Day 79: Life Returns

Spring is here (I think it's safe to say it now).

Yay!

Day 78: Supermoon

Supermoon ended up being really cool to photograph (and challenging). Also, it was freezing.

Day 77: Pre-Supermoon

Apparently the real supermoon is tomorrow, though if it's significantly larger tomorrow than today I will be astonished. In any case, there will be tripod tomorrow so the shot should be better, this is me laying in bed looking out the window.

The weekend is here so of course I feel illness coming on just in time, must be spring pollens since I'm short of breath. Whee!

Also, this is the original of yesterday's photo, for Kaytee:

Day 76: Raw Deal

So I finally switched to shooting in RAW, and am now glad that I did. Why? Because I was able to remove most of the signs that this view of the Philadelphia skyline was shot from a moving train.

I was in Baltimore today briefly (5 hours). I am up to my neck in work. Thank god tomorrow is Friday.

Day 75: Triangle

This is a work photo. We have a display up in the lobby of our building to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Fire (UNITE HERE is a successor union of the ILGWU). Several of my very talented colleagues put in a lot of effort to produce this and it's just fantastic.

Day 74: Red Red Wine

Things you find on the streets of Manhattan.

Also, I am so mad at my silly autofocus right now. Guess I should have taken more of this.

Day 73: Knights of Columbus

The big day in New Haven went well. Came back to the city and saw Radiolab Live with Nathan and really enjoyed it, it was entertaining, provocative, and I learned all sorts of new things.

And then I saw a certain man from my past that I had just been thinking about last night, and had said to myself, you know, I'm certain to run into him now that I live in New York, I wonder how soon? He was with his parents so I didn't go up to him, mostly just hoped he saw and recognized me. Probably not. 2003 was a long time ago.

Day 72: Medals

Here are the silly medals they were giving out at the meet (New York State Short-Course Yards Championships - which is not to suggest that all masters' swimming in NYS was represented).

My results:

200 Free: 2:07, 6th place

50 Free: 24.05, 2nd place

100 Free: 54.4, 4th place

200 Medley Relay: 24.3 split, 1st place

200 Free Relay: 23.5 split, 1st place

Winning the relays was a great high point to the weekend, and I am really happy about my results overall. They're on par with 11th grade, which makes sense since I'm training about as hard right now as I did then. If I want to be hitting 21.9/49.7/1:53 obviously I'll need to be in the water something like 14 hours a week and lifting.

I had so much fun with my team the past two days and just feel incredibly happy right now.

Big day in New Haven tomorrow.

Day 71: Back in the Saddle

Here's Charles, our superstar, setting a new meet record in the 18-24 200 fly.

Today I was out on Long Island for my first swim meet since NCAC Championships back in February 2001. First swim in the 200 free was pretty terrible (2:07) but that's an event I've always done inconsistently, and have also always disliked.

My 50 went really well though (:24.0); last I swam it was in 2006 in 23.8, and before that had a shaved 22.8 in college. I'm really happy to know that my sprint is still in the same league as it was when I was 21.

Day 70: iPad 2

Sure it probably counts as cheating. The main thing I accomplished today was getting a new iPad. I didn't initially miss my old one when I sold it for a 11" MacBook Air, but after a few weeks I found myself wishing I had the iPad instead. Once my WoW days were over, I no longer had a reason to "need" a personal laptop, with my mobile production needs covered by my work machine, so I was once again interested in a couch-top device to keep me away from my desk.

This device is really incredible. Very happy so far, but need someone to test out Facetime with.