So, I was home in Texas for all of five days & managed to sneak a day-long trip to Corpus in there. And while in Corpus, I did a sprint triathlon. This plan originated as a challenge between me & my brother weedweasel. But weedweasel got too busy with work this winter, & he decided to withdraw. I mocked him for this decision, then decided to go ahead & do the triathlon myself anyway.

I nearly didn't do this race in three different ways. First of all, at some point on Friday afternoon I misplaced my driver's license. I wasn't sure I would be able to pick up my race packet without it, but they took my FEMA ID without any trouble. One bullet dodged. We heard Dave Scott speak at the pre-race briefing - he was the guest of honor & sort of the Grand Marshal for the whole event. He is basically the uncrowned King of Triathlon & a bit of a personal hero, so that was pretty awesome.

Of course, after months & months of unrelenting drought, Friday night in Corpus featured a TORRENTIAL downpour, complete with intermittent thunder & lightning. While the increase in rain was definitely a good thing, I wasn't sure the race was even going to happen in the morning. Then, on Friday evening after we got to the hotel in CC, I dropped one of my contact lenses directly down the drain of the hotel sink. Happily, I was able to dismantle the U-bend underneath the sink & recover my lens. (I am sure this earned me the undying wrath of the hotel maintenance crew.) With some serious cleaning, it was fine.

When I got to the race on Saturday morning (at 6 AM), it wasn't actually raining. But it was overcast, so when the swim started just after 7 AM, it was DARK. Dark enough that spotting the buoys that marked the race course was rather difficult! But I managed to stay on course & I finished the swim very strong - actually, I was the fourth woman overall out of the water. I heard Dave Scott announcing my name ("Now exiting the water we have... Angela Ledgerwood!") & that was AWESOME. But during the bike portion of the race, it started to pour & visibility got pretty bad. At one point, a biker in front of me dropped her water bottle & I hit it, almost crashing (at 15 mph, that would have been painful to say the least). I am ashamed to say that the adrenaline shock of the near-crash actually did make me cry just a little bit - but it was raining so hard that no-one could tell, so that was all right. When I got off the bike & changed into my running shoes, I discovered that they were soaked & it felt like they each weighed ten pounds. The run was pretty much a disaster - I had been so nervous about crashing on the bike that I didn't drink enough electrolytes, so my legs cramped up something awful during the run. Despite that, I finished the run, with hotpantsgalore running with me for the last 500 yards or so. My final time was 1:50.51. About a month ago, I predicted a time of 1:52 - so hooray! I beat my prediction by one whole minute!

Overall, the experience was very good. I didn't really learn anything that I didn't already know - I am a better swimmer than most triathletes, & a terrible runner. Hydration is very important. My endurance needs some work. But I also got a race under my belt for the first time in a very long time. I had pretty awful Race Day conditions, & I still finished almost right on my prediction. I was able to train, even while working 60 hours a week & living in a hotel. So quite a few of my excuses (out of race practice, no time, traveling too much) for NOT doing this before have been blown up.

Here are my splits:

750-meter swim 0:14:44.680
T1 0:03:25.443
12.4-mile bike 0:50:47.850
T2 0:03:12.062
3.11-mile run 0:38:41.690
TOTAL 1:50:51.725

I think I need to pick my next race soon, before I get lazy again!

hotpantsgalore called me last night & says, ( I'm on my way home from the vet's. )

I have forgotten to mention: I am doing a sprint triathlon next month. Initially, the plan was to do it with my Bobo Bro, weedweasel. But a couple of weeks ago, he decided he wasn't going to be ready & bowed out. So now it's just me.

FINE THEN.

So far, I am being very diligent about training while I'm on this FEMA rotation. But obviously, I'm limited to the treadmill, the stationary bike, & the pool. Despite that, I feel that I will be ready for this event. It almost exactly HALF the distance of the Olympic triathlon I did back in 2006. I intend to do an Olympic triathlon at some point in 2012.

