The Horror

We babysat a monster this weekend, reminiscent of Jack Torrence in The Shining.

Words can not describe the horror, I'll let the photo speak for itself.



Note: she got along swell with both Jupiter and Hazel - actually chasing Hazel around.

Arguing...

So, I've been debating/arguing with a guy on facebook. He's someone I knew at Intel, and also works at Mentor too.

He initially commented on my status about Osama Bin Laden:

Note: Obama said "justice has been done" - and that pretty much sums it up. U.S.A. where we either hold you indefinitely without charge, ore we kill you without trial. You're either with us, or you're against us. And you'd better hope you fall on the right side of that line b/c there's no recourse if you don't.

And we began a discussion. It turns out he's more of a GOP/Tea Party/Fox News kind of guy, and I'm obviously not.

I've been hoping to learn something about the way folks with his view point think. I figured, he's a highly paid engineer, he must have somewhat an analytical mind, maybe he can shed some light on the views I clearly don't understand.

Clearly I was wrong. It's almost as though we were speaking two different languages. I'm certain he's making absolutely no credible arguments, and he's probably thinking the same of me. At one point I mentioned that he was throwing around wild accusations without any proof, kind of like Glenn Beck. And this guy said that he loves Glenn Beck.

I've found some value in the discussion - I've certainly looked into some of the things I believe in a little closer, and found them to hold up pretty well. I've also read most of the links he's sent my way, and I feel comfortable saying that (for the most part), they are a series of diatribes about people with barely any connection to reality.

One of the threads is about George Soros - it started with a post of his pointing to an article showing how Soros has given a bunch of money to journalist schools and organizations. I had heard the name Soros a couple times but didn't know anything about him. I posted that the Koch brothers spend lots of money and asked what the difference was. Turns out, Soros is evidently a Marxist (whatever he wants that to mean), along with Obama, and he's undermining the country. It took an untold number of posts for him to actually point out something that Soros has done that could be interpreted as undermining the country. And, of course, the two things that were "undermining" seemed either very loosely connected (friend of a friend kind of relationship), or weren't very malevolent.

Long story short, my foray into arguing with someone from the right hasn't given me much of a basis to understand their side. So far, it just seems to be a bunch of fear mongering, vague accusations w/little to no evidence, conspiracy theories and name calling.

Oooh, some more responses. Back to the battle.

Hood

I climbed Mt. Hood with Sam Wednesday night.

We'd wanted to climb last year, but the weather never cooperated. This year things looked better, and the weather opened up nicely this week. We'd planned on climbing Thursday night, but things looked good a day early, so we pulled the trigger and went up early.

You can read Sam's riveting account, and check out the pictures he took.

We took a nap at his place, but both woke up after less than an hour, which was a little disappointing. I packed up a bunch of things I borrowed from Sam, the gear hound, and we headed up the mountain shortly after two guys Sam knows showed up.

It was raining a tiny bit as we drove up the mountain, and rain just turned to fog as we turned off to Timberline and continued driving up.

I put my old school leather boots on while Sam put on his fancy boots with integrated gaitors, and we began the trek.

We started in the clouds, quickly stripping off layers because it was pretty warm. After about an hour of hiking up we started to come out of the clouds. The moon was half full and kicked off enough light that I didn't use my headlamp until it set, an hour later. The clouds were a dark gray, and looked like the fake clouds you saw in the movie Airplane - but they were very real. There were even a few shooting stars.

We got to the top of the Palmer lift after about two hours where we took our first big break to eat and drink. The pace was good, the snow was even better.

Sam had been feeling a little ill before we left his house, some stomach cramps, but he was climbing stronger than the rest of us. I was feeling a little winded but fairly good - all my hill climbs were paying off.

Sam pointed out Illumination rock to the west, which you could barely see silhouetted against the horizon. I then looked to the east and saw a an even larger face of rock and snow (don't know its name) looming over us.

