Stupid Things

The past few days have been retarded. I'm not sure what's going on - I think my mental state has been affecting my physical state and surroundings as well.

Tuesday was a fairly normal day. I was still exhausted from Provincials on the weekend and was happy that it rained Tuesday night so I didn't feel so guilty about not wanting to go to Midweek Mayhem Crit racing that night.

Wednesday we had an organizational meeting for the Calgary 2007 Continental Outgames running event at Original Joe's in Kensington. A lot of good ideas came out of the meeting - expanding Calgary Frontrunner membership numbers, creating an organization committee for planning logistics, funding, marketing for the running events at the Games, and some of the near-term tasks that need to be completed. What I was concerned about was volunteerism. We are a fairly small running group that is being tasked to take on a fairly large commitment. Plus, of course, they are asking me to be a committee chair. As many of you know, I stretch myself fairly thin at the best of times (so much volunteering to do!) and I'm not sure if I really want or need to take on the additional responsibility of helping to organize an international sporting event. It's the same old story of a small group of good organizers seemingly being the only ones capable of putting together any and all events. Once you do it once successfully, you are forever doomed to be the first one asked to organize any event forever after.

However - I do have to consider that I'm not planning on running for any CBTL executive position next year, and I don't plan to curl this winter (and if I commit to organizing the Outgames event, I certainly won't have the time), however I will still have off-season training in the weight room 3-4 days a week, plus running, plus work which gets busy in the fall, plus the Synergy team obligations which get busy in the late winter. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but in the short term I have some definite action items I need to complete.

I ran up for the meeting and ran back downtown afterwards. Got home, chilled. Thursday was a very busy day at work and as I usually do (but need to change), I didn't eat or drink much during the day, plus I was fatigued from the run on Wednesday. We had the monthly points race event at the velodrome Thursday night and in my deficit, I pulled out of the race early with horrific calf cramps. I wonder how that happened (duh!)? I felt good and was leading in points until about 50 laps in when I started to feel slight cramping in my calves. It wasn't until about 15 laps to go that everything went to hell and I was forced to stop. I felt like such an idiot since I knew exactly what happened and why. I was pretty pissed at myself so I left the track in a huff without really saying goodbye to anyone. What a loser.

Finally got home and went to bed. Then at 2am there was a huge commotion at the neighbors apartment and in the hallway by the elevators. We think they have a crackhead friend that was either fighting someone or freaking out and they were trying to calm him down. At any rate, there was screaming and smashing in the hallway. The cops showed up and forcefully removed this guy. However Joe took picks of the hallway. There was blood everywhere.

So everything calms down again around 3am. Then at 7am, the fucking idiot is back in the building smashing on the neighbors door trying to get in. He would smash on the door for fifteen minutes or so, then go down to the lobby to buzz the apartment, then come back up and smash on the door again. This went on for TWO hours. Joe had repeatedly called building security and the cops again, but no one showed up until 11am. According to Joe though, the neighbors have been finally given a 24-hour eviction notice, so hopefully that will be the end of that.

The interesting thing is how long these people have been able to hold onto their apartment. This same crackhead cracker attempted suicide off of their balcony several months ago, and they've been warned for loud parties and littering before. They're also the only ones on the 11th or 12th floors that cause any problems generally, so it's surprising that it has taken that long for them to get evicted. Good riddance anyways.

Separate train of thought: In Joe's conversations with our building manager, we found out how much the apartment rent rates are going for new tenants. It's really freaking scary. The bachelor suites - $980, the one bedrooms - $1250, the two bedrooms - $1450, the penthouses - $1800! How much are we paying? $1150. At a rate of two increases a year of $50, it will take about 7 years for us to be paying market rate for the rental unit we have. It was a bit of a relief to know that we have a bit of breathing space in this insane market to wait out a calming of house prices once we get into a situation to buy again.

Anyhoo, I hope the most stupid parts of the week are now in the past. Maybe not yet. It's casual Friday in the office today, and I see one of the ugly fat wheezing women in Operations is wearing a Harley Davidson t-shirt. Nice. Some of the things they wear to work make me shudder (stretch pants, flip flops, my god). I figure we've got maybe three months until the higher-ups start clamping down on this pajama-rama creeping into the office. I'm not a big fan of ties and formal wear either, but come on people. You're not in the suburbs anymore, Dorothy. Dress up and act the part of a salaried employee of a major corporation fer chrissakes. Guh - my calves are shot and with the lack of sleep I'm hobbling around the office today. To top it all off, the Office Hottie hasn't been in the office the past few days. Gotta get the hell out of this stupid and ugly zone.

We're planning a get together with Jerome and Bruce tonight since they are leaving us to head to Montreal on August 28. It should be a fun evening.

I've also committed to race the AB Provincial Road Race on Sunday in Bentley, a small town west of Red Deer. The course is horrendously hilly from what I've heard, so I'm not really looking forward to it nor planning on doing well, however it's the last big road race of the season and it will be a good ride nonetheless. Therefore I'm going to head to Red Deer tomorrow and stay the night at Owen and Chloes' and play with Trezlie for awhile.

That should be it for the weekend. I'd really like for things to stop being so stupid.