Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.
1. I'm a triplet. We are not identical. Yes, that is possible. Our names are in alphabetical order according to birth.
2. I used to be scared of the dark and thunderstorms.
3. When I was younger, I had a habit of biting my fingernails; now, I have a habit of not clipping them.
4. I tried out for the school basketball team in 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade and NEVER made it.
5. Throughout my lifetime, I've been to 12 Major League Baseball Parks; Braves, Rangers, Rockies, Royals, Cubs, White Sox, Reds, Tigers, Indians, Orioles, Yankees, and Astros.
6. I can put down more food that you can possibly imagine in a very short amount of time. I get made fun of at work and by my friends for this talent.
7. I have 3 bikes whose cumulative monetary value is greater than that of my car.
8. I love to compete at any sport. In college it was rowing and now it is triathlon and cycling. I'll race my first half ironman in September 2009 (Augusta 70.3) and my first full Ironman will be in 2010, probably Ironman Florida!
9. I am saved by grace through faith, not because of my works.
10. I've seen every single John Wayne movie; my favorite is Rio Bravo.
11. When I was little, me and my bros had this ballin' 3 man stroller that we rode around in.
12. I'll be entering the market for a house sometime soon.
13. I believe in personal responsibility, hard work, earning everything, and striving to be great as a means of success. I think a lot of people don't realize how much harder other people work in order to succeed. Anyways, don't be a pansy and suck it up!
14. I have gotten into politics in the last few years; I love debating liberals on anything from "global warming" and economic policy to affirmative action and other social issues.
15. I drive a manual transmission. It helps pass the time on long drives, and I think it's kind of cool because a lot of people can't do it. No, I will not teach you how to drive in my car because you will tear up my clutch.
16. I enjoy reading...just no fiction. If it isn't true, why bother? Value-added stuff only!
17. I love music. I do not listen to rap or country or anything like that. I like almost all classic rock (Aerosmith, Journey, Foreigner, etc) and a lot of punk and hard rock (Taking Back Sunday, The Used, Underoath, Just Surrender, Hawthorne Heights, etc). Apparently, my taste in music is bad though because I recently got made fun of for wearing a Linkin Park shirt.
18. My job is exactly what I want to do with my engineering degree: lots of data pulling, intense analysis, and computer simulation in order to produce an optimal solution for a given problem.
19. I have only made 1 C in my life since they started assigning letter grades back in the day. It was in Calculus 1 my freshman year in college. I got so mad that I never even came close to a C for the next 4 years.
20. I use the same user name and password for pretty much everything, unless there's some stupid unreasonably high minimum character rule for the password. Dang, I hope no one ever guesses it because they could probably ruin my life, haha.
21. I've been in a car a lot during my life. Long drives include to Philadelphia 3 times, to Boston 3 times, to Colorado once, and to Las Vegas once, to name a few. For one of those Boston trips we made the whole drive without rest (24 hrs straight).
22. I just had surgery to repair a torn labrum in my right shoulder. If you don't know what the labrum is, then google it. My two brothers and I have all had this surgery in the past 4 years. I've been asked a million times if it's a genetic defect, so don't ask.
22. I want to be as active 40 years from now than I am right now. I hope to someday win the 80-84 age group in a triathlon.
23. I would, without a doubt, stimulate the economy if my income tax rate or the capital gains tax rate was cut.
24. I always set my alarm clock on an odd time (4:57 am, 6:37 am, etc).
25. I can't stand people that are not punctual. 10 minutes early is on time and on time is LATE!
2.02.2009
1.20.2009
Unity?
Said best by a friend...
I'm stunned at the number of people who don’t know about the steps leading up to American independence and the convention in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was written, primarily by Thomas Jefferson; where it was argued over, and hammered out. What happened in that room, for all of those months, was a miracle. It was a miracle that it happened. Now, the reason I'm harping on this is because Norah O'Donnell is echoing one of the things that's part of the Obama campaign and is really something that the Democrats have been trying to bamboozle everybody with, and that is you can't solve problems unless you "unify."
Can I give you just a couple of examples of this? I know unification sounds great, and can't we all get along and have the same objectives. We do have the same objectives, most of us do. It's how you get there that we argue about, and those arguments are substantive because we all want prosperity. What is best way to do it: to earn it ourselves, or have the government hand it out to people? You won't have prosperity if the government is in charge of handing it out to people, but that's what liberals want. How can you achieve prosperity and independence and education when liberals who want to run the government, have contempt for the average person's ability to accomplish anything? So they want to be the ones to provide all these things for people, whereas we conservatives think it's much better if people provide these things for themselves for a whole host of reasons, not to mention their own psyche and their own self-esteem, since liberals are concerned about that. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan. Reagan had no Republicans to speak of in the House of Representatives. What was it, 130? I'll have to look this up; I keep guessing, but it was an insignificant number.
