Tired Week

What a week....we had the funeral for Jim on Tuesday. It was a great service with tremendous music. During the visitation Jim's CD's were playing in the background of the songs he sang and recorded. There was a new appreciation for the deepness and tone of his voice as we visited with relatives and friends. His son and daugher-in-law were able to come down from Tennessee and it was actually the first time I'd ever met them...very nice people and easy to talk to. During the service, one young man named Ben Waites sang. He knew Jim and is going to Louisiana College but didn't hesitate to skip his classes to come to the services. He's also confined to a wheelchair, unable to get much use from his arms and legs but he has the most incredible voice. He sang two songs that were so fitting for the service. Jim would have loved it. Then there were two very young ladies who play violin and had recorded a few songs with Jim years ago. They played a most beautiful duet that really set the mood. Since then Jim's body was cremated and he's at home now while Mom decides, in her own time, what she will do with the remains.

I got the shoes that I'm going to use in the Marine Corps Marathon on the 31st: a pair of Asics Gel-Nimbus 12, size 11, with the proper insoles. Tested them for six miles yesterday morning and they felt great. Even my leg behaved itself, enabling me to go at marathon pace. Tomorrow is my last long training run, about 26 miles, and I'll see how they feel on my footsies for almost five hours.

Here's what's going to get me through my first marathon.
Pretty, ain't they?

Probably because of all the things we've had to do in regards to the funeral and arrangements and such, that's why both Jonnene and I are just worn out. Plus work and the bathroom renovations....oh, yeah, new photo below!

The tile work is done and grout has been applied, as seen in the picture above. Monday the tile will be cleaned and sealant applied. Hopefully, by Tuesday the toilet will be in place as well as the faucet/levers for the sink. We still have to choose cabinet door handles and drawer pulls plus determine the size of the mirror over the sink...we're reusing the mirror from the original bathroom but it'll have to be cut down to a size that'll work in the new place. But so far it's looking really good!

Shower Updates

The tiling on the bathroom shower has begun! Photos below....

The funeral services for Jim have been scheduled for Tuesday at 1 pm. We spent a couple of hours at the funeral home taking care of paperwork and becoming familiar with how the whole process works. He will be cremated and that procedure was described to us so we'd know what was happening. It all took over 2 hours to get most everything arranged and it seems to be the way we want it. Later I sent a photo of Jim and a written obituary to both the funeral home and the church for them to use in the paper and the service program.

Only did mile repeats today for my marathon training. Next Sunday is 26 miles and then I start tapering. I also signed up Jonnene for the 10K race being held there the same day. Should be fun!

The tiling has started in the shower. The young man doing this is very meticulous in how he sets up the tiles and the details he has created to make this shower a bit unique. He knows his stuff.

A closeup of the back corner of the shower. You can see the little triangular seat that's been placed in the corner. Normally this would be bigger but we were concerned that we needed as much stand-up space in the shower as we could get so it's sized enough to allow one to sit on it but not for long. It's mainly to let Jonnene prop her leg up to shave. The shower floor tile has not been installed yet. The horizontal band with the multi-colored small stones come from an Australian company. The green "spots" on the tiles are tile spacers that'll be removed once the tiles have set.

Jim Parker - RIP

My stepfather, Jim Parker, passed away last night. It was a surprise or maybe it wasn't a surprise. He had been in two hospitals over the last five weeks after surgery to try to find out why he was having breathing difficulties. It was pretty much determined that he had fibrosis (can't remember the proper name) that may have been the result of being exposed to asbestos in his younger years working in construction and in housing units that he helped maintain for the city. From what I know about asbestos exposure, it is a nasty way to live after it makes itself known. There is no cure.

Both he and Mom had their surgeries the same day. She had gone in to repair a broken wrist, just day surgery. Jonnene drove her to the clinic for her procedure and I drove Jim over to LSUMC for his surgery. I hate, now, thinking that when we drove away from their house that it would be the last time Jim would ever see it. I had a suspicion of the possibility but I was hoping for the best. In fact, all during the time Jim suffered through the recovery from the surgery I felt he would get to go home at some point, even as late as yesterday afternoon. This past week had started hopeful as he was being weaned from his oxygen and starting some therapy. He was happy to get out of that hospital bed and move around a little bit. But Friday morning his CO2 levels were very high and it was hard to wake him. He was put back on oxygen in an attempt to purge the CO2's out of his blood.

Jonnene went up to check on him during her lunch hour and he was rousing some, recognized her being there. When Mom had gotten the news that morning she was upset but relieved some when she got Jonnene's call and update on his condition. I went up there to see him later in the afternoon and Mom had already been there for a couple of hours. His breathing was labored and you could hear him trying to cough up the gunk in his lungs but he didn't have the lung capacity to get enough air to cough it up at all. We were able to talk to him, he wanted to know where his glasses were but didn't want to put them on. Mom and I talked about things regarding Jim and his condition plus some other things.

I left around 4:40 pm to go pick up a couple of items at Target and I thought he was going to improve after he'd had the weekend to recover a bit. I was already thinking we'd get him out of the hospital for a day over the next week. He looked so sad and so tired...we knew that the only thing he wanted was to just go home, even for a short while. Was that so much to want?

Anyway, Mom left soon after I did. She gave Jim a kiss, he kissed her back, and they told each other that they loved each other. She went to the grocery store to get a few things.

I was home with Jonnene when we got the call around 5:45 pm to come back to the hospital because there had been a change in Jim's condition. That's not good news. Then Mom called, upset. She was still in her car when she got the call and wanted to know if we knew anything. We didn't and soon we were on our way back to Willis-Knighton.

