Our gym is closed the next few days while two of our three instructors compete in the CrossFit Finals, a world competition. The competition starts tomorrow. These are some of the fittest people on the planet, but they don't even know what the competition will be.
It isn't like a lot of events where you can train at a very specific set of activities and hone those skills. They know they will compete on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but they don't know how many events there will be or what they are. Just be physically fit enough to be the best at almost anything. As an example our gym's owner, Chris Spealler, can do 106 pull-ups (yes, without stopping), dead lift 400 pounds, back squat 335, and run a 5k at just over 6 minute miles. Oh yeah, and he weighs 35 pounds less than me.
Eric O'Connor, our other instructor, can only do 55 pull-ups, but dead lifts 445 pounds and actually does the 5k under 6 minute miles. At least he's my weight.
Click here over the next few days if you want to follow the event or just learn more.
Go Chris! Go Eric!
And for comparison, I can do 7 pull-ups, dead lift a bit over 200, and seem to take forever to run anywhere right now. How exactly would one go from 7 pull-ups to 106?
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Where do floats go to die?
Bill Benson and his band of helpers did a great job and won Best in Show for their float in the July 4th parade. What happens to those floats after the parade. Well, it's kind of sad.
At least Bill knows how to drive a forklift.
No more float. Just a sad empty trailer.
At least Bill knows how to drive a forklift.
No more float. Just a sad empty trailer.
Our latest cat attempt
We have been trying to find a kitty-buddy for Cosette but my allergies have gotten in the way. I thought we had finally one, a domestic blue named Cleopatra. We brought her home and had her for a few days before I started feeling my throat tighten up.
She had to go back to Furburbia. So sad. She was a real sweetie. We have given up finding another kitty for a while.
She had to go back to Furburbia. So sad. She was a real sweetie. We have given up finding another kitty for a while.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Sarah still hasn't got it mastered
You would think that after doing two years of nothing but campaigning, Sarah Palin would have learned a little bit more about policy and positions. She was on Fox News answering questions about Immigration Reform. This really demonstrates how you can always throw out a few clever sayings and get your crowd excited, but never address the issues (not even the most obvious ones). Unfortunately, she is the norm and not the exception in today's politics.
Click here to watch on Youtube.
I just can't imagine how people support her as a presidential candidate. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, there are many, many better choices out there.
Click here to watch on Youtube.
I just can't imagine how people support her as a presidential candidate. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, there are many, many better choices out there.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
A new auction site
I love eBay, both for buying and selling. I appreciate the ability to find great deals on stuff and the ease of unloading my own extras. Today a read about a new site: Quibids. The site is wonderfully clever, but I will never buy anything from it. The concept:
You have no control over the timing, since the clock keeps resetting. I am certain that there is a huge human flaw that says "I've already spent $40 bidding on this damn thing. I have to stick with it and win."
I admire people with clever new approaches and this certainly fits the bill. Just the same, I'll stick with eBay where I only pay if I win the auction.
- Start bids for very nice, popular items like an iPad, at 1 penny.
- There is no minimum price. In theory, if you were the only one bidding, you could get anything for a penny.
- Charge people 60 cents to bid.
- Auctions can end in a fairly short time, but once you get down close to zero seconds, any bid resets the clock back to 10 or 15 seconds. This allows someone else to jump in and bid.
- Once no one has bid to reset the clock and it drops to zero, the bidding ends and there is a winner.
You have no control over the timing, since the clock keeps resetting. I am certain that there is a huge human flaw that says "I've already spent $40 bidding on this damn thing. I have to stick with it and win."
I admire people with clever new approaches and this certainly fits the bill. Just the same, I'll stick with eBay where I only pay if I win the auction.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
July 4th Parade
Well, a week late but I am finally uploading my pictures from the 4th of July parade.
We go every year because it's one of the biggest parties in Park City. This year was especially big because the 4th fell on a Sunday. Huh? How does that work? Park City is the only town in Utah that decided that celebrating the 4th on the 4th was allowed on church day. Not only did everyone in Park City show up, it drew from all over the Salt Lake valley.
