Day 0: The Packing

The time between leaving work and getting on the plane to Taiwan constitutes approximately 30 hours. While not part of "the trip", per se, it is the first part of vacation, much of which will involve things like packing and shaving and the like. Thus, the second I walk out the door our vacation starts in some nebulous and technical way. I don't feel like I'm on a cross world odyssey as I stand here in Penn Station NY. But that doesn't mean I haven't taken the first step to trot the globe. A wise Asian guy once said, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

Actually I have no idea who said what, nor do I know what that guy may have actually said. Point being, one step at a time, hot pants. I'm sure a wise Asian guy once said, "Hey let's add some peanuts to this kung pow chicken. I bet it will rock." He was right, peanuts in kung pow chicken do rock. I can also assure you that no self-respecting Asian chef would stoop so low as to put celery in his kung pow chicken.

Day 0 will be the getting ready, the trip prep. Don't expect things to get too exciting just yet, though I may pop a beer tonight. I will do my best to keep this as close to real time as possible. Like I said before, computers are ubiquitous in Taiwan and my BB will work there, in theory. These posts will probably be a bit longer than my usual flash-in-the-pan style, assuming I have time to write every day.

Day 1 will be the flight, which will cover about 24 hours of our life but 36 hours of "clock". We leave the house Saturday at 7:30 pm and get to Taiwan close to 7:00 am Monday. We lose 12 hours because they're ahead of us by that much. At the same time, day 14 will be my last day there as well as the flight back. I leave 6:00 Saturday night and return by 9:00 Saturday night. So I get my 12 hours back then.

Days 2-13 will be on the ground, the bulk of the vacation. I think we're looking at Taipei for 4 days, Lotung for 2, back to Taipei that Sunday to spend the day with my MTBNJ teammate Nelson. Then it's free-form for the next 5 days though I suspect we'll be back in Lotung much of that week. Figure a solid 50-50 split between the 2 places. Those of you interested in the actual location can find a map of Taiwan and see Taipei up north. Ilan is in the Northeast and Lotung is just south of that. Maybe that gives you a mental image of where we are as you read along and wonder where in the world is Norman Sandiego. I would link a map but it's hard to find the time and all.

There ya go, the pregame outlook of what to expect. I have to admit, despite all of my hand wringing in the post this morning I'm totally psyched to go. A little fearful? Yes. But it's an adventure. Why do I sign up for 24 hour bike races? Same story, to take life by the feet and hang it upside down a bit. The flight will be tough, but it has a payoff on the other end that we're excited to cash in on. Coming back won't be fun. I've never gone without seeing my baby for much more than 24 hours and I won't see her for 14 1/2 days, which is going to be a little depressing. At the same time, I should have a new bike waiting for me on the flip side. So I can cuddle with that and read it stories at night if I need to.

With that, the story begins...

Brooklyn Chocolate stout in fridge. Shave. Dinner. Clean kitchen. Start packing. Make decaf. Call parents. Laundry. Watch Mickey Mouse. Drink beer. Send team email. Enjoy beer to the point that nothing else got done.

Friday night now, 10:55 pm. We've managed to stretch Julia out that she stays up until 11:00 at night which is going to be key for our 10:10 flight. We should be up in the air and at cruising altitude by the time she's ready to sleep. Then we're hoping she pounds out a mostly solid 6 hours of sleep before our Anchorage layover. I don't think that will go over that well but it is what it is. After that the remainder of the flight will play out as it plays out. We will sleep when she sleeps and she will sleep when she wants to.

The reality of the trip is setting in now. This is always a big vacation and with child it's even more so. For no good reason neither of us is afraid of the flight now. I don't know why since it makes absolutely no sense. But we both think she's going to do just fine on the plane. We're both worried about the jet lag and how that's going to play out. I have no reasonable guess on that to be honest.

We're way ahead of the game right now. Mostly done packing and a whole day tomorrow to tie up loose ends, of which there are several. But nothing that can't be had before we roll at 7:30. For now, time to get 1 night of decent sleep while I still have the chance.

