My wet-suit finally got wet

I went for a swim at the pool over lunch today, as I often do on a Friday. Since my first triathlon is only a few weeks away I decided to bring my wet-suit along and actually try it out. (The photo is from the first time I pulled it on, at my brother's place over Christmas.)

Holy crap! What a difference it makes! It's very buoyant obviously, but I have less range of motion. Perhaps next time I'll be able to pull it up a bit higher and leave my shoulders freer, but even with a first-time fit I probably dropped about 20 seconds per 200m, which is huge.

It wasn't much of a workout though, as some of the other triathletes in the pool 'un-cloaked' and I spent a fair amount of time chatting. I took the wet-suit off toward the end and immediately missed it. I felt really low in the water and as if my arms were slipping through the water instead of gripping it. Better not get too used to it!

Made it!

NASA's latest and greatest Mars probe, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, began circling Mars today. This is a tricky process, requiring great precision to execute successfully. About one in three Mars probes have been lost, usually during this stage. Click on the image at right to see a 10 MB QuickTime animation of the process.

Moving along, I finally saw Capote this week with Sheryl. I found it a bit slow but thought it was a great insight into Truman Capote's personality and talent, especially through Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal. The film focused on the time he spent writing In Cold Blood and didn't mention the loss of his friends later in life because of his continuing literary betrayals.

I also have to mention my son's recent scheme. A few weeks ago Chris found an old Christmas Latte coupon from Starbucks in his mother's car. I think it was from 1998. He wanted to try to cash it in, so when we went to see Date Movie (his choice, you may want to avoid this movie) he brought it along. Sure enough, the baristas honoured it with a laugh. But they ran out of whipped cream and had to change canisters before they could finish. So they gave him another free drink coupon! He cashed that one in a lot faster, getting himself a Venti-size Caramel Macchiato a few days later.

Last thought before signing off. At the pool today one of the regulars was wearing a wet-suit! We struck up a conversation and it turns out he's going to race in a half-ironman triathlon in San Diego next week. He was actually wearing his girlfriend's wet-suit, as he'd picked up the wrong one by accident on the way out the door (she was swimming too, but in the usual bathing costume). I'm looking forward to getting into my new wet-suit sometime soon.

Listening to: The Long and Winding Road by The Beatles from Let It Be... Naked. Not in the iTunes Store...

One hour to live

I gave blood today, immediately after a short swim workout. It took four minutes for me to donate a pint! That was quicker than usual. Of course the administrative stuff dragged it out to a whole hour. (No, I still haven't "paid or received money for sex.") Given that the average man has twelve pints of blood I would have been drained in 48 minutes. By coincidence their records show that I've now given one pint of blood for each year of my life, so I'm going to assume that as long as I donate blood annually I'll never die.

Listening to: Pure & Easy (not available on the iTunes store) by The Dining Rooms from Numero Deux (my copy is from the Six Feet Under soundtrack).