James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead

When I talked to the person who runs Sassquad Trail Running about this before I moved down here, there were a few options that weren't horribly priced. They were using one at their races that I don't recall the price but it was extremely reasonable, probably because the hardware costs have dropped immensely.

However I'm sure those numbers don't work out running a single short track race a year.

the good stuff is set-up to time a crit - lots of hits in a very short timeframe going very fast.
it is also video sync'd, cause ya can't use the timestamp when it is close.

it was actually race results transponders, not elite feet (they are full service) are very good at footrace speed with small groups -

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I think these are the ones that use the foot tags, at another $4/racer - which need to be collected and returned.
Which is still too much to take up $10/person for timing a small race.

We tried the adventure racing folks, but they didn't understand fondo timing, and set the polling interval to 30 seconds.
 
Broadway

Every winter, we tend to gravitate towards Broadway at least once. This year we will be going at least 2 times, last night being the first. We like the city, but it's much harder to go in the summer when being outside on your bike is a more attractive option. Also, in the dead of winter, the shows are cheaper, and with fewer tourists, it's much easier to get in & out of the place. We typically drive in, and last night it was less than an hour door-to-door. Parking is always...well, parking in NYC. We grabbed a bite to eat at some small tapas place a few blocks away before heading over. I mean, while we're here it only makes sense, right? We went to see Left on 10th, which is a play starring just 4 people and 2 dogs. The 2 main actors are Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher, both of which most people will know by name, if not by face. Show was really good, solid way to start the cold theater season.

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The Lodge

Here is the lodge. If you have driven up to Rochester, VT before, you have driven right by it. It's about 8 minutes south of town, right on 100. We'll be here tomorrow night, as well as Saturday, with 3 guests in tow. We sort of tried it out last time and we were sold. Everything about it is totally reasonable, assuming you are ok with the college dorm/hostel lifestyle. But unlike a college dorm, people clean up after themselves. It's kinda nice. Our plan for the weekend is to hit Stratton, then Sugarbush, then Killington. Hopefully my knee holds up. 2 nights ago in the city something happened, and it's been really tight/stiff the last 2 days. Advil helped knocked it down a bit today; and while it doesn't hurt, it's a little bit of a nuisance. Getting old, it sure is something. Anyway, we'll be at the lodge. See a few of you there.

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Weekend Fun

This weekend we made it up to the lodge with Alex and Utah/Bob in tow. D and I skied 3 days, with a Stratton-Sugarbush-Killington run, while they joined us for days 2 and 3. We introduced them to the lodge and since we were 5, we managed to take over 1 of the rooms entirely which made it a bit better since we didn't have to share with anyone. I really enjoyed it, and being able to bring some of our friends with us made it even cooler for us. Hopefully they didn't think it was too Animal House/Hostel-ish. In reality, the people who come here are pretty hard-core ski bums. So while they do have an occasional drink, they don't stay up until 2am ripping it up every night. That's all for the month, I think, as we have a Florida Errand trip to run in 2 weeks which is going to knock out our next free weekend. Though I guess we may hit Blue one day soon.

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Hadestown

This week we went into the city again, this time it was for Hadestown. It was good. It's always good. How do you rate a Broadway play or musical? It's not like they ever throw trash up on the stage. I have the ones I like more than others. But man, they're all such magnificent productions. This was our 2nd, and very possibly last, foray into the city for a show this season. We tend to do 2 per winter, and those boxes have been checked. Of course, you never know what the future brings. In any event, we've been busy as you can imagine this year, and I see no signs of that slowing down. In reality, this started in the summer. Since August we've been pretty much on-the-go week after week. I like it. It makes life more fun. I wish I could retire and do it more often. Unfortunately we still have almost 7 more years of funding college kids. After that, we'll be landing the work plane in short order.

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As You Were

I have spent the entirety of this day on the couch in my living room. We didn't have any strict plans on the day. So that works out, in a sense. If I had written a script on the day it most certainly would not have been: lay on couch sick all day. That's where I am, where we are. And as the title suggests, carry on, as you were.

See, in some respects this works out ok, We have a series of 6 straight weekends where we have plans of some sort. While we did sort of pencil in Blue Mountain for tomorrow, this is more of a "wake up and see" situation. At this point, I may be waking up and seeing the couch again. I'll figure that out when we get there. The point is this. Of the 6 weekends to be sick, this is by far the best 1. Any of the other 5 would have sucked pretty much out loud. And while I do not willingly choose to ever be sick, if you forced me to pick, this is the 1 I would have chosen.

I hate being sick.

On top of this is the lingering knee issue from last week. It's certainly gotten better by the day, but as you well know, doing literally nothing sucks. So the past 2 days I've gotten on the Zwift, putting out just 110 then 140 watts on each ride. Nothing crazy, but the +30 from Thursday to Friday was a good sign. I can also throw in the usual hip/back/sciatica thing but that's ongoing and I mostly have that under control. That said, with the knee, I haven't been able to stretch as much, which makes the sciatica worse.

So, I'm sitting here with these 3 strikes right now, making the most of my couch day. I can't watch TV all day so I've bounced between TV, reading, IG, and games on my phone. I'm trying not to think about the work thing, which has become...let's just call it a "thing" for now. I'll talk about that next week if I get there. That has become a flux/triage thing that is a pain in my grundle right now.

Anyway, wishing for clearer days.

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As You Were

I have spent the entirety of this day on the couch in my living room. We didn't have any strict plans on the day. So that works out, in a sense. If I had written a script on the day it most certainly would not have been: lay on couch sick all day. That's where I am, where we are. And as the title suggests, carry on, as you were.

