I have decided that as a public service to all of the people who read this blog (all three of you) I will give you my simple rules of life. These are in no particular order.

1. Accept the fact that people are lazy. We're all guilty of it at some point or another. If given two choices, some people, maybe not all of the time, will take the path that presents the least resistance. Therefore, if you assume that people are inherently stupid, and will make stupid decisions 70% of the time they are faced with a challenge, it makes living your own life that much easier, because you've prepared yourself, as opposed to saying "I cant believe he did that to me!"*

2. Dont take yourself so seriously all of the time. I am talking to you- the guy I see everyday in Starbucks in your pretty suit, ordering your cafe mocha latte half skim whatever, with your copy of "The Journal" tucked under your arm, while you blather incessantly into your bluetooth ear piece, about something that sounds so utterly boring that I want to grab a plastic knife and stab myself in the throat. Order a man's drink - Coffee, black. And then take that stupid ear thing off because you look like an asshat

3. No one should be saying the words "Grande or Venti" when ordering beverages at Starbucks. It sounds stupid. Make sure you tell the "Barista" - aka the guy making $10 an hour to brew coffee but let's give him a really fancy title so that it appears he/ she is doing something that the the pimply faced 17 year old working at Wawa does for half as much money- that you want a tall, medium or large.**

4. It's just a job

5. Go outside

6. Take the backroads if you are stuck in traffic. It might take you just as long to get your destination, but at least you wont be sitting in traffic

7. People who are dooshy dont know that they are dooshy. I have seen this time and time again.***

8. There's no rule that states that I have to like everybody that I encounter in my life. Just because you think someone is a nice guy doesnt mean that I have to think the same way. He's probably an asshole. Trust me.

9. Attractive women avoid sitting next to me at all costs on the train. Instead, rule #9 states that fat/ obese people must make every attempt to sit next to me, at all costs

10. Drive it like you stole it

11. Use a turn signal. How hard is it to use a turn signal? It's a simple flick of the wrist.

12. Some things in life are a privilege, not a right.

13. Give me eight hard hours of work everyday, and I will excuse the small mistakes.

14. Engineering is tough biz, and if your right out of school, expect to do some really shitty stuff in your first job. It's like engineering boot camp. Get used to it. The guy you're working for served his time in the trenches, now it's your turn to climb through a dirty nasty mechanical room counting valves

15. I am my biggest fan.

16. The glass is always half full

17. It is what it is

18. Yell at your kids when they are acting like little asshats in public. Everyone will respect you more for it. There's a reason why more and more restaurants are banning small kids - it's because you cant control your offspring

I have more I just cant think of them and I am now officially bored with this post

* I get alot of flack for this one because people think that I have a defeatist attitude. Wrong. Take my word for it
** I dont want to hear any feedback from anyone about how I am being as asshole to the hard working people at Starbucks. I respect anyone who busts their ass as much as the people who work in those stores do, but "barista?" For real?
*** Am I dooshy? Someone please tell me because I could be violating my own rule

Meh

It's been a while since I've slapped one of these entries together, and to be quite honest, I have no meaningful content to add, whatsoever. I havent been riding as much, which is unfortunate - it's been three weeks since I've been on the bike, but I have been working out - running here and there, spinning here and there, and I just added some weight training. I really need to get back out on the bike during the week. This week has been tough for me to get my ass out the bed in the morning, and I have been doing alot of after-work gym visits.

Running: not so good. I am still experiencing some pain in my side. I am going to try and get in to see a PT sometime in the next week - a guy who was reocmmended to me my the guy who gave me my shot. I have run out of solutions. I am hoping that adding some core work to what I do during the week will help strengthen the muscles on my side because at this point I believe its a strain of the oblique or something related to that.

I paced Lou through the 5k piece of the Journey for Joann tri over the weekend. While I got participate in a portion of the race, I was disappointed that I couldnt do the whole event - I've done this race three or four times, and it's one of my favorite events. With all of the ink work that I have had done on my arm over the past few weeks, and the fact that my running has really shit the bed, I couldnt put the time in for the swimming or the running. There's always next year I suppose.

I would love to get out on the bike this weekend, but I am volunteering for the 20in24 race down in Philly- I am manning a water stop for 24 hours with Cat and Lynne, starting Saturday at 8:30 am through Sunday at 10:00 am. Twenty four hours straight with those two clowns. It's going to be awesome :)

Spin

I know that there are some people who read these worthless blog entries that I post, so if I offend anyone who goes to my gym with what I am about to say, I apologize in advance. Part of my responsibility with this blog is to report on the cold hard facts. I am like a hard-charging journalist pounding the street looking for the story, to report the facts. I am like the Steve Langford of blogging.

I took an easy spin class this morning only because I am going to be slogging through four miles of trails this afternoon marking the Pickle Course for tomorrow's big Pickle Run, and there is a *slight* chance that I might run the Swarthmore Independence Eve 8k tonight. Plus, running a five spot yesterday kinda made me a bit sore*.

I dont know the name of the spin instructor who taught my class this morning, but I have blogged about her class format in the past. It's awful. Her music is atrocious. Like as in take a hostage atrocious. She goes from an up-tempo song to a down tempo song. We do way too much standing climbs. She has no idea how to moderate the levels of resistance. I guess I should explain the resistance control on the bikes that we use in class.

The bikes are rather nice - brand new with digital readouts for level, rpm, HR, wattage, average wattage and time. There are 25 levels on the bike. Everyone has a baseline level - the recovery level. My recovery level hovers around 13 or 14.

Depending on the class, the instructor will have the people in the class increase the level of resistance in small does over the course of an internal. Obviously the number of level increases and the frequency of the increases varies with whatever workout we happen to be doing at any point in time. Most instructors will peak out at about 4 or 5 levels above baseline at the peak of the interval, with an occasional "max effort" which is the maximum resistance level you can maintain for that interval at whatever cadence the instructor is calling out for that interval.

My girl will have us at 7-8 level above recovery. I am glancing around the room and people look like they are about fall off of their bikes. For real? None of these people are Lance Armstrong. not to boast, but there are probably 4 or 5 of us in the class at anyone time that can maintain that level of effort. To make matters worse, she'll keep repeating those intervals over and over again. I am assuming that she's assuming that most people have a very low baseline, hence the fact that she'll keep bumping the levels up so high.

I'm glad that today was a rest today because I wouldnt have been able to sit in that class for more than 30 minutes without my own music.

Rant over.

* Wah