It was a very good Christmas, featuring our most ambitious lighting work in five years on South Montgomery Street. So it was a pretty hefty project to get it all taken down and packed away. Thank goodness we had a skilled professional to help.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Fan Fade-Away
I was stunned today to learn exactly how far removed from the sports scene I've become (remember, I spent the first six years of my professional life as a sportswriter).
Now, mind you, I still pull the Sports section from the rest of the paper first thing in the morning, and I do look at Sportscenter from time to time. I just don't study these sports-news outlets very closely anymore, I guess. And I almost never watch pro football. And beyond the Giants, even baseball has become a challenge (Infospigot has written well on this topic).
Nevertheless, it was shocking to see this Yahoo sports headline this morning -- Schottenheimer Named AP's Top Coach -- and not have a clue what team Schottenheimer coached. I didn't even know if he was coaching in college or the pros! Turns out it's the San Diego Chargers, who apparently won 12 games and are in the playoffs. Who knew?
I was stunned today to learn exactly how far removed from the sports scene I've become (remember, I spent the first six years of my professional life as a sportswriter).
Now, mind you, I still pull the Sports section from the rest of the paper first thing in the morning, and I do look at Sportscenter from time to time. I just don't study these sports-news outlets very closely anymore, I guess. And I almost never watch pro football. And beyond the Giants, even baseball has become a challenge (Infospigot has written well on this topic).
Nevertheless, it was shocking to see this Yahoo sports headline this morning -- Schottenheimer Named AP's Top Coach -- and not have a clue what team Schottenheimer coached. I didn't even know if he was coaching in college or the pros! Turns out it's the San Diego Chargers, who apparently won 12 games and are in the playoffs. Who knew?
Training Log: Jan 08 05
Run: 15.63 miles / 2 hours exactly / 7:41 minutes per mile pace
Actually, this was a 2-hour run. In the first hour I covered 7.62 miles (7:52 minutes per mile pace) and in the second hour, 8.01 miles (7:29 min/mile). This was my first long run in prep for the Napa Valley Marathon on March 6. I had plan on doing two more longs, but am now reconsidering. This run was great and there's no doubt it will improve my muscle endurance, particularly. But I worry about the toll it takes on my body. After about mile 12, a lot of joints begin to ache -- not just the knees, which always ache on long runs (and actually, they weren't too bad today, but also the hips. I want to be fit on March 6, but I also want to be healthy. The new plan may be to stay in the 8-12 mile range over the next couple of weeks then go for 20 on January 29. That's five weeks before race day. I'm not suggesting I'd then do a five-week taper; I just think another body-crunching 18+ miler from then on in isn't going to make me faster on March 6. Instead, I see a week of mostly rest following the 20 miler (lots of walking), then a mix of 5 to 13 mile runs over the next three weeks, then an easy week heading into race day.
A few additional thoughts: I went pretty hard the second half of today's run and was well-whipped when it was over. I couldn't have sustained that pace much longer. This suggests to me two things: I can almost surely run a half-marathon at 7:30/mile pace; and I might be able to run a marathon at 8/mile pace -- though that's no sure thing.
Run: 15.63 miles / 2 hours exactly / 7:41 minutes per mile pace
Actually, this was a 2-hour run. In the first hour I covered 7.62 miles (7:52 minutes per mile pace) and in the second hour, 8.01 miles (7:29 min/mile). This was my first long run in prep for the Napa Valley Marathon on March 6. I had plan on doing two more longs, but am now reconsidering. This run was great and there's no doubt it will improve my muscle endurance, particularly. But I worry about the toll it takes on my body. After about mile 12, a lot of joints begin to ache -- not just the knees, which always ache on long runs (and actually, they weren't too bad today, but also the hips. I want to be fit on March 6, but I also want to be healthy. The new plan may be to stay in the 8-12 mile range over the next couple of weeks then go for 20 on January 29. That's five weeks before race day. I'm not suggesting I'd then do a five-week taper; I just think another body-crunching 18+ miler from then on in isn't going to make me faster on March 6. Instead, I see a week of mostly rest following the 20 miler (lots of walking), then a mix of 5 to 13 mile runs over the next three weeks, then an easy week heading into race day.
A few additional thoughts: I went pretty hard the second half of today's run and was well-whipped when it was over. I couldn't have sustained that pace much longer. This suggests to me two things: I can almost surely run a half-marathon at 7:30/mile pace; and I might be able to run a marathon at 8/mile pace -- though that's no sure thing.