Saturday afternoon, 2:00 pm. The official pre-vacation weigh-in comes in at 186, so that's what I'll measure against when I get back. Hoping to keep it under 190 for the trip. Taking a breather right now and having a cup of coffee, 2/3 Sumatra and 1/3 India Monsoon. If push came to shove we could be ready to go inside an hour so we're in good shape. Dropped the GPS and trainer off at the UPS store to return both. Nat went out for her errands. Everything is coming together.

Got some exercise on the trainer this morning while Nat was out. Then I packed it up. The grandparents came for a last visit. My mom is bummed she won't see her for a month. Nothing remarkable today, which is exactly what you want. The weather is rough so that could monkey wrench the flight. Put in a new headlight bulb on the Jetta. All good, all good.

Not much else to report right so I won't make this laborious. Going to sit back and enjoy the next 2 hours of relative peace while Julia winds down and gets ready for her nap. She eventually went down at 3:15. We're hoping she naps until 5:00. Then we finish packing and we're ready. I just submitted the team jersey design files. That should be wrapped up in 2 weeks and then it will go to press. Still debating all the bike accessories or not. Do I bring a helmet or try to find one?

I'm going to call this a wrap on Day 0. It's only 4:45 but the next 3 hours will probably go fast. So I may not get a chance to publish before I walk out the door. The toughest part of the trip is up. Day 1: The Flight. Wish us luck.

Out Of Office Automatic Reply

I am currently out of the office, beginning on March 8 and returning on March 24. In my absence, if you need assistance please either stand under a cold shower until I get back, or jump out the window and scream Geronimo!

Sometimes I really wish I could put shit like that in my OOO auto-reply when I go on vacation. I just checked the weather for Taipei and it looks swell, rain or at least scattered showers for the next 7 days. But you know what? I'll be on vacation. And last time I checked they don't stop making food when it rains. So bring it on bitches!

Oh and this is what our seats looks like. Not bad. I think they server beer so worst comes to worst

Taiwan Expectations

This was going to be a bike post but drifted into a Taiwan post. The following paragraph is the biking content. After that, Taiwan.

Incessant pounding is what I feel like I'm doing to myself right now. Another 4:30 alarm and another hour of pre-dawn beatings. One more day of work, then we have all day tomorrow to get ready to go. It will be 7:30 before you know it tomorrow and off to the airport. At some point I'll get on some bike before we leave. I was hoping for the road but they're saying rain all day.

It's looking like I won't have any access to a bike for almost a week over there. This vacation is shaping up to be not what I hoped for at all. No bike, no day trips, no plans. All for $5000! My in-laws have bailed on flying over with us so it's now 20+ hours of flight with just the 2 of us to entertain Julia. At this point I'm absolutely sure to have a blast because my expectations are gone.

I have these extremely fond memories of our first trip to Taiwan. We had our own apartment in Taipei for 2 weeks. We had a place to stay in Lotung when we wanted. When we woke up we could walk out into the neighborhood at dawn and find all sorts of little shops making breakfast food. Breakfast is awesome there, just awesome. We had all sorts of relatives to show us all over the area. It was a perfect trip. By far that was the best vacation I had ever been on.

The trip the following year wasn't as good, for whatever reason. We had seen all the same things the year before, so none of it was new. My expectations were really high which of course hurts any experience you have because a mental construction is damn near impossible to live up to. It was still a good trip, but just not the same.

Now we've lost the apartment. We're not free to go to Lotung until the following week because Nat's parents are being weird. We'll be staying in a business-mall-type area which doesn't afford you the same ability to wake up and wander the streets at dawn. We're obviously saddled with a nap in the middle of every day which limits our mobility. And it's entirely possible I'll be sleeping on a couch for half the trip. The Salad Days have passed, for sure.

It's a lot of expectations and memories at play here. I had some minimum set of expectations and was actually getting excited about the trip but then yesterday another set of restrictions was thrown at me. So it all fell away again and I've almost given up at this point. I spent the last 12 hours wrapping my head around what we can and can't do. I haven't quite come to terms to what it practically means yet. But I have a whole sleep-deprived day at work to get there.

