danceboy

On Sunday / Halloween ricevermicelli, schr0dinger, mzhotspur, and I raced in the Superhero 5k. We had fun running, DL seemed awed by the number of supermen wandering around, and I got to watch ricevermicelli running in fishnets and a leotard (She was Black Canary, I was Green Arrow, DL was Speedy (Roy), and Hostpur was Speedy (Mia)). Sorry, the pictures link on their site still doesn't actually go anywhere useful.

After the race I was talking to tisana, erik_j_meyer, & dee_cee when a woman came up to me and asked to see my children. I was concerned that something was wrong (or that she was CREEPY), but no, she was one of the costuming judges. It seems we were in contention for the "group of 4" costuming prize. Given that the judge hunted us down, I expect we were in the final cut. Then Hotspur smiled, waved, & cooed at the judge.

That would be when we won.

Shortly after I got in to work, I bumped into a co-worker and asked him how he was. He responded with "Oh, not too bad, so far.".

This was at 7:41 AM.

ricevermicelli: "What did you do at daycare today?"
schr0dinger: "Had last day!"
ricevermicelli: "Did you face the fiery ritual of carousel?"
schr0dinger: "... yeah."

Does anyone know the correct verb for that? "Raced" sounds wrong, "did" is just a tad generic, "ran" is incomplete...

Anyway, it was good. I didn't drown, and I finished in 1:29:43 (unofficial) over a 1/2 mile swim, 10 mile bike, and 4 mile run.

( Details... )

Wednesday night I went swimming again (I'm up to 3/4 of a mile) and I brought with me something that has already changed how I view swimming.

Prescription swim goggles. They exist! They're cheap¹! They come in more or less my Rx²!

I put them on and decided to start with a lap of breast stroke. I didn't come up for more than half the pool. Did you know that there's stuff down there? Lines on the bottom and tiles and stuff!

Then I did a lap of crawl. I've never been able to see my arms while swimming before. I mean, I knew they were there, attached to my shoulders and all, but I couldn't see them. This time I could. Easily. And I thought "Hmm, that doesn't look like the most efficient way to do that. How about this?" and I went faster.

I don't think I came up for air often enough because I was just so entranced.

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Downsides:
Ow. They left a bruise. I think that this is largely due to them not quite fitting (they come with different sizes of nose piece, I think I should experiment). Also, the strap isn't really big enough for my head. Now, I have a big head, but I can generally find a hat that fits, usually even one that's too big. A couple extra inches of strap should not be a problem.

Every lap or two I had to empty out the left goggle. I don't know what's weird about my left eye socket, but clearly something...

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Footnotes:
¹ I got the ones on that page that are $10. That's cheap enough so that if your eyes are different Rxs, get one of each, mix and match to get two pairs of custom goggles. And there might be cheaper for all I know.

² Oakleys and the like go up to a -3 diopter...

For a brief time last night I was like a god unto my son.

It turns out that the new OS for my phone allows me to play youtube videos. And that youtube has Batman:TAS clips aplenty.

schr0dinger was awed right up until the moment that his mother opened the front door. Gods ain't got nothing on mommies...

Last night, schr0dinger and I played catch for the first time.

At first it was more accurate to say that he didn't drop the ball when I landed it in his arms. But once he got the idea, he started catching the ball fairly reliably. And giggling madly the entire time.

I had some goals going into this marathon. Goal 1 was to finish. Goal 2 was to not finish last. Goal 3 was to beat five hours. After that, things got hazy.

I accomplished all 3 of my goals. I took something like 4 hours and 50 minutes to run 26.2 miles (yes, I am that slow), but I did it. If you see me limping for the next week, well, yeah.

I'm thrilled that I managed it, and I'm in pain...

Edit: Official results are in; 4:50:52.

For about a week now, schr0dinger has been attempting to kiss people back when they kiss him. He would pucker up, and press his lips against his target. It's been incredibly sweet.

Last night he figured out the part of kissing that makes the kiss noise. It is somehow even sweeter. ricevermicelli and I might have positively reinforced this behavior...

Of course this was part of his ongoing "develop new skills to delay going to bed" program, but we wrestled him down eventually.

Just a moment ago, I blew a kiss to schr0dinger as ricevermicelli was taking him up to bed. He smiled his sunniest smile (which is pretty dang sunny), and blew me a kiss back.