| Open Letter |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|04:57 pm] |
Dear Wor-Wic Community College,
Today, I received a brochure from your institution addressed to "Perspective Student." "Perspective," when used as an adjective is defined as "of or pertaining to the art of perspective, or represented according to its laws." Perhaps I, and the many other students who received this brochure should take this as a compliment, though personally I was never very good at art, and it seems to me a little presumptuous on your part to assume all of the intended recipients are.
I believe you may have intended the brochure to be addressed to "Prospective Student," having the meaning of a student who is expected to, have the potential to, or is likely to attend. Sadly, the irony lies in the fact that this basic mistake has made me much less likely to attend your institution than I was before I received it. Also, there is the fact that I already possess a four-year degree, obtained from an institution which encouraged proof-reading from its students.
Good luck with your future crop of students, who will no doubt possess unparalleled skills of spatial awareness.
PS - Please forgive the overly sardonic tone of my letter. I blame it on having been a Washington Post reader for several years. |
|
|
| Hero of the Week: Senator Al Franken (D-MN) |
[Oct. 16th, 2009|09:32 pm] |
"The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. … The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen."
Full story from Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/07/kbr-rape-franken-amendment/?40lbs
On the downside, apparently 30 United States Senators, all Republican, believe women who are drugged, gang raped, imprisoned without food and water, and then threatened with the loss of their job do not have the right to bring charges against their assailants or the employer which facilitated the attack. |
|
|
| Call me crazy... |
[Oct. 8th, 2009|09:50 pm] |
Allow me to start with a qualifier; I am a supporter of health care reform. I support the public option and I'm really disappointed in Obama and other Dems for backing off of it. I felt it was the strongest and most crucial point of the reform bill(s).
But as happy as I am that reform is being aggressively pursued, I have to say that I never thought it would be during the 2008 campaign season. I didn't even think Hillary would have gotten this far if she had been elected. I never believed for a second back then that anyone would ever figure out a way to pay for it. And so it was with that mindset that I formulated what my healthcare reform would be if I were president.
Instead of trying to get healthcare for everyone, why not give healthcare to everyone under the age of 18? What reasonable person could argue against healthcare for children? Of course there would be some black-hearted neocons, but reasonable people? Few and far between. Paying for healthcare for minors would be initially cheaper than suddenly giving healthcare to everyone. The budget for healthcare could be easily forecast using census data (sorry Michelle Bachman - if you don't like it than forfiet your kids' care). Upon reaching the age of 18, the insurance would not end, so that after a few generations, eventually everyone would have healthcare. And maybe, just maybe, if all minors had top notch care from birth, they would be healthier as adults, and, gasp, would end up costing less to insure!
Am I nuts? Am I missing a huge point here? Has anyone in a postition of power come up with a similar idea and I don't know about it? |
|
|
| If at first you don't succeed, tri tri again. |
[Oct. 2nd, 2009|10:22 pm] |
Some of you may have picked up on this from various facebook status' that I posted over the summer. Pretty much what I was preoccupied with most of the summer was training for the Nation's Triathlon. A couple years ago I started running 10K races (6.2 miles) mostly because my hospital does one annually, and the only guy that works at the hospital that runs it is the IT guy. I figure I'm young, in reasonably good shape, and it probably begins to look bad at a certain point that none of the Police Officers do it.
After doing this for a couple years, and doing one in New York (which was a massive event - 10,000 in each of 26 cities across the world, orchestrated so that there was a literally a race going on for 24 hours) I really wanted to run one in DC. I thought there must be a race around the Mall or something and that its really beautiful there, etc...
Nothing really came up in an internet search for 10Ks, but I stumbled upon the Nation's Triathlon. I decided I really wanted to try it. It was Olympic distance, which is a 1.5K/.9 mile swim in the Potomac, a 40K/25 mile bike ride out into Maryland on the Clara Barton Parkway, and a 10K run through East Potomac Park.
All summer I trained on a bike, and ran a combination of road courses, and on a treadmill. I joined the YMCA to take swimming lessons, and shelled out some pretty big bucks for a wet suit. I already had a really good racing bike from about three years ago when I got all inspired watching Lance Armstrong in the Tour. I was really jazzed about the whole thing, and really thought it was going to be a good time. Sivan and I went up the day before and stayed with her sister who lives in Alexandria.
Jumping ahead for a moment to a few days after the race, Sivan's sister was looking on the internet at the race results for my time because her fiance had expressed some interest in competing in next year's race. They couldn't find my results and asked Sivan about it.