In the end I'm sure it will be cool, if not a bit more limited than I would like. Some of that is because of Julia and I understand that and, of course, wouldn't trade her for the world let alone a vacation of freedom. Aside from the flight there which plain and simply is going to suck, it will more than likely be fun with food and food and food. One of my main objectives is to get my food on, and my brother-in-law is a few inches shorter than me and roughly 35 pounds heavier. So he's got my back on that count. With the bike, I'm wrapping my head around taking a week off then getting some miles in down in Lotung once we get there. Not ideal, but it will have to do.

I'm sure you'll hear all about it in the coming weeks. One thing I probably won't lack is some idle time (daily naps) and a computer (this BB was probably made in Taiwan). Hopefully I can post some pics as well.

"What are you preparing? You're always preparing. Just go!" -Dark Helmet

I Got Served

Some guy shows up at our house tonight and serves us with house forclosure papers. For real? Wait, for real?

Come on, it's all the rage to foreclose these days. It's hip, almost as popular as the goatee.

So it's for Caroline Zurawski on a property in Bayonne. There were 3 names and 12 addresses that were served. What kind of piece of shit law firm spams people with court papers? How irresponsible. Dick heads.

I have no idea who this person is. The guy said to just call the firm and explain it's not you. Sounds easy enough but with exactly 1 day to go before our trip this is obnoxious. This to me says that your government is not working. When firms can randomly serve court papers based on absolutely no evidence something is wrong with your society, your government.

Still, I got served. Damn.

Aaaaaaand I'm Spent

Yes it's an Austin Powers quote. Incidentally, the trailer for the new Mike Meyers movie could just as soon be Austin Powers 4: The Love Guru.

I got it, the white elephant. Nobody was even close. I just took a random stab at something and got a little lucky. But that's the way it goes. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. In the end all that matters is that we got it.

But now I'm spent. On to the next spreadsheet.

Waiting Elephant

My last 12 hours have been a rough ride, figuratively. Nat took off at 6:45 for a birthday celebration for one of her mom-friends. The expression "mom-friend" is understood by people with kids. It translates to, "A person I would have otherwise never known had it not been for these meddling kids." She guessed she would be gone for 2 hours. 3 hours later she was still out.

Normally that's fine, since Julia doesn't go to bed until 10 most days anyway. Right now we're encouraging her to slide that time later so we can get her used to Taiwan time. But she has this thing now where she starts to melt down at 9:30 and she needs a lot of attention. That's cool, right? I can do that, provide attention. I fed her, cleaned her up, gave her a bath, got her PJs on, watched her show with her, gave her medicine, played puzzles, and brushed her teeth. I'm ok, no sweat, right?

Well of course work has a meltdown, totally and utterly melted down. We have this shoddy web-based non-production grade file reporting system that STB once a week and decided that last night it was going to do it again. So when they called at 6:15, I told them to do what they always do. Recycle entire system, rinse, repeat, have a nice day, and don't forget to wash behind your ears.

I hear nothing for almost 3 hours. So I call in when Julia is destroying some sort of organization and they tell me they recycled and the user is in transit home and there's nothing to report and thanks for calling. Oh and yes we washed behind our ears, thank you very much.

Then at 9:30 Julia starts her meltdown and I give her attention. Work calls, still a problem. I'm open and honest in saying, "Look, I've got my daughter, I can't get on a conference call right now." Them: Fine. Me: Fine.

Fine.

They call again. I resist the urge to have a meltdown of my own.

Finally Nat gets home at 10. I call in. They call. I call. No fucking clue what the problem is. The user doesn't care. He gets on the phone and says we can do it tomorrow. Why are we so apeshit if the user doesn't care? Why does the world need to friggin melt down if the user doesn't care? I can't wait to move on at times like this.

