luckycanuck

Today we visited the organisers of our tour, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, (where I decided that there is no reason to change the way Australians vote after finding out a bit more about the ramshackle system whereby one Congressional District can have as many voting systems as it has counties within it's boundaries) the Editorial Board of the Oakland Tribune, and the office of 77 year old Senator Dianne Feinstein, who has over seven times as many staff as W has (but then again, she represents a state with 37 million people) but viturally none of whom can do anything political.  The political work here seems to be done largely by professional political campaigners.  I seem to have a lot of questions I didn't know I had.

Afterwards I managed to withdraw some cash from the card they gave me, and found my way into Macy's, where I bought two pairs of jeans that were identical except for the colour.  America seems to have more jeans made for people who don't have bodies normally found on the singers of emo bands.  And they were cheap, and I got an additional 10% off using a card from the hotel... because I'm a bit cheap too.

Afterwards I avoided dinner with the others who went to Fisherman's Wharf (I went in 2008) and felt I would rather have my last night in San Francisco on my own.  Instead, I went to Zeitgeist to finish my tour of minxyminou suggestions.  It was interesting and I switched to a much better beer (Downtown Brown, a micorbrewery beer of which there seem to be many) but there was more of an insufferable hipster mood.  Change for my $4.50 beer from a $10 bill was given as five singles rather than a five, so I could easily tip the usual amount.  It's much easier when they make it simple to tip.  Afterwards there was dinner at a Mexican place that I spotted in 2008 but didn't eat at.  There was a long queue and a lot of good food to be had.  I've had more Mexican food here in three days than in the previous five years combined.

Pictures now.

( Cut for space. )

I was back off work again today, but didn't just laze around the house.  I did spend the morning at home doing some anti-spyware stuff on my laptop (accomplished now, thanks bakerypenguin), watching a baseball game from America, and scrunched up in what counts as a bath in this house.

For the afternoon I went in search of rugby boots (no luck as nobody was selling them now that the season is over) and to the gym.

TW: Max Day - low repetitions, but high weight.  I tried to do as much weight as I could manage on a variety of exercises.  Sometimes I found myself stepping up the weight again and again to build it up, and in a number of cases I did more weight than I have ever done.  A lot of myworkouts are focussed on doing a lot of something, and it was a nice change to do less but more weight just to see where I am.  I will have to try it again to see if I can improve on these.  I think I can, but I thought I had pushed enough boundaries today.

Deadlifts - 5*120kg
Bicep curls - 5*60kg
Bench press - 3*110kg
Leg press - 5*300kg
Clean and press - 1-1-1*65kg (I tried 70kg and got it as far as my chest before I realised it wasn't going to happen.)

There were also incline presses and pullups done in between just to keep things interesting.

I also tried something I saw someone do at the gym on Monday.  Hanging on to the pullup bar you lift your legs up and rotate around so you are upside down while still hanging before returning to the start position.  Just maintaining the hang is tough and seems to work grip strength, and your core also gets a good workout.

When I got home I had my first go in a long time at what I am now calling pushup mountain.  It's a run from my front verandah up the trail to the top of Mt Ainslie and back, stopping every minute to do ten pushups.  My time today: 47:38 and 470 pushups and an unknown number of funny looks from passers by.

Now to eat.  Oh man have I worked up an appetite!

With things at work winding down prior to the flurry of activity that will come with the election that much be coming up soon I've been wanting to get things cleared.  Specifically, I've been trying to respond (or in many cases, find excuses not to respond to the inquiries that people have made.)  Someone wrote in to complain about losing their life savings in a managed fund that went under (after admitting they didn't look it over properly) and wanting our help to get their money back.  I'm not sure how to respond to some of their queries, and I'm not sure why they sent their complaints to us, as we do not represent their area or have any responsibility for the issue.  To actually answer them as W wants to (he's very conscientious but I'm not sure he understands how time consuming and futile corro can be) would take me hours of research and result in nothing.

I was hoping to get to the gym a lot this past week, but I disappointed myself by just going on Wednesday for a workout that alternated pushing and pulling weights and some wokouts at home that lacked intensity.  I also ran home from the office on Thursday and ran in on Friday whilst carrying my gym bag, which is an entirely feasible way of getting to work that I plan to use again in the future.

Part of my reticence to go full on at the gym came from the fact that I was planning to play with the Convicts now that they are back from their tour.  This morning I drove up to the Blue Mountains for a game which we won 32-3.  I managed to score "one-third of a try" and also set up our club president for a try.  I picked up a dropped ball and ran through a gap.  They had a skinny guy at outside centre who was in my path, and as he came forward for a kind of half hearted tackle I gave him a good push aside and dragged three of his teammates along before offlloading to the prez who was in the clear and ran it 40 metres.  I had a couple of other good runs today, one which took me to five metres from the try line on the cusp of half time despite the biggest guy on their team hitting me with a shoulder charge (had he used his arms he would probably have taken me down) and another one in which my left boot came flying off and I made it another 10 metres unburdened by the extra weight.