Friday, January 07, 2005
Training Log: Jan 07 05
Just a lousy week on the triathlon front. That pool closure really threw me off my game. Today I went over to my old gym to pay $10 to swim in their crappy putrid choking indoor pool only to find they wanted $15 for the privilege. I thanked them very much and declined. So I walked at lunch, a mile or two, then walked three and a half miles tonight, first under clouds and stars then under rain. Praise the Lord he directed me to bring an umbrella. All thanks go to Him, you know. I'll see if I can do a run and a swim before Niko arrives tomorrow just after lunch....
Just a lousy week on the triathlon front. That pool closure really threw me off my game. Today I went over to my old gym to pay $10 to swim in their crappy putrid choking indoor pool only to find they wanted $15 for the privilege. I thanked them very much and declined. So I walked at lunch, a mile or two, then walked three and a half miles tonight, first under clouds and stars then under rain. Praise the Lord he directed me to bring an umbrella. All thanks go to Him, you know. I'll see if I can do a run and a swim before Niko arrives tomorrow just after lunch....
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Training Log: Jan 06 05
I shouldn't even call myself a triathlete. All I do is run. Haven't been on the bike in weeks. Haven't swum since Monday. It's just run, run, run. Thing is, I'm enjoying it. No -- I'm not saying this is the way it's going to be from now on. It's just that right now getting deep into running feels good. I know I'm flirting with danger; the knees, man, the knees. But the simplicity and purity of running, always attractive to me, now have me in their thrall. May be that only an intervention by one or both of my biking pals will get me out of it. Save me, fellas, save me!
Run: 7.17 miles / 53:01 / 7:23 pace, not really working extremely hard, just running well and finishing hard.
I shouldn't even call myself a triathlete. All I do is run. Haven't been on the bike in weeks. Haven't swum since Monday. It's just run, run, run. Thing is, I'm enjoying it. No -- I'm not saying this is the way it's going to be from now on. It's just that right now getting deep into running feels good. I know I'm flirting with danger; the knees, man, the knees. But the simplicity and purity of running, always attractive to me, now have me in their thrall. May be that only an intervention by one or both of my biking pals will get me out of it. Save me, fellas, save me!
Run: 7.17 miles / 53:01 / 7:23 pace, not really working extremely hard, just running well and finishing hard.
Measuring Napa
In the course of conversation last night, Niko wondered how long Napa might be. He speculated 112 miles. (Hmm. The precise distance of the bike leg of an Ironman-length triathlon. Coincidence?) I thought it was a bit shorter than that. He asked, "How do we know?"
So it was that today, on the way to school, we set out to measure our fair burg. We began by driving to the south end of Jefferson Street where, courtesy the flood-control project, wetlands are burgeoning. Napa's city limits officially extend much farther south, but this is where the residential development ends. Beyond are those wetlands and a great gap between the city and the satellite business park at the airport.
Having pegged our southerly teminus, we drove north on Jefferson, which bisects the city north to south. At Imola, we noted the street and the distance in our notebook: 0.5 miles. At Old Sonoma, 0.8. And so on, past Oak and Lincoln and Trancas and Trower until we got to Salvador. Now, there is smidgen of housing beyond Salvador, but only a few blocks. And besides, Niko's school is east from Jefferson on Salvador, and it was 8:59, and school starts at 9. So we called this the end of Napa -- 5 miles! -- turned right and got to school. Niko excitedly shared the news about our discovery with Victoria, his teacher, then grabbed a wagon and began pulling it around the play area.
In the course of conversation last night, Niko wondered how long Napa might be. He speculated 112 miles. (Hmm. The precise distance of the bike leg of an Ironman-length triathlon. Coincidence?) I thought it was a bit shorter than that. He asked, "How do we know?"
So it was that today, on the way to school, we set out to measure our fair burg. We began by driving to the south end of Jefferson Street where, courtesy the flood-control project, wetlands are burgeoning. Napa's city limits officially extend much farther south, but this is where the residential development ends. Beyond are those wetlands and a great gap between the city and the satellite business park at the airport.
Having pegged our southerly teminus, we drove north on Jefferson, which bisects the city north to south. At Imola, we noted the street and the distance in our notebook: 0.5 miles. At Old Sonoma, 0.8. And so on, past Oak and Lincoln and Trancas and Trower until we got to Salvador. Now, there is smidgen of housing beyond Salvador, but only a few blocks. And besides, Niko's school is east from Jefferson on Salvador, and it was 8:59, and school starts at 9. So we called this the end of Napa -- 5 miles! -- turned right and got to school. Niko excitedly shared the news about our discovery with Victoria, his teacher, then grabbed a wagon and began pulling it around the play area.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Desperately Needed: Solar Input
Eleven days without sunshine, and we Napkins are getting antsy. Me, anyway. I'd have to do some research to know for sure, but it sure seems like it didn't used to be this way in the winter: a month or two of sunny weather followed by six weeks of rain, then sunshine again and before you know it, we're well into spring. In the Bay Area of my youth, was there not a lovely mix -- two days of rain followed by four days of sunshine, interrupted by a day of rain, then five more days of sun, then maybe a week of rain and onward thusly? Ah, who the hell knows. In recent years the weather is an all-or-nothing proposition. And the forecast for the next week or so: bleak.
