"He's Doing Another Feet-First Dive!"

All of us normal folks know we would look ridiculous in the Olympics. The question is, which event would I look the most ridiculous participating in? Remember: I'd be wearing the same garb as the other athletes and competing without irony. Imagine me on TV...

5. Diving
Weaknesses: I have never taken swimming lessons and I don't know how to dive in the water head first. Emily impersonated an announcer when I asked her how I'd look in the Olympic diving competition. "Unbelievable! He's doing another feet-first dive!"

Strengths: I can also do a cannonball.

4. Weightlifting
Weaknesses: Good God, have you seen my physique? Even in my weightlifting heyday (college, when I was forced to lift three times a week), the most I benched in reps was 125 pounds.

Strengths: If "Jogging In Place With Heavy Hands" ever becomes a medal event, I'd be awesome.


3. Gymnastics
Weaknesses: I can't touch my toes. I can't do five dips or pull-ups unassisted. All limitations I have for diving and weightlifting would apply here.

Strengths: My dad was an All-American gymnast at Indiana University in the floor exercises. I'm shitting you negative. However, I'm not sure how these genes (that I somehow missed out on) would help me with my floor exercise routine, which would feature doing push-ups, jumping jacks, a few somersaults, and holding some plank positions for 30 seconds. But the scary part is this would be my best gymnastic event (what the hex would I do on the rings, just try to hang on for two minutes?), unless the judges would allow me to treat the vault as if it were a wet jump in the steeplechase.

2. Swimming
Weaknesses: Did I mention I have never taken swimming lessons? I know zero strokes outside of the doggie paddle and I could wing freestyle. Also, I sink like a rock. My natural buoyancy finds me underwater just below my eyes. In college I had a knee injury during one of the cross country seasons, so I worked out in the pool a lot, running in place. Only I had to wear an aquajogger to avoid drowning.



Kind of like floaties for a grown-up.

Strengths: I could at least finish the damn race, assuming it's freestyle... as long as I'm allowed to rest on the lane lines every thirty seconds and hang out on the edge of the pool for a few minutes when I reach the turns.

1. Figure Skating
Weaknesses: I've never been ice skating in my life. So it's like my inability to swim but worse. Figure skating is like floor exercises on ice. I'm screwed.

Strengths: I can't do my somersault and jumping jack routine on the ice, but if the judges let me do some plank on the ice with my skates on, maybe I can pick up half a point that way.

Bachelor Party

Emily has gone off and got her one of them booklearning degrees and an important job. As a result she travels a lot for work. She was gone from Monday to Friday last week and left today for another work trip and won't get back until Friday.

Needless to say I miss her. So does Pancho. I think the cats even miss her, the same way I missed bugging my older sisters when I was a bored eight year-old.

But I am proud of myself on several fronts. The house is still standing up. I washed the dishes tonight and cooked a meal for myself that included vegetables. I still get out and exercise. I even ran a pretty tough workout tonight. Two back to back sets of something I call the Texas Fartlek. I could tell you what it is, but then you would know my trade secrets. You know the secrets that allow me to run with no shirt or shame, but with a beer belly, pale skin, and a bald head. The Texas Fartlek kills your pride.

What is crazy is before Emily and I got married I was cooking all the time, mostly vegetarian. Lots of beans, rice, and salad. I ran pretty reglularly all by myself. I didn't need races or friends to help me along. Maybe I wasn't running as much, but when I did, I just ran for the hell of it.

Perhaps it was a matter of survival. Review the summary of my week last week. If I lived this way on a regular basis for the past ten years, my heart would have given up on me sometime between some pick-up baskteball game I played two years ago and this morning when I ran up the stairs at work.

Sunday Dropped Emily off at the airport. Went home and watched the Twins on TV with a can of Coke. Then biked over to my friends house where he grilled brats and burgers for dinner. I drank two or three of his beers and gave him a PBR and beef jerkey for Father's Day. His wife also served some salads she bought at Lund's. I was in bed by 11:00 p.m. This ended up being my healthiest night of the bachelor week.

Monday I went to the grocery store and bought fruit, believe it or not. Then I went for a short run, came home and finally got around to eating around 9 p.m. I had some of those salt and pepper chips I blogged about earlier for an appetizer and then an entire frozen pizza as my entree. Oh yeah, and a can of PBR. I stayed up past 11:00 watching the first 70 minutes of Once Upon A Time In America.

