Kwajalein life

There are three main bothersome insects here: Flies, Ants, and
Mosquitos. All three were out in force this afternoon. The order here
is important. Clearly mosquitos are quite bothersome, but it's pretty
easy to avoid them by moving into sunlight, or away from standing
water or damp areas. (Contrast this with New England where you just
have to wait for Fall. There is no escape, resistance is futile.) So,
I put ants in front of mosquitos by virtue of their sheer ubiquity and
the fact that they also bite - at least the kind I dealt with today -
kind of like fire ants, but not so scary and painful. Of course,
looking at them hanging onto my arm by their jaws makes one wonder:
What the heck they are thinking? Have they done the math? WHACK!
Nope. Flies are also everywhere except on the windiest of days. They
don't bite, but they are far more annoying than ants which can be
easily killed (yet bite). I toyed with quantifying all this, but lost
interest almost simultaneously with the finishing of my third beer. A
guy can become easily dehydrated fending off these annoyances while
trying to look for a lost fish, which bring us to the point of the
story - or rather, to the event that brings us to the point.

Yes, today marked the annual "Dismantling of the Salt Water Aquarium"
event. This task has gotten easier over the years of practice, but
still never fails to leave one wondering why we just don't snorkel or
scuba dive more often. Don't bring the ocean to your home, bring
yourself to the ocean! The filters don't need as much cleaning in the
lagoon. After draining most of the tank's water (we use a hose, an
open window, and gravity) you're faced with catching all the fish and
placing them into one of three buckets, designated for "lagoon
fodder", "Friend #1", and "Friend #2", the latter being desitined for
those willing to take the "pretty fish" for the summer, or perhaps
forever. We took inventory before tank draining since we have a number
of "burrowing" fish which we didn't want to miss. We missed one, but
he(?) turned up in a pile of rocks, trying to suck one dry, no
doubt. I think he'll make it. Not too surprisingly perhaps, we call
that one the "suicide fish," not individually, but the species as a
whole. This because the last one of these death-wish fish wanted a
close up of our carpet. Thankfully for him, it was when DeAnn was a
yard away, and she noticed the gasping and apparent distain for our
off-brown carpet color. To a fish, it must be a bit like a Flatlander
suddenly getting a peek at the third dimension. "Guys! You can't
believe where I just was! Just to the left of the big recliner..."

As stated, this was the event that brought us to the point of the
story: our annual "Summer Trip." By now, the reader is weary. Maybe
as much as the author. It'll have to wait!

This is a test of posting a blog entry via email. This will certainly
increase the frequency of postings to this blog. I'm almost always in an
email client or very near one. Less often on a webpage that isn't work
related. This way, as random thoughts enter my head, I just email them
rather than scrounge around looking online for blogger.com, logging in,
typing the post in the web form (I hate web forms), and publishing. Only
problem with email posting is that it only posts, doesn't publish. I
guess that's a good feature, but it'll just delay my posts.

In other news, things have settled down out here with Kids' sports
wrapping up, Cub Scouts is over, and major school projects are done. The
kids and I head to Roi-Namur this weekend for a campout. The next
weekend, we go back to Roi-Namur for the Roi Regatta (Yacht Club event).
Turns out, you don't need to own a yacht to be in the friendly yacht
club! Whew!

Nearly full moon tonight with high wispy clouds; lights up the whole Eastern reef. There are some really stunning scenes that I take for granted nearly every day. I thought about taking a picture of that moon and the dark palm trees against the bright sky but realized it'd fall far short of what my eye is taking in. I think some things were meant to be experienced first hand to really appreciate. Kind of like a formula one race :)

Was trying out a new game last night, HALO. So far, it's a pretty standard first-person shooter (FPS) but with the (slight) twist that you can jump into trucks and gunner's seats, etc. instead of just running around. The interesting part of the game is that you are on an "artifact" that is, in fact, a ringworld. Not the Ringworld (wouldn't that be a cool game), but a ringworld.

That brought up lots of memories of reading Larry Niven's Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers. Now I want to run off and check the library to see if those, and other classic Sci-Fi books are available for the kids to start reading. The short list would also include Asimov's "I Robot" which I hear is going to be made into a movie. Hope they don't mess that one up.

Today I spent most of the after-work hours teaching the kids how to secretly download Firefox in their classroom without getting in trouble. They force them to use Internet Explorer and they get annoyed with the pop-ups and insane advertising. Natural hackers. We also studied the notion on Blogging, Free software, pop-up blocking, spam, mixed numbers (like 1 1/2), and improper fractions (like N/D where N>D).

Just updated the time zone on this site. I think it may have been wrong (always looked like things were a day old). We're used to that out here. To make matters worse, under U*ix and Linux, the POSIX standard for time zones is screwy. I seem to remember having to set Linux clocks to GMT-12 even though we are 12 hours ahead of GMT. Nowadays, there is usually an MHT zone which gets it right. Used to be that Kwajalein was carved out of the rest of the Marshall Islands in terms of time zone. The Army decided it was best if we stayed on the same day as CONUS (Continental US). Glad they changed that.

