Lots o' stuff

So I'm working in Texas at the moment, and also watching the election. I really despise politics and the like, but god, if Bush gets elected, for a first time, I'm going to go crazy. I am quite angry about the entire situation at the moment. Though, honestly, Kerry isn't that great of a choice either. But enough of that, as my friend Joey just said, "he's [Kerry] too much of a nam hippy vet, he needs to be more of a nam vet John Goodman from The Big Lebowski." True true joey.

So, Texas City, Tx. Working at a chemical plant here at the Port of Texas City. Not too bad, working nights, so I got to watch around 4 episodes of M.A.S.H. last night... yeah I don't really work much at all at the moment. I mainly wait around for monitors to go down, then I replace them with new ones. Tough job. I also have to generate reports every morning when my shift is almost done, but surprisingly I'm enjoying it. I'm getting to catch up on webcomics, AppleGeeks, Ctrl-Alt-Del... etc. I'm almost completely through both of those, maybe I'll try a new one tonight. I don't know.. any suggestions? Let me know.

CATS was sunday. It went pretty well. 1:05:06. Could have been better I guess, but oh well. John Ed beat me by 9 seconds. But I'll get him next year, and in every race. I'm going to kick some serious butt next season. These next few months are going to be me getting my running legs back under me, and becoming a much better rider. I want to start destroying people on the bike split, and still be able to run sub 7s in the run. We'll see... we'll see. Training might be difficult since I'm going to be working, but there is always time to run.. always.

Well I should get back to work, looks like station 6 is about to go down. Stupid station 6, always going down. DIE STATION 6!!!

Later

Working

Ok, Friday at 6:45 am the call came in. I had to get to California for an HCl spill in Calipatria. Not so bad, really easy assingment I thought. 6 pump stations and 11 real time guys in our loop. I drove the crap out of the rental vehicles. I never realized how fast a Durango could go off road, but man that thing could fly. Got a little rough at points, like the time i nearly went nose first into the irrigation ditch, but I didn't, so I'm pleased. But now I'm in St. Louis, when I'm supposed to be home doing something like sleeping. I'm stuck on the night shift hours and I'm not even tired though I desperately need sleep. Going to go do some push ups and try to exhaust myself into slumber. Hopefully I'll be able to get out tomorrow and see the vinyl acetate and see what that is like. Apparentely it smells fruity, oh boy!
But I gotta get going, must try to get to sleep again. Once I figure out how to post pictures, I have some pictures of the derailment on my camera, not good quality, but pictures none the less. Maybe I'll get some from the digital next chance I get. And one last thing, when a car rental company won't rent a car to an underaged individual, that is worse that eating a kitten.
Later

Sunday nights are crap.

So yeah, I'm just sitting around doing nothing. Today is technically a "rest day" for my training but I still ended up at the gym for about an hour. I just can't not work out all the time. Yesterday was good, the practice race went well.. the new bike performed exceptionally badass so that made me happy. I stopped to help a girl after she had a technical difficulty, so my time wasn't super good, but I felt fast. So CATS should be cake.

Finished "Icuras Hunt" by Timothy Zahn last night. Pretty good book. I suddenly had a bunch of free time, so I needed books. Luckily I remembered a post on Penny Arcade a while back.. and that is where I got the idea for the Zahn book. I also picked up Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, and even for the heck of it I got Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon. So yeah, I'm looking forward to the Bradbury, but I have a feeling that G's R is going to be something a little wierder than what I was looking for. I want to get the Stephenson novels, but they are still in hardcover, so I'm waiting for them to, you know, get cheaper. There is of course the hope that they will be put on some discount book shelf by mistake and I'll be able to pick them up for under 10.. yeah I know, hope springs eternal.

So no Texas, and just more busy work anticipated at work for this week. I mean, it is a paycheck, but I want something interesting. Maybe heading back to NV and working at SBI wouldn't have been that bad of an idea. Oh well.. life goes on.

Well going to bail now.. not sure what else I'm going to do tonight.. read maybe, finish laundry, get to sleep early. Going to go running with Erik and Richard in the morning. 4 mile tempo run.. oh man.. it is going to be rough. Gotta get my times down.. whatever happened to 6 minute miles.. or was I ever there? Well.. maybe next season I'll be able to run better.. winter training here I come.

Confused

At our weekly meeting yesterday, my boss asked if anyone would like to travel to Texas City, Tx. I, of course, rasied my hand immediately and got picked. Suffice it to say, I was extremely excited. Free travel, free food, and the possibility of swimming in the gulf were all great reasons to go. Then I found out it was going to be for 2 weeks, and 2 weeks from sunday is the CATS race. I mean, I really want to go to Texas and get a crap load of billable hours, but it is the race of all races this year. And with my new bike, I don't think that I could pass up this race. But if I'm staying in town, which is almost certian at this point, how am I going to afford to eat, very important aspect of my life right now. Was getting the bike so soon a bad idea? Probably, but it is so freaking fast. Also, I wasn't ready for taxes to take away 33% of my paycheck every week. So I guess I'll just hope to be on call at least twice a month for the extra cash, and maybe try to help out with coaching again. Who knows.
Gotta get back to work. Stupid work.

Tired

It has been a long day. Nothing like having a day off from work to help you realize how bored you are. I went for a freaking long bike ride today, or at least it was long to me. Sean, Michael and I rode to Little Rock and back. Tooled around on the river trail for a bit, meet up with Stuart by the submarine and just sort of had a good time. Well until we had to ride back, legs burning, the rain starting to fall... it was wonderful. Nothing like destroying one's self to make one feel alive. The river trail was a lot of fun. It was refreshing to see people out enjoying nature and exercising, this compared to the excessive overweight individuals that seem to populate this country. Lots of bikers, whole familes biking, such a nice thing to see parents teaching kids how to be healthy. Of course when we blew by them at 25 mph, I couldn't really tell if they were enjoying it or not. Destroyed some DoubleDees bikers, that was nice. Ok, I need to start moving my stuff, I think I've been reminded 20 times in the last few days that someone wants to move in tomorrow. God damn, I just wish people would leave me alone sometimes.