More Gloating About the Marathon
My running mate at work has pulled up with microfractures along his right shin, requiring rest for at least a week, if not putting him out of contention altogether. He's very committed, so I hope not, as I'm also looking forward to beating his time, since our runs together tend to be just a little slower, more often than not, than my solo runs. Still, he's twenty years younger, at least, so I won't feel bad about a different outcome.

I screwed up my Saturday run, though, when I was supposed to do 24k and only accomplished 22, as a result of not studying the mapped route carefully enough in respect to the final 4k, which led me to cut off a loop at the end. It's actually getting rather difficult to find longer and longer runs that aren't just loops around the same stretches of road, with a couple of final turns around a couple of local blocks, which also led me to a really difficult bike ride across a few bridges up north, and which probably won't end up as an new route, simply because I got so thoroughly turned around trying to find the bike paths.

Of course, I also recognize that all these marathon-related posts must be getting dull, a failing I think that inevitably occurs in those of us who train for such things, but it does become an obsession, so please don't think it's all just gloating smugness at how fit I'm becoming. I am pleased to go have some trousers taken in, just the same.

Long Weekend
I planned my weekend around a Saturday afternoon Rabbitohs home game, and the fact that I had to go to the bank, the post office, and visit a doctor to have some stitches removed (minor kitchen incident). In the end, since the knots had come undone, I did the stitches myself. The remaining chores, at opposite ends of the city, presented similar levels of difficulty, but provided plenty of opportunity for riding my bike. It was only having to navigate the crazed Catholics meandering through town with absolutely no awareness of anything around them but themselves. Nice they had a good time, I suppose, but there were more barricades up than for APEC, and not all of us were headed for mass at Randwick Racecourse (where, I suppose, a trifecta bet could only be Father-Son-Holy Ghost). I’m not a little glad to see the end of “World Youth Day”.

The Rabbitohs game, however, turned out to be on Sunday, which meant I had to do my 16k run and head straight out to Olympic Park. (Speaking of which, Olympic Park, where the various venues left over from 2000 have little to occupy themselves, was used as a gigantic shelter for many hundreds of WYD pilgrims, sleeping on the floor of various gymnasiums and so forth, serviced by semi-trailer showering and toilet facilities.) But the Bunnies lost, badly, outplayed by Wests Tigers, and I returned home tired and a little muscle-sore, in rather a bad mood, facing a large load of laundry to complete, exacerbating the gloom of the evening.

Wascals
The Mighty Bunnies won last night, against the Parramatta Eels, in what was probably one of the most fun evenings I've spent at a sporting event. It was a bigger crowd than usual, which may be attributable in part to (a) their winning streak, now at 5-in-a-row (for the first time since 1994); and (b) World Youth Day, for which a special seating section was on offer, although I can't say that there was any evidence of Catholic pilgrims visible.

Talking Down
I never voted for the man, but I have had little, if anything, against the Reverend Jesse Jackson, even admiring him as a candidate for President, perhaps especially in knowing he never stood a chance. But he’s a showboat, and known for his inappropriate commentary - remember “hymie town”? I’ll bet there a lot of Jewish NY’ers who do. Unfortunately, like the Reverend Al Sharpton, Jackson is regarded as an African-American spokesman especially when he does or says something harmful to himself or his community, a situation you’d think he’d recognise and try to mitigate, rather than offering the Bill O’Reilly’s of the world more ammunition. It’s not going to hurt Obama among his supporters, but it’s going to give aid and comfort to those who will irrationally oppose his candidacy, which will have the inevitable effect of swaying the weak-minded into a knee-jerk vote for Bomb-Iran (with cigarettes) McCain, just when they might very well be willing to try something different, as well as to support the disgruntled Clintonites in doing something equally stupid. Why do Democrats seem so intent on shooting each other in the foot?

This Little Light
M. & I caught the Rolling Stones concert flick, Shine a Light, over the weekend, about which I'll say, it's a well-done concert movie, if not necessarily a stand-out; the Stones are pretty much, by the evidence of the performance documented, very set in their persona, very much aware of themselves as performers, as The Stones, and don't offer much in any way new or fresh of themselves; Buddy Guy, who appears for one song, blows them all away, as acknowledged by Keith Richards, who, in a gesture of submission, hands his guitar to Guy, saying, "this is yours". I really have to find a copy of Stop Making Sense, now, to round out the concert movie experience, but I don't expect it to exceed Berlin.

