Police statement of the week

"'We're not saying this is illegal,' Balzano said. 'We would just like to know what it means.'"

Run Recap

Just realized I'd forgotten to post a recap of the Over the Dam Run, or as the back of the shirt says, "The Best Run By A Dam Site."

Well, the words that pop to mind are hot, dry, painful, and fun. I survived. I was not the last person to cross the finish line. Nor was I the last man to cross the finish line. Nor was I lapped by any of the half-marathon runners (although it was close...the first of them came in about 15 minutes after me).

At the same time, I was not fleet of foot. I made about the time I expected (I think the official time was 1:14 or so). Could I have run faster? Possibly. But I didn't.

My results:

• 95th overall (out of 116 10k runners)
• 54th out of 58 men
• Last (7th) in my age group (35 - 39)
  

Elements that acted against me that I will need to focus on in the future:

1. Weather: I'm from Seattle. It's cool and damp most of the time, and I like that. The run was in Grand Coulee where it is warm and dry. The marathon is in Portland in September where it will likely be warm or hot and dry-ish. Fortunately, it will be hot and dry-ish this summer when I'm racking up the miles.
2. Hills: the course had two fairly brutal hills. My training route doesn't. The Marathon has one killer hill at mile 17 and another one somewhere else. I need to start shifting my training route to work in more hills, clearly!
3. Food: my normal running time is around 5 AM. I get up, drink some water, hit the Albuterol, get dressed and head out. I don't eat until I'm back and out of the shower. On race day I got up and dressed, ate, then drove for 2 hours to the race site. I then ate a banana and some "SportBeans" (which, I might add, are delicious) and drank more water. This, plus the sun and hills, led to some gastric distress and resulted in a pit stop at about mile 3.5. As the milage increases I'm going to have to figure out how to manage the energy level so I don't hit the wall too early (or at all). Any suggestions, anyone?

You go, Willie!

From Contactmusic.com:

"American singer WILLIE NELSON uses marijuana to judge the quality of the new melodies he writes. The 73-year-old has smoked cannabis for most of his adult life and is a campaigner to have the drug legalised. And he insists smoking joints helps rather than hinders his songwriting. He says, 'I figured if it wasn't worth remembering it probably wasn't a very good song, so that would be the test, to see if I remembered it (after smoking a joint and) got back to a guitar or a piano. 'That was usually a pretty good measuring stick, but I'm sure I forgot a few that might have been OK.'"

Headline of the week: BBC axes pole dancing

From our good friends at The Sun Online. Apparently they were going to do a "Pole Dancing With the Stars" show or something, then cut it when people complained. Sissies.

"Protect and Serve?" Apparently not in Baltimore...

Lots of punch lines to go with this one, but I'll go with the obvious: "here's why you don't stop to ask directions."

Couple Arrested For Asking For Directions

And why is this relevant?

So in today's Seattle PI there's an article with this headline: Utility pays $8 million in fatal gas explosion. It tells the tale of Frances Schmitz, a 68-year-old woman from Bellevue whose house exploded due to corrosion of a gas line. She was horribly burned, died as a result, and the family sued. All well and good.

Then you get to the last line of the article: "Schmitz was the sister of Seattle strip-club magnate Frank Colacurcio Sr."

Why does that matter? Does it make her family less worthy of the settlement than if her brother had been, say, a Priest or Rabbi? Or does her brother's profiting from the baser natures of man make her a target for God's wrath via Puget Sound Energy? Or was it just a factoid the reporters had on hand and they figured they'd better put it in somewhere?

Finally, some good legal news

If you've ever seen my swing, you know why this is important.

Golfer Not Liable for Errant Golf Ball

Real Men of Genius

Well, real boys of genius, anyway...

Teen Says Friend Asked to Be Hit With Car

Man, I wish I had a tape of that little conversation...

Two pieces of running inspiration for the week

First up we have Jim Hicks from Spokane (I think...). I know I'm overweight...by standard BMI readings I'm so obese I shouldn't be able to get off the couch (apparently it's not normal for a guy who's 5'7 to weigh 225 or whatever I'm at right now). But then, the BMI doesn't account for "frame size" and I've got a big one. "Big Boned" as my sainted mother would say.

Anyhow, I've got nothing on Jim. He started out close to 600 pounds a few years ago, now he's down to 195 and does triathlons. He's running the half marathon distance in the Over the Dam run this Sunday.

Second we have Steven Bethune, a 24-year-old grad student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He's not 600 pounds. In fact, from the picture he looks like a runner. Which is good, since this summer he's going to run across the freaking country to raise money for the American Heart Association. He's trying to raise $50,000, which works out to what...$16.67 a mile or so? He's starting in New York on August 15th and will end up in California some time later. The "Itinerary" link on the site doesn't work, so we can't see the route, but the word is he's going to average about 40 miles a day which, assuming he takes no time off at all (which would be insane...) would put him in California some time in late October or early November.