When we had gotten those calls the staff on Jim's floor was working to resuscitate Jim. His nurse, Jonathan, had been at the front desk making notes of Jim's condition by checking the monitor there. Jonathan told us later that as he looked at the screen Jim went from having a pulse to virtually no pulse, just like that. It stunned Jonathan for a second and he and others were in Jim's room in seconds since it was just 15 feet away. They tried for 15 minutes to bring him back. We met Mom in the parking lot and went upstairs where they told us he was gone.

So, anyway, this bear of a man who liked to sing and dress as Santa Claus for kids was gone. Now we have to deal with the funeral arrangements and trying to keep Mom in one piece. To say she is sad is an understatement. At the time of this writing there are no plans in place but we'll take care of most of that later today.

I had been hoping we could sneak him home for a while to see his dogs and be in familiar surroundings. I don't think the remainder of his life would have been of any kind of quality that would remotely resemble anything good. At least he's not in pain anymore and the last 26 years with Mom was probably the next closest thing to heaven he could have ever wished for. Mom's face was the last one he saw and I think that would satisfy him.

Long Ways

Last Sunday I ran 23 miles. NEVER have I run 23 miles. It's a long way. But I had to do it because I have to do these long runs to prepare for my marathon...only 32 days away now. It actually went quite well. I prepared for it in the couple of days before, eating right, drinking enough to be hydrated properly (I had to pee five times during that run since I was so well hydrated), and getting back from a football game in Monroe soon enough Saturday night to allow me to get enough sleep before heading off at 6 am Sunday morning. I ran slowly because the purpose of the long run is to build endurance. Speed in not important. You save the speed work for the shorter runs during the week. So I ran about 3 minutes per mile slower than I would have for the actual race, going at a 3:1 run/walk ratio: run three minutes, walk one minute. I ended up with an 11:07 per mile average, almost dead on three minutes slower than the 8:05-8:15 pace I want to do at the marathon. And I felt very good afterwards. I did some errands and took my niece and her boyfriend out to a quarterhorse ranch that a cycling buddy of mine owns. They seemed to like that a lot.

I also signed up Jonnene to do the 10K run that will be held in conjunction with my marathon up in Washington, DC. We had thought the race was filled with their 10,000 runner limit but a notice came up on FaceBook that fifty spots were open so I grabbed one for her. The nice thing for her is that she'll start her run (at a different location but the same finish line) the same time I do but she'll be done soon enough that she can go back to our hotel, clean up, and come back out to see the last part of my race. She'll be done in about an hour while I'll still have 2 hours and 45 minutes to finish my race...if I do it in the 3:45 time that I want.

The bathroom is coming along and the tile should start going up by Thursday...I hope.

The countertop to the vanity has arrived and was installed.
The undercounter sink was attached, too.

The shower area has had several coats of waterproofing "stuff" applied to the concrete board and surrounding sheetrock. It's almost ready for tiling once the copper pan is attached to the floor. You can also see the two insets on the wall where we will be able to put shampoo bottles and things like soap.
It'll be nice.

More Bath Pics - Part II

In case you didn't know, we've been in the process of renovating our "master" bath...oh, you DID know. Well, okay, here's the latest pics of the work in progress.

One more look at the vanity and tower before paint was applied.

Jonnene takes a look inside the cabinet. This shot also gives you an idea of the size of the room we're dealing with. The cabinets are not as deep as to allow a little more room to manuver.

The travertine stone tiles are stacked up in the carport waiting to be applied to the shower walls and the bathroom floor.

One last look at the bare studs in the shower area before they are covered up tomorrow. Also a look at the painted walls and ceiling in that direction.

The painted cabinets and walls. The granite counter top will go in next week.

A close-up look at the trim tiles we'll have in the shower area. They are manufactured by an Australian company, Maniscalco, so we had to have it!

View of the entrance to the bath where a pocket door will come out of the left hand side. We'll have to do some painting on the walls, I guess! Hey, there's dogs outside!!!

More Bath Pics

The vanity and tower have been installed!
Coober checks them out. Hope he doesn't "mark" them!

Here's a better view of the tower (I don't know what else to call it). It has two drawers at the bottom, cabinet doors with shelves inside, and an exposed storage area at the top.
These will be painted later. They had primer put on them today so now they're all white.

At the bottom is the vanity with center drawers and side cabinets...and drawers up top, too. The counter top with the sink will be installed later. The counter will slide between the vanity and the tower. Power outlet is that little hole in the wall. The sink will be at the left with the mirror and lights around it. The place is starting to take shape!

More Renovating, More Running

Updates....yeah, updates. Sort of a busy weekend. Not in the way you count the number of things you did in a space of time but the time it took to do some things. Such as Jonnene running her long run of 7 miles on Saturday and I did my long run of 20 miles on Sunday. I had never covered 20 miles on foot ever in my life and it really got tough the last 2-3 miles...I'm sure I walked more than I ran at that point, had already run out of water, it was hot and humid, and I still managed to average 10:46/mile. I thought I'd be slower! For Jonnene, her knee started acting up on her about 2/3's of the way in but she turned in just shy of an 11-minute mile pace.

There's also some family health issues that we're having to tend to but that's our job as the kiddos to do the things that need to be done.

The bathroom renovations are still underway....shall be for a while longer. More pictures below:

Sophie and Coober sometimes get to check out the mess in the bedroom.

