What do we do? We swim, swim, swim.

For the first time in my life, I got to see what I look like when I swim. I brought my camera, which takes fairly decent video to my Masters swim workout this morning and set it up at the end of the lane. I then took a slow, deliberate swim down and back and was really surprised with what I saw. Now I have lots and lots of things I want to tweak about my technique. Making changes won't be easy, as it's really hard to retrain old muscle memories. For example, I have worked hard to try to train myself to put my hand in the water pinky first, and what did I see in the video, but my hand going in thumb first, just like I was taught decades ago. Oy! Anyhoo, at least I look smooth in the water.

Goin' Mach 2 With His Hair On Fire!! -- Well, almost...

Joe Stremph, who takes some awesome aircraft photos, posted this image of a Talon T-38A on his Flickr account yesterday. I'm assuming this was taken out at "Willie" (a.k.a. Phoenix-Mesa Gateway). Lots of military aircraft fly in for gas-n-gos on a regular basis, and the airmen (and women) have become accustomed to being photographed. In fact, I think they get a real kick out the peanut gallery (count me as a peanut) and the photographers who come out on a regular basis. On this particular sortie, the R.I.O. looked left and saluted everyone with a nice set of "horns." Don't you just love it. :)

(Click for the full-size image)

Metal Magnolia

Not far from where I work, is a really great park. Along with a lake, a kid's narrow gauge train, and lots of sporting fields, is a Hummingbird Habitat tucked off in one corner. In this habitat, a fairly unusual tree resides -- a life-size Magnolia made entirely out of metal. I often frequent this particular park during the lunch hour and decided to snap a couple of pics with my cell phone camera.

Now That's Just Ducky

The indoor pool was jam-packed when I showed up for my Tuesday morning Masters swim, so our coach decided we would swim outside in the 25-yard pool. Fine by me! I happened to bring along my camera to record our group, as one of our members is moving to Seattle in a week or so. A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I had some ducks in the pool with me during one of my solo swims -- well, it turns out that they got busy and made a whole bunch of babies -- 12 to be exact! I snapped  a quick pic of mama and some of her brood.

When we first got in the pool, we noticed a brown lump at the end of one of the lanes. It turned out to be the mama duck, who was hiding all 12 of her babies beneath her wings. One of the guys swam up to her and she hissed at him, but decided after we all swam several laps that she had better move her babies. This is when I grabbed my camera. I could not believe how many babies she had with her. Hopefully they'll all make it to adult-hood, but this means we'll have lots and lots of ducks this time next year in our pool. :)

Cali's Grotto and the Basking Battle Cat

My beautiful calico cat, Cali, loves to lounge around in the backyard, especially when the weather is as nice as it was this past weekend. One of her favorite places to hang out is between two of my plants and the back fence. From my point of view it's like she was hiding inside a little grotto. She posed so purrfectly for me.

The weather was so absolutely wonderful this past weekend, that even our beloved "Battle Cat", Waldo, came outside and hung out with me and Cali. Here she is basking in the warmth underneath one of my patio chairs. Waldo will be turning 17 next month. If you're wondering how she came to be called "Battle Cat", it's due to her abundance of matted hair that covers most of her body. Now that she's old, she doesn't care for herself very well, and after years of trying to shave her each Spring (I think the trauma she endured while being shaved was worse than having matted hair), I've given up and she seems happy with her thick armor.

Sproing!!!

Yup, Spring had indeed sprung in beautiful Arizona. I had my backyard landscaped this time last year, and everything has matured rather nicely and I'm now being treated to some nice color.

Of course, Cali had to get in the act. She loves to flop down in front of me and roll over and over. What a ham.

Canyon Lake Swim, Kayak, and Tortilla Flat

I talked my daughter and her friend into going with me to Canyon Lake so I could try out my new wetsuit. They paddled around in my kayak while I swam. My wetsuit worked great -- from the neck down. The water was really, really cold. My wetsuit is sleeveless, so my arms felt the cold, but it was tolerable; however, my face was absolutely frigid! I could only swim about 20 strokes before having to stop to allow my face to warm up. I'm guessing the water temp had to be in the low 50's. So, my planned 2000 meter swim turned in 200 meters (8 laps in a 25m pool). I'm hoping the water temperature at Saquaro Lake is at least 10 degrees warmer for my May open water swim with DCB Adventures. With as much snow as we've had this year, I'm thinking the lakes are going to be much cooler this year than normal. I guess I'll just have to harden the f**k up! Here are a couple of pictures of Cristina and Trey in the kayak.

After playing around in the lake, we decided to head over to Tortilla Flat for some grub. What a crazy place.

Cristina got "snap happy" and caught me off guard. I thought she was zooming in to take a photo of my "Life Is Good" t-shirt, but I like the result. Pretty goofy, just like me.

Here's a nice shot of Cristina and Trey. Dig Trey's impersonation of Marty Feldman. :)

There are dollar bills all over the walls and lots of crazy signs and western artifacts. Not only are there dollar bills all over the walls, but people stuff them into the knick-knacks that decorate the nooks and crannies near the dining tables. After our meal, we all signed a dollar and stuck it into a milk bottle that was close to our table.

Cristina signing our dollar

Our dollar's resting place. It's the one rolled up and placed in the neck of the bottle.

Update: I later learned that the water temperature in Canyon Lake was 53 degrees. No wonder it felt so dang cold. I went back the following weekend and the water had actually warmed up by several degrees, which made a huge difference. I ended up ditching my wetsuit and was fine with just my speedo.