Category Politics

So once again my Halloween was uneventful.  I had the porch light on and the bag of candy ready but had no visitors.  Of course I didn’t expect any based on recent history but I always am prepared, just in case.

I got my Triple Gym yesterday.  It is basically an Iron Gym on steroids.  It’s main selling point is it includes a dip bar attachment that up to this point is something you could not get with a doorway bar system.

I was a bit worried about how sturdy it would all feel when it was assembled and hanging on the door frame.  I was pleased when it actually felt quite useable for dips and every other movement I tried on it.

With it’s various bars and handles it could be used literally for dozens of body weight exercises.  It feels like a good investment of my $79.  I just wish it wasn’t made in f’ing China.

So now we will be entering the last few days before the election.  By this time next week it will all be over with.  Regardless of whom is the victor, I will be able to survive.  Unfortunately I don’t think that statement applies universally.  Hopefully more people vote with their heads and hearts and not their W-2’s. (and bibles)

Wow the pictures of the damage from Sandy are pretty horrific, especially the Atlantic City and NYC images.

The most serious of all the problems appears to be in NYC’s subway system.  The 108 year old subterranean transit grid is flooded from floor to ceiling in many areas.

If the flood water was rain water that would be a pain in the ass and serious.  However this is corrosive salt water which even after it is pumped away can have devastating effects on mechanical and electrical equipment.  I simply can not imagine the scope of headaches facing those in charge of getting the system back up and running.

In related news, Ali decided to cancel her trip to NYC to run the marathon.  Partly because of this disaster.  The likelihood of them having mass transit functional in time for this weekends marathon seems impossible.  I was very surprised that at least yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg said the marathon is still a go.  The good news is Ali will have automatic entry into next year’s race and will have plenty of time to make sure she is ready to perform at her best.  Instead she will be using the planned time off to visit her family.

Early voting started in Florida on Saturday.  The lines have been miles long with some people waiting upwards of an hour to vote.  We have an early voting location right next door and the lines snaked out the door for the majority of the day yesterday.

Part of the reason for this is the stupid, stupid decision to go backwards and utilize paper ballots.  The entire process is just slow.  They only had two people checking voters in which is far too few in a presidential election year.   Checking in requires you to hand over your drivers license while a volunteer senior citizen slowly enters your info.  Then you sign your name and they hand you a ticket that allows you to vote.

Next you go into the actual voting room where you again wait while the long 3 page ballot is printed out.  You then take that ballot to one of the flimsy tables with thin cardboard “walls” and start filling in circles like we did back in 1974.  It just seems ridiculous that we still vote this way.

Anyway I went next door first thing this morning and voted so I managed to avoid the massive lines.  I did my small part.  Hopefully it makes a difference.

Last night after work I headed out back to my bars and set a new PR in pull up reps, netting 27 reps, two more than my prior best.  It sort of came out of nowhere, I had not done more than 23 reps since I managed to get 25 reps a few months ago.

I also messed around with another pole hold that I saw done before but never tried myself.  I was surprised that I was able to hold it pretty cleanly the first time out.

I caught the tail end of the debate before hopping in the shower.  I felt uncomfortable having the two candidates so close to each other on the table, it was sort of odd. I missed Obama’s zinger where he reminded Mitt the military doesn’t use bayonets and horses any longer.  I did catch some of Mitt’s overuse of the word “tumult”.

If you were relying on the results of the last debate to make up your mind on who to vote for I suggest you go do some more research.

For instance, if you are one of those that thinks Mitt knows all about building businesses and making money, so he must be good for the economy,  I suggest you take a look at this article.  It is written by David Stockman, who was Ronald Reagan’s budget director.  You will get a thorough understanding of exactly what Bain really did to make it’s billions and why it is no blueprint for any sort of future economic plan.  Equating “building” a leverage buyout firm with a sound economic plan makes as much sense as declaring the US is going to start exporting diabetes.

So as I explained on Friday, my game plan to attend the pull up event in South Beach, despite my dog sitting for the weekend, was to leave around noon and hopefully get back around 8, rolling the dice that there would be no excrement waiting for me when I got home.