Here then is the story of my first triathlon, as written in an email to Sivan's sister.
-----
Subject: So about last Sunday...
I was going to tell you guys this at some point, but Sivi told me tonight that you had tried to look up my race results and not found anything, so now seems like the best time to spill the beans.
I didn't actually finish the race. I barely even started it.
I jumped into the river for the swim and it was God-awfully cold. Much colder than the pool I had been training in. I had also dropped my nose clip somewhere in the swim pen, which put me at a huge disadvantage, because I've never been able to overcome my aversion to putting my face in the water and getting water up my nose. Still, I tried to go anyway. Then when my wave took off I wasn't able to calm myself down and get my heart rate down and steady partly because of the water temperature and partly because I've never swam in open water before, and wasn't prepared for how different it would be from a pool. What finally did me in though was something I'd never anticipated, and that was my vision. I am very nearly blind without my glasses which again is something that never bothered me in the pool, because I could always see the lane lines on either side of me and the line on the bottom. Out in the open water I wasn't able to see the buoys, even though they were bright neon yellow and orange, because they were so far apart. And when I fell to the back of the pack (which was the one thing I had actually anticipated, and even planned on doing intentionally), I was completely lost, not even being able to see the yellow swim caps of all the people in my group. The only thing I could see was the Memorial Bridge in the distance, and no matter how hard I swam, it wasn't getting any closer. The combination of everything became too overwhelming, so despite being able to swim further than the required distance in the pool just a couple weeks prior, I was completely unprepared for what that river was going to demand of me. I made my way to the bank and got picked up by a Metro PD jetski.
That's when the DC Police attempted to drown me.
The jetski had a rescue sled hooked up behind it. I crawled up and put my hands in the straps, and the policewoman turned and said to me "If I go too fast, scream really, really loud." I said okay. Then she gunned engine and banked into a 90 degree right turn, and the sled flipped upside down and dumped me back in the water. In hindsight, this probably kicked up enough of a fight-or-flight response for me to calm down and just finish the damn race, but I didn't think of it at the time. My only thought was that it was a damn good thing that I wasn't in any real distress, and that I could actually swim back to the bank. It took her a couple minutes to even realize I was gone from the sled, and when she came back to pick me up, she said that if I felt more comfortable, I could ride on the jetski behind her. I told her in not so many words that I thought that would be best. She took me out to a police boat in the middle of the river, which then took me to shore behind the starting dock. The paramedics made sure I was okay, and I had to turn in my time chip so that I wouldn't have an official time, but they told me I was still welcome to finish the race. This is why I "forgot" to get my time receipt at the finish line when Jay was asking about my times for the individual events. I knew there wouldn't be one for me.
So I paced around for just a few minutes because as you can imagine I was terribly upset. I sort of had a little mini-cry. Then at 8:00 (I know because the announcer was calling the start for the 8:00 swim wave) I got it together and jogged back into the transition area, got on my bike and took off and finished.
That's why when I crossed the finish line and found you and Sivi I wanted to take a little walk with her to tell her what happened right away, and ask her not to say anything to you and Jay. I also had to have another little bit of a cry which I just barely got over when you and Jay caught up to us. I wasn't ready to come out and tell you guys right away because of how upset I was. And regretfully, that meant I couldn't tell you that great jetski story either. Because lets face it, considering I didn't get hurt, that story was worth the price of admission.
But everything is cool now. I've gotten over it, and I'm glad I could get this off my chest and tell you guys what was going on. I've pretty well decided to try again next year, thinking that with a nose clip and a little better understanding of what to expect when I jump in the river I know I can finish. I'm also going to get more help on open water swimming from friends that do triathlons, and I'll try to find two or three short distance races to do locally next summer. Feel free to relate this whole story to Jay, but leave out the parts about me crying, if you don't mind.
Thanks again so much for putting us up last weekend. I know we must have held up your progress on the rennovations a little. Keep us up to date, and I hope all continues to go well.
We'll see you soon.
----
That part about the jetski is pretty damn funny.
I've decided to still be proud of myself because even doing two-thirds of the race was the most physically challenging thing I've ever done. And I really do think I'll try again next year, but only because I don't want this to be my first and only attempt. I am really not fond of swimming and never have been a strong swimmer, so I don't think I'll be progressing to do longer distance triathlons, but I definately want to conquer the Olympic distance. After that, I think I want focus on triathlons where they have duathlon (bike/run) entires, or even run/bike/run triathlons, or be part of a relay tri team in which I don't have to swim. What's more, I want to focus on running. I think I can do a half marathon before I'm thiry, and a full marathon before I'm thirty two. |
|
|
| 1-1 Record, hangin' 'em up |
[Sep. 29th, 2009|11:13 am] |
This weeks in goaltending didn't turn out so well, though didn't turn out badly either. I played in goal against a much stronger team, and we lost 7-5, though their seventh goal was an empty-netter and did not count against me. Promising though was the fact that last season it was typical for us to give up 7 or 8 goals to this team and not score nearly as many in return.