In order to get some chairs on the street in a primo location, I had already driven down at 5:30 and walked home. This not only gave us good seats, it gave us a car parked close by for the drive home. At 7:30 I returned to run the 5k with 1,000 other people including the Covaleski's and two of their guests.
Julie and I walked down that morning with our moms. You can see everyone is in long sleeves. Definitely one of the colder July 4ths, but at least it didn't snow. It has several times in the past.
Eventually the gang grew. We met the Schumacher's, the Lee's, the Covaleski's and their guests from the DC area.
Notably absent this year were the Benson's. Bill was in charge of building a float for the Park City Ski Resort. He, Loris, and numerous of my hosting buddies had spent a lot of time constructing the float and prepping for the event. This year's parade theme was "Silver to Ski" or something like that. It meant you were supposed to show the town's heritage transitioning from a silver mining town to a ski town.
This is the mining gang. They borrowed historically accurate costumes covering both the miners and the hard working saloon girls. There were lots of both back in the 1890s.
Bill and Loris, with a back drop of the skiing part of the float. If you ski Park City, you might recognize the bras and Mardis Gras beads in the tree.
Here you can see the saloon girls (Debbie and Manette). I think the theme for the ladies was to flash those fishnet stocking if you want to win "best float".
The other ladies (Loris, Alison and Cindy) from the other side. You can see the two miners (Steve and Buzz) at the entrance to the Comstock Mine. The mine was handy because they kept their coolers in there. While very family friendly, a lot of alcohol gets consumed on parade day before 11:00 am.
And then we have the skiing portion of the float including a snow boarder, two skiers and a ski lift.
The great news is that out of about 80 floats, the PCMR entry won, hands down. Yeah team!! What do you win? Mostly pride and satisfaction.
The parade included the normal bands, horse-drawn carriages, convertibles and such. I always try to find the things that are unique to Park City or just amuse me.
Here we have the Glee Club. I started by asking myself why the car is decorated to look like something killed in Texas. Worse, the girls all marched along in costume, but not once did they sing. At all. Ever. Maybe they should watch the TV show Glee and pay more attention.
Then we have the group from the Montage Hotel. If you have been to our house lately, this is the big beast being built up at Deer Valley. It is supposed to open in December and has been a huge construction project for the past two years. They dressed appropriately.
A meditation group marching in a parade just seems a little contradictory. Glad they didn't put much thought into costumes, a float, or anything else for that matter.
Our Park City High School band. We need more bands in the parade, but it was Sunday after all.
This is the part that cracked me up. Like a finely honed group of elite athletes, they had a dad walking along with squirt bottles. They would just open their mouths like a fish breathing in the open air, and the dad would come squirt them full of liquids. They never had to miss a step. Perhaps they had alcohol like everyone else?
We see the Solar Saucer around town all the time. It is a rolling DJ stand that travels around plays music powered by the sun. It is a big hit at Burning Man, which is definitely on my Bucket List.
The musical Hair is playing at the Egyptian. I guess dressing up for the parade was pretty easy.
You can't just be a spectator. Jim Covaleski joins in and gets to belly dance with one of the parade participants.
... and his wife Kathy, who has been taking a lot of karate lately, gets to smash through a board.
Rob is our trouble maker this year. He decided that the best idea was to blow up some small balloons (just air), yell "water balloon!" and toss it at someone. Since real water balloons aren't that uncommon on parade day, it gets quite a reaction.
The three parade beauties were excellent targets for Robbie's mischief. You can see the orange balloon heading at them and the reaction of the young lady on the left.
Now she realizes that the water balloon floated safely to the ground.
Julie's mom got Robbie back at the end of the day. She walked up close and just tossed a balloon. He ducked, just like everyone else.
My lovely little neighbor Hannah was also marching in the parade. Her mom, Sally, got chopped in the picture. Sorry Sally, but as Hannah will tell you, it's about Hannah.
The Curling Club (team? group? flock?) had a clever idea with curling stones on rollers and sweepers.
This guy makes it every year. I have no idea who he is or whether he lives in Park City, but he always has his big unicycle and his happy parrot.
And it can't be Park City without a giant snow groomer driving down the street. Not terribly clever or attractive, but it could be quite handy at keeping the other groups moving along.
