Drunk blogging

A close relative of drunk texting. This is done without any editing whatsoever. The major difference is that I'm not annoying one person. Anybody that clicks on this can go somewhere else on a second's notice. Look! Shiny! Gotta go. Except you are consumed with curiousity about whatI might say. As my book character Ronnie says, "let the cow chips land where the splatter takes them"

But, you are captured for reader stats. Yay me! As Celina says whenever she darts into the bedroom or outside past our feet, points for me!

So there was these series of meetings at work I don't want to talk about, involving this semi-cryptic diagram. BUT WHO CARES! (Channeling Rhuby Rhod.)

Here's the view while I was drinking. Kind of darker than it appears, but I'm too lazy to brighten it up.

And here's what I was drinking.

After escaping work, I picked up Michelle and we headed over to Gray Eagles Hotel to pick up our race package, attend the athlete briefing, and scope out the expo. We saw our buddy Leana and chatted.

This was all good. Well, except where it wasn't. This is not intended as a slight against the many volunteers. Not at all. I've volunteered myself many times at races, and in fact, Linda just found the Chinook race crew shirt from last year, which has been buried in the heap on our chaise lounge in the bedroom. But enough of that. We discussed it at length during our drinking.

Part of my problem is that I'm inexorably process driven. I follow where the data takes me. If I know I have 1500 people signed up for a race, to me it's dumb to book a room that holds about 120 people for the athlete briefing. But that's just me. Other than that, the actual package pickup process was great. Unlike during my Ironman race. Read process rant here, which includes a generalized rant. In general. Just go read, it's one of my better ones.

I'm of several minds about this whole darned Calgary 70.3 thing. Firstly, I'm on a team with Michelle, and what's important is to be a good team member. Being signed up for this has been good, as there have been several swims I'd have probably bailed on if she hadn't been expecting me to pick her up. This is good. (Best run buddy ever! and best relay team member ever!)

But I'm a bit pissed at the WTC in general. The whole 50 women to Kona thing annoys me. Pros are pros. If it's a world championship, build a set of rules, and apply them equally. I don't really care if it's the top 10 pros, or the top 100 per gender. Sure there is limited spot on the pier. Give them away to lottery winners, or to the pros that are the a big part of the lifeblood that supports the sport. Hmmm, let me think about that.

Then there is the local race organization. I once told a boss of mine, the one that in fact owned the company, that if he was going to do swag, don't do the cheap shit. When you do it, do quality. The finisher shirt I got out of finishing the first Calgary 70.3 was a travesty. It looked like, and might have been, a 70's iron on transfer on a cheap cotton T shirt. I wouldn't wear it in public. Even today, most of the T shirts didn't feel like good quality cotton. But that's just me and my picky fingers. Let's not even go into design. That's a personal choice.

More importantly, is the lack of consistent messaging. For a while we were told there was a team briefing at Talisman at 4pm. We didn't think it was real, but we're a team, and we planned our work schedules around that. A couple hours beforehand we learned it was cancelled. FAIL! Get your shit together. All messaging should be coordinated, regardless of channel. All materials should agree with each other. I've seen several different swim maps, all subtly different. Bah!

Something we noticed today, and were appalled by, is the sale of finisher shirts and medals from last year. Somebody must have goofed big time. There were lots. Why would anyone buy finisher merchandise for a a race they have not finished? If for some reason a box of stuff didn't make it to the finish line, and finishers did without, then mail it to them. There might be a limited market for finisher shirts after the fact, but the medals? I don't get it. They know exactly how many people have entered the race. A few left over I understand. Oh well. But there were many. Boxes worth. Something isn't right there.

I digress. We had a nice time at the expo, other than standing in a room too small by half, listening to a guy mostly talking about stuff in the published documents, answering questions from people that have not read the published documents. Grr. Just like there is a swim nazi in me, I want a huge crook to come out of nowhere, grabbing people by the neck, asking a question that is answered in the published documentation. Automatic disqualification. I don't blame the guy. He's probably running on much less sleep than he needs the last few days. There are enormous challenges to putting on one of these events. Don't get me started on question and answer sessions.

As a side note, during our swim today there was someone that just didn't understand. She wandered into our lane, oblivious. I mentioned we were swimming circles clockwise (up that half of the lane, back this half) and she was welcome to join us. She said she didn't swim well, and wandered off to what she thought was an empty lane. The swim club promptly kicked her out of it. Then she came back and swam the wrong way. I came within one stroke of running over her. I told her the dive tank was open and might be better for her because the water was warmer. That did it, she left.

In the end, it (race prep, keep up) all worked out. We know what we have to do. We know where we have to be at various times. We have scoped out the all important chip transfer. We have trained. There will be fun had, whether it wants to be had or not.

Once home, after stupid traffic on 14th St, there was BBQ. But first the traffic. There was one massive demonstration of driver incompetence on northbound 14 St just south of Glenmore that required several cop cars. One the other side of the road  just south of that was another massive demonstration of driver incompetence almost certainly caused by rubber-necking at the first one. I don't know which was first. It doesn't matter. All the people involved ought not to be allowed to drive anymore, for the safety of the rest of us. A giant hook should appear out of nowhere the next time they get into the driver's seat, yanking them off to somewhere unpleasant.

The BBQ. We found a jar of Ancho Molasses Chipolte sauce in the cupboard. We nibbled a bit of it as dip on chips the other day and found it wonderful. Today Linda marinaded some chicken in it, and I BBQ it. Amazing! We munched the chicken burgers, and drank wine, and drank more wine. Enjoyed the garden. Scroll back up and look at that one photo again.

We talked of many things, and drank more wine. Life is good. Retirement is sort of soon, depending on options.

I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow, waking up in a slow way, and getting coffee and breakfast on my schedule. This is becoming more important to me, and I'm getting less willing to rush out to get to 'work'. We will deliver Michelle's bike to T1 and stroll around some more getting ourselves totally in the mind to race. Our wave start is right after the pros. I can't catch them. The wave of middle aged guys (30 to 44) starts a few minutes after me. I'd like to stay ahead of them. My thought is that since I don't have to bike, I'm going to swim my brains out. The sequence of events will be to finish swim, run to Michelle and bike, hand over the chip, puke and collapse in a heap for a while, then travel to T2 and cheer on people till Michelle arrives, whereupon I go crazy.  It should be good.