It's been a couple of weeks with absolute failures of postings so I'll have to recover those, eventually.  One of the non-highlights of the week was the prescription of physical therapy for the next 6 weeks then a dye shot MRI if there's no improvement.  From there, it's up in the air because he mentioned surgery.  He already knows there's much scar tissue to clean up in the area of question from a prior injury which explains the knot at my hip.  So 6 more weeks no running, PT core work/hip strengthening/stretching/eletrotherapy.  There's no way the doctor will sign off on my participating in the Paris Marathon right now.  I'm sad about that.  But I will probably still go on the trip because, dammit, it's Paris with friends!!!! 

In the meantime, I'm going to schlog through 2/3 of a triathlon with my gimpy friend, Anna, next Sunday.  With her two bad heels and my hip, we should be competing for last place and it'll be a battle to remember!  Heh. 

Swimming this week has been mostly good.  I was having a great workout Monday when my goggles broke.  When I looked up reviews on the brand, many other people complained about the same thing.  I went back to my backup corrective goggles that had the lower sight prescription.  It's blurry and kind of gave me a headache but that's at the very end.  I've swam 9750 yds so far and one more workout tomorrow with my gimpy pal and I'll call it a week.  I'm leaving for Greenville on Monday for work so I'll be doing just weights and the recumbent bike, the only things I can use at the hotel. 

There are a couple of songs that are just absolutely beautiful when drifting through the water and one of them I've posted below.  I've had a love/hate relationship with Rufus Wainwright's music because sometimes his nasally voice drives me nuts but my earphones sometimes lose a bit of left or right side sound underwater so what I got were the arpeggios without vocals.  Made me feel like I was in a Philip Glass piece.  Depending on my mood, I like the vocals.  It's a letter for his daughter and I just lose myself in it.

 

 

In lighter things, I can't stop looking at this picture and laughing.

 

 

 

I wrote so many short notes of interesting things to blog about, things I noticed, things to ponder. Then work happened.  It's been a hellish couple of weeks and today a phone call culminated in the CFO telling me "I don't understand why you can't get this done." and my answering "I don't even know how to respond to that." 

 

So for the 13 hours I was at my desk, 2 hours of it was sort of wasted due to somebody accidentally sending me a message about some sort of relationship between two other employees.  Then the employees in question called me to 'clarify' some things then it turned into a confessional.  Since I don't work in the main office which is in South Carolina and I'm in Indiana, I guess I'm some sort of financial Salieri at the end of the movie Amadeus, absolving all those in my department of sin.  I really don't have any fucks to give but hell, it was funny if not a tad pathetic. 

 

I begged 2 people to fire me today.

 

Okay.  I'm wiped.  I indulged in my one summer show I watch a week, So You Think You Can Dance and mad tweeted what I saw so now that it's over, it's time for bed. 

 

By the way, I'm having a hell of a time posting on my brand spankin' new phone and my Kindle - I'm testing ways around it using an app and different connections but it's not quite working.  I'll figure it out.  Sorry for all the "tests".

Test

Arghhhhhh! The editor is not showing up on my phone!

Testing this one out . . .

 

 

I'm messing with my mobile and editor posting media. Enjoy the Marx Brothers, sorry about the next one if it works.  If you just watched the Olympics closing ceremony you're in WTF did I just watch mode anyway.

 

I'm still having trouble going to other Xangan's pages and commenting and editing existing entries on my own page.  Ugh.

 

 

The code on my Xanga page takes out pulse so . . . yeah.  I keep saying I'll re-design this but I have a sentimental attachment to my eye busting orange yellow blonde chick theme and the Xangan who helped make that happen based on my avatar, the FINGER OF ACCUSATION.  I wonder what she's up to.  I've mentioned before, my short experience on Facebook was so negative and I was hacked early on so I deleted my account when deleting was easy.  Reading over the years about certain privacy issues, the falling stock and how workplaces use it as vetting new hires, I'm glad I'm not there but I'm biased. 

I recently laughed myself off my seat when a friend of mine told me I couldn't use Twitter without using my real name.  BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  Oh, ha.  That's such a good one.  Find me there on Twitter at l_happenstance if you want.  I'm lookin' at you, @leopardditz, I'm totally on for live tweet commentary after the Magic Mike blu ray/dvd's are out!!

Anyway, here is what my original short post was going to be:

"Yay, made it home before 9pm, another 14 hour workday."

Whinge and purge, yea, verily.

Here's some new music for you before the freebie runninglist download.  This is Foxy Shazam and they remind me of Queen except without the PhD megabrain astrophysicist playing guitar with a half coin.