I was surprised when Friday night I got a call from my mom.  She said she wouldn’t mind driving out to the house after she was done working on Saturday so the dogs would be ok.  I hadn’t even bothered pitching this idea to her since I assumed she would not want to do it.  Of course I was thrilled with the offer, it will eliminate the poop potential.  Mom said she would just stay the night and get up early Sunday to head to work.  Sounds good to me.

Saturday morning I was up and working early.  I had the girls ride with me in the van to Ali’s place to go pick up the Camry.  Ali mentioned it was due for an oil change so I told her I would do it while she was gone.  I left the van there and took the Camry back out to the house to do the work.  In addition to changing the oil and filter I added coolant and air to the tires.  The car really could use a bath but that is an extra cost service.

I spent the rest of the morning getting as much done as I could before I was to leave for South Beach.  When I have the dogs I don’t even bother worry about cleaning until after they are gone, especially now.  Very recently, seemingly to me since Nicki started on some thyroid medicine a month ago, her coat has rapidly transformed.  It has made her fur very long, much longer than ever before.  In addition, her shedding is non-stop.  In no time at all the carpet had various black spots where Nicki had been laying down, her hair just falls out.

I also noticed that Nicki’s level of thirst since being on the thyroid medicine is drastically increased.  She was constantly at the water bowl.  I really think this is all related to the meds.  I haven’t seen positive signs from the meds, Nicki still is moving slow and obviously has joint related pain.

So I got ready to pull out for South Beach.  I packed a small bag with various items, unsure exactly what I would be doing once I got there.  I included a towel, some water, a rubber resistance band, a change of clothes, my Flip camera and some deodorant.  That should cover most foreseeable circumstances.

I fired up the SSR, dropped the top and after filling the gas tank was off to South Beach.  I had the top down for the majority of the drive.  I actually drove through a period of significant rain with the top down.  I was on a section of highway with no real place to pull off to put the roof up.  Actually, as long as you are moving at a decent speed, the wind rushing on top of the truck shields the cabin from getting soaked too badly.

I had asked Luis, one of the Barstarzz members that invited me to the event about where the best place was to park.  He said the parking garage at the building which includes a Publix, Best Buy and Staples was a good choice if you don’t mind walking a bit.  The first two hours are free and the hourly rate after that is very cheap.  Cheap parking in South Beach is non-existent normally.  Since I only had the small bag to carry I didn’t mind the walk.

I did exercise some caution with my wallet.  I opted to leave it in the truck and just carry some cash and my credit card in a velcro pocket.  I had some concerns about some shady person snatching my bag when I wasn’t paying attention at the beach.  I figured if I kept my money, credit card and truck keys on me at all times that would be the safest bet.

The walk to the beach was pretty lengthy, maybe 6 or 7 blocks.  In my flip flops it took me about 15 minutes to get to the event, which was scheduled to start around 2PM.

By the time I got there it was probably close to 2:45.  There was a big crowd gathered around the bars watching people take turns on the 15 foot tall pole mounted in the sand.

The first thing I did was look for Luis.  Luis is an older guy like me that got into bar work outs late in life.  He is the one that invited me to attend the event.  I spotted him and introduced myself.  It was cool to finally meet someone I only knew virtually up until that point.  He kind of gave me the lay of the land as far as the event goes. Mixed in with the casual exhibitions there was going to be a pull up, muscle up, dip and free style competition, cool.  I figured I should at least give the pull ups a shot.

I wore my Bar-barians shirt to the event after verifying with Luis ahead of time that it wouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t know if it would be weird to be wearing Bar-barians clothing at a Barstarzz event.  Luis assured me it was fine.  I actually didn’t leave the shirt on for very long.  95% of the guys there were shirtless so I decided to join them.  If there is ever a place to show of the fruits of your calisthenics labor, it is South Beach.

As I was walking around I saw someone I recognized.  I knew I saw a video about him on YouTube a little while ago.  He goes by the name Raven (real name Ray)

I went up to him and introduced myself. Raven is a very unique individual and not a very young man, he recently turned 62 years old.  To say Raven believes in regimens would be an understatement.  For the last 42 YEARS, he has run 8 miles, everyday, on the beach.