But without the motivation of wanting to beat my little brother like a tambourine, I've been trying to come up with something else for inspriation. I've decided that I need to race against my own expectations. So, as of today, I predict the following splits for my race next month:

Swim (750 meters): 15 minutes
T1 (transition from swim to bike): 4 minutes
Bike (20 km, 12.4 miles): 52 minutes
T2 (transition from bike to swim): 4 minutes
Run (5 km, 3.11 miles): 37 minutes
TOTAL: 1:52

If my training goes well, I will update this estimate again before Race Day.

Yesterday I arrived in Albany NY to start a 90-day FEMA deployment, working on claims originating from Hurricane Irene & the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee from late last summer. I haven't gotten my logins yet, so nothing of interest to report yet from work.

Being back in New York has been a trip down Memory Lane. I actually considered going to college in this area, going as far as to accept a recruiting trip from RPI's swim team in 1991, when I was senior in high school. That would've put me right across the river in Troy, NY. Spider-Dad reminded me of that trip in a text message today. It... was not exactly the model of scholar-athlete behavior. Short version: I ended up driving some of the team members home from a frat party after they got too drunk for me to let THEM drive. This was exceedingly bad, because my escort had a stick-shift car & at the time I didn't know how to drive stick. I drove them home, about three miles, in first gear, without stopping for any reason. Awesome.

I was ambushed later today by another memory, this one from 1992. My freshman year at Cornell, I got very sick & missed a week of classes in the spring semester, before Spring Break. In order to catch up, I decided to stay at school for the first half of spring break. Then, my first ever-boyfriend, Maaaaaatt, drove all the way back to Cornell from his parents' house in Queensbury, NY, & took me to his hosue for a four-day break.

Those four days were some of the best of our whole relationship. His parents & siblings were wonderful & their house was beautiful. We went snowshoeing in the Adirondacks. His dad took me for a drive in his Acura NSX. But the highlight of the trip was coming down to Albany to see U2 on the Zoo TV tour. The concert was held at the Albany Egg, & was by far the biggest production I had ever seen. It was an incredible night.

I have a long weekend this weekend - half a day off Saturday, & full days off for Sunday & Monday. I'm debating where to go - NYC or Ithaca? Votes? Other proposed destinations?

I just tweeted “Still haven't made any #resolutions for 2011. This is what is wrong with my life these days - no direction.”

Overlooking the obvious calendrical typo (etcet pointed it out in approximately 45 seconds), this is the biggest problem I’ve got right now. I am underutilized at work – but not particularly worried about it (whether or not that’s wise is another post altogether). I am doing a terrible job of preparing for next month’s triathlon in Corpus Christi. I am not cooking very frequently. I am not doing much volunteer work. I’m not even reading much new material.

A lot of the year has been consumed by money worries – not without reason, I may add. I am my family’s single income earner (outside of the seasonal peach bonanza) & have been for over three years. So it is with cause that I worried about every cent during 2011. This penny-pinching mentality definitely contributed to me pulling in my horns a bit – it’s not impossible to be outgoing, charitable, artistic, well-read, &/or athletic without spending money, but it is harder.

I have also developed a terrible habit of living through hotpantsgalore. She's working towards her graduate degree... & somehow that massive goal is my goal? I take pride in her accomplishments? While it's true that I am helping her make it through grad school (see earlier, "my family's single income earner"), this does not mean that her accomplishments are mine to claim. And yet I feel that I have submerged any desires of my own beneath the generalized idea of "just keep everything together until June 2013, when we will become a two-income family again". But that's no way to live - especially not for five years (2008-2013).

I think that the problem is a lack of long-term goals. Where do I want to be in five years? Ten years? I have said repeatedly over the last few years that I threw away my crystal ball because trying to predict where my life was going was impossible. Perhaps this was a poor decision. When I stopped trying to predict, did I also stop trying to influence or even control where my own life is going? If I've abdicated that responsibility, should I be surprised that I am adrift?

Hi everyone.

Nothing in particular prompted this post, other than a clear evening last weekend & hotpantsgalore's iPhone being close at hand to snap a couple photos of the Houston skyline.





On this particular evening, we hosted a chili cookoff amongst our neighbors, which was tremendous fun. I am happy to report that HPG won the cookoff & I made the cornbread to go with all the entered dishes. We still have leftover chili & it just gets better & better as it sits.

