TURKEY LURKEY

They moved the starting line this year to Turner field, making it a loop instead of a point-to-point race. I wanted to get there early because after looking at the course and the parking locations online, I determined there was going to be mass confusion at the start. I don't know what they were thinking, but to park one's car you had to cross the street where runners were gathering. I got there at 5:45. A steady flow of traffic began at six and by seven, it was all but impossible to park your car in the designated areas. When the race started there was still a steady stream of runners along the sidewalks trying to make it to the starting line. They couldn't just jump in as in the past because nowadays you wear a chip on your shoe that records your starting time. No starting time, no finish time. I intended to go out slow. My left knee had been sore since I did a half marathon in October, and I didn't allow it time to heel. I got caught up in the excitement of the race, however, and zoomed along for the first 3 miles. This part of the course took us down Northside behind Georgia Tech, a kind of shadowy part of town. We turned right on 17th and ran through Atlantic Station, which looked like a ghost town. After a big hill on 14th, I lost my vigor for the race. By the time I hit the six mile mark in Piedmont Park, my knee was letting me know it was ready to go home. I had slowed down considerably by the time I reached seven miles on Juniper. When I turned onto Auburn I started kicking myself for not getting a Glock for my birthday. Several thugs on this street that seemed to be like hyenas looking for the weakest in the herd. I picked it up a notch. As I cleared the high crime area, a friend of mine, my next door neighbor when I was in the first grade, caught me near mile ten. He has a bad knee now and runs much slower than in the past. The battle was on, two gimps going knee-to-knee to the finish. I took advantage of a long down hill just beyond Oakland cemetery where someone had put a sign on inspiration, "Better running than resting inside here." Near the capitol, there were two hills that allowed my friend to catch back up with me. I decided not to challenge him on the last big hill, saving my energy for the final mile. After the hill, I got up the steam to blow by him, not letting up until I crossed the finish line, beating him by two minutes. I paid for it with a very sore knee that I have only been walking on for 3 weeks. I hope to start running again in January. I have a half marathon to do in March.

A COLLECTION OF TWEETS

Your Grandparents had Elvis Presley, your parents had
Michael Jackson, we have Lady Gaga. witness the
decline of the human race

Killed a mouse this morning, then I discovered it was
the one for my laptop.

Four miles today, near house. First two done with
sproing in my step. Last two were like a glass of
sweat with two legs.

While wife was on vacation in St. Simons with her BFF,
I watered the artificial plants. She is still
laughing.

If you want to protect your tweets then I don't want
to follow your because you are missing the point.

Brain fuzzy. I need a shave

Empire State Building not lit for Mother Teresa's
100th birthday. Owner is a low-life that will
never share her cloud.

I took a mulligan the other day after I puked when
my drive went into the lake.

Bike day today. I need to do this more often
my screaming quadriceps femoris tell me.

I just sprung a wikileak.

Daisy Khan. Isn't that Lil' Abner's girlfriend?

Seven pars and 2 doubles on the front nine today
for a 39, then after a tripple I fell into the
abyss, hitting a 51 on the back side, sucks.

Did not run yesterday. I feel strange.

You can always tell slime by the way it oozes.

I didn't know it was Crazy People Will Call You day.
Expect a call from me.

Ran like I had an anchor around in my shorts yesterday.
Hope Dan Rather is a no-show today.

It is run, ran, run. Why do people go to college
nowadays? They don't appear to be teaching anything.

Should I run the big hills today? Thinking, thinking,
thinking.

Age only matters with cheese.

That was not a homeless man running down Peachtree
today, that was me. Next time I will put some clothes
on. Don't know if that will attract more or less
attention.

Would someone please come up with something original
before I pop a pimple!

Ran for an hour today but I didn't go anywhere.

When did government decide to become god?

New fence is up. The dogs are so confused that they
are barking at each other. The birds are singing.
The squirrels are stealing their seed.

Using peasant fishermen as a acurate informational
source is not my way of learning the truth. Didn't
know Barbara Steisand fished.

Putting up giant privacy fence Monday because
neighbood is hoarding dogs next door. The dogs
think anyone on our patio is a giant squirrel.

Gulf oil and salt water tastes better than Starbucks.

Obama's choice: Boy Scouts 100 year anniversary or
the View, on 5 days a week? Boy Scouts are too young
to vote and they are trusthworthy. He picked the View.

Got 3.8 miles in today. Yeah, it is odd, but so am I.

Didn't know the temperature gauge in my car had tripple
digits.

Ran 4 in 101 heat. Caught a tailwind on the way back.
It made golf seem easy.

Victoria's secrets launches a new bra named Holland,
it has a lot of support, but no cup.

Keep waiting for Malcom to visit his dad on Breaking Bad.

Draw a bad fox and call it a dog, clever.

Someone should explain to Starbucks that their 'tall'
is very short.

Dear ABC, nobody watches Project Runway so stop pushing it on
your morning show.

