All That is Gold Does not Glitter

But all of Michael Phelps' gold does. In his quest for 8 gold medals at one Olympic Games--one more than the legendary Mark Spitz--Phelps is 5 for 5. He has won gold (and set the world record) in the 400 IM, 200 Free, 200 Fly, 4 x 200 Free Relay, and that spectacular 4 x 100 Free Relay. Coming up he has the 200 IM, 100 Fly, and 4 x 100 Medley Relay. Three events between him and history.

Although, he already hold the record for most career Olympic golds with 11, and the record for most career Olympic medals of any color with 13 (11 gold, 2 bronze). He also has 30 World Records to his credit. Not too shabby.

Still.....Gold Watch: 5 down, 3 to go.

Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -- a desire, a dream, a vision.

I love the Olympics. I always have. I remember being a kid and sitting down with my mom to watch gymnastics or track or figure skating and being mesmerized by the drama of it all. One chance every 4 years to win gold. One mistake and it's all over. One chance to do something extraordinary.

Once I started swimming at age 11, I became an even bigger fan of the summer Olympics because it was the one time that I could watch my sport on TV. Swimming, not being one of your mainstream sports, it a bit hard to find on the tube between Olympic years. Even now, with dozens of sports channels, you are lucky to find anything more than the Olympic trials and the Olympics themselves broadcast.

But the Olympics are here. And now, with Michael Phelps as the poster boy for the entire US delegation and swimming for an unheard of 8 gold medals, swimming isn't just on TV, it is the main attraction. Swimming has gone from an afterthought broadcast at 2am in Sydney to a semi-popular Phelps watching event in Athens to Prime Time viewing in Beijing. Thanks to Phelps, the swimming events are not only broadcast in prime time this Olympics, they are also shown live (since the Olympic organizers decided to put the finals in the morning (Beijing time) to accommodate the US viewing audience.

Now, I'll have to admit, I don't follow the sport as closely as I once did. I am more familiar with names like Gary Hall Jr, Summer Sanders, Alexander Popov, and Ian Thorpe than I am with most of this year's Olympic team, although a few names (Amanda Beard, Dara Torres, Natalie Coughlin, Aaron Piersol) are familiar to me. But I still love the sport. And I still love to watch it. Especially during the Olympics. I love watching Michael Phelps go for his 8 gold medals. I love watching Katie Hoff trying for 5 golds. I love watching Aaron Piersol do just about anything. But my absolute favorite part of any swim meet, including the Olympics, is watching the relays.

I love Relays. I love swimming them and I love watching them. There is just something almost magical about watching a good relay swim. And last night in the Men's 4x100 freestyle relay, it was magic.

In an event that the US men had dominated in the past (7 straight Olympic golds before the 2000 games), the US was a rather larger underdog. Despite the presence of Michael Phelps. Despite being the top qualifier. Despite setting the World Record in the Prelims. France was the favorite going into the race. They had taunted the US team in the media (much like Gary Hall did to the Aussies before the 2000 games) saying that they would "smash the US". But in the end, the only thing that got smashed was the World Record with the top 5 team finishing under the mark set just the day before.

Phelps led off with a new American Record time of 47.51, but touched just behind the Aussie who set a new World Record with a 47.24 split. Garrett Webber-Gale entered second and gave the US the lead at the half way point with an impressive 47.02 split. France was second 0.43 seconds behind and Australia was third only 0.15 seconds behind them.

Cullen Jones, only the second African-American to ever make the US Olympic swimming team (Anthony Ervin in 2000 was the first and he tied with Gary Hall Jr to win gold in the 50m Freestyle) entered the water for the third leg. He had earned his place on the relay the day before with his great split during prelims which helped the team to set a new World Record despite not having their 3 top sprinters on the team. Cullen split a 47.65 for his leg, but lost ground to Bosquet of France who swam a 46.63, the fastest relay split in Olympic history.