Next week, I am told, I can return to my regular role as goal scorer extraordinaire. |
|
|
| Come again? |
[Sep. 25th, 2009|12:13 pm] |
"All pornography is homosexual pornography, because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards.' And if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he's going to want to get a copy of Playboy? I'm pretty sure he'll lose interest... It's a good thing to teach young people."
Michael Schwartz, chief of staff for Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma
What the fuck does "turns your sexual drive inwards" mean?
I swear to Christ I think these people are just rearranging those little word magnets on their refrigerators. Instead of making pretty poems they are just writing speeches.
How long is the turning gay process supposed to take? Because if porn hasn't turned me gay by now.... |
|
|
| My final recap of last season |
[Sep. 24th, 2009|11:16 am] |
The abbreviated Spring hockey season turned out slightly better than the Winter season, with the Cementheads having a record of 2-6 (one of the wins being by forfeit). My Stats were better in the season too. ( Boring Hockey Stats Cut. )
All those state remain unchanged after the first game of the 2009-10 season. Not because I didn't play or because I was a non-factor, but because I got to the rink and ten minutes before getting dress I found out I had to play goalie. Still, the season got off to a great start with a 4-3 win. I have a feeling that I will now continue to be the goalie, much to my excitement/consternation. I like skating, and I like scoring goals. I like being a clutch guy. I like being needed to step up. I can still do all those thing (except scoring) but the mental aspect of the game is completely different. It's not something I'm sure I'm ready for. And If I am up to the task, I'm not sure I'm up for it for a whole season. We'll see how things go. Maybe I'll just end up splitting goalie duties with our regular guy. The rink doesn't keep track of shots and saves, so I can't keep track of my Goals Against Average or my Save Percentage. The only thing I can keep track of is my record.
Goalie Record
1-0 |
|
|
| New Court |
[Dec. 29th, 2008|04:18 pm] |
See this entry for reference.
Wicomico County District, Salisbury
Wicomico County Circuit, Salisbury
Worcester County District, Ocean City
Somerset County District, Princess Anne
Dorchester County District, Cambridge
Dorchester County Circuit, Cambridge
Talbot County District, Easton
Talbot County Circuit, Easton
Caroline County District, Denton
Kent County District, Chestertown
Cecil County Circuit, Elkton
Harford County District, Bel Air
Baltimore County District, Towson
Howard County District, Ellicott City
St. Mary's County District, Leonardtown
St. Mary's County Circuit, Leonardtown
Prince George's County Circuit, Upper Marlboro
Total: 17
Edit I had listed Worcester County District Court in Snow Hill, MD as a new entry. But as it turns out, the trip was canceled, and I didn't go. The total remains at 17. |
|
|
| Ugh. |
[Dec. 25th, 2008|05:08 pm] |
Wilson Stars 11, Cement Heads 3 (Cement Heads eliminated from play-offs)
Game Stats Goal, Plus/Minus -5
Season Stats
10 Goals
4 Assists
14 Points
Plus/Minus +1
6 PIMS
10 Games Played
The score pretty much says it all. We lost to the eventual champions, which I guess is something.
----
Christmas was spent with the family. Dinner was eaten, gifts were given. It was as run of the mill as can be. Very little Christmas spirit found me this year. I think part of the reason is that there was no snow. I'm not usually an advocate for snow. I'm really quite happy with getting a major snow storm only every five years or so, but this year I really wanted a couple feet. Not getting snow when you actually want some is disappointing enough, but making matters worse is when you hear on the news that Shreiveport, Louisiana got snow, your buddy in Autsin, Texas got snow, and your neighbor who works for NASA and was flying missions in Las freakin' Vegas got snow. And not trivial amounts.
Snow wasn't the only issue. I've just been pretty blah in general. I'm working my fifth consecutive Christmas, only this year I seem fortunate enough to be working a double shift! And I'm even more sick of the religous tension that only seems to escalate year after year. There's nothing wrong with "Happy Holidays" and here's a tip: the more you antagonize me about saying "Merry Christmas," the less likely I am to do it. I'm also perfectly capable of celebrating Christmas without even a passing mention of Jesus, and I prefer to do so. I'd rather focus on the gifts I receive daily of friendship and love than pay homage to a little plastic baby on the front lawn of the church. There are also only a scant few Christmas songs I enjoy, and I have to hear a large number of songs I do not.