Oh yes, and late in the game I got an elbow in the face and was taken off on account of blood (though there really wasn't that much.)

Two of the Convicts have a second home in the mountains and we stopped there for a BBQ afterwards (accompanied by half the population of Sydney that seemed to be visiting the easter suburbs of the Blue Mountains for the day.

The denizens of chez canuck are now all settled in with the arrival on Friday of the latest addition.  It was a crowded and estrogen laden house this weekend, with two of the three female inhaibtants having visits from their sisters.  For most of this weekend a six month old infant was the closest thing to a man in the house.  Who will take on the pancake mixing duties as I did on Thursday evening?

I've now got photos of the half marathon from last Sunday, so here is my report.

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I moved my WOW money into PVE yesterday.  It has lost about 70% of it's market value over the last two weeks and I still think the market has overreacted.  So I have increased my stake.  It could have further to fall is a gamble, and I must be conscious that I don't make these kinds of investments personal.  (Meaning don't get optimistic about a stock simply because I chose it, and feel convinced that I couldn't possibly have chosen badly.)  A number of pundits remain upbeat on it or think PVE is now a real bargain.

I had after work drinks (well, I didn't drink) with Gundachick yesterday.  She recently quit her job in advertising which had caused her grief and was all flush with happiness (though the joy explosions may have also had something to do with the champagne.)  She was all optimistic and seemed to want to inject me with her optimism also.

I am optimistic in the grand scheme of things, but I didn't quite share her confidence about the myriad of opprtunities that are out there waiting for me.  (I am not confident that I can easily leap into whatever high flying position I happened to notice.)  There was some psychobabble present in her analysis and a pretty blunt drunken dismissal of my being diagnosed as an aspie as bullshit, but there is probably some truth in it also.  I do tend to lack focus, I often fail to notice my accomplishments, and I couldn't really tell you what I want to do with my life.  I accept that it's hard to move forward without any kind of plan or idea of where I am going.

The whole episode gave me a bit of aspie stress (I was in screensaver mode for a while but didn't get all freaked out or sensitive to touch or anything.)  I'm not sure how I feel about her offer to introduce me to a friend of hers who is a millionaire entrepreneur at 26  He may have done very well for himself and he may be interesting to talk to, but I don't think I like the idea of being "sorted out" by a stranger.

Today I picked up a cheap wristwatch to wear tomorrow.  I have worked out splits to pace myself to finish tomorrow in 1:45, 1:50, 1:55, and 2:00.  My cold is still stubbornly hanging on.  There's not much left to it, but I'm not sure how much it will impact on my fitness tomorrow.  I'm about to go have a sauna to relax, and then pick up my race gear and meet Coffee Snob and the other runners to pack on some carbs.

Also, hey LiveJournal.  Three things:

1) I am not interested in finding a Russian beauty.
2) Ukraine is not in Russia.  I'm sure Angela and Yulia could have told you that much.
3) If I was looking for a Russian beauty, I wouldn't need your help thank you very much.

And it had better leave over the next week.  It's four days and almost nine hours until we start.  I won't run much this week and I'm debating whether or not to wear my new shoes on the day.  I would have to run in them a bit to be sure they will be broken in and won't cause blisters or anything.  I should have enough time.

After reading a report from bozotkutya on the 24 hour race she ran recently I wondered if my habit of getting involved in bizarre and unusual sports and personal tests of will would lead me to attempt something similar.  As it happens, in January there is a 12 hour race on the northern beaches of Sydney.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Narrabeen Allnighter.

It starts at 8pm on a Saturday evening and runs along a loop next to Narrabeen Lake all through the night until 8am Sunday morning.  You just cover as much distance as you can in that time.  Twelve hours.  720 minutes.  43,200 seconds of pretty much constant activity.  This will be a pretty big step up from anything I've ever done, and I don't know if I am up to it.  I know it is perfectly acceptable to walk (though knowing me I would run as much as I was able) but getting used to constant movement for that long must be hard to prepare for.

And then there is the mental challenge.  To keep going alone in the pitch dark at 3:00am when you have already been on the move for seven hours.  That, for me, would be as big a part of the challenge.

I am not sure how much training is required.  If this is the kind of thing that would derail training in other areas of my life, then I may not be able to do it.  I may have to rule it out for all kinds of reasons.

But for now it is interesting to contemplate.

