Why I chose McCain

When I look at what this country needs in leadership I see John McCain in so many capacities superior to his opposition. Over this protracted election cycle, it is hard to read up on every nuanced statement and position and as we have seen with both candidates snap decision or held policy beliefs have changed with more available information or when global circumstance arise. Unlike most of my Red republican brethren I have a strong conservation position and consider myself a Green conservative.

When it comes to this election I think it is important to get away from Republican and Democrat fringes. The vast majority of Americans regardless of personal preferences are clear thinking people who just want to live a life that matters. A life that does not intrude on others and hopefully not be intruded on in return. I believe that the majority of Americans, even with strong political, religious, economic and social views lives somewhere in the middle on the vast majority of issues. These are my opinions, these are my thoughts on why a McCain administration is the right choice for the next four years. You will notice that my positions against an Obama administration are not personal attacks but the difference in my political beliefs from the Democrat party.

What frustrates me about all this talk about wealth is the hypocrisy of how its earned and how its spent. It’s okay for an actor to make $20 million a movie or an athlete to make $8 million a year or a lawyer to earn tens of millions suing business. Its okay to inherit money like the Rockefellers and Kennedys. But if you’re the CEO of a company making a cancer fighting drug, and you make $5 million you’re the bad guy. The distinction is that the actor, the athlete and the lawyer are employees, while the CEO is the business owner. The business owner ostensibly creates more economic freedom for his employees and the economy and that is the anathema of liberalism which does not celebrate success outside of government intervention. Congress has shown many times over in its laws that if your rich, you can stay rich, if you’re trying to get rich its going to be very hard. The less income someone has, the more dependant fiscally or the more empathetic you become emotionally to getting a hand out of some kind.

The Republican mindset is the abundance mentality and not scarcity mentality. There is money to be made out there by anyone who is determined or responsible. The money you personally make today did not come from some else’s pocket, it came from your hard work or the value your company puts on the work you do compared to the industry standard. Capitalists, small business owners, men and women of industrious spirit understand that they can attract money which provides freedom of movement in every dimension of your life and it doesn’t abridge anyone else’s ability to make as money much as they want. In just a general sense, the conservative mindset is to save 10% of your income, give 10% of your income to charity and live within your means. I do not hear that from the other side. The objection to that statement is that conservative increased spending under Bush. No argument there and in my opinion the one reason polls show Obama in the lead. Conservatives are apathetic that the party has left the base on spending issues. Conversely I have given more this year to charity than Joe Biden has in the last decade, yet he thinks I need to pay more taxes to be patriotic.

This makes taxes the number issue of this economy. Raising taxes on citizens and businesses in a climate where there is no prosperity is an insane idea. No government in history has ever taxed itself into prosperity. The liberal idea of “spreading the worth around,” as the Democrat candidate told a questioner, is absolutely the wrong idea. The Obama economic plan is that 95% of all Americans will get a tax cut when 40% don’t pay federal taxes. Furthermore the Democrat plan has not addressed what taxes will be cut or what rates will be. Are these cuts coming back as a credit or a check? For businesses, will inventory, principal payments on loans and pass through business expenses be excluded or included. Investors Daily Journal calls Sen. Obama the most anti-capitalist person to possibly be president. As a partner in a small business that generates millions of dollars in revenue, this concerns me.

The McCain plan follows a republican ideal of creating opportunity. He will cut government spending except key budgets like defense, and education along with bolstering areas like veterans benefits. He will at worst leave tax rates where they currently reside and at best create more incentives for business to spend and grow by dropping the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%. For the normal everyday person, not only will they still enjoy, yes enjoy the tax cuts enacted in 2003 but McCain will also work in other areas to keep consumers from paying hidden federal taxes. For example he will stop upcoming tax proposals on cell phone text messages and internet purchases. McCain has twenty years of history on fighting wasteful spending and has promised to fight ear mark and pork barrel spending proposals that come his desk.

A President McCain will seek to repeal the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day. This would keep $6.8 billion in the pockets of drivers. He has also vowed to repel the 54 cents per gallon tax on sugar based ethanol’s which makes it more cost effective for businesses to offer ethanol’s as a gasoline alternative for vehicles and create more stations delivering the product.

