Amazing...

Isn't it amazing how some people just never change...

Opie

It's over, someone turn out the lights

Free speech is dead

I guess MTV sold out a long time ago but this one makes it official. I'm at a loss for words...

Lame Wars, Revenge of the Lamers

Lame. That's the only way to describe the latest George Lucas debacle. Nothing could save this movie. Everything stunk starting with the two pieces of wood they used for stars, a script that had to be written by a 5 year old, and action sequences that just didn't cut it. Even Sam Jackson managed to be lame, how bad a director do you have to be to pull that off?

I should sue George for wasting my time.

Thank God it is finally over.

Thanks Janey, youre a peach

My blog has needed a little help for a while now. For some reason, the stuff on the right kept sliding down to the bottom. Maybe it was tired, who knows.

Janey volunteered to fix the formatting and, as you can see, made a big difference.

It's sure is cool to have smart friends. Anyone want to help me with my yard work:)

My world view

A pretty neat quiz but obviously flawed. Here are my results:

You scored as Modernist. Modernism represents the thought that science and reason are all we need to carry on. Religion is unnecessary and any sort of spirituality halts progress. You believe everything has a rational explanation. 50% of Americans share your world-view. Modernist 69% Postmodernist 69% Materialist 63% Idealist 56% Cultural Creative 44% Existentialist 44% Fundamentalist 38% Romanticist 25% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

I believe in God but I also believe that everything can eventually be explained by science. God and science don't have to be mutually exclusive concepts.

They just don't get it

Poor ol' Rummy

Maybe if we weren't invading other countries, imprisoning their people and making them play naked pyramid, and doing all the other nasty things we Americans seem to have a dedication to, the press would find someone else to pick on. They can't seem to understand that people hate us because we not only carry the biggest stick, we use it whenever we feel like it, on whoever we feel like. They hate us because we just flat don't play fair. We expect Americans to be treated one way but we treat everyone else exactly the opposite. We whine about 9/11 while blowing up 50 times more of their people.

To the whole Koran down the toilet thing, does anyone really believe that someone who would attach eletrodes to a man's Johnson would have any qualms about desecrating a book?

As to whether Newsweek should have printed an unsubstantiated story, that's a subject for a whole other rant.

Too funny for words

Two new Darwinites

I think it went something like this...

Knucklehead 1, "WOW, Star Wars was sooo cool, hey pass me another brew. How many we got left anyway?"

Knucklehead 2, "Here ya go, think I'll have one myself. Damm two cases gone already. Yeah, man I love those light sabers."

Knucklehead 1 looks up, "Hey, these light tube things look kind of like light sabers."

Knucklehead 2, "Yeah, I bet they make them glow by filling them with petrol."

and the rest is history.

I know that people getting horribly burned is not supposed to be funny but two people taking a piece of glass, filling it with gas and then smacking them together is just too much for this reporter.

There is probably a special place in Hell I'm gonna have to do some time in for not feeling sorry for these idiots.

Sold!!

Scrub Robot, Scrub

We tiled our entire house a few years back. I like it but the floors, especially in the kitchen, are alway dirty. I'm no male chauvenist pig but scrubbing floors is just not high on my list of thing to do when you want to have a good time and my wife feels the same way.

One of these things would easily be worth a few hundred clams.

Eat Beef, the government says so.

Eat Beef

Am I the only one who finds it rather bizarre that the government is behind the whole Beef, It's what for Dinner campaign? My simple mind has a hard time comprehending why the government is pushing beef. I can understand the whole "Don't do Drugs" and "Go Vote" kind of stuff but "Eat Beef" just doesn't seem very governmental to me.

OBVIOUS JOKE WARNING

I guess they have been pusing pork so long that beef got jealous or something.

What's really hilarious is that they not only created it, they are making the beef ranchers pay for it whether they want to or not.

The pot calling the kettle...

Trial Begins in Washington Over Election for Governor

So, seems like the Republicans lost one so they are taking it to court claiming the Democrats "stole" the election.