There was no way the Republicans were ever, ever going to be a majority in anything. I mean, they didn't have even half the number of seats in the House the Democrats had. Yet Reagan succeeded in reducing the top marginal tax rate from 90% to 28% over eight years. Now, do you think he did this unifying with the Democrats? Do you think he did this by virtue of unity with the Democrats in Congress? No! That is not how it happened. The Democrats didn't change their mind and all of a sudden think tax cuts were good, because if they had, we wouldn't be arguing about more tax cuts and we wouldn't be listening to Democrats continuing to talk about more tax increases. So they didn't change their mind about anything back in the eighties. They were just beaten, and the question is: how were they beaten? Well, they were beaten by virtue of the fact that Reagan won 49 states on the specific issue of tax cuts, rebuilding the military, and wiping out communism in the Soviet Union. He had the American people behind him, and the American people in this country get what they want.
Now, you might want to say that Reagan united the people, but he did it on the basis of policy. He did it on the basis of his personality. He did it on the basis of his patriotism. He changed people's minds, but he didn't change the minds of Democrats in Congress. They had no choice. They had to go along, and not on everything did they. You remember the Iran-Contra situation and the Boland amendment and everything they could do in the second term to undermine Ronald Reagan. They hated those tax cuts being passed, and they did everything they could to do to undermine him after that. Yet they got it done. It wasn't with "unity." It was by perseverance, the idea triumphing in the minds of as many people as possible, leading a movement, teaching and explaining. Leadership. It's what's absent today in both sides of this in the presidential race. We have no leadership from Hillary. Obama's not a leader. McCain's not a leader. These are politicians seeking a promotion, pure and simple. We don't have leadership. And that's why everybody's filled with angst. It's just sad, but it's the way it is. So we get all this talk about unity, and we can't get anything done without unity, and who is it that's saying this? Liberal Democrats.
Well, I'm sure they would love to us to unify with them, by giving up what we believe, by compromising on our principles. Sure! They love that kind of unity! John Adams. When things started out in 1770, the British were running this country, and there were a lot of people living in the 13 colonies who were all Englishmen. They had all emigrated; they were all Brits. It's why Margaret Thatcher loves them. I heard Margaret Thatcher one night at dinner speak so glowingly and so eloquently of our Founding Fathers. She loved 'em. She thought they were some of the most brilliant, marvelous individuals that have ever walked the earth. I thought, "No wonder she thinks that, they were Brits," and they were, and not all of them wanted independence. They were Englishmen. They didn't mind being under the crown of old King George. So the Brits had their army. The Redcoats were all over Boston and places, and to shorten the story -- they started shooting people. They basically started a war. It was fascinating to watch, and this was nonpolitical presentation. When we finally get to Philadelphia, to Convention Hall, and the representatives of the 13 colonies are there, John Adams was hell-bent on seeing to it that he had a unanimous vote for independence.
He wasn't going to settle for a 9-4 vote. He wasn't going to settle for just a simple majority. He needed it to be unanimous. But there were elements from Pennsylvania and New York and New Jersey who had no desire for independence. To listen to them speak, "No, this is the time for caution," while the Redcoats are firing and murdering innocent people. Essentially the war had already broken out in Boston, and these people from Pennsylvania -- not Ben Franklin, but Dickinson from Pennsylvania; a guy from New York, Howe -- they're all saying, "This is the time for caution. This is the time for restraint," and I'm watching the screen, and I'm just smiling. We've got those same kind of pansies today, and they wanted to send a proclamation to King George demanding that King George stop taxing their tea and stop taxing them exorbitantly on a number of things, to basically stop squishing them and squeezing them. So Adams says, "All right. If you want to do that, go ahead. I'm going to still try to convince you, but you do what you want to do. It's going to be months before we hear back, and I can tell you what we're going to hear back, but if it will make you feel better, go ahead and do it."
So they did it. All the while, Adams continues to try and arm-twist and persuade. Finally they get the answer from King George, and King George says, "How dare you ask me this! Now you guys are really in for it. We're going to kick your butts." So the moderates say, "Oh, further caution is required here," and then we got eloquent speeches about, "We don't need bloodshed and we don't need warfare, and this is not the way to go about this," because some of these people did not want independence. They were Englishmen. So Adams... This thing shows how difficult it was, how almost impossible it was. It's why it was a miracle, for John Adams to craft unanimity from 13 colonies who had 13 different special interests. These Founding Fathers as I said they were not all hell-bent for independence. They considered themselves Englishmen. It took a lot of time. It took a lot of persuasion. It took strategy. It took negotiation. It took compromise. It took manipulation to get the necessary unanimity. But how did he get it. His objective was independence, pure, 100% independence.
He got his unity not by watering down his version of independence, not by watering down his way of getting it, the timetable for getting it, the procedures. It was masterful to watch them portray this because it was amazingly historically accurate. It's based on David McCullough's book, by the way, on John Adams. One of the things that Adams did to get unanimity, the biggest opponent to this independence was Dickinson in Pennsylvania. He was the dove. He was the anti-war hawk. He couldn't abide any of this. But he was very persuasive, and these were very reasonable talks that they had, and Adams was very reasonable and understanding, too -- although they had knock-down, drag-outs about it. But they talked privately after a session one day. It was decided then Dickinson just wouldn't show up the next day for the vote and that New York would abstain rather than vote "no." This was done so that Dickinson would not have to compromise his principles of anti-war and so forth, but he knew the jig was up because he knew what the votes were.