I appreciate the democrat position of being clear of foreign oil dependency in ten years. This however is a decision process and not an action process, regardless of what steps are made to overcome our country’s 30% investment in foreign oil, the following President will be able to reverse this decision. Of the two candidates, McCain has the Lexington Project and expressed publicly a clearer plan to increase the energy production of this country. He is not saying what he won’t do as President, but expressing in specifics what he will do.

The McCain plan sets into motion a larger infrastructure to support our country’s need for cheap and reliable electricity while at the same time decreasing the countries overall emission of toxics. Each candidate has described the need to use available renewable resources such as solar and wind. It is my belief the republican plan of tax breaks and incentives for business creating new energy technologies is superior to the Democrat platform of penalties for noncompliance to new laws they will create. McCain has stated his administration will build 45 nuclear power plants and create 700,000 new jobs. Nuclear power is the cleanest, cheapest and most reliable form of energy we can produce. He also supports the opportunity to drill along our coasts and in the 1002 Area. This is the disputed land in ANWAR that was set aside by the Carter Administration for oil exploration and has been stymied by democrats ever since. A McCain administration will work with private, state and federal organizations to streamline the production of shale oil within our borders which holds more barrels of oil than all the known oil deposits in the Middle East. Neither candidate has signed on to T. Boone Pickens Plan for switching the country’s dependency from oil to natural gas which is disappointing but not indicative of reluctance to participate.

McCain will stand up the pathetic, uber-partisan congressional leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Under their leadership congress has seen favorable polls drop into the teens. The upcoming election also has twice as many republicans up for reelection than democrats. The opportunity does exist for the democrats in the senate to have a super-majority. I show this because Obama has shown zero bipartisan effort as a senator. He has been called the most liberal senator in congress by National Journal, a congressional report. Certainly no one in either party is going to be 50/50, but the Democratic Party of today is far left of the Democratic Party of a decade ago under President Clinton as evidenced in a single person’s condemnation, Joe Lieberman. Obama speaks of change and has done nothing in his senatorial capacity to show action. The upcoming years will be volatile times. I do have serious doubt that a Obama, Pelosi, Reid trifecta will seek the middle ground in political matters. McCain is the only candidate with a proven record of reaching across the aisle in a bipartisan way. He at least has shown he can work with democrats on a variety of issues and find a way to create a piece of legislation that can be voted on and passed into record. I seriously doubt Obama will show the same maturity with the minority in congress.

I believe in a Supreme Court and federal judge appointment system that does not legislate from the bench and does not look to international courts for direction. A President McCain will appoint strict constitutionalists to the bench. I have seen far too often that the courts are an accelerator to changing the moral landscape of this country. The Supreme Court in just the last five years has upheld habeas corpus for terrorists and the created from whole cloth the Kelo decision that said a city can use ‘eminent domain’ to take a private homeowner property and give it to a private developer for their business use. This meant that hard working homeowners can have their houses taken by the city so a private developer could build shopping centers, retail space, office space and in the case of homeowners in Washington D.C., a new baseball stadium. There will be at least one and possibly two justices who will retire in the next four to eight years. I want judges appointed to the highest court along with the hundreds needed in the lower courts to use jurisprudence in their decision process and not personal opinion. I want the courts to refer to the will of the state in law and not create more federal laws that counter the will of the people.

Before spending 25 years in congress, McCain spent 23 years in the military. This is not a perquisite for president, but certainly not a neutral or negative addendum to a presidential resume. As a veteran, I have not seen from the Democrat candidate the respect or admiration for the armed services that I demand from any President. On the campaign trail he voiced the opinion of unconditional meetings with state that are openly hostile to democracy and America. He made ridiculous troop withdrawal timelines that emboldened our enemy and then backed away from those timelines after he sat down and spoke with the generals he would command.

I served under President’s Bush (41) and Clinton; I can speak to the level of esprit de corp that a president wields over his soldiers. Based on my personal experiences, a President McCain will instill a pride in our armed services that would be absent under Obama as it was under Clinton and Carter. Our military under McCain will continue to grow and have the most technologically advanced offensive and defensive weapons systems that can be developed. John McCain has tremendous respect among the military and international leaders for his reputation as a hardened, well educated, global strategist. When Russia invaded Georgia earlier this year, while neither candidate was involved in the overall concern, Barrack Obama could only call for restraint while John McCain, who had recently spent time in the country of Georgia as part of a delegation to understand the future of the country in Nato, was quick to address the issue with well thought ideas.

