Weekend Update (9/26/13 to 9/29/13)

Happy Monday!  I hope you guys are doing okay.  We had a busy weekend in Connecticut.  

We had my daughter Hannah’s tenth birthday party at the house Friday night, for which I took Friday off from work.  Friday was therefore a busy, chaotic day getting ready for the party, but that prep time was worth it because the party itself went really, really well.  We had seven girls over, plus our two, and honestly, I think they spent almost the entire night screaming with excitement over one thing or another.

Tennessee Titans vs. New York Jets Preview

Is it weird that the most interesting game of the season--at least for me personally--is a Jets game?  Who'd'a thunk it, right?

Official NFL Preview: NY Jets @ Tennessee Titans

Review: Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy #6

There's a lot going on in the Marvel Universe right now, both in the comics' (616) universe and the TV/movie universe.  Now, the comics and the TV and movie properties don't share continuity, but the stuff that happens in one tends to inform the stuff that happens in the other, so that if we want clues to what might (might!) happen in some of the future movies, one of the better sources we have is the comics.  With that in mind, Marvel re-booted the Guardians of the Galaxy (GotG) early this year, either to feed--or perhaps merely to gain advanced profits from--the hype surrounding next year's GotG movie.

Either way, I personally love the Guardians, and I've been reading the new book ever since it started.

On Swimming Faster: It Never Gets Any Easier

I know I shouldn't complain about getting older.  In the first place, because I have friends and classmates who aren't getting older because they're no longer with us.  Secondly, because it's true--up to a point--that you're only as old as you feel.  Thirdly, because I'm not old.  I'm forty, which is maybe not twenty-two, but it's also not particularly close to retirement, either.  And finally, because most of the time I feel pretty good.  I stay active, and I still have an active, fulfilling athletic career, and most of the time, the highs are a lot higher than the lows.  That's more that a lot of folks can say.

But.  A week or so ago, I wrote about trying to swim faster and get back into a little stroke work, and at the time I wrote that, I figured it was gonna be an uplifting experience.  I figured, hey, I'm in decent shape, and this is gonna be a fun.  Get back into the glory days a little bit, no problem.  It'll be AWESOME!

Wrong.

Pictures from Hannah's 10th Birthday

Yesterday was my daughter's tenth birthday.  We took her out for hibatchi, and tonight we have something like a dozen 5th graders coming for a Superstar-themed birthday party.  Given the chaos on Metro-North these past few days, I even took the day off, so that I could be sure to be here rather than getting stuck in the nearly five-hour commuting Hell that I went through yesterday.

Hannah, Sally, and Emma at the hibatchi place last night.
Hannah LOVES hibatchi.

This Week's Picks (NFL Week 4)

I don't know who's following this, but if you're interested, then so far, so good.  Last week, I took the Giants (Even), Lions (+1), Bears (-1.5), and although the Giants failed in magnificent fashion, I still came out 2-1 with the help of those other teams, and that let me take a two-game lead over the other guys in my office. Winning is better than losing, of course, so...  Huzzah!

So here're this week's picks:

Spoiler Alert! Agents of SHIELD

After reading a ton of reviews online, I finally watched all of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD last night. I'd tried to watch it Tuesday when it came on initially, but the kids' school had it's Open House Tuesday night, and Hannah's math teacher ran a little long.  Bottom line, I didn't get home on Tuesday until well after eight o'clock at night, and as a result, I only caught the last half of the show.

So.  First thing I gotta say is that the show itself was about as good as I could've been expected. I mean, they had to introduce a ton of characters and the over-arching ideas of the show--and by the way, I'm surprised by how blatantly the show is essentially a redesign of Fringe--and that left only a little time in which to have an actual episode of TV.  You figure, that pilot was really a half-hour of what the kind of thing that the show will be once it gets going--a weird police procedural--along with twenty minutes of backstory and a little denouement setting up the characters going forward.  I'm a little surprised that there are now two shows that are essentially trying to run the Fringe model, especially considering that Fringe itself was hardly a ratings winner after the second season, but I'm not unhappy about that or anything.  I loved Fringe.  I just think it got a little weird for most of maintream America there after that first little bit had run its course. 

Anyway, I was also surprised me by how few of the reviewers seemed to understand what the show was doing.  For example, I saw several reviews that said that Agent Coulson's death in the Avengers movie was just brushed off--it totally wasn't--and that more to the point, they were surprised that the show itself was a one-and-done episode.  Apparently, they somehow expected the pilot to carry more than a single episode's worth of continuaty with it, setting up this massive arc.  And, I mean, hello?  They did about as much of that as you could possibly expect in a single episode pilot.

From here I have to say that if you don't want any spoilers, don't click through the jump. 'Cause I'm totally gonna give away at least one of the show's big secrets on the other side...

Random Pics from My Instagram Account

These are a few random shots off of my Instagram account.  It's an open question whether any of these qualify as art.

This is the East River and Manhattan's Upper East Side
as seen during my ride home last week.

Sketch in My Notebook: Remembering Jaynie

I write a lot.  But unfortunately, not everything that I write is necessarily going somewhere.  Sometimes my writing is more like a sketch--or a series of sketches--that capture an idea or a mood.

"The Return of Dr. Necropolis" is one of those pieces.  It started out as a vague desire to write some smut, but... well, that's not exactly where it wound up.

