adventures « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

adventures

adventures / cycling / I do not know what is happening. / running / swimming / triathlon — Comments Off
15
Aug 15

Chattahoochee Olympic Triathlon

The race was fast. I was just slow.

We rode our bikes to the race from our nearby hotel. Rode across the state line, actually. And we did that in the dark, with little blinkie lights on our bikes showing the way.

We got there in plenty of time. Nice easy setup. Met race veterans and three people who were doing their first race. It was a nice relaxed pre-race morning, as opposed to the usual stress. This race was launched in age-group waves, so The Yankee went off earlier than I did, scorching people in the water and then burning up tar on the road.

When my group went off we pushed away and swam downstream 500 meters. You climb out of the water at a boat launch, run back upstream and swim it again. So the swim is short, just 1,000 meters, but that jog counts to your swim, which means I had my best 1,500 meter swim time ever. It still wasn’t very good.

Out of the water, finally, and up to transition where I climbed on the bike and settled in deciding that I would ease into the 20-something mile ride. It was a two loop course, roads with which I am familiar, and I figured that maybe I would be better served pacing myself early and going hard on the second time around. On the first loop, though, I felt my legs lock up. And on the second loop my legs said “No. This is what it feels like when your legs lock up.”

And after that nice little ride, where I didn’t get to hammer it much of anywhere, I was back in transition and setting off for a run. THis is the second time, by the way, I’ve run across a state line. (You don’t keep track of this sort of thing?)

The course offered three miles of river views:

And then there were three miles of downtown views. And somewhere right in between everything started going wrong.

You shouldn’t get chills two hours into exercise in the August sun, but I did. It seemed wise to take everything easy after that, and so I did. When I got to the end I wanted a blanket and calories. It was an unsatisfying race for me. But the weather was nice and the people were pleasant. And this one had a great race:

I didn’t see her until a few parts of the run course. She did this thing where she beat her goal and still wasn’t satisfied with herself. (Don’t race her.)

adventures / cycling / memories / running — Comments Off
14
Aug 15

Those people

Still playing with the light diffuser box:

That’s a pot we picked up in Ephesus, in 2010, during our honeymoon. One of the better stops on a terrific trip. I wrote about it:

Mustafa then took us to the house of Jesus’ mother. This is believed, by some, to be where she lived her final years. John was said to have had the house built here because he was preaching in the area and this was one of the safer non-Christian cities available to them. (Others disagree and believe Mary lived and died in Jerusalem.)

So the story goes that a 19th Century nun had a vision of a location of the house. Her description led a researcher to this spot, but his discovery didn’t gain much attention. The place was subsequently re-discovered a decade later, ruins were uncovered and, in the 1950s, the modern house was built there. A red line on the structure is meant to demonstrate the original building and the new structure.

Since then it has become an important pilgrimage for many. Muslims and Christians alike come here, viewing the place as an important religious destination. There’s a stream running under the house, from which you can drink of the sacred waters.

We put water from the stream into these vessels but, being untreated terra cotta, it just drained away.

Haircut today. Basic general grocery store – drug store errands. Had a short ride and an easy mile run. We’re racing tomorrow. This is the weather:

Isn’t that lovely? I’m not fit enough to race in weather like that, mostly because it has been to hot to train a lot. So tomorrow will be fun.

We got a hotel room just across from the race. (It is an out-of-town event.) We’re going to ride our bikes, in the dark, to the starting line tomorrow. We have lights for that. Because we’re those people … The riding to a race people … The riding in the dark with lights people … That also means we’re riding back to the room after the race people … And so on.

adventures / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
12
Aug 15

This nickel doesn’t bend

Easily the best picture I’ll take this week:

Of course it is only Wednesday, but what am I going to do to top that?

You should see the version The Black Cat photobombed. It is a near-perfect head merger.

Tonight I did the thing where you accidentally turn Siri on. Since the device was patiently waiting I gave it a few queries. (Still doesn’t know who John Shaft is.) And then I asked this question. A machine has never made me feel bad for it before:

But, man, I want to go buy my phone some cookies. And introduce it to my old iPod.