It has been said by Joe Biden and Madeline Albright that an Obama Administration will be tested on an international level the first six months of holding office. This mostly likely will not occur under a McCain administration but no one can predict the future. Yet when leaders of terrorist organizations, despots and tyrants all voice their hopes of a Obama presidency, that tells me they think a McCain led country will be tougher on them than the other option.

If the democrats hold all three offices of executive and legislative branches and quite possibly run a super majority of congress, they will enact the Fairness Doctrine. The frustration of democrats is that they cannot grab a foothold in talk radio. It does not matter that the liberal mindset controls the television and print media. Liberals will easily slay the Air America money pit to destroy the likes of Rush Limbaugh. The Fairness Doctrine will take opinion based radio off the air. Talk stations will become sports themed, or be shows on landscaping, cooking and the latest supplement fad to lose weight. As a smart, intelligent conservative I don’t need conservative radio hosts giving me marching orders, but what they do better than anyone is take my scattered thoughts on a subject and put them into a cogent theme. It also takes the biased, cut up, 3o second, emotionally charged subject on television news and spread it out over one to three hours using intellectual thought. With talk radio gone, a liberal congress will have almost no media oversight on their tactics.

A John McCain administration will uphold my second amendment rights. His statement sums my belief best, “We need to focus on halting the spread of violent crime and punishing violent criminals who abuse their Second Amendment rights, while preserving those same rights for law-abiding Americans…Bearing arms is a constitutionally protected right. With rights come responsibilities. I will continue to support effective, common sense measures that help keep firearms out of the hands of criminals, children and the mentally incompetent; that assure Second Amendment rights are exercised responsibly; and that do not impinge upon law abiding citizens in the free exercise of their rights, including the right to protect themselves and their family.”

The Washington Times has called Obama, “The most anti-gun presidential candidate ever.” In 1996, Obama said to John Lott, an economics professor who studied gun ownership statistics, “I don't believe that people should be able to own guns.” Since then, the Democrat nominee for president has voted to ban or limit firearm rights in every vote he has cast on the subject. In my opinion limiting gun ownership in urban areas creates more victims. Obama also voted to outlaw or tax every type of ammunition that is currently used by hunters, thereby not banning hunting weapons but impugning a hunter’s ability to use their legally owned firearm.

Speaking strictly for the state of Arizona, my medical premiums are high because of the tremendous strain our health care system absorbs from illegal aliens. Almost a dozen hospitals and several Level 1 Trauma centers have closed their doors due to illegals that use our superior health care system and then don’t pay their bills. I have sat in emergency rooms with a son who had a high temperature and other serious condition and listened to nurses and responders bemoan illegals that clog their doors for simple cold or non-emergency issues because they can not get appointments with general practitioners, adding hours to the waiting period for insured citizens.

I have never gone without medical insurance and firmly believe that most, not all, of those hard working Americans between 18-35 years of age without insurance do so of their own choice. I have the opportunity every day to talk to young, energetic employees making more money than they have ever made in their life and I always recommend they get medical insurance, even just major medical. If they do not have insurance, almost universally the answer I receive is they would rather spend their money on something else like their awesome car or they have a life style that is beyond their means.

My company does not provide health care for its employees, partially because we pay about 30% over industry standards. Otherwise, it is not cost effective for our business. Our look into the subject showed we would need to hire an administrator at approximately $40,000 a year who’s sold job would be health care management. Then the cost we would invest into each employees plan would add approximately $8,000 per employee on a group plan. In a true capitalist move, we pay them more to do what they want with their money, which we active suggest allows them to get a competitive insurance rate.

As a small business owner, I pay for my own health care for my family. The premium has gone up on average $75 a year with the same or less benefits. I have been brutally honest with people regarding the medical issues of my son and more recently myself. Since our son was born five years ago, I have paid out of pocket, on average $22,000 in medical bills, well over $100,000 total. Under the McCain plan with a $5,000 tax credit that will come right off the top of my taxable income, I will get some relief. Not necessarily a health care issue but McCain will also double the Child Tax Credit from $3,500 to $7,000. With a second child arriving next year that is an additional savings in my pocket of $7,000 plus the $5,000 medical credit and I will in essence get a $12,000 tax benefit under McCain.

