8th anniversary

The family headed to the Maggie Valley area of NC for our 8th anniversary.  We stayed at the same cabin we've stayed at several times for anniversary and other weekend getaway trips.  There is a soothing creek adjacent to the property.  It is as peaceful as peaceful gets.  I had visions of a relaxing time as we all caught up on sleep and enjoyed our time together.  This was true with the exception of the sleep part.  Little man had other ideas and decided to wake up more than once each night.  We also started the day at 415AM on Friday.  Part of this was our fault as he had outgrown his last batch of diapers and was getting wet/full fairly quickly.  Nonetheless, we had a nice time, had lunch with some friends on Thursday, and visited a few shops and pubs in Asheville.  Bri had time to get in a run around Lake Junaluska, and I snuck in a swim at the Waynesville Recreation center.  Do you like my new block format of typing?  No more paragraph breaks.  I may eventually do away with punctuation and proper spelling as well which would be neat it would just be a long sentence that rambles on with some disconnected seguays and maybe some umms and ahhs to give you the sense of me actually speaking rather than reading what I am saying dont you agree that would be funny ha ha funny not oh weirdo dude funny anyway here are pictures:

5280 Swim

The 4th annual 5280 Swim at Falls Lake is tomorrow morning, come on out and enjoy a beautiful day.  9AM start time.

In other news, I am way behind on sleep the past few weeks.  Good thing we are taking a short vacation next week to celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary.

Amendment one in NC

Core CPI, chained CPI, and my CPI

I have decided to cut out all the middlemen and con artists in the government and start a quarterly tracking of consumer price inflation in my local neighborhood.  We won't use any substitutions or increased utility bullsh*t in it either.  If you're unfamiliar with these concepts, the idea is this:

Utility: A concrete example is that a gallon of orange juice costs $4.  But due to some crop harvesting improvements they yield more oranges and you are able to get a gallon for $3.50 next month.  Your utility/use (value to you) of orange juice has increased while the price has decreased.

A specious example: Time Warner cable had 50 basic channels and was $30/month.  Now it has 100 channels and is $40 a month.  Because it doubled its content delivery, its utility or use (value to you) increased.  But, the price went up $10.  50/30 (5/3) or 100/40 (5/2)  if we consider the 100 channels all valuable.  This would track as a decreasing cost (you were paying $30 for 50 channels, but now it's $20 for 50 channels) with the measurement utility.  Like I said, bullsh*t, because you don't watch CNN 5 or the O channel.

Substitutions via "geometric ratings".  This one is awful.  If a pound of premium ground sirloin, which was $6 increases to $9, the current use CPI would say, well, the average family can still buy a pound of top quality chicken (or fish, or whatever) for $6, so somewhat gradually over time we include more chicken and fish measurements than we include premium ground sirloin, thus smoothing the stated inflation rate in total.

Which, as you can see in my previous sentence, is bullsh*t.  Because you ain't got no beef no more.  If you follow this one to the end conclusion, we could have all premium meats increasing in cost to the point where the "average" user is out trading -something- for a pound of squirrel or rat meat at about $6 / lb.  But meat is meat, right,?.

The chained CPI is worse, it's a quickly rebalanced average of cheaper substitutions over time.  The sole purpose of this CPI is to quickly rob you of all your savings via taxation and eroding purchasing power and leave you for dead.

Anyway, I plan to include 10-20 items in my personal no-BS CPI.  I'll allocate them somewhat equally

• 1 gallon gas premium local Shell
• 1 gallon gas standard local Exxon
• 1 gallon skim milk local Harris Teeter
• 1 half-gallon local non-steroid cow milk local Whole Foods
• 1 6-pack of Lone Rider Shotgun Betty from local Shell
• The same 6-pack at local Harris Teeter
• 1 year in-state tuition and books from NC State ( divided by 100)
• 1 year in-state tuition and books from UNC (/100)
• 1 night standard rack rate in hospital (adult) (/10)
• 1 pound of locally grass fed beef
• 1 12 ounce bag of Starbucks Verona roast at local store (any)
• 1 pint of Big Boss rotating tap at local restaurant
• 1 pound of 96/4 lean beef (non-local)
• 1 standard chicken sandwich + side from Tribeca Tavern
• 1 standard quarter pounder meal (regular) from local McDonalds
• 1 month insurance premium for us (/10)
• 1 pool entry to local pool

Might add a few more.  I read that awful article on chained CPI (linked above) a few days ago and wanted to start shouting at someone.  It is a total money grab. 