The custom-made vanity unit and tower came in and are waiting to be installed eventually.

Here's the original entrance to the master bath after the demolition was finished.

And now the smaller version of the entrance after the sheetrock has gone up which will feature a pocket door.

A downward view of Jonnene as seen from the ceiling rafters before the wall boards go up.

Looking toward the shower area after we got down to the studs and after the plumbing was worked on. You can see the drainage ports for the shower and the toilet on the floor.

Same area after the sheetrock has been put up. Light/vent/heater will be installed in the hole in the ceiling. The exposed areas will have different wallboard put up to make that area waterproof and then the stone tiling will be put in.

We left our names and the date on the inside of one of the walls for someone to find someday in the far future when the house is renovated again or torn down...hopefully many decades from now!

Looking towards the entrance after the demolition was finished.

Same view after the pocket door framework and a stout header board was installed as well as the framing for the door jam.

A much cleaner look with the wallboard in place! Now the mudding begins followed by texturing of the walls to prepare it for paint (we have to finalize our colors soon).

We moved ourselves to the guest bedroom while this is going on. But above is our master bedroom with all the stuff, the old mirror (which we'll have cut to size and reused in the bathroom), and boxes of bathroom fixtures. The bed has a tarp on it to keep the dust off and the closets have been covered with plastic sheeting for the same reason.

The Renovations Begin

I know, it's been just over a month since my last blog entry! Sorry. It's harder to maintain this thing than I thought it would be. But I won't ignore it...I might get on a roll and make you wish I hadn't started this thing!

First off, I'm still training for my marathon in October. I've had a setback with some pain in my left calf muscles and we haven't been able to truly figure out what the problem is. I've scaled back my running to give it a chance to rest but I think I'm about to start ramping it up. Some runs the thing will hurt like crazy and other days it'll sorta hurt and then go away. Like this morning...I ran 6.8 miles at a 8:14/mile pace and had little problem. Ran 16 miles last Sunday, little problem. Ran an easy 4 miles last Wednesday...that sucker hurt like a you-know-what. I ice it every day, Jonnene will rub it down, will do the elliptical machine at the gym, and I often wear compression socks...seems to help. More to come on this little adventure.

We've started our renovation on our master bathroom! It sorta sounds silly since our "master bathroom" is the same size...small...as our guest bathroom but we're trying to make it look bigger by taking out the soffets and the dividing wall/door. Should be interesting. In the meantime we've moved into the guest bedroom to avoid the dust being kicked up. Here's some pics of the job:

Looking to the left after I removed the shower head and most of the fixtures last Monday.

The work has started (last Tuesday)! The toilet is gone and most of the plumbing disconnect has taken place. Also, the electrical has been removed...you can see the working light hanging from the ceiling.

Same angle with EVERYTHING ripped out! Sheetrock goes in next week.

This view is from the inside of the shower looking to the right of the bathroom. Drawer handles are gone as is the toilet paper roll holder.

Same view with everything gone and demo'd down to the studs. Next week the plumbing will be adjusted and new electrical will go in. The room's nice and large when there's nothing in it!

Full Weekend

Jonnene and I after her race where she finished 7th in her age group.

Sunday was the 30th anniversary of the River Cities Triathlon up at Cypress Lake. I've done this race about 10 times with the last one in 2004 and that was when I swore off triathlons and went directly to duathlons. I wasn't interested in learning to be a better swimmer so why not do races at what I was better at? The last couple of years I've been in charge of the bike portion of the race which means I have to come up with volunteers to man all the turns and the exit/entrance of the park gate....find motorcycles to ferry the race officials around the course...make sure the course is in reasonable shape, sweeping here and there, marking potholes to be filled, and getting the dead animals off the roads. Yep, it's a glory job alright.

We got up at 4 am that morning, had to walk the dogs and then load up the Rav4. We got to the race site around 5:15 am, off-loaded Jonnene and her gear, and I headed out to drop off vests, flags and cones to the various corners that my volunteers would arrive at a couple of hours later. I had an issue with some gear being stolen at one of the corners...it was weird and takes too long to explain but I had enough stuff left over to cover for what ended up missing. Then it was back to the park to organize things with the officials and motorcycles, send some volunteers to certain spots inside the park to direct the cyclists, and find Jonnene somewhere on the beach so I could give her a good luck kiss. Soon the first wave was coming out of the water and heading out on the bike course so I had to hope that things were okay. I talked to some of the corners by phone during the race to make sure things were fine. There were three crashes that I knew about, one of which might have been a broken collarbone. We sent the EMS crew out and we assumed that they took the victim to the hospital. One of the volunteer coordinators brought the guy's bike back to the transition area.

Jonnene takes off with her bike after a 1/2 mile swim in Cypress Lake.

The word for the day was HOT. I think the heat index got up to 108 degrees by the time the last participant came across the finish line. There were about 1,100 racers signed up but I have no idea how many actually did the race. I'll bet there were over a thousand. Everyone seemed to handle the heat fairly well as long as they stayed hydrated and raced within themselves. I walked about and even rode my old cruiser bike to get around the area, monitoring the race over the walkie-talkie I had and talking to workers over the cell phone. Sometimes I had both going at once.

