Fabric Shortage, Southwest Challenge Series, Movie Reviews

For the past 20 years I have been swimming at the Aquatic Center at Texas Tech University and it has been a really great place to swim. Just before the university entered into the Southwest Conference athletic conference they built this great aquatic center that featured a 50 meter pool for serious competition, then it also had lanes in it for 25 yards and a couple of 30 yard lanes. So, it really just didn’t get any better than that. Funny thing is after entering the conference they discontinued swimming so the pool was then open to the general student population and general public. However, as it is now a days with billion dollar football stadiums and basketball facilities the Red Raiders just had to do something different and create a multi-million dollar outdoor swimming facility that features a lazy river as part of its’ fun in the sun stuff. They do have two 25 yard lap pools, but one of them has volleyball and a basket ball net in it, so that just about eliminates it as a true lap pool. In years past it was a relaxing place to go get some serious lap swimming in and then take a little snooze or just relax. Now that it not the case since you have to battle for a lane and most of the time you have to share a lane. That is fine with the people who can swim without slinging their arms around, but in my case I go to battle with the water in slinging Mike Tyson punches as I swim my work out. So, beware if you have to share a lane with me or you will end up with black eyes and a bloody nose. Now that you have the setting of what we have to go through now to swim I have saved the best or worst for last in this story. After building the lazy river and putting it to use by the co-eds of this great university, I have discovered that there is an apparent fabric shortage in the apparel industry or maybe the lazy river has just brought out in the worst/best in them. They just don’t want to cover their slender, well endowed, brown bodies. I do know that the bikini outfits they are wearing now have less fabric in them than I have ever seen, and I have been watching bikini’s for a long time. It almost seems as though they ran an ad in the Tech Torridor asking for the best looking co-eds of the campus to go buy the most revealing bikini in Lubbock, come to the Tech lazy river pool and float down it with next to nothing on it and see what the men of the pool would be doing. I even went up to one of the life guards and said, “hey you guys should be paying the pool to work here, with having to watch these bodies all day, how good can it get?” He just grinned and gave me the thumbs up sign. It has finally gotten so bad that I have had to check and make sure my sun glasses are dark enough to hide the many movements my eyes have to make to catch all the sites that are out there. That way I can just point my head in one direction and look the other direction where the better sights are. Just to make sure I had this down I practiced it in front of a mirror to make sure I wasn’t that obvious, and did extreme eye movement training to really master this art. Now I am able to walk to the changing room, it just happens to be across the way from the lap pool so I don’t have a choice, right through this maze of bikini clad co-eds and never move my head. It enables me to scope in everything that is going on. I have noticed the other guys doing the same thing, no matter the age. The to put the icing on the cake they put a hot tub right beside the lap pool, so now the bikini’s have to go to the hot tub and submerge themselves in it, then slowly move themselves out of it. Looks just like some kind sleaze warm up scenes to a porn movie. Oh well, I must get my swim work outs in since I am a serious triathlete so I will continue to endure this torture while I train at the lazy river swim bash!! Before you ask, yes you can go with me on a guest pass and/or you can join for the annual rate, but go with an open mind!!

Well the race for the coveted 70-74 age group championship of the Southwest Series has taken on a new meaning for me and has proven that persistence pays off. After doing 13 events and driving 5,990 miles I can still control my own destiny to win the division. The Cotton Country victory this past weekend put me in that position and I am very relieved. The Cotton Country is a cute little race in Levelland, Texas and is just enough challenge to really get the heart rate up there. Since it is as flat as a pancake and the weather was perfect for racing it was really fun to go all out. It was also great to see Balls, Marianna, and Christa. So, we had a perfect day!!! Now I will do the grand finale this coming weekend at the Elephant Man triathlon in Elephant Butte, NM. This will add another 780 miles of driving to my odometer and all I have to do is finish to win the division. While I will not approach it with the idea of backing off or not going hard, I will make sure that I cross that finish line. Last year I came in third at this race and found it to be a very difficult race. So, I will go into it with a little different attitude and respect the course probably a little more than last year. After all we spent some time on the dance floor the night before the event and that is not going to be on the agenda for this year.

Movie Reviews: “The Time Travelers Wife”, **, While Kerns gave this three stars I just couldn’t agree with him. I do think it is an interesting movie and Eric Bana as Henry, the time traveler, and Rachel McAdams as Claire who fell in love with him when she was 8-9 years old. Even though it is a neat love story there are many gaps in it. Some of the happenings were kind of amusing, especially when he would travel back in time and have to do it in the nude. When he arrived he would have to search out clothing, always having to steal it. To me the big gap was, what did he really do when he went to another time period. It never made that a point of importance and never explained what the purpose of his time travel was. It was revealed that it was some kind of irregular function of his brain, etc., but never explained why he had no control over it. He could be kissing his love, Claire, and then just start to vanish. Probably more entertaining to others than me, but I recommend not spending the full fare on this one and rent the DVD or watch it on cable. Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, brief disturbing images, nudity and sexuality (not really a big deal).

“All About Steve”, **, This is another Sandra Bullock movie that she will probably wish she hadn’t made. It is really weird in some aspects and you wonder at times why you are there. She is a grown woman living with her parents with little hope of finding Mr. Right. While she is very attractive her personality is like plugged into some kind of 500 watt electrical plug at all times. To add more eccentrics to her personality she also writes cross-road puzzles for the local newspaper. She then thinks that she has met Mr. Right, her soul mate played by Thomas Haden Church(a current heart throb showing up in a lot of movies now) who is a roving news reporter . The story gets a little better when she chases him all around the country, and it does have a happy ending. Rated PG-13 for sexual content, including innuendoes (you mean when she attacks him in his SUV and throws him in the back while trying to take his clothes off to have some great sex, even though they just met about 10 minutes prior to this?)

greerman