The day was chilly, but I think it was the best parade we have seen here. I know it was definitely the biggest. The fireworks that nice were impressive as always. We found a new place to watch from that isn't quite as involved as climbing a water tower in the dark.
We go every year because it's one of the biggest parties in Park City. This year was especially big because the 4th fell on a Sunday. Huh? How does that work? Park City is the only town in Utah that decided that celebrating the 4th on the 4th was allowed on church day. Not only did everyone in Park City show up, it drew from all over the Salt Lake valley.
In order to get some chairs on the street in a primo location, I had already driven down at 5:30 and walked home. This not only gave us good seats, it gave us a car parked close by for the drive home. At 7:30 I returned to run the 5k with 1,000 other people including the Covaleski's and two of their guests.
Julie and I walked down that morning with our moms. You can see everyone is in long sleeves. Definitely one of the colder July 4ths, but at least it didn't snow. It has several times in the past.
Eventually the gang grew. We met the Schumacher's, the Lee's, the Covaleski's and their guests from the DC area.
Notably absent this year were the Benson's. Bill was in charge of building a float for the Park City Ski Resort. He, Loris, and numerous of my hosting buddies had spent a lot of time constructing the float and prepping for the event. This year's parade theme was "Silver to Ski" or something like that. It meant you were supposed to show the town's heritage transitioning from a silver mining town to a ski town.
This is the mining gang. They borrowed historically accurate costumes covering both the miners and the hard working saloon girls. There were lots of both back in the 1890s.
Bill and Loris, with a back drop of the skiing part of the float. If you ski Park City, you might recognize the bras and Mardis Gras beads in the tree.
Here you can see the saloon girls (Debbie and Manette). I think the theme for the ladies was to flash those fishnet stocking if you want to win "best float".
The other ladies (Loris, Alison and Cindy) from the other side. You can see the two miners (Steve and Buzz) at the entrance to the Comstock Mine. The mine was handy because they kept their coolers in there. While very family friendly, a lot of alcohol gets consumed on parade day before 11:00 am.
And then we have the skiing portion of the float including a snow boarder, two skiers and a ski lift.
The great news is that out of about 80 floats, the PCMR entry won, hands down. Yeah team!! What do you win? Mostly pride and satisfaction.
The parade included the normal bands, horse-drawn carriages, convertibles and such. I always try to find the things that are unique to Park City or just amuse me.
Here we have the Glee Club. I started by asking myself why the car is decorated to look like something killed in Texas. Worse, the girls all marched along in costume, but not once did they sing. At all. Ever. Maybe they should watch the TV show Glee and pay more attention.
Then we have the group from the Montage Hotel. If you have been to our house lately, this is the big beast being built up at Deer Valley. It is supposed to open in December and has been a huge construction project for the past two years. They dressed appropriately.
A meditation group marching in a parade just seems a little contradictory. Glad they didn't put much thought into costumes, a float, or anything else for that matter.
Our Park City High School band. We need more bands in the parade, but it was Sunday after all.
This is the part that cracked me up. Like a finely honed group of elite athletes, they had a dad walking along with squirt bottles. They would just open their mouths like a fish breathing in the open air, and the dad would come squirt them full of liquids. They never had to miss a step. Perhaps they had alcohol like everyone else?
We see the Solar Saucer around town all the time. It is a rolling DJ stand that travels around plays music powered by the sun. It is a big hit at Burning Man, which is definitely on my Bucket List.
The musical Hair is playing at the Egyptian. I guess dressing up for the parade was pretty easy.
You can't just be a spectator. Jim Covaleski joins in and gets to belly dance with one of the parade participants.
... and his wife Kathy, who has been taking a lot of karate lately, gets to smash through a board.
Rob is our trouble maker this year. He decided that the best idea was to blow up some small balloons (just air), yell "water balloon!" and toss it at someone. Since real water balloons aren't that uncommon on parade day, it gets quite a reaction.
The three parade beauties were excellent targets for Robbie's mischief. You can see the orange balloon heading at them and the reaction of the young lady on the left.