France went into the water 0.59 seconds ahead of the US with World Record Holder (at least before the race) Alain Bernard. It was up to Jason Lezak to make up the difference. At the turn, he was still behind and didn't appear to be gaining ground. But he wasn't ready to quit yet. Lezak dug in and slowly inched up on Bernard throughout the last 50 meters. He gained ground with every stroke, just out touching Bernard at the finish by 0.08 seconds in 3:08.24, shattering the old world record (3:12.23) by 4 seconds, and splitting an incredible 46.06 the fastest relay split in history.

It was one of the most incredible feats I have ever seen in the pool. 0.59 seconds in the 100 free is an eternity, especially at the Olympic level. At the US Olympic trials, the top 4 finishers were separated by only 0.54 seconds at the finish and Lezak swam at 48.05 (although that was with a flat start). But there are two kinds of swimmers: individual swimmers and relay swimmers. Individual swimmers can be great athletes. They can turn in impressive times. They can hold world records. Alain Bernard is an individual swimmer.

A relay swimmer will lay it all on the line for a relay. They will turn in incredible performances during relay swims. They will some how find a way to pull it out, even when all seems lost. Jason Lezak is a relay swimmer. He is the guy you want anchoring your relay.

Traditional wisdom says you should structure your relay like this: 1. Your second fastest swimmer 2. Your slowest swimmer 3. Your second slowest swimmer 4. Your fastest swimmer. Most relays are put together that way, although there are many that aren't. Using that wisdom, the US relay should have looked something like this: 1. Garrett Webber-Gale, 2. Cullen Jones 3. Jason Lezak 4. Michael Phelps.

But you can crunch the numbers all you want, times aren't all that goes into making a great relay team. You have to factor in heart as well. And Jason Lezak is a relay swimmer. He is a closer. He is a finisher. He is the man you want to bring things home. And bring them home he did. In spectacular fashion.

No Matter What Anybody Tells You, Words and Ideas can Change the World.

Two posts in two days! Must be a record! (Or a really slow week at work.)

Kudos to anyone who can tell me what movie the quote in my title is from. And double Kudos to anyone who can tell me who said it.

Not that the title has much of anything to do with this post, but I do like it. And, well, words are related I guess.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately (since Summer is by far the best time to read), and when I'm doing that much reading, I tend to get the witting bug too. I do like to write. I always have. Even when I was little, I can remember making up stories and writing them down. These days I don't write too much, but every once in awhile I will get the urge and when I do, I always start to wonder if I'm really as good of a writer as I think I am.

Now, I don't see myself as being some kind of awesome writer. I don't expect that people are marveled by my exceptional word crafting skills. But I do think that I am better than the average bear when it comes to putting pen to paper. That assumption is based mostly on the comments made to me all through high school and college about how good my writing was. Especially in college, I rarely had a paper returned where the professor had not made some comment about how well written it was (even if they were sometimes given low marks for being off topic).

But these days I sometimes wonder if my stuff was really that good or if the professors had just slogged through so many poorly written essays that when they found someone who had a good grasp of grammar, syntax, and structure, they found the work to be exceptional. Not that I have the best grammar skills, but I do know what "sounds right" and I am just a bit of a perfectionist so I can be very anal about my word choices. I also have (at least I've been told I have) a very clear voice in my writing.

I don't' know. Maybe I do have a good voice. Maybe I can blame it on KERA and all those stupid portfolios we had to do in high school. Or maybe I was just born with it (instead of the spelling gene). Who knows.

But whatever the truth is, I do know that I enjoy writing and I tended to do well on writing assignments when I was in school. So maybe I am a decent writer. Or maybe I'm not. Only time will tell I suppose.

Just as long as We have We...

There has been a lot of talk in the news recently ( as there always is in big political years) about the Fancy Farm Picnic. Who is coming, who might be coming, and most notably, who won't be coming. In all the hoopla, there have been many accusations thrown around about how and why certain people get to speak at the picnic while others don't. I have seen everything from "Let's get rid of this 'Good Old Boys' Event" to "Let's see the records for this 'fund raising' that goes on."