Well, if nothing else you gotta admire their sheer audacity. The Republicans stole the whole country not once but twice and now they are complaining about Washinton state. The depth and breadth of the dirty tricks they pulled in this last election boggles the mind but because it didn't quite work in Washington, they are crying foul.

I feel sorry for my brethren in the Washington SOS office, they must be going thru pure hell right now.

Some stories require no comments

No Space Billboards!!

Ahh what the hell, blogging is all about flinging about useless bullshit so here goes.

I guess I'm glad that the guv'ment is watching out for us poor old eathlings but this sounds a little too Spiderman vs Superman to me. You gotta wonder who decided this was a problem in the first place. I can just see it, a bunch of FAA guys sitting around drinking beer and looking at the sky when they start playing what if and BAMM, Monday morning we have a crisis about space billboards.

To be honest, a space billboard would probably piss me off a lot more than a space laser would...

Game grouping, part II

Well, three good groups in a row, you know there had to be a bad one in the near future.

Friday afternoon I'm tooling along headed to a mission when I get a tell asking if I want to be in on a 38/39 level group. I say, "Sure" and join up. You gotta have high hopes for a group where the guy sends a tell first even though I had my "I'm looking for a group" light off. I hate blind invites and ALWAYS refuse them unless my "Looking for a group" light is on.

Anyway, we finally get the group together and jump in. The tank, a guy named Forbiden Knight... Hold on a minute and let me rant about names again.

I'm a name nazi, no two ways about it. Maybe it is a character flaw but I would never be able to run around with a misspelled name simply so I could have the name. Misspelling as a pun or with a purpose is one thing but simply misspelling your name because you're too stupid to come up with anything else is just wrong.

Back to the story. So, we get in the mission and, before we all even zone in, the tank says, "Can I go?" and without another word, starts gathering mobs. We all try to follow and support him and kill the first batch when he says, "I was gonna herd." So we all stand back and let him go off and do his thing and he gathers a batch, we all kill them, etc. This goes on for a while till he gets in a room with about 40 mobs and starts yelling for help. I manage to get in and start blasting but the doorway soon becomes clogged with monsters and no one else can get in. It doesn't help that we're fighting DE either, those things are monstrously hard anyway. So, we soon start dying and the tank, who cornered himself in a room where no one else can get to starts cussing out the healers for not healing and whining about how high his debt is.

Anyway, we finished the mission (I took two deaths myself) and I make an excuse to part ways. Nothing I hate worse than someone who screws up then blames others.

BTW, they have added a new Inspiration called Break Free. When some mob sleeps or holds you, you hit this sucker and you're free again. I got in against a Rikti Headman Mentalist without a Break Free and got held and whacked to death without being able to fire a shot or run. I never leave home without 3 or 4 now.

EQ II

Sis said Little Sis was playing the EQ II free trial. "Free" thinks I, "I like Free".

Let me say up front that I hated EQ. I hated EQ before I ever played EQ and I hated it even more once I had played it.

However, free is free and I wanted to see if they might have learned anything. I heard it sucked but I wanted to go see for myself.

Well, I saw and what I heard was right on. It sucks like nothing has ever sucked in all of suckdom. To be fair, I've only played about an hour but that was enough. The characters are clunky, the interface is weird, the graphics ain't nothing to write home about, there is just nothing to like.

I simply don't understand why these people can't create something new.

Game grouping

I've been trying to push to the next level with Little Janie (my CoH energy blaster) but she is out of missions. Hunting is kind of boring and the freaking xp bar moves about a millimeter for every hundred mobs you kill. So, I decided to go out for the dreaded pickup group.

Before I talk about the groups I ended up with, I noticed something about grouping. I'm sure someone, somewhere has drawn this comparison before but game grouping is very much like sex. The more I think about it, the more parallels I can draw. Stay with me here:

The amount of prep is totally random. It takes some groups ages to get to it and some jump right in and start blasting.

