Phone Recluse No Longer

The Sprint HTC Evo 4G phone arrived last night.

• Android 2.1


• 1 GHz processor


• 3G and 4G capability


• GPS


• 8 megapixel camera


• 8 GB SD card

The Palm Treo never recovered from tagging along in the pool during my long swim. The dry rice trick didn't work. Many speculated on FB that I intentionally killed the Treo.

Separation of People and Toxins

"It may be that going forward we need to be thinking about the locations of industrial facilities and the locations of where people live and keeping a healthy distance between them."

Dr. Howard Frumkin
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

How safe is the air you're breathing, and where is it coming from? Tune in to "Toxic America," a two-night special investigation, with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, June 2 and 3 at 8 p.m. ET.

Changes Over Time

"When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood” ~Sam Ewing

I just went and looked at two blogs I read daily when all into triathlons and marathons and one now requires an invitation and the other has allowed the domain to drop so it fails. I feel like I went home to look at the house I grew up in only to find a parking lot.

It tells me to move on. Nothing to see there.

This weekend is the Capital of Texas Triathlon. I have no urge to participate. I am nursing the hip back into shape after the Austin Half and a busted knee. Even if I was well I don't think I'd want to visit the race again. With all of the sewage problems finding a way to the swim course I think staying out of that water is the safest bet at this point.

Both the knee and hip are 100% and I think next week I'll be in the pool several times a week with no expectations. Just swimming and running and maybe some cycling. My brother still wants to look at the Austin 70.3 as a possible fall race.

First Lunch Run in a Long Time

I was debating whether or not to go to the gym at noon and by chance checked the levels of particulates before walking out the door. Austin had a 0.2 level of particulates. No gym workout was going to be able to compete with the cleanest air in a long time. Halfway into the run I remembered I had taken an antibiotic in the morning and as the UV Index was about eight and this was the most sun I'd seen since last October, I decided to head back to the office.

The left adductor pain has subsided since the Austin Half-marathon with more stretching. Just another issue to add to the list of things to watch out for and treat.

Ugh!

from the Austin American Statesman the other day...

City might add admission fee for two free-swim hours at Barton Springs

By Sarah Coppola | Wednesday, January 27, 2010, 12:16 PM

Austin’s Parks Department might charge an admission fee during one extra hour in the morning and evening at Barton Springs Pool.

The hours of 8-9 a.m. and 9-10 p.m. currently have lifeguards but no admission fee, and officials say attendance has grown so large, especially at night, that they must keep a full shift of lifeguards on duty.

Read the rest and attend the public hearing on the matter.

Many of those attending before 9:00 am are runners soaking their legs after a long run. At least on Saturday and Sunday mornings. If the City starts charging at 8:00 a.m., I think I'll permanently be found soaking my legs downstream in shallow runoff waters of the dog park. The water is just as cold as the water in the fenced Barton Springs pool. There are more snakes, turtles, dogs, ducks and people downstream in the dog park, but in many ways it's more interesting. And, best of all it's free. Well, free until the City decides to fence it off and charge a fee for it too.

Hibernation and Breasts

The cold front is just about to the ATX and we'll soon be in experiencing temps in the teens. As I have a 13-mile run on Valentine's Day, I should be hitting the trail just about each and ever day but all I want to do this time of year is lift weights and do the minimal amount of cardio to keep in half-ass shape. Three years in a row the same thing. Granted last year I had the injury and couldn't run but I don't think it really mattered.

On another topic, I went to pick up a chicken breast last night for Chicken & Dumplings. Although I have seen three or four movies about what's happening to the animals we eat, it had not registered so plainly as last night's visit at the grocery store. I think it hadn't registered as the two products were always separated by 30 feet of shelf space and so I would put one or the other in the basket and not think twice or do a comparison.

Side-by-side I had chicken breast packages. One organic, one not. One cost $9.00, the other cost $3.00. The organic chicken breasts were small. The non-organic breasts were HUGE and resembled turkey breasts more than their sisters in the other package. Thoughts that came to mind included, OMG, C'mon Man!, and the F-bomb; all within a matter of seconds. I chose the $9 organic breasts but it really was a challenge to put the HUGE $3 breasts back on the shelf.

More of the Same Please

My one resolution for 2009 was to see at least one live music performance per month. After all, inhabiting the self proclaimed 'Live Music Capital of the World' requires one to show some support of some kind at least once a month. Last week's performance by the The Eggmen at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar completed the year's resolution. Ditto for 2010.

Fitness still plays into the resolution matrix somehow. Each year it's becoming more like brushing my teeth and washing the car than a mid-life crisis response. The whole racing and training aspect is overly hyped and as I'm not competitive in this area of my nature, I'd rather just let it go. That's not to say I won't enjoy running down the street with 15,000 people at the Austin Marathon and 13-miler. Having a race on the calendar creates just enough motivation to get out of bed each day and go for a run and do a couple extra pushups. All training schedules will be purged from the harddrives, with the printed ones meeting their maker in the shredder.

My bro does want to do a half-iron with me in October so that'll take some motivation. More than I have now. I have just enough to get through a morning strength workout of 30 minutes and some sort of run in the afternoon. Sometimes one and not the other. Half-iron means two or three times per day every day or almost every day with the nutrition factor thrown in. Less beer, less sweets, less food overall. Of course I could indulge and just suffer for six or seven hours in the heat come October. Ugh....