So I must be playing the wrong game. Maybe a life goal is not what I really need. Rather, I would find more enjoyment in setting short term, attainable and tangible goals.

First Goal: Break a minute in the 100yd free. This is something I might be able to accomplish tomorrow, and if not, I think it can be done in a matter of weeks or months. But this is what I want, a tangible goal that is within reach. Something to help motivate me to get out of bed at 4:30am.

One thing I would like to try to do initially, is set one goal for one area, and stick to achieving that goal only. I have thought of a series of goals related to lifting I would like to achieve, but first I need to order them, and pick a goal that can be accomplished in a few months.

Long term goals are great, but I need to get into the goal setting mindset, and hopefully setting goals that have a short time frame will keep me motivated to come up with and track goals. Those goals are stepping stones to the big goals. The “independently wealthy” goal is a prefect example. Everyone has this goal, but almost no one has an intermediary goal that they can work to accomplish today.

I have several ideas for areas I would like to set goals. Fitness goals will be the easiest for me to set, but I would also like to set financial goals, business goals and potentially career goals.

Setting goals should also help push me outside my comfort area. Not only will this help me grow, it should also keep boredom at bay. Everyone has performed some task where they were just going through the motions, without putting any real effort into it. This is counter productive for anything from working out to working.

In four years time, I hope they take some steps to improve the swimming coverage. Rowdy Gaines either needs to accurately announce what is going on, or NBC needs to publish the rules to Rowdy bingo. Andrea Kremer, please ask better questions or just let the swimmers warm down. NBC as a whole could try to cover someone other than Phelps. Phelps is great, but everything does not have to be about Phelps. There are a couple dozen US swimmers who will medal and a dozen US coaches. Certainly there is some variety in perspective on the sport in general and the Olympics games itself that would be interesting to viewers from this contingent. Fuck, ask the basketball players what they thought of the swimming. I guarantee that will entertain.

This was a punishing week for me. I am now nice and cranky, but not because swimming is over. Since there has been Olympic BS going on since Sunday, I have not gotten a full nights sleep in a week. It is amazing that you can get up at 4:30am, go to work all day and still have time to watch 18 hours of TiVo’ed olympic swimming.

One last rant. If you happen to work for the Times as an editorial writer and you don’t know shit about swimming, do not try to discredit swimming and the accomplishments of Phelps. How can you claim that butterfly and free style are the same thing, but a track runner can’t do a 100M, 200M and 400M? Those are totally different races? Have you heard of Usain Bolt?

Happily, I won’t have to hear moron’s opinions on swimming for another 4 years.

Why categorize and track every dollar spent when my way is so much easier?

Well, it clicked for me last week why anyone would want to do it the hard way, and track where each dollar is spent and compare those numbers to an annual budget. What did I discover? I don’t need a budget now and my method works great. But in the future, what happens when I don’t have a job and my income is not a predictable and steady stream? Aka, when I retire, how will my lack of discipline now adversely affect my retirement? Easy, I will have no clear idea how much it costs me to live the life I lived while I worked, nor will I have the information available to determine if I have the financial resources to live the retired life I want to live. Instead, I would live in fear that I did not save enough to retire, and either post pone retirement indefinitely, or spend the first several years trying to figure out how much I can spend each year without knowing if I am forgetting something that will burn through my retirement savings before I am done being retired.

Now I need to start budgeting more traditionally to prepare for the future. The question remains, how am I going to build a yearly budget, and track my expenses with the plan of using the information gathered over the next 30 years to aid in determining how and when to retire.

This information will also be useful if a discussion of semi retirement, relocation or career changes comes up. I imagine in the next 30 years, at least one of those will come up.

http://www.swimroom.com/?page_id=87

Mark Warkentin’s blog, he is the open water swimmer, is quite entertaining. Since he is an open water swimmer, his workouts are a bit different then the rest of the team, and the 10k swim is towards the end of the olympics while the rest of swimming is the first week. He gives a very nice perspective of training camp since he is very much an outsider looking in. An outsider who competed at the international level in the pool before switching to open water, so he is not an ostracized outsider, but someone with a different perspective on what is going on.

It is definitely worth reading his blog if you are interested in the behind the scenes training that goes on right before the olympics.

