Tri harder

Maeve’s maxim of blogging: The blog-ability of an event is directly proportional to percentage of adults in spandex. It’s true of American Gladiators and it’s true of triathlons.

I must have been suffering from too much self-esteem because I decided to do a triathlon this past weekend. Seriously, the combined body fat of the four participants on either side of me was about 7%. I’m sore today…but I think it was just from sucking in my stomach for three hours. (I USED to do these all the time, but that was before I retired to devote more time to my new wine tasting hobby.) =)

Now I LOVE telling people I did a triathlon because they immediately think of an Iron Man. Well, just to give you some perspective…in the hierarchy of triathlons, Saturday’s race is known as a Tin Man triathlon. The race involves a 350 yard swim that finishes in the kiddie pool of the McMinnville TN rec center. You’re not so much worried about huge ocean swells as you are dodging that unpredictable mushroom fountain.

Now that I have figured out how to insert pictures into my blog posts [ummm, click on “insert picture”?]…I can actually show you the event:

Doesn’t this just look like a massive cluster#@%# ? It’s actually not…these people with their towels and buckets and whatnot take their racing very seriously. Not to mention that there is about $600,000 worth of equipment in this little playpen of fitness. That is no joke. Half of these people have completely tricked out bikes…like a $7,000 bike with $1,500 of contraptions latched onto it. Not me, I do NOT need a bike payment just so I can go 60 seconds faster. In fact…if you are looking for my bike shoes, they are the size 9 jobbies with the binder clip holding the Velcro fastener in place.

Honestly…I am NOT in the same league as people who finish these things in say…78 minutes…check out “Exhibit A” (I’m participant 268):

What does this picture tell you? a) I look as if I have never seen a bike before b) I’m not even headed in the right direction and c) there really is a binder clip on that left shoe.

I’m going back to wine tasting =)

Exiting Kentucky

Nothing exciting going on here today…so as I leave Lexington, I will just blog about my very favorite Kentucky joke…

Why don’t they teach sex ed and driver’s ed on the same day in Kentucky?




It’s too hard on the mule.

=)

And her trusty sidekick...

Okay, I’ve officially become one of those people. Dog people, that is. I suspected I was heading for such a fate when I bought Molly the matching collar and leash. And by matching, I mean matching MY outfit. But now that I have brought Molly with me to the Lexington Doubletree (the Hampton Inn doesn’t really meet Molly’s standards), I have succumbed to the stereotype. Here are some things I have noticed during my dog-accompanied stay at what used to be a nice hotel (but has really gone to the dogs) =)

• Molly treats the fourth floor hallway like one giant dog run. Mostly because I open the door and tell her “it’s your dog run!!”
• Going for a walk in the hotel hallway is all fun and games until you come across someone’s dishes from room service (those big, silver dish-covers make a TON of noise when tossed aside by a feasting dog).
• There are a lot of dogs staying at the old Doubletree…but then again, there are a number of visually impaired individuals here as well. Molly does NOT understand “that you are not supposed to play with the doggies who are at work”
• My white dog does not like black people. WTF. She comes from Appalachia, so I am blaming it on that. Seriously, I am mortified to report that she happily walks right by a dozen front desk people only to attack the night manager. Every time she sees that poor guy she pins him to the wall. Do they have doggie diversity classes?
• The floor of the hotel elevator is a smorgasbord of crap. It’s amazing what Molly can lick off the industrial grade carpet during the short ride to the lobby. (I don’t even stop her – wouldn’t I make a great mother?)
• A dog’s bark echoes really, really loudly in a hotel atrium. “It’s a beautiful wedding, please don’t let us interrupt”

Suitcase sanity

I have to apologize. See…the McConville’s are the reason all of you have to pay extra for your bags when you fly (we’re probably ALSO the reason you have to pay for your drinks now on international flights....but that’s a different story altogether). I took my mom and sis, (along with the contents of their respective homes) to the airport on Saturday. Without exaggeration…pound for pound…mom’s suitcases will cost 7x more to fly to Ireland than my mom.

Which means loading the car to go the airport takes a strategy and a shoehorn (as well as someone else’s car). People start rolling out suitcases and you don’t know if they’re EVER going to stop. “Honestly, people – we call those things garment boxes, not suitcases. In order for it to be a carry-on…you technically have to be able to carry it.” I keep telling mom they sell cigarettes in Europe – but I am pretty sure one of those bags is a mobile discount tobacco store.

