What a year

It’s almost a new year and looking back on ’07 I’ve come to realize that I had quite a year.

The first of the year I got together with Lorna and its been great ever since!

I took first place in my age group for the second year in a row for the Club Championship. Hopefully I made a little contribution to the overall success of our club’s winning season.



April: Foot surgery for Hallux Limitus

The Doc said “you’ll be able to walk out of the hospital after the surgery” What she really meant was that I could hop out on one foot. The “back on my feet” after the stitches are removed was really you can tenderly put some weight on your foot. The “You will be able to walk normally after a month” was really- you’ll need to wear very wide shoes for two months and you will be a total gimp for the whole time. Oh and she forgot to mention the "Don't forget, you'll need to throw away the $500 dollars in bike shoes because your foot won't fit into them anymore" sentence.


Anyway, enough whining, I did an Ironman four months after the surgery so I consider the surgery a complete success. From what I understand the recovery was actually pretty quick, just not quick enough for me!

August: the first annual Ironman Louisville. MG said to me “how often do you get to do an inaugural Ironman? “ I was sold, I signed up as soon as the race opened. Who thought August in Louisville would be 90+ degrees and 70+ percent humidity? Not I. However, as soon as I got out of the medical tent ,for dehydration, I came to realize that hot + humid was a bad combination for me and I should stick to cooler races. So I'm signed up for IMAZ in November - it should be fairly cool and the humidity level should be prettly low.

September: New Job! I left my old position as the Manager of Information Systems to become a Network manager. Technically a step down, but much more technical, more money better hours, it's more suited to my interestes, and the environment suites me better.

September: Got to see my relatives from Hawaii for the first time in almost ten years! Oh, and I’m the tallest one in the family! :)


September: Son Breaks his arm, Daughter totals car .

Yep, September has been a busy month!

That’s about it, not much happened the rest of the year and I’m just hanging on to see what next year brings.

This little piggy

This little piggy went to market,

This little piggy stayed at home,

This little piggy had roast beef,turkey, crown roast pork,

pasta shells,three different types of potatoes,

assorted green type veggies, pecan pie, pumpkin pie,

chocolate cake, baked apples,

and a whole bunch of stuff that’s just not good for you.

So this little piggy went

“Wee wee wee” all the way home because he ate way too much….

An Easy Run

I’ve been running Thursday nights with another outlaw nicknamed Wingman. Now Wingman is anything but lazy and he’s always up for a good workout. Here’s how the conversation went to set up our latest run. Me: Hey wingman, you up for a run tonight? Wingman: What time? Me: 6:00. Wingman: See you there. Me: It’s an easy 45 minute run, right? Wingman: Right, hard run for an hour. Me: No, Easy run for about half an hour. Wingman: Right, only an hour…

So we meet at 6:00 (he’s even early!) Now mind you; it’s totally dark, we are running on the drainage ditch trail along the Bosque, and it’s about 35 degrees out.

Me: Why are we running at a 7:00 minute pace? Wingman: You’re the one pushing the pace. Me: I thought we were going for an easy run. Wingman: Hey, I’m just trying to keep up with you. Me: Then why are you ahead of me? Wingman: You look like you are ahead of me. <*Silence except for our heavy breathing and foot falls*> Me: Why are we running faster now than we were? Wingman: You’re the one pushing the pace…

We hit the turnaround a full three minutes ahead of our normal pace and run“easy” on the way back. Well, easy for about a mile then we start picking it up again. Oh, our run time was a little over 45 minutes.

Tagged, Tagged again, and again?? I think I’ve been framed! It’s a conspiracy to get me sucked into blog land, as if I don’t have enough to do!

While I was on my evening run I was trying to think about 5 more interesting things, it took me an hour to come up with these. You know what? I’m a pretty boring guy! There’s no way I can come up with 5 more

1. When I was in Karate I could do the front and straddle splits, this would always freak out my non karate friends. Now I can barely sit up straight with my legs out at a 45 degree angle. Guess age and Triathlon tend to tighten up the old muscles.


2. I was picked on quite a bit in elementary school because I was oriental. That is until I started beating up everyone that was picking on me. The interesting thing was, I never ever went to the principles office for fighting. Oh, you have to remember, this was in the mid sixties after the Vietnam war, and I was the only “oriental” kid in school. Another interesting thing is one of the kids that would pick on me became one of my best friends.


3. I was an honor roll student and took all AP classes in high school but beginning Spanish class almost did me in! Sheila Thompson is the only reason I passed the class. A good solid D and I was pretty darn happy. So, of course, I took a job where 90 percent of the employees speak Spanish, what was I thinking?


4. At one point in my career I was in charge of development and installation of an electrical utility outage tracking system. I had to do a demo for about 200 customers and potential customers at a dog and pony show. The outage system tracking would track sections of power that would go down and also track customer calls. I set up this grand scenario of Godzilla and King Kong having a battle in the rural United States (it was actually just west of Denver). As consumers would call in I would key in their reports and track the outages. Anyway, it was really funny and I got a best of show award.


5. Did I mention I have a tool fetish?
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

I've been tagged

Okay, I’ve had this blog skeleton sitting out on the web for a while now and I guess I’ll post something. Problem is I really don’t have much to say, problem solved,
My friend Myles tagged me to say 5 interesting things about myself so it sounds like a good time to kick things off.

Let’s see, 5 interesting things?

1. I can’t dance. Okay it’s not really that interesting but I really don’t have the ability to move my limbs to any sort of rhythm. I watch folks dance and I wonder how the heck they move that way.
   



2. I studied Shotokan Karate for 16 years and earned the rank of third degree black belt (the highest degree in Shotokan is 5th degree). After my first black belt test I could hardly move for three days. It was a 6 hour test where we weren’t allowed to eat or drink.
   



3. I once had a job painting polka dots on cement trucks.



4. When my brother was in college he was taking a computer class, I would go to UNM and play Trek on the old line printer (LS120 for those computer geeks), I’ve been addicted to computers ever since.



5. It seems I have a tool fetish. I work on projects just so I can purchase new tools
   What’s up with that? I have two roller cabinets full of stuff and an additional 3
   tool boxes full of more tools.
   
   
   That’s about it for me, I’m not going to tag anyone else because I think everyone I know has been tagged!