It was my first time watching the TV series Camelot. Seeing that I don't have cable or Internet these days, I can once again thank the library for providing me with entertainment. The first episode was OK. Here's a brief synopsis. The banished daughter comes back and kills her father to take the thrown. Turns out she has a brother that was sent away as a kid. Merlin goes to find him and tries to make him the new king. He pulls the sword out of the stone. People give him their allegiance. Now his sister and him will fight it out. Blah blah blah. I honestly don't know if I'll even finish the season.
I began a new book on CD. The Assassin sounded interested, and I think Stephen Coonts is a pretty popular author. I'm a few chapters in, and I think I'll like it. All I know right now is a billionaire U.S. senator's son was killed in action in Iraq. He and his wealthy friends decide to create a private army to take out terrorists. Jake Grafton is their man who's making it happen.
I'm admitting this outloud (well in writing technically): I'm goin country. Lucas is slowly rubbin off on me. I've avoided the country scene my whole life. Even my great friends in the Chicago 'burbs are country fans. But I resisted... until now. I was at the library and checked out The Band Perry's self-titled platinum album.
The first listen through - the songs all blend together. Each one sounds quite similar to the next. However, the second and third time through, I felt each individual song stood apart. I've falling in love with All Your Life. Here I thought I'd found a hidden gem of a song, but Lucas quickly informed me it was a very popular song in the country world. You can see the video right here:
It's 7:21am. I have to be there in 9 minutes, but I'm lost. I can't find my way to the triathlon location. Lucas has my bike, and I can't call him because I have his cell phone. It's hopeless. All my training down the drain.
Then, I wake up. It's 5:58am - 2 minutes before my alarm is set to go off. What a nightmare! I came to and wondered again why I was attempting to do this. 10% of me wanted to chicken out for about 10 seconds. Then I got my shit together. I was doing this: my first outdoor sprint triathlon.
I had 3 goals going into this race: 1) Don't drown 2) Run the whole 3.1 miles without walking 3) Finish in around 2 hours. Well, I hit all of em! I even beat two girls in my age division which was a sweet bonus.
I'm proud of myself for training hard and accomplishing this personal milestone. As for taking on an other triathlon... that remains to be seen.
Oh my! Oliver Twist is the longest book ever. I started listening to it on CD June 16 and just completed it today. That book had way to much detail. I feel a lot could have been taken out to reduce the book to a manageable size.
Synopsis: So Oliver's mom died during his birth in a work house. So he went into state care and was treated like garbage like every other orphan child. When he was 9 or 10, he was sent to live and work with an undertaker. But he ran away and found a friend near London. This friend, who was actually a thief, brought Oliver into the business. But Oliver was too kind-hearted. He got caught by the police for something he didn't do. The rich man who accused Oliver ended up taking him in. The gang of thieves found Oliver though and kidnapped him. They then made him break into a wealthy person's home outside London. The servants awoke and one shot Oliver. The family then nursed him back to health as the other thieves fled. The rich man ends up putting all the pieces together and finds out Oliver's history. He's actually of noble blood, but his father died years ago. The rich man adopted Oliver and they lived happily ever after.
This book was not life-changing, but I feel more well read. I guess that's a decent pay-off.
I had a killer triathlon practice today and even set a new record. Although the actual tri order goes swim, bike, run, I went bike, run, swim. I biked 13 miles (the race is 15), I ran 3.1 mi (race distance) and swam 10 laps (race is 8). During my run, I set a personal best of 29:10 for the 3.1 miles. That felt awesome because I'd also just biked. I wonder how fast I could do it fresh...? The swim sucked. It was hard, my arms were mush, my legs were burning, but I think that was good training for the race since it'll be out in the lake. I can't believe my first outdoor tri is just two days away!
Oh Independence Day! What better way to spend it than playing in a mud volleyball tournament for the WDM fire fighters association? None, exactly. I busted out my ol' Tough Mudder shorts for today's double elimination tourney at Raccoon River Park. Our hodge podge team faired better than I thought. We won our first three games but then lost two back to back knocking us out. We did a good job of weeding out the real bad teams with our great serves. However, when it came time for us to pump up the defense, we just couldn't do it.
It was a hot, hot day, and my team, 6 Pack of Mud, had no tent to find relief from the sun. I walked away with a small sunburn - but not too bad. All in all, a lot of fun!
God Bless America! This is my third July 4th in Des Moines, and the Yankee Doodle Pops show has been on my To Do List. I actually got the night of work and biked down to the state capitol with Lucas around 7:30pm. It was packed! I've seen the Des Moines Symphony perform before; They are amazing. I was really looking forward more to them playing than the fireworks. We couldn't see them on stage though, we were too far back and on a blanket. We shared some wine and bread and enjoyed the evening. The fireworks were pretty good, but again, the m
Sunday was the first time my parents met Lucas' parents. They briefly met before church, and then we went to Lucas' for lunch. I wasn't worried about this day. I knew they'd get along just fine, and they did. My parents are nice people; his parents are nice people. They have a good amount of stuff in common too like getting married in the same year, having three children, working in schools, being rugged outdoorsman, being active in church, living in Creston, and enjoying meeting new people. Hopefully, they'll continue to play nice...