Can You Hear Me, Doctor Wu?

This morning's title has absolutely nothing to do with my intended rant. I came in this morning to the office, turned on Radio Margaritaville, & one of the first songs on was straight from the files of Steely Dan; Walter Becker & Donald Fagen...what were those guys thinking about when they wrote those tunes? I would like to think they were considering the poor schmucks who had to get up & occupy a cubicle for eight hours with little else but coffee to look forward to.
While I don't like to remain uninformed about what is going on in the world, the more I hear about the big business meltdown & our government's efforts to forestall what many C (blank) O's would probably classify as the big one, the less I want to hear. How is it that corporate leaders have the brass to go hat-in-hand to Congress for a government handout, but when push comes to shove they are unwilling to accept government oversight?
A friend of mine at the local coffee shop asked whether I would get her a new Camaro for her birthday/Christmas. I told her the gift would wait until GM declared bankruptcy, after which I would purchase her Camaro for pennies on the dollar. Actually, we might get her the Camaro the Johnny Cash way...one piece at a time. Starting with the easiest part - the key. That ought to drive her insane.

Swimming workouts have been a challenge as of late. My coach is willing to provide me workouts to focus on the specific endurance needs of triathlon swimming. However, there aren't enough lanes at the pool to segregate the endurance swimmers from masters' swim prep. Most of my masters' swimming lane-mates focus on events of (much) shorter-length, where raw speed is the coin of the realm. Or is that coin of the realm better defined as shorter duration of discomfort?
I caught some instructional requests from lane-mates: 'someone please teach that guy to flip-turn?' Guys, I'm a tri-geek. When am I going to flip-turn during the course of a 600-meter, 800-meter, mile, 1.2-mile or (gasp!) 2.4-mile swim? Before you counter with 'when are you going to open turn in a tri?' realize there are no black lines on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. I'm going to have to sight every so often, and I'd rather not depend on the (atrocious) sighting skills of swimmers who are at my (atrocious!) ability level.

Besides, my best stroke when it comes to pool swimming is probably the breaststroke.

This year's running group Christmas party is Beach Casual. Love it. Perfect. The missus and I made a brief pilgrimage to the local surf shop to find (ideally) matching island print shirts. None in stock. Bummer. So, we decided on Plan B, a couple of matching Old Guys Rule shirts. The logo looked like a couple of beers we've had at one time or another...perfect. Probably toss a couple of collared short-sleeve flowered tops underneath for some dignity. Might (still) be a little too chilly for shorts.