Tuesday Fancy Kirk and I ran a somewhat hard workout followed by Jucy Lucys at Shamrock's on W. 7th in St. Paul. We had two beers while watching the Celtics/Lakers game. We knew a third beer would park us on our ass. So I went home and watched the next 70 minutes of Once Upon A Time In America. I had some more of those salt and pepper chips and was glad I am too lazy to go the garage fridge once the movie is on. Otherwise that third beer would have been pretty tempting. I then read unitl about midnight.

Wednesday I had a Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon meeting. I drank a Coke and had three slices of pizza. This would end up being an appetizer (read on). No Handle Chad was at the meeting and chastised me for not blogging. I came home and it was too late to run. But it wasn't too late to walk the dog, eat another frozen pizza, and stay up past 11:00 finishing Once Upon A Time In America and watch some of the special features. Two beers were also involved.

Thursday I don't work Fridays, so I was out until 1 a.m. and in bed at 2 a.m. I went to The Hexagon Bar with my friend where I took in four bands and three beers. I actually had a healthy risotto primavera at the Birchwood Cafe, but this all has to be offset by how late I was up. I did get a run in and rode my bike to The Hexagon and Birchwood. When I got back home around 1:30 a.m. I polished off those salt and pepper potato chips.

One week does not an unhealthy life make. And I know there is no way I could lived like this for more than maybe ten days.

But this summary does answer my question, as to why I used to be on such regular good behavior before I got married. I didn't have a choice. I think left to my own devices I would find my feet again. But as unpracticed bachelor, I flail around a bit and end up eating potato chips at 1:30 in the morning. But this week has gotten off to a better start than last week.

For example, it is time for bed.

Stone Age Evaneglist

Ed over at Technology Evangelist has some questions he wants answered.

You want the truth? You can't handle the truth! As a technology evangelist, Ed may be horrified that I still live in a world of paper (in fact part of the reason I am typing this entry is I am putting off all the paper shredding I have to do).

Here are the questions.

When was the last time you:

1. Watched a friend buy a newspaper so he could browse the classifieds? You got me on the one. September 1996. The "friend" was me. I had just moved to the Twin Cities and needed a job.

2. Heard a land-line phone ring at a friend's house? Again, that friend would be me. I answered a phone on my land line 30 minutes ago. Only it was an automated phone call with a recorded voice telling me to vote for Ron Paul because if he's President, he'll get rid of the IRS.

And about an hour before that, Emily got a call from Fancy Kirk on the land line. Now the reason for that is because Kirk knows I lost my cell phone again. And this is why I love the land line. It is a needed back-up for me since I'm always losing that damn cell phone.

3. Heard a dial-up modem connect? Yikes. That is a good one. We used to have dial-up about five years ago. Pre-blogging days. But I can't remember if it made the dial-up noise.

4. Watched someone go to a bank teller to withdrawal cash? That would also be me. The bank in Iowa City that I used had mirrors behind the tellers. So I would say the answer is I saw myself withdraw some cash to close out my Iowa City checking account in the summer of 1996.

5. Bought a book on a computing related topic? I personally last bought a book about anything computer related when I was in either junior high or high school. It was a booklet about how to make it through the 50 hardest levels of   Championship Lode Runner. Matt the Hatt you out there? Jones? You guys may remember how obsessed I was with that game. I think I even wrote a short story based on the premise of that game. Yeah I was pretty cool back then.

But Emily did buy Blogging by Biz Stone about five years ago, which got her and then me into blogging. I'm sure that book is so very outdated and altogether unnecesarry.

6. Used the printed Yellow Pages? I use the White Pages (business section) all the time at work because they are in my office. I am too lazy to log onto the computer to use the web to look up a number. But I did use the Yellow Pages over the summer to find a junkyard to take away my dead 1988 Accord.

7. Received a link from a friend with driving directions from MapQuest? This may be worse than receiving a link: Last Sunday we went to a party and the invitation was two pieces of paper, with the second page being a MapQuest generated map of where the house was.

In terms of actually linking to Mapquest, I personally linked quite a bit when I was coaching the MDRA marathon training program over the summer of 2007. I didn't use the "tinyurl" thing until Ed taught me how. That's how prehistoric I am.

8. Turned on the TV rather than going to the web for more information on a breaking news story? I-35W bridge collapse.  Or the Iowa Caucus, if you consider the results a "breaking news" story.  I did go on-line for New Hampshire primary results.

9. Watched a full hour of television with commercials? Wednesday night. Law & Order.

10. Bought music on a CD? Three months ago? But that probably will be the last time.

Another good question to ask, when is the last time you paid a utility bill, mortgage bill, or credit card bill by mailing in a check? 

Oh well, I should get back to my shredding.