Once a battle gets going there are lots of explosions and fury then it is suddenly over.

Some people work a lot harder than others.

When the whole thing is over, there can be this awkward time when you want to go on and do something else but everyone just kind of hangs around then makes excuses to leave.

So, back to the action. The first night I get a tell from someone I never heard of asking if I want to get in on a higher level mission. I saw "Sure" and head off to the mission site. We have a group of about 6 people and the action was heavy duty. I think CoH has the most intense and exciting group combat. You haven't lived till you've been in the middle of 6 players and 20 Nazis going at it. It can be quite confusing, being a blaster I just click on the tank and blast whatever he targets. I can't even see my target half the time. The great thing was that the XP was flowing like water.

The next night I get in a group who, when I popped in the mission, was all just standing there. Once I found the tank and clicked on him, I see he is running around the area for some reason. Everyone else is just chatting and standing. Suddenly, after what seemed like 5 minutes, the tank shows up dragging about 40 mobs. Everyone else is still standing and chatting. Not being one to stand by and watch, I start blasting and immediately get the crap kicked out of me. Then the tank says, "Ready" and everyone jumps in. I find out later that this guy goes around and herds all the mobs on the floor, takes most of their power then lets everone jump in for the kill. It was a lot of fun but the standing around waiting for someone else to do most of the work was kind of annoying.

The next night was only one mission and pretty much a repeat of the first night. After the mission was over the group started breaking up with everyone making lame excuses to leave.

I went back to soloing but it just wasn't as much fun. I might have to go back to this group thing and just see how it goes.

Do we need more weapons?

A NY Times article about space weapons.

Another bright idea

It always amazes me that we can't find the money to get health care to poor people but we can find $300,000,000 for Iraq and somehow, find money to built space weapons.

To the subject: Do we need more weapons? Back when I was a kid, there was this cold war thing going on. There was China and Russia and any minute, some crazy Chinese or Russian dude was going to push the "button" and we would all be obliterated in a big action movie explosion. Seriously, we had bomb drills where we went in the hallway, tucked out heads between our knees and kissed our asses goodbye. So we built this montrous machine so we could have our own button to push, absolutely assuring the end of the human race. Back in those days, you knew who to nuke and the guns were already pointed there.

Who we gonna nuke today? Russia is akin to an old lady in a rocking chair who can't find her dentures half the time, China is more worried about making CPS (Cheap Plastic Shit) and electronics than they are about nuking anyone. Sure, there are people like North Korea and Iran but they just want us to leave them the fuck alone and are just making nukes to have a big enough stick to whack us with if we get to close. Who we gonna point the space lasers at anyway? What are we defending against. Dubya is gonna ring the country with missle defense systems but who is gonna shoot us. We can already tell you the specific gravity of a mouse fart in outer Mongolia, how much more monitoring do we need? Everyone knows that the next nuke that goes off will be from some terrorist who smuggled it in the back of a tortilla truck coming in from Mexico, what good is a space laser gonna do there?

We have so much potential to do good in the world, why are we so intent on making them more afraid of us. Why aren't we feeding people instead of figuring and new and innovative ways to kill them?

It's a mystery to me....

Recent movies

I'm a Netflix'er. At least three movies every weekend with the occasional visit to the theatre. Here are some recent ones.

The Interpreter Took the wife to McDonald's for a syrup sandwich (McGriddle - her idea, not mine) and an early movie. This movie is pretty dark, lots about death and dealing with death. Sean Penn is fabulous. Nicole Kidman was good but would have been a lot better if she had JUST GOTTEN HER FUCKING HAIR OUT OF HER FACE FOR ONE DAMM SECOND. Sorry but seeing someone with their hair stuck in their eye drives me bat shit. Overall, a pretty good flick. 4 stars

I Heart Huckabees I think I kind of liked this movie but it was too damm weird for words. Lots and lots of metaphysical bullshit in a story about a guy who just needs to figure things out for himself. I say 3 1/2 stars.