He started doing this in January of 1975.  From what I saw on his website, he originally made a New Years resolution to run 8 miles a day for an entire year.  Well, he never stopped from that point on.  About 5 years into his running regimen he added pull ups and other body weight exercises into his daily routine as well.

To date he has run a total of over 100,000 miles in total, just an incredible feat. However what is really amazing is when you think in detail about the reality of what this man has done.  He LITERALLY has run that 8 miles every single day since 1975.  He has run through injuries, illness, horrible weather and just about any other adversity you can imagine.

As I talked to him I asked what was his biggest injury issue.  He said it was his back, at certain points he could barely get out of bed but he still put his 8 miles in.

Raven actually invited me to join him, a lot of people now run with him, at 5:30 at the 5th street lifeguard station.  If I knew about it ahead of time I may have packed some running gear and done it.  Instead I took a rain check and filed it away under the “to do’s” the next time I am in South Beach.

Raven was there because he wanted to take part of the pull up competition.

So the pull up contest eventually started.  As others made their attempt I tried my best to get loose.  Raven went before I did and knocked out 21 pull ups although his elbows were at 90 degrees at the bottom of his reps, a less than ideal range of motion.  There were varying degrees of correctness in the form many people used.  Some even used chin up grip for some reps. No one made a big stink though since they weren’t doing enough reps to win anyway.

Finally it was my turn to go, I might have been the 8th or 9th person to get on the bar.  At that point the most amount of reps was 22, which I knew on a good day was within my wheel house since my PR is 25.  I grabbed on to the highest of the three bars and started pulling.

I tried to keep my form very clean with my legs straight, feet together and using good extension at the bottom while making sure I was getting chin high at the top.  My pace was pretty quick and explosive early on, I got to rep 18 before I had to pause.  I managed to squeeze out 5 more reps to become the temporary leader with 23 reps.  It was kind of cool to have a big crowd cheering me on as I squeezed out the last few reps. I wish I gave someone my Flip to shoot video of the reps.  There was someone filming the entire event so I know my set is on film somewhere.  Hopefully I can find it.

As I was there a tall young guy came up to me and said hi.  His name is Max.  Max reminded me that a couple years ago he and I were communicating back and forth about exercise stuff.  Once he described the communication I remembered him but I still would have blanked on his name.

Max is almost the exact same height as I am, he is also 22 or 23 years younger than me.  Despite his long build he has been able to really do some high level stuff as far as body weight movements go, much more advanced than I have gotten.

Unfortunately Max also has had a ton of injuries along the way, despite his young age.  He actually was currently suffering from what sounds like a pretty serious shoulder injury.  In addition, during our talks he described a myriad of other injuries he has gone through.  Max is real focused and intense when it comes to achieving a goal once he sets it in his mind.

I talked to Max quite a bit, he seems like a real cool kid.  He lives in the Miami area, we exchanged email and phone numbers.  We agreed we should get together and work out once he heals up.

One of the other people I was looking for at the event was a woman I know primarily as “Low Bar”.  She is one of the few women that are actively involved in bar exercise.  She is from NYC and is familiar with the various bar groups there, including the Bar-barians.  She had flown down for the event.

I was periodically scanning the crowd for her but she was nowhere to be seen.  She showed up a little later.  I gave her a hug and welcomed her to Florida.  From the picture you can see why she is nick named Low Bar as she is less than 5 feet tall.

I sat next to her while the freestyle competition was going on.  I shot most of the video I took during the freestyle part of the competition.  You can see it below.

So the event started winding down around 6:30.  I was planning to simply walk back to the SSR and start the 2 plus hour drive home.  Low Bar asked me if I wanted to grab food with her cousin and her.  Since I had mom in place to tend to the dogs I said sure.

Before I left I found Luis and thanked him again for inviting me to the event.  It was a lot of fun to be around that kind of positive energy.  I should invite the Barstarzz guys to hit my backyard bar park, that would be quite the scene.

I got in on the group picture before I left.

So we walked towards Ocean Drive and picked a spot to eat, thinking we would just eat out in the sidewalk seating area.  Instead the hostess directed us inside to eat, um ok.  Well this place, called Mangos, evidently is also a night/dance club.  We were seated directly underneath a speaker that was blaring loud dance music.  It didn’t take long until I got up and asked the hostess if we could eat outside instead because of the noise.  She accommodated us but let me know there was a certain line in the sidewalk that I had to keep my chair behind.  No problem.

