Why Yankee Swaps are not such a good idea...
Woo-hoo, the holidays! Truth be known, I'm one of the millions who suffer from a touch of holiday depression. I'm an extremely lucky person, but many of those close to me live very troubled lives and the holidays bring us together and I share their despair more than usual. Despair is something you may not understand. Most of us have known poverty in some form or another. Some people think that running out of their parent's money and living off Ramen noodles back when they were living in a college dorm means they know what it's like to be poor. Well, that sort of thing might teach you a little about poverty, but it teaches you nothing about despair. Temporary poverty is nothing, it just means doing without for a while. Despair is much different; despair is a loss of hope. At the holidays, it is very easy to give someone money, temporarily relieving their poverty, but it is much more difficult to give them hope and relieve them of despair. Those of you who can relate to this know what it really means to be one of the downtrodden. For the rest of you, I hope you can understand without ever experiencing it.
This year, I even have something extra to be depressed about -- I'm on call for 24 hours Christmas Day! Yeah baby. Maybe it won't be so bad. Do me a favor and stay safe this holiday. No emergency room patients = no emergency room software problems = peace on my little place on Earth on Christmas.
We're also wrapping up 2006 this week. The shortest day passed yesterday. While the Rockies are buried in powder, El Nino seems to be bringing the northeast more mild weather. I'm hoping it continues. This week we are deep in the off season. Here is my training tip: push your mind ahead six months from today. You're in the heart of the racing season (well, maybe, if you're a bike racer anyway. If not, you can still follow along). What will you be wishing that you did back in December? Maybe it is unsticking that seatpost, like RyanK. Going over that entire cross bike and lubing it up might be a good idea. You don't want to be like me last year the night before D2R2 with a chain that looks like a '52 Studebaker rusting in the field. There's training and preparation stuff you could be doing. Maybe you'll be suffering from back pain on long rides and you'll be wishing you'd done some weight work or yoga back during winter. Or maybe you'll be totally burned out on riding and wishing you'd taken some time off the bike. The possiblities are only limited by your situation. You will end up wherever you go, and your journey is already underway. Ok, I'll leave you alone now...
Keep smiling. If you need help, this week thesuperficial.com was especially hilarious, at least for me. Comment number 53 was one of my favorites. For everyone who is lucky enough to be away from the friggin' LCD this week, have a great holiday and I'll miss your blogging nonsense. Try not to make God kill too many kittens. Me, I'll be confined to quarters with my oncall, so stayed tuned for an extremely low-tech solobreak "nodcast" sure to put you to sleep. I've only got the world's crappiest webcam, so it will be a shitty windows only .avi, but it's not the quality of the gift, it's the thought that counts. Thanks for reading!
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