Done for another year

So Saturday was the race. It was not one of my better ones and I have no one to blame other than myself as my training schedule became rather haphazard in the last month. I did beat the husband though- he skipped it this year. The antibiotics he was on to deal with his spider bite really threw him off and he missed a lot of training so he decided to pass this year. i.e. he is a quitter.

Friday night I picked up the boys for the weekend. I told them that I would be doing the race Saturday morning and would be gone before they got up. My oldest said he wanted to go and watch me race; I then told him that meant he'd have to get up at 4:30 AM and he decided he'd rather sleep. We got home kind of late, I had no dinner and couldn't sleep well, the husband was tossing and turning and not sleeping well at all.

I got up at 4:30, packed the truck and drove out to the race. There was the usual amount of serious triathlete eye candy. #539 being one of my favorites.

I finished the race in 2 hours and 19 minutes. My bike leg sucked as usual, the swim was ok and my run I did at about 9 minutes I think. Regardless, I finished it, it's done and the bike and wetsuit are back in storage for another lonely year of storage. Thank God.

Saturday night we went and saw Jonah Hex- to much resistance from three quarters of the crowd. Of course the crowd after the movie all concurred that it was actually a good flick. The only complaint was it was too short to which I commented not really as if it had been any longer the flimsy coherence to the plot would have evaporated and it would have become a bad, long movie.

Sunday was Fathers Day and it was the best one I have had since being a father. My oldest made a clock in woodshop and actually gave it to me for Fathers Day. I was stunned. In most cases anything made at school goes right to his mom and I am barely an afterthought. I frackin' love this clock. He was so proud of it and that he had made it himself. He spent a half hour explaining to me how he built it, used the table saw to make the mitre cuts, glued and nailed the wood together, used a nail set to sink the nail, covered them with putty, sanded it and then polyurethaned it. He was most proud that the hands actually moved.

My youngest gave me coupons for four, separate, individual weekends of super, awesome behavior. Also a great gift.

I had read on MSN that there are some gifts not to give dad ever for Fathers Day and two on the list were hand made things and coupons. I totally disagree and think whoever wrote that article is not a father or not a very good one to consider something like that from his children worthy of gifts for Fathers Day.

Sunday the husband watched the world cup games while I and the boys watched Anchorman. I am a big fan of Will Ferrell but have to say the movie was a disappointment. The funniest scenes were the cat fashion show with Whiskerus Maximus and the news team gang fight scene.

Sunday night I was trading in Japan again.

The whole news about the PBOC revaluing the yuan had everyone in a tizzy. Hello- it is not a good thing for us as the bottom line is china is ending its vendor financing for us by doing this.

It took the markets most of the day yesterday to figure that out and that is why we had a shitty close. Today's housing numbers did not help either and with housing going down again I am still a firm believer we are already in the double dip as opposed to heading that way.

The Fed is meeting today and tomorrow- who gives a fuck? They cannot and will not say anything meaningful. The only thing they could say or do is change the language in the statement or actually raise rates. Neither is gonna happen so the Fed meeting is a completely superfluous non-event.

Ahh, the first major French bank got downgraded today. We are starting to see the core smoldering....

So the thing this past weekend that kind of threw me was my youngest stating that he wanted to join the band when he got into middle school. I have nothing against the band, I was in the band from third grade until sixth grade, I played the trombone. It is a good thing to do to learn how to play a musical instrument and helps with math skills and makes you a well rounded student. When he told me the instruments he wanted to play I had to punch his older brother's thigh to stop him from making a comment that would cause a problem. His first choice is the flute, followed by the clarinet then percussion. I told him he should go for percussion because then he can become a drummer in a rock band, become famous, make lots of money and get all the girls. He informed it percussion is very difficult to get into.