They had finally persuaded Virginia and Maryland. Of course, the interesting thing here about Virginia -- the reason why it took a lot of time and persuasion and strategy, negotiation, compromise, manipulation, all of this to get unanimity -- is the wealthiest and most influential state or colony at the time was Virginia, and Virginia was a slave state. Virginia stood to lose a lot of wealth and a number of other things here, especially being a slave state. It's ironic, by the way, how this plays against the reality of Barack Obama. The point is, these 13 people got -- well, there were more than one per state, but these people got together. John Hancock was chairing the whole thing, and they got together, and Adams finally got his unanimity. But he achieved it with one abstention from New York and the Pennsylvania guy being out of the room so he wouldn't have to vote. But it took him months to persuade.
He never compromised what he wanted at all, and they ended up with unification, unanimity. You could call it unity, but he did it in a way that was not at all weakening of his desire and passion -- and, of course, George Washington is portrayed here, too. Colonel Washington becomes General Washington. Now, the next episodes of this are going to be bloody because that's what the fight for independence began. This is just the Declaration that they went through. But, gosh, it sent tingles up my spine to watch how this country actually came together. It's why I think what happened there is a miracle. In fact, Catherine Drinker Bowen has written a book called The Miracle at Philadelphia. It really, really was a miracle -- and we didn't take a little bit of the people that didn't want independence and shove it into the pro-independence side. The people that didn't want independence lost.
They were given something for it, but not at the expense of those who wanted independence. So be very, very careful when you hear Obama or any of these other liberals start talking unity and that we can't get anything done until we have unity. We got this country done without unity. It happened without unity. New York abstained, and, of course, Mr. Dickinson from Philadelphia was not even there on the day of the final vote. Now you might say, " it sounds like there was unanimity. You keep using the word." Yeah, there was, just like there was close to unanimity in Congress, as close as you can get on Reagan's tax cuts. But it's because one side maintained and fought for its principles and didn't cave.
I'm stunned at the number of people who don’t know about the steps leading up to American independence and the convention in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was written, primarily by Thomas Jefferson; where it was argued over, and hammered out. What happened in that room, for all of those months, was a miracle. It was a miracle that it happened. Now, the reason I'm harping on this is because Norah O'Donnell is echoing one of the things that's part of the Obama campaign and is really something that the Democrats have been trying to bamboozle everybody with, and that is you can't solve problems unless you "unify."
Can I give you just a couple of examples of this? I know unification sounds great, and can't we all get along and have the same objectives. We do have the same objectives, most of us do. It's how you get there that we argue about, and those arguments are substantive because we all want prosperity. What is best way to do it: to earn it ourselves, or have the government hand it out to people? You won't have prosperity if the government is in charge of handing it out to people, but that's what liberals want. How can you achieve prosperity and independence and education when liberals who want to run the government, have contempt for the average person's ability to accomplish anything? So they want to be the ones to provide all these things for people, whereas we conservatives think it's much better if people provide these things for themselves for a whole host of reasons, not to mention their own psyche and their own self-esteem, since liberals are concerned about that. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan. Reagan had no Republicans to speak of in the House of Representatives. What was it, 130? I'll have to look this up; I keep guessing, but it was an insignificant number.
There was no way the Republicans were ever, ever going to be a majority in anything. I mean, they didn't have even half the number of seats in the House the Democrats had. Yet Reagan succeeded in reducing the top marginal tax rate from 90% to 28% over eight years. Now, do you think he did this unifying with the Democrats? Do you think he did this by virtue of unity with the Democrats in Congress? No! That is not how it happened. The Democrats didn't change their mind and all of a sudden think tax cuts were good, because if they had, we wouldn't be arguing about more tax cuts and we wouldn't be listening to Democrats continuing to talk about more tax increases. So they didn't change their mind about anything back in the eighties. They were just beaten, and the question is: how were they beaten? Well, they were beaten by virtue of the fact that Reagan won 49 states on the specific issue of tax cuts, rebuilding the military, and wiping out communism in the Soviet Union. He had the American people behind him, and the American people in this country get what they want.
Now, you might want to say that Reagan united the people, but he did it on the basis of policy. He did it on the basis of his personality. He did it on the basis of his patriotism. He changed people's minds, but he didn't change the minds of Democrats in Congress. They had no choice. They had to go along, and not on everything did they. You remember the Iran-Contra situation and the Boland amendment and everything they could do in the second term to undermine Ronald Reagan. They hated those tax cuts being passed, and they did everything they could to do to undermine him after that. Yet they got it done. It wasn't with "unity." It was by perseverance, the idea triumphing in the minds of as many people as possible, leading a movement, teaching and explaining. Leadership. It's what's absent today in both sides of this in the presidential race. We have no leadership from Hillary. Obama's not a leader. McCain's not a leader. These are politicians seeking a promotion, pure and simple. We don't have leadership. And that's why everybody's filled with angst. It's just sad, but it's the way it is. So we get all this talk about unity, and we can't get anything done without unity, and who is it that's saying this? Liberal Democrats.