Elektra Silly and boring. Better than Daredevil but just barely. Even the fight sequences couldn't save this one, too much silly super powers that seem to turn on and off. 2 1/2 stars on this one.

Finding Neverland Mostly boring drama with some interesting stuff thrown in about the guy who wrote Peter Pan and some kids he hooks up with. He does pull a pretty interesting trick on his old up-tight audience on opening night. It was a good movie, just not my cup of tea. 3 1/2 stars.

Sideways An enjoyable movie about a strange little guy. My wife was bored to tears but I liked it. 3 1/2 - 4 stars.

Garden StateA very enjoyable movie about a really screwed up guy getting his stuff together. Great music, a must buy soundtrack. 4 stars.

Meet the Fockers About the same as Meet the Parents with some over the top non-funny nonsense. Not a bad movie for a rainy Sunday afternoon when you don't want to think too hard. 3 1/2 stars

I saw a preview for a new movie called A Sound of Thunder. This was from an old Ray bradbury short story I remembered from when I was a kid that always stuck with me. Time travel stuff with an interesting twist but it looks like they are taking the twist and turing it into your usual run away from the dinosaurs thing. I expect it to suck.

More later.

Legalize it, regulate it and tax the shit out of it.

A story about one of my biggest pet peeves.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050510/ap_on_re_us/brothel_tax

We're talking about cutting benefits everywhere. We're talking about how over worked and under paid our law enforcement officers are. However, we spend an inordinate amount of law enforcement time arresting, processing and procescuting prostitutes. Same thing goes for marijuana users and sellers.

Why can't we get the stick out of our butts and legalize prostitution? We spend so much time pretending it doesn't exist and trying to stop it but it isn't called the oldest profession for nothing. There is an old saying in the software business, "If you can't fix a problem, feature it." Prostitution can't be "fixed" so why not legalize it, set up health regulations to ensure everyone stays disease free and then tax it like crazy. You hire a few inspectors (any volunteers for that job?)and free up a hell of a lot of law enforcement time. You also put a lot of illegal bitch slapping pimps out of business.

Same thing with marijuana. You can't fix it and if you allow booze and cigarettes, why not weed? That way you get all the illegal shit off the market, you can regulate it and once again, tax the crap out of it. Who would buy a bag from some guy on the street when you could walk into a liquor store and buy a pack?

I guess it's all too logical. Heaven forbid we stop trying to legislate morality and start treating people like adults.

Bored with WoW, back to CoH.

It's a familiar feeling. It happend in UO, it happened in DaoC, SWG, AC2, CoH and now WoW. You log in, pull up the character screen and stare at it for 5 minutes trying to decide what you want to do. You finally pick one out of frustration and get loaded then stare at the screen for another 5 minutes trying to decide what to do. Then you log out and go see if there are any old Kung Fu movies on the tube.

I hit the wall on WoW this weekend and played some single player stuff for a while.

So, yesterday, I'm at work and check my home email and see that CoH has gone live with The Arena. Woulf had said something about it but I got that other old familiar feeling (where you just HAVE to go try it out) and knew that when I got home, I would be cranking back up my CoH account and giving it a go.

I just love how easy it is to get back in a game you've cancelled. It took a while to download the patches but about 2 minutes to reactivate my account. Very soon, I'm logging in and Little Janie, the all powerful energy blaster, is back in action.

The only problem is that I couldn't remember how anything worked. Wait a minute, I remember my trinity of ass kicking (the three powers I used the most) but which buttons were they? So I'm staring at the screen trying to remember which button Fly is bound to when I see a message from someone in the Super Group. I send out a "Hi All" and one of the resident smart-asses comes back with, "So, did you beat WOW?" and about two seconds later I get a group invite from Woulf. I remembered going back to UO and no one knew me, it was sure nice to pop in and get a warm welcome.