The snow got steeper and the going got a little tougher. We found some steps people had already kicked in, but they disappeared as we passed some tents where folks were camped out. At that point we had to make our own steps, and it was steep enough that it was difficult walk with your heel on the ground. Sam kept the pace up, but I caught up when he slowed down on the ascent of the Hogs Back. The snow got a bit soft and it took us a little longer than we expected, and we were happy to reach the saddle for our second rest, some food, water, extra clothes, and crampons.

Sam roped us up and headed up the saddle, and I waited for the slack to get out and then followed him up. Other people were starting to climbing up the Hogs Back.

This last push was definitely the most strenuous. I took several rests on the way up - the calves were pretty tired from standing on my toes for an hour. Sam kept making sure I was doing OK, but kept lying about how close we were to the top.

One couple caught up to me but decided to go up a different chute than what Sam had chosen. We saw them about 40 minutes later to find out the chute was a dead end and they had to back track. This was important because...

Sam and I reached the summit first. boo-yah!

We were up there before everyone else and in time to watch the sun rise.

Sam broke out the cocoa (made from half and half, wow that was good) and we relaxed for a short bit. I don't know that I appreciated it enough, but it was pretty amazing to have reached the tallest point in Oregon. And to think, 25 years earlier, dad and I did the same thing.

We started climbing down as bunches of people started up. Sam and I talked and I decided to go down un-roped. I felt pretty solid going down the steepest part - the foot holes had been enlarged by all the other people coming up and I just took my time. The worst part was that my toes started getting cold and my hand got cold holding onto the ice ax head I put into the snow.

We made it to the hogs back, snacked, and headed further down. After we got to a not-so-scary-steep part of the mountain, we slid the next 3 miles down the mountain, only having to walk the last 1/2 mile or so, making a quick exit.

I put up some of my photos here.

NBA Finals and Mary

The first game of the NBA finals were tonight, I told Mary that the Heat won. She remembered that there was talk about a group of guys going to the team. Then I told her the other team was the Mavericks, and her response:

"With that short guy .... Spud?"

June 1, 2011: Edited to say the Heat won.

Memorial Day

We did a bunch of yard work over the weekend, and the weather cooperated beautifully.

But it wasn't all work, Simone got to hold a new bunny (who fell asleep in her lap):

Simone's Birthday

It was a very busy day.

We started off with some Swedish pancakes filled with blueberry compote, and candles of course.


Then it was time to dress in white for preschool.


At preschool we had a little puppet play showing how Simone came to be with us, we said some of the things we remembered about Simone each of her first five years. As a part of the celebration, Simone got to wear the birthday crown and the birthday fairy wings.


The grandparents all came for the show as well.


Then it was back to the house for a yummy lunch and presents.

Mary made a doll (named Lilla by Simone) which has become a new bedtime partner.


Here's a closeup of Lila, and she has the felted doll of Simone that Christine Waters made for Simone.


At bedtime, Simone snuggled up with Lilla and Daisy, and we read stories and began learning a new nighttime saying.


All in all, a fantastic day.

Tent

I made Simone a tent for her birthday, here's the one photo I took of it:



All in all, it looks pretty good. Mary gave me the link that showed me how to do it.

Time To Mow

It's been a while...

Last Day @ 4

Simone turns 5 tomorrow (5am if I recall).

One thing we've done for most of her 5th year (yah, her 5th year) was running hugs.

She'll tell me to stand in just the right spot. I crouch down with my arms open wide. I have to have my mouth open, in a big gape. If I don't, she reminds me.

She goes to the other side of the room, puts her arms out wide, opens her mouth open wide, and runs full speed at me, slowing to swerve around any objects in the way.

At full-tilt, she collides with me and we both fall down giggling.

It looks like a slow-motion fight scene where the two guys are screaming at each other. Only it's Simone and me and it's nothing but love.

I hope they continue when she's 5.

Lemonade

"Lemonade is one of the colors of the sunset!"