Well, I'm sure they would love to us to unify with them, by giving up what we believe, by compromising on our principles. Sure! They love that kind of unity! John Adams. When things started out in 1770, the British were running this country, and there were a lot of people living in the 13 colonies who were all Englishmen. They had all emigrated; they were all Brits. It's why Margaret Thatcher loves them. I heard Margaret Thatcher one night at dinner speak so glowingly and so eloquently of our Founding Fathers. She loved 'em. She thought they were some of the most brilliant, marvelous individuals that have ever walked the earth. I thought, "No wonder she thinks that, they were Brits," and they were, and not all of them wanted independence. They were Englishmen. They didn't mind being under the crown of old King George. So the Brits had their army. The Redcoats were all over Boston and places, and to shorten the story -- they started shooting people. They basically started a war. It was fascinating to watch, and this was nonpolitical presentation. When we finally get to Philadelphia, to Convention Hall, and the representatives of the 13 colonies are there, John Adams was hell-bent on seeing to it that he had a unanimous vote for independence.
He wasn't going to settle for a 9-4 vote. He wasn't going to settle for just a simple majority. He needed it to be unanimous. But there were elements from Pennsylvania and New York and New Jersey who had no desire for independence. To listen to them speak, "No, this is the time for caution," while the Redcoats are firing and murdering innocent people. Essentially the war had already broken out in Boston, and these people from Pennsylvania -- not Ben Franklin, but Dickinson from Pennsylvania; a guy from New York, Howe -- they're all saying, "This is the time for caution. This is the time for restraint," and I'm watching the screen, and I'm just smiling. We've got those same kind of pansies today, and they wanted to send a proclamation to King George demanding that King George stop taxing their tea and stop taxing them exorbitantly on a number of things, to basically stop squishing them and squeezing them. So Adams says, "All right. If you want to do that, go ahead. I'm going to still try to convince you, but you do what you want to do. It's going to be months before we hear back, and I can tell you what we're going to hear back, but if it will make you feel better, go ahead and do it."
So they did it. All the while, Adams continues to try and arm-twist and persuade. Finally they get the answer from King George, and King George says, "How dare you ask me this! Now you guys are really in for it. We're going to kick your butts." So the moderates say, "Oh, further caution is required here," and then we got eloquent speeches about, "We don't need bloodshed and we don't need warfare, and this is not the way to go about this," because some of these people did not want independence. They were Englishmen. So Adams... This thing shows how difficult it was, how almost impossible it was. It's why it was a miracle, for John Adams to craft unanimity from 13 colonies who had 13 different special interests. These Founding Fathers as I said they were not all hell-bent for independence. They considered themselves Englishmen. It took a lot of time. It took a lot of persuasion. It took strategy. It took negotiation. It took compromise. It took manipulation to get the necessary unanimity. But how did he get it. His objective was independence, pure, 100% independence.
He got his unity not by watering down his version of independence, not by watering down his way of getting it, the timetable for getting it, the procedures. It was masterful to watch them portray this because it was amazingly historically accurate. It's based on David McCullough's book, by the way, on John Adams. One of the things that Adams did to get unanimity, the biggest opponent to this independence was Dickinson in Pennsylvania. He was the dove. He was the anti-war hawk. He couldn't abide any of this. But he was very persuasive, and these were very reasonable talks that they had, and Adams was very reasonable and understanding, too -- although they had knock-down, drag-outs about it. But they talked privately after a session one day. It was decided then Dickinson just wouldn't show up the next day for the vote and that New York would abstain rather than vote "no." This was done so that Dickinson would not have to compromise his principles of anti-war and so forth, but he knew the jig was up because he knew what the votes were.
They had finally persuaded Virginia and Maryland. Of course, the interesting thing here about Virginia -- the reason why it took a lot of time and persuasion and strategy, negotiation, compromise, manipulation, all of this to get unanimity -- is the wealthiest and most influential state or colony at the time was Virginia, and Virginia was a slave state. Virginia stood to lose a lot of wealth and a number of other things here, especially being a slave state. It's ironic, by the way, how this plays against the reality of Barack Obama. The point is, these 13 people got -- well, there were more than one per state, but these people got together. John Hancock was chairing the whole thing, and they got together, and Adams finally got his unanimity. But he achieved it with one abstention from New York and the Pennsylvania guy being out of the room so he wouldn't have to vote. But it took him months to persuade.
He never compromised what he wanted at all, and they ended up with unification, unanimity. You could call it unity, but he did it in a way that was not at all weakening of his desire and passion -- and, of course, George Washington is portrayed here, too. Colonel Washington becomes General Washington. Now, the next episodes of this are going to be bloody because that's what the fight for independence began. This is just the Declaration that they went through. But, gosh, it sent tingles up my spine to watch how this country actually came together. It's why I think what happened there is a miracle. In fact, Catherine Drinker Bowen has written a book called The Miracle at Philadelphia. It really, really was a miracle -- and we didn't take a little bit of the people that didn't want independence and shove it into the pro-independence side. The people that didn't want independence lost.