I am very much a conservationist. I certainly will not defend the terrible pro-business mentality of the Republican Party. In 2005-2007 I was recognized by Tonto State Park here in Arizona for taking out over 500 pounds of trash each year in my own beautification program. So far in 2008, I have collected and recycled over 5,000 aluminum cans. My son and I walk around parks and parking lots looking for cans several times a week. I have businesses collecting cans for me that I pick up. I plant trees. I support a wildlife rehabilitation clinic.

That being said, McCain and Palin each bring to the ticket a conservation concept that does not pander to special interest groups and junk science. I have seen firsthand and listened to authoritative testimony regarding the efforts environmentalist activists take to hurt businesses, keep people from using our great outdoors or committing crimes in the name of protecting species. McCain will begin to unravel the bureaucracy put on states to remove scrub brush that perpetuates the million acre fires in the west. He will protect the rights of hunters and fisherman. I have always believed that west coast politicians are better proponents of outdoor stewardship that east coast, regardless of political affiliation. For example I respect the Udalls quite a bit. In essence it’s my belief that this Democrat ticket will pander to special interest and not what’s in the best interest of my environment.

I voted for McCain because I believe in small government. I believe in a cleaner environment. I believe in more money in my pocket and freedom to do with my money whatever I choose. I think the McCain platform will help me more than hurt me. I pay plenty of taxes thank you, it may sound cruel, but I put the efforts of rugged, risk taking individuals above government programs. It doesn’t take a village to raise my children; it takes a close knit family and if there were more intact extended families in this country we would all be better off. I don’t like paying higher medical bills every year or for the charter school my son goes to but I don’t want to pay for your kids all day pre-school or your medical bills. A McCain Presidency will protect our country; it will project international strength and will be better for our economy. It will be better for me and my family.

Healing old pains

Monday was a really great day for me. My godfather is in town for a week helping my mom help my dad recover from a neck surgery. Mo was already there so Mistress and I stayed for a steak dinner. Mistress bbq'd steak and I bought desert. Worked out for them and us since the a/c is still out at our place.

I came home around midnight and putz'd around for a few moments with the dog and surfing cable and caught the last few minutes of United 93 about the September 11th hijacking. I have avoided any movie about 9/11, the live feed I watched and the subsequent replys of WTC coming down are more than I need for the rest of my life. It is still so raw for me, believe it or not.

I think I have mentioned in the past that that day changed the paradigm of my life in fundamental ways.

In September 2001, I had not had sugar or caffeine for over five years. I was a powerlifter weighing 225 pounds and starting a diet for a body building show I was doing around Thanksgiving. On the 11th, a Tuesday, I was several days into a fishing trip in Montana with my dad and godfather and couple other guys. I had just toured Little Bighorn as part of a historical military exercise and was staying at a military base in Helena on the 10th and 11th.

I was trying to get the gang out the door, it must have been a bit after 7am and we were dawdling. I went to turn off the tv and Bryant Gumbel came on with a special announcement saying a plane had hit the WTC. I called everyone in and thought out loud that it must have been a plane malfunction. Something similar had happened not long back.

As a camera showed the plumes coming from the building, I saw the second plane in the background. I knew then and I don't know how that this was something much more than pilot error. We all stood agape as the second plane hit the WTC in real time. Man.

I remember sitting down and saying, "My life will never be the same." I then asked my godfather for a cup of coffee and a candy bar. My demand was almost as unnerving as the tv, I had been eating nothing but chicken breasts and ground beef for four days as part of my contest diet. I had relented to a few beers on the river but unmoved with taunts of sugar and espresso, up till that minute. Everyone knew how long I'd been off those items and to drink two cups of coffee and three candy bars was profound. Needless to say we sat there for about an hour. I could have sat there all day and would have if at home. But we decided that it was best to let the process play out and console ourselves by fishing.

I realized that day on the river that my life was too much time spent in the gym. Between work and workouts I spent between 80-85 hours a week in a gym environment. Even the running I had done outdoors became a treadmill chore because of the desert heat. Mentally I dropped out of the bodybuilding contest. How could I be so vain at that moment? I decided I couldn't exercise in a gym any longer and thats the spark that turned me back towards my dreams of competing in endurance events, eventually triathlons. I also decided my life needed more variety and I added carbohydrates back into it. I went from 80% protein to a 40/30/30 plan, denying myself nothing with moderation.

