Things that might be decidedly odd…

SIGGRAPH, Day 1

I got up early this morning, early being around 7:30am or so. Since nobody else was up, I decided to head over to the pool to catch a few quick laps.

Later, Jason and I drove up to SIGGRAPH this morning. After trekking over to the convention center to pick up our credentials, we headed back to the hotel to find some place to eat. We then drove over to Hollywood to eat at the nearest In and Out burger joint. Now, I’ve got the wireless internet working at the hotel and we’re just kicking back. The plan is to meet Mike, Tynia and Russ over at the Wilshire Grand (sounds very fancy and expensive) for dinner or whatever.

Swimming in San Clemente

This morning I got up at the very reasonable time of 7:45am to try my luck at the neighborhood pool. I ended up getting over there around 8am and there was absolutely nobody there. I had the whole, albeit small, pool to myself. The laps went by quickly since the whole pool isn’t that long. The shallow end is also very shallow (3 feet) and I can actually touch the bottom with my hands while swimming prone. I found myself breathing only twice while going across, which obviously isn’t very far. Also, since there was nobody else there and since there are no good markers, I didn’t do any backstroke to be on the safe side. Still, lots of crawl and breakstroke ensued.

After doing that for about 30 minutes, I spent about another 30 minutes just working on flip turns. They really frustrate me, although I still think I’m getting better (very slowly though). I’ve come to realize that when I do the turn I’m moving my arms around, when in fact they should really just stay still. Basically, they start at my sides when I go into the turn and afterwards they should be pointing forward in the new direction but instead they’re flailing around and ending up back at my sides. I can actually complete a flip turn and recover if I move my arms, but then again that’s not really a proper flip turn. It’s not only bad form, but obviously not as efficient for resuming swimming. The problem lies in that if I don’t move my arms, I somehow end up way too deep in the pool (sometimes even bumping against the bottom of the pool in 4 or 5 feet of water). Conceptually, I think the problem is that I’m not tumbling the full 180 degrees, although it’s hard for me isolate exactly what I’m doing wrong. Maybe it’s not curling into a ball enough or not pushing hard enough downwards when I bring my outstretched arm in. Either way, I need more practice, but really I need somebody to watch and correct me. That’s not going to be able to happen though until September when I’ll be able to take stroke clinic at the YMCA again I guess.

In the mean time, it’s open turns and more flip practice I suppose. It just annoys me to no end though to see people so effortlessly flip turn at the pool. Throughout this, I was wearing the new suit I bought the other day. It fits quite well and I like it a whole lot better than the other suit I have, which is actually a water polo suit. I was casually looking around online today at prices for the suit I bought and I actually got a good deal. I paid $20 + tax and the cheapest I’ve seen otherwise for the same suit is $18.50 + shipping. The black and yellow Tyr suit I almost got at Sport Chalet was actually a great deal. It was $33 but with a 30% off sale they’re having (= $23.10 + tax). Nowhere has that suit for that price, although I think it may be from last season since I can’t actually find that pattern online anywhere. Regardless, I think I may pick it up later today after all since it’s a good deal.

Dog Swimming Videos

I took some cool videos of Bandi and Cosmo swimming in a wide spot in Seely Creek. They’re both in MPEG format, so should be viewable on just about any platform.

Bandi
Cosmo

Enjoy

California Update

I’ve been at my parents’ place in California since Tuesday night. On Wednesday, I went for a run with my Mom and her friend Barb. It was longer than I’m used to (about 35 minutes of actual running compared to the 20 I normally do), but it was still enjoyable. Later that day, we went down to Linda Lane Beach to go swimming in the ocean. There was some red tide, but it was mostly a ways out from where the waves were breaking. The daughter of one of my mom’s co-workers/friends, Tahia, was also there. We went to high school together and hadn’t seen each other since that time (about 8 years ago). It was cool talking to her.

Thursday, I went down to the Ole Hanson Beach Club pool to swim for $2. The pool is fairly small and there were a lot of people there. I ended up splitting a lane with a guy for a while, until a third joined us. Everybody was pretty nice down there and many of them were obviously regulars who all know each other. Anyhow, I circle swam for the first time ever and it wasn’t bad at all. Later on, a different guy joined our lane who swam much faster than me or the other guy in the lane. That was somewhat frustrating, but still very manageable. After I left, I noticed in a couple of other lanes there must have been 5 or 6 people circle swimming at one time, which was pretty intense since the pool is only about 25 yards long (maybe shorter even). The other thing I noticed was that everybody there was super tan. I guess they probably go there every day (or almost every day) year round. Still, it was pretty enjoyable. In the future, I think I’ll check out the neighborhood pool in the morning, but I may go back to this pool too since it’s actually setup for lap swimming.

