Sunday, February 24, 2013

LOOKING FOR A PIANO, A NEW FLOOR, LOTS OF DOUGH AND A MEDAL

What do a piano, a new floor and lots of dough have in common, you say? They're all things I want and don't have. To be perfectly clear, I only need the money so I can get the other stuff, but who's splitting hairs here anyway. Since the IRS man cometh very soon, I don't know if I should wait a bit before going crazy with the plastic. Besides, I am planning on going home this summer, and having just looked at the ticket prices with the smelling salts, I don't think I can afford either one, or either three for that matter. 

Anywho, let's talk about something else that really pissed me off today. I went to the triathlon in Redlands, which is a little town not far from the San Bernardino mountains. I registered for this thing way back at the beginning of January, yet when I got there, they had already run out of numbers for the athletes and for the bikes. So, they wrote my number on my hand and gave me a cheesy raffle ticket for my bike. The whole thing was totally disorganized, there were no signs, the course was anybody's guess, and the few kids they had for traffic and route control were so busy on their cell phones, they didn't even notice when the people went by. And since not everybody had visible numbers, you never knew if you were following somebody that was in the race or the neighborhood guy out for a run or ride. The course for the bike portion was a double one, we went over the same course twice. Obviously, a couple of people had to be more clever than everybody else and cheated, but nobody was watching, 'cause they were on on their freaking phones.

Somehow I managed to finish the run and bike and headed towards the pool where the next disaster was waiting. The girl that was giving directions made no sense to me, she kept telling me to follow the girl ahead of me, which I did, but the poor girl was not a strong swimmer, so after I passed her, I'm like 'ok, now where do I go?'. Instead of just telling me you only swim in a lane once (the pool was only 25 m), she gave me this big ol' explanation which I didn't follow at all. Anyway, I finished, got out, froze to death because it was cold and windy, and went over to the table to give them my info. The guy didn't ask me anything, not even my number, but I Was too frozen to argue, so I just make sure he wrote it down and got my time. After I changed and waited for my friend to finish, I took the chis with hubby and we went to let them run on the baseball diamond, since this was at a high school. We waited around quite a while, I just wanted to get my medal, which they said they were giving to everybody who finished. These cheese balls tell me that the medals were only for the top three finishers in each age category, and that everybody else would get a badge. Only, they didn't have the badges because somebody had screwed up and they were being remade. In all, a total wash. My time was ok, but it was so cold and windy, and with all the shenanigans those people pulled, the day was kinda of a bust. Except for the chis of course, they had a ball of course, they're very social dogs, especially Peanut who barks and runs toward any dog he sees cause he wants to say 'hi' (it's a chihuahua thing I think..).

My friend and I have decided to wait for the weather to warm up before we do another one. I thought about doing one by the beach, so the swim would be in the ocean, but the waters in these parts are so freaking cold, even at the height of summer, I'm rethinking it. Unless of course I try another state by the water, like Hawaii. Yeah, I think I can do that....

6 comments:

  1. Sounds completely awful. I would seriously find out who organized it and let them know what a cluster it was.

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  2. I agree with Miss CB--but I don't think ANYBODY organized it!!

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  3. I'm sorry you had such a crappy experience!

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  4. Did they take a picture of you at the finish line?

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  5. Who put on this event? Two homeless guys that posted it on Craigslist? This sounds awful.

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  6. At least you got some exercise.

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