By the end of the day, we had to drop my dad off at a state level military meeting, he was the third highest ranking officer in the state. By the end of the week, my brother was gone for a year, as a member of the first guard unit called to service in the GWOT. The fishing trip ended with my godfather and I saluting my father as he lifted off a tarmac in a heavily armed gunship to prepare his soldiers for the unknown. I flew out, trying to explain to the guards in the airport that hemostats to pull out fish hooks were not dangerous and should be allowed on the plane. They were.

I didn't have a son then. I had been married for quite a while and had a business that had started a few years earlier but I was ready to go back into the service. I looked into it but they didn't want me at the time. I had been out five years and that was too long for them at my age and job ability, Infantry officers are a dime a dozen.

With the changes I made to my diet and exercise and stress, I lost fifty pounds getting the anger out of me at what had happened to my country and the politics that came after. I was preparing my body for the combat I felt would be placed on me, but the call never came, even when I called them.

With all things the pain lessoned and I put on some much needed weight. Mistress changed too. She had been adamantly opposed to kids but less than a year later she was pregnant. I think I can blame 9/11 for her change too. I sometimes selfishly wonder 'What If' that day never happened. Would I be a father? Would I have done an Ironman? Would I have the balance in my life with work and nutrition that I did not have then?

Watching just twenty minutes of United 93 pulled this out me just now. I do not think I can watch it all, yet. I have a "9/11" CD of saved videos, images and articles from the internet that I saved for my son. To show him what really happened as opposed to the revisionist views that I knew he would be taught in school. I don't want to forget, nor think I ever will. People remember where they were when Kennedy was shot, or when Challenger exploded. I remember 9/11 just as clearly.

Thanks for reading something I had to get out of me before bed.

Evo-Vote through Friday

VOTING HAS BEEN EXTENDED THROUGH THE END OF THE MONTH.

SCROLL DOWN FOR MY NEWEST ENTRY.

Don't forget to vote for me to be a member of Team EvoTri. Copy my URL above or copy the red text here: http://www.commonmansyndrome.com/ and send an email to vote@evotri.com With your help I can become the 2nd of 3 members added to the team this year. My Round 1 application is HERE. My round 2 application is HERE.

Spread the word, grab people who come into your office. Please be my champion.

One last chance to win it all

Making the final round of voting on EvoTri has been quite the experience for me and has left me feeling rather odd.

When you watch my video you see that I am a giver not a taker, another way of saying that I am far more solicitous of others than myself. So it is so strange for me to be on this campaign to get votes just trying to crank out more and more like a jockey whipping his horse. He doesn't want to hurt the horse, but without pushing the horse harder the jockey will lose. I feel like a jockey right now, just constantly whipping my readers and friends to vote for me in this pursuit when the last thing I ever want is for them (you) is feeling I am abusing our relationship, being a taker.

Friday night I got a bit too anxious about round 2 and fired off a few emails to well connected friends for new sources of votes. It was impulsive and in the end I felt bad. I have lost count of the emails I have sent or received during this process. This isn't the hardest thing I have gone through, (pleaz) but today, this week and of course last week, its predominately on my mind going through all the range of emotions and thoughts.

Making this team means a great deal to me as I must suppose it does to all those still in the running. I do not believe that this can be accomplished by one man and a couple emails. It has to be a group effort of like minded people who rally behind the cause. I am not asking anyone for money or to mail anything, there is no financial investment to sell someone on...just me. Just a Common Man with no serious athletic ability but fierce willpower and deep empathy.

So yet again...I have sent out another beautiful letter from mom who can say things so much better than I can. I can only ask that each of you who received a copy send it to everyone you know with a personal message asking for it to be acted on and forwarded again. If you didn't receive a copy and want to be a part of the cause, let me know and I will forward it to you to start the thread anew.

How much harder do I push to be the final victor? How hard can I push? In a triathlon its always just about me, alone, against the course and the clock. In this vote process I have to rely so much on the generosity of...well, everyone.

I am not used to being carried and it leaves me unsteady, confused and unsure of myself.

Round 2 mid point

Just beating the drum here. Please tell everyone you know to vote for me by Saturday night by sending an email to vote@evotri.com with Commodore Round 2 in subject line. I have been giving out post-its with the evotri web address and to vote for me.