Getting every suitcase into the car is like a game of Tetris…there is ONE combination that is going to work and you are going to spend 45 minutes and 300 calories loading and unloading the car until you come up with that combination. But at least everyone is standing right behind you offering their helpful advice.

And don’t forget…this blog entry will self-destruct upon subjects return to US airspace…

Kentucky Castle

You know how we sometimes say “wow, that guy lives in a castle”…and we’re talking about some McMansion with four bathrooms? Well, not in Lexington, by god. The Kentucky Castle (picture below) is a private residence in Lexington, KY. [again…I CANNOT make this stuff up]

How would you like THAT in your cul-de-sac? Apparently, some East-coaster’s wife [was SOMEBODY’S favorite movie “Shakespeare in Love”??] wanted her rich-beyond-sense husband to take their role-playing a little too far and permanently ensconce her as Guenivere. She got divorced (beheaded?) before the thing was completed (probably due to arguments over building.a.castle.in.Kentucky).

I mean, I KNOW Kentucky bears a certain resemblance to the middle ages, but that does NOT mean you should build gun turrets. I, for one, would like to encourage a renaissance. I mean…does building such a castle make you the monarch of the moronic? Maybe we have finally found King Cheney’s undisclosed location.

I know I am giving Kentucky a lot of grief but 1) it’s Kentucky and 2) I come from someplace called Kentuckiana…which tends to make you a little bitter. I mean…how low do your test scores have to be before you form a regional cooperative with Kentucky? Kentucky (or Hoosier) jokes are about the least offensive commerce that goes on between the two states (seeing as Kentuckiana is the geographical equivalent of a meth lab).

Although it is inexplicably going to remain as a private residence, the Kentucky Castle owners plan to rent it out for special events that can be conducted in “medieval-like” splendor (bubonic plague is extra). So now I FINALLY know where we can celebrate Rita’s big birthday next year. =)

Chik-free-a

Driving “home” (i.e., to the hotel) from the office on Friday, we drove by a Chik-fil-a parking lot FULL of pitched tents and campers. Now…I know this is Kentucky and camping in a strip mall parking lot is probably a tradition handed down from generation to generation…but it still looked pretty odd. $4-a-gallon gasoline and it’s Hoovervilles in the heartland.

It looked to me as if a crowd of Deadheads were all on their way home from Bonaroo with a bad case of the munchies, if you know what I mean. But my co-worker explained that Chik-fil-a (or “CFA”, as they like to be called) gives free food for a year to the first 20 customers at each of its grand-openings and all these people were camping out to be the first customers at the Lexington CFA. [I CANNOT make this stuff up.]

This crowd looked like they could use some free fast food. The median age must have been about 21 and the absence of shower facilities did NOT look like it was causing much concern (chicken camp-out or an Obama rally?…take your pick). I just wondered how the smell of incense was going to affect the food.

The whole time I am watching this, I’m thinking…“It’s.fast.food. You’ve relocated to a parking lot in hopes of dodging the 99 cent menu?!?” Sheesh, what would you do for a Klondike Bar?? But these people were having the time of their life…a veritable chicken carnivale. Even the CFA “Eat Mor Chikin” mascot was there…we’ll call him “Gallows the Cow”.

To top it all off…the local news was covering the event! Listen people – you are within driving distance of Noah sailing through a corn field and you are covering this fiesta of fowl?!?

Then we drove by this morning and just like that…they.were.all.gone…off in search of more free waffle fries.

Missing posts

Sorry to miss TWO posts this week for my paying, loyal, BORED readers. And I missed making entries despite being in the midst of the cultural phenomenon known as Kentucky (the mullet is ALIVE!). But it’s been a slow week – or maybe I’m just building a tolerance to triple-shots of Starbuck’s espresso. I DID try blogging each night this past week…but I ended up with 3 straight blogs about that $%#@ live band.

I am, however, committed to blogging every day next week…after all, my mom & sister will be out of the country so I can blog with impunity (or immunity – whichever). Of course, who are we kidding…Nicola “the Help Desk” McConville probably has an alert to “ping” her across the globe at the electronic mention of her name. At which point, I will get bad computer karma until I blog about how great her dog is and she lifts the hex. =)

But maybe with my mother tucked safely away in her homeland I can FINALLY blog about her side-swiping my brother’s brick mailbox (I mean the one that used to be there). You would be amazed at how evenly matched a Buick is to a brick edifice. [Nicola – NO FAIR printing this out for mom before you guys go to the airport!!!]

So stay caught up on your blog-reading because I will sooooooooooooo be deleting THIS entry before my mother returns.