When nearly everyone was off the bike course I headed out to do a final clean-up of the course, pick up the volunteer gear, and just make sure things out there were fine. I came upon a racer who had gotten a ride from one of the motorcyclists to a spot on the course where she had lost her bike computer. It had just flown off the mount on her handlebars but she continued on. With her race done, she was now back out looking for that $100 piece of equipment she had bought just a few days before over in Dallas. After about 10 minutes of staring at grass on the side of the road, I started to walk down the hill, saw a glint, and found the computer! It was on the side of the road with just a tiny scratch and somehow nobody had run over it with a bike or car. She was estatic and gave me a big hug, dampening the front of my polo shirt and shorts from the race sweat on her skinsuit. Hey, I like my women sweaty, y'know? Anyway, that was my good deed for the day.

Jonnene and Lisa come back from their bike ride side-by-side. Lisa is the better runner and would finish ahead of Jonnene by 90 seconds. Lisa was 6th and Jonnene was 7th in the same age group! They were both in the top third of all the 1,000+ race finishers!

Eventually, Jonnene finished her race, missing her PR by only a couple of minutes! Considering she had shoulder surgery just six months ago and the limited training time she had, I considered her effort to be phenomenal! Essentially, she went into this race with no pressure to do well, just enjoy the event, and she raced totally relaxed, mentally speaking. She did well.

We got home around 1 pm and ate ice cream. I think we deserved it.

Now I've got a bunch of flags, vests, and signs to clean up and organize so I return them to the race promoter. It's Monday and my part of the race isn't over yet.

July begins

Well, the July 4th weekend and holiday is coming to an end and you can hear some fireworks outside as everyone takes advantage of this last legal night to ignite their ordnance, er, fireworks. A few loud booms here and there which our dogs aren't too fond of. I heard that this holiday results in the most runaway dogs than any other time of the year. I'm not surprised.

Saturday morning was the FireCracker 5K and I was scheduled by my training guide to do a 5 kilometer race and add 4 miles to that distance for seven miles total. Jonnene and I headed out to join with 3,000 other runners and once we got there I went out for a short 1/2 mile run as a warmup and to start getting in my total distance. Got back and into a long line for the port-a-potties where, just before it was finally my turn to go to one of the outhouses, this young punk walked up and cut the line to get into one. Another port-o-let opened up for me but I walked up to the guy's potty and banged the door twice really hard, yelling "Get in line next time, jerk!" I hope it scared the crap out of him 'cause I didn't hear anything out of him. I heard a few laughs in the line, did my business, and went back to the race start where everyone was gathering.

I worked my way up to the third "row" of runners, chatted with some folks I knew and waited for the MC to finish up the festivities, which means we start the race about 20-25 minutes later than the scheduled start time (it's been like that for years...we've gotten used to it). Finally the firecrackers go off, signaling the start, and off we go trying not to trip over all the people around us. Jonnene started further back and is probably dealing with more of a crowd than I am. I wasn't sure how I wanted to run this although the training guide says to "race" the 5K and I wanted to not go out too fast. After finally getting some elbow room and passing some people on the early hills, I was able to manuver around a bit to hear the 1-mile announcer call out "6:51" as I went by. That was way faster than I intended and I was worried that I wouldn't have much left by the finish, especially to get the extra miles later. By two miles I was at 14:03 and feeling pretty good so I kept motoring, passing more people and getting passed by only a handful. I saw Daniel A and Martha S in front but I couldn't get much closer than 20 meters to Daniel and finally caught Martha in the last tenth of a mile. I finished up in 21:44 for 3.1 miles and I was pleased with that since it worked out to a 7:04 per mile average, plenty fast enough. I went to the port-o-lets again and then went out to do the course again. Taking the extra miles slower I still ended up with a 8-minute mile average. Jonnene had a good run, too, with a 27:31. I was proud of her for knocking out the race within a minute of her best 5K time.

Sunday was a rest day from running and I spent most of the afternoon at Mom's doing some work on one of their bathrooms. I had renovated the other bathroom earlier this year which I thought came out real well and Mom liked it. This time the job is a little simpler, requires a bit of cleaning up and replacing the toilet seat lids and putting in a new faucet, as well as some painting and some other installations. I got the faucet put in but will have to come back for the drain installation. Getting the old seat off the toilet was a chore since the bolts had rusted and I ended up having to saw one of them off. But it got done and the new seat's in place. The room already looks better and I'm only 30% thru the work!! The rest will take a couple of weeks or so to finish up.

Regarding my marathon this October, I've always had this set of goals:

1. Show up at the start and finish the marathon. Finishing is the main thing.

2. Try to finish in under 4 hours.

3. My target finishing time goal is under 3 hours, 45 minutes. Again, finishing...period...is more important. But this is my pride talking here.

So, out of curiosity, I went online to find out what it took to qualify for the Boston Marathon. In my age group, I would need to finish in 3:45:59 or faster. I looked at it again....if I achieve goal #3 I would be a qualifier for Boston in 2012. Wow. It'd be nice to pull that off. Jonnene says we could go if I wanted to do that race.

BUT I gotta qualify first and that's going to take some work.

It is really getting hot around here

Today is the first day of summer with an expected high of 98 degrees...tomorrow we're supposed to have 100 degrees. Then it'll drop down to around 93 by Friday. Whew! Relief! At last!

The weekend was way busy. I even did a long nap Sunday afternoon and I was still busy. Yesterday Jonnene and I woke up at 4:30 am to volunteer at the Sunrise #3 Triathlon: her to work registration and me to help set up the transition area (oh, yeah, Jonnene did some of that, too!). I also helped guide the racers thru transition during the race after The Wife went on to work...she had to work the weekend. She's never too enthused to do that...don't blame her. My Centenary kids did well but the heat got to them as well as everyone else but they all survived.