I now no longer think that running a marathon in October is crazy, nor does it seem dauntingly impossible. But then, I haven't had to run more than 5.5 miles yet...

Score one for the Phillippines

Headline of the day: Penis reattached after maid cuts it off

"Earlier this month newspapers reported that the maid removed her employer's manhood when he tried to molest her in the middle of the night as his wife was sleeping. The maid is now in police custody."

I find the use of "molest" in this paragraph interesting...we almost always see "molest" in terms of children rather than adults, so wouldn't the word here be "rape?" Or does "rape" inherintly imply violence? According to Dictionary.com the definition of "molest" is this:

Molest transitive verb
1 : to annoy, disturb, or persecute esp. with hostile intent or injurious effect
2 : to make annoying sexual advances to; specifically : to force physical and usually sexual contact on (as a child)

Or perhaps the reasoning for the choice of "molest" is in the definition of "rape":

rape n.
1. The crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse.
2. The act of seizing and carrying off by force; abduction.
3. Abusive or improper treatment; violation: a rape of justice.

Since this is a case in Saudi Arabia perhaps "molest" is the proper word, since there's probably no law against a man forcing himself on his maid.

If she's lucky she'll be deported and sent back home. If she's not, well, I don't think I want to know what the punishment is for disenmanhoodization.

Coincidence?

I think not...on the same day that Governor Gregoire selects the state quarter design with a salmon and Mt. Rainier (the top one), CNN reports that a giant fin is growing out of the crater of Mt. St. Helens.

Can anyone deny that the good mountain is expressing her displeasure at the Governor's (and on-line voter's) dissing of the Orca design (bottom one)?

Headlines of the day

And they're both about people with problems I don't have:

Nicole Richie Trying to Gain Weight

Bill Gates wishes he weren't so rich

Things that will make you stop drinking, #173

Finding a "pickled corpse" at the bottom of your Rum barrel. And we're not talking about a rat or something, no, it's a 20-years-dead naked man.

Fortunately, according to those who drank the run, it had a "special taste"...

Word of the day

Courtesy of the fine folk at the Urban Dictionary: Rail:

1. Rail

To fornicate with, without regard for emotional attachment.

I want to rail your sister, hard.

There are 18 other definitions (most involving drugs), but this is the only one that mentioned your sister.

From the people who brought you the Duct Tape Chemical Attack Safety Plan

Your friends at FEMA, or Homeland Security, or whatever Government Agency is in charge of the next major panic would like you to remain calm and review the safety instructions at PandemicFlu.gov.

There, you will learn that the Government's Pandemic Planning Assumptions are "based largely on the 1918 influenza epidemic"

You'll also learn that, for example, Washington State "will receive $1,990,994 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to use for pandemic planning activities." Glad they didn't round that up to an even $1,991,000 for us... (find out what YOUR state is getting here)

Darwin at work: Soap Lake man selected out

There's no picture of the guy, but we can only assume he had a mullet...

From the Seattle PI:

Soap Lake man electrocuted while trying to reconnect power
SOAP LAKE, Wash. -- A man whose electrical service was cut off because of unpaid bills was electrocuted while trying to restore power to his isolated rural home, Grant County sheriff's deputies said.
Joseph M. Sims, 44, fell 20 feet to the ground and could not be revived after he was hit by 7,620 volts of electricity while using two large metal poles to try to reinstall a fuse in the line to the rental home about seven miles northeast of this central Washington town, deputies and Coroner Jerry D. Jasman said.
He made the attempt several hours after his residence was disconnected by the Grant County Public Utility District on Monday for nonpayment, sheriff's Deputy John Turley said.

Cool product of the week

Yeah, I know that the headline makes it seem like I do a cool product every week. But still, the SawStop is a really cool product. If I a) had a bunch of money, b) had a shop, and c) still did any wood-working I'd buy this sucker in a heartbeat.

The "Hot Dog Demo" video (Windows Media or QuickTime) would have been more impressive if it was the guy's finger, but hey, it's still pretty darn cool.

Father of the year

I'm not sure exactly what is the worst thing about this picture. Is it the matching haircuts? Is it Dad's slightly evil look that leads me to believe he's eyeing a nubile young high-school cheerleader? Is it that Dad appears to be riding a BMX bike? Or is it the whole "taking the kid on a bike ride in a backpack with no helmet while talking on a cell phone" thing?

Holy Wally World, Batman!

Man, 4 hours in a school bus is rarely fun, but to spend those 4 hours on the bus only to learn that the Amusement Park is closed is, I'm guessing, even LESS fun. Wouldn't have wanted to be the teacher that broke THAT little piece of news!

I'm a little behind the times...

I didn't realize someone had developed a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore.

Thankfully, people who know this kind of thing are putting it on the web where we can all find it. Personally, I'm in favor of #4, "Meticulously and systematically deconstructed".