Archives December 2010

Yesterday at the gym I intended to try to do a max speed mile.  I am normally doing my running somewhere between an 8 and 9 minute mile pace.  I set the treadmill at 9 mph with a 1% incline which translates to a 6:40 mile pace.  A few months ago I successfully did a mile at 8.6 mph and barely survived it.  I had my new running sneakers on, this would be the first actual running I did in them.

So after walking a 1/4 mile to warm up I stretched a bit and then fired up the machine to high speed.  The first feeling I got as the belt accelerated was that it felt very fast.  It seemed like if I slowed down even a moment I would be ejected off the belt.  Even so I was able to maintain the speed.

I had my headphones on and ESPN on the LCD tv that is built into the treadmill.  I needed it to help divert my attention from the discomfort of moving that quickly. For maybe the first third of a mile I was chugging along ok.  My breathing was under control and I felt decent.  However from that point on things degraded quickly.

After the half mile mark I started feeling physically woozy.  I had a tingling sensation on either side of my chest that was odd.  My stride became increasingly labored.  I relented and hopped off at the .75 mile mark, one lap from the finish line.  I was pissed but I really felt like I was pushing into a dangerous area.

After gasping for air for a few moments I slowed the speed down 1 mph to 8 and finished off the mile.  Since I failed at my original goal I figured I needed to do more so I did a couple half mile intervals at 8mph (7:30 pace) just for good measure.

Even though I failed at my goal it gave me something to shoot for next time.  I have NEVER run a mile in 6:40 in my life.  I should be pleased that I am attempting to set PR’s at 43 (almost).

I did have some success in the evening when I equaled my all time best in full range of motion pull ups on the Iron Gym with 15.  I made sure to throw the effort on justin.tv for Jeremy to digest.  Less than two months to go until our epic pull up competition takes place.

I got the new Despair.com catalog in the mail the other day.  I have always loved their stuff.  Their skeptical, cynical spin on those motivational posters that came to be in the 90’s just makes me smile. If you want to see this years collection head over there and take a peek.

I have ordered a lot from proflowers.com over the years.  They sell high quality flowers and plants that always arrive on time. But let me tell you, they really annoy me with their bait and switch sales technique.

I received an email yesterday for them listing some of their specials.  They had a miniature Christmas tree listed for $24.99  I thought this would be a nice gift for my grandmother who is in a nursing home (who has no idea who anyone is anymore)  So I follow the link in the email and begin the ordering process.

I pick out Grandma’s address and am quickly delivered to the order summary page.  Look at how $24.99 magically more than doubled to  $61.43!

The candy cane tin that they are charging me an extra $10 for was what was displayed in the email for $24.99.  Then I get charged $10 TWICE for delivery, once for “standard” delivery and once for “priority” delivery?  WTF is this?  When I picked the delivery date on their calendar I picked a day (the 16th) that was tagged as standard delivery yet I get double dipped on shipping? Then we have the lovely profit padding “care & handling” charge.

Like I said, I have ordered from proflowers many times so I am familiar with their bullshit pricing policy but this case seemed especially egregious.  I ordered this at 5:30 this morning and was too tired to cancel the order and pry into the issue further.  The conversation in my head went like this “F’ing proflowers, I should just cancel the order……….  Ah damn it, it’s for Grandma, they already have all of her info.  Just eat the $20 bullshit charges and move along.”  I clicked the PLACE ORDER button even though it pained me to do so.

It may however be the last dealings I have with the company.  I am sick of getting bent over by them time and again even if they do sell a high quality product.

The first part of my evening last night was rather annoying.  My drive home was held up by an accident about 4 miles from my house.  What made it annoying was the stupid way the police were handling the traffic situation.  They basically only paid attention to the cars out on Immokalee Road and totally ignored us poor saps on Wilson Blvd.    They let vehicles turn left off Immokalee onto Wilson but basically stonewalled cars on Wilson wanting to turn right onto Immokalee.

I consumed all of my available patience after about 10 minutes of watching this bullshit.  After that I was unable to control the obscenities coming out of my mouth regarding the apparent lack of traffic control skill exhibited by the deputies.

Once I finally got home the frustration did not end.  Tuesday and Thursday are Roomba days.  I found the one Roomba stuck after it ingested the Christmas tree skirt.  I found the other one spinning around stupidly under the hope chest where  the one charging base is.  It evidently had been stuck in there for almost an hour.

We had a box out front.  It was the Peanuts xmas yard decoration we ordered.  We saw it in a catalog and thought it would be a nice little addition to our Xmas display outside.  We paid like $40 for this thing.  I think we overpaid by about 30.

As soon as I slide the thing out of the box there is also a landslide of little pieces that slid out as well.  You were supposed to be able to just unfold the two halves of the thing, stake it into the ground and plug it in.

Well the front of the display is attached to the back of it via a series of plastic standoffs that are secured with plastic push pins, standard shitty Chinese quality.  Well a bunch of these stand offs had fallen off during shipping which allowed part of the front to just dangle.

I spent a good 15 minutes “fixing” our brand new item.  Not only did I reattach the missing stand offs, I also pushed on the ones that were still in place.  Each and every one of them was loose.  I finally got all the parts back in place and grumpily lugged the decoration outside to hook it up.

I plugged it in and was underwhelmed.  The lights in the decoration shine much brighter than what you see in the catalog picture above.  They diffuse so much that from the road you can’t even tell what the hell it is.  It just looks like some glowing shape.  Needless to say I was not pleased with our purchase.

Eventually my evening settled down.  Ali and decorated the Christmas tree and we sat out some stuff.  We did not put out all of what we have.  It is probably the least amount of decorations we have ever put out although you wouldn’t think so if you looked around.  Each year the motivation level at Christmas seems more difficult to cultivate.

I have been messing around with making some running club shirts on http://logosoftwear.com.  A lot of the current merchandise just is not all that appealing.  I ordered myself a shirt that I thought was cool, I always liked “property of” shirts.

As I was digging on the site I saw that I could quickly and easily set up a “store” that will allow people to buy GCR merchandise directly.  Basically I set up a few items and then people can peruse them, customize them and order them directly.  After setting up the designs we don’t need to do anything else. Logosoftwear.com handles all of the rest and cuts the club 15% commission on the sale.

The set it and forget nature of this store is pretty nice but there is one disadvantage, price.  Ordering custom shirts/clothing items one at a time translates into premium pricing where as if we ordered a number of the same items at once we would get bulk discounts.  However then the club has that up front expenditure and the hassle of managing inventory.

I figure we have nothing to lose by offering this option to runners.  It costs us nothing and allows people to order custom merchandise that they can tweak so it suits them exactly even if it does cost a few bucks more.  If you want to see the store go here.