Now, if you don’t give a shit about swimming, I have a swimming video for you.

http://www.floswimming.org/videos/coverage/view_video/271-weekly-wednesday-workout/14531-the-main-set-auburn-sprinters

Auburn is a top division I swimming school (top 3 at NCAAs consistently). This nice little workout is a puke set, literally Watch and be entertained.

Chamberlain’s is easy to get to in Addison and does not funnel everyone into valet. I would actually suggest skipping valet, because valet was quite backed up when we left and the rear parking lot is only about 20 feet from the door. This is definitely not one of those places where, if you don’t valet, you have to hike a mile to get a parking spot.

I liked the decor of the restaurant, it is very old school with lots of dark stained wood paneling and exposed brick walls. There are two dining areas, the main floor and the back room which only has four tables. We ate in the back room so that it would be more quiet and we could talk easier. The problem is, it is too quiet and the main floor isn’t some noisy bustling restaurant floor. So if you want to enjoy some anonymous conversation, the main floor is probably a better choice. The back room would be nice for a private party, but with only four tables, there is a good chance that when you are talking, the other tables may be in a period of silence, aka, enjoying your conversation too.

The wait staff was professional, but not smooth. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that, but go to the French Room and go here, and they are different. The French Room also costs twice as much I liked our waitress and she did a good job taking care of us. It could have also been that I was uncomfortable since I think this was the first upscale dining experience I can remember having with my mother. Not to say that I expected her to play football with the bread, but I worry about stupid shit like waiter-diner interaction.

The preview menu was very good. There was a wide selection, so if you didn’t want to eat fish, you could get a steak. Each course had a variety of selection with creative, but safe, preparations. Most of the table had shrimp and sweet corn salad for a starter, and everyone loved it, and wondered why we didn’t make it at home. The preparation seemed simple, but the combination of textures and flavors was wonderful. This was paired with a glass of Chalone Vineyards Chardonnay, Monterey 2006. I am not a big white wine drinker, and this is a perfect example of why. This wine seemed uninteresting to me. It did not enhance or compliment the flavor of the dish, nor did the dish seem to bring out anything extra in the wine. The wine just seemed to not compete with the dish. It was just something cool and refreshing to drink with my starter, like ice water with alcohol and a little flavoring. Of course, WTF do you expect for a $5.50 glass of wine. Jim had the coconut soup, which he liked because he enjoys eating crab, but not all the work that goes into getting crab meat out of the crab. He is a Shiraz drinker, and while I didn’t question him directly about the wine, the impression I got was that he thought his wine pairing was exactly as he expected it would be. White wine

The main course was divided between two halibut orders, one pork loin order and salmon skewer (the full menu is attached at the end). My mother and I each had the halibut, and I have to say, if either Brook or I could prepare fish like this, I would actually eat fish on a regular basis. I rarely get fish. I do not like oily fish like salmon, but I try to order into a restaurant’s strengths.

Side story. I enforced this belief onto Brook when we went to Morton’s a few years back. She was planning on ordering fish, and I gave her the “WTF is wrong with you, we are at a famous STEAK house. Actually, don’t worry about it, I will enjoy making fun of you for the rest of dinner for ordering fish at a steakhouse.” Brook ordered a steak which happened to be the best steak she has ever had, and has since always tries to order from a restaurants strengths. As a reward, I will take her to restaurants that specialize in seafood, so she can get a decent piece of fish. I just suffer.

Back on track. I ordered the halibut this night like I said and I certainly did not suffer this night. It was wonderful. Halibut is a white fish, so it lacks that fishy aftertaste that a fatty fish like salmon leaves you with. It also has little flavor, leaving the chef with just texture to build on. I didn’t lick my plate (and I worry about other people at a nice restaurant?), but I strongly considered it. My mother also enjoyed her fish although she might have actually left something on her plate. Another white wine was paired with this, a Solaris Chardonnay, Monterey 2004 which was a great find, because Brook liked it. Brook is a Riesling drinker, which fine, except there is a rather small selection of Riesling compared to a Chardonnay. There might only be a half a dozen Rieslings to choose from at the local liquor store, but there are probably 5 or 6 dozen Chardonnay’s.