My first challenge was how to get from Galaxy City to Crey's Folly. I'm one of those guys who has the entire map in my head and I'm sure it's still in there somewhere but the synapses aren't quite firing yet. Finally, after they've watched me bounce around a while, someone offers a suggestion on how to get there. I run a mission with them, die pretty quick because I'm just hitting buttons and targeted the wrong purple thing. I slowly remember what powers do what and have a pretty successful time of it by the end.

The mission finishes and Voodoo Joe invites me over to the Arena for a little PvP practice. I run in and check the salespeople. There is a new thing call a Break Free so I buy a couple, knowing he is a holder type guy. He sets up a duel and we log in. You log in to what looks like a mission so i run around looking for him. I find him and we stand for a few seconds just looking. You can't talk so he eventually attacks and it's on. Like I said, he is a holder (controller or defender) so if he can hold me and bounce me off the ceiling, he will probably win. I'm an energy blaster so if I can blast, he's toast. Dueling is pretty simple, you kill each other as many times as possible in 10 minutes. Amazingly, I won. Being old and slow, my basic tactic is to target, blast, blast blast, blast until everything else is dead or I am. We played 9 rounds and I won 5 out of 4. Those two hold breaks figured heavily in my first few wins and it went back and forth after that. More importantly, it was great fun. I thought I would get totally pwned so was pleasantly surprised.

I'm still amazed at how awesome an energy blaster is at dealing out damage, especially one on one. Many of my blasts have knockback which help a lot (they can't attack from their back).

I'm not sure how long I'll be back in CoH but for now, I'm having a blast.

Nationwide ID

How did this one slip by?

Real ID

Personally, I'm all for it. I have a different card for everything I have to do, drivers license, military ID, credit cards, Sams card, health insurance card, dental plan card, calling card, auto club card, etc. Heaven help me if I don't have one when I need it.

I don't care if the government keeps track of me. I believe they're already doing it if they deem me to be of some importance. Anyone reading my file is gonna be bored to death anyway so who really cares. I'd love it if they put one of those RFID tags under my skin so I could just swipe it when I needed to pick up a gallon of milk.

I know all the issues around that but they already have the power to track and record you if they want to, why not make our lives a little easier in the process? In the words of Scott McNealy, "Privacy is a myth, get over it."

Ignorance knows no limits

Dumb Broads with too much power

Louie Louie isn't a dirty song for one simple reason. "mooo ahhh Yooo do mmmeeee oooHHH" is meaningless. Check this at the bottom of the story:

"Louie Louie," written by Richard Berry in 1956, is one of the most recorded songs in history. The best-known, most notorious version was a hit in 1963 for the Kingsmen; the FBI spent two years investigating the lyrics before declaring they not only were not obscene but also were "unintelligible at any speed."

On the other hand, even if the above actually means something totally nasty in like Martian or something, who cares. Louie Louie is a part of popular culture and is a classic, exactly the kind of stuff school bands play. This ignorant blue hair is going to make the band learn a completely new song days before the performance when they AREN'T EVEN SINGING THE WORDS!!

Maybe she just needs to see Animal House a few times to lighten up.

Bill Gates envisions cars that can't crash

Here is a link to the story:

http://www.livescience.com/technology/ap_050502_gates_cars.html

The title of that story give me a real belly laugh. I'm a Unix guy so it's kind of my job to make fun of Windoze anyway but when they give you material like that, it's almost too freaking easy.

Nothing important here, just thought I'd share...

I hate holidays

Well, I don't hate holidays mainly because I work for the State and we get a day off for holidays no one has ever heard of (Confederate Heroes Day, for example).

There is something I do hate about holidays though. Every single holiday is preceeded for what seems to be a month by a complete media blitz of "events" around whatever the holiday du jour happens to be. Recently, it's been Cinco de Mayo which is, if I'm not mistaken, the equivalent of the 4th of July in Mexico. The problem is not that we are celebrating Cinco de Mayo, the problem is that we are NOT celebrating Cinco de Mayo, we're using it as an excuse to get people into the bars and clubs.

