Unretouched Picture of Taconite Boy

They say that superhero's are immortal. Now Taconite Boy may just be that. Just as I pictured him, Tacboy was once a German General pushing military symbols around a lighted war board with long sticks. This photograph is proof-positive.

Tacboy seems to have turned and in a rare uber-race moment, smiled for the camera. World Domination! We are lucky to have his experience for our new planning center up in the Hallowed Hall.

Oh, and if you don't listen to the TacBoy and Bigun Podcast, you totally won't get any of this. In fact, there's a good chance you are slightly offended. Sorry about that!

Episode 13 - Picasso Blue

New podcast is out.

Blerbs...

I liked Tacboy's format...a few blerbs about his goings on, just to keep folks updated.

• No, I didn't watch the conventions (not tonight's either). Please. The VP? Talk about bloated media hype. It's all sycophantic - these jerks tore each other up a few months ago and now they drip with praise for each other. Unity....right. I may not have ever posted this, but my feeling is that we will NEVER see a true man, or woman, of character, leadership, strong ethics and great ability run for the Presidency again, simply because the process to get there is so sickening. What person of any mettle AND integrity would run for office? And please don't list any of the current running candidates or recent presidents.


• Those conventions are just giant pep rallies anyway. Cram as many people as you can into an auditorium and prompt them to cheer and go wild and use that to say, "wow - look - the "people" really support this guy". No different than a sitcom's fake studio audience laugh.


• Won't Clinton ever just go away (Bill, I mean. I feel the same about Hillary, but we're stuck listening to her for a long time to come)?


• Aaaaaaagh - I'm writing about my least favorite topic - Politics - someone shoot me!


• No, still no training - not since June 22nd. I've got to change that.


• I have a promising business lead - will know more in 2 - 3 weeks. Keeping fingers crossed - it will be just what the doctor ordered.


• Space Raiders on Facebook is awesome. Could be why I haven't trained since June. Or not.


• It is sooooo hot here. A few hours out cutting grass in 95 degrees and high humidity is really taking its toll.


• Simply Media is also very cool...echoing Tac's post. Streaming files from friends music and video libraries is neat - of course, I've only got Taconite Boy's music to sort through, and well, remember how Trimama is really into Folk Music (Podcast Episode 1)?


• Looks like an active hurricane season this year again. I'm finding that Weather Underground is a great source for information on these storms, and there is a cool feature - the Wunder Map - well, you need to see it yourself and if you are at all a weather-geek, like me, you'll dig it.


• The next podcast episode will be dark. Your triathlon super heroes haven't been feeling "it" lately, so if you want to commiserate with us, by all means, look forward to our Picasso Blue Period piece.

I need a new Blog feed reader - something that tells me when blogs have changed or been posted on. The last 2 I've used no longer work, and I really like not having to peck through every one's blog to find a new post...any suggestions would be welcome.

CDA 08 Picture Review

Hope you like this....obviously been working on it for a long time. Off and on. The song, in an effort to acknowledge, is called "Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance. It ran through my head a lot during training and the actual race, I thought it fitting for this collage of pictures of the week. I know there are many that were left out, and probably a bunch of pics that go by too quickly. If you can believe it, in retrospect, the race itself, all 14 and a half hours of it, went by way to quickly as well.

After making, finishing this - I am easily reminded of why I hold such a fondness for triathlon, "blogdom" and now Ironman. All these people in this video were awesome, and from all over the country, they are my friends. Who knows if we can ever put a week like this together again - the number of new faces, the dinners, the party, the race - but it certainly is worth the effort!

I hope the quality of the video is worthy of the fantastic photography of my lovely bride, TrisherpaDi, and of the photos I stole from various blogs. Thanks in advance, if you see a picture here that belongs to you. I miss training for Ironman. I miss the becoming. If you are thinking of undertaking the journey to M-dot-ed-ness, by all means, find the means, and find your way. It's worth every minute of it.

Cozumel???

I will certainly be jealous of you studs and studetts opening your wallets and purses to hit Ironman Cozumel next Thanksgiving. "Back in the day" I would say, "of course!" and hit the registration button along with you, logistics be damned. But this year...

• Flight to Cozumel: $717 (each)


• 4.5 star hotel: $100+ per night


• Bike transport: ??$200??


• Doing and Ironman on an Island with all your creepy Internet friends: Priceless.

One thing I noticed that really is a no-go in my book - a one-lap ocean swim with no wetsuit. Last time I swam 2.4 miles at Clearwater Beach for the Hurricane Man with no mid-point break and no wetsuit, I was rubbed raw in my armpits. Granted, I could have used more body glide...but my distain for ocean water in my mouth is well documented. I'll take the toxins in Tempe Town Lake over salt water any day and twice on Sunday.

Sorry, I'll be staying stateside for a while, and keeping my eye on IMAZ09...

Handi-work

Di scored some free window treatments - the place that made them (the workroom for all you non-decorators or installers out there) screwed them up, so now they are in our office.

I did all the hanging. Di showed me how to "dress" them up, and I even did the pretty work. They were not at all made for our windows, so we did our best to make them work. Took the pic with my web cam, so it's not the best quality...sorry.