We squeezed two oranges into a can of frozen lemonade, mixed it up, and drank our fill using straws.

Bedtime and Books

I just went into Simone's room b/c she was calling out for a little attention - it'd been an hour since I finished reading/singing and saying goodnight.

Her room is pretty dark, the sun has been down for a little while, but she has around 8 books on her bed. I start picking them up, telling her, "I'll put them right here beside your bed."

"But I want to read them in the morning."

"Yeah, they'll be right next to your bed in the morning."

I then look at her and notice she still has her eye mask on. So I ask, "How can you read with your eye mask on?"

Giggling, she responds, "I don't know. "

Silly girl.

Gee... thanks Senate

If you read the headlines, "Senators Grill Phone Execs On Mobile Privacy", you might think they care about the privacy of the citizens.

Yet my first thought is, where were the investigations into AT&T's illegal behavior of handing over personal data to the NSA? (phone calls, emails, web browsing, etc.) Oh, right, all the companies involved in tapping our phones were granted immunity.

Way to look out for the citizenry.

OBL is dead...

So we killed Osama Bin Laden over two weeks ago, and I thought I'd write down some thoughts. I recall exactly my position about invading Iraq (against), but don't remember where I stood with Afghanistan (would like to think I was against, but that could just be wishful thinking).

I saw the news that OBL was dead when I came out of Simone's bedroom. The images were on the TV and the closed caption said he'd been killed. My first feeling was a little stronger than "meh", but not a lot - it was probably a combination of "meh" and relief.

I did see that President Obama said that "justice has been done". That struck me as odd. I would have expected that "justice" would have meant bringing him back to the U.S. and trying him for crimes, or heck, trying him for crimes in any of a dozen countries where he was wanted on terrorism. Instead, our form of justice was to just out-and-out kill him, old west style.

I'm not sorry he's dead, I'll certainly lose no sleep over it. My problem with what Obama said was that it continues the "us versus them" and the "you're with us or you're against us" mentality that the U.S. has in its foreign policy.

Since 9/11/2001 we have invaded 2 Muslim countries and bombed another 3 (Pakistan, Libya, Yemen), and that just seems wrong.

We continue to pursue an aggressive military "solution" to the "war on terror" when both DARPA and the former head of the CIA's task force to find Osama Bin Laden (Michael Scheuer) agree that:

1. "The threat to the U.S. arises from Muslims plausible perception that the things they most love andvalue - God, Islam, their brethren, and Muslim lands - are beign attacked by America." (Michael Scheuer)

2. "policing and intelligence, rather than military force, should form the backbone of U.S. efforts against al Qa'ida. And U.S. policymakers should end the use of the phrase 'war on terrorism' since there is no battlefield solution to defeating al Qa'ida." How Terrorist Groups End

So, the Department of Defence and the CIA both recognize that our current approach is the wrong one, yet we continue ahead full-steam.

I'm frustrated at the Obama administration for not closing Gitmo (where only 40 of the original 700+ people have enough evidence against them to even go to court), I'm frustrated at our abandonment of the Nuremberg Principles (starting with W), Obama doing a 180 on signing statements/declaring war, militarizing the CIA, attacking government whistle blowers more fervently than W, and attempting to assassinate a U.S. citizen! I'm frustrated.

The latest "battles" between Democrats and Republicans have all gone to the Republicans. Take the latest budget battle, which had Republicans starting with "$35 Billion" in cuts, Dems with "$10 Billion" in cuts, and the final budget being $38 Billion. eh? Ok, that's off topic. OBL...

But it's related, because what used to be GOP talking points have been completely adopted by the Democrats.

Gah!!!!!