Eleven days without sunshine, and we Napkins are getting antsy. Me, anyway. I'd have to do some research to know for sure, but it sure seems like it didn't used to be this way in the winter: a month or two of sunny weather followed by six weeks of rain, then sunshine again and before you know it, we're well into spring. In the Bay Area of my youth, was there not a lovely mix -- two days of rain followed by four days of sunshine, interrupted by a day of rain, then five more days of sun, then maybe a week of rain and onward thusly? Ah, who the hell knows. In recent years the weather is an all-or-nothing proposition. And the forecast for the next week or so: bleak.
PR in Action
Kudos to the PR Department at Wal-mart, which is probably called the "Corporate Communications Department," as such operations are at most larger companies because PR folks can't help but PR even their own identity.
Wal-mart had a bad November, with sales rising only 0.7 percent over the previous year, and its gain in December of 3 percent was solidly below the gain it posted last year, 4.3 percent. Yet there's the New York Times saying that "Wal-Mart, the country's biggest retailer, managed to come back with style."
Well, the PR people certainly did.
Faced with bad-to-mediocre news, Wal-mart spun a story of a near-miraculous comeback from the depths of retailer hell. The story begins with the Times recounting how a top company executive tracked on his Blackberry the unfolding bad news that hit on the day after Thanksgiving. "'At 7 a.m., I looked at the readings coming in from other states, and my gut feeling was confirmed,' he recalled in an interview yesterday. 'By 8 a.m., we knew we had an issue.'"
That's when fearless Wal-mart executives -- and even hourly employees, the Times notes -- sprung into action. They held meetings and developed ad campaigns and stuff, but mostly what they did was cut prices on key items. Sometimes it worked -- the rise in fleece sales was said to be "very significant" (note the use of imprecise but suggestively positive language). Sometimes it didn't. Sometimes we're not really sure. But surely they attacked the problem.
Was all this cost-cutting a little, uhm, dangerous? Wal-mart says, uhm, not really we're pretty sure maybe not we don't think so at this point. Here's how the Times put it:
"Still those markdowns did not cut significantly into profits, executives said. Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart's chief financial officer, said that earnings should come in within the range projected earlier: between 73 and 75 cents a share for the quarter that ends in January. 'We haven't revised that estimate,' he said."
Again, note the suggestive but imprecise language. "Did not cut significantly into profits"; "should come in within the range projected"; "'we haven't revised that estimate.'"
What becomes clear in reading this story is that the Times desperately likes this tale of Wal-mart, the behemoth, acting nimbly to save the Christmas season. What also becomes clear is that it's not entirely clear that 1) what Wal-mart did was at all unusual (don't companies always track sales and lower prices to move items that are glued to shelves?); or 2) that what Wal-mart did was especially effective.
The Times says that "tomorrow, Wal-mart is expected to announce that December sales achieved a 3 percent gain over sales for December 2003." The Times doesn't say who expects this or where it got its information about these expectations; I'm going out on a limb and guessing Wal-mart. No matter. The Times likes this number because it's bigger than the 2 percent rise number that Wal-mart had put out last week. Success -- for the PR department.
Instead of just dumping a load of disappointing news out to the business world -- the 3 percent rise in December sales -- Wal-mart's PR folks deftly juxtaposed it against the 2 percent figure it "estimated" last week (and which, the cynic in me presumes, was a number Wal-mart was pretty sure it would actually beat), then fed the Times a lot of nice anecdotes and half-baked insider information to show how this victory was achieved. They recognized that how desperately media want to tell dramatic stories, and how bringing reporters inside your company -- giving them information they typically don't have access to -- can be so effective.
Beautifully done.
Kudos to the PR Department at Wal-mart, which is probably called the "Corporate Communications Department," as such operations are at most larger companies because PR folks can't help but PR even their own identity.
Wal-mart had a bad November, with sales rising only 0.7 percent over the previous year, and its gain in December of 3 percent was solidly below the gain it posted last year, 4.3 percent. Yet there's the New York Times saying that "Wal-Mart, the country's biggest retailer, managed to come back with style."
Well, the PR people certainly did.