Highways
I bought a bike last weekend, to help me figure out new routes around home, as the distances get longer, so I won't be left just doing loops of the shorter distances already plotted out on Map My Run. My specific first inspection tour, last Sunday, was to find a way, if such existed, across the Anzac Bridge. It wouldn't add much distance, per se, but it would mean crossing a bridge, which would be beneficial for race day, when, last year, anyway, the marathon crossed three bridges. Hill work, essentially. I didn't find the bike path until I was already well into highway traffic, at which point I discovered myself running parallel to the pedestrian/bike lane, separated by a concrete barrier. At the first break in traffic, I hauled the bike across and proceeded normally. All well and good, but this week, for my 19k run, I figured on hooking up with the bike path on spec; that is, I made an unfortunate assumption of where it started. Nope. It actually starts on the other side of Victoria Road, and has a overpass of its own to join up with the bridge's bike/footpath. So, as usual, it seems, I was left with bushwacking my way to a point where I could rejoin the plotted route. Less dangerous than the previous weekend, but frustrating. I'll have to make a trip into town, soon, to see about something similar for the Harbour Bridge, not to mention finding a way over the Lane Cove Bridge. That'd put me three-for-three on the previous route's bridges, although I hear this year the route's been changed. Apparently, international participation rates are low because the course has been considered too hard. (Too hard? These people run marathons for money. Wimps.)

Meanwhile, as we all know, intensive aerobic exercise shuts down certain autonomic processes, i.e., digestion, which I've discovered affects me rather dramatically, post-run, at distances more than 10k. We shall have to hope not to be "caught short" come race day. Say no more.

Sound and Vision
If I don't write about it shortly after the fact, it seems I just forget, but I'm finally getting around to mentioning the Sydney Film Festival screening I attended with M. two weeks ago, at the Metro Theatre, sort of an odd venue for movies, as it's a concert hall normally, but it worked out well enough, in a cross-referential way, as the movie was the concert film for Lou Reed's Berlin, performed live for the first time ever in Brooklyn's St Ann's in 2006. It played the Sydney Festival, the annual arts-around-town event, in 2007, but the tickets were terribly expensive, so we didn't go, even though M. is a long-time devotee of the album, as am I. A lot of people disparage it, and there are elements I find a little over-the-top, but nevertheless, it is as complete a concept album as was ever produced during the period when concept albums were all the rage. Because it was the follow-up to Transformer, I think a lot of people were just so disoriented by the album's thorough departure from its predecessor, that they never gave it a proper chance. And having seen this concert, or film thereof, anyway, I have to tell you it's time to go back and listen to Berlin again. Julian Schnabel did a great job as the director, capturing the concert experience quite effectively. Antony Hegarty, of Antony & the Johnsons, was a featured backup singer, performing an encore on lead vocal of "Candy Says," from the Velvet Underground's eponymous third album, and, it's rumoured, Schnabel's daughter was one of the choir members. What was most remarkable, somehow, was the pure emotionality of Lou Reed's performance. He was deeply involved in the story he was telling, and I even thought he was on the verge of tears. This is a concert film to stand up with all the best concert films. I may see about renting Stop Making Sense, well, after I go see Shine a Light, just to round things off.

Trail Mix
Wow, that mid-week 8k could have gone better. I went into the nearby park, following the road that winds along the river, crossing Delhi Road over into a small subdivision that more or less backs onto the industrial park I work in, intending to cut across a bit of the Great Northern Walk trail to loop back through and around. It amounts to nearly 8 1/2 kilometers, but that was about as close as I could plot, and a better route, on the map, than the 5-6k extension I'd worked out earlier. I didn't get lost, but still ended up having run for more than an hour, well beyond what my pace should have led to, largely as a result of the trail turning out to be far more difficult than anticipated. Having reached a rocky escarpment, I discovered the trail had disappeared, and had to spend some considerable time locating a marker. Once that was done, I was faced with a steep, winding staircase, cut in among the natural rock, leading back down to Delhi Road. By the time I got down, I was breathing normally, so the run back wasn't too hard, at least not until the final stretch leading out of the park, which, while not terribly steep, is a bit long, at least for that stage of the run. God only knows what I'm going to end up with once the kilometers really pile up mid-week, or where, for the matter. Tomorrow's 5k will have to serve as a muscle-loosener for the 16 on Saturday. I am ow.

