It’s A Long Story

In which we discuss threesomes and a man's first step in his sexual journey. This one is particularly NSFW. Throw on some headphones.

In which we discuss Obama, Libertarianism, Mormons and Improv. Special Guest Mike Benny.

Did you know that Saturday has a 7:00am?  It exists in a cool, misty no-place of silence between our reality and that hellish thundercade that serves as stage for nightmares to play out.  To get there you must take the oft-swaying night-gondola over your dreamscape, and then, just before you make it to safety, jump out and hope your subconsciousnessal* fortitude is up to the task of surviving the plummet.

But now, as I did this past weekend,  I will make the trip every Saturday morning, for I have biking practice.  I will practice biking.  Yes, I mean to rehearse the task of biking every Saturday morning with roughly 50 other people.  Why?  To fight Cancer: http://alfonsotnt.org

Our first bike training took place in some distant land where frozen mornings give birth to glorious days of sunshine.  As we all stood with our breath crystallizing before us our coach gave us tips.  I, in true education form, ignored the teacher and instead looked around at all the bikes.

Some people had crazy nice bikes. We’re talking upwards of 3 or 4 thousand dollars for the bike.  I was squatting on my very ugly touring bike feeling out of place.  I didn’t bring my road bike because i was told that the first few outings would be very slow paced and I would not need it.  But as I looked around and saw all the stupid nice bikes I got a little worried.

But the relaxing pace and short ride (1 hour) assuaged my fears.  I can not only ‘hang’ but I believe I find myself in the upper echelon of cyclists in this crew, and I didn’t even have my road bike.  So everytime one of these chumps passes me on the track or in the pool I will think to myself.

“See you on the road, bitch.”

*Yeah, I made it up. Blame your precious English for lacking the vocabulary necessary for me to express myself.

http://alfonsotnt.org

Training for a triathlon begins with a very pleasant experience: Buying stuff.

Everyday Athlete, out in Kirkland, offered a 20% discount to Team in Training folks so after work I rushed out there before our 7 o’clock run. The weather made warm athletic gear imperative, and, more importantly, my knees did the same for running shoes.  At the store the owners treated me very well and I went ahead and purchased a handful of warm things and my shoes.

The shoe purchasing experience proved radically different to me.  Generally I walk into a store that sells shows, ask for everything they have in size 14 and then choose from the 2 pairs of shoes they manage to come up with.

Everyday Athlete not only had many shoes in my size, but wanted to watch me run in all of them to make sure I had the proper shoe.  Once we had it narrowed down to 3 pairs they thrice sent me jogging around the block.  Only then did we begin to discuss actually purchasing a pair.  I feel great confidence in my purchase thanks to those dudes.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first run itself.  For three miles we jogged around in a park that, had Seattle not forgotten about daylight, would have fit very well on a postcard.  Still, autumnal splendor inspires even in the dark; you can’t turn the lights out on the comforting shoosh shoosh of leaves underfoot.  By the last lap, however, I did not care for natural beauty, leaves or jogging women.  By then I had flipped into endurance mode.  Step by step, breath by breath.  I finished with plenty left in the tank, but definitely felt the hurt, if not in my lungs then definitely in my skeleton.

So yeah, my body needs to adapt to rhythmic self-crushing imposed on it during a jog.  Hopefully that’ll happen soon.

Just today I swam at my gym during lunch. My first swim session.  After a very awkward 15 minutes I rediscovered my rhythm and did ok the other 15 minutes.  Again, I got out with plenty in the tank, but this time I had taken frequent breaks between laps.  Also, I didn’t have goggles and my eyes burned like VD.  It’s going to be a long road to swimming success.

Biking…well..y’know. I can bike.  Weekly I probably bike around 50 miles just in traveling to places.  when you throw in recreational biking that estimate grows.  I’m not sweating biking too much.

DONATE!  I am thinking of getting sticker printed out to give to donors… “I hate cancer” or “Cancer Sucks” or something more clever.

http://alfonsotnt.org

Boom.  Donate Today to [end] cancer.

In which we discuss city cyclists that we hate, piercings and voting. I found this one boring…

In which we discuss how you can get your name written on my head for weekend, baking, and the fall of WaMu.

Yay!

If you are reading this I will comfortably deduce 2 things:

1. You can read

2. You speak English

But through an only slightly less comfortable deduction I can know that you, yes you, are a good person. How good? Well thats up to you.

I’m doing a triathlon. TNT is training me so that I can finish. What do they ask in return? That I raise 5800$ by March for the Lymphoma Society.

As you can imagine to raise that much money seems insurmountable to me right now, that my total raised is exactly dick.

Why should you donate? Here is why:

any$ - I will send you a thank you note, and you’ll be on the website as a donor

10$ - I will go to your place and thank you personally.

50$ - I will help you during your next move, also you get a blog post dedicated to you. A long and very flattering blog post.

100$ - I will grease-ink your name to my bald head during the event. PIctures will be taken

500$ - You get to decide on something stupid I do during a transition phase (between bike and run and swim and bike)

1000$ - I dunno what I’ll do, but you’ll like it.

Every level also receives the rewards from the lower levels. I have some other ideas to, like holding a hoe-down with a live band, or holding a raffle or date auction. So stay tuned.

Link to give me money: http://pages.teamintraining.org/wa/lavatri09/alopezogjs

This past weekend I did 3 things that I am proud of:

1. Worked a bit on the Business Plan.  Didn’t make any heroic progress, but I put austin’s desk in my room and got my computer in a more functional state.  So really, I mostly just set up an office and then spent some time on the company description section.  I wanted to do some research at other theatres but wound up doing the below.

2.  Signed up for a Triathlon and training.  Ok, so my motivations are selfish and not to be discussed.  But I signed up for the Lava Man tri in Hawaii.  Training starts next month with TNT.  So look forward to many blogs about how much I regret my decision.  Oh, and blogs asking for money. I need to raise 5800 clams, and at least as many dollars.  The money cures cancer.

3. Got my ear-pierced. Yep, I got me an industrial =-D.  I dunno why, I’ve just wanted one for a while.  Despite what others might say, it looks awesome.  It hurts.

I honestly don’t know by which means to best express this.

Allow me to create for you a hypothetical. Suppose high in some corporate monolith there is a conference room where marketers of inscrutable power and talent have gathered.  At a whim these men and women twist culture to better suite the motives of their horrible viceroys; they define our world; the /are/ Madison Avenue.  In times long past they would be individually sequestered atop lightening-silhouetted mountains, mastering their dark arts alone in preparation for the good knights who would inevitably seek to destroy them.  But the power of the corporation has brought them together.

In a pygmalion challenge this oligarchy of persuasion managed to produce fame for Paris Hilton. Thus is the awesome power they wield.

Set before this humming nexus of powers is a simple task: Create something that will reach a very specific demographic.  That demographic, people, is me.

What would they create?  An internet show staring an unreasonably dressed and incredibly attractive Eastern-European woman discussing the etymology of idioms and vocabulary in the English language?

I give you: hotforwords

Take it and go.  I must compose myself.