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, let me first say that my family is an integral part of the Fancy Farm Picnic. My cousin Todd is the Picnic Chairman (i.e. King), the men of my family cook the meat, my Aunts work the car booth and cook for the Country dinner. Let me also say that I have about as much interest in politics as I have in golf (read: none).

So, with that bit out of the way, let's move on to more important things.

Ignoring, for the moment, the fact that the Fancy Farm Picnic is one of the last vestiges of the old political system where candidates actually had to give speeches that meant something to crowds made up of people who hadn't already made up their minds and/or paid money to see them talk let's focus on the crux of the matter. While it has been said that anyone who wants to win a political race in Kentucky must speak at the picnic, what the political big wigs won't tell you (and why would they, since they like everything to be all about them) is that the picnic has very little to do with politics.

What, you might ask, is it all about then? There are several answers to this question. The most straight forward is this: the Picnic is a fund raiser for St Jerome Parish with all the proceeds going to the church to help pay for the programs the church runs through out the year. I can't give you numbers (I'm not much of a details person and I'm horrible with dollar amounts, distances, heights and weights) but I figure this picnic has to be one of the most successful church fund raisers in the state, if not the country. Especially considering that the town of Fancy Farm has less than 1,000 people.

Now, I'm sure some of the more cynical among you will say, well of course it is a successful fund raiser, with politicians giving very generous "donations" when they are invited to speak. But I can tell you this, while I can't say for certain that no politician has ever made a donation to the parish in return for speaking at the picnic, I can say that better than 75% of all the money raised at the picnic comes from the sale of food--the bar-b-que which my family cooks, the hamburgers, ice creams, candy, and snacks on sale, or from the country dinner served all day at the KC Hall. The rest of the money comes from the sale of car chances, tab Bingo tickets, regular Bingo cards (you better get to the Bingo stand early if you want a seat), the kid's carnival games, the 5K and Fun Runs, RV parking, and the country store. If the politicians add any money to the pot, it is a drop in the bucket compared to what is brought in elsewhere. In fact, big political years tend to mean less money for the Picnic for several reasons. First, most of the political supporters bring in all of their own food and drink and spend very little money at the Picnic. Second, large crowds of political supporters tend to drive away the non-politically minded picnic goers, keeping away people who would spend money on the grounds. So, I can pretty safely say that many Fancy Farm residents would prefer the politicians to just stay at home on picnic day.

But if you say the Fancy Farm Picnic is just about fund raising, you are still missing the point. From its beginning, the picnic has been about more than just money. It was about a community coming together to eat, socialize, and just relax. Today it is no different. People with Fancy Farm roots (like myself) feel drawn back during the picnic. It is a chance to reconnect with old friends, see high school classmates, and visit with family. The days leading up to and after the picnic are prime times for class and family reunions because so many people are already in town during that time. For many of them, it may be the one time a year they make it "home" but I know many people who say they would never miss the Picnic.

For the residents of Fancy Farm (and their families) the picnic is about nostalgia and tradition. The same families have worked the same booths for as long as most people can remember with the jobs being passed down from generation to generation. My Grandmother tells stories about coming to the picnic with my Grandfather when they were dating and how you could eat all day and only spend $0.50. My Dad talks about getting $0.25 to spend at the picnic each year and how could buy a squirt gun, and box of Cracker Jacks, and a pop for that price. I remember spending lots of time at the Cane Booth tossing rings to try and win the coveted wooden sticks. These days, it will cost you more than $0.50 to eat, but you can still find old fashioned ice cream and cracker jacks; squirt guns are still one of the more popular toys you can win or buy, and while I don't get to toss too many rings these days, you are still likely to find me at the Cane booth watching the younger members of the my family try to win.

