Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Yippie
The house directly across the street from ours is on the market for $30K more than the price we paid for our house, and it is roughly the same size, shabbier and doesn't have a pool.
Current mood: Sell sell sell
Posted by Lynniechan @ 02:56 PM EST [Link] [No shoutouts]
Monday, June 28, 2004
Weekend getaway
I just got back from Aiken, S.C., where my rowing team won several events at the USRowing Southeast Regionals regatta. It was a very loooong weekend for, at least for me, two four-minute races. We stayed at a terrible, cheap hotel (don't let the pictures fool you -- the reason the photo of the hotel's facade is cropped off on the left on the Web page is because the hotel is practically in the parking lot of a Midas muffler shop); I locked my keys in my car right after I parked my car after the six-hour drive up there; and two people in my group who flew up were stranded for several hours in Columbia, S.C., after their plane apparently left 15 minutes early.
I did have a good time. We spent both nights in downtown Aiken, walking down this street several times while exploring. The town is very country quaint, like Mount Dora, with a little bit of Ybor City mixed in. There's a huge, beautiful weeping willow tree at the end of that street (behind and to the right of the person who took the photo) which is in the outdoor patio area of The Bowery restuarant, where we ate Friday night. The Bowery was once a horse stable -- the town has a thoroughbred racing history -- so the restaurant is horse-racing themed, decorated with racing photos, plaques and jockeys' jerseys adorning the dark, wooden walls. I'd love to take Steve to Aiken sometime. It's a beautiful bed-and-breakfast kind of town.
Meanwhile, my boat (an eight-woman crew) struggled to a victory. It wasn't our finest hour or our prettiest race, but we pulled it out. Immediately after that event -- we didn't even take the boat out of the water -- was a mixed-eight race (four men and four women in a boat together, which is always meant to be just a fun row but can end up to be torture for the women struggling to keep up with the men).
A group of tall, fit-looking older gentlemen from a Jacksonville-area rowing club had been asking around for a group of women to row with in the event, just for the hell of it, and my rowing team volunteered, in the spirit of meeting new people and having fun. I was to hop out of the boat and let another ORC woman to take my seat, but as we were switching, she mentioned that she was exhausted, having rowed the two previous races back-to-back. So I unexpectedly took her place in the mixed event.
The race was excruciating. Rowing with men is always an exercise in futility, at least for me. Men are all muscle and no finesse. Women rowers, on the other hand, tend to be the opposite. So here we are, trying to keep our slides slow and concentrate on rowing well, while the men are rushing up the slide, rowing "short" (that's short, fast, jackrabbit-like strokes instead of long, powerful, steady drives; not ideal) and powering the boat down the course like a runaway steam engine. The boat was flying compared with what I'm used to. I was supposedly setting the pace for everyone, desperately trying to slow it down and control it, but it was no use. It was all I could do to keep up with the men behind me who were apparently rowing their own race. After we crossed the finish line, I doubled over and loudly gasped for air for several minutes. Anyway, they were really nice guys and this is nothing personal against them; they were just rowing as hard as they could. We women are just no match for them physically, I guess. We thought we'd clearly finished fourth, but somehow, after the age handicaps were calculated and whatnot, we were surprised to find out that we'd earned a silver. So I came home with a gold and silver medal.
More about the weekend -- including oodles of pictures -- to come.
Current mood: Sleepy
Current music: What Are You To Me? | Unkle
Posted by Lynniechan @ 12:26 PM EST [Link] [No shoutouts]
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
'Imperial Hubris'
Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands
Current mood: Hung over
Posted by Lynniechan @ 08:12 AM EST [Link] [No shoutouts]
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Hours of entertainment
Current mood: Sleepy
Posted by Lynniechan @ 10:29 AM EST [Link] [1 shoutout]
Saturday, June 5, 2004
OMG
I just drew Smarty Jones' name in the office Belmont pool. My previous two draws for the Kentucky Derby and Preakness were both 50-1 horses. I typically have horrible luck. It's about an hour before the race, which means poor Smarty has an hour to injure himself and scratch. Or worse, injure himself during the race.
UPDATE: I must have cursed him...
Current mood: Surprised
Posted by Lynniechan @ 05:40 PM EST [Link] [1 shoutout]
What kind of thinker are you?
What a shocker:
You are a Naturalist Thinker
Naturalist Thinkers:
Like to understand the natural world, and the living beings that inhabit it
have an aptitude for communicating with animals
You try to understand patterns of life and natural forces
Like other Naturalist thinkers, Leonardo longed to spend time in the countryside. He spent hours watching birds to understand how they flew.
Other Naturalist thinkers include
Charles Darwin, Jane Goodall, Johnny Morris, David Attenborough
Careers which suit Naturalist thinkers include
Biologist, Meteorologist, Forester, Farmer, Astronomer, Alternative therapist
What kind of thinker are you? Take the quiz from BBC.co.uk.
Current mood: Lazy
Current music: Jungle Brother (True Blue), Urban Takeover remix | Jungle Brothers
Posted by Lynniechan @ 12:46 AM EST [Link] [1 shoutout]
Wednesday, June 2, 2004
Must share
Via infinitefetish: Create your avatar (site sprinkled with funny Engrish).
Me (and Amber): 
Current mood: Playful
Posted by Lynniechan @ 01:34 AM EST [Link] [2 shoutouts]