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Today was definitely a Fox Mulder day...
Adopt Her Already!
First the not-so-bad. Our foster dog Reese has been wanted by a couple for over a week now but they keep dragging their feet. We met them with Reese at a pet store last week and they liked her, but then wanted to see her interact with their current dog. Makes sense, but couldn't we have done that for the first meeting if that was an issue? So we take Reese to their house, she and their dog get along great, but one of the adopters is out of town and they want to discuss to make sure. OK... Finally they decide to adopt her and we arrange to meet at my office Thursday to sign the papers but she never shows up. Today we're supposed to meet, but she calls to say she's running late and won't be free until after I leave work. Now Amanda has to coordinate meeting her while I go for my run. To top it off they can't pick Reese up until Monday since one of couple is still on travel. If they'd been just a wee bit more proactive early on, Reese could've gone home with them over a week ago! Oh well. The good thing is that Reese is adopted, and we actually really like this couple. They're nice, patient with dogs, Reese and their dog get along great, they have a big fenced-in backyard, and they go camping a lot. Reese will be happy with them so this craziness is worth it.
Bad Business
Today at home Amanda gets a call from Fidelity where the guy says he has to talk to me about my retirement account due to the takeover. (Background: my company used Fidelity for their 401K but we've since been bought by another company that uses a different financial service.) This guy leaves his name and a direct line phone number. So I call him back from work and get a generic voicemail box saying "an appropriate associate will return your call"... I get suspicious and contact HR at work, who contacted Fidelity and was able to confirm that Fidelity's sales group was using a register of names acquired during the takeover to cold-call people at my company to pitch personal retirement accounts. How incredibly unethical! On top of that, it would seem to me to be bad business. Here's a prime example: I had been planning to leave the amount accrued from my former company in Fidelity's 401K rather than rolling it over, but now they have just cost themselves my account. Prepare to roll it over, Fidelity!
Play Ball! Not.
Thursday night was my softball team's fourth game of the season, except that it never happened. We all showed up, the other team showed up, the umpires showed up... and so did a little league team that claimed to have the field during our game time! I called GRAASA, our softball league, but the number was disconnected! The little league got the city parks and recreation director on the phone, who confirmed that the little league gets the field. Our game got canceled. What the heck? It turns out that GRAASA had reserved the field and the little league was supposed to play on Saturday; however, the little league umpires had a conflict that day so at the last minute the city gave them our field but never told GRAASA. What annoys me is that this same thing happened to another GRAASA game last week but GRAASA never did anything to prevent it from happening again. Isn't once enough to learn a lesson? Maybe not for these folks, as they have yet to demonstrate any thoroughness in their operation of the league. Our schedule was postponed by a week to start the season because they couldn't find enough fields. Then the first field was played on was a kids' field with un-attached bases and a storm drain in centerfield - dangerous! Turns out GRAASA never even looked at the field before reserving it. We're currently operating under league schedule revision 5 or 6 (I've lost count) because they don't proofread their schedules before sending them out. They didn't even proofread their rulebook, which explains the disconnected phone number - their phone works, but they wrote the wrong number in the rulebook! If that all wasn't enough, some of their umpires were unaware of some non-standard GRAASA-specific rules. To their credit they are 100% volunteer, but that's no excuse for not being thorough and complete. Today at work I had to write them a "nice" letter to explain my teams' lack of satisfaction.
So yeah, today was a tough day of dealing with people that can't be counted on.
Happily we still had two good reasons to celebrate the day - Haven and Beacon's birthday!
Today was another treadmill day. As a general rule I dislike running without going anywhere, but sometimes it can be fun. I did a tempo-ish run today where I started at a 9:00 pace, then a 7:30 pace, then a 7:00 pace, then a 8:00 pace, capped off by sustaining a 6:30 pace during minutes 25 to 32 of a 35 minute run (the last three minutes at 9:00). I have to remind myself, though, that running on a treadmill is about 10% easier than in the real world of the great outdoors.
Speaking of "real world", some of my co-workers apparently aren't in it. Here are some examples of oddity:
One lady came into the fitness center and hopped on the treadmill next to me. She walked for all of THREE minutes before leaving again! Some workout.
A couple years ago I saw a guy run for 15 minutes on the treadmill in his work clothes! Shirt, slacks, loafers and all! If only he was wearing his labcoat, too...
Another guy, when using the treadmill, lets the belt get up to speed before hopping on at a full run! He would run five minutes, then hop off with the belt still whizzing! He would do this over and over. I was surprised he didn't fall on his ass, but I kinda kept hoping he would. :)
The strangest was a guy about my age. One early morning (6am and still dark) I was lifting weights while he rode the reclined exercise bike on level 1 (this particular bike I would ride at level 12 or so; it goes up to 20) for about 15 minutes, hardly breaking a sweat. Suddenly I hear the bike revving up to an insanely high RPM and I look over to see him pedaling as fast as humanly possible - still on level 1 - all while grunting as loudly as those dudes on the World's Strongest Man competition. I thought for sure he was going to spontaneously burst into flames! Then he abruptly stops and heads for the shower. As he walks past me he looks at the falling snow outside and comments: "It's gonna be a frightfully chilly day in the Hundred Acre Wood!" I'm sorry, but when there are two men alone in a fitness center and they speak just once, they should not be referring to Pooh Bear!
Another PT session today and it went pretty well as my shoulder rarely clicked during the stretching exercises. Nothing really feels different, but apparently progress is happening. Today I was the only person there most of the time so the trainer and I were talking a bit.
He told me about how he gets lots of wannabe bodybuilders who have lots of back and neck pain because they only work the "mirror muscles", i.e. only the muscles they can see in the mirror! As a result they don't work their back and everything gets out of whack.
I commented about all of the PT "toys" laying around and he said that his kids love to visit him at work and play with the equipment: giant rubber bands, medicine balls, balance balls, blocks of foam in various shapes. A friend going through some PT of her own recommended that I ask about the "ballistic squat machine". Unfortunately my trainer didn't recognize the term, and asked how she described it. Since I didn't actually talk to her about it, I replied "that's all her email said" to which he replied "Tell her to send a picture!"
My curious trainer isn't done; he asks why my friend is in PT. I tell him they think it's compartment syndrome in her leg and he responds "Oh, that's why she's doing that squat whatever thingy, to make it worse so they can confirm it." He's pretty sharp! He then describes the painful aspect of needles and possibly cutting the fascia, and adds that most people don't like to watch that stuff. I explain how I actually prefer to watch procedures being done to me so I know what's going on (e.g. when drawing blood). He agrees, but then casually states out of the blue:
"Except when I had my vasectomy! I couldn't bear to watch that, you know." I didn't quite know what to say; I was trying figure out how the conversation went from compartment syndrome to vasectomy so quickly!
Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised - apparently there's no place for modesty during therapy. One time I asked a female PT where a certain tendon was on the front of my shoulder. She replies "Here, feel where mine is" and she guides my hand to the spot, but first has to move her bra strap out of the way. Ack! It's really no big deal but I wasn't quite prepared for such an open environment. After all, this isn't the kind of stuff you'd do at the office!
Awkwardness aside, my PT is impressed with the progress on my shoulder so whatever they do, it really woks.