After swimming on Thursday, I went in search of some new shoes. My parents were cleaning house and I just wanted to get away from that mayhem. I didn’t have much luck finding shoes, but I did end up buying a new racing suit. In North Carolina, it seems like all there is in the way of sporting goods stores is Dick’s. It’s an ok store, but in terms of swim suits they only sell one kind: standard Speedo, lycra/nylon blend available in blue or black. Well, out here there are many sporting goods chains and I managed to visit several of them. First, I went to Big 5, which was the smallest of the ones I visited. They actually had a decent swim suit section especially compared to Dick’s, but nothing really caught my attention. Next, I went to Sport Chalet, which had suits by Speedo, Tyr and Nike, in a variety of colors and materials (lycra/nylon as well as Polyester/PBT). However, they didn’t have the suit I liked best in my size. From there I went to Sportmart, which I believe had a huge collection of shoes, but nothing I liked. They had a sale on all men’s Nike and Speedo swimsuits but once again nothing that I liked in my size, although they did have some variety. Next, I went to Chick’s, which had different stuff from the other two stores. They also had the different patterns and materials (even 100% nylon water polo suits). I ended up buying a Tyr Durafast suit (their Polyester/PBT line) for $20 in blue (not black like in the picture). After that I went by a different Sport Chalet, which actually had the suit I was looking at at the previous Sport Chalet in my size. Still, I didn’t need more than 1 new suit and the Sport Chalet suit was a few dollars more in a pattern I wasn’t terribly crazy about. In general, Tyr suits seem pretty widely available around here, probably because the company is based in Huntington Beach. They seem to fit me pretty well and don’t look as frumpy as Speedo’s Endurance line (made of Polyester/PBT also).

After all of this, I headed over to the Mission Viejo Mall (I refuse to call it “the Shops at Mission Viejo Mall” which is what they renamed it a few years ago after it got renovated) to find some shoes. I ended up buying a pair at the Vans store, but after wearing them home decided they were too tight and didn’t fit right.

Today, my parents, my aunt Suzie, her guy Kent, Suzie’s dog Bandi and my parents’ dog Cosmo went for a hike up to a place called “Heart Rock” near Crestline. It’s called “heart rock” because there’s a large heart shaped hole carved by water in a rock:

It’s up in the San Bernardino mountains and the weather was warm, but we had a good time. Everybody (but especially Cosmo) went swimming in this pond slightly downstream from a waterfall next to where the heart is. I didn’t go since I didn’t bring my swimsuit. Moreover, I didn’t feel like getting my clothes all wet swimming in them or going skinny dipping in front of relatives. I still dangled my feet in the water though, which was nice. The full set of pictures is here.

After getting home, my mom and I went back over to the mall so that I could exchange the shoes I bought and so that she could buy some new running shoes. After much deliberation and spending way too much time in the store, I ended up buying a new pair of shoes. They still need to get broken in and I’m still getting used to wearing shoes with arches (damn you, Converse Chuck Taylor’s!), but they should work out ok eventually.

Daylight Savings Time Change

Looks like those clowns in Congress are talking about changing daylight savings time by making it start earlier and end later. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this, but I guess it doesn’t affect me as much as many people since I live relatively far south. Anyhow, this quote from the article is choice:

Upton noted that the extension means daylight-saving time will continue through Halloween, adding to safety. “Kids across the nation will soon rejoice,” said Upton, because they’ll have another hour of daylight trick-or-treating.

Because after all kids really like to go trick-or-treating in the daylight. WTF? When I was a kid, we always had to wait until it was dark to start trick-or-treating, but perhaps in this modern era of fear of everything things are different.

California

Just after recovering from my trip to Maine, I jumped on a plane to California where I’ll be for about two weeks visiting family and attending SIGGRAPH 2005. The flight was fine, but the stretch from Charlotte to LAX was on the long side. Either way, it wasn’t very early in the morning this time. In fact, I didn’t even leave RDU until 5:25pm, which left me plenty of time yesterday afternoon to go over to Kessing. 36 laps in 30 minutes, which once again I’m very happy with. I hardly rested at all in between sets and that’s a great improvement over how things were even a couple weeks ago. Moreover, the pool was not crowded at all. At one point, I was the only person in the pool at all I think.

Anyhow, now that I’m back home for a while, I need to find alternate exercise venues. There’s a neighborhood pool here, but I might check out the Ole Hanson Beach Club Municipal Pool as well. As for jogging, there are a number of trails around.

Also, I got some more photos from Tynia which have been added to my Maine, Summer 2005 set. Additionally I’ve created a set containing just those new photos. Mostly they’re of me, which I guess makes sense since I’m obviously extremely vain.