I have one more round to make the team but have to give it my all this round. Leave no stone unturned. Tell everyone.

Round 2 Round-Up

"My fine, fine people..." -Bolder in Boulder

First I would really like to address the the EvoTri member who is doing the vote tally's. I sincerely want to thank that person, not because I made it to Round 2 but because I can only imagine the stress that person is under to tabulate and sort what must have been thousands of votes in just 72 hours. This person has a job and probably a family and training to do and other commitments yet he/she must have spent hours pouring over emails only to do it again starting today. Thank you.

I could not have survived Round 1 without you, the readers and voters. Thank you. Having never run for office, I now have some idea of the enormity it takes to run a campaign. I could not be here today without you, in not just this sponsorship opportunity, but in my life, I now see so clearly the reaping that occurs when good seeds are sown.

Mistress and I were up until 11pm Wednesday night shoring up votes over the phone to those last minute friends and family who we wanted to make sure had done their part. I am so proud of my wife for spending hours on the phone calling her friends around the world and asking for them to watch my video and participate.

I hit the sack at 11:45 and was up at 3:45 for a two hour trainer ride before work.

Round two voting I hope will go easier, even though the competition will be harder. Earlier today an email from my mom was sent to most everyone in my address book. Its a grassroots effort to create something more organic than just calling people up and asking to vote. Please forward the letter to all that you can. It's our hope that it just cascades into thousands of inboxes and I move to the next round on Sunday.

If you want your were overlooked a copy, I apologize. To request a copy to start your own thread, click my photo top right and my email button will be on the next page.

I need your help once again to make Round 3. I sometimes find myself putting too much emphasis or importance on this when I write and have to correct myself, but I take seriously the importance I put on making this team, not just for me but the future of other people like me, the Common Man, being able to participate from a wider assortment of sponsors in the future.

Thanks. I mean it.

Augies Quest

The BlogFather, Hugh Hewitt is back on Live in Phoenix starting this week. In a touching moment for me, he gave a full segment to promote a cause and video about a man seeking a cure for ALS and he was able to use the song "100 Years" from Five for Fighting for free.

His name is Augie and he is the founder of Augie's Quest.

Many of you are familiar with ALS through the Blazeman Foundation. Jon Blais, the Warrior Poet, completed the 2005 Kona Ironman in 16:28, returned in a wheelchair in 2006 to pass the torch and died in the spring of 2007.

I know Augie. Not very well, we met many years ago. But we have met and he is a friend of my partner and mentor. He is a visionary and was a driving force behind Life Fitness exercise equipment. So if you have ridden a life cycle, recumbent bike or run on a treadmill at your gym, most likely you have benefited from his vision of what cardiovascular equipment could be way back in the late 70's and then the 80's.

For every viewing of THIS VIDEO on their website, two families will each donate $1 to the foundation.

Its a good song, one you are familiar with and another reason to celebrate life. Last week a blogger asked the question, "What would you do if you only had six months to live." With inspirations like John Blais and now Augie Nieto, I think it becomes more clear that what we do is very much tied to what legacy we wish to leave our family.

Will your legacy be that of an absentee parent. A disinterested spouse. A mediocre employee. Someone who makes a personal goal and continues to blow it off. In the terms of another familiar organization, I think I have learned to re-appreciate one word- LiveSTRONG.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, you should have started six weeks ago.

Been a rough couple of days lately. My partner/boss is out of the hospital and back at home, which is in another state. Hopefully resting comfortably. My friend whom several of us believe to be the victim of a semi truck-cyclist fatality has not returned any of our calls or emails. Nor has her husband. I am praying that they are one of their many cycling trips they take around the country.

If its not one thing its another. The stroke and fatality incidents Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday I got a great run in the desert but think I have an ear infection because the bricked swim was absolute torture on me. Had it not been OW I would have got out well before my 1,500 set was done. Today my ear still bothered me in the pool but it also hurt my running today too. I cut my 1/2 mary short because the running made me feel like I was being punched in the jaw and earhole with every step. It may not be an ear infection but some sort of disjointed jaw or something.

In any regard, it sucks.

At the lake Thursday, two newbies showed up. Nice ladies, terribly new to triathlon. As in first time in OW. I acted as lifeguard as they attempted their first 400 yard swim OW around the lake buoy. One had a panic attack but recovered on her own. The other faired better but swam horribly off course going back.