Now she realizes that the water balloon floated safely to the ground.
Julie's mom got Robbie back at the end of the day. She walked up close and just tossed a balloon. He ducked, just like everyone else.
My lovely little neighbor Hannah was also marching in the parade. Her mom, Sally, got chopped in the picture. Sorry Sally, but as Hannah will tell you, it's about Hannah.
The Curling Club (team? group? flock?) had a clever idea with curling stones on rollers and sweepers.
This guy makes it every year. I have no idea who he is or whether he lives in Park City, but he always has his big unicycle and his happy parrot.
And it can't be Park City without a giant snow groomer driving down the street. Not terribly clever or attractive, but it could be quite handy at keeping the other groups moving along.
The day was chilly, but I think it was the best parade we have seen here. I know it was definitely the biggest. The fireworks that nice were impressive as always. We found a new place to watch from that isn't quite as involved as climbing a water tower in the dark.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
HVAC was pillaged
After nineteen years of living in our neighborhood in peace and quiet, we got either vandalized or robbed, depending on how you look at it. Some hoodlums came up to the house, found our very nice combination furnace/AC unit and ripped it apart.
They took all the copper out of the system to sell as scrap. The HVAC repair guy's estimate was about $30-40 in scrap. The cost to replace the unit, about $3600. I would have felt better if they had just unbolted the whole unit and taken it. At least they might get more the $30.
With things like this, if you don't catch them in the act or have a clear suspect, you can figure that even the CSI television cops wouldn't catch the thieves. Not so here! It turns out that they did this to a bunch of houses out in Wake County. The police had some suspects, but couldn't locate them. Then the suspects got pulled over for something in Franklin County and the Wake arrest warrants showed up.
One guy decided to cooperate and drove around with the police to show them where they had robbed. Our house was one of them.
The bad guys are now facing 26 felonies for Wake County, with more likely from Raleigh, Cary, and other counties. Bond is already $400,000 and is expected to rise.
No big surprise, but you can guess that guys who commit felonies for $30 each are very unlikely to ever have any money for restitution.
They took all the copper out of the system to sell as scrap. The HVAC repair guy's estimate was about $30-40 in scrap. The cost to replace the unit, about $3600. I would have felt better if they had just unbolted the whole unit and taken it. At least they might get more the $30.
With things like this, if you don't catch them in the act or have a clear suspect, you can figure that even the CSI television cops wouldn't catch the thieves. Not so here! It turns out that they did this to a bunch of houses out in Wake County. The police had some suspects, but couldn't locate them. Then the suspects got pulled over for something in Franklin County and the Wake arrest warrants showed up.
One guy decided to cooperate and drove around with the police to show them where they had robbed. Our house was one of them.
The bad guys are now facing 26 felonies for Wake County, with more likely from Raleigh, Cary, and other counties. Bond is already $400,000 and is expected to rise.
No big surprise, but you can guess that guys who commit felonies for $30 each are very unlikely to ever have any money for restitution.
Monday, July 05, 2010
Doing the Oakley Rodeo with the moms
Julie, Joan (Julie's mom), Emily (my mom), and I headed over to the annual Oakley Rodeo on Thursday night. Rodeos are different from what most of us are used to and are extremely entertaining. It is an interesting combination of pageantry and athleticism.
There are the standard events, like riding a horse that has no desire to be ridden. Look closely at how far back this rider has been thrown. Amazingly, he managed to stay on for the full eight seconds.
Each cowboy had his own style for riding broncos and each horse had its own style for tossing cowboys.
As dramatic as the high rear kick looked, it didn't seem to phase the cowboys.
You have to like the enthusiasm of this horse. As soon as they opened the gate, he (she?) literally left the ground.
Several of the events involved picking on little calves. In this one, the cowboy roped the calf, jumped off, and tied its legs. I was most impressed with the horses. The horse apparently knew that when the calf was roped to pull back hard, even after the cowboy had long since jumped off. Look at the how the horses feet are digging in.
The next event seemed a little more fair. The cowboy had to ride up next to the calf, jump off, grab the calf, and wrestle it to the ground.
The cows all had horns which could be used for leverage during the take down.