Just for the record, I don't drink alcohol but I understand the whole, "any excuse for a party" mentality. If that is what this was about, I wouldn't have a problem but it's not, it's all about the complete and utter commercialization of everything in our lives.

Well, it's actually about having to hear the phrase "Cinco de Mayo" 10 billion times till I want to find a nice sharp ice pick and puncture my ear drums to get some peace.

Am I offically an old curmudgeon yet?

Smoking ban in Austin

We made Yahoo news:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=18&u=/ap/20050504/ap_on_re_us/austin_smoking_ban

I'm an ex-smoker so we know how those people are.

That being said, I find it inconceivable that people look at lighting fire to a piece of weed and filling an enclosed space with the smoke as acceptable behavior. All the arguments to let people smoke in bars are total and utter bullshit especially when compared to the health issues. It's not about freedom, it's about breathing.

What is it about a bar that makes it such a special place. Why is filling a bar with smoke any different from filling an office building with smoke? The whole choice argument is, once again, bullshit. Do the people who work in a bar have any more choice than the people who work in an office?

BTW, all of these arguments about people going out of business were made in New York City a few years back. They banned smoking and business actually increased. Even some of the smokers like it now.

It won't pass, Austin isn't that progressive for all it's hype.

Bloggers unite

I just realized I didn't have up a link to Mego's blog and didn't even know if he had one. I went and found it, realized I had been there before and put up a link.

For the record, if any of the rest of you folks who know me have a blog or web site, I want to link to you so please post a comment here with the address.

Janey, I know you're out there...

In the name of God

There are a lot of things that piss me off. Well, I should say that there are a lot of people that piss me off. I don't get mad at weather or dogs or trees, even if they happen to wrong me in some way for the simple reason that they are just doing what they are supposed to be doing and don't know how to do anything else.

People, on the other hand, have a choice. They can choose to be kind and helpful or they can choose to be total assholes. Here is a guy who falls into the latter category:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/national/02minister.html?th&emc=th

This is the guy who claims to have turned Microsoft on the gay rights issue. This guy claims to have been the victim of discrimination when he was young.

It is the very soul of hypocrisy to claim to be a victim of discrimination and unreasoning hate yet turn around and practice the same thing on some other group. Just being a hate filled homophobe isn't enough for this guy though, he claims "he has God on his side."

One has to wonder how he knows what side God is on. There is one tiny reference to gay behavior in the Bible. It so happens that this same chapter talks about killing a child who is disrespectful to his parents but we don't talk about that now do we? So, how does this guy and all the people like him know God's will and who's side he is on? Does he have God's cell phone number or email address? Does God drop by for coffee once a week to tell him how it is?

Isn't the heart of all the great cons making claims no one can disprove?

Personally, I believe there is a special corner of Hell reserved for people who do evil in the name of God.

Parking

Parking has become the biggest racket of the modern age. I know that's a big claim when compared to such things as the insurance, medical and food industries but hear me out.

You can't park anywhere any more without someone sticking their hand out. You have to pay to park at the HOSPITAL for God's sake. Any entertainment venue (except the movies) you go to charges $5 per car minimum to park. We'll be paying to park at the movies before long, it's just too sweet a deal. You pay some kid minimum wage to take the money and that's your overhead. The rest is pure profit. We went to Cirque De Solei a few weeks ago, they must have had 30,000 people go thru that place during it's run. At 5$ a pop, that's $150,000 JUST FOR PARKING.

On the same subject, every little business seems to have reserved spaces outside their place. I just went to the dentist which is in one of those little office parks with the cirly queue parking lots that are mostly trees and no spaces. Every little office had their reserved parking areas and parking in any of the other spaces got you towed. Now, I understand towing off the people parking in the Whataburger parking lot so they can skip paying the 5$ for the event parking but isn't that just a symptom of the whole pay to park bullshit.