I had to pull out a few things from the office closet tonight — an old mixing board, some cables and such. While searching for a particular microphone — What? You don’t have more than one microphone in your home? — I ran across some old coins. I don’t collect coins, but I have a wheat penny and a 1940s mercury dime and a silver dollar from my birth year. Together, I learned tonight, those are worth about $6.51. So there goes that retirement plan. This guy doesn’t add anything to that fund:

Numismatists would turn their nose up at my buffalo nickel. Too much wear. That’s why this coin was on the way out after its 25-year run. The production problems meant almost all of the coins that went into circulation got heavy wear. And, of course, But I say that’s what makes this coin works. We’ll never know how old that coin is. Ever. And, after a certain age (It is from somewhere between 1913 and 1938) isn’t that what we all want?

Also, the buffalo nickel doesn’t do yoga. I read the Wikipedia pages of all three men — a Cheyenne, a Kiowa and an Oglala Lakota — believed to be part of the composite character. Not a single one of them could pull of an arm-balancing split.

adventures / photo / weekend — Comments Off
9
Aug 15

Welcome back

Hi. How’ve you been? I haven’t written anything here in two weeks, but it seems like it was yesterday. Here are some pictures to catch you up on the last few days.

One day it rained. We had flowers in bloom and the petals of this one caught a lot of water. I thought that was pretty, so I tried, and failed, to capture it:

We had great chicken biscuits from Plucked Up, a hipster chicken joint (of all things), a Columbus restaurant on the recommendation of a stranger. She did not steer us wrong:

The homemade biscuit had a spicy pineapple marmalade.

The Yankee made homemade pasta. It was so delicious we dried a little bit for later:

So we’ll be getting a pasta maker soon, I suspect.

I made a small light diffuser box, which was the second most fun thing I did in the last two weeks. The first two or three things I shot in it were cat toys, because they were nearby. Now I’m wandering around looking for small things to photograph.

Here’s an Franklin D. Roosevelt – John Garner pin, from Green Duck Co., Chicago, circa 1933 or 1937. Garner helped push FDR’s New Deal legislation through Congress, but “Cactus Jack” and the president would clash over policy during the Depression. Garner also believed Roosevelt should not seek a third term and challenged FDR for the 1940 Democratic presidential nomination. Dropped by Roosevelt and beaten, Garner left D.C. in 1941 after four hugely successful decades, promising to never cross the Potomac again, and he never did.

And here’s a Unigate milk bottle featuring an ad for a shopping center in South London. It’ll run you about £6 on eBay. I got it because I liked the graphics and I asked nicely at a cafe. Milk bottles, it turns out, have become a big nostalgia item in England.

The most exciting thing I’ve done in the past two weeks was to take a 30+ mile bike ride on my new Specialized which had at least three categorized climbs on it. And I got to do it chasing The Yankee across state lines.

She took these pictures near the end of that ride:

And to wrap up the exercise for July:

If I’m going to eat chicken biscuits with spicy pineapple marmalade I need to exercise more than that.

adventures / friends / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
21
Jul 15

I encourage you to sign up

I’m putting this link at the top and the bottom of the post for a reason.

A few weeks ago we were on our way to dinner when we heard the news. The darling little boy of some of our friends had been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. News like that takes it out of you. But, as we were being sat at the restaurant I walked to the restroom to wash my hands.

On my way I googled the disease and found out it is rare, but highly treatable and with great success rates. That made it better, but it didn’t make the road ahead of the kid any easier. (He’s doing pretty great as of this writing, by the way.)

So people started doing what people do in those circumstances, because people can be awesome about what they do. The day after we heard the news Facebook groups sprung up, fundraisers were organized and we — and plenty of other people — sent away for bone marrow registries.

The free package arrived this weekend and weekend and we’ve sent them back. I wanted to tell you how easy this was.

There are three stickers you have to fix to various envelopes and paperwork. This is the most challenging part, because the directions weren’t especially clear. Then you take two long Q-tips and swab one on the inside of your cheeks for 30 seconds each. Put that and the paper form in the provided return envelope and drop it in the mail, postage free. In a few days we’ll be on the Delete Blood Cancer DKMS registry.

In finding that link I learned that every three minutes there’s another blood cancer diagnosis and that six out of 10 patients will not receive a bone marrow transplant they need.

Friends, think about that. A cheek swab, the possibility that one day you take a little trip and have a minor procedure to help someone as precious to their family and friends as the little boy we know, is an easy thing to do.

I hope you’ll consider registering today.