Progress
I've been tracking my marathon training in Map My Run. I'm pretty satisfied with how I'm going, although Saturday's 8K was harder than I expected. I guess I didn't get enough sleep or went out too hard at the start, probably the latter, since I still finished within the 5:30/K range. I don't know that the MMR reports are particularly useful. I suppose if I was tracking calories or weight loss, maybe more so, but the bars seem to be pretty even. (I also don't know if that link will work for anyone, although I believe I've allowed my training profile to be public.) It's not reasonable to suppose that I'll keep up the 5-5:30 pace over the upcoming weeks, as the kilometerage (?) piles up, let alone over the actual race, but wouldn't that be something? This Saturday, Hal Higdon ups the ante to 14K, and the midweek runs go from 5-6-5 to 5-8-5, and pretty much every week thereafter just climbs and climbs. Ow.

Luck
According to the package insert, "Shisa" (talismans from Okinawa) are paired decorative sculptural images, more or less like a cross between a lion and a dog, which are placed on rooftops or flanking doorways or gates to one's home. "Shisa are wards, believed to protect from various evils. When found in pairs, the shisa on the right traditionally has an open mouth, and the one on the left, a closed mouth. The open mouth is to let good spirits in, and the closed mouth is to keep bad spirits out. Originally, pairs like this were called 'shisa and guardian dogs': the left, with its mouth closed, is the guardian; the right, with it's mouth open, is the shisa. Some people believe that one is male and the other female and provide various justifications for which is which. For example, the female has her mouth shut, as she should; or, the male has his mouth shut to hold in all the family's good fortune. The shisa is a variation of the guardian lions - fu dogs - of China. mine I picked up in San Francisco when I was there last.

Now, they're sitting outside my front door, helping me win the lottery or something.

Wooden Spoon Premiership
I reckon the Rabbitohs are pretty well assured of the wooden spoon this year, even if we're only just coming on to halfway through the season. Round 12, at ANZ Stadium, against the Dragons, started off with an early try by Souths, only to see the opposition take the lead, with only a (very) late final try to make the score remotely more even. Still, it was a good game, with only a very little of the kind of poor ball handling the Rabbitohs exhibited early in the season, and some remarkable moments of play on either side, particularly when Illawarra failed to capitalize on a series of knocking on advances in one that should have ended with a try, save for the persistence of one defender. That was one of those sporting moments that only come up rarely, and worth the game.

Go Souths.

Winter Morning Walk
This is the view as I walk to the bus station each morning. Kinda pretty, especially for one of the less attractive buildings in the city.

Tony Stark makes you feel, he’s a real cool cat with a heart of steel
But Iron Man, all jets ablaze, something something something. Yeah, I used to know all the songs from the original Mightly Marvel Marching Society so-called animations, but never mind. The Iron Man movie is terrific. Robert Downey Jr. nails the part, as does Gwyneth Paltrow (although I don’t recall her particular character from any of the comics I ever read, she’s does the role about as cartoonishly as possible), Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane, a star turn as a villain if ever I saw one. The movie manages the complete Iron Man history through the 1990’s, including the Iron Monger vs. Iron Man climactic battle, and moving straight to one of the better armor designs (Monger fought the interim red-and-silver Man), without the digressions thirty years of comic history inevitably require. I guess if they ever decide to do Captain America and Thor, an Avengers movie wouldn’t be far off, but I’ll settle for a sequel, and even a third, despite the screw-ups in the Spiderman and X-Men franchises.

New Camera
My digital camera gave up the ghost eventually, which was sometimes frustrating, but not disheartening at the prospect of having to buy another, since it was free, but it took me a while to get that done. I now have a baby digital SLR. O.k., it's not really an SLR, but you can attach lens adapters to it to achieve that effect, and it does allow manual overrides of f-stops and so forth, so it very nearly comes to the same thing. As far as I'm concerned, it's an SLR. Pathetically, the first thing I did with it was take pictures of the cats.


But I did get a nice autumnal shot the other day of some local eucalypts that I rather like.


I took a walk through Sydney University, too, but I'm not as happy with those. Still, the Newtown hipters always hand me a laugh. Funnily enough, only one guy in a triby.

Tracking
I suppose I ought to post my progress training for the marathon here, but it’s still early days. In fact, looking more carefully at my calendar, I discovered that I’m only now in Week One, so I’m a week ahead of schedule, having hewn to the Hal Higdon method’s recommended mileage last week. My clever little spreadsheet, which converts Hal’s mileage to kilometres, is apparently too clever by half, since I was recording distances covered last week in the next week’s row. Well, no harm in being more conditioned for the big day.

Which reminds me of something one of the other runners here said about days off: they’re “scheduled deconditioning” days. Makes being lazy sound better, doesn’t it?