Time One and Time Two

On Wednesday mornings I have the option to "sleep in" until 630AM, if I skip swimming with the Masters group and wait to swim after I coach a squad from 700-800AM.

I make about 70% of these early Wed swims, which means waking up at 530 and getting out of the house by 545 at the latest.

This is a story about yesterday morning, written in the present tense.

Sleep interrupted by the cries of my baby boy.  Logan wakes, it is early, what time?  330, My watch says.  Bri gets to him before I can put on my shoes to hobble to his room (to help keep my injured foot balanced), so I wander into the bathroom and then flop back in to bed.  Here is proof.

Where I sleep when getting up early so Bri can get more sleep

What seems like a few minutes later, my alarm shrieks its dire warning for the 530 Masters swim.  I waffle a bit, groaning in pain and fatigue.  Here is proof.

Thus, I wake.

Ignore the sunlight in the background.  This is the actual alarm.

I cannot bring myself to launch out of bed and face a hard workout and the rest of the day, so reset the alarm to 630 and fall back into a deep cyborg like slumber.  There are no dreams.  There is darkness.

The alarm goes off.  It reads 630.  I have no choice but to rise and get going.  People depend on me to torture them with swim intervals.  I wander downstairs.  I feel awful.  I am exhausted.  My eyes bleed.

I must continue.

Something is amiss.  As I prepare the coffee, I notice that the times on the microwave and oven are wrong.  They read 335.  Was there a power outage?

Pretend these read 335 instead of 1140, I am not resetting the times for you

I. Am. Confused.

That is not sunlight in the background.

My mind spins.  Was there a nuclear blast?  Are aliens messing with me, yet again?  Has all time melted away to meaningless bits and bytes?  What is happening to me?

I turn on the phone.  I cannot post a picture of the phone for it is the lens through which I share these views.  I could take a picture in a mirror, but that is a poor reflection of the phone's reality.  Believe me when I say, the phone lit up, and then also spake, It is 335.

I am released.  It is not 630.  No. It is 330.  For there are two times upon my watch.  There is Time One, and there is Time Two.  Time One is real time.  It is you and I time.  It is get up at 515 for coaching every morning time.  

Time Two is Other.  It is three hours ahead.  It tells the future.  We always need to know when it is four-twenty in Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland.  This is crucial to the future of mankind, for some reason my watch has not yet shared with me.

The watch.  I return it to T1 alarming. 

I am relieved.  The good Inuit people of Greenland are safe.  I can sleep two more hours, and wake up feeling refreshed for the swim.  Everything is in its right place.  I shall go back to sleep. A deep, restful sleep filled with happy dreams.

Yes?

 Answering your silly emails at 345AM

Fini.

Training updates

Training has been going well, with the exception of injuring my foot 9 days ago.  I was experiencing some slight discomfort after racing the local duathlon in my lightweight training shoes (not even flats, just lightweight trainers) but nothing any runner hasn't dealt with.  I did a couple runs during the week with nothing noteworthy. 

Then I raced in a 5k and it went from mild discomfort to extreme pain in the course of 1.2 miles.   I had to stop and limp back to my car, couldn't jog or walk normally.  That is the first race I've bagged out of since 1993 when I stopped at mile 12 in a 15 mile swim (I was overheating, had fallen out of contention for a national team spot, and sort of bored with it at that point).  The foot was feeling better through the week, but then I mowed our front lawn, which is on a steep slope, and that aggravated it.  So while biking and swimming are not an issue (staying away from hard hills and hard riding), running is out for the time being. I have seen too many athletes try to get back to running quickly and then stay hurt indefinitely. 

Long story short - the first Aquathon is out (I was going to race it), as well as White Lake Sprint.  Hopefully I can be back to running by mid May, which would give the foot a solid 5-6 weeks. 

I have been maintaining my svelt figure with mostly good food choices and portion control.  When you go from 12-14 hour type training (mid to late season last year) to 6-8 hours of training, the calories have to adjust downwards or the weight and svelt-lessness will adjust upwards. 

In other news, Bri is feeling better about running and is racing in the Riverwood Triathlon this Saturday.  Logan and I will be in cheering mode.  On Sunday we're joining a bunch of swimmers for USMS short course nationals in Greensboro, which is about 1.5 hours away.  I'm swimming the 50 fly and 100 free.

Here is what I think I look like when swimming butterfly:

Here is reality:

Adieu.

Casino night at TAC!

Tomorrow night 4.21.12 is Casino night at Triangle Aquatic Center, where our Masters swim team trains.  This is their big annual fundraiser and we are sponsoring a table.

Check it out!