I'm thankful for the gifts I received, and thankful for the friends I have, friends both in the flesh and across the ether. And I'm thankful that January is likely to bring me a better mood. |
|
|
| Disappointment in Philly |
[Nov. 28th, 2008|12:07 am] |
Wilson Stars 5, Cement Heads 1 (Cement Heads 5-4-0)
Game Stats: Assist, Plus/Minus even
It was pretty neat to get to actually skate on the Flyers home ice. It was certainly the best ice I've ever played on. Very cold and very fast. It was disappointing that we kind of had the idea we'd be treated a little bit like hockey players, when in actuality we got the impression we were an annoyance to the arena staff. It was just little things like being rushed along, a lot of hurry up and wait, locker rooms the size of walk-in closets, and that we weren't allowed to use the showers after the game. On that last count, I thought about asking the manager if he wanted to explain to my girlfriend why we had to drive from Philly back to Salisbury (about three hours) with the windows down in 27 degree weather, but in the end I favored discretion.
We were the "visiting" team when we got to ice level. I sat on the bench that Wayne Gretzky had coached behind a mere twenty minutes before. That's pretty much all I could have asked for.
After the game the staff were trying to hurry us off the ice as quickly as possible. I complicated things by getting Kurt down on the ice to take pictures. I thought this one woman was about to lose her shit over the fact that he got down there. She kept leaning out of the penalty box, yelling at him like he was four for him to get off the ice. Meanwhile, I'm telling him to stand on the center ice dot so I can get a picture of him, and one of my teammates got a picture of us together. The woman just kept getting more and more pissed. Come to find out she wa safraid of walkiong out on the ice. It was hilarious because that illegitimate fear kind of took her authority away. We were on the ice and she wanted us off. But she was limited to yelling at us from the box. If we decided to stay on the ice ten more minutes, there wasn't really anything she could do about it except yell more.
And so what if we would have gotten thrown out? Kurt's never going to get to stand at center ice in the Wachovia Center again. I'm probably not going to. We had already seen the Flyers game, and I had already played my league game. I have no reason to go back to that den of Hellspawn (the arena, or the city...take that whichever way you want).
All in all it was a fun experience, except the part where my team played the role of the Washington Generals. If I ever get the chance again I know I won't be nearly so worked up over it as I was this time.
----
Stampede 6, Cement Heads 3 (Cement Heads 5-5-0)
Game Stats: Goal, Assist, Plus/Minus +2
Season Stats
9 Goals
4 Assists
13 Points
Plus/Minus +6
6 PIMS
9 Games Played
The rink is doing three short seasons this year instead of one long season. So we're ten games in and that's it for the first regular season. The first play-offs start next week. |
|
|
| This isn't so weird, is it? |
[Nov. 18th, 2008|10:34 pm] |
Reason #35741357 I know that Sivan and I are perfect for each other:
She wishes Muppets were real, too.
I mean literally real, not just real in the sense that Brian Henson creates them.
Like we both literally wish we could go to Wal-Mart and some of the cashiers and some other staff members would be freakin' Muppets. And that that would be normal.
Yeah, we both wish that.
I would totally ask a Muppet for help at Wal-Mart before I asked a human being.
----
On a somewhat related note, I was thinking how great the new Star Wars Trilogy would be if it had dumped all the CGI in favor of Muppets.
If there was one thing I could possibly pinpoint that the comparatively low budget film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has hanging over the head of Star Wars I-III, it's freakin' Muppets.
Vogons totally = Muppets.
Watto = totally should have been a Muppet.
Episode IV-VI Yoda totally = Muppet.
Episode I-III Yoda = CGI with Frank Oz's voice, but totally should have been a Muppet
See what I mean?
----
Just because I've been drinking doesn't make my point any less valid. And you can quote that on Facebook. |
|
|
| Deuce |
[Nov. 18th, 2008|03:16 pm] |
Cement Head 8, NAPA Predators 3 (Cement Heads 5-3-0)
Game Stats 2 Goals, Plus/Minus +2
Season Stats
8 Goals
2 Assists
10 Points
Plus/Minus +4
6 PIMS
7 Games Played
----
My next game will be at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, the Flyers home ice! I'm so excited I get to play in an NHL arena! |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
wshcaps's journal
