Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

Furthering my absorbtion into the collective, I now am operating on an iPhone. The service hasn’t completely ported over; texts are making it, but incoming calls are still headed over to the old phone. I’m a bit sad at losing Metro tunnel service, but I’m looking forward to the slightly lower bill. Amazingly I get full bars in my apartment, something that never happened with the former carrier. And the keyboard, while occasionally odd, is working okay.

The season for ruining coasters.

You see, it’s a tad humid and warm at the moment here in DC, it being summer in the South, and I like to drink cold drinks when it’s this warm out. The colder the better. Cools your core, comforts you, and all around makes you feel better. Most frequently it’s simply water from the refrigerator, but in any case it’s cold, which means in this humidity that the glass attracts condensation like the Old Country Buffet attracts retired people.

I’ve just about ruined one older one I was using without thinking much about it (the one that holds my usual sipper bottle). Poor sucker’s starting to mold I’ve kept it so wet. So I’ve hauled out the big guns and scattered them around the apartment – the sandstone and metal coasters. Not much gets through those. Hopefully they’ll hold out until the humidity breaks, sometime in December.

Had an incredible meal last night at Vegetate with BC. He said if that were what veggie cuisine were like all the time he’d not really miss meat. Not a bad compliment. We did the restaurant week thing there, and added the wine pairings, which worked well (especially the ruby port with the chocolate-with-hot-peppers torte & ginger sorbet – yum!). Fantastic meal. This is only my second time there, but we’ll definitely go back. I just wish they were a bit more Metro accessible (they are, they’re just a good several blocks walk from the Metro).

Much snuggling and talking followed.

Contrast that meal with the one we had at Viridian on Tuedsday. For a restaurant known (among the veggies I know) as being very veggie/vegan friendly, it was disappointing that none of the prix fixe entrees was vegan. I did end up doing three courses, and the courses were okay, but the restaurant lost out – ordering the vegan entree and the two other pieces separately came out to less than the prix fixe price. Odd. And the video of the house demolition (which played over and over again over the bar) was distracting without being entertaining. I’m sure I’ll go back, but not any time soon.

Phone replacement ordered for my Treo. That’s all I’m saying for now, since it won’t arrive until next week. Suffice to say I’m looking forward to the switch, and thank you, thank you, thank you to a friend, who shall remain nameless, for a nice discount on it.

Took the tri bike in to the shop yesterday, so no riding for a bit. It’s had this persistent creaking noise for the past month and it’s driving me nuts, so I just said, “figure it out and fix it,” and left the bike with them for a week. So, long run this weekend, then some rest, perhaps Sunday a dip in the cult co-op pool and some sun to even out the lovely biker’s tan I have (“you’ve got a built-in wife-beater,” says BC). Looking forward to seeing a bunch of folks (and showing off BC) on Saturday afternoon at a get-together in the inner ‘burbs.

Relatively quiet this week at work. It’s a blessing when Congress goes out of session (a mixed blessing – it’s been hot and humid here like most of the country, but a blessing nonetheless), especially in my practice area. Playing catch up on a couple of things, and managed to dig up a nice source of funds which had been forgotten. That was worth at least my annual pay, so I feel like anything else I do this year is gravy, to paraphrase my first CFO in the government (after I did something similar).

Oh, it’s not the iPod that’s died, it’s the iHome speaker/clock/radio thing – the dock has somehow slipped and won’t connect correctly. I know this because the Apple dock that synchs the iPod with the computer works perfectly with no slippage. Good to know the old 3G is ticking along like clockwork.

Still debating Chesapeakeman, too. I think the low-key setting seems more my style. Won’t be as much crowd energy, but I think I actually prefer that, given my treatment of most exercise as a solo thing. We’ll see, but I’m thinking I may be having a talk with my boss about it this upcoming September.

Thank you to my f-list folks from MN who checked in to let us know you were okay.

I decided to take a first stab at getting through the backlog of books and magazines I have in the house by cancelling daily delivery of the Post. I only get to skim the paper as it is, and daily comics aren’t worth the hassle. They, of course, tried to do everything they could to keep me on, reminding me of the specialty sections, offering to lower the rate, &c. No dice, switch it back, thanks.

Now maybe I can work through the stack. Since it’s bad when you’re getting your mail and your first thought upon seeing a magazine is “oh look, another magazine I’m not taking the time to read.”

It seems to be the season for folks’ iPods to die, based on my blog/LJ reading. Not to miss out, my heaven-knows-how-old 3rd Generation iPod is currently giving me fits. The battery’s been shot for ages, but that’s not a big deal; I only use it on a platform speaker at work (where it’s charged as it plays) or in a car (where, again, it’s plugged in to charge). I use a 1st generation shuffle (the gum stick sized ones) if I want to listen to stuff while I’m out and about, since for the most part I don’t need to see a screen to listen on the Metro or while out walking, I’m not sitting on Metro that often to need to watch things, and I’d rather lose a hundred dollar piece of equipment than a multi-hundred dollar piece were I, heaven forefend, to get robbed.