We had a good dinner.  Even with being outside it was still kind of loud, I had a hard time making out what Low Bar’s cousin was saying at times because of the noise and her strong Fillipino accent.

One thing that is nice eating outside is you get a nonstop stream of “interesting” people to look at.  Some of the fashion decisions that were on display were pretty mind blowing. After our meal we walked back towards the hotel they were staying at.  Once we hit 5th street I peeled off and started the long walk to the parking garage after giving them both hugs goodbye.

The drive back across the alley was a bit treacherous at times with some torrential downpours, including one I walked through to get to the front door of the rest stop.  You can see my level of drenching in the picture.

I  pulled into the driveway about 10:30.  After letting the dogs out (mom was already in bed), I took a shower and crashed into bed.  I was quite tired.

You can imagine the joy I felt when at 2:20 am I hear Nicki crying by the door.  I assumed that meant she had to go to the bathroom.  Well at least she is letting me know.  Well the funny thing was the first thing she did when I opened the bedroom door was go lay in front of my mom’s door.  I called her over and went out back.  She did a number two and a one so I despite my being delirious with exhaustion, I preferred that to waking up at 7am to the smell of shit on the floor. Unfortunately afterward I had a very difficult time falling back asleep.

Mom was up early, crazy early to get ready for work.  She wanted her alarm set at 5AM.  Well it didn’t take long for the dogs to realize there was something going on in the main living area.  They decided to wake me up a little after 6am, oh well.

So I told mom about my time on the east coast.  As we were talking I realized this was the first time mom has set foot in the house since Ali and I separated.  In fact, mom said it was the first time she has been at the house since last CHRISTMAS.  When she first said that I was sure she was wrong but as I thought about it I couldn’t remember any other visits.  It seemed impossible that so much time had passed so quickly.  My life does feel like a bit of a blur the last 6 months or so.

Mom was the first person to sleep in the bed Jeremy donated to me.  She said the bed was comfortable although she said she slept terribly.  I wouldn’t credit that to the bed though, almost every time mom stays at the house she reports poor sleeping results.  The deviation from her routine must through her for a loop.

So mom got ready and headed out around seven for work.  I thanked her again for her dog sitting, it was nice to not have to be constantly checking my watch when I was over in South Beach.

So despite a severe lack of sleep I decided I needed to get some running in for Mudder training.  I drove to the now closed for the season water park to run around.  My initial hope was to do four laps around the outside of the park which would add up to 8 miles.

The skies were overcast which made running early on pretty bearable.  As I got to the halfway point my right knee was feeling pretty shitty.  Each stride had an accompanying ping of soreness associated with it.  I decided to only do 3 laps instead of 4, finishing the 6 miles in 55 minutes and change, not a great pace but ok.  I figured running the last 2 miles wasn’t worth it if I was really hurting.  When I got home I iced the knee and it actually doesn’t feel too bad today.

Well that Eagles game was a bummer.  I actually was so tired I was half asleep for nearly 3 quarters of the game.  I was awake when Vick fumbled another two times.  His turnover problems are a real big deal.  Obviously opposing teams realize that the best way to beat the Eagles is to pressure Vick.  When this happens he makes a lot of poor decisions and he’s not good at protecting the ball.

Despite the turnovers the Eagles actually grabbed their first lead late in the game.  The drive that got them the lead had the opportunity to be a HUGE fail for Andy.  For some reason he decided to go completely against the book and go for it on 4th down with over 10 minutes left in the game on his OWN 30 yard line, a huge risk.  Luckily the Eagles converted by a few inches but man, he would have been crucified if they didn’t.

So anyway, the drive was very long, covering 17 plays resulting in a 14-13 lead.  All that was left was for the defense to hold the Steelers with a couple minutes left on the clock and the game could be secured.  Well obviously it didn’t happen.  The biggest fail was when the Eagles had the Steelers pinned back on their side of the field facing a 3rd and 12.  Instead of dealing the knockout blow, they played a soft zone that allowed a 20 yard completion.  Once that happened I knew they were done.