Brook had the salmon skewer, which must have just met expectations because she didn’t comment on it at all. What she did comment on was that it was served with quinoa. Quinoa is an african grain that tastes like broccoli, Brook has made once because it is gluten free, and I have never partaken since. I mean, it is like little granules of broccoli rice. Does that sound appealing? Apparently Chamberlain’s makes good quinoa, but I passed on a taste test. It is tough to trust a celaic, since they can’t eat wheat, what they consider “excellent” to them can be quite horrible to a normal palette.

Jim ordered the crayfish stuffed pork loin. I have a sneaking suspicion that he ordered this because it was paired with a Shiraz. I totally forgot to ask him if he had that Shiraz before and if he enjoyed it. He did say that he enjoyed the pork loin, and it looked great. It looked better than my halibut in fact, but after having the halibut, I certainly would not have traded. Jim is a man of few words unless you get him going on construction, so I don’t have any impressions to share, but he was a member of the clean plate club.

Dessert! No cookies, no chocolate, so as far as dessert goes, I just pick the least bad choice on the menu. I had the tiramisu, which was good, but heavy on the mascarpone. Some of the lady fingers were actually almost dry, which I found a little strange. It was good, I like dairy rich, but I could see how some people would be disappointed. The real find was the wine served with dessert. The Scarpona, Moscato d’ Asti, Italy was just awesome. It was sweet, lighty, did not have a thick mouth feel, nor a cloying after taste that can be common with sweet dessert wines. It was very enjoyable, and Brook probably drank half my glass. The wine is very low alcohol, thus the reason it is so sweet. Wonderful find.

Jim passed on the final wine course that was paired with his cheese cake. He demolished the cheese cake, so it was either very good, or he was still hungry after 3 course and 3 glasses of wine.

Brook had a celiac problem with the desserts, everything had a component including gluten. So she ended up getting just the coconut sorbet, which she said was very good. I don’t like coconut, so I didn’t partake in the huge scoop she had.

I didn’t even review the wine list or the traditional dinner menu. I am sure they are decent and excellent, in that order, but when I arrived I was quite hungry, and didn’t want to delay the arrival of the appetizers too much. Bread preceded the appetizers, and it was good, and the compound butter it was served with, we actually considered taking with us. It was a well salted garlic butter, and it went awesome with the crusty sour dough.

One mistake I think we made was that the preview menu included a cocktail and none of us partook. If I would have been thinking a little more clearly, I would have tried it, since it was included in the price. Oops.

None of us tried the specialty course. I don’t like salmon, but no one was really interested in the combo. If the main component would have been anything but salmon, I would have given it a try. I dislike salmon so much, that the only thing I did not like at the French Room was a intermezzo course that was a salmon confit. If one of the best chefs in Dallas can’t make salmon I like, there is little hope for a salmon deviled egg. Still, I wish someone would have ordered it so I could have seen it.

And now the menu, reproduced without permission, but it is on the web anyway.

R E S T A U R A N T W E E K P R E V I E W M E N U

August 8 - 10, 2008

s t a r t e r s

Texas Shrimp and Sweet Corn Salad with marinated tomatoes
Paired: Chalone Vineyards Chardonnay, Monterey 2006

10 Cane Rum and Citrus Cured Salmon with Chive Crepe and Lola Rosa Salad
Paired: Firesteed Pinot Gris, Oregon, 2006

King Crab and Coconut Soup with Kaffir Lime
Paired: Two Oceans Sauvignon Blanc, South Africa 2007

s p e c i a l t y c o u r s e

Wild Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs with Caviar Crème Fraiche

CHOICE OF ENTREES

Lemon and Pine Nut Crusted Halibut with Tomato Caper Bruschetta
Paired: Solaris Chardonnay, Monterey 2004

Peppered Filet Mignon with Yukon Mashers and Port Wine
Paired: Cellar No. 8 Zinfandel, California 2005

Crawfish Stuffed Pork Loin with Wild Mushroom Rice Pilaf
Paied: McWilliams Shiraz, Australia 2006

Shrimp and Salmon Skewer with Quinoa and Citrus
Paired: Mirassou Pinot Noir, California 2007

DESSERTS

White Chocolate Passion Fruit Cheesecake
Paired: Pacific Rim Riesling, Columbia Valley 2007

Mango Sorbet with Tropical Fruit Compoteand Macadamia Cookie
Paired: Muscat de Saint Jean de Minervois, France 2006

Gran Marnier Tiramisu
Paired: Scarpona, Moscato d’ Asti, Italy

* * * * * * * * * *

three courses food
with 10 Cane Rum
Blue Point Cocktail
$40 per person

three courses wine
add $16.50 per person
any 3 glasses from the restaurant week menu

specialty course
add $5 per person

First work. I don’t love my job, but I don’t dread Mondays in the least, and when someone calls me in the evening to help them solve a production outage, I am happy to work with them. I feel that I am well respected by my peers as well as management, and adequately compensated for my time. If I could find a job where I loved what I did, that would be a step up, but I am happy to settle for just contentment.