I get to bed at 11:30. I wake up at 4:45. I pound out an hour of pain on the trainer and catch the last 15 minutes of the 1975 classic (read: shitty movie) Race with the Devil (note: the "good guys" all die at the end - seriously) then get showered up and ready for work. Then I have my solitary moment of peace for the day. This happens between 6:25 and 6:30. Here is how it goes. I sit down with my coffee, black, remember. This current cup is a blend of 2/3 Brazilian and 1/3 pungent Indian Monsoon coffee. Just me and the cup, pure bliss. And I have my sandwich. One slice of multi-grain bread with all the seeds and so on, toasted. On top of that 1/3 of a Florida avocado, sliced. A bit of salt, then a slice of marbled cheddar cheese. On top of that a pan-fried egg.

I love this breakfast. I have some variation of it almost every morning. It is so goddamn good words do nothing to relay the awesomeness of this one item of culinary perfection to the reader. Yesterday I proclaimed that whoever invented breakfast is a fucking genius. I enjoy this in my 5 minute window of solitude where nothing disrupts me. Me, my coffee, and my sandwich. Solitude, silence, and utter bliss.

And still "it" awaits me. The problem, the crap system, the users, the coworkers, the incessant nagging at work. The train is quiet right now, a rare treat in this day and age of Every Dick Bag Has a Cell Phone. The sun is out, the day was clean and crisp this morning. It felt good. And yet, the White Elephant is there, waiting. Always waiting.

Wish me luck.

A Bike Appears

Forgive me if this turns out to be a total shit post which is all mangled and whatnot. I'm posting this directly into Blogger from my newfangled state of the fart Blackberry. So it may get all mangled which would make it newfanlged and mangled.

Nat's cousin has a bike I can use while I'm there. We're both guessing that it doesn't suck based on who he is, basically a reasonably young and in shape guy. So we figure he won't buy a POS bike. Well, hoping as much as guessing. But whatever, wheels are wheels. Brakes are brakes.

This was posted in the Summit train station. Now I'm going to try some html stuff you can feel free to ignore. Oh and this shit won't be spell checked either so my spelling skilz will be front and center.

Html italics
html bold

Edit: The html tags work in the mobile version. So I can bust out a link like this now.

Honk if you're hogging!

I Can't Stop

http://www.americablog.com/2008/03/why-is-obamas-skin-blacker-than-normal.html

How can you vote for this racist pig?

Love this headline on Yahoo today: Clinton hints at shared ticket

Oh give me a fucking break.

House Hogging

When I come down off my political ranting I'm left with everything else that matter. As Adams called it, life, the universe, and everything. That's what really matters anyway. The presidential election matters as much to most people as that male stripper on American Idol or Roger Clemens. I can't say I blame people. Entertainment is what keeps you sane so I no longer hold it against people who choose to reject politics.

ChrisG

"Dood, I'd be so down with moving to hillier environs, but it would be tough to pull it off in NJ. We bought our house in Fall 1993, when the market was really good to us, and then re-fied in 2003, when rates were stupid-low. So now I have only ten years left on my mortgage, and the house is worth more than twice what we paid for it. If we sell, we're taking our bag o' cash and heading to western North Carolina. I'll get a job teaching HS or JC English, and Christine will learn to serve lattes at the local Starbucks or something. As interesting as this scenario is to us, it won't be happening, since we're not down with moving so far away from the families. I live a little over a mile from the ocean and barely care most of the time. Oh well."

If you move to NC I'm going to hunt you down and chain you in my basement. I hear ya on NJ housing though. The housing market blows right now and I don't think you can reasonably move unless you're ok with taking a loss. People in NJ just won't sell for what they think their house was worth 1.5 years ago. So unless you find someone to pay too much for your house, moving within NJ is a losing proposition.

Nat threw out the idea of moving but for now we've resettled on the idea of building up, especially since Nat now has so many ties with the community. Neither is cheap but moving is a dreadful headache and I like where we live. So for now we'll have to just get together and ride as best we can.

Terren

"That's an apt description for life: marvelous yet sad. There you have it - life is like hogging. So how did you come across this wikipedia entry, Norm? Doing research?"