Faced with bad-to-mediocre news, Wal-mart spun a story of a near-miraculous comeback from the depths of retailer hell. The story begins with the Times recounting how a top company executive tracked on his Blackberry the unfolding bad news that hit on the day after Thanksgiving. "'At 7 a.m., I looked at the readings coming in from other states, and my gut feeling was confirmed,' he recalled in an interview yesterday. 'By 8 a.m., we knew we had an issue.'"
That's when fearless Wal-mart executives -- and even hourly employees, the Times notes -- sprung into action. They held meetings and developed ad campaigns and stuff, but mostly what they did was cut prices on key items. Sometimes it worked -- the rise in fleece sales was said to be "very significant" (note the use of imprecise but suggestively positive language). Sometimes it didn't. Sometimes we're not really sure. But surely they attacked the problem.
Was all this cost-cutting a little, uhm, dangerous? Wal-mart says, uhm, not really we're pretty sure maybe not we don't think so at this point. Here's how the Times put it:
"Still those markdowns did not cut significantly into profits, executives said. Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart's chief financial officer, said that earnings should come in within the range projected earlier: between 73 and 75 cents a share for the quarter that ends in January. 'We haven't revised that estimate,' he said."
Again, note the suggestive but imprecise language. "Did not cut significantly into profits"; "should come in within the range projected"; "'we haven't revised that estimate.'"
What becomes clear in reading this story is that the Times desperately likes this tale of Wal-mart, the behemoth, acting nimbly to save the Christmas season. What also becomes clear is that it's not entirely clear that 1) what Wal-mart did was at all unusual (don't companies always track sales and lower prices to move items that are glued to shelves?); or 2) that what Wal-mart did was especially effective.
The Times says that "tomorrow, Wal-mart is expected to announce that December sales achieved a 3 percent gain over sales for December 2003." The Times doesn't say who expects this or where it got its information about these expectations; I'm going out on a limb and guessing Wal-mart. No matter. The Times likes this number because it's bigger than the 2 percent rise number that Wal-mart had put out last week. Success -- for the PR department.
Instead of just dumping a load of disappointing news out to the business world -- the 3 percent rise in December sales -- Wal-mart's PR folks deftly juxtaposed it against the 2 percent figure it "estimated" last week (and which, the cynic in me presumes, was a number Wal-mart was pretty sure it would actually beat), then fed the Times a lot of nice anecdotes and half-baked insider information to show how this victory was achieved. They recognized that how desperately media want to tell dramatic stories, and how bringing reporters inside your company -- giving them information they typically don't have access to -- can be so effective.
Beautifully done.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Training Log: Jan 04 05
Arrived at the gym this afternoon to find the pool closed for repairs. Reportedly the membership had been warned of this eventuality with numerous signs plastered throughout the building; I saw none of them, and none were up today, the first day of the closure. Anyway, this state of affairs will be in place until Sunday, which is just too damn long not to swim, so I'll probably fork over 10 bucks to swim at my old gym on Thursday. (I left the old gym because the pool is indoors and the toxic air was causing me massive sinus problems, all of which cleared up once I headed across town to my current gym, where I can swim in fresh air -- well, fresh as can be since they finished the 29/Trancas interchange a few hundred yards away, which, when the wind blows just right, seems to leave an invisible cloud of auto toxins right over the pool.
No swim, so I ran. Good run. I'll run Thursday, probably 10 miles, then Saturday morning I'll crank a 15-miler at 8min/mile pace. I'm thinking of doing a 20-miler on January 29, then probably one more long run around February 12. Napa Valley Marathon is March 6.
Run: 7 miles / 52:30 / 7:30 per mile, nice and easy, quick recovery.
Arrived at the gym this afternoon to find the pool closed for repairs. Reportedly the membership had been warned of this eventuality with numerous signs plastered throughout the building; I saw none of them, and none were up today, the first day of the closure. Anyway, this state of affairs will be in place until Sunday, which is just too damn long not to swim, so I'll probably fork over 10 bucks to swim at my old gym on Thursday. (I left the old gym because the pool is indoors and the toxic air was causing me massive sinus problems, all of which cleared up once I headed across town to my current gym, where I can swim in fresh air -- well, fresh as can be since they finished the 29/Trancas interchange a few hundred yards away, which, when the wind blows just right, seems to leave an invisible cloud of auto toxins right over the pool.
No swim, so I ran. Good run. I'll run Thursday, probably 10 miles, then Saturday morning I'll crank a 15-miler at 8min/mile pace. I'm thinking of doing a 20-miler on January 29, then probably one more long run around February 12. Napa Valley Marathon is March 6.
Run: 7 miles / 52:30 / 7:30 per mile, nice and easy, quick recovery.
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