After that I got home and went out for my Sunday run in 95 degree warmth. Had to do six 1-mile repeats at 20 seconds faster than my planned marathon pace and I managed to do that. With four minute rest breaks between the efforts I would down a nice cold 6-8 ounces of water or energy drink. I still felt wiped out after it was all over and I got a nice outline of my tanktop on my shoulders from the sun. I still sorta feel it today. That got me a nice nap that afternoon. Called Dad to wish him a happy Father's Day and I'll get his gift to him later this week. Ashley and Clint came over last night and fed them as they got ready for their second night in their new rent house here in Shreveport.

Yeah, Saturday we helped moved them into their new place in the south part of Shreveport. It was hot that day, too! Saturday morning I spent out in the yard, doing yard stuff and starting on placing the pickets on the fence. I'm not too interested in looking into the back yard of our backside neighbors and them into ours. Got the main supports in place, set up a line to keep the top of the pickets level, and got one picket up. By then I was worn out and put everything up.

But the most important part of the weekend was getting a call before 5 am Saturday morning from my step-father, telling me that he and Mom were at the emergency room of the hospital. She's got a kidney stone and the sucker made itself known much earlier that morning. She hasn't passed it yet and I feel for her since I've gone thru that...it is REALLY painful and can mess up your schedule for sure. I drove down to the hospital, picked Jim up and took him to their house so he could get the car to bring Mom home (he had traveled in the ambulance with her). Today she's supposed to set up an appointment with a urologist and see what the next step is to clear this thing up. Keeping the fingers crossed for the simplest and less painful solution.

I do run-run-run, I do run-run

Wow, I'm now starting my seventh week of this marathon training gig...139 days until the Marine Corps Marathon, so about 17 more weeks of this to go. Actually it hasn't been bad at all. I did a 12-mile "long run" this past Sunday and listened to the squish-squish of my shoes that were full of sweat in the last three miles (takes about two days for the shoes to dry out). My right ankle, or more precisely the right achilles tendon has been acting up the last few weeks so I started putting it on ice after a couple of runs plus being careful in how I walked on that foot. Seems to have worked...it didn't bother me at all during Sunday's run and it's been relatively pain-free since Friday. I'm still not taking any chances however. I'll do ice again after Tuesday's run whether it hurts or not.

This morning I took a quick drive over to Minden to attend the funeral of one of my classmates from 1973, Billy O'Neal. He died of cancer on Friday morning and had been sick for a long time. I got to see him on April 30th (see photo below where he's making a face at the camera) when there was a fund-raiser to help offset some of his medical bills and we talked a bit. Neither of us had really spoken to each other since graduation from Minden High School. We just weren't in the same circles as life went on but we knew each other and we had absolutely no problems, past or present, with each other. Thing was that he remembered me and told how a couple of months ago he had mentioned to his wife, Charlotte (another classmate of mine), that a house they were driving by was one I used to live in. He just said it out of the clear blue. Heck, I didn't even know he knew where I had lived in the first place! After that visit and today's services I wished I had gotten to know Billy a little better. We still had different interests but I think it would have been fun to know him as the man he grew up to be. He was funny during our short visit back in April even though the cancer was in his brain and he spoke a little slower. He was also confined to a motorized wheelchair that he said wasn't fast enough for his liking. But the thing was that he looked like a man who was content with how his life was (obviously wasn't that wild about the way it was ending) and that things would be fine.

Billy O'Neal: March 1, 1955 - June 11, 2010

Rest in peace, Billy. Even though we were more acquaintances than friends, I'm glad I knew ya.

We have niece #3, Holly, staying with us for the month while she goes to summer school at Centenary. She's taking Physics which is some kind of hocus-pocus, voodoo subject that can't actually be real and goes beyond art major types like me. Well, really it doesn't but I don't like bothering with it. I got the gist of it when I took the class in college and I got into a couple of arguments with the instructor (to this day I'm still convinced I'm right) but I pretty much know how it works. Just don't ask me to explain it in English. I can see it in my mind much better than I can say it.

Slackin'

I'm now into my fourth week of training for the Marine Corps Marathon with 20 weeks to go, about 159 days before I toe the line up in the Washington, DC. I'm already around 25 miles short of setting a new record for miles I've run in a calendar year...269 set last year...and it's only late May! By the time this is over, I'll have a personal record that I'm not sure I'll ever break. Surprisingly, I'm not as sore or stiff in the legs as I thought I'd be but I'm sure an injury or two will crop up before October gets here. I ordered a MCM training shirt (see above) which says In Training on the front and Semper Fi on the back. So far I've been faithful in my training, only having to make one adjustment to change a scheduled training day to another day, and I'm a little surprised at how I'm sticking to the plan. I could eat a little better and sleep more! I guess I'm becoming a tad obsessive with wanting to do this and a year ago I had no idea I'd even consider doing a marathon! The goal is to go under a 3:45 time and if I run it smart I could do under a 3:30. Main thing is to finish with a respectable time and to be happy with my effort.

Last weekend was time-consuming and busy. We drove to Birmingham, Alabama and back with only an overnight stay so we could attend the wedding of Dale's daughter, Athena. The birth announcement I did for Athena's arrival into the world back in 1986 got me my first Gold Addy award as a free-lancer. I've known Dale since we were in high school and his son, Erik, is my god-son so there was a lot of personal connections here. We had a great time but the weekend wore us out. I had to get up at 5 am Saturday morning to get in my long run for the week: 8 miles which included hill repeats. Jonnene takes the dogs to the kennel, and after I shower we are on our way. Forgot to mention going to an art show the night before! Get to B-ham, dress up fancy and head to the wedding. Reception...food, dancing, seeing people I haven't seen in a long time...back to the hotel and sleep. Then up Sunday morning to drop by Dale's house for an hour or so, then back to Shreveport just in time to attend the last hour of a friend's 50th birthday party! I think Jonnene and I are still recovering.....

