Race

Time

Min/Mile

1

27:05

8:41

2

25:54

8:18

3

25:32

8:11

4

25:36

8:12

5

25:22

8:08

6

25:32

8:11

7

25:18

8:06

Race

Time

Min/Mile

1

27:05

8:41

2

25:54

8:18

3

25:32

8:11

4

25:36

8:12

5

25:22

8:08

6

25:32

8:11

I guess I should view it as the best time for that course rather than worse than last week.

---

Comments

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2008-06-19T18:16:04.000Z

What’s the average temperature of those runs vs. your time?

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listblog/tim.html)

2008-06-19T18:50:19.000Z

Don’t keep track of it, but this is what weather.com says were the highs for the days: 1 - Wet - 88 2 - Windy - 95 3 - Partly Cloudy - 92 4 - Windy - 98 5 - Windy - 97 6 - Partly cloudy - 99 I don’t really see a good trend.

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2008-06-19T19:24:24.000Z

I don’t really see a trend there, either. Oh, well. Although this week would totally be the point that you throw out.

The Austinist yet again used the phrase “Calling Shenanigans” This irks me for some reason. Perhaps because I have some French blood and cannot abide the incorrect use of words. I don’t know.

Looking at the Wikipedia entry for “Schenanigans” it appears that we have Trey Parker and Matt Stone to thank for this bizarre mangling of a word.

Proper use of shenanigans from literature.

“I’ve put up with all your shenanigan I’m goin’ to.” - The Valley of the Moon by Jack London

“consider them all (and their owners) guilty (of “shenanigan”) until they are proved innocent” - Complete Letters of Mark Twain

“There’s some sort of shenanigan brewing, or my first name’s Peter” - The Days of Days by Louis Vance

You know you love my crazy, grumpy rants.

---

Comments

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2008-06-13T04:09:46.000Z

Stupid question: what do they even mean by “calling shenanigans”?

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com)

2008-06-13T15:57:59.000Z

It’s like “calling bullsh*t”. FTA - “The store manager, suspicions raised due to the large amount of currency being converted, called shenanigans and contacted the police.” That’s part of the reason it irks me so much. If you understand how to use the word properly any sentence you read that phrase in makes no sense.

Man, I’m stoked about last night’s run. I thought I didn’t do very well, and the heat overwhelmed me and I even had to stop running for about 30 seconds on the dam. But my pace was still better than it has been and I’m pushing against that 8/minutes per mile mark. Gotta keep knocking out those seconds.

Race

Time

Min/Mile

1

27:05

8:41

2

25:54

8:18

3

25:32

8:11

4

25:36

8:12

5

25:22

8:08

Steve at the Austin Real Estate Blog has an interesting post about the Independence Neighborhood we almost bought a house in. Apparently even Realtors are confused about whether it’s a house or a condo.

UPDATE: Ah, this comment pretty much cements it for me (although it appears to be about the north version of the neighborhood):

Take it me from me - Parking is a Nightmare on these streets!
…
There’s no parking on the side with hydrants- opposite the sidewalk side, but that does not stop them from parking up and down both sides. And when that happens, you are unable to get in or out of your driveway! (grumble! grumble! grumble!)

And when the towing company tows cars that are illegally parked: the owners sue the HOA. Once the residents found out Williamson County Judges are not partial to personal property being hauled away in the middle of the night, no one follows the parking policy. My wife was president of the board when the judge decided against them in 2x cases. Oy! $1000’s in legal bills…

And don’t get me started on those with big trucks who stick out in the road…

One house is complaining that the FIVE cars/trucks that the THREE people in the family own can not possibly abide by the parking policy [they do not park in their garages either]. Why are they being disciminated against for owning FIVE vehicles?