You know, along those lines, I saw some really gorgeous shoes the other day out at Dillards....

Dark Running

Oh the joys of running in the dark.

We all know that cobwebs = spiders. Number of webs I ran through this morning....countless. My least favorite insect - spiders. Sure, wasps are a close second.

Lazy dog owners. Gotta love them. Let them dogs out unattended. Out the front door, no less. Meeting up with 2 medium sized dogs on your bike is one thing. You've got a buffer. 2 dogs, in the dark, while running - not much fun. Especially when one's getting behind you! Luckily they were barkers, and I had a moment to prepare. I didn't run, I turned and faced them, and yelled "NO!" as loud and as mean as I could. They still came - crossed the street - at a full run and barked and growled waaaay too close for comfort. I backed further away from their home, still yelling at them and trying to keep both in front of me. I got out to a main street with some traffic on it, and they did not continue the chase. Nice adrenalin rush in the first mile of the day!

Being a tall runner. Being a sidewalk runner. These things don't' mix well. I have to duck for every branch, bush and creepy vine that the city workers, in their infinite shortness, fail to trim away. Night running only makes it even more fun to negotiate this maze of eye-hunting twigs and leaves.

Oncoming traffic. Why do people think it's a GOOD thing to turn on their bright lights when they see a runner? I've got crappy night vision to begin with - sometimes I like to run with no contacts or glasses, so essentially I'm running by feel more than anything. It gives me an excuse to run slowly...like I really needed another one. Lights head on only make the ground surface that much more a mystery.

Humidity. Ah, the morning humidity. Sure it's cooler before sunrise. My lungs feel like I just got done swimming.

The alternative in August in Tampa - run when the sun comes out. Not a very good alternative. I guess there's always a dreadmill inside. How much fun could that be?

Rain

You know, if I were training, I'd probably be even more pissed. As it is, this current system over Florida is giving me fits! It looks like this every day, now, since Tuesday. I work for about 2 - 3 hrs, then get deluged with the accompanying lightning. The rain isn't quite as limiting as the lightning, but really, heavy lawn mowers and wet, water-soaked ground don't mix very well.

Today looks to be even worse. It's Saturday - so do you really get started on someones lawn before 9am? If I was sleeping in on Saturday and my lawn guy showed up at 8am, well, I'd be a bit miffed, right? Oh yea, we are all triathletes...sleeping in is like, sleeping to 6am....

Tampa's forecast for next week is more of the same if not worse. Great. The phone calls aught to be hitting here pretty soon. See...this is where an I-phone would be perfect. These rain cells come in, sometimes only in one part of town - but how can I know that driving around in my truck? The answer - an I-phone with 3G digital service and the trusty "Weather Underground for I-Phone" application (my buddy Greg has it on his phone). Pull up a map with the radar on it, and bamb! I know if it's a thunderstorm or an all day "cats and dogs" work-buster.

No, I'm not paid by Apple or representatives of I-phone....I just lust after one. Oh, and yes, this would be another one of those, "it's your blog, dammit, and it's all about YOU - so go ahead make another negative post, why don't you....".

Low Motivation

It's funny just how accurate this little triangle can be some times. I can barely remember discussing it in college psychology 101 class: Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs. In a nutshell, (as if I truly understand it, shaaah...) lower needs in the pyramid take priority over higher ones. Until a pressing problem in a lower level need gets fulfilled, it's dang hard to focus on needs in a higher level.

Now again, I'm not expert, but I'd put fitness and racing in the "Esteem" level of this pyramid. I'm sure one can make an argument that fitness is very much physiological, but it would take a lot of convincing to make me a believer. I've been fortunate in life that my own personal physiological needs tend to be pretty "healthy". I've never been in such dire straits that my sole focus has been at that level. Thankfully!

But very easily, I believe, one can find themselves in the "Safety" needs level. Get yourself short of cash - I mean really short, like "how in the heck are we gonna pay the rent this month" short, and when your diet consists of Ramean noodles and PB&J's for 2 out of 3 meals or worse, and you are there. Unfortunately there are many important things that take a back seat when you sink to that level. Friendships, family relationships, spousal interaction...and it's weird. It's not like you don't have the time, you just don't have the energy....

Of course, these "levels" are not absolute, and a person will devote energy and resources to areas that need attending to while still operating at a higher level. Hence, a relationship may get strained while you put more hours in at work, but one wouldn't give up the relationship totally, for example.

Maslow calls the "love/belonging" level a Social level. It's interesting to me that as important to many the relationships formed in "blog-land" and even the therapeutic effect that maintaining a blog has for some, there will still come time in all of our lives when the blog - the relationships - will take a back seat to more pressing needs. That's just natural - unfortunate - but it's the way things are.

So, for whatever reason - perhaps it's the echo in the bank account, or the lack of satisfaction with my business, or wanting to spend more time at home with my wife - or - I'm just dang burned out from all the training...I'm having a hard time finding the motivation to train. It's been 5 weeks now since Iroman CdA...and I've only run once for all of 2 miles. Sure, I sweat my ba**&ack off every day out cutting grass, and fortunately I've only gained 6 lbs in 5 weeks, but somewhere I need to find the motivation. Or get all those other damn needs taking care of. And quick!