They were given something for it, but not at the expense of those who wanted independence. So be very, very careful when you hear Obama or any of these other liberals start talking unity and that we can't get anything done until we have unity. We got this country done without unity. It happened without unity. New York abstained, and, of course, Mr. Dickinson from Philadelphia was not even there on the day of the final vote. Now you might say, " it sounds like there was unanimity. You keep using the word." Yeah, there was, just like there was close to unanimity in Congress, as close as you can get on Reagan's tax cuts. But it's because one side maintained and fought for its principles and didn't cave.
1.03.2009
2008
Overall, 2008 was an excellent year. I started a new job, went on some cool road trips, met some cool people, and did a bunch of triathlons and other races. Mostly, however, my time was taken up by work and training. Here is 2008 by the numbers:
races for the year
triathlons- 9
crits/road races- 5
road races (running): 3
total distances for the year
swim: 112 miles
bike: 3,215 miles
run: 430 miles
rowing: 84 miles
total training: around 350 hrs
The majority of swimming, biking, and running took place during the months of March through mid-October. After my last triathlon of the year in October, I took 6 weeks completely off and then started to ease back into things, only to find out that I need shoulder surgery. It's not a major surgery, so it should not hold me back too much. I'm going to crank out a lot of Z2 work on the trainer to minimize my losses so it's all good. As for 2009, I'm pretty pumped about the upcoming races. Compared to this time last year, I'm in exponentially better shape, and I possess a lot more knowledge about how to train and race strategy. Plus, I got my brand new bike and I love it!
As for my 2009 goals, I have a few. Just for the sake of competition, me and my brothers are going without sweets for the month of January. Actually, we can have only 1 serving a week. If anyone messes up they have to run 5 miles on a course of the other two brother's choice. Keith and Eric better hope they don't mess up, because I know all the steep grades around Birmingham, haha. Other goals include the following (in no particular order):
1. get a raise/ bonus at work
2. continue to further my knowledge of the natural gas industry
3. follow my budget
4. stay injury-free
5. grow our Sunday school class
6. grow closer to the Lord
7. read more
8. improve from last year at every triathlon that I do
9. qualify for Age Group Nationals
10. take a cool vacation
races for the year
triathlons- 9
crits/road races- 5
road races (running): 3
total distances for the year
swim: 112 miles
bike: 3,215 miles
run: 430 miles
rowing: 84 miles
total training: around 350 hrs
The majority of swimming, biking, and running took place during the months of March through mid-October. After my last triathlon of the year in October, I took 6 weeks completely off and then started to ease back into things, only to find out that I need shoulder surgery. It's not a major surgery, so it should not hold me back too much. I'm going to crank out a lot of Z2 work on the trainer to minimize my losses so it's all good. As for 2009, I'm pretty pumped about the upcoming races. Compared to this time last year, I'm in exponentially better shape, and I possess a lot more knowledge about how to train and race strategy. Plus, I got my brand new bike and I love it!
As for my 2009 goals, I have a few. Just for the sake of competition, me and my brothers are going without sweets for the month of January. Actually, we can have only 1 serving a week. If anyone messes up they have to run 5 miles on a course of the other two brother's choice. Keith and Eric better hope they don't mess up, because I know all the steep grades around Birmingham, haha. Other goals include the following (in no particular order):
1. get a raise/ bonus at work
2. continue to further my knowledge of the natural gas industry
3. follow my budget
4. stay injury-free
5. grow our Sunday school class
6. grow closer to the Lord
7. read more
8. improve from last year at every triathlon that I do
9. qualify for Age Group Nationals
10. take a cool vacation
12.29.2008
Vacation is over, nooooo!
Alas, my vacation is over:( It was a great 10 days, but I guess it had to come to an end sometime. What's really great is I that I only had to take 4 vacation days to get 10 days off due to my strategic planning of using my days to encompass 2 weekends and the 2 days that we already get off for Christmas, wohoo!
First things first, I have to have surgery to repair a torn labrum in my right shoulder. I went to the doctor last Monday to discuss the MRI results from the previous week, and the result was that I have a SLAP tear (superior labrum from anterior to posterior, google it!). However, there was no rotator cuff damage and the tear was a clean one, so recovery should be good. According to the doc, I'll be swimming 6 weeks after surgery! I can get on a stationary bike immediately, and as soon as I get out of the sling (about 2 weeks) I can start running. This is great news because both of my brothers have had this surgery and their recovery times were a lot longer than this.
After a 1 month sabbatical from doing any sort of physical activity in order to rest my body, I finally started back running and biking. I rode with the Birmingham Bike Club last Saturday morning; we got in about 34 miles out in Mt. Brook and Irondale at a medium pace, with 5 mile higher intensity section thrown in there. I rode again on Monday with a friend and got in about 28 miles of hills in Hoover. On Friday, I met up with some Alabama folk- Meredith, J, and Alex- I took them on a hill fest around Hoover and out by Ross Bridge golf course, and then finished up on Smyer Road. We hammered all the hills and keep a decent pace for the rest, and I ended up with a total of around 44 miles, making almost 105 for the week. I started running again too, and was finally able to test out my new Garmin. 18.33 miles from 12/19 until today, all base runs. I'm so glad I can actually build some good base this year before the races start this year, becuase last year I was plagued with a tight IT band until mid-summer.
