Friday, June 13, 2003

 

I'm back to training for a marathon in the Fall. Last year at this time I made the momentous decision to begin training for a marathon. I had to pick a marathon to train for and ended up with the Las Vegas marathon. I had never ever even contemplated running one before last summer. So I wanted to do it right and not get injured. I picked the Vegas marathon for timing (before spring rowing season started) and for supposed ease of course. The course is relatively flat for the first 9 miles and then a nice, gentle downhill to mile 20 where it flattens out completely. I figured, hey, if I'm going to try a marathon I might as well not kill myself with a really ugly course. Great idea, poor follow through. The morning of the race I awoke to a raging wind. On the course I endured 30-40 mph steady quartering headwind with gusts to 50. It tore me up. I was so frustrated when I got done (in 4:05; I wanted to finsh 3:45 or better) that I decided I needed to do another. I'm only now jumping back on the training band wagon but feel confident that I provided myself a good base through my training last year. I'm running in the Pacific Crest half-marathon on June 28. It's fits perfectly into my training schedule as far as length of run is concerned.


Rowing: I was caught completely off guard this morning when I read that long-time UW women's varsity rowing coach, Jan Harville, is retiring. I have huge, huge respect for her and what she has done for UW and for women's rowing. It will be very interesting to see who they will get to coach. I just hope that the UW athletic department isn't too distracted by the whole Rick weasal firing.


Beer: This Sunday I'm going over to Racoon Lodge for their unveiling of a very special IPA. They brewed an IPA and then put the beer into oak casks of various origins for 4 months in hopes of mimicking the typical 4-month boat journey from England to India that lent the this type of beer its moniker. I had the opportunity to taste it at the 2-month mark and liked it but felt that it would only get better over the following 2 months in the oak barrels. I think I might even brew something this weekend myself.

posted by The Brooklynite 10:17 AM

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

 

Some Cool Things That Happened on the Day I Was Born:
Ernie Banks hit three triples in a single game versus the Houston Astros to tie a modern-day major league record (maybe this has something to do with my becoming a Cubs fan as a teenager; and oh yeah, the Cubs are still in first place!!)
Janis Joplin first performed on stage in San Francisco at the Avalon Ballroom, and
the Grand Floral Parade was held for the 59th Portland Rose Festival (the story goes that my nervous Father got my mom to the hospital early to avoid any "parade traffic")

posted by The Brooklynite 2:23 PM

 

Whee, it's my birthday!! Looking at this day in history, I share my birthday with some pretty cool company including, no specific order: Nelson Mandela (I still get goose-bumps when I hear the song "Free nelson mandela"); Jacques Cousteau; Vince Lombardi; and, Joe Montana.

I'm headed to the Lucky Lab after work for an informal gathering of beer and dinner. My patent professor is even coming.

Hurrah to all my fellow gemini!!

posted by The Brooklynite 9:09 AM

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

 

Browsing through The Oregonian sports section this morning I stumbled upon this little story buried in the high school sports news. Under a headline of changing the football schedule for the PIL schools I found that they are seriously considering spending $160,000 each at Marshall, Roosevelt and Cleveland high schools, this summer, to put in football field lights. What h#$$!!??!! Didn't we just go through a painful fundraising effort to save spring sports? Didn't we just pass a local income tax to try to just barely save local schools? Does the Portland Public School District have any toes left on its feet after continually shooting them off?

I voted for the tax. I'm a product of the Portland Public School system (Kellogg elementary then middle school and Marshall high school). I firmly believe it is one of the last functioning big-city public school systems in the country and that idea would have been deeply imperiled had we not passed the tax. But I'm also painfully aware of the bungling of the bureaucracy of the ole PPS. It's still a top-heavy cluster-f*^%. And the above story is just another example.

posted by The Brooklynite 8:58 AM

Monday, June 09, 2003

 

Was Bush lying (or at least really, really stretching the truth) and should it matter: First from a veteran of Watergate, the second greatest presidential scandal the 20th century (The first, IMHO, was the utter and complete corruptness of the Harding administration). John Dean says GW is toast if it comes out he lied to congress and the country to get us to invade/liberate Iraq.
Second, via Prof. Bogdanski's blog, another opinion about the real reason we went into Iraq. Mr. Friedman's words ring true to me, and they might be true enough that ole GW will probably get away with it.

posted by The Brooklynite 11:39 AM

 

Ahh Monday.

After lots more gardening and a torturous wedding ceremony on Saturday, I'm back at work.

Some rowing news of note from the weekend: US Rowing held its quasi-national championship for the high school/junior level in Cincinnati. No surprise that Cincy Juniors won both 8+'s race. Their girls barely squeaked out victory over Community Rowing of Boston. And that result tells me that Holy Spirit would have won it if they had come. From what I understand, Holy Spirit will take both it varsity girls and boys eights to Henley so they probably could not afford the extra trip to Cincy. Pretty strong competition in the girls race with 5 seconds separating 1st from 5th. And Sammamish still couldn't beat Everett, finishing 0.04 seconds behind Everett in the final. They were using the Lynx timing system and there is a great finish picture from that race. Check out how close lanes 5 and 7 are. And Green Lake couldn't quite pull off the 3-peat. They finished second to Cincy, just 0.49 seconds back. And one other note, my good friend Susan Parkman's crew from Lakeside high in Seattle got the bronze in the 4+. Good Job Susan!!!

Over the weekend my least favorite city council member announced he'll be running for mayor. No word yet on whether Vera will run. I'm not sure why people are so scared of running against her. A 17-year-old almost forced a run-off last time. If a serious candidate runs a decent campaign, I'm sure they could beat Vera. Personally, I'm hoping that Earl Blumenaur will come back and run for mayor. Check out this commentary on a recent speech he gave. I'd love to see a local public leader get up and say things like that on a regular basis.

posted by The Brooklynite 9:01 AM