The Steelers proceeded to march down the field easily and kicked a game winning field goal with three seconds left.

It was a disappointing ending for sure but I think the bigger news is Mike Vick’s torrid turnover pace. The amount of times he has turned the ball over thus far this season is staggering.  He will obliterate the league record at this pace. Hopefully Andy is smart enough to eventually realize that either Vick has to take care of the ball better or someone else has to start taking the snaps.

Ali ran the Chicago Marathon yesterday, the reason I was watching the dogs for the weekend.  She had much cooler temps to run in this year, hovering around 50 which for me, would be ideal.  Ali prefers warmer air.  She managed to finish a couple minutes ahead of last year’s time but had a lot of struggles, especially the last 10 miles of the race.  She said her entire lower body was just in severe pain.

The good news or bad news, depending on how you look at it, is she gets to take another whack at the marathon distance in a month as she is signed up for the NYC marathon.

After the Eagle game I had enough daylight left to go out and hop on the tractor.  Once again it was not running smoothly, acting like there is still some ethanol slime in the fuel system.  I will need to find some additive that will dissolve the shit.  I never like doing chores at the tail end of the weekend but it felt good to get the grass done.

You know when I run, at least when I run by myself, lots of random thoughts go through my head.  As I was running Sunday my mind drifted to to the topic of people that spend a lot of energy screaming about “entitlements” and how they are ruining the country.  I then thought about the hypocrisy that many of these exact same people are responsible for parenting the most “entitled” generation in US history.

These people that are so eager to cut seniors medical or social security benefits are the same people that think it necessary to equip their child with a one digit age with the latest and greatest iDevice.  They feel it is important that they have some sort of video screen stimulation in front of their child’s face  most waking moments of the day.  Their child should not be made to suffer the cruel punishment of having to actually look out a window during a road trip and look at scenery.

These are the people that see nothing wrong with their child receiving a medal when their soccer team gets last place.  After all, children should be taught early on that no matter how hard they do or don’t work, they will be rewarded.  I mean wtf, how can parents complain about an entitled society when they parent in such a manner that does nothing but encourage that mentality?

I literally laugh out loud when I see bumper stickers were parents proclaim their child had a perfect dental check up.  Good job Sally, way to go Petey!

Their children are being raised in a bubble.  No one is allowed to yell at them, nobody should ever treat them unfairly, they are not allowed to endure hardship or struggle to attain a goal.  It is just handed to them.

You see, as much as failure hurts, it is an absolutely essential part of life.  If you are never allowed to fail you don’t ever appreciate or even know what true success is.

Maybe more people in the country need to go on solo runs so they can come to these type of revelations on their own.  Don’t talk it if you don’t walk it.

I saw this quote floating around Facebook and it struck me as so true.

So after leaving work early I headed to the site of the race.  When I got there I unloaded and set up what I could and once the club’s truck arrived  we dug into setting up everything else.  I fully expected a lot of headaches with this race on my end based on history.  History did indeed repeat itself.

The registration area got very chaotic, very quickly.  We had problems with teams coming up with email confirmations showing they registered for the race yet for some reason I did not have them in the system.  We also had teams that supposedly mailed in entries with checks that were MIA.  There was a long period of time where Ali and I were just slammed non-stop with problems.  We did the only thing we could do, handle them one at a time.

I had to leave Ali alone to handle the mess for the last 15 minutes before the start of the race so I could set up the timing equipment at the start and finish lines.  This was the first time I used the four new timing mats the club bought for the start line, they seemed to do a better job at detecting the huge volume of runners at the start than the 5 year old mats they replaced.

The actual timing of the race went smoothly after getting past the hectic pre-race scene.  I found myself developing a rather large headache towards the end.  I am not sure of it was from the race or from being dehydrated, I was sweating my ass off.

I worked on all of the post race duties right up to bedtime, I wanted it all done and put away.

So yesterday I was browsing Facebook and I saw mention of a pull up event in South Beach on Saturday held by Bar Starzz.  Bar Starrz is another body weight enthusiast group, like the Bar-barians.  When I looked closer I saw that I actually had been invited to the event awhile back by Luis, a fellow 40 + year old that is part of their group.  I somehow missed the invite.

