Je t'aime beaucoup, mon amour!

It's the day of Love. What more important theme is there?
Happy V-Day, everyone!

[The Simpsons: the Red Hot Chili Peppers are performing on Krusty's show]
Krusty the Clown: Now, boys, the network has a problem with some of your lyrics. Do you mind changing them for the show?
Anthony Kiedis: Forget you, clown.
Chad Smith: Yeah, our lyrics are like our children, man. No way.
Krusty the Clown: Well, okay, but here where it says, "What I got you gotta get and put it in ya," how about just, "What I'd like is I'd like to hug and kiss ya."
Flea: Wow. That's much better.
Arik Marshall: Everyone can enjoy that.

Ironman, anyone?

Alright, alright. It's a brisk 5 degrees F right now. But that's no reason for me to feel so sluggish about getting back into training. And I must admit, "nada" has been the word of the week, and for the last 3 weeks, mind you :-(.

To kick off the self-psyching, the 2007 Ironman Championship in Kona, Hawaii is being re-broadcasted this Saturday 2/16/08 on NBC @ 2pm EST. YouTube has a preview of it.

That and some litany hopefully should get me going. And so let's bow our heads and reflect on bended knee: Oh my dearest Greg Welch, patron saint of sub 5' 6" endurance athletes, pray for us.

Stressing less

"Keep the deadline. Change the deliverable."

Just as I'm feeling swamped with things that I HAVE to do and things that I WANT to do, a coworker says the above to me. And boom, his magic was done. I felt peaceful.

Thanks, JP.

—

The able-bladed

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
— Theodore Roosevelt

He is why you should never give up on anything.

Unfortunately, the IAAF decided today that Oscar Pistorius is ineligible to compete in Beijing 2008 because his running "blades" give him an unfair advantage [eyes rolling] over able-bodied athletes. Hmmmph, who would've thought? :-p

[Fade out]
[Fade in, show text]

The Olympic Creed

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.

The Olympic Motto

Citius, Altius, Fortius.

(Faster, Higher, Stronger)

[Fade to black]

Best wishes to Oscar in his continuing pursuit toward excellence.

—

PhotoPhlow

A cool article on Photophlow that I just had to plug. I managed to get an invite from the author and log in, since usage is currently limited. I will definitely check the site in more detail this weekend. Btw, from registering with Photophlow, I now have 3 invites that I could send out. Anyone interested in one, please let me know.

Bag of Bones

I'm embarrassed to say, but I shall say it: I finally finished Bag of Bones (Stephen King) this New Year's Day morning. Don't even ask me how long it took. I read it sporadically with tons of literary and nonliterary interruptions in between, read the first few chapters oodles of times over, under, and sideways to recapture the catharsis, and eventually dedicated some focus to reach the last page.

Yay me. Next book please.

2008!

Rum and Coke is da bomb!
I'm drunk, and still I can type. :-)
2 hours, 12 minutes til the new year.
I'm drunk, and playing bingo.

I'm drunk.

Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!

I'll drink 2 dat.

Done.

Drink, drank, drinking, drunk, drunker, drunked up.

Effin drunk. dat's me.

A toast! Let's drink!

Drunkedddd.

hPpy nwyr !!

puflish post.

Waning workouts

My gym workouts have dwindled to about 35 minutes x 2 days/wk these last two weeks. It's been just so difficult to make more time. Today, I felt my slacking off in the pain of my 24-min speed intervals session (level 14) -- I'd say "18" on the perceived exertion scale. I'll do the same session again on Thursday or Friday and take note of any endurance improvement. And hopefully, I'll workout longer. Tomorrow, I'll be lifting.

***

ps: With my baldness, I'm in need of some head warmth. And thus the 5-o'clock shadow, or goatee. Still a bit sparse, but me likee.

Photo storage

My new 120 gigabyte hard drive is now down to 16 gigabytes after only a few months. It's all due to the space being quickly taken up by our family digital pics and avi files.

And so Melinda and I have decided we need a new method of photo storage. Our answer is Flickr. We've had a "pro" account for some time now, but I really hadn't considered maxing it out for archiving full-resolution original photos.

This afternoon and evening, I uploaded 2 gigs of full-res shots, which took several hours. This week, I'll do some more reading on how to take advantage of my Flickr Pro account.

Thinking short term

My problem is that I think all projects, no matter how monumental, can be completed in 3 hours or less. So now I'm starting to feel swamped at work because it's quarter-end, the deadlines are just around the corner, products need to be shipped, and my focus is constantly being diverted by endless meetings and reams of paperwork.

"Calgon take me away!" Id est, I need to get to the gym. Tonight, I shall make it so.