NCAA Tourney

Let's go ahead and have Wichita State in the Final Four!

The Long Overdue Triathlon Post

This year, I decided to try to achieve the goal of competing in a triathlon. After searching for regional events, I targeted the Hagerstown Sprint which is a 300m swim, followed by an 11 mile bike, then a 5k run.

The pool - I hadn't done laps since swim team in high school. My breathing routine was so rusty at first.

The bike - I had to get my bike tuned up, and the training in my neighborhood is much tougher than the 11 mile course.

The run - I have jello legs after biking, so I know the 5K will be super tough!

Our Urban Dare

On April 18, The Rock Lobsters (myself and hubby) embarked on a grand adventure in DC called the Urban Dare. We had a great 3.5 hour fun-filled tour of miscellaneous statues.

Our Dare started at McFadden's near Washington Circle (Foggy Bottom Metro). Our race started fashionably late at about 12:15 p.m. or so with a list of 11 clues that sent us to various locations across the city. Thus began our worst mistake... we wasted a good 30 minutes at least using our laptop to google all the clues (which led to statues or circles) without moving. A better option would have been to just ride the Circulator over to Union Station, the first stop we figured out from the clues.

So after walking to Gandhi's statue near Dupont Circle and then over to Logan Circle to do a 3-legged race challenge, we were way behind the 8-ball. Once we got moving on the Circulator, our pace improved as we had mapped out every location and how to get there quickly.

We found our way to Gallatin's statue at the Treasury building and lucked into a bonus picture of Lafayette. We also got a bus to save us some walking over to the Art Museum where we photographed a bust of Longfellow... oh WAIT, the one they meant for us to find was way back at Dupont Circle!!!

The highlight of our day was smashing through the spelling challenge. It was a basic cipher where letters had numerical values. Nerd power!

So, we will use our lessons learned tomorrow when we compete on the Great Urban Race, a similar Amazing Race style adventure with cryptic clues and physical challenges.

Frederick YMCA

There was a "fire drill" at the Y today. Not sure what was going on, but in the middle of racquetball, there was announcement to leave the building. On the way out, I saw a couple firemen. No alarms were going off at the time, but they did start later. I don't know if it was a drill or something else that needed to be looked at. There were two fire engines I saw. One was out front and the other on the side street near the alley.

Watch Teddy Lose!

Here are two movies of the Presidents' Race I shot with my digital camera last year. I got a better angle on the second one. Enjoy!

This one was shot on Teddy Roosevelt Bobblehead Night. The other presidents won on their bobblehead night, but not Teddy.


The second one was shot towards the end of the season.

Will Teddy win?

Tomorrow evening, the Washington Nationals celebrate opening night at the brand new Nationals Park. Learn more about the park HERE.

The visiting team will be the Atlanta Braves, but many fans will be focused on who wins the promotional Presidents' Race in the middle of the 4th inning. Read about the history of this fun race HERE and HERE.

Given that it is opening night, and George Washington was the nation's first president, I predict that George will win tomorrow night. Who do you think will win? Who do you WANT to win? Post a comment to this thread!

Will Teddy ever win? My guess is, yes, Teddy will win a race this year. We'll see if I'm right.

Molly & Pongo's Great Adventure - Part 2

So, I go to Pep Boys and they say I'm looking at 1.5-2 hours before being ready. It's about 5:00 pm, so it's looking like 6:30 - 7:00. I decide to walk the dogs over to the Pet Smart. We go waste about 1.5 hours over there, and then return to Pep Boys. I was able to watch my car getting serviced.

So, 7:15 rolls around, and I'm paying for the work on the car, but I have a softball game in Gaithersburg at 8:15pm. If I go back home to drop off the dogs, I miss all of game 1. So, I decide to grab some snacks at the gas station (trail mix rocks!) and drive down to the park with dogs in tow.

The games went well (we won both!), and the dogs behaved just great. They were beat from all the excitement, so not much energy left. I ended up getting home just past 11:00pm.

Did I mention I didn't get to sleep until about 10 til midnight and woke up this morning at 4:30 am? Ah yes, thank God the pets cooperated this morning.

Molly & Pongo's Great Adventure

Ever have one of those days? Yesterday was one for me. It all started when my foot started itching overnight, and I got woken up again by a ringing phone on my day off. So, I'm up early and not feeling well-rested.

A comical series of errors then unfolded. Hubby and I were going to drive separate cars to the office parking lot and then I drop him off at the Metro. Well, we dilly-dallied our way through lunch and ended up rushing. We ended up in one car. Oh, and the dogs came with us. I wanted to take the pups to the Ridge Road Dog Park after dropping him off.

So, everything is honky dory until I get to the park. That's when I notice a hissing noise on my back left tire. It's a jagged metal loop sticking into the rubber... a FLAT! So, here it is mid 90s with dewpoints near 70 and I have two dogs and a flat tire. So, I put the dogs inside the dog park fence so they don't get super hot while I try to take care of the tire.

I get the jack out and the donut tire and the piece you put into the edge of the jack to get it to go up/down is missing. I end up trying a small screwdriver. I got it high enough to get the flat off, but not high enough to put the donut on. I end up calling roadside assistance. So, I go inside the park to wait with the dogs and play with them, resuming my original plan. Might as well try to salvage the trip and get the dogs running around.

After about an hour, the donut's on the car and I need to find a place to patch the flat. I can't commute around here on a donut (50 mph limit). I end up going to Pep Boys.

Don't Bother

I have two fantasy baseball teams and they both stink. I say, don't bother playing fantasy baseball because it never pans out the way you think it will.

Pick a Horse

The Kentucky Derby is about to get underway, which means it's time for my yearly wild guess. I know nothing about horse racing, so I usually pick interesting names or horses with odds between 10 and 20-1, or based on how good the jockey's uniform is. Real scientific, huh? Well, before you laugh too hard, let's see how well I do this year.

1 - Storm In May (26-1) ... can't help but go with horse named after weather!
2 - Cowtown Cat (20-1)... meow!
3 - Scat Daddy (7-1)... a cool name and nifty colors.
4- Any Given Saturday (13-1)... a tribute to successful underdog teams.