Hmm, anything else? Oh yea, Christmas. I got some stuff for my bike (water bottle cage, light) and a garmin gps, and that was pretty much it. I almost forgot, I did have a nice 3-day-marinated-beef tenderloin for Christmas lunch, it was awesome!
First things first, I have to have surgery to repair a torn labrum in my right shoulder. I went to the doctor last Monday to discuss the MRI results from the previous week, and the result was that I have a SLAP tear (superior labrum from anterior to posterior, google it!). However, there was no rotator cuff damage and the tear was a clean one, so recovery should be good. According to the doc, I'll be swimming 6 weeks after surgery! I can get on a stationary bike immediately, and as soon as I get out of the sling (about 2 weeks) I can start running. This is great news because both of my brothers have had this surgery and their recovery times were a lot longer than this.
After a 1 month sabbatical from doing any sort of physical activity in order to rest my body, I finally started back running and biking. I rode with the Birmingham Bike Club last Saturday morning; we got in about 34 miles out in Mt. Brook and Irondale at a medium pace, with 5 mile higher intensity section thrown in there. I rode again on Monday with a friend and got in about 28 miles of hills in Hoover. On Friday, I met up with some Alabama folk- Meredith, J, and Alex- I took them on a hill fest around Hoover and out by Ross Bridge golf course, and then finished up on Smyer Road. We hammered all the hills and keep a decent pace for the rest, and I ended up with a total of around 44 miles, making almost 105 for the week. I started running again too, and was finally able to test out my new Garmin. 18.33 miles from 12/19 until today, all base runs. I'm so glad I can actually build some good base this year before the races start this year, becuase last year I was plagued with a tight IT band until mid-summer.
Hmm, anything else? Oh yea, Christmas. I got some stuff for my bike (water bottle cage, light) and a garmin gps, and that was pretty much it. I almost forgot, I did have a nice 3-day-marinated-beef tenderloin for Christmas lunch, it was awesome!
12.20.2008
Hickory Knob Tri
This is only about 2 months late but whatever. My last race of 2008 was the Hickory Knob International Triathlon in McCormick, SC. The 2007 running of this race was my first triathlon ever, so it was fitting to end my first year of competing at a place that would really tell me how much I’ve improved over the last year.
Everything leading up to the race went very well. I was pretty rested from a 2 week taper, and I was full of energy all week; exactly how I wanted to feel. The swim was a wetsuit legal 1500 m trek. Although it was not really that cold, I opted to wear my Orca anyways. For some reason, I just wasn’t feeling it during the swim. I don’t know why, but I just wasn’t. It also felt really long, which I later found out that it was. Oh well. The run to T1 was up a brutal hill, so I was pretty winded as I headed out on the bike.
The 28 mile bike loop was also extremely brutal, filled with a bunch of steep grades near the start and some long rollers throughout the rest. I was riding a rented Zipp 606 wheelset, so I could tell it was definitely helping me out on the descents due to better aerodynamics and on the climbs due to shaving over a pound off the total weight of my bike. Overall, the bike went well and I came into T2 ready to get owned by the toughest 10k in the southeast.
The out and back run is by far the hardest 10k I’ve ever run. Right before the turnaround, there is a really steep grade that we climbed on the bike course, and the last .75 miles or so is a gradual ascent to the finish. Just in case you made it through the whole course without dying, they try and kill you off at the finish line. I was able to stick with some guys about my speed on the run, so that helped me out as far as pacing goes, and I was able to push it strong up the last hill without dying, so that was good too.
In the end, I could really tell how much I improved over the last year. My swim time was about the same as last year, which means I improved a decent amount due to the unintentional lengthening of the course this year. They added 6 miles on to the bike loop this year, and my average speed was still almost 2 mph higher than last year. For the run, I shaved off about 4 minutes over 10k from last year. I think my transitions were faster too, although I can‘t remember exactly. In the end, I was pleased with the results. Next on the agenda is to rest my legs and start building some base!
Everything leading up to the race went very well. I was pretty rested from a 2 week taper, and I was full of energy all week; exactly how I wanted to feel. The swim was a wetsuit legal 1500 m trek. Although it was not really that cold, I opted to wear my Orca anyways. For some reason, I just wasn’t feeling it during the swim. I don’t know why, but I just wasn’t. It also felt really long, which I later found out that it was. Oh well. The run to T1 was up a brutal hill, so I was pretty winded as I headed out on the bike.
The 28 mile bike loop was also extremely brutal, filled with a bunch of steep grades near the start and some long rollers throughout the rest. I was riding a rented Zipp 606 wheelset, so I could tell it was definitely helping me out on the descents due to better aerodynamics and on the climbs due to shaving over a pound off the total weight of my bike. Overall, the bike went well and I came into T2 ready to get owned by the toughest 10k in the southeast.
The out and back run is by far the hardest 10k I’ve ever run. Right before the turnaround, there is a really steep grade that we climbed on the bike course, and the last .75 miles or so is a gradual ascent to the finish. Just in case you made it through the whole course without dying, they try and kill you off at the finish line. I was able to stick with some guys about my speed on the run, so that helped me out as far as pacing goes, and I was able to push it strong up the last hill without dying, so that was good too.