From the Back

(this is written tongue-in-cheek....maybe...but the basic story is true)


As I rode it,

I did Tuesday Night Worlds two weeks ago and the group pulled out right at 5:45 pm which is weird since we're usually 5-10 minutes late leaving from ANY parking lot. We left a lot of riders still putting on their helmets or prepping to go (partly because it is a long drive for most of us and we're subject to the whims of traffic along the way).

I had heard before that the ride to Benton from the start was actually civil and treated more as a warmup. That was okay with me...I need a warmup before I have to put a Jon Whitten on everyone's heads and crush some souls/egos. You know I'm not that mean but Russ always gives me a wholesale dose of deserved respect because he is a wise man.

Well, it was almost race-pace from the start (reminded me of ERBC) and I'm trying to get my wrinkly old Joe-French-slash-Frankie-G legs into the groove but not having much success. I got dropped by mile seven at 28 mph (that was me, not the group...they was faster....much....faster). Eventually latching onto a couple of soul-deflated folks we got in a fairly good and speedy ride. Eventually I would 2-man TT it with Jason Sanders on his hopped-up-totally-tricked-out tri-bike (and me on my basic K2 brood) for the last 10 miles cruisin' at 25 mph most of the time. I let him set the pace 'cause I'm kind-hearted and wanted him to get a good workout. He didn't deserve a Whitten-style whippin'. He is only a man.

With two miles to go, I started feeling a deflation on my rear wheel, the tire specifically, and had to let Jason go. I noodled those last two miles at around 15-16 mph on that slow leak, finally making it back to the parking lot with a snail's breath of air to spare.

Even with that, my average speed for the night was 22.2 mph. Yeah, buddy, I was going plenty speedy even with the drop and the un-airing of my rubber parts.

Don't know if I'll be out there much the rest of the year. Next week I begin training to do my first marathon in October. I'm going to ride 2-3 times a week as cross-training but I'll be a runner for most of 2010. But Jonnene and I are going down to New Orleans this weekend to take the beginner's USAC officials' clinic (Lisa and her husband will be there, too) so we can do some o-fficiating for LAMBRA this year and help poor old Ricky out. So you ain't rid of us yet. Follow the rules of racing and we'll look the other way. Might even produce results in a timely manner. Yeah, right. Gawd, I'm a comedian.

Be forewarned, I'm coming back STRONG on the inline 2-wheeler in 2011. Be ready for the "Alan beatdowns" that'll be commencing next winter. Like Cesar Milan says, I'll be calm and assertive. Everyone else will be calm and submissive. I am a kind man, don't forget.

Another Greg-o-logue

Daily Gut: Hating Arizona

by Greg Gutfeld

So Obama deemed the new Arizona immigration bill “misguided.”

Translation: he means “stupid.”

See, “misguided” is a word used by people who know better than you. Calling something “misguided” is an intellectual exercise in superiority–even if they don’t call you stupid, they really, really want to.

Too bad Obama has no other plan that’s less stupid. And the Arizona bill is what happens when there is no plan: a plan gets made.

It reminds me of something a really smart guy said on Hannity last week.

Roll Sot:

“Until you make it easier for them to get in legally you have to make it as difficult as possible for them to get in illegally. It’s that simple.”

It really is that simple.

Let’s play it again, but slower, in case you didn’t get it the first time.

(play it again, but really slow)

He really is an underused source of brilliance at Fox News.

Anyway, until we create a front door for these folks, we have to make sneaking in a window harder than hell. Amnesty doesn’t do that. Amnesty just says – “everyone in… is in!” That does not control the tide.

The fact is, it’s called illegal immigration, because it’s illegal. And Arizona has chosen to deal with what we already call illegal. And while, on its surface, it appears mean – it’s not. It’s actually a beginning. It pushes the debate forward to a place where we can finally develop a system that gets all the wonderful, hardworking people in.

And most are hardworking. And most are wonderful. Seriously, most of these folks killing themselves to come here are more deserving than half of the jerks born here. I’m referring to anyone who stinks of patchouli, uses clubbing as a verb (except in Alaska), thinks graffiti is art, owns their own sex tape, once dated Paris Hilton, listens to Dave Matthews, claims they’re in Mensa, plays Frisbee golf, known to wear a speedo, carries a tiny dog in a purse, blames America for everything, enjoys performance art, thinks yogurt is food, cries while whale watching, majored in any form of gender studies, cares more about death row inmates than their victims, and thinks I can’t bench press twice my own weight. (I can, or I used to, anyway).

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist homophobe who eats donated organs.

Yeah, yeah, I'm back!

From a window at it's international airport we could see downtown Sydney as a Qantas 747 is moved to a terminal.

This is short for now. We've been back from Australia for almost two weeks now and the jet lag is thankfully over. It took a longer time than usual to get over it...maybe having to deal with cold weather again and not wanting to get out from under the warm blankets early in the morning might have contributed to that. The trip back was actually pretty good, most of the flights were on time, and it was nice to arrive in Shreveport without having to drive back from Alexandria or Longview just so we could have cheaper flights.