Take that for what it's worth.

***

The Return of Dr. Necropolis

Chapter 1: Remembering Jaynie

“What are we gonna do with all that money, Frank?” Jaynie asked.

“Hmmm?”  In reply, he let his fingers trail down Jaynie’s arm, across her hip, and around her body, drawing her close.  He nuzzled her.  Kissed her neck.

“We could buy a new car, maybe a Mazzerati.  Or move to Paris?  Or a boat?  I always wanted to own a yacht, you know?”

Frank’s kisses trailed up from Jaynie’s neck to her cheek.  He kissed and then caught Jaynie’s ear in his teeth.  Nibbled lightly.  His hand found her breast, circled her nipple through the fabric of her nightshirt.

“Are you even listening to me, Frank?”

“Shhh...”  

Thoughts on the Latest (last-est?) Playtest Packet

Alright.  I haven't had a chance to actually play with the latest--and theoretically last--D&D Next Playtest Packet, but I have read it, and seeing as how the NY Giants are getting blown the Hell out by the Panthers right now, I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you what I thought about it.

This stuff is in no particular order.

I'm trying to be open minded, but this new iOS is driving me crazy

I get wanting to up-sell your customer-base to the newest, best-est thing, but this time I can't help but think that maybe Apple has gone too far. Certainly they've gone too far for me. 

Up until yesterday, my iPhone 4S met all of my phone/mobile data needs perfectly and made me happy as could be. It did social media, let me track my runs and bike rides, took pictures, sent texts...  And, oh by the way, you could use it to make calls. Plus, all of this came in a smoothly functioning, easy to use package.

Then iOS7 dropped, and now my phone is suddenly underpowered and over-cluttered, and while I'm sure I'll adjust, for now, it's driving me crazy. It reminds me of when Microsoft released Vista--an OS meant to run on high-powered machines with great built-in graphics cards--straight into the teeth of a market that was moving towards netbooks that were cheaper, less powerful machines than computers had traditionally been. Because, bottom line, only a tiny sliver of the market actually needs all those high-powered applications that the highest end computer can run these days, and when the current technology suits your needs, there's little incentive to upgrade. 

This, I think, is where the mobile phone space is moving. Devices like the Nexus 5 and even that Nokia phone that's mostly just a camera are starting to look like winners against super-high-powered quad-core phones that cost FAR more in order to deliver services that very few actually desire. I mean, does anyone actually need a quad-core processor in their cellphone? I certainly do not, and I'm not about to be up-sold to one just help the boys in Cupertino make their quarterly numbers next Spring.  I will, on the other hand, move down-market if the trade offs are insignificant, and the price break is large enough. That is kind of the way life works sometimes. 

Last thing I'll say about iOS7 is that for all its "new" features, it's still only playing catchup with other entrants in the market. For example, Air Drop is an add-on inspired by Samsung's Galaxy phones, Safari's redesigned look is a clear imitation of Chrome, and iTunes Radio is a just a competitor for Pandora. That's all fine, but none of it is the kind of killer app that made Apple what it is today, and none of it is worth upgrading over.  Which leaves us with Apple's rather Microsoftesque planned obsolescence program. But while that may succeed in forcing folks off of their current Apple products, it's not much of a viable strategy long-term. Moreover, it may even cost the company market-share over time. 

This Week's Picks (NFL Week 3)

I went 2-1 last week, successfully guessing that the Redskins suck and that the Jets aren’t as bad many would have you believe.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Jets are good, but they’re good enough that I don’t think they’re gonna get blown the Hell out of any divisional games this season.

If you’re wondering, my record for the season is now 3-3, even with what you would expect from a trained monkey but a game up on the guys in my office.

Offseason Swim Workouts: Getting Faster

I’m training for the Army Alumni Swim Meet.  The meet’s not some big deal or anything—we’re only swimming 50s and 100s—but then again, I have absolutely zero intention of going up there and embarrassing myself in front of my former teammates.  So yeah, I am training.

Up to now, I’ve been training this season mostly with an eye towards swimming comfortably.  I mean, it’s nice to swim fast, but the reality is that Swimming is the least important discipline in triathlon in terms of time.  For example, in an Olympic distance triathlon you swim somewhere between .9 and 1.1 miles.  For a good swimmer, that’s something like 20 or 25 minutes while a weaker swimmer may go as long as 35 or even 40 minutes.  Regardless, you then hit the bike for ~25 miles—that’s more than an hour, even if you’re a terrific athlete—and after that, you still have to run a 10K.  Which means that even if you came out of the water a full ten minutes behind your competition, you still have time to make up a good chunk of ground, pretty much no matter what.  And that’s just at the Olympic distance.  In longer races, the swim is de-emphasized even further.

So, as the saying goes, “You can’t win a triathlon in the swim.”  For this reason, I concentrate of swimming comfortably rather than swimming fast, and I don’t swim more than twice per week, even though I know that my body could tolerate more work in the pool based on my background.  Because like it or not, all that extra swim training is going to provide at best modest benefits to my overall triathlon performance.

With all of that said, there is nothing wrong with trying to swim faster.  I don’t know that it’s where you should put the majority of your training in-season, but now that the offseason is here (or at least right around the corner), now’s the time you might want to think about doing some more focused swim training.  In the offseason, time is less of a precious commodity.