And if I'm not up at the game booths, you are likely to find me down around the bar-b-que pits which is where you can hear some of the most amazing stories. Everyone has a few tales about Picnics past, but very few of them involve the politics.

Maybe what the politicians need to do is to come out to the Grounds Friday night and watch the 1 mile Fun Run or the 5K Picnic Run. They can see the residents of Fancy Farm lined up along the roads and sitting in their front yards to watch the runners come in. Do some of them know a person or two in the race? Sure, but most just enjoy cheering everyone on. They need to come out early on Saturday to see the lines forming for meat fresh off the pits. Perhaps they can find a kid and toss a few rings or play a game or two of Bingo before they get an ice cream cone and some Cracker Jacks. Then they need to stick around after the political speaking Saturday afternoon to watch the band play and maybe dance to a song or two before they head down to the bar-b-que pits where they can sit and listen to the locals tell stories of Picnics past and watch as the next generations build Picnic memories.

After all that, then maybe they, like the Grinch who discovered that "Christmas doesn't come from a store. Christmas, perhaps means a little bit more" will understand that it isn't the politics which makes the picnic special. It's not the ice cream or the band or the car raffle or even the bar-b-que. What makes the Fancy Farm Picnic special are the people. And as long as there are people in Fancy Farm, there will be a picnic there on the first Saturday in August whether or not the politicians show.

Economy is how to spend money without enjoying it...

And Economy is soon going to be how I must live if I want to have enough money to live on since UK has apparently decided that its Staff are not important.

Now first, just let me say that I love my job. I really do. I love what I do and I love the people I work with. What I don't love sometimes is the University that seems to take things over from time to time. UK approved its budget for the 08-09 fiscal year the other day and let's just say that things did come out well for the Staff among us.

First, they are freezing salaries this year, which means no yearly raises. Now I guess that's not really a huge deal until you consider that the cost of everything is going up these days. My muffin mix from the grocery store has gone up from $0.79 to $1.29 these days. That's a 63% increase in just a couple of weeks! And that's just one thing. If my entire grocery bill went up 63% I wouldn't have the money to eat at all. Not to mention the $4.00 a gallon gas that I would need just to get to the grocery store.

And it's not just the cost of groceries and gas that is rising. UK is also raising the cost of parking for the upcoming year. I now get to pay a whopping $372.00 a year to park my car at work. Yea for UK! Let's cut pay but raising parking fees. Then people won't come to work and we won't have to pay them. In fact, the only thing that's not going up this year is our Health Insurance Premium. At least that is staying the same.

UK also decided to eliminate 188 positions. They make that seem like no big deal since all but 15 of those positions were vacant anyway, but when you consider that we've been under a hiring freeze since January 1, the 173 empty positions make more sense.

UK has also decided that in order to save money, they need to decrease the amount of time we have to use our vacation time. Previously, our vacation accrued starting July 1 of every year until June 30 of the next year. After that, we had 15 months in which to use our vacation time (so you had to use it by September 30 of the next year). Now they have shortened the time is which we can use our vacation from 15 months to 12 months. Not a huge deal, but still something of a crappy move on their part. You aren't giving us a raise, at least let us use our vacation time.

Now, the real kicker is this: The University doesn't have enough money to give us a raise, but they have enough money to give our President (who already makes $300,000 a year) a bonus of $150,000 this year. That's 50% of his salary! Who gets a bonus like that? I don't get a bonus at all. Grandly, President Todd only kept $90,000 of his bonus and gave the rest back to the university, but really, who needs $90,000 extra on top of a $300,000 salary? I could live well for 6 or 7 years on $300,000. And $90,000 is more than I will make in two years. Why couldn't they have put some of that money toward UK's staff.