So, true to the trend, the connection with the platform speakers at work seems to be cutting in and out, which is very annoying. I just want the current iPod to keep playing as it does now, without needing a real battery, and just as a big hard drive to keep my music. Grr.

Haven’t been sleeping well this week, I think it’s the usual August heat and our AC not quite keeping up. The joys of aluminum architecture. I suspect melatonin is getting ingested this evening as I’m really not ready for another sleepless night, and I really need to be able to train, which doesn’t happen (or doesn’t happen well) when I can’t sleep.

…

There are times I want to talk about work, and times when I’m glad I can’t. Let’s just say that it’s a scary world out there, boys and girls, and leave it at that. And I don’t even get to see the really scary stuff, yet, since my big ole clearance hasn’t come through yet.

Been busy otherwise. BC and I are seeing each other usually once during the week, and then a ton of time on the weekends. He might be buying a house waaaaay out in the ‘burbs, so I shall be investigating transportation options out that way. I know I can bike it, but that’s not so viable when it gets cold out. We’ll see. The joys of not owning a car, sometimes.

Oh, and speaking of such things, I got the payoff info for one of my sub-loans from the more expensive of the two variable rate student loans companies today, so a check is going out tomorrow to pay that puppy off. A minor victory, but a victory I’ll take. Every little step like that is a step closer to being debt-free, and will help accelerate the rate of repayment on these things, so huzzah for that.

Practice swim with my newbies this morning and two local coaches. Headed out to Sandy Point early to get in the swim before it got too hot. We swam, off and on, for about an hour, practicing swimming in the swells and going around the buoys set out to mark off the swimming area. It was very helpful to get out there, and I’m glad we do this.

This was the first time I’d hauled out the wet suit since last year. I was a bit worried
about getting into it, since it had been a little over a year since I’d used it. It fit just fine, no worries there. Whew. It was warm out – the wet suit wasn’t strictly necessary (borderline water temps for using it), but I wanted the practice in it. In the water it was fine, it was standing around listening to the coach that was warm.

Got the drink bracket installed on the bike this afternoon. That definitely makes it a lot easier to mount the water bottle on the bike (much, much easier than the rubber bands – well worth the $10). I’m hopeful this’ll encourage me to drink more water while out riding.

Mostly recovered from the work week as ‘acting supervisor.’ It was relatively quiet, and I’m glad nothing big was needed. I think it cemented quite firmly that I’m not quite ready to be a supervisor. I’m a specialist, I do my job relatively well, and I’m not ready to start herding other cats. At least, though, we know I can do it if needed when my team leader needs to go out of town.

Off to a party with BC this afternoon, then another long ride tomorrow to try out the water bottle before next week. I should run at some point, too, but I suspect that’ll be on hold until after the Food & Friends ride.

Stretching, a shower, lots of food, a lie-down (not really a nap), more food, and I’m starting to feel human again. Four hours and about 20 minutes after I started I got home from today’s bike ride out the W&OD trail, about 62 miles. Went out to mile marker 24, which is somewhere in Loudon county near Sterling. Stopped briefly, stretched some, then turned around to head back.

The ride out was great. The trails were well marked, and I had no problems switching from the Mt. Vernon Trail to the Custis Trail to the W&OD. The way back, on the other hand, I never saw a marker to get back on the Custis, so I ended up riding the W&OD all the way down to Shirlington, getting a little lost as there are NO signs worth crap down there, then finally finding my way to the Four Mile Run trail and back to the Mt. Vernon and home.

Wore a sleeveless jersey to try and even out some of the sun on my shoulders. So far, so good.

Overall I liked the W&OD. There were a tad too many stops when you ran though areas like Vienna and Herndon, but there were also some good stretches where I was able to get down onto the aerobars and relieve pressure on my neck. Not too many kids out, though I had one heart-attack inducing moment when I thought one little girl was going to turn out into the trail right as I came up beside her. Thankfully her mother, running behind her, intervened. I suspect that’s where my max heart rate reading came from for the ride.

Have to get the center water bottle set up for this upcoming weekend’s ride – I didn’t have quite enough water with me, which was really annoying when I was lost in Shirlington and couldn’t find my way out. Basically this just involves trimming the straw down to a height where it won’t annoy the hell out of me, but I’ve not needed it to date, so haven’t hooked it up.

Probably do a repeat of this ride, only a bit further out. Pretty much ready for the Food & Friends ride next week, just doing some last minute testing.

