Today's Office Space Moment Brought To You By Trees

You know, the trees that die every time you print an e-mail?

 

I've just spent what feels like a hundred years of my life implementing a paperless system at work.  Today one of the clerks showed me an enormous stack of paper.  Can you guess what it was?

 

It was the printouts from the paperless system.  They printed everything out of it for some kind of weekly audit.

The Long Haul

Sorry for the total radio silence.  I've been working on a medium-sized software project and we've begun testing, so the craziness has officially begun.  Last week was 9-9 most days, except for Friday, when I took off at a decent hour to make it to a family wedding.  This week is going slightly better, but this is still the first chance I've had to breathe all day.  It's exhausting, and it really frays my temper and my patience, to the point where I don't know how anyone gets along with me.

 

I'm trying to exercise, because during the first phase of this project I put on 10 pounds.  This morning I was supposed to go out and go walking (and a little running), but there was rain, so instead I slept in.  (I know, Shifter, I know, neither rain nor snow, etc., but I'm a wimp.)  Tonight I'll probably do something non-weight-bearing so that I can get up tomorrow and start with the walking/running again.

 

Tuesday I got up at 5 in the morning, which is the only shot I have of exercising and still arriving at work on time.  I drove out to Port Jefferson and parked near my pre-determined inspiring running route.  What google had not divulged was that the beginning of the inspiring route was an incredibly steep ascent, to the point where it was like climbing stairs.  It was also dark.  And I don't mean dark, like, oh, I'm in the movie theater and it's dark.  I mean dark like Jack the Ripper's alley dark.  Needless to say, there was no running.  Just climbing, huffing, and puffing, and a lot of peering around.  After an embarassingly short time I thought, maybe I need to find a less inspiring route, so I turned back.  Then, for the hell of it, I thought I'd drive the inspiring route in my car, just to see how much further the giant hill went.

 

It went about half a mile from where I started.  I had climbed about .48 miles.  That's how steep the darn hill was, and how dark--I couldn't see that I was practically right at the top of the hill.  I'm hoping that next time out I get a little further--I will say it's about the best butt and thigh workout I've had in a long time, so worse things have happened.  And if I can keep going, I think there should be a sunrise view of the ocean in it for me, which would be a sweet reward.  (Plus getting to go down the hill on the way back, which is not too shabby, as rewards go.)

 

Wish me luck....

Crosstraining weirdness

Everyone is always talking about cross-training, and how important it is. And I'm sure they're right. And hey, I'm even going to do some! But let me just tell you, dear IR's, cross-training is weird.

For one thing, it makes you feel like a wimp. Which is not, generally speaking, a great goal of mine. I mean I do feel like a wimp all the time, but it happens often enough that I don't feel a need to supplement it with my training schedules. But after gasping my lungs out following a single lap in the pool, my wimp-o-meter was clicking along quite merrily, I assure you. And it's a weird kind of wimpiness, that goes kind of like this: "I can run 26.2 miles, but I can't swim 100 yards?? Really??? Oh @#!!." Yup, that's the wimpiness of cross training. Incidentally, I've discovered that for me swimming has a simple definition: Not drowning in a particular direction. I'm hoping to not drown in a given direction more quickly, but that will take extensive training.

Another weird thing is this: you get these bizarre paradoxical post work out reactions. Last night I did my 12 whole laps, then gave up because I could not make my arms move any more, then biked for 15 minutes, then stopped for similar reasons, and then ran a bit just to round it out. What was weird was that I had to stop, had to, both swimming and biking because my muscles were too tired. But then when I got out to run, I felt like I could keep going for miles. I only made myself stop because I was planning on running the next day (which, btw, I didn't - Lazy me). So when I was done my legs were stiff and shaky, my arms hurt terribly, muscles I didn't have were hurting, and I felt like I hadn't really worked out and wanted to do another 5 miles. And I felt like I had the wind and the energy to do it. You see what I mean? Bizarre. On the other hand I'm not actually complaining about this particular bizarreness, because it did help a bit with the wimpiness discussed above.

Never fear, dear readers, Ol' Shifter will keep you posted about every ache and pain, twist and turn, splash and gasp as the training progresses. We're all in for a rip-roaring good time over the next many moons.

Triathlon training ... what have I done??

So, today was the first day of the rest of my triathlon training.

Oh.

My.

God.

First off I just have to say something. Swimmers? You guys are frigging maniacs. How do you do this stuff? I swam one lap. Count it, one. And I could barely get my heart rate back down from what felt like 200. I can run 20 miles without stopping, but I can't swim 1 lap without almost passing out. What the f@#!? Swimming is hard, hard, hard work. I had forgotten, I really had. When I was training for the last triathlon, 3 years ago, it was hard work then. But the mind blanks on these things - you forget just how hard. Just how much it sucks. Until you try it again. But I remember now. And it ain't a pleasant memory.

I'm sore in muscles I had forgotten I had. And I had forgotten I had them because I didn't have them anymore. And now I still don't have them and they hurt. What a wonderful combination - worst of both worlds. For the record, I did 12 laps, total. In about 25 minutes. That's pathetic, I know. I'm putting it down here so that when I do the triathlon I'll know how bad I was when I started, and hopefully will be doing better than 12 laps in 25 minutes when I'm done with this willing hell I'm embarking on.

This is not a diary blog...

But.

But someone I really care about is going through a very, very hard time right now and I'm very worried about him.

But he's suffering a lot, right now, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

But I have to literally make myself not think about him so that I can function, and I feel bad for doing that.

But it just seems wrong to me to keep on writing the usual crap I write without at least acknowledging this.

So, this is not a diary blog, but I had to say I'm thinking of this person, and worrying for him, and hoping for him, and doing whatever it is an atheist can do for someone when there's nothing else to be done. And all that caring, and worrying, and hoping, doesn't stop just because I'm trying not to think about it. It just doesn't stop.