UK has 11,000 staff. Why not give each of us a $100 gas card. That leaves $4,000 for the "bonus" which is still way more than most people I know get as a bonus (if they get a bonus at all). Or just give the money to the parking division and not raise our prices this year. Either way, I will be happy. You can't expect those of us most hurt by the lack of our yearly raise to be understanding when you give someone who makes more than everyone in my lab put together a bonus that is more than our yearly salary. Really, that's not cool.

Okay, I promise I'm off my soapbox now.

Better Late then Never.....

I just wanted to say Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, including my friend John who became a brand new dad at11:43 pm on Saturday night. His little boy Elliot is quite possibly the cutest baby on the face of the planet (although I might be just a touch biased). Congratulations John and Beth!

Also, because it was Father's Day, I should probably mention that I have by far the best Dad on the planet. Sorry if you think that's wrong, but he is. He loves me and puts up with all my craziness and never even blinks when I call him at crazy times demanding things like "Fix My Car" or "Make the Bugs Go Away" or "What are You Going to do with Your Other Daughter?" despite the fact that he lives 2 hours away. He just tells me what to do and walks me through it until I calm down and start to make sense again. I guess 25 years of putting up with me has given him just a little bit of experience to go on.

He's been a little tied up in building his new house lately, and I haven't gotten to see him as much as usual, but he is doing a better job of making time for me and my sister these days(after I called and laid a huge guilt trip on him). At least the huge new house is almost finished and by the end of this weekend, they should be all moved in. Maybe. Somehow I think this house will never be done.

We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics. ~Bill Vaughan

The quote in my title is from Bill Vaughan, and is very apt these days since for the last week I have been at war trying to keep my apartment free from bugs.

Now before you get all "ewwww, gross" on me, let me first say that these bugs are not of the nasty variety (ie. cockroaches) or the terrifying variety (ie. spiders, millipedes). They are of the OMG they are taking over my room variety. Yes, the insect which has chosen to make its assault on my apartment is the Springtail which is the single most prolific insect known to man. They can reach numbers of up to 100,000 individuals per meter of topsoil. I think they reached nearly that number on the window sill in my bedroom.

Once I noticed the problem, I began spraying the sill several times a day with pesticide, which seemed to kill the bugs there at the time, but did nothing to keep new ones from appearing. Soon, they had claimed the window sill as well as my blinds and curtains as their 0wn. This prompted a call to the apartment office to see if they would have the BugMan come out a spray. They assured me someone would come out first thing Monday, and I figured that I had won the war.

Not so! BugMan sprayed Monday, but Monday night there were more than ever, and now they were trying to claim my bed! Not Good! They had also taken over my balcony. Apparently, spraying for bugs only made them angry. Tuesday I called the office again and got a very lukewarm resp once. "Give it a few days," was the best they would do. I don't know about you, but when I have bugs in my bed, I don't want to give it a few days. Tuesday night, I started sleeping on the floor in the living room.

Wednesday, I decided that a trip to the office was needed as the bugs were still increasing in numbers. I waited until the office opened at 9 and then went to pay them a visit. After much cajoling and refusing to leave until they did what I wanted them to do, I convinced them to call the BugMan again and have him come out and spray the inside and outside of the building. I also went and bought about $30 worth of bug spray myself at Lowes and treated my bedroom, bathroom, and hallway as well as scrubbed down and sprayed my entire balcony. This seemed to have worked pretty well on the balcony, but did little to help the situation on my bed.

Thursday, I asked the office to have the BugMan call me when he arrived so I could ask him a question or two, but they failed to relay that information. Instead, when I arrived home, I found that nothing had been done. This time, I looked up the BugMan myself in the phone book and called them directly. The lady on the phone was very nice, gave me all the information I needed, and even had the BugMan come out that day while I was home so I could show him what was going on and have him spray everywhere.

So, as of today, the bugs seem to be grudgingly giving ground, although they are still present in my window and on my bed. At least they seem to be losing numbers. I am going to give it until the end of the weekend to get better before I start making phone calls again. I will not lose my house to the bugs!