And the "liberal media" just continues to repeat, without any hesitation, the talking points of the GOP and the government. I mean, we send in Seal Team 6 to get Osama, they kill him. Why did the White House have to lie? They changed their story 4 times in 4 days, OBL was using his wife as a human shield, there was a firefight, he was fighting back, he drew his weapon. Lies, all of them. Very few in the U.S. would raise much of a stink if we killed him in "cold blood", yet the government put forward this story of how he resisted. The Seals would have taken Osama alive had that been their task, they're the best in the world - and especially if OBL wasn't armed, it would have been a piece of cake. Now the government is leaking photos of OBL watching himself on TV, of his stash of porn. And the media is continuing to just regurgitate it. I don't know if it was true. I don't much care.

One post I read basically points out the the U.S. isn't ready to face the truth. With the lies and the retractions, we, as a people, can console ourselves over questioning what the facts are and completely avoid what the facts show about us as a country. I think they show that our government is continuing to pursue an aggressive, military occupation of most of the world, we care naught for human rights if they're not in our "best interests", the government represents and defends corporate interests over personal interests, and our population (for the most part) is happy to sit back, watch Glee, and remain ignorant about what our government does.

One piece, Obama's "bad negotiating" is actually shrewd negotiating, did shine a light on Obama's positions that changed my perception of his stance. The main point is that Obama hasn't "failed" at pushing the "liberal" agenda, he's been very calculated and chosen to side with GOP ideals because it's all about getting re-elected. It's worth a read.

Sheepy and Books

This morning I called home from work to see how Mary and Simone were doing. Mary reported that the morning, while a bit early, was a lovely one, and that Simone was in the process of making Sheepy a superhero costume.

I'll have to dig up the pictures of her costumes for animals she's done in the past. Needless to say, Sheepy gets a number of them. Sheepy is a soft, finger puppet with the standard two legs and a head. The previous costume was a hat and a coat - made of paper. Tonight I checked out the costume and can see that Sheepy's cape is bright red with a grey collar, and Sheepy has sleeves (gauntlets?) that are grey. Very fun.

And tonight I read stories with Simone at bedtime. We read three books in the big bed, then transitioned to her bedroom for the standard nighttime ritual. Unfortunately, we're in a little bit of a rut, and are having trouble falling asleep - due to the late daylight hours and never quite getting back on track from daylight savings. I'd been out of the room for a few minutes when Simone started loudly complaining that she was having trouble going to sleep. I went in and we talked for a minute - I suggested she tell a story to Clifford and Daisy (the cat), or sing songs to them. I leave and check back on her about 15 minutes later to find her sitting cross-legged on her bed, with Clifford and Daisy sitting next to her. She was reading them stories.

TV Critic at Large

So... I was working out at the gym the other day. I wasn't very inspired, so I avoided my weight lifting and decided to alternate jogging and walking, work up a good sweat.

There are three TVs at the gym, two were set to their customary shows at 8am, SportsCenter and Charmed. My brother-in-law turned me onto Charmed years ago and I watch it at the gym. The third channel was showing something called GMA, which took me 5 minutes to figure out it was "Good Morning America."

First things first, I like Charmed. Magic, demons, beautiful people, fairy tales, etc. - it's my kind of escapism. My gripe about the show is that everyone has such incredibly slow reflexes. It's not hard to figure out that when someone evil looking apparates in front of you, chances are they're gonna try to kill you with some magic, or steal something, or mess up your day. This happens every show, several times a show. The Charmed 3 just don't seem to get it, they stand, dumb-founded, and then get whooped, then later in the show they do the same to the bad people (winning in the end). Tightening up the action just a little bit would really help.

SportsCenter - the Dallas Mavericks happened to sweep the LA Lakers the night before, and the first 4 "stories" on SC were all about that - from the point of view of LA. "LA Swept" "What Will Happen To Phil Knight" etc. All the stories were about the losers, the Lakers. It was pathetic, the bias was disgusting. Fine, do a story on Phil Knight leaving, that makes sense, but give the Mavericks their due and show them *winning*, not LA losing.

