Twenty-twenty twenty-four hours to go...

Ahhh, just under 24 hours until I'll be at the Annie Lennox concert at the Carnival Center down in Miami, and today I had the...

• mundane
  (Post work traffic was frustrating, as normal. And at lunch today, the KFC i went to was running on emergency power for some reason.)
  
• insane
  (Outer-band winds from Tropical Storm Noel were blowing all day, and there is still a strong wind here which will probably be stronger tomorrow. But good news for the school kids here, apparently: if the winds go above 40 mph, there won't be school tomorrow because the buses don't drive in those winds.)
• inane
  (A coworker answered the phone after (!) work hours, and then transfered it to me... it took 12 minutes. 12!)
• deranged
  (A father at dinner tonight literally had a conniption after his son touched his food. He stormed up to get some napkins, then came back to the table and started throwing the "contaminated" food across the table, then proceeded to go purchase a replacement, all the while berating his soon about how rude it was to touch another person's plate--and completely missing how rude it was to scold you child from 5-10 minutes in a public place...)

Added to this is that the person that's been handling the finances for our (tiny) condo association is selling his place and moving (coming about a 2 weeks after one of the other 5 owners announced she was going to move out and lease her place); and I randomly figured out yesterday that I'm semi broke at the moment. So fun all around: yeah!!! (But not so terrible, actually: I realized I'm way more than halfway through Crime & Punishment, maybe even 3/4^th of the way through--woo-hoo!)

Oh, and today's song randomly got stuck in my head today: I've not even seen an episode of My So-Called Life recently... maybe it's cause Halloween's tomorrow?

Twenty, twenty, twenty-four hours to go
I wanna be sedated
Nothing to do, nowhere to go...
I wanna be sedated

Valley girl, she's a Valley girl...

I went to the bank earlier this week for work, and the sign above was on the door... which caused me to like totally start thinking in valley-girl-esque speech. Dude, it was like, totally, unstoppable.


In other news, today I'm recovering from a day-trip yesterday to Orlando with 3 of my Masters teammates, where we swam in a dual meet against Rollins College with some other Masters swimmers from the Orlando area. It was interesting, as the four of us haven't really swum this week, but all-in-all not too terrible. (I went a 1:51 200 free and 4:58 500 free, for those interested.)

It's like grody
Grody to the max
I'm sure
It's like really nauseating

The rain is fallin' on my window pane

SuperPoke (on Facebook) has added festive Halloween actions (like throwing candy corn or a vampire at someone). They've even spiffied up they're normal action with costumes ("use the force" and "waving" here--the fact that it's a Super Chicken is just bonus). Ahhh... the fun. (And have I mentioned that the creators of SP went to my high school--or so I've been told?)

Speaking of fun, with the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show decimating evening practice this week, tonight a group from the team headed to Dave & Buster's for dinner. A good day to go, and we seemed to have fun... although I completly suck at those dancing games--or maybe it was poor music selection.

Oh! and yesterday (October 24) was United Nations Day....

It starts in my toes
And I crinkle my nose
Wherever it goes, I always know
That you make me smile

Oops, I, did it again...

Pictures from today's Men's 10K race at the USA 2008 Open Water World Trials.

Pre-race, women's 10K winner Micha Burden awaits getting on a boat. Micha was the feeder for 3 of her teammates who swam today. (There's a feeding station on course, so that swimmers can get food/liquids during the race. The catch is that the swimmers can't touch the boat where the stuff is, so someone needs to hand it to them. Hence Micha hanging out on a boat for the 2 hour race, as well as her having the stick in her hand.)

The men's pre-race meeting. During the meeting, the referee goes over general course layout/race plan (4 laps around the 2.5K course, there's the feeding boats, finish is over there...) and rule reminders ("I'll blow my whistle to let you know to move apart--which he did a whole lot during the race--or to indicate someone getting a yellow card--one guy did get one).

After the meeting, the swimmers headed to the starting area, either via land or water. Here, Scott Kaufmann straightens out his cap as he gets used to the water and before swimming over to the starting line. (Scott's the one in the the blue jacket in the pic above).


Here, the guys have started lining up for the start, which is about 5-6 minutes away. A few guys are still swimming over as well (they are above the line, in center frame). In this shot you can also see that the water is not smooth (due to the wind). This chop caused half the race to be into the wind (going down) and half the race to be with the wind (coming back).

And they're off!
Unlike the women's race, the referee didn't watch the start from the dock today, but rather stayed in a boat (the starter was in a boat both days). I also was a wee bit later snapping the pic, so the guys are a bit farther off the line here than the girls are... the interesting thing to me is how clear the arms in the far side of the line are (and through the splash as well).




A few more differences between the guys and girls races, which this picture shows. The guys field stayed together through most of the race; no one broke away early. So when they got to the turns, 15 guys went around them together, bunched up (like here). Also, there were more local swimmers spectating today, so the dock in the background was crowded (and sinking somewhat)--so I moved from it (also because they were talking over the announcer and not about the race...).

The staying-together of the men's field also led to their race being more physical, to the point where many of the guys emerged from the water with cuts or scrapes, and in the case of Chip Peterson, a rip in the leg of his suit...

Can't you see I am fool, in so many ways
But to lose all my senses
That is just so typically me

Dad is great, give us chocolate cake

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Fort Myers at the moment, watching Bill Cosby's Himself--hence today's chocolate cake reference. Actually, my mom watched this the other day... and coincidently, my dad's birthday is next week (I hope he gets some chocolate cake...).


I'm on the Gulf Coast of Florida this weekend, attending the USA 2008 Open Water Worlds 10K Trials (the pictures are from today's women's 10K race...).

Above: The lake where this weekend's events are being held, looking down the 1.25K length of the course (the 3 orange buoys are the turn).

at left: Start of the women's race.


Shortly after the start of the women's race, 4 swimmers broke away to form the lead pack; they stayed together for the remainder of the race.
Here 3 of them (in order front to back: Chloe Sutton, Kirsten Groome and Micha Burden head out of the first lap (2.5K), with the fourth (Kalyn Keller) just out of frame to the left. In the background of this photo is the finish line area (the white & blue rectangle just above the hat of the guy standing in the boat).

By the end of the race, with about 300m to go, the 4 ladies had split up.
In this picture are all 4 (look closely). Just in front of the boat is Burden, pulling into the lead with a more directly line to the finish. To the right of the boat, the big splash is Groome (blue cap) and Sutton (yellow), who veered a bit wide. And the splash behind this pair is Keller.


And lastly, here are Groome and Sutton finishing in second and third (Groome is on the other side of the person in the black shirt, Sutton is on the right side of the frame). After 2 hours, they're just that far apart.

Final times for the top-4:
1) Burden--2:00:47
(2 hours and 47 seconds)
2) Groome--2:01:05
3) Sutton--2:01:09
4) Keller--2:01:42

A good--more detailed--write up of the race, with a full results can be found here, if you're interested (although I don't believe it mentions the dislocated shoulder that happened...).


Eggs; eggs are in chocolate cake.
And milk! Oh, goodie!
And wheat: that's nutrition....
Now need something to drink with chocolate cake, something breakfast.
Grapefruit juice! (groan from the audience)
This is not your child.