But every once in a while, the cow was apparently better at wrestling than the cowboy. Too funny!
The only event for the ladies was barrel racing. It is definitely one of the most exciting to watch. Look at this horse cutting the corner.
And the final event, bull versus cowboy. I like this because I think of it as revenge of the cows. This is sometimes referred to as "the longest 8 seconds in sports".
Even after this bull had kicked some cowboy butt, it went looking for more. It took quite a while to convince him to leave the ring without more carnage.
Not to be outdone by the horses, this bull is completely in the air.
But he had nothing going compared to this guy. He threw his cowboy off in about 2 seconds. Hate to draw this bull.
Lots of fun and definitely worth a visit every few years. They had a nice little fireworks display after the rodeo, but I didn't bother trying to take pictures.
There are the standard events, like riding a horse that has no desire to be ridden. Look closely at how far back this rider has been thrown. Amazingly, he managed to stay on for the full eight seconds.
Each cowboy had his own style for riding broncos and each horse had its own style for tossing cowboys.
As dramatic as the high rear kick looked, it didn't seem to phase the cowboys.
You have to like the enthusiasm of this horse. As soon as they opened the gate, he (she?) literally left the ground.
Several of the events involved picking on little calves. In this one, the cowboy roped the calf, jumped off, and tied its legs. I was most impressed with the horses. The horse apparently knew that when the calf was roped to pull back hard, even after the cowboy had long since jumped off. Look at the how the horses feet are digging in.
The next event seemed a little more fair. The cowboy had to ride up next to the calf, jump off, grab the calf, and wrestle it to the ground.
The cows all had horns which could be used for leverage during the take down.
But every once in a while, the cow was apparently better at wrestling than the cowboy. Too funny!
The only event for the ladies was barrel racing. It is definitely one of the most exciting to watch. Look at this horse cutting the corner.
And the final event, bull versus cowboy. I like this because I think of it as revenge of the cows. This is sometimes referred to as "the longest 8 seconds in sports".
Even after this bull had kicked some cowboy butt, it went looking for more. It took quite a while to convince him to leave the ring without more carnage.
Not to be outdone by the horses, this bull is completely in the air.
But he had nothing going compared to this guy. He threw his cowboy off in about 2 seconds. Hate to draw this bull.
Lots of fun and definitely worth a visit every few years. They had a nice little fireworks display after the rodeo, but I didn't bother trying to take pictures.
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Park Silly Market
Both my mom and Julie's are in town visiting. We decided to head down and visit the Park Silly Market for some shopping and lunch. We hooked up with our friends Miriam and Greg for lunch at Easy Street and then joined the crowds.
This really has become a big part of Park City's summer things to do.
This really has become a big part of Park City's summer things to do.
The big tourists
July 4th is one of the biggest times in Park City for visitors. Lots of people with second homes show up for the gorgeous weather.
I was heading into CrossFit to work out when someone who just left popped back and said "hey, there's a big moose out back." Sure enough, a decent sized bull moose was wandering along the creek bed.
As luck would have it, I had my best camera in the car because I was going to shoot some pictures of work on a parade float. As crappy luck would have it, I had intentionally put my 10-24 mm wide angle lens on. So I ended up shooting these pictures with my tiny pocket camera.
He wandered over closer. The hill was steep enough that I wasn't worried about him running up after me. He was a lot more focused on munching bushes.
He really was pretty mellow about things. I would have hung around for more pictures, but I had to run back to my workout.
Certainly one of the more interesting visitors in town.
I was heading into CrossFit to work out when someone who just left popped back and said "hey, there's a big moose out back." Sure enough, a decent sized bull moose was wandering along the creek bed.
As luck would have it, I had my best camera in the car because I was going to shoot some pictures of work on a parade float. As crappy luck would have it, I had intentionally put my 10-24 mm wide angle lens on. So I ended up shooting these pictures with my tiny pocket camera.
He wandered over closer. The hill was steep enough that I wasn't worried about him running up after me. He was a lot more focused on munching bushes.
He really was pretty mellow about things. I would have hung around for more pictures, but I had to run back to my workout.
Certainly one of the more interesting visitors in town.
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