Like I said, I'll get into our trip in a later posting. Since we've been back one of the worst things that could happen to the United States happened....the passing of Obamacare, the socialist health reform package that'll put us on the lower level of Euro-style health care that'll increase costs and decrease care as well as limit any innovation of medical procedures and care because there'll be no incentive to do so. Plus a ton of companies will be laying off people they can't afford to keep!

This STORY in the American Spectator is brief but it gives an insider's view of how inept the Administration is when it comes to their understanding of free-market business practices and how they are making things just a tad worse...make that a whole lot worse.

Heading Home

Just a quickie....it's early Wednesday morning in Melbourne. We're up and heading to the airport in about an hour. Wish us a safe journey!!!!

We're in Melbourne!

But, first, some pictures from the west side of Australia:

Perth: On Cottesloe Beach there was a large sculpture exhibition going on which included this piece of art with these sails. It was fun to watch with the breezes going on. Oh, and the temperature this day was 104 degrees!

Perth: Jonnene's sister-in-law, Olga, shows her daughter what she remembers of playing a guitar.

Perth: A week ago we had an outdoor "snags on the barby" meal with Christine and her man, Eddie, along the banks of the Swan River. "Snag" is Aussie slang for sausage...and they were delish!

Yeah, we're here. It's Monday night and we're in our room at the Best Western Atlantis on Spencer Street, right near the stop for the SkyBus so we can get a ride to the airport early on Wednesday morning. We spent last night up in Bendigo at the home of a couple of friends of Jonnene's and caught the train back to Melbourne this afternoon. It was probably the first time I've been on a passenger train since I was a little kid when we would ride between Minden, LA and Hope, AR. It was nice but I spent nearly the whole ride sleeping since we were dealing with a 3-hour time lag since leaving Perth.

Speaking of, we left Perth very early Sunday morning. Jonnene's sister and parents took us to the airport...which, BTW, had been and was being renovated big-time since we had been there in 2008. We figured the weight of our check-in bags just right: the limit we were allowed was 23 kilos (50 pounds) and each of our bags were pegged at 22! That means we had added about 27 pounds to our bags from what they weighed when we left the States. We have added quite a few things that we're bringing back with us including chocolate that Jonnene claims we will make last until June. Hope she's right!

Tuesday, we'll get an early morning run in the Central Business District (CBD) of Melbourne and we'll spend the day just walking around. Probably check out the Victoria Market, the gardens...just enjoy the day. We'll try to find a nice place to eat for our last dinner in Australia and then back to our room to finish repacking our bags.

More Oz Notes

The Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade that staged in front of our hotel in Sydney.

Here's the water polo team. Wow.

• Tonight (Wednesday) Jonnene and I are going to a restaurant called "That Little Mexican Place". The only other time we went there was in November of 2006 when it was brand new and we meant to go again when we visited in 2008 but didn't make it. It was a small place with about 7 or 8 tables and the guy who owned it, Gavin Bower, was also the cook. It was interesting that he cooked the food in his pajamas...well, they looked like pajamas. And he visited all the customers at their tables when there was a lull. He studied Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine in Santa Fe, New Mexico so his stuff was very genuine. We're happy that it still exists and now has two locations!

• Right now, before we leave, Olga's highlighting Raelene's hair in the kitchen. Rae's is wearing something that looks like a water polo cap...sorta reminds me of the parade in Sydney (see photo above). The cap part, that is. Then you pull some hair through some holes and highlight those suckers.

Theeza plane, she's a-quiet, she's a-big, she's a-plenty nice-a...
....but her regular economy seats suck!

• We tried to get Premium Economy seats for our flight back to Los Angeles next week on the Qantas A380 since our regular Economy seats pretty much weren't to our liking. However, it would have cost us $2,200 EACH to upgrade since our current tickets were bought with restrictions. Well, okay, fine...we'll fly regular economy one more time, Qantas, but that's it! We'll gladly spend the extra money to get Premium in the first place and be a little more comfortable on that big plane. You know there are only 32 Premium Economy seats on an A380? That's more seats than the First Class "apartments" on the same plane (just 14). Meantime there's 72 Business Class seats and 332 regular economy seats. I'd love to ride Business......

• Jonnene and I have decided that we want to weigh as much or less on our return to the States than we weighed when we left for Australia. On our last trip we ate tons and gained quite a bit when we came back...visiting relatives who want to feed you will do that. So far we're doing okay. We're still eating, but not as much. I'm about 1.5 pounds lighter right now and I think Jonnene is around 2-3 pounds lighter. We're also running nearly every day and it's hot enough to make us sweat a lot. And we're walking all the time. Seems to work.

Dogs in Oz

Angel sneaks a peek into our bedroom window early one morning.

Ben walks along the beach after a quick dip and a roll in the sand.