There were several of us there to give them support and talk to them afterward. They said they had started training in June for triathlons but hadn't progressed very far. Blah, blah, blah, busy, blah, blah, blah, we joined a training program and the coach sucked, blah, blah, blah. I was busy messing with my ear when I heard one of them say, "...It took us 4 hours to go 25 miles."

With one finger in my ear and without thinking, I busted in with, "Hey that's a pretty good run time."

She corrected me, "We were riding our bikes."

If it's possible to fall OUT of the water, I think I did it.

My recovery line was, "Well you got all winter to improve."

She responded with, "We're doing the Soma Quarter Man."

Now lookie here folks. I went about my small admonishment to them very gently but I admonished them nonetheless. Because even though their distances are what? 800m/ 26mile/6.5 miles; you can't start taking your training seriously six weeks before the damn race and expect to do well, let alone finish.

One of them told me/us, "I like to play with the big boys, I don't like to finish in the back."

Hello? McFly? Anyone home? A modifed Olympic distance race on six weeks total training, during the second largest and most popular triathlon in Phoenix. (IMAZ being 1st)

They were nice 20-something ladies and truly I, we all, gave them some moral support and advice from what we have learned over the last few years, but to blame a coach for them not being prepared after he/she gave them two months of personalized training programs and group classes, to take no personal responsibility for your progression after saying you do little training on your own. You get kind of a head shake from me.

I am the last person to want to scare someone off from this sport, I love it. But I see a mess for them at Soma. I could see them finishing but in horrible fashion, with a bad taste in their mouth for a coach who can only do so much with what he has and a "I'll never do that again" thought of triathlon.

There is no easy way for me to write this the way it was said. God I sound like such a elitest smuck, but I got a strange feeling about them, as if they were sensing us up for being their personal training coaches; stroking, pedaling and running with them as they trained with us. As we were all drying off and discussing the Saturday ride and distances and meeting times, I said to a long time training partner and Ironman whose coming back from his off-season, "I'm really in a good zone with my cycling, I 'm around your speed now. I have got to get in 60 miles. We need to be moving."

It was my round about announcement to those that heard that I can't be riding with a 110 HR @ 12 mph when I need some quality time @ 148 HR and 90 rpms. Right now that's around 21 to 22 mph. When I was a slower rider or injuried or disinterested in the workout, I certainly sacrificed my training for the betterment of the sport. For the betterment of the tri club. So the new person at least couldn't say, "Those aztriclub guy's are rude, they didn't help at all. They just took off." I make sure they know the route, the turnarounds, introduce them to the group. Make them feel a part of something.

It's a sense of personal pride of mine, that I run into people who remember my name and they shake my hand vigorously with smile and tell me, "I rode/ran with you on suchandsuch, and you were just the best dude to hang with." I am trying to reckoncile that tonight with my goal of riding in my training zone and getting 60 miles in when that future handshaker is two women who will pull me down if I coddle them.

I was there once too. I was and still am a middle of the packer. I've been the slowest on swims and rides. On Thursday they both swam to the lake buoy the first time out. It took me three visits to do that and I almost drown coming back. I understand their need for assurances we can provide assistance and eduction for Soma. What I got from them is very little personal motivation and that to me is just as important as everything else.

I used to tell my members/clients, "Look, I can train you for an hour everyday and tell you what to do the rest of the time, but what you decide to do the other 23 hours is going to get you to your goal. You screw those up and it's not my fault."

I have to do this. I am going to ride my ride Saturday. I owe it to myself.

Not a tag, a challenge

I don't often answer tags and in this post I may offend several of my friendly bloggers. But Nancy tossed a gauntlet down on my perspective of feminism knowing that her and I, even as I consider us good friends, are diametrically opposite in most all political beliefs. So as I squint my eyes and press my lips looking at this screen, how will I respond to this question...

What five things can I thank feminism for?

First off I was raised by women. No not that way. I was in a car accident and lost my memory when I was 16. Sometime I will have to tell that fairly amazing story. As I recovered at home my mom, a teacher, and several of my friends, mostly girls since the dudes didn't care, helped me in every aspect of my cognitive, emotional and physical recovery. So I feel that I was imprinted upon by this group of female friends in a way that most men don't understand.