News
So, I’m in the new flat (week four) and the new job (week three) and have now newly enrolled for the Sydney Marathon – 21 September, if anyone’s interested – which I’m newly training for (week one; nothing much happened last week)

The new flat is working out well. I got the dryer installed finally, although it’s a little problematic, in that the space allocated in the laundry for me means I’ve only got one tap hook-up (I only ever use cold anyway) and it sits too love above my top-loading washer to get the lid all the way up. Since the washer is only a couple of years old, I’m not replacing it anytime soon, even if front-loaders are more efficient. I do still need to replace the basin in the bathroom, though, which the previous owners had cracked. It’s not bad, either looking or insofar as leakage is concerned, but a new one was purchased and sits in its box in the hallway, just waiting for me to stumble over it in the dark. And I’ve never lived anywhere darker since that basement apartment in Ann Arbor. Daytime’s not bad, but I’m not there in daylight much, especially as we head into winter. Luckily, it’s not cold.

Meanwhile, the cats have worked out the pet door and are off enjoying the great outdoors, what there is of it. The upstairs cat, who goes from window to next-door-rooftop direct, is not happy to find new competition for exploration rights.

The new job is demanding. I’m here at eight and don’t leave until five or later. This is partly due to the demands of learning the new software and new company and partly due to the fact that I need to run three days during week for the marathon training (yes, I am using the Counsellor’s recommended Hal Higdon method, although one of my colleagues, also in training for the marathon, is using their official novice’s program; insofar as we coincide with our schedules, we’re mapping out routes in the vicinity using Map My Run).

The buses are terrible. Mornings aren’t so bad, although it’s always a scramble for boarding before the seats are all taken, and the seats are cramped anyway. Nights, however, are where it all comes apart. If the bus arrives, instead of sailing by, either full or “Not in Service”, it’s almost always not the one that takes the freeway, which means an extra twenty minutes or more travel time, winding through the northern suburbs. It would be a lot easier if their signage was better illuminated and larger. And once we get to the CBD, it’s a crawl to the last stop, where I transfer to a George Street line, where there are no bus lanes, so we contend with all the rest of the traffic (and not to complain unduly, but also with every other businessperson trying to make their way west).

That all will change, eventually. The Chatswood-to-Epping project is underway (as it has been nearly since I got to this country – which sounds like a longer period than it’s been) and due to finish sometime this year, theoretically. I’ve heard that they used the wrong glue on the vibration-reduction matting under the rails and had to tear them up to start over, but I don’t know if the 2008 schedule is still, ahem, on track. The North Ryde station is five minutes away, so I’m anxious they should finish. There looks to be a fair bit of work yet to go, though.

Jasper Johns: Watch Out Crossing the Street
Robert Rauschenberg is one of a small pantheon of modern artists whom I revere. I’d probably revere more of them if I could remember them all, but never mind.

I remember the first retrospective show I saw, at MOMA, including the fabulous “Bed” and “Obelisk”, among many others I knew largely from books. A later show at the Guggenheim was somehow less compelling, and consisted largely, if not exclusively, of more recent work (so I guess not so much a retrospective).

Anyway, I guess that signed screen print of the Talking Heads “Speaking in Tongues” limited edition cover art I’ve got up on the wall just got a little more valuable. After David Byrne departs this mortal coil, it ought to be an eBay killer, but I only wish him well, really.

Shh
Today's the last day at my present job, and I've already put my forwarding order in place for my mail and switched off the land-line in preparation for moving next week. It's not that this blog's terribly active, but it's about to become much less so for a little while, until I've straightened out home internet access and so forth.

Talk among yourselves.

Bitter Draught
Does it help that Obama's right? And it's not just small towns, either. I've known plenty of bitter people in cities who cling to emotive issues or draw distinctions between themselves and others over inane political discourse, people who simply won't accept reality and back their arguments with religion, or simplistic interpretations of the Constitution, or nothing at all, just resentment that someone else might not be treated as badly as they have been. And, frankly, I'm tired of Clinton running the GOP playbook. I wonder if she isn't a little bitter herself. I'm sure McCain is.

New Job
I'm moving on, commuting to North Ryde every morning, starting in the next two to four weeks. That maternity leave replacement job has been turned into two jobs, with one of them for me. The offer came in around lunchtime, and I snapped it up.

Working at the Catholic Education Office was a good job, especially as it came just when I needed employment rather badly. They've always been supportive of me, especially during such periods as life was difficult, and I'm grateful to them. It turned a bit sour last year, when we abandoned the SQL database I was hired to install, and returned to an bit of 1980's legacy technology. But although I started my job search the moment that decision was made, it's taken all this time for someone to be willing to take a chance on me.

Bloody North Ryde, though. That's not going to be fun.

I'll be working