General Jackassery

Well, here’s what’s going on.

Spending my last week ever in Pasadena. Unless I have to come out here for an actual design review meeting, I don’t see me ever coming back out here. There will be someone in this position for 120 days starting next week and then the permanent guy will be out here after that. Too bad I could be paid what they’re paying him. This position is a GS-14 position. To give you an idea, I’m a GS-12 currently and there is about $10k per year per grade difference. In other words I should have been making some extra coin while I was out here. Alas, I just take home per diem. That said I’m using that per diem to make my life a little less boring while I’m waiting to leave tonight. (Opie, this one’s for you. I’ll explain later.) Anyway, I bought a ticket to go watch the L.A. Kings play the Dallas Stars tonight. Since my plane doesn’t leave until 11:55, I’ve already checked out of the hotel and I have to (Oh I’ll be so sad to leave this office) leave the office at 5:00 I needed something to do to kill time. I could have gone to a nice restaurant and had dinner, but for the cost of a nice meal I got a ticket to tonights game. A little extra, well maybe a lot extra, and I’ll have a couple of hot dogs and watch the Stars pound the Kings. That said while I’m enjoying eating my dogs and watching the Stars pound the Kings, I’ll have to keep my trap shut since I’ll be cheering against the home team. Should be fun and a nice waste of time.

So, why is it that my plane leaves at 11:55 P.M.? Well, there’s this Red Headed Opie Looking MF with Facial Hair (RHOLMFw/FH) who’s getting married to his Red Headed Opie’s Wife Looking Woman (RHOWLW) this weekend. Since I was honored by being asked to be in the wedding between the RHOLMFw/FH and the RHOWLW I am required to be at the wedding rehearsal to be held Friday evening. When I was asked to travel to L.A. for the week, I knew that I would be able to fly home on Friday and I knew there was a flight that left LAX at 6:00 A.M. and would get me back to Huntsvegas at about 3:00 leaving me plenty of time to pick up the tux and head towards lovely Corner, AL (Yes! You read that right. Corner, AL) for the rehearsal. However, since the Project Manager waited until the last minute to ask me to go and then waited even longer to get the orders process, all the flights were sold out. The only flight they could get me on was one that put me back in Huntsville at 9:00 P.M. on Friday. While I’m sure the RHOLMFw/FH would totally understand this problem, I’m thinking that the RHOWLW would take serious offense to be not being at the rehearsal. So in an effort to not have my nuts in a sling (beware the wrath of a red headed woman) I decided to take the red-eye. I may not look so hot in the pictures, but atleast I won’t screw anything up!

And now on to the more embarrasing side of my life:

So, as I’ve said before I’m training for several triathlon and cycling events. The first of which is in May the week before Sarah and my first wedding anniversary. It’s a 100+ mile bike ride that goes through three states and over three mountains. While this would be an awesome accomplishment, I’ve got my heart set on completing an olympic distance triathlon in July. Since I’m away from my bike and I need to keep excercising I decided to bring my running shows with me to lovely warm CA.

Time to back track a little. Last week, I started getting back into the full swing of things. I swam over a mile and a half, I jogged about 5 miles and I rode my bike a total of 61 miles. One unfortunate side effect of being back outside jogging and Riding is the fact that my chest (the skin on my chest) is not used to having the wind blowing my wet shirt around. This causes chaffing. So after all that excercise my nipples ( yes, I said it, my nipples) were rather raw. Sarah suggests that I start wearing band-aids over my nipples to keep from chaffing, but I’m a man, how dumb does it look to have band-aids covering your nipples.

Fast forward, Monday I took off to run for about 30 minutes or so. It’s been very cold by SoCal standards and what happens to nipples when they’re cold? Well, I didn’t really think anything about it because they didn’t hurt. However, there was some chaffing that I wasn’t really aware of.

Last night I decided it was time for another jog. This time the jog would be much longer. I jogged 2.9 miles on Monday, on Wednesday I jogged 4.8 miles. About 3 miles in I notice that my chest is getting sore. What am I going to do, if I stop I’ll get cold (by now my shirt is soaked and it’s in the 50’s) so I keep jogging. When I got back to the hotel I looked in the mirror and noticed two little red spots on my shirt where my nipples are supposed to be. I take off that shirt to reveal my undershirt that has two 2″ diameter red circles on it. I think to myself, I’ve chaffed my nipples off. O-F-F off!

Actually they’re still there, but today, I’m wearing band-aids. Go ahead! Laugh, you know you want to!