I told Walter that when his wife is away I'm taking him out hogging. Then I Googled it in the event that he didn't know what it meant and the Wikipedia entry came up. I wasn't sure, you see, because I had asked him "how's tricks?" earlier in the day and he asked me what tricks were.

But now that you mention it, life is both marvelous and sad. Well said.

On Hillary and Politics

My wife reads my blog. So last night she asks, "You really don't like Clinton do you?"

See here's the thing. As many have pointed out, the actual politics of Obama and Clinton are so similar many a political junkies can't tell the pair apart. But when Clinton went on the Negative Offensive, it just turned me off to politics-as-usual. When it all started, I would have been more than happy to vote for either. No longer.

On Texas, while I think it's bullshit that Clinton wants to change the rules on the fly, the rules are stupid. The candidate with the most votes should get more delegates, period. Having these goofy caucus rules renders the whole political system screwed up.

By some accounts, it's going to get ugly for the next 7 weeks. Who knows if that transpires.

In the end it looks like Hillary did well last night so that's moderately ok for her but bad for the Democrats in general. A prolonged 7 week fight does nothing for either because this will be mud-slinging time. And in the end, Obama is still going to lead in delegates, superdelegates, popular vote, and money raised. The math of Hillary winning is pretty ominous if you're a realist. But last night translates into more "it's 3:00 am do you know where your president is" television ads.

So to answer my wife's question, no, I no longer like Clinton. With the negative stuff, the questionable spin game, the crying card, and going with the gender argument, it all adds up to a bad candidate in November. The Republicans and McCain will eat her up this fall, which I don't think is what we need for the country.

There, I've lightly laid it out. Now I can go back to Hogging comments and the like to keep it simple. Again, apologies for taking this blog down the politics road but I feel compelled to care this week.

Hogging

I don't know if it's marvelous or sad that Wikipedia has an entry for Hogging.

I absolutely swear to you this has nothing to do with my vehement anti-Hillary campaign lately. Promise.

The Other White Meat

Note: In keeping with yesterday's theme I have (at least) 2 different posts today. Here is my bike post on the day. Maybe more to come depending on my random thoughts as I have them.

Check me out, I have a new Blackberry. They got me one of these newfangled GSM devices which looks much more sleek and space-aged than the last prehistoric model. The reason is because they want me to be able to answer email in Taiwan. The reason is not to keep me current with technology. Those 2 sentences embody another reason why I'm looking to switch groups at work.

FatCat

"Dude, I think you're nuts. But no wonder it hurt since you're crapping your brains out."

I guess this could be put in the bike post but it works either way. Figure you're more likely to read this one given the choice. But yeah, I hurt all over this weekend, legs, butt, even my lips were chapped most of the weekend. But it's all good because Forest Gump told me life is like a bowl of mashed potatoes waiting to be defiled at a party.

Let me fall further into the political abyss today. This is getting unhealthy I know. But here are 5 reasons why Clinton is the wrong candidate:

1. Sue Texas
2. Sue Florida
3. Sue Michigan
4. Cold calling people and tell them what Obama's middle name is
5. Leak photo with Obama wearing a "Muslim hat"

Clinton is a vile piece of shit scumbag politician. The sad thing is that tactics 4 and 5 are working, as Obama's numbers in Texas and 0hio have tailed off a bit. Clinton still cannot win the nomination outright and will need to resort to illegal deals or the courts to win. But we know that's possible in this country. Again, sorry if you're a Clinton supporter but I cannot stand this business-as-usual politics and the fact the sheep of our nation buy it.

Another item that our system is broken is that in Ohio I've read McCain supporters are mobilizing to vote for Clinton because they feel she's the weaker opponent. The website votefortheworst.com is an added entertainment value to American Idol. The fact it translates to the selection of our president is downright sad.

Terren

"I'm down with the 7th generation stuff in principle but unfortunately the products are crap. I would revolt if Cher started buying that for toilet paper."