When Bank of America announced that they were going to start charging $5/month to use their debit cards, hotpantsgalore & I decided that was the final straw & that we needed to move our business elsewhere. We researched credit unions & set up an account with Texas Dow Employees Credit Union. So far, they are great.

Throughout the month of November, we slowly disentangled ourselves from BofA. I moved my direct deposit early in the month. Then we started shifting automatic bill payments. We looked for websites where our BofA debit card information was stored, & made the necessary updates. On Tuesday, I thought we were finally finished with the process, so I closed the BofA accounts for good.

Or so I thought.

But it turns out that, like many evil things, our Bank of America account was quite difficult to kill. This morning, I got a text message notifying me that my latest expense check (for $49) had been deposited in my Bank of America account. This was surprising on two fronts: 1) I thought I had switched my URS payments to the credit union; & 2) I didn't think I had a BofA account any more. Some quick questioning at work revealed that URS makes you change your SALARY direct deposit & your EXPENSES direct deposit separately. OK, thanks stupid corporate behemoth! I made the proper updates, & then took off to the bank at lunch. I explained the situation to a BofA representative, who told me that because a deposit came in, BofA just assumed I wanted the account re-activated. I informed her that such an assumption was incorrect & asked her to cash out the account & close it (again) (I had just done that two days prior). She did so, but only gave me $33.

"The expense check that was deposited was for $49. Why did you only give me $33?"
"Well, since the checking account no longer has a direct deposit associated with it, you were charged a monthly maintenance fee of $12."
"But the check that came in was FROM a direct deposit."
"But it did not amount to more than $250/month, which is the minimum to avoid the monthly maintenance fee."
*long staredown*
"You realize," I said in my calmest, most polite voice, "that this sort of thing is exactly why I am trying to leave your bank, right?"

Finally - after checking that I had maintained a sufficient direct deposit for the entire time I had the account open, & realizing that my last SALARY direct deposit had occurred exactly two days before the start of the current billing cycle, she relented & refunded the fee.

"So, $33 plus $12 equals $45. What happened to the other $4?"
"There was an online purchase made from iTunes."

A little investigation revealed that this was a legitimate charge originating from hotpantsgalore. But then I had a nasty thought.

"What would have happened if that purchase had come into the bank, & my account had NOT just had money deposited? What if the account was zeroed out?"
"We would have assumed that you meant to re-activate the account, & we would have processed the transaction."
"Let me guess... then you would have charged me $35 for insufficient funds, right?"

She looked abashed, but nodded in the affirmative. I worked with her a little bit more, ensuring that both debit cards associated with the account were completely deactivated & that we wouldn't accidently signal to BofA to re-open the account by making a Kindle purchase, or buying a Christmas present off of eBay, or.... I don't know, auto-paying the newspaper subscription. What I don't understand is why cancelling the debit cards didn't happen automatically when I closed the associated checking account!

Anyway, while I was dealing with my situation, I overheard another customer hashing it out with a representative over a bunch of fees she had been charged. When I left the bank, that other customer was getting into her car. I said, "I'm sorry, but I couldn't help overhearing you... would you like me to give you directions to the credit union I just joined? They're right up the street."

She took me up on it. Another new customer at TDECU.

New song at our house today:

There were two girls who had a dog
and Dingo was her name-o!
D-I-N-G-O!
D-I-N-G-O!
D-I-N-G-O!
And Dingo was her name-o!

I'm about to put her back in that box on the side of the road, sweartaGawd.

While we aren't legally able to get married, hotpantsgalore & I have been engaged for 17.04 Kardashians!

How's everyone else doing?

I use Yahoo! for email (stop groaning). Whenever I check my email, there's a little landing page that shows me top Yahoo! news stories & some other stuff, including a box titled "Trending Now". I think this shows Yahoo! web searches that are currently popular. I often glance at them, but today my head snapped back because the Top Three were:

1. Adolf Hitler
2. Vlad the Impaler
3. Hope Solo

WTH? Genocidal dictator (modern), homicidal warlord (historical), & awesomely-named goalie (US women's soccer team). What brought any of them to mind today?