Well anyway, I saw the event actually has people coming from quite a distance to attend, including some people from NYC that I am FB friends with.  Wow it would be cool to meet all these people.  I saw Luis on FB chat and told him I was going to try to make it over there.

Later in the day I realized there was a complication.  I totally forgot that Ali was gone this weekend.  She is doing the Chicago Marathon again.  That means I have dog duty.

Well after initially thinking it would cause me to miss this opportunity I reconsidered.  It doesn’t start until 2pm which means I can leave around noon, spend 3-4 hours there and get back around 8-9. Worst case scenario is I have a smelly welcome home present and I will have the Spot Bot on hand in that event.  The dogs would be given a free poop pass in that situation.

My left wrist and elbow are both injured to varying degrees but I think I am willing to just pop some Advil and deal with it.  It should be a fun time. The SSR will be utilized for the coast to coast and back again trip, adding to the fun quotient.

I am sure the rest of the weekend will have plenty of more mundane items to consume what is left of it.

Ali forwarded this to me.  It seems that the general consensus is that Mitt was the winner of the first debate based on his aggressive attitude and one liners that seemed locked and loaded almost before Obama would even stop speaking.  Now what would you think if I told you that part of reason was because Mitt had a cheat sheet in front of him?

One of the rules of these debates are candidates are not allowed any aids in front of them.  They are given a blank sheet of paper to make notes on once the debate begins, that’s it.  Otherwise they are supposed to rely simply on their command of the issues.

Well the video makes it clear as day that Mitt pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket as he approached the podium, perhaps thinking that all of the cameras in the room were facing him and would not be able to catch his trickery.

I find this funny and pathetic at the same time.  Wonder if he will fess up to this one or not?

So last night I was working on putting entries in for the race I am timing today and my cell phone rings.  I see it is my neighbor from across the street.  He told me he was on the road but had just gotten a call from his wife that their one rear sliding door exploded.  She was freaked out and was scared somebody shot at her or something.  He asked if I could run over there until he got home.  I said of course, and headed right over.

I was a bit nervous when I knocked on the front door and no one answered.  I then went around the back onto their lanai when Carol came out.  I saw the shattered glass, it sure look like it had been shot.  However a quick inspection of the screen around the pool cage showed no rips or tears where a projectile could have entered.  Also the curtain behind the slider was intact.

Carol said when it happened she was literally sitting right next to the slider, it understandably scared her to death.  She had already called the police.  The police showed up, a full three cars worth, a minute or two before my neighbor got back home.  When we described what happened the first thing they did was ask how old the house was. (16 years old)

They said this actually is something they have seen multiple times, especially with older construction.  The single pane glass eventually fatigues.  This process is amplified by the difference in outdoor Florida heat and humidity and the chilly indoor temps many people keep their AC cranked down to.  Having one side of the glass hot and the other cold, over time, with older glass, can result in the implosion like my neighbor saw last night.

I asked my neighbor if he wanted any help with the clean up process or sealing the hole temporarily, there was glass everywhere.  He said he would be fine so I headed back across the street to continue my race prep.

Last night in addition to my salad and veggie wrap, I decided to cook some broccoli.  My cooking abilities are extremely handicapped.  Not because I can’t do it, just because I never had to do it.

I had prepared some broccoli a couple times recently by nuking it in the microwave.  It was edible but not much beyond that.  Well on the way home I called my mom to ask for broccoli stove top prep instructions. After all the less nuking of food I do, the better.

Mom said prep was pretty straightforward.  You basically dump some water in a pot with the broccoli, add some salt and bring it to a boil.  Once it boils you turn off the burner and cover the pot, letting the broccoli cook in the steam/hot water.

I was quite pleased with the end result, broccoli came out much better than my previous nuked attempts.  Broccoli is the second item that I discovered comes out much better when cooked conventionally.  Gortons grilled tilapia was the first.  Gordon Ramsey better look out.

After I finished all the prep for the race I am timing this evening it was almost 9pm.  I decided to flip on the debate as I was folding laundry in the bedroom, despite my intentions to not even bother watching it as I knew all it would do is deepen my disappointment in the American political system.

