have a dream
If you don't have a dream
How you going to have a dream come dream?

What chain reaction, what cause and effect Makes you turn around, makes you try to explain

It's Earth Day!

If you knew that you would be alone
Knowing right, being wrong
Would you change?
Would you change?

Learn to say good-bye; I yearn to say goodbye

My return flight from Nebraska back to Florida today thankfully went much smoother than my flight up. My flights were on time and I made all my connections (although I didn't have any time to dilly-dally around in either Minneapolis or Atlanta).

I even managed to grab some dinner and arrive home by 8:30 p.m., with some time to take off the flat tire on my car and put on the spare.... (I'll hopefully get the tire fixed tomorrow.)


There's nothing left to lose
There's no more heart to bruise
There's no greater power
Than the power of goodbye

And she'll have fun, fun, fun, 'till her daddy takes the T-Bird away

Flying is such fun, sometimes. A general descriptive timeline of yesterday, to demonstrate:

• 9:00 a.m.: Arrive at airport; notice that my flight is already delayed 20 minutes, now departing at 11:30 instead of 11:10. Not overly concerned, figuring we can make up time in the air. Even if that doesn't happen, my 60-minute layover has just been turned to 40 minutes--which should still be enough time to get from my arrival gate to my departure gate.
  
  
• 11:10 a.m.: Plane I am to get on arrives, and starts de-boarding the passengers it has. Departure time is delayed (again) to 11:45 (35 minutes late). Some concern begins to form about making second flight.
  
  
• 11:45 a.m.: Plane boarded, but can't leave gate due to construction that's started behind the plane.
  
  
• 12:10'ish: Plane finally leaves.
  
  
• 2:05 p.m.: Connecting flights to Minneapolis departs Atlanta.
  
  
• 2:07 p.m.: Flight from Fort Lauderdale lands in Atlanta (i.e. I landed in Atlanta 2 minutes after my connecting flight left).
  
  
• 2:30 p.m.: Disembark plane, and head to service desk to get re-booking information. Now on a 6:30 flight to Minneapolis, with connection to Lincoln. Now arriving in Lincoln at 11 p.m., instead of 7 p.m. Not terribly excited about new 4-hour layover in Atlanta, but go with it: at least I'm getting to Lincoln that day.
  
  
• 6:00 p.m. (Eastern time): Board flight to Minneapolis, after having eaten and watched Rachel Getting Married. Get suddenly tired once on plane and end up sleeping most of the flight.
  
  
• 8:00 p.m. (Central time): Arrive Minneapolis, and suddenly very tired. Takes 30-40 minutes to walk from one end of airport to the other to get from one gate to the next (Terminal F to Terminal A--way fun), but did get to see Snoopy [pictured] along the way (Charles Schultz is from St. Paul).
  
  
• 9:45 p.m.: Flight leaves Minneapolis for Lincoln.
  
  
• 11:10 p.m.: Arrive Lincoln, and rather tired. Wonder if my bag has already arrived. (i.e. Did my bag take the 10 a.m. flight out of FtL to ATL and make the 2 p.m. flight to MN?--it actually didn't, which somewhat surprises me.)
  
  
• midnight: arrive in hotel room, after being tired for the last 3 hours. Get ready for bed, and suddenly can't sleep.

Ahhh, the fun....

And we'll have fun, fun, fun
Now that daddy took the T-Bird away
(Fun, fun, fun now that daddy took the T-Bird away)

As I peer through the window of lost time

Greetings again from the Fort Lauderdale aeropuerto. Today, I am headed to Lincoln, Nebraska (via Atlanta then Minneapolis), as the YMCA Masters Nationals get underway at the pool. And again, I await my flight out of FLL.

Unusually, I have a later morning departure today. This created a minor problem in that I couldn't find a ride to the airport. However, the later time allowed me to test out an alternate way to the airport (from bumming a ride from a ride, driving myself--and paying $15/day to park--and parking, or grabbing a cab--$20): taking the bus ($1.25 per bus). And the bus ride went alright.

So last night, and with the help of Google Transit, I plotted out my ride. The local bus system has a route (Bus 1) which runs from the Central Terminal in downtown FtL to Aventura Mall down in Miami-Dade County. I was given 2 options:

• walk 1/2 a mile and catch a bus that would take me to the terminal, and then I'd transfer to Bus 1; or
• walk 1.3 miles to the terminal, and catch the bus from there.

I opted to walk directly to the terminal, and go from there. So, I woke up this morning, got dressed and showered, and walked out the door just before 8 a.m., toting my luggage (which luckily wasn't too heavy; the temperature was also slightly cool, which helped as well). It took me about 30 minutes to get to the terminal, with stops for milk and bagels on the way. I got to the terminal maybe 5 minutes before the 8:30 bus arrived, which I got on and which got me to the airport 25 minutes later (slightly early).

