RobbyB.com

You know you're old when you wake up on your 33rd birthday and you look in the mirror, blurry eyed and not-so bushy tailed, your body creaking and groaning from the marathon training thinking it's just too damn early for work.. It's just then you notice that your eyebrows are growing closer together and there are an increasing number of hairs are growing out of your nose.

And then, you get a Dyson Vacuum from your wife for a present. Of which, your wife is excited to give to you. And you, all thirty-three years of you, is excited to get. What a life I lead.

I've always guesstimated that swimming was about one-quarter the speed of running. I was a bit bored, so I compared the world records of the long course meter freestyle records to that of the outdoor track records. (The conditions used for Olympic Games.)

Here are the men:

SWIMMING		TRACK
Distance (LCM)	Time	Distance (Outdoor)	Time	Factor
100	00:47.50	100	00:09.72	4.89
200	01:43.86	200	00:19.32	5.38
400	03:40.08	400	00:43.18	5.1
800	07:38.65	800	01:41.11	4.54
1500	14:34.56	1500	03:26.00	4.25

And the Women:

SWIMMING		TRACK
Distance (LCM)	Time	Distance (Outdoor)	Time	Factor
100	00:52.88	100	00:10.49	5.04
200	01:55.52	200	00:21.34	5.41
400	04:01.53	400	00:47.60	5.07
800	08:16.22	800	01:53.28	4.38
1500	15:42.54	1500	03:50.46	4.09

Sources: Swimming | Track

It's interesting that the women are faster runners in the shorter distances (100, 200,) than the men, but men are faster in the longer distances (800, 1500). The 400 is just about a dead heat. The first reason that comes to mind for the difference is the upper body strength of women. Sprinting in swimming requires significant arm and shoulder strength. Perhaps men are more evenly built between the upper and lower parts of their body?

We went from this:

to this:

in the span of one day. With the help of my parents and Brant the Intern, we tore off a single layer of slate siding shingles, likely filled with asbestos, and covered with lead paint. We had the foresight to secure a dumpster and special bag, and (best of all) a 45-foot articulating boom aerial lift.

In the second shot, you can see that there was a bay window that was removed and replaced with two regular windows. Our best guess is that when the street was widened, the sidewalk was moved closer to the house and the bay window was a casualty. The other small discoveries included (original?) brown paint, and a whole lotta bug nests and spiders behind the tiles. This is all in prep for the insulators coming this week, and new lakeshore fern (siding) the following week.

And of course, every hard day has to end with a relaxing beer or two:

You can see some more shots of the day here.

I fixed some minor issues with the Movable Type engine that runs RobbyB.com. You can now post comments as you desire on posts that allow comments. Sorry for the inconvenience.