The actual words that came out of the two men’s mouths were pretty predictable, with a lot of “you did this”, “you said that” and lots of  loose “facts” that were meant to discredit the other.  However I focused more on other aspects of the debate, a lot of non-verbal things.

Mitt’s eyes looked like he came off the set of Walking Dead, bloodshot and tired.  It was interesting how Mitt chose to direct his comments towards Obama as opposed to the camera.  Likewise it was interesting how Obama for the most part spent the majority of the time Mitt was speaking with his head down, taking notes. Conversely, most of the time Obama was talking Mitt had a ridiculous looking grin on his face that to me, came off as very disrespectful.  I have little doubt that both candidates had planned this body language ahead of time.

I felt bad for the moderator for whom the most part got stomped on by both men who repeatedly ignored the efforts to keep their answers within the time constraints laid out for the debate.  He would ask them to stop talking and the candidates rambled on, acting like there was a ghost in the room.

Tonight I have an oddball Thursday evening.  I go straight from work to time the club’s only evening run of the year.  This race is typically a bit of a mess since there are tons of exercise novices and children that participate.  They aren’t familiar with a race environment so typically there are tons of human related errors that pop up for the event.

On the way home from work the other day I saw an AC service truck driving around with this on it’s back window. (Send the Commie back to Kenya)  I thought this was idiotic.

Not only did the guy immediately identify himself as one of the masses of “lightly informed” (my polite word for stupid) that prefer to make their political decisions on one liners and lemming mentality, he also identified himself as a very poor businessman.

I mean as someone that does business with the general public, why would you want to annoy and piss off at least half of your potential customer base with something like this on your work vehicle?

If I needed AC repair desperately and this guy lived right next door to me, I wouldn’t call him.  If he is dumb enough to throw this on his window, I question his ability to fix my AC in an efficient manner.

Last night I returned to yoga and again I was teamed up with the only guy in the room on a partner stretch.  I thought I adequately insulated myself from this occurring by positioning myself on the opposite side of the room that he was.  However the instructor slapped us together because of height and the stretch we were doing.

This partner stretch was even worse than the last time.  The bottom person was on their back with the soles of their feet together and hips spread so your legs formed a psuedo-diamond shape.  The top person stood at the bottoms head and then leaned over the person, pressing their hands into the bottoms inner thighs while the bottom held the tops ankles.

Once ankle grip was established, the top person walked their legs back to stretch out the bottom.  It was basically a 69 position with about a 18-24 inch buffer.  I kept my eyes closed for most of it.

I also made the mistake of wearing one of my baggy XL cotton t-shirts to class last night.  Not only was it falling over my face constantly, it also turned into a big, wet, smelly sweat sponge in short order.  A form fitting dri-fit shirt is what I will be sticking with from here on out.

This morning I had the basal cell skin cancer burned and scraped off my back.  In total the procedure literally took less than 5 minutes.  Ironically, the most painful part of it is the injection of the pain numbing stuff which burns like a son of a bitch.  So unless something new pops up on my skin I should be good to go for another 6 months.

I always enjoy spotting oddities at the gym.  Yesterday was one of those days.  In the free weight area was a  guy that looked like he was trying to cut weight.  He had on sweat pants, a sweat shirt and a knit beanie.  When I walked in I thought it was odd that his “exercise” seemed to be laying on the bench press with his Iphone above him, pressed against the barbell, texting.  He was laying on the bench for a long time doing this, lasting beyond my normal pre-workout stretching session.

Eventually he got up, walked over to the squat rack, did about 8 squats and then immediately returned to the bench and texting on his back. He continued this cycle of laying on the bench for 5-6 minutes combined with 25 seconds of exercise multiple times.  His ratio of exercise to rest/texting seemed totally out of whack.  Luckily I didn’t need the squat rack yesterday.

Yesterday Ali took Sadie into the vet to get her teeth cleaned.  Sadie has an issue with her teeth getting nasty.  We had her teeth cleaned once before a couple years ago.  Luckily Nicki doesn’t seem to have the same dental misfortune.

Cleaning a dog’s teeth is a bit of a pain in the ass and somewhat risky.  The vet has to totally knock the dog out to do it.  There are always dangers with anesthesia.  Once the cleaning is over it takes a couple hours until the dog is awake enough to take home.