In the end, I could really tell how much I improved over the last year. My swim time was about the same as last year, which means I improved a decent amount due to the unintentional lengthening of the course this year. They added 6 miles on to the bike loop this year, and my average speed was still almost 2 mph higher than last year. For the run, I shaved off about 4 minutes over 10k from last year. I think my transitions were faster too, although I can‘t remember exactly. In the end, I was pleased with the results. Next on the agenda is to rest my legs and start building some base!
10.28.2008
The Vision of the Left
Conservatives, as well as liberals, would undoubtedly be happier living in the kind of world envisioned by the left. Very few people have either a vested interest or an ideological preference for a world in which there are many inequalities. Even fewer would prefer a world in which vast sums of money have to be devoted to military defense, when so much benefit could be produced if those resources were directed into medical research instead.
It is hardly surprising that young people prefer the political left. The only reason for rejecting the left's vision is that the real world in which we live is very different from the world that the left perceives today or envisions for tomorrow. Most of us learn that from experience-- but experience is precisely what the young are lacking. "Experience" is often just a fancy word for the mistakes that we belatedly realized we were making, only after the realities of the world made us pay a painful price for being wrong.
Those who are insulated from that pain-- whether by being born into affluence or wealth, or shielded by the welfare state, or insulated by tenure in academia or in the federal judiciary-- can remain in a state of perpetual immaturity. Individuals can refuse to grow up, especially when surrounded in their work and in their social life by similarly situated and like-minded people. Even people born into normal lives, but who have been able through talent or luck to escape into a world of celebrity and wealth, can likewise find themselves in the enviable position of being able to choose whether to grow up or not.
Those of us who can recall what it was like to be an adolescent must know that growing up can be a painful transition from the sheltered world of childhood. No matter how much we may have wanted adult freedom, there was seldom the same enthusiasm for taking on the burdens of adult responsibilities and having to weigh painful trade-offs in a world that hemmed us in on all sides, long after we were liberated from parental restrictions.
Should we be surprised that the strongest supporters of the political left are found among the young, academics, limousine liberals with trust funds, media celebrities and federal judges? These are hardly Karl Marx's proletarians, who were supposed to bring on the revolution. The working class are in fact today among those most skeptical about the visions of the left.
Ordinary working class people did not lead the stampede to Barack Obama, even before his disdain for them slipped out in unguarded moments. The agenda of the left is fine for the world that they envision as existing today and the world they want to create tomorrow. That is a world not hemmed in on all sides by inherent constraints and the painful trade-offs that these constraints imply. Theirs is a world where there are attractive, win-win "solutions" in place of those ugly trade-offs in the world that the rest of us live in.
Theirs is a world where we can just talk to opposing nations and work things out, instead of having to pour tons of money into military equipment to keep them at bay. The left calls this "change" but in fact it is a set of notions that were tried out by the Western democracies in the 1930s-- and which led to the most catastrophic war in history. For those who bother to study history, it was precisely the opposite policies in the 1980s-- pouring tons of money into military equipment-- which brought the Cold War and its threat of nuclear annihilation to an end.
The left fought bitterly against that "arms race" which in fact lifted the burden of the Soviet threat, instead of leading to war as the elites claimed. Personally, I wish Ronald Reagan could have talked the Soviets into being nicer, instead of having to spend all that money. Only experience makes me skeptical about that "kinder and gentler" approach and the vision behind it.
-Thomas Sowell
It is hardly surprising that young people prefer the political left. The only reason for rejecting the left's vision is that the real world in which we live is very different from the world that the left perceives today or envisions for tomorrow. Most of us learn that from experience-- but experience is precisely what the young are lacking. "Experience" is often just a fancy word for the mistakes that we belatedly realized we were making, only after the realities of the world made us pay a painful price for being wrong.
Those who are insulated from that pain-- whether by being born into affluence or wealth, or shielded by the welfare state, or insulated by tenure in academia or in the federal judiciary-- can remain in a state of perpetual immaturity. Individuals can refuse to grow up, especially when surrounded in their work and in their social life by similarly situated and like-minded people. Even people born into normal lives, but who have been able through talent or luck to escape into a world of celebrity and wealth, can likewise find themselves in the enviable position of being able to choose whether to grow up or not.
Those of us who can recall what it was like to be an adolescent must know that growing up can be a painful transition from the sheltered world of childhood. No matter how much we may have wanted adult freedom, there was seldom the same enthusiasm for taking on the burdens of adult responsibilities and having to weigh painful trade-offs in a world that hemmed us in on all sides, long after we were liberated from parental restrictions.
Should we be surprised that the strongest supporters of the political left are found among the young, academics, limousine liberals with trust funds, media celebrities and federal judges? These are hardly Karl Marx's proletarians, who were supposed to bring on the revolution. The working class are in fact today among those most skeptical about the visions of the left.
Ordinary working class people did not lead the stampede to Barack Obama, even before his disdain for them slipped out in unguarded moments. The agenda of the left is fine for the world that they envision as existing today and the world they want to create tomorrow. That is a world not hemmed in on all sides by inherent constraints and the painful trade-offs that these constraints imply. Theirs is a world where there are attractive, win-win "solutions" in place of those ugly trade-offs in the world that the rest of us live in.