Completion of school was not a goal that I accomplished that improved my spirits. It is the free time that completing my degree has provided me that has allowed me to enjoy my evenings and weekends without the pressure of deadlines, get adequate rest and nutrition, and part take in activities I enjoy. School is something that is behind me and a feather in my cap, but it didn’t change me so much as the process of completing my degrees in rapid succession while working gave me a new perspective on time.

Going forward, I am working to enjoy all my time. My brother suffered from life threatening Good Pastures with several rounds of complications that put him on the brink of death, a close co-worker has been diagnosed with cancer and is currently undergoing chemo and my Aunt has just been diagnosed with cancer and will be undergoing surgery soon. All these situations are life threatening, but death is the natural conclusion of life. When my time comes to be threatened with death, I want to face down death without regrets that if I lose the battle, I might have missed the better part of my life. I want the better part of my life always be the day that leads up to my death, not some future date that may never happen.

That said, I am not going out and buying a Porsche

So why do I need a foam roller and what are they for? Three weeks ago, I pulled something in my upper back while squating my warm up weight. Is my warm up weight 400 lbs because I am hard core? No. A real warm up. First set, bar with no weight, just to practice form. I probably did it grabbing the bar, even before squating.

For the next three days I could not sleep more than an hour through the night. I cut out swimming and lifting completely for a week, did kick only for a week and then returned to light swim workouts and still have not returned to lifting.

Lots of reading about my back.

What did I do? I probably strained one of of the small muscles in my back that stabilizes my shoulder.

What caused the problem? Several things. First, I was lifting heavy chest and light back, creating an imbalance. To aggravate that situation, I have poor posture when I sit. Luckily, I only sit 95% of the hours I am awake. Last week I was training individuals at their desks, where I was typically standing behind them most of the day. This is probably the biggest reason for my quick recovery. Instead of sitting for 10 hours at work, I sat for less than 1. My back feels much better this week.

So foam roller? Yes, I got the foam roller over the weekend to help relax my back. It is used for all big muscles in the body, but I was most interested in what it could do for my back. It is very easy to use for the back. You essentially balance your upper back on the noodle/foam roller, and then use your legs to roll your back from top to bottom, stopping on any points that hurt, until the pain decreases.

Other than the back, the roller is really only good for the muscles in the legs. I was ready and expected the level of pain that I experienced in my back “rolling” myself, but after playing racketball, rolling my hamstrings and IT band, OUCH!

After 10 minutes of rolling, I felt great. It is very similar to post yoga, where the body feels nicely relaxed, but completely awake. No idea if that makes sense, but you are very aware of your body, and it is ready to go workout, or go to sleep.

Last night, I rolled for the first time right before bed. This was a good idea, and I went right to sleep.

Now, what do I do with the dogs when they decide it is time to help?

The nuggets of wisdom that are acquired during the course of a day are fascinating.

If I had unlimited funds and unlimited free time, I still have no idea what I would do long term. Sure, short term I have all kinds of things I want to do, but I get bored easily. So after I have bought a Ruf Turbo and driven down the autobahn for a few days, then what? Maybe it would be interesting for months or years, but I doubt I could entertain myself with cars for more than a couple days. Probably a couple days for each new car, but I would need to take a break between cars.

I like food, but I would get tired of eating. I am inherently lazy, so it is unlikely that I would become a serious chef on the side. I don’t like people, so becoming a socialite is out.

Maybe this book will give me an idea. This is a reoccurring question that have have yet to ever answer.

What do I want to do with my life?

I think the same justifications hold for a traditional CS education. You might not actually use the knowledge directly, but it creates a basis of understanding that will help accomplish what you actually do use on a daily basis.

Coding the Wheel is my favorite blog right now. I could care less about windows programming, but with his posts about poker bots, I get all excited about the neat hacks that make the windows world work.