When we had this done before Ali was quite upset because Sadie literally looked like she was dead when she first came out, which is a normal anesthesia look, but disturbing none the less.

After the gym I went over to the vet’s office for about 45 minutes to help Sadie wake up.  It’s funny how disoriented she was at first.  By the time I left she was close to being ready to go.  Ali snapped this cute picture of Nicki looking over Sadie shortly after she came out.  They are such good buddies.

Oh man the political rhetoric is getting insane, made worse by the party conventions being in prime time.  I had my first FB friend casualty as a result, I just couldn’t take the ranting and hypocrisy any longer.  It’s been a long time since I did some FB housecleaning anyway, I have a feeling the 2012 election will give me ample motivation to do more of it.

Last night I was quite busy, stopping at Trader Joe’s and Sam’s on the way home from work to stock up on a few items.  Once home I tried to lessen the weekend load by cleaning Tuki’s cage, doing laundry and watering all of the indoor plants.

Tomorrow I will be timing a large cross country meet.  Timing these events is significantly more involved than timing a normal 5K.  Instead of one race, it is 4 races. Each race starts 40 minutes apart so I need to be quick with processing the results of each event as well.  It’s a challenge, but I’m always looking for those anyway.

On Sunday I might be driving over to pick up some stuff from Jeremy.

Next week will be an oddball.  I am training from home all week long.  Later next week Ali heads back up north so I will be the full time dog sitter for a few days as well.  It’s always good to break up the normal monotony of my work week although sometimes sitting in a “classroom” environment for 5 days straight can get old pretty quick.

Regardless of my class experience it will definitely be nice to “work” from home for a week.

Well I wasn’t happy when I looked at last night’s election results.  The guy that spent 150k won by a 2-1 margin and the guy that attached signs to my truck won as well.  One result illustrated the power of money and the other the iron grasp of the local good ole boy network (and an old, uninformed voting public that just votes for whomever they voted for last time)

I really wish I could time warp to January 2013 (if the world still exists) to bypass what is sure to be just a horribly negative presidential campaign that will do more to divide the country than anything else, regardless of who wins.

It’s all about redirecting the focus of the masses.  You get them fighting each other and then the people that are truly in control are able to play their games without anyone noticing.  It is satanically brilliant.

I am already so tired of seeing all the political fodder fly about.  My conservative friends seem to solely focus on the leeching aspect of society.  The people that simply work the system and spend their lives feeding off of programs that allow them to exist without working for it. I have equal disdain for this practice and think this element of society should not exist.

I am also a realist.  The quick and easy answer that conservatives will give you for people that are receiving some sort of assistance from state or local government is “get a job!”  I have to laugh at how easily that rolls of their tongue and it is a clear clue that they don’t have any first hand experience of what the job market today actually is.

The white picket fence mentality really bothers me here.  “everything is ok in my little world so if it isn’t ok in your world, too bad”  Even though I have been gainfully employed my entire life and not received any sort of government financial support I still have compassion for others not as fortunate.

I am not willing to tell old people that if they can’t afford to pay their living expenses or medical bills, “tough shit, guess you should hurry up and die.”  If a long time employee of a company is cut loose through no fault of his own in a move to pad corporate bottom lines I wouldn’t tell him “too bad, so sad, I heard Wal-mart is looking for greeters”

Yes I expect anyone that is down on their luck to attempt to stand back up, and keep doing so.  Government assistance should not be looked at as a permanent solution to anything.  Yes I know there are plenty out there that view government as their “parent” that hands out an allowance as a reward for doing nothing.  These people suck, plain and simple.

But I am not willing to cut out the legs of the millions that are in true need of help because I hate the leeches.  Many of my conservative counterparts think that is exactly the course of action we should take and then we just deal with the consequences.  Hopefully they don’t mind shoveling the bodies off the street in front of their pretty white fence.  It would obstruct their view.

Moveon.org always does a nice job of breaking things down into easily digestable chunks.  Here are some Paul Ryan blurbs that may further illustrate why his selection is so disturbing. Click the link at the bottom if you want more info.

But to be clear, no matter whom is president we are all f’d until money is removed as the primary decider in the electoral and legislative process.  The odds of that happening, nill.