Lastly, GMA. I have no idea why people watch this show. My comment on it is that they had a 10-15 minute segment on how good or bad frozen food tasted, having different groups of people doing a "blind" taste test of each. Some were regular Jills and some were foodies. The frozen food lines were things like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig. It was a blatant commercial for these foods, and if GMA had any desire to help educate people about how they might lose weight, perhaps they should show how to cook real food. It was disgusting.

Mother's Day Hike

We took a hike on Mother's Day. Simone wanted to take Clifford, so he came along.


We stopped for a snack at the rock quarry.


We took the road all the way out, and the path back. Last photo on the road, it was still sunny.


Patiently posing for a photo on the bridge...

The moss on the tree is sooooo soft, time for a snack and a nap after the rain and hail storm that lasted 3 minutes.

White Car Is White, the photo

The roof was nearly red from rust. I'll get to the sides/front/back later this year.

White Car Is White

Yah, the Mazda got a paint job.

I sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded the roof of the car to get rid of the rust. Then I taped up the windows with some help from Simone. And then came the cans of spray paint - two coats of primer and three coats of white with a few minutes between each coat.

Now it's white. ish

Simone was very proud of how the car was going to look. She said that everyone at work would be surprised how shiny it was, which is true.

Watching Muppets From Space with my girls

One of my all-time favorite movies, perfect for a rainy Sunday.

"I'm not a shrimp, I'm a king prawn!"

Spring Flowers

Took a hike up Dimple Hill yesterday. It was pretty eventful. I misplaced Hazel's leash and the keys (while taking off my outer shirt), saw 6 deer, found the keys and leash (whew!), and took some photos of flowers that were starting to show.

Critters on parade

In the paper: Critters on parade

Earth Day | Procession of the Species

Today was the Procession of the Species, which meant a parade! I've never done one before, and Simone was super stoked to do it. So we threw on the Halloween costume, hopped in the Burley, and walked downtown to check it out.

We got to the farmer's market and really didn't see anyone dressed up - much to our disappointment. But we held out and figured the others would show. Sure enough, over the next half hour we saw more and more costumes. We also saw a bunch of friends from preschool - which excited Simone.

In the Burley with Clifford* (note the purple ears, odd for a Clifford)

Checking out the costume before the parade

A friend, Nava, at the parade. They giggled nonstop.

During the parade, Simone held Gracie's hand the whole time, and a new friend Jackson was on the other side.

I'm pretty sure the three of them are going to make the paper, a photographer was very interested in them (not the guy in the photo, no clue who he is).

After the parade, a bunch of the kids hung out and chatted. Gracie and Simone were always close.

After the parade, Simone wanted her face painted like Gracie's, so we did that.
Checking out the handiwork.

Trading Places

We had a great time, and on the walk back it started to rain - three cheers for the Burley! And a train rolled through town, so we stopped to watch that for a while.

A very successful parade, we'll have to do it again next year.

F#@&! U.S. Cellular Companies

A friend gave me his old iPhone, which was great. I'd been thinking about a smart phone for a while, the big thing holding me back was the forced data plan for the 2 year contract. You see, 99% of the time I live in a wi-fi enabled area (either work or home, or most places in Corvallis have free wi-fi) - so why pay $30/month for something I'm not going to use?!

Here was my chance, a free phone (many thanks) that works on my carrier (AT&T), I'm good to go.

I start asking friends for their must-have apps and a couple of them mention that I might want to check with AT&T because they think I might get a data plan added because I'm using a smart phone. So I call up and get a service person who says all the wrong things to me (like, "you need one to use a smart phone" "you can't use a smart phone w/out a data plan" etc. (which are all technically wrong)). I get very frustrated quickly, but have a work meeting in 5 minutes, so I don't have time to go postal on the guy.

I wait a few days and finally call up AT&T again today and I get this calm-voiced woman who says more or less the same thing, but she's a lot smoother about it. The kicker for me (in terms of whether I wanted to try to argue up the management chain or not) was when she said, "I can transfer you to the technical department, but they'll say the same thing. And, you can quote me on this, you will be charged for a data plan on any cellular provider if you're using a smart phone."

