Sunshiney May and Ebay

I realize I haven't been online much over the past 2 months. I apologize. I am really struggling to keep up with the workload at my job, plus personal issues and everything Internet has suffered as a result.

I'm still trying to recover/train for the next race. Thank God it isn't until the end of this month because my calf is still bothering me. I ran a few miles last week and it was just sort of OK, but not exactly 100 percent. I tried to do a few mild semi-sprints, which is to say that I was jogging along and decided to pick up my knees, get on my toes and rapidly high-step from one tree to the next along the path before slowing back to my pathetic jogging pace again. I did this several times to test both my calf and my lungs. My calf held up, just barely, but my lungs struggled quite a bit. I clearly need to do a lot more speed work once my calf is totally healed.

I read a good article on preparing for your first triathlon the other day. The main advice that I remember from it was to relax at the start of the swimming portion of the race and just get into your stride instead of getting all pumped up and taking off in a sprint that leaves you gasping right from the start. The second things was not to go out and throw down $5000 on a racing cycle for your first race because the majority of people will do one triathlon and then never do it again, leaving that $5000 bike gathering dust in their garages. Any road bike will do for a first race, but don't use a mountain bike. Apparently you don't notice the difference between a road bike and a mountain bike until your in the middle of a race surrounded by people on road bikes and you're on a mountain bike suddenly realizing that it's heavier than you remembered, has smaller wheels than road bikes thus requiring you to peddle faster just to keep up, and its wide tires create greater friction and resistance on the pavement, slowing you down and making you work harder. That's all good information. I already have an antiquated Italian road bike probably built in the 1970s or '80s. I've been told that I can have a gear or two added to it without breaking the forks and get it up to a decent facsimile of a modern cycle. It will never be able to accomodate as many gears as a new bike, but for a first race it'll probably be fine.

And all this is just if I ever do decide to try my first triathlon. As of now I haven't really set my sites on one, but I have a feeling I'm going to at some point barring a major injury.

I spent all my money last month. Curse those estate sales and Ebay! I blame you!  Some millionaire had some sort of financial set-back, I suppose, and so he threw an estate sale on Saturday. I happened to stumbled across it and stop in. His mansion was already sold ($1.7 million) and he had moved his family to a smaller house. But they had excess stuff that wouldn't fit in the new downscaled house so they decided to just sell it all in an estate sale. I spent roughly $500 on stuff I can only marginally justify buying. One of the things I bought was a Yamaha keyboard. It's nice and I had been planning to get something along those lines anyway, so that was fine. But then I bought this painting for $200. Sure, it's a cool painting and probably cost a lot more than $200, but I've never been a big art collector so I don't know why I did it. It'll hang on my wall and gather dust. Every now and then someone will look at it and say "nice painting. Who did it?" And I'll say "I have no idea. I can't read the signature."

Before the estate sale I was on Ebay. I spent $400 on a stereo receiver for my 'man cave' and another $50 on a turntable that I have been waiting a solid month for and they still haven't gotten it to me. The USPS website shows a single scan for it somewhere in Virginia and then nothing after that. It seems to have just disappeared. So awesome. I spent another $50 on something or other, I can't remember what, and $12 on a belt for my record player because the old one broke. Who would have thought I'd be going to Ebay to get belts for my record players? I remember when finding one at all was a major pain. Now I just go to Ebay. Yay! Oh, and I bought Led Zeplin IV on vinyl so I could test out the new belt. It works fine and the album sounds great. Yes, I like vinyl. What of it?

I dented my car. I looked everywhere for a new panel to replace the dented one since I'm fully aware that I'm too lazy to buy a dent puller and pull the dent out myself before welding up the holes and spending hours bondoing and sanding, rebondoing and resanding, until it looks smooth enough to primer and spray. It's good that I know this because I regularly see people in cars like mine driving around with dents they intended to fix themselves, only to quit halfway through and drive it for months with a big primer red blob on their fender that looks like a horse threw up on it and never finish the repair. Auto body repair is a LOT of work. I don't mind priming and painting a new fender, but I hate pulling dents, trying to get things smoothed out just right, slapping Bondo on it, sanding for hours, and eventually deciding its close enough to smooth for me to paint. I just want to go straight to the painting step.

There's crap going on in the news I'd love to comment on, but I don't have time. I'm wrestling with a problem right now and I need to get back at it. If my sunburn that I got courtesy of 'Snellville Days' just outside of Atlanta last Saturday doesn't prevent it, I'm planning to run at the park today after work. That's in about an hour. We'll see how it goes.

Oh, but one thing I will say, you guys HAVE GOT TO READ THIS - SO funny!!! I've never heard of 'dance dare' but it looks like a riot. Congrats to Alana for having the guts to do it and then blog about it. You rock!