Snooze Button...

"It's taken me a lot of years, but I've come around to this: If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. And if you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you." - Isaac Jaffee (Robert Guillaume), "Sports Night"


Weight: 160

Woke up this morning just dragging. Didn't even want to pour my coffee right away, just wanted to rest for a few more minutes before it was time to wake up my daughter for school. When it was time to wake my daughter, it seemed she was feeling sleepy and groggy too. We go downstairs and my wife (who is getting ready to leave for work) says "What are you doing? She doesn't have school today."

It's a bit bittersweet. Great, we can just go back to sleep for a while, but it's just not the same quality of sleep. Plus, I suddenly realize that my day will not go as planned. I was planning on getting in a run and a swim this morning, but it will have to wait until the evening if it happens at all today.

I really dislike working out in the evening. It just doesn't agree with me. I don't ever get the eating right, I end up with heartburn or vomiting in the middle of my run. I end up with cramps or burping while swimming. It's a skill I don't have, this working out later in the day.

But I did get some quality workouts in this week. I'm still swimming 3 times a week, and on those days, my running plan calls for 3-4 easy miles those same days. I think I've got those days figured out! The pool is 2 miles from home... run to the pool, do my swim, run home. Sure, I don't know if two 2 mile runs is the same as 'running 4 miles', and sure, it was colder than a whore on dollar night running through the snow-packed sidewalks, but I think it'll work for what I'm trying to do.

In another 2 weeks, my work schedule changes. Currently, most days, it is very easy for me to get in a run, swim, and/or bike. My wife and daughter are both gone during the day, and I don't go to work until after 3 pm. But soon I'll be working in the daytime, so every minute I'll be working out after that, will be a minute I'm not spending with my wife and kid at home. The workouts need to be efficient, quality, workouts. I may even be able to do this 'run, swim, run' workout before anybody wakes up in the morning.

It won't be fun, but the sacrifice and suffering is a little part of what makes it all an accomplishment, no? It's eliminating excuses, which is really all it takes. The more excuses you can eliminate, the further you can go.

In other news - I saw 'Schindler's List' for the first time this week. I know, I know... "You've never seen "Schindler's List?!?!?" Well I hadn't. I have no excuse. But really, doesn't everyone have a movie like that? A movie that EVERYONE has seen... but you? (I also have not seen 'Titanic').

But the 'You've never seen...' thing does have some limitations, right? For example, your age. Seems to me that my parents (in their 60's now) would say "American Graffiti" is one of those movies that everyone has seen, or should. I've seen it, but really, would you EXPECT someone born the same year the movie came out to have seen it?

I run into this with younger people I work with. I still have a hard time grasping that 20-somethings have not seen 'Fast Times', or 'Animal House', or the John Hughes movies. I've even run into golfers who have not seen "Caddyshack" (Blasphemy!!!)

Anyway - 'Schindler's List', it's not like you can really say you 'liked' a movie like that. And I don't know that I would even say it was 'good'. It's a fascinating story and piece of history for sure. But really... did it need to be over 3 hours long? Did we need THAT much of the horror of the camps included? (and really, does ANY movie need to be that long?)

I'm not downplaying the importance or significance of all that happened. But this is a movie, with the main goal of making money. Let's not fool ourselves that this was about educating anybody, or healing, or retribution. it may have done those things, or helped, but that is not the focus of making the movie. In fact, if any of those things were the goal, (SPOILER ALERT, in case someone else has not seen it)then just like Schindler at the end of the movie "they could have done more".

Just as "Passion of the Christ" was accused of being a snuff film for the gratuitous violence, and "Saving Private Ryan" was deemed gratuitously gory... isn't throwing an an extra hour's worth of Jew torture the same thing?

In the end, I'm glad I saw it. I'll never have to see it again.