Hm.... that kinda took the wind out of my sails. I stay on the phone for a minute or two longer, but the fight is gone. I sit down and google things, and yup, everyone is charging data plans for smart phone users. Some forums have people saying that if your phone is unlocked, somehow, magically you won't be charged, but they don't seem to be able to back it up.

AT&T's own site says they'll charge you: Answer Center | AT&T - Is there still a minimum data plan requirement for smartphones? ...

Sigh... looks like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place here. Is it worth it to me to get the minimum plan ($15/month) to only carry around one device? Or do I carry around two?

And I kinda really want/need two pieces of functionality the phone can provide. The first is a calorie tracker that enables me to keep track of food w/out having to dash off to the computer every time I look at a snack. The second is access to my work calendar. For a few years I've been able to get by without running MS Outlook, but work just switched to the latest Outlook, which means the meeting notices are no longer in a reasonable format for my scripts to add to my calendar, and I've gotten several meet times mixed up. The iPhone seamlessly integrates my work calendar and my personal one.

So, I'm kinda hooked (after a whole 5 days).

I'm still pissed off at the situation in the U.S. where the customers have very little power (as opposed to Japan/Europe), but I've come to accept there are some battles that really aren't worth the effort, and I think this is one of them.

The other thing that ticks me off are the rates.

We pay about $80 for 1400 minutes. Ignoring the free weekend and evening calls, that works out to about 12.5 cents per MB of data (assuming skype-like data usage, 60kpbs).

The two data plans offered are $15 for 200MB, which is 7 cents/MB, almost half the cost of the regular phone service. And the $25 for 2GB, which is just over 1 cent/MB. And you know they're making money on the $25 plan...

It just further convinces me that they're charging way more than it costs for the regular phone service, and the data plans charge way too much, but progressively less.

Just think, if they're making money on the $25/2GB plan, then they'd be making money charging me $9/month for the phone plan (that's the same rate).

For years we've had certain aspects of life get cheaper and cheaper. Moore's law has made it possible for us to have hand-held computers storing 100's of gigabytes of data, touch screen displays, etc. etc. Yet the phone service we get still costs the same as always, cable TV still costs the same.

Wise Words From Seth Godin

I just read the post Insist on the coin flip, and I think it's completely true. The hardest part will be convincing people (and remembering it myself) to let go of their (my) attachment to knowing there's a "best" decision, even when the differences between the top runners are smaller than they (I) can detect.

Fantasy writing

I've been reading a little more in the last year than I have in the 3-4 years before then. Some SciFi and some Fantasy - I did enjoy the fantasy books The Dwarves and Orcs, and have enjoyed the SF books by alastair reynolds.

One question came to mind as I read the fantasy books...

Why don't fantasy books take place in warm climates? Like in jungles or deserts?

Anyway, Brin wrote a little post on The Difference Between Science Fiction and Fantasy?, which prompted me to ask the question.

Anti Joke

Hilarious web site: Anti Joke

Top "joke" on there is:

What's worse than finding a worm in your apple?

The Holocaust.

hee hee

Artsy Shots

Some artsy shots from Oswald West.

Beach Party

The Bauerschmidt clan came to visit Oregon for a week, after all, what better place to go for spring break than Oregon! It kind of reminds me when Sam and I went to Cape Cod for spring break. It was cold and mostly shut down.

Luckily, the Oregon coast doesn't really shut down, and it certainly was warmer than Cape Cod.

We started off the 4 day extravaganza by both leaving Portland around the same time. I recommended they stop by Camp 18 for some decent food and a really neat Oregon experience. Mary then had the idea to surprise them there, so we did.

Then off to the beach house we went.

Everyone got along great. Paul and I had all the kids in the minivan, and Mary and Lauren took Hazel in the Subaru. Simone instantly decided she was going to be Elise's shadow - they were like long-lost sisters.