Finally cooling off in here now that the thunderstorms are rolling through. I can’t really hear them over the dishwasher, though. It was a ‘clean the apartment and do laundry night’ for me, hence the dishwasher running. The dining table looks nicer without so much crap on it, as does my desk. Amazing what actually filing the stuff in the ‘to file’ pile will do for the place.

Now if I could just make a dent in the ‘to read’ pile.

Good bike ride this morning. I’m hoping the weather will be relatively nice so I can run in the morning. While I’ve been biking a lot more, and finally getting back to swimming, I’ve neglected my running over the past week, which is probably a contributor to the foul mood from yesterday (which was gone after a good night’s sleep and the ride this morning).

Popped by the bike shop to pick up supplies. Sadly their choices of Shot Bloks was very, very limited, so I only picked up a couple. I’ll have to pop back out somewhere else to pick up more. Still haven’t been able to try the margarita flavored ones, but I wasn’t too keen on the pina colada ones. They were okay, nowhere near as gross as vanilla clif shots were, but not a favorite. I prefer the black cherry or cran-razz flavors so far. Oh, and the bike shop was able to take my old bike tubes to recycle them. Yay! Better than dumping them in a landfill, for sure. Glad I remember to take them with me to work this morning in anticipation of the shopping trip.

Swim tomorrow, then maybe dinner in town with BC and some friends. Have to behave as I have a long ride on Saturday, around 4 hours or so.

Want to see something gross? Take apart, for the first time ever, a mouse (trackball, actually) that you’ve been using for well over a decade, in order to clean it.

Yuck.

So, got a call today that the other dresser had arrived at the store. They were able to deliver it this evening, but not to assemble it but could come back to assemble it Saturday. Ha. No, thanks, just deliver it and I’ll assemble it. And you know, it was really easy to assemble, especially if you’ve ever put anything together by Ikea. Basic screws with those little turn-tighteners all over, plus putting on the rails for the drawers. The drawers themselves were fully assembled in their respective boxes, meaning only the frame had to be put together. Even with just one person, it was a snap.

Of course it helps that I have a decent electric screwdriver/drill, too.

So now all my clothes are put away. Huzzah. Still need to figure out the exact arrangement of the stuff in there, but that’s not a big deal. I’m just glad to have both pieces in and my clean clothes put away.

Tomorrow I pop up to my YWCA to (I hope) finalize the arrangements to join the Masters’ Swimming program there. Depends on whether I find the acquatics director or not. Might have to pop up there during the day, perhaps at lunch, in order to catch him in.

Get to see the crush on Saturday. I suppose I can give him initials now, since this seems to be here for the nonce. Still crushing. Still all silly. Still loving it. So we’ll call him BC. Really looking forward to more time with him. We just seem to fit well together. Not finishing one another’s sentences, and enough differences to keep things interesting, but enough commonalities (it so helps that he’s also a runner) to get along really well.

Got up, no exercise planned for the morning, so I got down to the dry cleaners, picked up shirts, dropped off two pair of pants to get hemmed (finally hemming the Nasty Pig jeans I got at MAL), came back, made coffee, went down to the office to check some folders for the cult co-op, then up to get ready to head to work.

Work was work. No biggie.

Swam after work. Was trying to concentrate on relaxing in the water, paying attention to form, but not speed. That was going well until about half to two-thirds of the way through the swim when some guy did a cannonball into the lane beside me. Thankfully I was resting at the edge, but that was a bit of a shock. Most folks are polite and just slip into the end of the pool. He then proceeded to see if he could single-handedly recreate water conditions on the Chesapeake Bay. During a wind storm. Not the most graceful swimmer I’ve ever seen. I kept wanting to point out that you’re supposed to slip your hand into the water, not slap the top of the pool on your way in, but instead tried to continue concentrating on the zen feeling. It mostly worked, despite slappy in the next lane. Overall a good swim.

Still nicely burnt from this weekend’s biking and running. Both Saturday and Sunday I got started late, so was out in way more sun than I usually am, with the usual results. It’s cute – I have a classic farmer’s tan half-way down the upper arm from the bike ride, then a separate set of lines on the shoulders where I wore a tank-style shirt to run on Sunday. Not too bad, save for carrying the bike bag to work and the gym today. Ouch.
A brief bit of laundry tonight, and getting stuff ready for the ride tomorrow.

The crush is still, well, just awesome. We’re both still all googly-eyed and silly and all of that and it’s quite fun. We just seem to fit well together. I think I’ve seen more movies in the theater in the past couple months now than I’ve seen that way in years.
Tomorrow it’s off to Dupont for the usual hair cut, then up to Adams Morgan to put bikes together with the club. Some folks are running a kids’ triathlon camp this summer for DC Parks and Rec and we got a bunch of bikes donated for it, so we’re getting together to assemble the bikes for the kids. Should be fun.