I waiting for the Nissan Twig to come out.

Would like to see Tom Cruise go after Barry Bonds on his
misguided use of steroids like he did Brooke Shield and
her happy pills.

Funny how yesterday singers like Sheryl Crow always say
something stupid when they are about to release a new album.
Spare me a square!

Chavez says he is in changing the spelling of 'Venezuela' to
'Vuvuzela' so he can continue to toot his own horn.

Sex has been banned on the International Space Station.
There go my dreams of being an astronaut.

Waiting for the Hooterville trolley. It runs faster than me, but
not as often. And t doesn't have to TRAIN because its a TROLLEY.

Holder also will make NBC his official news source preempting
the need for him to read boring laws himself.

Holder declares that anyone attacking the USA will be referred
to as "Those people who must not be named."

Teenagers drink twice as much as they did 10 years ago.
Mind you, they were only aged between 3 and 9 ten years ago.

GAGA protests against BP's oil spill in the Gulf by refusing to
use BP oil for her tour bus. Me, I don't go to her concerts to
save gas.

Multivariable calculus like taking derivatives of matrix-valued
functions is commonly used in statistics. Professional
tic-tac-toe is hard.

Coast Guard stopped barges from cleaning up oil spill until they
could confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests
on board. This does confirm that idiots are running the
government.

The England team visited an orphanage today. It's
heartbreaking to see their sad little faces with no hope"
said Jamal aged 6.

THIS JUST IN: Al Gore replaces Michael Scott at Dunder Mifflin.

My wife keeps me around to lift heavy things, open jars,
and kill bugs.

University of Tennessee is giving a degree to Gore who produced
a documentary that the British High Court says has 9
significant errors.

THE 2010 PEACHTREE

It is the morning of the Peachtree Road Race. I up and ready to rumble. Wait a minute. It is only 3am. These internal clocks are tricky on days like this. I roll over and do a light doze until 4:30am. I'm up again, and this time it is for real. My running gear is neatly laid out the night before where I won't have to scramble to find anything. I get the coffee perking and take a quick, cold shower to wake up the rest of me. I normally take hot showers, but they dehydrate me too much to have one before a race.

I'm out the door at five. The streets are empty except for the occasional car heading for the same destination that I am. I arrive at my secret parking space near Piedmont and Peachtree around twenty after, ten minutes before they start closing the side streets. That really makes the Buckhead residents mad. They all have to be somewhere on race day, of course, and they can't wait to complain to their congressman about how their street was blocked. It won't do them any good for the race brings a bundle of revenue to Atlanta. From my parking location, it is about a mile to the start. I use the walk to warm-up my legs. The rest of me is still debating if I really want to do this. Shouldn't I be sleeping?

I soon arrive at Lenox Square and stakeout my park bench in an undisclosed niche of the mall. Here I suck down the precious fluids that will allow me to finish this thing without passing out. It fun to watch the new arrivals from the MARTA trains The new runners wander around trying figure out where they are supposed to be. some are here early to sneak in the wrong coral. I see several L's headed for the D coral. Later, to their chagrin, they will be yanked and sent to the proper starting coral. It doesn't do any good, however. People pour into the race, starting around the 5 mile mark where the monitoring ends. It wouldn't be so bad if these slowpokes stayed in single file, but they often are seen 5 abreast, clogging up Peachtree for the real runners. Seeded runners do not weigh 250 pounds, have a pot belly, and walk while socializing with their friends.

Speaking of bodies, every type of body shape you can imagine runs Peachtree. It is the only place on Earth that you can really look weird, but normal compared to the person standing next to you in this sea of humanity.

I have a Lower race number than last year, but back one coral to E instead of D. Who's doing the math around here? The smell of cigarettes permeates the air. Gag! A volunteer is taking a smoke break. He's doing this in front of the wrong crowd and is admonished for it.

The race has started. some of the runners in my wave cross the starting line too soon. This is as if they have already started even though we are still standing here. Boy, will they be disappointed in their finish times. At last the E's are rolling down Peachtree, some of us not aware that they are already logged as starting 2 minutes ago.

You would think I could spot one friend in a crowd of 55,000. Of the 55,000 runners there are only 50,000 official finishers. Most of those 5,000 non-finishers are those that jumped in along the way. I see dads putting their kids in about a mile from the end in order to get a photo of them crossing the finish line. Training your kid to cheat doesn't seem to be the best idea. How do they they tag the photo on Facebook, I wonder, "My son finishing the Peachtree he didn't run?"

I am on pace until the big hill at Piedmont hospital. After that one, my day is done. I put it in cruise and drag myself through the next 2 miles. I end in a blaze of glory, taking advantage of the downhill when we turn onto 10th Street. Amazing to see all the runners. Most of them I think I am faster than, but why can't I keep up? Is that Lindsy Lohan blowing pass me? At least she waved.