---

Comments

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2008-06-11T22:01:57.000Z

That article made my head hurt, especially that part about how the properties would be listed, but how they would come up on the search and then… I’ve always wondered the difference between condos and townhomes. Everyone assumes ours is a condo. We just dealt with our property taxes and according to the county we own $96,000 of dirt. Including the shared driveway. But I’m glad it’s not a condo. Our HOA fees right now are $100 per YEAR. It pays for the lawn guys to trim the 50 ft2 of grass in the culverts. I’m so glad that you didn’t end up in that house. I think that the parking alone was a deal-breaker. You know, because it was my decision to make. But it was so stupid to build a new development with almost negative parking space. They shoehorned all of our houses into a neighborhood that used to be fields and a few houses, so the streets were narrow—and I’ll bet we still have more parking. Well, until people put giant rocks to block people from parking on “their” grass.

So I was wondering why so many Cure audience members were Grade-A a*holes, while you go to a Morrisey concert and the audience is better behaved than at the symphony. You’d think they would be basically the same audience. And I think by and large they are. But this ven diagram might help explain.

The Cure fans in the left hand column are able to make the whole experience pretty horrible. Also there seemed to be lots of what I call - “Flying Dutchman Concert-goers”. These are concert-goers who are generally under 5’ (although not always), who will spend the entire concert wandering through the crowd. Looking for the magical paradise where people under 5’ can see the stage. This is not all short people. In fact there were really only 3 groups like this I saw at the concert on Saturday. It’s just that they passed by me at least 6 times per party.

I’ve read a lot of blogs about the Cure and seen a lot of unkind words about us tall people. Most of us do stay towards the back. The problem is that we often go to concerts with people who aren’t as tall as us who want to see. So we try to find some middle balance where our friends can see, and so can the majority of the audience. We actually provide a service to short people. Next time you’re at a concert find a tall person. You’ll find that generally there will be a small pocket behind them where people are not standing. Position yourself about 1’ behind the tall person to the right or the left (directly behind is a dead end). Based on your height you may then be able to see the stage. See drawing:

Of course the only danger with doing this is that tall people attract concert trolls. Concert trolls are unable to see tall people. They will elbow, step on feet, and always insist on walking between tall person and any person directly next to them. Regardless of how close tall person is to their friend and how much free space is around tall person (see diagram above). I had a short woman standing next to me drafting a line of sight on Sunday night. She could see just fine. The problem was that the concert trolls would stand on my feet and throw an elbow in her face. Or they would stand directly in front of her while standing on my foot. And then there was the woman who got on her boyfriend’s shoulders directly in front of said short woman. Threating to topple and crush her. Apparently standing near a tall person confers blindness upon you too by the concert trolls.

That said, I didn’t enjoy the concert too much. It was ok, but it was long, hot, and there were far too many irritating people. Reminds me why I go to SXSW. Say what you will about that, but it’s cool and by and large the audiences are pretty laid back.

---

Comments

Julie (www.juliesdramas.blogspot.com)

2008-06-11T20:45:52.000Z

Okay, so I’m going to sound like an asshole here, but I consider generally being able to see at concerts the benefit I get from being tall. In general in life being tall makes me uncomfortable in airplane and theatre seats, unable to easily buy clothes, and the subject of much teasing in my formative years, so when I go to a concert, I relish the fact that I can usually see without too much trouble. Sunday night I strapped on my boots with the 2-inch high heels so I’d have a little bonus height and I still had times when I couldn’t see. But unfortunately, that’s just life! And I also found it interesting the high number of luxury cars (Mercedes, BMW’s, Lexus) that we found exiting the parking garage. I had no clue that Cure fans did so well for themselves in life.

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2008-06-11T21:45:42.000Z

I’m laughing about all the Cure fans with their luxury cars. I think that they would probably fall on the left side of Tim’s Venn diagram. Or, they’re the right side, trying to prove to themselves that they are worthy of love by having the most expensive cars. But obviously, they still loathe themselves. Wah-wah. I’m kind of with you, Julie. I try not to wear tall hats and if there’s a shorter person near me, I’ll try to maneuver so that they can see. But I don’t get angry with the shorter people and sometimes they get angry with me. And I agree that it’s hard to be too sympathetic (when someone gets pissy with ME because they’re short—as if it’s my fault). I think it’s also the I’m Too Giant to be a Cheerleader/Drill Team/gymnast/etc. syndrome. I’m not bitter, but don’t get in my face.