It's not so bad if you wipe gently. Maybe my ass is tough from all the bike riding. I've decided that for the rest of the week I'm going to wipe my ass with Clinton's head. This is getting really unhealthy, I know. I'll try to stop.

Monika Lewinsky fucked your husband!

OK really I'll stop.

Taste the Pain

Off today. Looks like I'm going with 3 on, 2 off, 3 on, then fly away.

My teammate Ruth, national xTerra qualifier, seems to think I don't need to worry about 2 weeks off at all, that I would be fine if I didn't ride at all and would in all likelihood come back refreshed. She may be right, and a small voice inside my head, the one next to the guy saying, "Eat it! Eat it all!!!" is saying the same thing. Take 2 weeks off, enjoy yourself (as best you can), get on a bike here and there if you can, and come back refreshed.

Maybe, but I'm not entirely buying it.

ChrisG

"Damn straight it hurts. I went out late Saturday morning on my geared road bike, first ride (apart from the trainer) on that bike since October 28. I rode 45 minutes to the bike shop in Atlantic Highlands to hook up with two teammates, and then we headed into the hills of Middletown and Holmdel, a set loop which I've done several times this winter on my fixed gear. The first climb I stuck with my plan of staying in the saddle and spinning an easier gear at a higher cadence. It was immediately clear that the high-end power part of my fitness is compromised right now, as that climb HURT in ways that hitting it out of the saddle in a bigger gear has not. This scenario was repeated on several more upgrades over the course of the next 2 hours or so. So I feel your pain. I assumed I'd be in this place training-wise now. I have eight weeks to work on this element before mtb race season really kicks in. Wahoo."

I'm glad someone else is there with me. I'd really like to get some more rides in with you and some of the other team. Can you guys all move to Long Hill? And do your wives do babysitting?

Plenty of time to get there, and since you've been there I would imagine it's easier to get back, though neither of us is getting any younger. Well, I did last week but that was because of the aliens and the vodka, not in that particular order.

So Greg Lemond said that it never hurts any less, you just get used to the pain. All this time I thought he was being snarky but it's more true than I would have guessed. I'm pushing up hills at an effort that would have cramped me last year. And I feel my legs on the edge, ready to pop, but they never do. But I'm used to it now and I have a much higher pain tolerance. It used to be that this amount of hurt would last 15 seconds then I would have to back off. Now I can press, and press, and press, and it hurts like a bitch but I keep going. This is resonant with something else I once read that said you'll never know how hard you can go if you don't keep pushing. They also said it's farther than you think you could push.

So when you wrap that all up, I'm at a level I've never seen before. The last thing I want to do is drop it because I'm a load for 2 weeks. After the cruise in the fall I had dropped like a brick but there was also a lag before vacation and a 10 day drinking binge. I'm almost entirely off the sauce right now, last Thursday notwithstanding that comment.

That's the bike post for Tuesday.

This Biking Thing Hurts

So here's the biking recap on the weekend. For non-biking posts from the weekend look here for beer, Clinton, poop, and grief.

I never made a conscious decision to go from tempo/threshold to the beginning of the high-end work. As a reminder, here is the general structure of the high-end part of the year:

• Saturday - mountain biking
• Sunday - road tempo, 2-3 hours
• Monday - high-end Ross trainer intervals
• Tuesday - high-end Ross trainer intervals

Wednesday through Friday are off days. On the weekends, if it rains or if I have very limited time I'll swap out a day with another high-end trainer session. Ross says to do 4 straight high-end days. I have no doubt that would be a very fast way to get in race shape. I also have no doubt I would quit biking if that were all I did. Saturday/Sunday are the fun days, and Monday/Tuesday are the pain cherry on top.

So I'm out of my plan which means I'm not sure how to play the rest of the week. Right now I've done 3 high-end sessions in the last 5 days as well as a race pace ride of just under 2 hours yesterday. Of all 4 rides, yesterday on the road hurt quite a bit. I did some stuff around the swamp but also hit the hills on the edges which was where the pain was involved. In all, I climbed 5 significant hills and on 3 of them, there was someone ahead of me. On each of those 3 I pressed hard and passed the person in front because I saw them as prey. One guy tried to keep up but he only hung on for 30 seconds then blew up. I pressed pretty hard and was reminded what it feels like to go at race pace again.