Brooks Running ‏@brooksrunning

Retweet & download the Brooks Fan Music Mix exclus. from @RockMyRun w/ 100% fan song suggestions. Use code: RunHappy http://brks.co/PzO2UP

Track Listing:

#	Track Title	Artist
1	Beautiful Day	U2
2	Thunderstruck	AC/DC
3	Guitar	Prince
4	Are You Gonna Go My Way (Diggz Party Starter Edit)	Lenny Kravitz
5	Knights of Cydonia	Muse
6	Running like the Wind	The Marshall Tucker Band
7	I Don't Wanna Stop	Ozzy Osbourne
8	Praise	Sevendust
9	Walk	Foo Fighters
10	Walk Idiot Walk	The Hives
11	Bleed it Out	Linkin Park
12	Joker and the Thief	Wolfmother
13	Marathon	Rush
14	Everlong	Foo Fighters
15	Black Blade	Blue Oyster Cult
16	Little Sister	Queens of the Stone Age
17	Lonely Boy	The Black Keys
18	Salute Your Solution	The Raconteurs
19	Runnin' Down a Dream	Tom Petty
20	I Alone	Live
21	Kick Start My Heart	Motley Crue
22	Indestructible	Disturbed

I didn't DNF but I certainly have a new personal worst in all distances!  Heh.  It was disgusting.  I threw up.  In the water.  And yet I'm masochist enough to think about signing up for this next year because the organizers did an outstanding job.  However, if my puke is still in there in 2013, I'll probably just go see a movie instead.  I am ready for many, many painkillers with a beer chaser. 

Do you remember this guy?  Eric Moussambani represented Equitorial Guinea as a wildcard draw country program to encourage participation of developing nations without access to expensive training facilities in the 2000 Olympics.  He was nicknamed Eric the Eel because of his determination in the water. 

He finished in 1:52, having never swam in a 50m pool EVER and only learning how to swim just months before this internationally televised event.  It's bad enough it looks like the other two participants false started on purpose in their laser suits so to swim it alone?  All eyes on you?  And he came out of the water and interviewed SMILING.  "I am feeling good!" I love that.

Do you know what happened after?  He trained very hard and actually got his time down to sub-freakin' 57 seconds.  And he STILL has a time of 55 seconds as recently as last year.  That might not work in the Olympics but that's Masters competitive!  I've improved about 10 seconds on my 100m time since a year ago.  He cut his time in half!  He's now the coach of national Equitorial Guinea swimming team.  That makes me pretty happy.

Here's more on his story:  http://www.turnto23.com/sports/31319387/detail.html

Some people think letting in these competitors makes a mockery of a serious sport.  Maybe the sport is too serious.  Maybe sport is more than who has the fastest time and we need that kind of reminder.  The Jamaican Bobsled Team?  Lascelles Brown ended up moving to Canada after marrying his Canadian girlfriend and became a silver and bronze Olympic 2 man bobsledding medalist.  And Equitorial Guinea now has swimming pools, even 50 meter ones!  If it's always USA/China/Russia, I might as well just watch the yearly Worlds competitions.  At least that doesn't get in the way of So You Think You Can Dance.

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On the other side of the coin, I've decided to defer my entry in the Marine Corps Marathon.  I would LOVE to run it this year but I want to give my leg adequate rest for Paris 2013 plus winter training is much easier for recovery for me because of allergy induced asthma.  It's all good but whenever I thought about how much running I'd need to make up after missing a total of 6 weeks of running, I knew I was setting myself up for re-injury.  I can't go from 0 to a 15 mile long run day so I can hurry up and build to a 20 mile long run a couple of weeks before the race. 

My own swimming went pretty well yesterday.  3,000 yards:  400 warmup, 3 x (4x25 drills with 200 kick), 50 (1st 25 easy)-100 (1st 25 easy)-150 (1st 50 easy)-200(1st 50 easy)-250(1st 100 easy) builds, 10x50 sprints, 400 pull then a short cooldown.  I cycled today, lifted and worked on core with the medicine ball, Smith machine and captain's chair then stretched with my running mate Meredith. 

Then I created a team for the Tap n' Run Highlands.  We've got a couple of ideas going.  Game of Thrones is one (I'm the person short enough to be Tyrion) and the Great Wall of China is another.  This may require a beer discussion this weekend.  Prost!

screwed up adductor.  No running for another month, prescribed an anti-inflamatory and painkiller and I can cycle (ugh) or swim (eh) and that's about it.  Stay away from weights, no weight bearing exercises then they'll look at my hip again. 

Wow, I'll eventually write a real post again but I think I'm either 1) sick or 2) getting sick.  The sore throat, general malaise and muscle soreness isn't a good sign.  I swam 2 miles of just drills yesterday and lifted weights so maybe that's why I'm kind of sore but I don't think that's it.  This is a different kind of muscle soreness, like it's too much effort to get up to do things. Or maybe I'm having allergic reactions to work.  Not great.  But I'm seeing a doctor tomorrow anyway.  Just give me a damned shot and make me all better.  I do believe in drugs, I do!