Hot

It’s 12:47am. At midnight, it was still 85F with a heat index of 91F outside. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 102F with a dew point of 71F.

Fortunately, I’m heading out to sunny southern California for two weeks of dry warmth.

Today I had one of the best swim workouts in a long time. I did 40 laps (1000 yards) in 30 minutes. More importantly, I was able to take only very short breaks in between laps. Typically, I was swimming 100 yards of something (crawl, breast, back, kicking) continuously with only very brief breaks (15 seconds) in between. I took one longish break of about a minute about half way through and got a drink of water from the fountain. I focused a lot on alternating between different kinds of strokes and tried to pace myself especially with the crawl. I deliberately swam slowly and focused on not speeding up when I got winded. I did another 4 laps in the process of practicing flip turns afterwards, although I don’t feel like I may any progress on the turns. I’m finding it somewhat difficult to practice them once I’m tired from the main part of the workout. It’s just something that’s going to take a while to master I suppose. I did, however, try to merge the turning and pushing off as somebody mentioned in a comment on a previous post. It did seem to make things a little bit easier. I’m still ending up too deep in the water a lot of the time and not recovering particularly well from the flip turn, BUT at least I am turning over and able to swim off in the opposite direction.

It was a great workout, although at one point I realized I had put my suit on inside out. Oops. I felt like a total dork. You wouldn’t have really been able to tell except the tag in the back was on the outside, because it’s actually a water polo suit made out of PBT (and no, I didn’t buy my suit from that site—I just found it while googling). Whatever I guess. It was still a great day for swimming. It’s so hot that I probably won’t be able to go jogging tomorrow. Ideally, I’ll hit up the pool before I take off for the airport tomorrow afternoon. I need to be at the airport around 3:30pm, which means leaving by 3pm if I have a ride or around 1:30pm if I need to take the bus. So far I haven’t had any luck finding a ride from anybody. Mike was going to give me a ride before he remember there’s a GAMMA meeting tomorrow around that time (doh). Not being able to find a ride just reminds me of how few friends I really have around here I guess, although I should probably keep in mind that a lot of people are out of town during the summer.

Maine Photos

Photos from Maine are now up here with captions and tags.

Maine

I’m officially back from Maine for Jason and Sarah’s wedding now. It was a great time, but I’ll avoid going into excruciating detail since it’s late and I’m tired. Here’s the executive summary:

• Wednesday: got up at 5:45am, swam in Bowman-Gray, left Chapel Hill just after 8am, in Durham realized I forgot my tie but kept driving, ate lunch with Vince near DC, lots of traffic in New Jersey, arrived in Stamford CT, ate dinner with Mike’s friend, crashed on their floor
• Thursday: got up, went for a run around Stamford, left Stamford, spent 2 hours in Lawrence MA since Jeff’s transmission overheated, arrived in Portland ME, went to Jason’s bachelor party in Portland, headed over to Damariscotta ME for continuation of bachelor party at Schooner Landing, crashed in the boat house behind the Kennedy Compound
• Friday: woke up early at the boathouse, headed to the house, showered, went to cottage hoping to meet Jeff, Tynia and Mike (I drove Mike’s car) only to find them not there, headed back to Kennedy Compound where Jason advised me to check the lighthouse, went to lighthouse, found gang, ate lunch, took pictures, headed back to Kennedy Compound, went out on boat with Jason, engine won’t start yet we are detached from the dock and floating away, Sarah’s uncle saves us in a kayak, engine works again, toul around the bay, unload boat from cold water, Jeff drops his cellphone in the salt water, head back to Kennedy Compound, head over to Boyd’s Pond where we swim and jump off the rope swing, head back to hotel to clean up, head over to Shaw’s in New Harbor for official Maine Lobster dinner, book it over to Damariscotta to pick up Claire, back to hotel, back to Schooner Landing, drink, drink, drink, return to hotel, sleep
• Saturday: get up early, do some reading, go to lighthouse with Claire since she hadn’t yet seen it, eat breakfast, go for a jog down Route 130, take nap, change for wedding, go to wedding, party, party, party from 2 to 9:30pm, bid goodbye to Jason, Sarah and everybody else, hit the hay by 10pm
• Sunday: get up at 5:30am, shower, head out at 6am, drive, drive, drive, drop Claire off in Virginia, drive, arrive back home at 12:30am

Whew, but it was fun. Pictures to follow shortly.

First Suit Photos

DSC00117

Originally uploaded by decidedlyodd.

As described earlier, I bought a suit a couple of days ago. Not just any suit, but my first suit ever. Wow, I don’t feel any more mature.

Anyhow, the whole set can be seen here.

Tomorrow morning, I’m off to Maine for Jason and Sarah’s wedding. Jeff T. is gonna pick me up around 8am and we’ll be on our way.