UPDATE: So after reading and talking to people I’ve decided I’ll vote for Galindo. Morrison is too much in the neighborhood associations pocket, and one thing we don’t need are a few neighborhood associations deciding what’s best for Austin as a whole. Not that anyone votes based on my opinion. But just thought I’d put it out there. Still pissed off about so many people’s reaction to the “visibility” and “green home tax” issues.

We just got a mailer for Cid Galindo. It has me irritated. Especially to be sending it out in Austin. It basically says that his opponent - Laura Morrison is for the “Green Home Tax”. This refers to a proposed idea to have homes be required to brought up to current energy efficient standards when they are sold. The group working on a proposal to bring before city council has not indicated whether this would be paid for by the seller or buyer. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the Austin Board of Realtors and talk radio from deciding that it would be the seller and making political hay.

If the buyer pays it’s an inconvenience, and realtors won’t like it since it might lead to lower home prices once the price of repairs is factored in. But if you’re a buyer buying a house from 1980, chances are that you already knew you were going to have to get a new AC, and rolling it into your mortgage wouldn’t be too bad a way to go.

Of course if the seller has to pay that would be a lot of money out of a seller’s pocket before they could put their home on the market. A lot of people couldn’t do it easily. Of course, more than likely the city would have Austin Energy provide more of their 0% interest loans for energy upgrades to make this simple to do without out of pocket expenses for the seller, but this isn’t keeping the issue off of talk radio.

And really I don’t care which side has to pay. Everyone in town says they want a green city, but no one seems to want to make the changes or pay for it. Pisses me off. If you can afford a 180k+ house (which is median in this city), you can afford to get your AC fixed so that it’s not screwing up the atmosphere and wasting huge amounts of energy.

And I’m not voting for Cid anymore, from point 2 of his Building the Greenest City in America plan:

2. Energy consumption matters. Per capita energy consumption should be at the heart of every major policy decision that we make as a city, from the light bulbs we use, to the grass that we grow, to the cars that we drive.

Austin - we want to be the greenest city, as long as we don’t have to sacrifice to get there.

---

Comments

M1EK (http://mdahmus.monkeysystems.com/blog/)

2008-06-03T18:37:29.000Z

I’m unhappy with it too, but it would take about a hundred of these to make Galindo as bad a candidate as Morrison is. This is a fairly transparent attempt to drag out a possible base of RECA people against the guaranteed turnout machine the ANC reactionaries are going to bring to bear for Morrison. One could parse words and say that his vision statement was more about new construction, but I still wouldn’t have gone with this attack. There have to be better (more accurate and more fair) ways to bring out this demographic - the McMansion ordinance would have been a good way to do it, I think.

So early voting has started on the runoff elections. A list of early voting places is here. I figure that if I’m going to rail against a candidate I should point out how to vote against my crazy opinion.

Whoops, forgot to update on this Wednesday’s race. This was the first time I’ve ever actually been competitive in a race. I was pacing myself against a guy in front of me for about 1/5 of the race. We started going back uphill and he slowed. All my running up and down Oltorf and Parker really paid off. The guy stayed behind me up until pretty much the 3 mile marker. He had a friend who was a much better runner trying to help run him in. I picked up the pace to stay even with the guy who was running him in and managed to stay ahead of both of them. We turned in pretty much the same time, but I beat him by a hundred feet or so. Here’s my race totals so far. All in all, I’m really happy with my performance this year. Even if I’m still 10th in my age group.

Race

Time

Min/Mile

1

27:05

8:41

2

25:54

8:18

3

25:32

8:11

---

Comments

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2008-05-30T23:08:13.000Z

That’s great! We start training tomorrow. I would like to be a little faster this year and I think it will help that I have a new, faster partner.

Jonathon (http://jonathonmorgan.net)

2008-06-01T02:39:57.000Z

Very impressive.

Well I’d suggest you get the couch from the original Lefties Only post and pair it with this one. But this one’s a lefty too. What is happening with all the right sides of couches? Are people destroying them? Sacrificing them to the furniture gods?

And how in the world can you sell the left hand side of a sectional for $75 when people are selling couches with two sides for $50?