All-in-all, not too terrible, though managing the long walk with a heavier bag probably wouldn't be fun...

But in any case, I now sit at the airport, awaiting my delayed flight... (and I'm hoping the delay won't screw up my connection in Atlanta).


Reflections of, the way life used to be
Reflections of, the love you took from me

Elle ecoute la java, mais elle ne la danse pas

Happy
Easter

Elle écoute la java
Mais elle ne la danse pas
Elle ne regarde même pas la piste
Et ses yeux amoureux
Suivent le jeu nerveux

Nobody calling on the phone, 'Cept for the Pope, maybe, in Rome

I found this article online today:
No strength in numbers for America's uninsured

It's about the fact that the number of people in the USA without health insurance has increased to a sizable percentage of the population (it's more than AARP-->gasp), and despite this, doesn't have a PAC (basically). The article also mentions that politicians are reluctant to move toward helping insure those of us who aren't because of a lack of political benefit it will generate.

As one of the uninsured, here's a few points I'd like to make:

• If I had the money to fund a PAC, I'd probably spend the money on insurance. I don't, and therefore can't/don't fund either. (After paying my monthly bills, I've got about $300 left over for food and gas for the month--and whatever other "fun"/"life" things happen. My co-pay for my work's heath insurance would eat $200 of that.)
  
  
• I would most likely be loyal to those Congressmen who did make affordable insurance available to me. However, this would be more so because I think it's the right thing to do (and less so because I see them as doing something for me). Of course, my past history doesn't bode well for my loyalty being of any value: in most of my past cases, it's not been my representatives who have led (or participated in) the charge on the things I care about--typically its people from elsewhere (the last time I wrote to my Congressional reps, one had the completely opposite view of mine on the issue at hand... which was fine. It's ok for them to have it--that's part of the beauty of our country. I still don't like the fact, and I think I may have been more amazed by the attempt to convert me to their thinking that I received in response.).
  
  
• As for the insurance for all bill, I also don't think it's incredibly likely that it will be done--the other side does have a very strong PAC (the funding of which might help explain why insurance payments are so much...).

It's things like this that make me ponder whether/not I should run for Congress, myself (the thought tends to pass through my head rather rapidly). But for now, I think I'll get to watching some more Joan of Arcadia, and hope for my continued good/decent health (After returning the season 1 DVDs to the library, I checked out season 2. I'm pondering doing a marathon watching for tomorrow.)

Have a good Easter weekend.

What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make His way home?

Roman candles that burn in the night, you are a shining light

My week has been pretty much the 2009 YMCA Short Course Nationals (which ends tomorrow) and watching season 1 of Joan of Arcadia (before I need to return it on Saturday), with a shortened jaunt into the office between. Not terribly exciting, really.

The only other thing I'll mention is that I found 2 articles this week both stating that you can save money (and energy) by turning things off, like:

• -computers: don't leave them on overnight (and now I can't find the site that it was on...)
  
  
• light bulbs:
  -incandescent: whenever you leave the room
  -compact fluorescent: if it'll be off for at least 15 minutes
  (the longer time is due to decreasing bulb life by turning it off and on; not the power actually used)
  -office fluorescent: off for 5 minutes
  
  related articles from Mythbusters and the U.S. Department of Energy

You are a force, you are a constant source
Yeah, you are a shining light
Incandescent into the darkest night
Yeah, you are shining light

My life, would suck, without you...

I am faced with a weekend with not a lot to do. Nice, but a little unfamiliar.

Granted, a friend of mine will be in town tomorrow evening, and I'll be heading to dinner with her. But otherwise, nada.

Then again, maybe I should just veg this weekend, and prepare for the upcoming week (Y Nationals are in town, and I'll be at the pool for work for those all week).

Guess I will see how things play out...


Being with you
Is so dysfunctional
I really shouldn't miss you
But I can't let you go, oh yeah

To see life as fun and take it if we can

For whatever strange reason, today I entered next month's U.S. Masters Nationals in Fresno, California. I say that, as I've not really been in the water swimming, other than once a week or so, since the end of February. So the fact that I've signed up for a meet, on the other side of the country, seems a bit strange. But, it also gives me a great excuse reason to have a month-long crash training program. I even already have my plane ticket (which wasn't too terribly priced).

Though I still get perplexed by the fact that the meet will at Clovis North High School, which is actually in Frenso and not Clovis.... oh well.


Understand what I've become
It wasn't my design
And people everywhere think
Something better than I am