They need Hooters to cater a post-race party. Instead, we get a water bottle here, a banana way over there, the coveted T-shirt in between, and if you have the energy, one can obtain a Powerade far away and in the opposite direction of everything else. I need a couple to replace the lost fluids, and be able to make the return trip of 5 miles to my car. Once, I could back the whole way no matter how hot it got, but now it run the downs and walk the ups for me. It is energy conservation is the theme, instead of get there as quickly as you can in days gone by.

Going back to the car is the fun part, watching the endless stream of runners doing their thing. I liked the pub crawlers mimicking the military groups that run in formation behind a flag barrier, only their flag has a beer mug on it, and none of them are in step, They take a break under a tree near WSB and draw a cool one from a keg strategically stationed there. I also saw a Chinese couple in the middle of the countless runners, taking a stroll down Peachtree Road in shorts and sandals, apparently enjoying a tour of the city. They were not the slowest people in this phase of the race.

A Panama Jack (he has the hat) looking homeless guy was having fun waving at everyone. I don't know at what point he decided to jump in the race, but he hit every water station. One Water station obstructs the entire sidewalk and has tough looking dudes directing people around it, up one driveway and down another for no good reason. This year, I ignored them and ran against the flow until I was safely past the ill-placed tables adorned with cups of water and Powerade. This is really more a water hazard than a place to quench your thirst, obviously thought out by educators.

I'm at the car. Now I can drive home and relax. Mission accomplished.

MY LATEST

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

I got myself beyond where man came from for now, finding the universe quite an amazing place, and its existence, us included, even more amazing. I'm reading a book on the string theory, the theory of everything which would include monkeys and man I hope. The string theory tries to harmoniously combine the theory of relativity and quantum physics. Should the universe begin a "big crunch" sort of process, string theory dictates that the universe could never be smaller than the size of a string, at which point it would actually begin expanding. That would explain the infinity part, but where did time, space, matter come from? If this book enlightens me I will get back to you. I don't think we are supposed to know in this life, but maybe in the next one it will be explained. A trip to the billions of stars in each of the billions of galaxies would be nice.

PORTAL TO PORTLAND

On my Portland trip Denver leg, I sat next to an India girl studying Jacobson's ring theory, which deals with mathematical endomorphisms, before we took off. Once in the air, she tucked her legs under her, wrapped a shaw around her like a cocoon and remained in this position the entire trip. I expected a butterfly to emerge when we landed. But to my disappointment, and probably hers, she did not morph into anything.

From Denver to Portland another strange person sat beside me. She had this catalog of acupuncture needles was reading and marking her selections. I was didn't take a nap for fear of waking with needles sticking out of various sensitive areas of my body. I wanted to apply the cocoon method of in-flight napping, maybe on the flight back.

People way too polite here. I went to get gas for Ward's CRV and was approached by a man holding a stick. I thought I was about to be car-jacked, but after persuading me to roll the window down, he asked me how much gas I wanted, filled the tank, and cleaned the windshield with the "stick" which turned out to be a squeegee. When was the last time you got an attendant to service your car?

Back to my coffee,

PUMPED

I pulled into a truck-stop coming back from a visit with my daughter. The pumps were all occupied, so I waited for a guy in a sports car, small like mine, whose spot was partially taken by a big U-Haul truck, leaving only room for a small car in the leftover space. While I was pumping my gas the guy in the U-Haul came out and jumped into his truck. I assumed he had paid for his gas and was going to drive off. He had room to pull out. I finished pumping and went inside to purchase coffee, something I have done a thousand times. While standing in line to pay, the man in the man in the U-Haul stormed through the door displaying his ire for the driver of the red sports car, blocking his pump. I will exclude the profanity he was spewing from his little mouth, attached to his little head, sitting atop his little body. When the ooze subsided, I employed the skills I've learned dealing with heated situations in my line of work. I calmly replied that I was the owner of the car in question, I was sorry for the inconvenience, and being next in line to pay I would be out shortly. All said with a big, yet insincere, grin on my face. After one look at me he quickly realized that I his 145 pound, 5 foot, 6 inch frame was no match for my 6 foot, 210 pound, all muscle frame. His regret for having left all his weapons in the truck was evident. He immediately started backing out the door, redirecting his anger at the cashier, cursing him for not keeping the pumps free of unattended vehicles. Technically, he might have been right if this idiot was not violation of his own imposed rules. He had been blocking 1.5 pumps for 15 minutes already and had yet started to fill his 40 gallon tank. I, on the other hand, was in and out in 10 minutes. His plan to occupy two pump stations while he filled his behemoth had been foiled by two sports cars that fit in the little space he had left in front of his vehicle. I figured his wife had kicked him out of the house, though I can't imagine anyone living with this varmint, or maybe he had lost his job and was relocating. Whatever, as I pulled back onto the interstate, the words of a song came to mind, "Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself." The coffee was good.

COFFEE IN THE MORNING GOOD FOR YOU?