Well, it's almost 01:30 in the morning. I'm up for a few cascading reasons. For starters, I was working on entering the bike-lap split times for the Rustman. That was done a few hours ago when we noticed it was pretty warm in the house. Nah, says I, it's just the G5 - I mean, you're sitting right next to it! After a while, it's just too hot. Turns out the air conditioner is broken (gasp!). I put in a call to the "Trouble Desk" and they sent a guy! Wow, I expected an answering machine! So, the guy's banging away on the thermostat which was discovered to be broken, too. Once we can turn on just the fan, the condenser can thaw out. Can't complain, there's no bill for midnight AC repair here!

The Rustman is over. There were some heartbreaks and some mediocre times, mostly due to the strong winds taking it out on the poor bikers. This was my slowest Rustman finish ever at 2:31:08, but you know what? I finished. I also managed to claim the Mens Open division (under 40). A Master (40+) won, almost 15 minutes faster - that's A LOT of time! My best time was two years ago at 2:23:47 and I'd really like to break 2:20:00 next year. But with as little training as I did, 2nd male and 3rd overall should be considered a gift! That's right, a girl beat me! No worries, she's won the Female division an unprecedented 6 times in a row and is probably the best all around athlete on the island. So, in the end, I'm pretty happy - though the absoulte time still bugs me. Oh well, that's what makes me do it each year!

The wind was pretty brutal today. It was about 21 MPH which is enough to keep the small boats in harbor. Doesn't help the upwind bike segment, either. My calves cramped up pretty bad (on the downwind side for some reason...have to think about that) and by the time I transitioned to the run, it was like I didn't have a left calf. The right side was OK, but I spent 2-3 minutes stretching the dang thing before I could stand, let alone run. About a mile into the run, I had to stretch again. Eventually it cleared, but my run time suffered greatly.

All in all, despite the slow time, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and really do look forward to next year.

This is a test post from an invited member.

Today is Rustman 25, the silver anniversary of one of the longest running triathlons in the world. It has been run on essentially the same course since 1980, and consists of a 1-km swim, 42-km bike, and 10-km run segment. Doing all of this on an island 3 miles long by 1 mile wide makes for a lot of repetition, especially during training. The bike distance is covered with six laps around the airfield - about 1.5 miles downwind, 1.5 miles upwind, and the upper and lower turns. The run distance is covered with 3 laps around the housing area - a little cooler since there is more shade.

It is the biggest event on the Kwajalein Running Club schedule, and many volunteers and spectators are on hand to watch the fun (and pain). There are typically 15-20 individuals and about the same number of teams that enter the race.

This is my third Rustman and I've done the least training for this one, but somehow don't feel out-of-shape or too concerned about "bonking." The sun is shining, the humidity is up, the wind is howling (20+ kts)...it'll be a tough couple of hours if the weather doesn't "improve." By improve, I'm hoping for rain, clouds, and about 10-kt winds - ideal conditions for a Rustman. The good thing is that the weather is the same for everyone. The bad news is that I race against the clock, not people. Year to year, you'd like to see improvement, but the weather can really affect your performance on a race like this.

It's about 3-hours before the start (race gun fires at 4:00pm local). My water's been in the cooler since the morning. The kids will place themselves strategically on 5th street and walk back and forth the length of this road as it is perpendicular to the elongted running loop. This way, with 3 laps, I'll see them 6 times and they'll (hopefully) hand me an icy cold water bottle to lower my head and body temperature. Not only is this refreshing mentally, but I think the heart works fairly hard trying to cool the body in these less than ideal running conditions.

About an hour and a half before the start, I'll mosey on down to Emon beach with my "stuff" and set up in a good location for the two transitions (swim to bike, and bike to run). I like the hour or so before the race: talking with the others, mentally preparing yourself, checking out the others' bikes and ideas for fast, smooth transitions, etc. And don't forget to drink! Running up from the beach at the swim exit leaves your feet a bit sandy - not something you want to inherit inside the bike or running shoes. So, you bring a shallow pan and fill it with water. Step into and out of that, quickly, and throw on the socks and bike shoes (they're called "clipless" pedals on the race bike, but your are absolutely locked in, for better pull on the upstroke - I think it must be in reference to the straps or clips that are used to bind your shoe to the pedal). Slap on the helmet (and glasses for me - sigh) and pull on the heart-rate monitor. I use the heart-rate monitor to make sure I can sustain a given pace. The mind can trick you thinking you are going too slow or too fast - the monitor doesn't lie. I'll keep my HR between 165 and 175 on the bike (down and upwind respectively) and it'll climb to about 185 on the run, if all goes well. No idea what it is on the swim - this model doesn't work underwater. The bike to run transition is about the same: helmet off, change shoes (the running shoes are already tied, just slip them on like a kid might) then...run!

About 5 minutes before the start, most pile onto an old school bus (they're white here, as are all Army vehicles - don't know why), and drive down to the pier to enter the water. I don't like the bus ride. It's hot and crowded and tends to smell. It's also a very strong reminder that you are about to start a 2+ hour battle with your mind and body. Well, no backing out now!