Two years ago we brought Hazel home, so we decided this weekend would be a good one to celebrate her birthday. Everyone made hats out of paper and decorated them. We decorated the house a little bit and wrapped up a present for her.

The kids wrapping a present with Hazel completely oblivious to the fact she was the star of the day.

Now she knows she's the star of the show.

Elise and Simone help make the chocolate cake, which was of course not for Hazel.

Mary and the girls whipped up a chocolate chocolate cake which was enjoyed by all, especially with a large bowl of whipped cream and some strawberries. We sang happy birthday, and everyone helped unwrap Hazel's gift.

It took Hazel 5 minutes to find and destroy the two squeakers, and another 3 minutes to rip it apart into what looked like a bunch of purple spaghetti. It was probably the flimsiest toy we've gotten for her.

When we weren't partying, we were reading books.

Lots and lots of books.

Even more books.

And more books.

We did leave the house, it wasn't all parties and reading.

Simone and Elise shading themselves from the sun.

We hung out in the yard, coloring bricks with chalk, running around the house, collecting flower petals and pine cones to decorate the house.

We checked out the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

I hadn't been to the cheese factory in ... 12+ years. You used to only be able to see the big vats where the milk turns into curds. That's now done somewhere else, but what you get to see is the 40+ pound blocks of curds wrapped for aging, and 40+ pound blocks of aged cheddar sliced, chopped, bagged and sealed. Very fun.

Hug Point at high tide.

We also tried Hug Point, but unfortunately at high tide, which meant we couldn't get to the waterfall. Instead we let the kids climb high on slippery rocks. They had a blast.

We later checked out Oswald West, which was as cool as I remember. Huge trees, a suspension bridge (Hazel wasn't so crazy about that), and a pretty little beach.

We had a great time connecting with Lauren, Paul and the kids. We seem to see each other around every 5 years, though this was so much fun we might just have to do this again a little sooner.

When we left, Simone was sad and wanted to head back to the beach house. And, it turns out, Elise was missing Simone a lot, and Evan missed Hazel.

Rico Suave

Happy Family

Everone loves hanging out on the sheepskin...

Beaver Freezer 2011

I finished it, with a time around 1:25.

The swim felt pretty good, about 8m30sec, not too bad since I've only swum twice since my last triathlon (July of 2010). The men had the joy of swimming in Langton pool which has the benefits of a longer run to the transition area, and no lane marker at one end of the lane. Oh, and the side of the pool is a good 20" above the water (meaning you have to haul your tired body out). The two other guys in my lane were a bit faster than me, so I didn't get to draft at all - which means I really did swim the 8:30 on my own, and I felt pretty rested - not dizzy or exhausted.

I was one of the last out of the pool (I'd said I would swim an 8:00 500, oops), and definitely the last one out of the transition area. The temperature outside was a chilly 43 degrees, and a little breezy, but almost sunny - not too bad of conditions.

The ride went pretty well, I passed about a dozen people, most of whom were in my heat, and nobody passed me. There was a bit of a headwind from the west, so it felt like I was barely moving while headed out to Oak Creek, but the trip back into town went smoothly and the sun felt warm on my face.

The run started off fairly well, slow as usual, but not too painful. I was passed by a lot of people, and at one point the fast guys from the heat after me ran by in a blur. The third (and final) lap started off well, but then my left knee began bothering me. I walked for short sections and tried to shake it out. Another guy from my heat caught up to me and was encouraging me as we headed up the slight hill with 1/3 a mile to go. I said I'd see him at the finish line and I took off. The last 1/4 mile actually felt pretty good (though exhausting), and I heard someone catching up to me on the straightaway to the finish, so I picked up my pace and didn't let him pass - so the ending felt great.

On the walk back to the bike a grey cloud came overhead, the rain started coming down - sideways, and it even hailed for about 30 seconds. Luckily I didn't have to race in that.

Now just to wait for the official results...