See, in some respects this works out ok, We have a series of 6 straight weekends where we have plans of some sort. While we did sort of pencil in Blue Mountain for tomorrow, this is more of a "wake up and see" situation. At this point, I may be waking up and seeing the couch again. I'll figure that out when we get there. The point is this. Of the 6 weekends to be sick, this is by far the best 1. Any of the other 5 would have sucked pretty much out loud. And while I do not willingly choose to ever be sick, if you forced me to pick, this is the 1 I would have chosen.

I hate being sick.

On top of this is the lingering knee issue from last week. It's certainly gotten better by the day, but as you well know, doing literally nothing sucks. So the past 2 days I've gotten on the Zwift, putting out just 110 then 140 watts on each ride. Nothing crazy, but the +30 from Thursday to Friday was a good sign. I can also throw in the usual hip/back/sciatica thing but that's ongoing and I mostly have that under control. That said, with the knee, I haven't been able to stretch as much, which makes the sciatica worse.

So, I'm sitting here with these 3 strikes right now, making the most of my couch day. I can't watch TV all day so I've bounced between TV, reading, IG, and games on my phone. I'm trying not to think about the work thing, which has become...let's just call it a "thing" for now. I'll talk about that next week if I get there. That has become a flux/triage thing that is a pain in my grundle right now.

Anyway, wishing for clearer days.

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Also sick here....feels like the entire state is sick right now. It's bordering on ridiculous.
 
YOLO

Fuck it.

I woke up feeling better, but not 100%. D went to walk the dog and I made coffee & breakfast and read my book (Fifth Season, which is excellent) and ruminated on going to ski or staying home and surfing the couch for another day. In the end, we sort of let Simon decide, even though we knew what he would say when we asked. So late morning we geared up and hit the road for Blue.

It was a good day, and I'm happy I went. My sickness seems to have primarily been a 1-day thing, though my stomach isn't quite right and the smell of roasting chestnuts near the base lodge was downright gross. My knee was good for 75% of the day, then started to degrade as we got closer to the end. I assumed this would happen, of course, since I didn't let it heal properly. See the title of this post for an explanation.

It snowed most of the day, and while it never really amounted to much on the slopes, it did add a slight bit of snow dust on some of the fringe runs towards the end of the day. And it made getting home an extra fun adventure.

Tomorrow I will probably limp down the stairs when I wake up, but this was an excellent use of a winter Sunday in New Jersey.

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Payback

The downside of YOLO is that the Y in that acronym is the same Y that has to pay shit back the next day. In the words of some hippie whose name I forget, wherever you go, there you are. And here we are. The knee was surprisingly fine today. But I've reverted to being sicker-than-not again; though not as bad as Saturday. Still, for the most part, today was another mostly useless day. So, 2 of 3 days this weekend were throwaways. Planting seeds and shit like that. I get it.

I did manage to scrape myself off the couch to go see Simon play in his JV game against Immaculata. I would love to say it was a great game, but really it wasn't. The other team was clearly better, and before you could blink it was 11-0. The other team took out the starters after a quarter, and over the next 2, the kids managed to bring it back to a 35-35 tie. Then the other teams starters all came back in and they scored 12 straight. Yeah, it was like that.

I still stand by the YOLO concept as often as I can. But as some other hippie probably said, you only have 1 L, so you need to take care of the Y and something something 2 birds and 1 bush or whatever. You get the idea.

Being sick sucks.

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You Are Not Here

I don't have a lot of pictures on my camera roll that don't involve skiing these days. I had 1 of the dog when he got hurt over the Xmas break that I could have used but I think that Story Ship has sailed, so I tossed it. Thus, I break out another of the Vermont ski day pictures, which you can see below. Tomorrow is another day and we'll be setting sail in the completely opposite direction of what you see here. We'll be taking a 1-way trip to the considerably warmer state of Florida for a few days. I know there was some snow in the panhandle this week, as seen on various social media outlets. But we'll be south of Orlando on the ocean side. It will be a cool 65-70 degrees, which will seem like dead of summer to us after this shit.

Then we'll be driving their-now-our car back home. They recently sold the house, which means our Florida forays are coming to an end. This will be the last of the free room & board trips for us. They're getting older, and the trip down there is starting to take a toll on them. And so, it was time to sell that part of their equation. While I understand it, it's a bit of a sad progression. We'll be there for 2 nights, then wake up Sunday and hit the road. You'll have to check back to see where we end up across the next 4 days.

I'll be working from the road tomorrow & Monday, which will add a different flavor to the mix. I mentioned work being a "thing" not long ago, and I don't really have much clarity at all on that yet. If I'm being honest, I don't like this new situation. I can't even call it a role or a job because it hasn't been defined yet. Most days I get paid to not do much work. I do have 1 client, a certain 4-letter organization that runs things like the CFB championship and March Madness. But I don't like them. It's probably the worst client I have had in my 10 years of doing customer-facing software implementation work.

I digress. Tomorrow maybe I'll show you a picture of sand. Or a coffee shop. Who knows.

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They're getting older, and the trip down there is starting to take a toll on them. And so, it was time to sell that part of their equation. While I understand it, it's a bit of a sad progression.
Same situation for my In-laws, this is their first winter home in many years. They sold their condo last fall. I have been trying to avoid thinking about my own mortality but between all the folks passing on in our circles with also my own number count of life expectancy shrinking it's hard not to. Oh and work is over rated anyhow.
 
I have been trying to avoid thinking about my own mortality

It's something I could probably talk about every other day. Not sure it's a fun subject but I guess it's something many of us think about given our "over the hill" path we're on. I would say not a day goes by that I don't think about it in some way. Maybe I'll talk about it in a future post.

And yeah, fuck work. Eventually I'll figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
 
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