Knowing that and knowing that I am a conservative I find today's feminism to be in stark contrast to most of my firmly held beliefs. Long ago the women's suffrage movement was inspirational and motivating but its been a century since a woman like Susan B. Anthony has appealed across political parties and thirty years since professional barriers were broken. The feminist movement of today is more in tune with Marxism.

I thought long and hard on the question, jotted some notes and went home. I asked Mistress, knowing I might be picking a fight, "What am I thankful for feminism for?" It was interesting but in the end she said many of the things that I had already put in the post. So if I can thank Nancy for one thing, she gave Mistress and I a great evening of dialogue on a deep subject.

When I got into the office the next morning I went to our office pool and asked some young ladies and one older gay male if they considered themselves feminists and spoke with a vendor who took a Feminism in the 21st Century class at ASU last year. All of them said they would not define themselves or each other as feminists. I asked why and they expressed that feminism today is a choice whose ideals can be reached in more mainstream methods, it also has negative connotations for women their age, and in this century it is not necessary for them to have a label to define a womans strong sense of self worth. Nor do any of them feel they are limited in things they want socially or financially such as the feminist movement expressed over thirty years ago.

The real fact of the matter is I don't think women in general between 18-40 years old define themselves as feminist. The women I asked point blank, "Do you consider yourself a feminist?", all scrunched up their faces and vigorously shook their heads saying emphatically, "No. Do you think I am a feminist?" I don't think that they refute feminism and what it has done for them, but in this age it is such an amorphous statement, meaning it defines form. Feminists of today teach that feminism is a deeply personal thing for each woman which is really just saying, "We don't really have any national or political policy we can all agree on so fight for what you 'feel' is right".

The woman's suffrage movement of the early twentieth century most importantly gave women the right to vote. The feminist movement of the sixties and early seventies stood more for legal, sexual and professional equality. The problem with todays feminism is that they achieved all their tenets legally or otherwise two decades ago and the consciousness of todays woman has moved on. Are their still Good Ole Boy societies? Yes. Do misogynist's still exist? Yes. Does that mean women today are abridged of rights to earn and live a full life. Hardly. Not like fifty years ago.

A thoughtful comment from my gay friend is that current Gen. X and Gen. Y women do not consider themselves feminists because one current view of feminism is prescribed to militant lesbians. But when I asked him if he felt lesbians considered themselves more feminist than lesbian, he was stumped at first and ultimately said no.

I can see why. The leaders of the feminist movement today still make claims that "men oppress women" when more women are graduating from college today than men. I asked all the women if they had heard of Title 9 and over half said no, which is terrible and quite sad in my opinion. When in 2007 Condaleeza Rice is Secretary of State, Nancy Pelosi is the third most powerful person in the country and Oprah Winfrey is wealthier and has more global influence than some nations. The ideals of equality between sexes have been reached by law, enlightenment or broken by strong willed women. All that holds back any woman of today is her own will power and imagination.

Women today are disconnected from the old definitions of feminism because they never had to fight for the right to vote or lived in a society that was centered on men being the bread winner and them being regulated to secondary status. Those 'fights' are over. There is really just one last refuge for feminism and that is through subverting mainstream consciousness with progressive ideas. In the future they will continue to target education and development programs that feminize little boy's and profile specific messages like CODE:PINK's anti-war crusade and similar direct action protests.

After all this it might seem that I am not thankful for anything coming from feminism. Not so. The originators of the feminist movement brought the right to vote to an important part of our society. It gave women the ability to go to school and be who they want to be and do what they want to do in life. Women today are competitive in almost every profession which is a great thing for this country. With freedom and liberation women can express themselves physically, socially and emotionally without any repercussions which is no longer refreshing but commonplace. I not a fan of Title 9 but I thank God everyday for female triathletes.

And thats five.

Training Contract- A Written History

From time to time I relate back to the time Mistress and I hammered out my training contract for Ironman Florida 2006. We are a couple that enter into robust dialogue and get everything out on the table because once a decision is made its important for complete buy in.

Once the 'neogoitations' are over, the bargining completed, the expectations hammered out, there will be no future eye rolling or passive aggressive body language. Its in the contract. In fact now, several months later and completely commited to my goals, she is MORE understanding than ever before.

Part One: Have Your People Call My People.

Part Two: Pyrric Victory.

Part Three: Unexpected Gift or Shrewd Ploy By Racer.

Part Four: Waiting For Notary.