Yesterday I had a visitor at work in the person of Mitzi who had come to Canberra on her way back to the country town where she is teaching.  This gave her the opportunity to meet some of the other people in my life.  She met Coffee Snob in the afternoon and bakerypenguin  in the evening where dinner was had (which included a surprisingly effective teriyaki stirfry and some sliced up brisket, picked up as the only kosher meat available in the Coles outlet in Manuka.)  I make no claims at being a good cook, but things often don't go too far wrong for me in the kitchen.

This morning I woke early and was joined by Mitzi on a run to Mt Ainslie.  This was not my traditional Currahee run though.  This run was marked by ten pushups every minute in a style that I have not yet named.  (Is it too ego-centric to call it a Luckycanuck style run?)  I kept it up the whole way and met Mitzi again on the way down, running ahead and then being passed whilst doing pushups in the gutter.  In the end I did 620 pushups, which is the most I have ever done in a day.

Later this afternoon Cupcake Goddess and I will be making a longish drive out to Deniliquin to spend the weekend in the country and to drop off Mitzi.  This weekend's running should be decidedly flatter than this morning's.

Oh yes, and investments were made today.  I moved the proceeds from the sales of some shares in an education provider and a gold miner into a gold exploration company with promising interests in Java and in an Australian outfit that is pumping out natural gas in Italy that inexplicably dropped in price by 40% this morning.  Bring on the dead cat bounce.

I was up early this morning to look at a new place to.  There are currently a number of places that I may or may not hear back from, any of which would be a good place to live from my perspective.  One is in a townhouse with two philosophy experts with five degrees between them and one from this morning is in a sporty house with a nice kitchen.  (Not that I'm a kitchen afficionado.)

Afterwards I went for a long training run.  I started with a 4km warm up from the car park where I was meeting my friends to the National Museum and back and then did three laps of the lake between the bridges, making it a total of about 19km in just under 1:40.  I ran counter-clockwise and Coffee Snob & Co ran clockwise, and finished my third lap just before they finished their second.  I walked/jogged with them for their last lap (I could do so only because I had already had a proper run) and had a chat.

In the process of chatting, I found out that apparently there is a job going in Sydney doing government relations for the National Rugby League.  Now I play Rugby Union, but I suspect I could do this job all the same.  The NRL certainly has needed people to put out fires given the behaviour of some of their players in recent times, and my background in politics and my interest in rugby (including my networks with MPs and Senators interested in the game, some of whom I have played with) would come together nicely.  It may be a bit beyond my grasp (or a lot) but if this job actually is up for grabs I would be a fool not to have a look.

Apparently I burned off about 1,600 calories during my run.  Amongst other things, I am having ice cream for dinner.  ICE CREAM!!!

( Click for moderate hostility... )

So I went to the gym today, after running from home and before running back for a total of 14-15km.

TW: 25 deadlifts, pushups, pullups, 50 deadlifts, pushups, pullups, 75 deadlifts, pushups, pullups.

The gym I am good at.  I think I'm better at the gym than I am at my job.

So what time is it today?

It looks like four people from work are now training to run the half marathon and are looking to me for advice.  My training schedule is being picked up with enthusiasm which makes me feel useful and in control.

One of the stocks I have been watching is a pharmaceutical company that is currently trying to get a drug for treating patients with leukemia approved for use in America.  The drug authorities are going to require more tests, and when news of this reached the market, shares in Chemgenex promptly lost over half their value, going from 70 cents down to the high 20s.  I noticed the drop this morning, and after quickly looking up a few things, decided that the market may have overreacted.  So I bought in hoping to catch it as it was rebounding.  It's still well down compared to yesterday, but it's up solidly from when I bought it.  Now the question becomes when to sell.  I've bought like this before, but never sold quickly (i.e. within days).

Ok.  Enough financial boringness.  I also won $5 in bar money at trivia tonight by winning the heads/tails contest.  I picked heads at the start, and stuck with it for about five or six straight coin tosses.  Why people think tails is due after four straigh heads is beyond me.  Every toss is a 50/50 chance.  Past tosses don't change that at all.  I reckon, however, that I was due to win something having gotten the right answer on previous bar money questions on South American countries that don't border Brazil (Ecuador and Chile) and the fourth largest island in the world (Madagascar) but presenting the answer a split second later than someone else.  Damn chair lounging people blocking my way!

Cupcake Goddess came with me and was very useful in figuring out the number of black keys on a piano (36) and the first ever credit card (Diners Club).  She was a valued team member on "The Prefectionists" even if she doesn't know much about Star Wars.

TW: AMRAP 20 minutes - 10 20kg dumbell swings, 20 pushups with dumbell grip, 30 bosu situps.  10 rounds, 8 dumbell swings.  It raised a sweat but no big strain, no shakes, and no big endorphin hit.