CirclesOverSquares

I haven't done it in awhile, but in high school, I could dance. While riding today I realized cycling is just like dancing. Dancing on the pedals, a swift stroke. Dancing up and down hills, dancing over mountains. Moving to the rhythm of the road.

Respect

The market.

I'm addicted to this show. Wall Street Warriors.

Good "reality" tv. The second season is filmed just after the New Year. Subprime mortgages had already killed the housing market, and the crisis began to spread.

Watching Lance and Jim, two brokers pick up new accounts, assuage their clients, and make a long bet on SanDisk that has cost them millions is the most interesting of the profiles.

In the most recent episode I watched, Jim and Lance were pounding the phones, and busy with SanDisk financial statements. All to come to the conclusion that the stock is undervalued. They bought the stock at $44, the stock hit a high of $59, on the day the episode was filmed the stock was trading at $36. That was in February of 2008, the stock continued to fall, and during it's descent never again even came back near $36. It now trades at $7, with a 1yr projection of $14.

In short, I've learned a couple things from this show.

A successful hedge fund manager is interviewed at the beginning of one of the seasons.

Number one. His advice for junior traders is "once you make a profit, never give it back." Lance and Jim got greedy, and they paid the price for not respecting the markets.

Number two. No matter how professional, how educated, the markets are a craps shoot.
No one knows what the hell may happen right now. Unless you're playing with someone else's money, you shouldn't be investing.

Rest Well.

Hokie Open. Power Animal

Hokie Open this morning. 6k cross race on the Virginia Tech course. The field was made up of agroup of VT runners, some runners from smaller schools like Radford, some guys from the triathlon team, and a few unattached runners.

Ten minute warm up, and "hot stuff." I'm at the start line, toward the right behind the VT XC team. Without enough time to think the race was on. Focus. Leg turnover. Breath. Not that heavy, you're embarrassing yourself.

Sitting about 8-10 at 2k, holding onto a guy who was cut from the VT team. I'll call him "Billy," I think that's right. He was running steady and brought me through the first mile in 5:10.

"Well, that's a little faster than I've run in awhile."

Focus. Power Animal. Unleash the power animal.

I dreamt of the plains last night I felt the earth beneath my hooves
I felt the dust fly into my nostrils
I ran...

At 3k Billy gapped me and I put in a pathetic effort over a set of hills that lead us back toward the finish line for the second lap. Chris Brown, comes through running not all that fast but pretty smooth. I sit on his feet for a little, and we turn onto the second loop.

Chris Clarke joins us and pushes the pace through 4k. It's me Chris Clarke and Chris Brown, with the race up the road. I think we were toward the back of the pack, but I'm not sure.

A steady hill to lead us past the plantation a second time hurt the motivation a bit. I was gapped from Chris Clarke and Cameron Hanlin (who's ready for a great marathon next weekend in Richmond), made his way up, and looked stronger than me. I turned the corner at the cornfield and cruised down the hill.

Chris Brown made a strong move by me when we crossed the creek before 5k, he said something to pick me up, but when I tried to hop on his feet I was already gapped.

I caught up to their group at the bottom of the last hill, but the legs weren't really turning at that point. I need to get that bread and butter leg speed back. After the back stretch I saw Chris Brown put in a kick on someone, and I got fired up for the finish.

I came by Chris Clarke a little late, and had too much kick and not enough time to use it. Chris recently won the Lynchburg Ultra Series so it wasn't really anything to write home about as the guy's warm ups are probably longer than my long runs.

On the women's side Nicole Pederson raced to fifth with a smile on her face (I don't think it stops,) and Amanda and Karrie? rounded out the field.

All in all a fun effort. Nice Morning, completed by a solid breakfast, where everyone had to dash to go help time a home VT swim meet against Clemson.

These kids don't stop.

Below is a picture of Chris from Big Lick, he beat all the triathletes today, and got us all into this race. Good on ya Chris.

btw. the power animal is a joke.


Rest Well

Smack.Goes Without Saying.

Ice. Read. Shower. Write.

Staying on top of things this afternoon.

Today was not a very autumn sort of day. Sun blanketed the drillfield, and although the leaves are all in full color, and it should be chilly, the weather decided to match my mood.

Tuesday closed with me exhausted and sleepy. Wednesday rose with a victory.

As my mom wrote me, "Si, se puede!"

My feeling now is confidence. I am confident that Barack Obama will lead our country through the financial crisis. He will change our energy policy, and hopefully we will make progress in handing over more responsibility to the Iraqi military.

The troop surge is short term, (WHY? "Nearly 80 people (Iraqis plus coalition troops) are dying per day, and the U.S. cost of the war may exceed $1.2 trillion." MIT News but I don't see long term stability with our current strategy.

Must read the MIT News report. See the bond prices, really interesting.

As Stone Cold says "The darkest part of the night, is just before you see the light." Yea, John! He's the guy in the picture above.

I was in a band with these guys in high school, they're still killin it.

Show in Charlottesville, November 22 at The Outback Lodge.

Food Not Muck

"All I've seen are the commercials, and I'm like, I guess both these guys suck."

This is a comment from a friend of mine. This year an incredible amount of money has been spent on negative advertising during the Presidential campaign. As Campbell Brown wrote in Food banks instead of campaign ads in mid October there's certainly more important things to be spending money on.

Negative advertising really doesn't win any votes either. The WSJ has an article on the subject that I found in Brown's commentary. The article titled Ready, Aim, Backfire: Nasty Political Ads Fall Flat, reports that although McCain has run a higher percentage of negative advertisements he's still not reaching voters.

Good News. Schools turning up. I'm finally starting to see the bigger picture in the work. Rather than tests, professors mention jobs, what I will be expected to understand, and who I am competing with. I try to keep in mind some advice I heard, if you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss, they don't have tenure.

Tomorrow Eoin and some cyclists might come to "Trainer and a Movie." This week I will show Kill Bill on Tuesday and Wonderboys on Thursday while spinning on the trainer for about an hour. My hope is that after all the boring trainer rides facing the sun shining outside my window, I will be hardened up for winter, and ready to brace the weather. As John Delong said, "There is no outside."

Rest Well.

Punked

Quebec comedy duo pranks Gov. Sarah Palin.

This is classic.

See the story and radio clip here : TheStar.com (Toronto Star online).


Rest Well.

Go Paula

Paula Radcliffe won the NYC Marathon today. She's probably one of my favorite runners. There's so much talk about stride length, lean, toe strike, and cadence in running, but here's a runner who just goes out and SUFFERS. No finesse, just hard running. I was smitten after she limped through the finish line at the Olympics this Summer.





It seems like some athletes are able to extend their careers in sport today. The NY Times has a good story about the trend here. It seems that slowtwitch muscles, and the big engine required for some efforts in endurance sports (cycling, running, swimming) don't diminish until the athlete is in their early forties, and I've still had some wompings from masters swimmers and cyclists who are older than that.

I'm racing the Hokie Open here in Blacksburg this Saturday. My goals are to be happy with my effort, and have fun. The team I'm racing with should be fairly strong so a few of us may run the course this week. My run mileage is really low right now so no real expectations. Long run last week was fifty five minutes on the tready.

Don't forget to vote Tuesday.


Photo Credit: three60

The Look

JZ called me out last night.

“At Owen Cup I’m going to turn around and look you in the eye, and then I’m going to ride you right off my wheel.”



JZ putting “the look” on me, can I let that happen?

No

Rest Well