Here's the thing. This shit hurts. The trainer sessions are pointed and well-defined, and you bang out what you're supposed to bang out. It hurts but it's a very structured and relatively short thing. On the ride yesterday, it's more free form and you just press press press everything because as soon as you let up in a race you've thrown in the towel.

So I'm stacking up the high-end stress right now. As I said it wasn't a conscious decision I just got sick of 90 minute trainer sessions. The high-end stuff hurts but you can do the whole session, including warm up and cool down, in an hour. So that limits your time in the dungeon.

That's it for now. I'm thinking to take the next 2 days off, then back on the last 2 days of the week and get a few hours of the road in Saturday. Then once we get to Taiwan I have no idea what's going to happen.

I am not Sarah Silverman

If I were to apply the Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle to the Sarah Silverman - Jimmy Kimmel video I saw recently, it would go like this.

1. Shock - Jimmy sees the original video and he's in shock, total disbelief.
2. Denial - he refuses to return her emails and pretends nothing is going on.
3. Anger - he makes a counter video.
4. Bargaining - he says he'll change. He asks, What can he do to make her happy?
5. Depression - the reality starts to set in.
6. Testing - he thinks, I can live just fine without Sarah. I think. Maybe. Well maybe if I take up bowling. Or, I'm sure there's something I can do to make it work.
7. Acceptance - finally he says, fine, life indeed does go on. I'm ok with it.

Like I said, I am not Sarah Silverman, I don't play her on TV, and I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But, well, you know. I mean, well you know if you know. That's all I know.

You may have noticed I'm blogging every day all of the sudden. There were 3 weekend entries which were all pretty short but it's like, if I have a few minutes to sit down I might as well bang out a few items. Apologies about the poop. Also, sorry if you're a big Clinton fan. Those entries aren't an attempt to be a daily blogger. I just wanted to put them in when I thought of them. I may go to multiple posts a day now because it makes some sense. I read (by read I mean glaze over) a lot of other blogs and there's a lot of solid info to share. Blogs are about redirection half the time anyway.

Like now, do I cut it off then post again later about my biking on the weekend? Probably. Those are different so why not bang out different posts? I can't promise I'm going to keep at anything long term, especially with us going on vacation in - holy shit - 6 days.

An Even Dozen

I know you really don't care, but...

About 15 minutes ago I took my 12th crap of the weekend. I don't say this for poop humor, as I don't find it particularly funny or anything like that. It is what it is. But what I get out of it is that I'm still so out of touch with my body that it can get so bent it feels the need to harbor any and all solids and go out of kilter like this. I guess the 4-2 lineup threw me for a loop of sorts, then it was all topped off by Thursday's beer and not enough sleep that night.

I don't know. I know it's a lot of stress on my body but is it that much? Am I really throwing myself that under the gun that I react this way? I guess I should do a little research to see what exactly this is indicative of. But jeez, my ass is sore from all this freaking 7th Generation toilet paper. Sure it's recycled and all that stuff, which is cool. But at this point I'm pretty sure it's 98% cardboard.

Clinton is Bush?

A good comment here...

She has run her campaign the way he ran his war: on the fly, propelled by arrogance, incompetently, inconsistently and surrounded by yes men and women. You want to re-elect a president as inept and cocooned as the current one?

Seriously, the similarities are surely there. At this point, with the way she's running this campaign, I cannot vote for a Clinton in this election. She has become yet another vile representation of the back-door dealing, mud-slinging, arrogant politician. Even if it turns out that Obama is an empty suit at least he's honest, and by all indications he will listen to the people surrounding him. Hopefully the Obama Madness continues and he continues to pile on the once great Clinton Machine and by March 11th (or so) Hillary bows out with some modicum of grace and dignity.