I've had a couple of unexpected run-in's with dogs on this trip that weren't pleasant. As a result, I have a hole in a pair of shorts from an attempted bite and a pair of mangled Bolle' sunglasses. The hole was a result of a large dog named Chase who belongs to Jonnene's cousin, Christine. We had visited their house the same time we went out to see her aunt and uncle. I was the only male at the cousin's house and Uncle Bev had warned me about Chase earlier, that the dog was aggressive and had bitten a neighbor. I wasn't that worried about it and was confident that I could handle the situation, simply by ignoring the dog and staying away from it when possible. When we arrive, Chase is barking like crazy and spinning in circles behind the fence...a very anxious dog....not a good sign. And he's pretty big. So we go in the house, visit a bit and go out the back to see Christine's beautiful back yard. Chase comes up to me and tries to "herd" me away from the ladies in the group. I ignored him and walked by him, and once we're in the yard everything was fine. He did show signs of claiming space so he was definitely territorial but pretty much left us alone and even played. Then we walked back to the house and suddenly he was trying to separate me out again. But he seemed friendlier this time and I stopped to pet him. Initially it seemed to be going good but I saw the demeanor in his face change and he started to growl. I stopped touching him, stood up and started to walk away. He didn't like that, I guess, and went behind me and took a bite of my shorts, probably trying to bite me directly. The nice thing was that the shorts are baggy and he didn't come close to my hind quarters at all. But he put a nice hole in my shorts...it was a bite meant to do damage and it did. Since he belonged to someone else and he hadn't actually bitten ME, I yelled at him and he backed off a bit. I told Jonnene what happened and she relayed the message to everyone else. Christine moved the dog away (probably not the right thing to do because it doesn't teach the dog anything) and we went inside to inspect the new redesign of my shorts. Christine was mortified but I told her it was okay, no harm was done. However, I do wish I had come back at the dog and showed it that it didn't own the space it was protecting. I wouldn't have hit it but I would have come back at it to show who was dominating who.

Then there's Angel, my sister-in-law's new dog which is a Kelpie mix. Actually a very nice dog but energetic, anxious, and has a few habits that it'll either grow out of or will have to be dealt with. But she's sneaky and we learned to keep doors closed to keep her from taking things that don't belong to her. She'll take things outside, chew them up, bury them, or hide them somewhere. In a way, it's funny but not all the time. Well, she managed to get hold of my Bolle' sunglasses with the prescription lens insert...somehow she managed to sneak into our bedroom without anyone noticing. We came home from an errand and Raelene found the glasses with the earpieces totally chewed up but, fortunately, my lens were shaken loose and were in pretty good shape. I'll just have to order a new pair of frames when I get home and things will be fine. But now we're keeping an even closer eye on Angel.

Fortunately I've had some better experiences with dogs on this trip. We got to see Sophie's old playmate, Ben, this past Sunday. He's a few years older with two new hips but still has a playful disposition and doesn't sit still for long. I met Ben on my very first trip to Australia in 2003 and he's always been a friendly dog. You show him some affection and you've got a friend for life. It's always something to see when he meets Jonnene...he sniffs her, realizes who it is, and immediately begins looking around for Sophie. Alas, Sophie's in the States and the two former playmates never see each other again. It really makes you sad but that's how it goes.

Australia 2010 - My Sixth Voyage

The Sydney Opera House as we saw it last Friday, February 26th.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm way late on updating this blog as far as our trip to Australia is concerned. It's been busy enough, it's been fun enough, and the trip is going well so far. This entry is mostly quick thoughts and observations of the trip so far.

• Our flights to Los Angeles were excellent examples of how to cut an expected 4-hour time cushion in LAX in half. We got to the airport in Shreveport in plenty of time. Mom brought us over and hung out with us until we felt it was time to proceed through security to get to our gate. Jonnene took a little longer to get thru because her arm sling needed some extra going-over by the TSA folks there. When we got to the gate we found out that our flight to Dallas was going to be delayed by almost an hour, and it was. Well, almost, about 50 minutes later...and our jet had been replaced by a turbo-prop. Well, okay, the pilot puts on the burners but we still get to DFW much later than planned....but we manage to get to our connecting flight (on the opposite side of DFW, by the way) with time to spare. But it didn't matter....we actually leave the gate, pulling out about 50 yards when we stop for a long while. Then the pilot comes on, saying that we're returning to the gate because he doesn't like the sound of our left engine. We couldn't tell if the sound was odd but if the pilot doesn't like it then I'm fine with not flying! We find out that a hydraulic pump in the engine has to be replaced and we leave the plane to sit around the gate area. About two hours after we were supposed to be in the air, we finally reboarded our flight and headed on to LA. We arrive at LAX with just over two hours before our plane to Australia is supposed to leave, so we rush to get our bags over to the Bradley International Terminal and check in. Well, miracle of miracles, we fly through check-in and security with hardly a wait in line...and find ourselves with over an hour to kill before we even start boarding the plane!!

• We flew on the new Aerobus A380 that is the jewel of the Qantas fleet. First off, the plane is NICE...it is extremely quiet (you can easily talk to anyone without raising your voice and be heard clearly). It is big and has plenty of amenities such as a "pantry" you can visit at any time to get drinks and food. You can see a tour of the aircraft HERE. However, we had our problems with the economy section. First off, we're never flying it again after this trip. It has its pluses but not enough to overcome the tighter spaces and the amazing amount of tilt the seats have that let the one in front of you practically hit you in the head if you're leaning too far forward when the passenger in front drops his seat back. Suffice it to say that we will fly Premium Economy whenever we fly Qantas internationally in the future. More leg room and wider seats...of course you pay more for it but both Jonnene and I think it's worth the extra expense. We'd prefer to fly business but I don't think we can afford the +/- $10,000 it would cost for a seat round trip!

More to come....it's Saturday night here and my eyes are drooping....

Vinter Vunderlund 2010

Wow! We got snow all day yesterday and all night last night! Here's the view from our driveway looking out into the neighborhood.

The trees above our house.

Decided to put the flags up to provide some color and contrast to all the whiteness.

The house looks like a picture postcard.
Too bad most of the snow will melt by the end of today.

Looking down the street at all the trees. It was very impressive for this part of Louisiana. I was able to get in a bike ride a couple of hours yesterday morning before the snowfall came and that was really nice.