Step Away From the Cake

I was going to go for a bike ride but it started raining, so I'll wait a little while and then go. I've been reading many peoples comments about Katrina and it's time to get my 2 cents in. First off the whole thing is completely beyond belief. Everytime I see pictures from there I can't help but cry. It's really hard to believe something like this could happen to us. Okay, having said that; this whole thing pisses me off. Over 3 years ago a study was done and showed what would happen to NOLA if a major storm hit - WHY DID NO ONE PAY ATTENTION TO THAT??? Wasn't it just last year Georges almost hit them?? WHY DID NO ONE PAY ATTENTION TO THAT?? Wasn't it on 9/11 that we were hit by terrorists and realized how vulnerable we really are?? WHY DID NO ONE PAY ATTENTION TO THAT?? Why doesn't every major city/community in this country have an emergency plan for disaters (both natural and man made)????? Who the hell is this mayor of New Orleans and governor of L...

Tonight is a night of photos. So I live across the street from a working ranch (which also happens to be a tourist attraction). These 2 horses belong to one of the employees and I just love these guys. Every night when we walk the dogs on the ranch these two come racing over to visit. The one in the front is Picasso (appropriate yeah??) and the one in the background is Sheriff. Great horses. Here is Picasso sniffing the dogs. Those are my knees are sitting on the fence taking the pictures. Notice Picasso's mane, it's half white and half brown - very cool. This is one of the ranch buses. They take tourists around in these. A lot of movies were filmed on this ranch so it's pretty popular tourist destination. I love the cattle skull on the bus, really nice touch. Here is Picasso at eye level. This is my back yard. That white thing in the distance is an old bunker from WWII. After the attack on Pearl Harbor the army took over the ranch and built these bunkers all over the place...

So today on the schedule I had aerobics because last Wednesday I twisted my ankle AGAIN and figured I'd still be healing today. Well, after walking the dogs I felt pretty good so I whipped out the ol' treadmill and decided to give it a whirl. At first I was going to walk. That felt so good I decided to give easy running a try. I ended up doing 5 -1 1/2 minute runs at about 6 mph. It felt great. I feel great. The ankle feels great. So okay, it's begun again. I just have to take it slow and build myself back up again. Awesome feeling...

Actually a note before bed. Today was great. I got up and got a short bike ride in between rain storms - that was great. Then tonight after work I had the best swim; it was one of those times I felt like I could have swum forever. I have a new "lap" from my house down the the old jet ski area. I don't know exactly how far that is since it's open ocean but I'm guesstimating it's at least 400m one way. I did 2 full laps so that should be about 1600m in 24 minutes. That's awesome for me. The tide was coming in so it was a little rough but what a great swim. I'm reaching the point where I don't freak out if I can't get a breath when I'm planning or I get water in my mouth or nose. I'm learning to handle all these situations and starting to feel really comfortable in the ocean. I can also feel it in my arms after I swim so I think I'm using my arms properly. I'm really beginning to think that all those lessons from high swim te...

It was not a bad day. I walked the dogs this morning and got rained on :) I was going to do some aerobics that I had DVR'd but for some reason they didn't record. So after screwing around for 1/2 an hour I didn't have time to work out. Oh well. I worked on my swim mentally all day. But Charlie got home late from golf and after we walked the dogs it was getting dark already (ain't swimming in the ocean in the dark!!!) I did go for a dip since I was all psyched to get into the ocean and it was super humid. It was nice just to swim with the puppies instead of trying to get a "workout" in. Of course this means that tomorrow I have to bike in the morning and swim in the evening but that's cool. Things are still crazy at work but the boss returns on Weds. so things should get better. We are so busy it's insane. I really hope this lets up soon. I've decided that I will work as fast as I can and do as much as possible. I'm not a machine and I...

but now it's time to face the music. First, let me cover the nonsensical stuff. I purchased a printer yesterday. Actually, I purchased a printer/copier/scanner yesterday at Sam's Club for only $70.00. I have not had a printer for over a year and you have no idea how annoying it can be sometimes. I would have to e-mail stuff I wanted to print to work and then print it there; annoying!!! We also ate with abandon yesterday. We went out to breakfast; purchased huge sub sandwiches for lunch; topped it off with dinner at Haleiwa Joe's including mai tai's and dessert. I'm not real sure what happened but it was a food day. Today, by contrast, has been a no food day. It's 2:30pm and I've only eaten a pb&j sandwich. Now for the tough stuff. After much careful consideration I decided to not exercise at all since my injury on Wednesday. That appears to have proved to be a good idea as the ankle is really feeling good. Now however it is time to get back into ...