I guess that's one of the problems with getting old, you remember all the stuff that used to be free that they now suck money out of you for. Did you know there is now a service charge for a fucking savings account at the bank?

Ah well, what you gonna do...

55 MPH

Just a general rant about the whole energy crisis.

There are lots of proposed solutions to the gas problem. Here is one story from the New York Times suggesting a return to the 55 MPH speed limit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/business/01oil.html?th&emc=th

I remember a quote I heard a long time ago, "Driving across Texas at 55 MPH is not a trip, it's a career." Bill Maher said the other night, "The problem is not that gas costs too much, it's that gas costs too little." Am I the only one who notices that gas shoots up 30 cents a gallon, then drops back 15 to 20 and everyone thinks they are getting a deal? Talk about the greatest scam in history.

I call bullshit on all these so called solutions. The problem is that gas is too fucking important. The problem is that cars use gas and, because of a myriad of factors, Americans are totally dependant on their cars. I lived in Germany for 6 years and rode my bicycle to work almost every day maily because I lived less than a mile away. That's impossible to do in Austin, not only do I live 25 miles away, I would be killed within the first 5 miles by some asshole on a cell phone. Alternate transportation is a way of life in most places in the world except America and the infrastructure is built with that in mind. In America, the automobile is all mighty and everything revolves around that. Bicycle lanes are unheard of and public transportation is a joke.

How many billions of dollars (300?) did we spend on invading Iraq when Iraq didn't need invading? What's the point. It's simple, how did we come up with 300 billion dollars to kill a bunch of goat farmers but we can't seem to address our dependance on foreign oil (or provide decent health care - a topic for a later entry to be sure)? Since we did invade Iraq, where is all their damn oil and why are we still kissing the Saudi's asses? How many problems with the world today would we solve by creating a vehicle that doesn't use fossil fuels? What could possibly be more important. Well, maybe health care but not much else.

Running

Those of you who have spend some time in the armed forces know that one of the requirements is to stay in shape. At least in good enough shape to pass a semi-annual physical fitness test. Back in the old days, this consisted of various and sundry medieval tortures but eventually evolved into a fairly simple regimen of 2 minutes of situps, 2 minutes of pushups and a two mile run.

I discovered fairly early that pushups were hard, situps were fairly easy and that running was my strongpoint. I'm big, 6' 6" tall and about 230 lbs but I have good strong legs and a really good lung capacity. In my younger days, I could smoke a 16 minute two miles without thinking about it and cut that down to 13 minutes if I trained even a little. After a few years, I started adding some distance with my longest being 10 miles. That was a lot of years ago...

Well, since retiring from the Army in 1994, I've tried to stay in shape and I've tried to get back to running some distance but there was always some excuse to not get serious. This year, I decided to get serious and really get myself in shape for an upcoming event. The state started a new thing last year called the Texas Roundup. It's a fitness program ending with a 10K race. Last year I ran it and did very poorly but was determined to change that this year.

I started running some distance a few months back. My normal a few times a week has been 2 miles but I kicked that up to 3 miles with a longer run on the weekend. My goal was to finish the 10K in under an hour.

It was a struggle. I had this chest pain (some muscle thing) going on for the whole week before the race so that was bugging me. It started raining and was cold as hell and the wind was blowing right in our faces on the back side of the course. It was miserable but I did it.

Here is a link to the results in my division (I'm # 26).

http://www.doitsports.com/newresults3/client/43435_58915_2005.html

Only 1 guy in my weight class who is my age or older (gotta get my props somehow) finished ahead of me. I made it across the finish line at 59:54, with a whole 6 seconds to spare. As I passed the 5 miles mark, the time said 48:45 and I knew that most of the last part was downhill. I always have something left at the end so started kicking it with 1.2 miles to go.

I was frozen and soaked when I got to the finish line but I was also very happy. It's great to set a goal and achieve it, especially at my age.

This is just the start. I plan on running the Freescale Marathon next year. Wish me luck.