Theirs is a world where we can just talk to opposing nations and work things out, instead of having to pour tons of money into military equipment to keep them at bay. The left calls this "change" but in fact it is a set of notions that were tried out by the Western democracies in the 1930s-- and which led to the most catastrophic war in history. For those who bother to study history, it was precisely the opposite policies in the 1980s-- pouring tons of money into military equipment-- which brought the Cold War and its threat of nuclear annihilation to an end.
The left fought bitterly against that "arms race" which in fact lifted the burden of the Soviet threat, instead of leading to war as the elites claimed. Personally, I wish Ronald Reagan could have talked the Soviets into being nicer, instead of having to spend all that money. Only experience makes me skeptical about that "kinder and gentler" approach and the vision behind it.
-Thomas Sowell
9.17.2008
Music City Tri
This past weekend, I headed up to Nashville, TN to race at the Music City Triathlon. I rode up there with 6 others from the Alabama Tri club, so that made the drive a little less boring. We got up there on Sunday in time to pick up packets and ride over the bike course to see what kind of terrain we'd be dealing with. It seemed fairly hilly with a few flat sections, but the one thing that I noticed is that there were a ton of turns. After riding over the course we headed back to the hotel and then met up with the Tennessee, Vandy, and Georgia teams for some dinner.
I woke up at 5 am on Sunday and downed my regular pre-race breakfast: 1 banana, 1 nature valley-yogurt bar, 1 blueberry muffin, and a pack of crackers. After loading the bikes, we made the 5 minute drive to the race course and began unloading our
crap. The sky looked pretty cool when we got there....but we soon started feeling the wind from Hurricane Ike. The water was pretty rough and choppy, and after the first 6 of 13 waves had started, they canceled the swim. Once the buoys started floating away and kayaks starting flipping over, I think it was a pretty easy call. They turned it into a duathlon, with the first run being from the swim exit to T1, and then the normal 27.5 mile bike and 6 mile run. My wave consisted of all 29 and under males. I was second into transition, and first out on the bike. For the whole bike, there were 3 of us that were dueling it out. One of us would attack for a mile or 2, get reeled in, and then the next would go. At mile 22, I finally made an attack that stuck and held them off all the way to T2. It was so windy at some points that I did not even feel comfortable in my aero bars. Overall, I averaged slightly over 21.5 mph. My bike was second fastest in the age group, but I had a faster T1 so I was in the lead coming into T2. The run was a 2 x 3 mile lap with a decent hill at mile 2. As soon as I started the run, I began having trouble breathing, I think because I hammered the bike really hard. I finally caught my breath after a quarter of a mile or so and was good to go. Overall, the run was alright but I still think I can do better. I ran the first 3 in 23:50 and the last 3 in 23:17 for a total time of 47:09. It's about 2 or 3 minutes faster than my last olympic distance tri, so I guess that's good.
I finished in 3rd place overall, so I was pleased with that. The top 3 of us all had bikes within 30 seconds of each other, so obviously the race was decided by the run. I was 1:40 out of 2nd and 3:30 out of 1st, so a 43-44 min run would have put me in 1st place. I know I'm capable of running that, it's just a matter of getting some more base in and keeping my IT band uninjured. Here's me on the stand (on the left)!
I woke up at 5 am on Sunday and downed my regular pre-race breakfast: 1 banana, 1 nature valley-yogurt bar, 1 blueberry muffin, and a pack of crackers. After loading the bikes, we made the 5 minute drive to the race course and began unloading our
crap. The sky looked pretty cool when we got there....but we soon started feeling the wind from Hurricane Ike. The water was pretty rough and choppy, and after the first 6 of 13 waves had started, they canceled the swim. Once the buoys started floating away and kayaks starting flipping over, I think it was a pretty easy call. They turned it into a duathlon, with the first run being from the swim exit to T1, and then the normal 27.5 mile bike and 6 mile run. My wave consisted of all 29 and under males. I was second into transition, and first out on the bike. For the whole bike, there were 3 of us that were dueling it out. One of us would attack for a mile or 2, get reeled in, and then the next would go. At mile 22, I finally made an attack that stuck and held them off all the way to T2. It was so windy at some points that I did not even feel comfortable in my aero bars. Overall, I averaged slightly over 21.5 mph. My bike was second fastest in the age group, but I had a faster T1 so I was in the lead coming into T2. The run was a 2 x 3 mile lap with a decent hill at mile 2. As soon as I started the run, I began having trouble breathing, I think because I hammered the bike really hard. I finally caught my breath after a quarter of a mile or so and was good to go. Overall, the run was alright but I still think I can do better. I ran the first 3 in 23:50 and the last 3 in 23:17 for a total time of 47:09. It's about 2 or 3 minutes faster than my last olympic distance tri, so I guess that's good. 
I finished in 3rd place overall, so I was pleased with that. The top 3 of us all had bikes within 30 seconds of each other, so obviously the race was decided by the run. I was 1:40 out of 2nd and 3:30 out of 1st, so a 43-44 min run would have put me in 1st place. I know I'm capable of running that, it's just a matter of getting some more base in and keeping my IT band uninjured. Here's me on the stand (on the left)!
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